Currents

by Jane Petrlik Smolik

  “Heavens,” Ma said, twisting her apron between her fingers. “Whatever could they want?” Except for the day they moved in, none of the Bennetts had ever been down to the Caseys’ rooms.

  “I can’t imagine why they would be coming here.” Ma glanced around the room as if looking for something to pick up or to put in order, but they owned so little that nothing was out of place.

  Ma opened the door, and Mary Margaret saw her ma’s face flush at the sight of the beautifully dressed women standing at her doorstep.

  “May we come in, Rose dear?” Mrs. Bennett touched her arm gently.

  “Of course, of course. Shall I put on some water for tea?” Ma asked nervously.

  Mary Margaret realized that Mrs. Lowe was carrying the journal that she had lent to Louisa. She couldn’t imagine why Louisa would have given it to Mrs. Lowe, and she tried to remember if she had written anything that could get her into trouble. Why else would these ladies come to the Caseys’?

  “Oh, no, we won’t take up that much of your time. Is Tomas here?” Mrs. Bennett asked.

  As if on cue, Da came trudging down the steps, stamping the snow from his boots before he came in. Ma would have his head if he dragged in snow and dirt.

  Mary Margaret saw that he was as surprised as Ma to see the two ladies standing in the little kitchen, and he quickly pulled off his cap.

  “Tomas—good evening,” Mrs. Bennett began. “I have some good news that I would like to tell you and see what you and Rose and Mary Margaret think of it.”

  “May I?” Mrs. Lowe began. “I hope you won’t be offended, Mary Margaret, but Louisa brought me your journal to read. She said you are a gifted writer.”

  “I hope you don’t mind that she did that,” Mrs. Bennett interrupted.

  “So,” Mrs. Lowe continued. “I must tell you that I heartily agree with Louisa’s assessment. And Mary Margaret, the story you wrote about the day you and Louisa went sledding with my Lucas . . .” Her chin trembled, and she struggled to continue. “It touched me more than I can say. You have indeed captured my son’s kind heart. I treasure that story. And my goodness, it’s a rare thing for a young person to write so movingly and with such luminous prose.”

  Mary Margaret held her head high and made a mental note to look up the word luminous.

  “Aurelia tells me that you are to go off to Lowell, perhaps as early as next year, to work in the mills there,” Mrs. Lowe said. “I have something quite different to propose.”

  “The mills are a fine opportunity for her,” Ma spoke up. “The girls there make good money. She can’t be ironing shoelaces for Mr. Eaton forever.”

  “I won’t mind going to Lowell,” Mary Margaret said without much enthusiasm. “I hear it’s quite exciting there.”

  “Rose, Mary Margaret,” Mrs. Bennett said, leaning forward. “Forgive my frankness. But I must say it. They’re only hiring Irish girls now because the American girls have been leaving the mills in flocks. It’s hard for me to say this, but you must know the truth. The air in the mills is filled with cotton lint. It floats in the air like snow and destroys the girls’ lungs. Many have become ill from consumption.”

  Mrs. Lowe picked up where she left off. “Lowell aside, I hope you’ll consider the proposal I’m about to make. Each year the Boston Girls’ School provides one deserving young lady with a full scholarship. It is only for one year, mind you.”

  No one in the room could miss Mary Margaret’s gasp as she fell back against the fireplace mantel. “Me?”

  “This year we would like to award it to you, Mary Margaret,” Mrs. Lowe said. All eyes turned to the girl who stood thunderstruck against the hearth.

  “I assure you, this is a serious offer,” she added.

  Da scratched his head, “Well, ’tis a very generous offer. We appreciate it. But, we had planned on Mary Margaret getting out and working to help out. I just don’t—”

  “Perhaps the child could help tidy up the classrooms in the afternoons to help pay for any extras, if that is giving you hesitation,” Mrs. Lowe suggested.

  “I’d still have plenty of time to keep working for Mr. Eaton,” Mary Margaret added quickly. “And Bridget seems to be coming along so well with the new medicine, Ma won’t need me as much to look after her.”

  Rose looked at her husband. Mary Margaret looked at them both. She knew that in their hearts, they no more wanted to send her to Lowell than she wanted to go.

  “I can think of nothing in the world I would love more than to go to school,” Mary Margaret spoke up. “Nothing,” she added softly.

  “The school provides all the books. The only thing Mary Margaret would need to purchase is a school uniform. All our girls must wear uniforms.” She passed Ma a piece of paper. “Here is the name and address where it can be purchased.”

  Mary Margaret squirmed in the silence that followed. But she was determined not to lose this opportunity. She reached up and took the bottle from where it rested on the mantel—covered in glory—and shook out the silver dollar. She looked between Ma and Da, and when she saw the accepting looks on their faces, she held it out to Mrs. Lowe.

  “Will this cover the cost of the uniform, ma’am?” she asked.

  “Indeed it will,” Mrs. Lowe assured her.

  “Do you need a moment alone to discuss the offer?” Mrs. Lowe asked as she looked back and forth between Ma and Da.

  “I, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Ma said. “Do you, Tomas?”

  “No, not at all,” Da answered. “A uniform, eh? Well, Mary Margaret, I think you’ll look very smart heading off to school in a uniform.”

  “Don’t forget, you’ll still have to help me around here with the chores,” Ma said quickly, wiping her eyes with the tea towel she had been wringing.

  “I won’t forget, Ma,” Mary Margaret said. “Thank you. I won’t forget.” She had a lot more to say, but she was afraid that if she tried, she would burst into tears.

  “Then is it settled?” Mrs. Lowe asked.

  The Caseys looked from one to the other, and Ma spoke up, “Aye, then. It’s settled.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  It was still dark the next morning when Mary Margaret stole quietly out of bed, so as not to wake Bridget, pulled on her coat, and tiptoed out into the kitchen. The bottle, now considered the Casey family’s lucky bottle, rested securely in its place of honor on the mantel next to the clock they’d carried over from Ireland. Agnes May Brewster’s birth note was still folded safely inside. Sticking her feet in her father’s boots that stood by the door, Mary Margaret crept outside into the dawning light to sit on the stoop—her favorite thinking spot. The wind had stopped, and it seemed as if the whole earth was still. The snow had blanketed everything with a fresh clean coat, and her breath left delicate clouds that trailed off in the clear air.

  I’m going to be a student! She thought about how she would march off to school every day in her uniform and learn about writing and science and the great history and adventures of the world. She would have her journey in the classroom instead of in a magical bottle. Lost in her thoughts, she sat as quiet as a star until she heard the beginning of morning’s chorus from inside. Da scooped more sea coal into the hearth until the fragrant smoke ribboned out the chimney, winding through bare-limbed trees that towered over the neighborhood. Ma’s kettle whistled. Above Mary Margaret, Mr. Bennett’s voice called out Mrs. Bennett’s name, and the smell of her coffee brewing snaked through the house. Outside was a day full of possibilities, about to begin.

  EPILOGUE

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  FEBRUARY, 1857, ISLE OF WIGHT, ENGLAND

  It had become Bess’s custom to go down and meet the afternoon mail boat whenever she was in the village. It never stayed docked for very long, just long enough to drop off the boxes and letters marked for the Isle of Wight.

  It had been almost a year since her father was supposed to have returned. Some days in a person’s life are so eventful that they remain vivid forever.
March 29, 1856, was such a day for Bess—that was when representatives from the Royal Geographical Society had come to Attwood to personally deliver the news to the duke’s next-of-kin. Bess remembered that the day they came was a Saturday—overcast with a light drizzle.

  “We are so sorry to inform you,” they had begun, “that the last time the duke was seen, he was in a carved-out boat with three guides, and they were paddling for their lives downstream while being pursued by a local tribe. The natives were firing what we believe were poisoned arrows from their bows at our men.”

  “Do you know that he is dead?” Elsie had cried out.

  “We do not, Your Grace,” the leader of the group had replied. “But no one stayed to try to recover bodies. It would have been a death sentence to go back there and look. Those who did live barely escaped with their lives.”

  “My papa is a fine swimmer,” Bess had blurted out. “He could still be alive.”

  “It’s true, my lady,” one of the men answered kindly. “But it is unlikely.”

  Bess did not give up hope. She would not, although Elsie had started referring to herself as the Dowager Duchess of Kent and wearing black mourning clothes. Bess still waited every day for news that her papa had escaped, and that he had either found his way out or been somehow rescued. She felt certain that he was still alive. There were stories about men being taken by native tribes and held hostage for years. Next month would mark one year since the duke had disappeared. She figured she would be old enough to begin her life as an explorer in a few more years. Certainly Elsie would be delighted to have her out of the house and gone. If her father hadn’t returned by then, she was determined to go and bring him home herself.

  The postmistress was always there at the Isle of Wight dock to fill her handcart with deliveries before the boat shoved off.

  “Anything for us, Mrs. Timpy?” Bess asked as the woman thumbed through the stacks.

  The postmistress passed Bess a small stack of letters and a tiny package addressed to Attwood Manor.

  Bess quickly skimmed the few letters—nothing important—before turning the package over and examining the markings. The front was addressed to her.

  To: Lady Bess Kent

  Attwood Manor

  Isle of Wight, Great Britain

  The neatly printed return address meant nothing to her. It read:

  Mr. Hamilton’s Pawn and Jewelry Repair Shop

  21 Charles Street

  Boston, Massachusetts

  United States of America

  She hurried to escape the windy dock and settled herself inside the Cheeky Cat’s Pub, ordering a cup of hot chocolate before carefully unwrapping the package.

  She unfolded the note inside that was wrapped around the box and read:

  Dear B for Bess,

  You’ll not believe what I found here in a shop in Boston. I cannot explain it. Fate must have intervened, and now I send it back to you with all the heartfelt affection and gratitude that I have in my soul.

  I have no return address for obvious reasons. I know I risk much by even sending you this note. Someday, I can only hope to come back to you and the island I so dearly love.

  Devotedly,

  H for me.

  She flipped the cover off the box and gasped at the sight of her gold cross. How could it be? She barely breathed. She held the back of the necklace closer to the lantern on the table, rubbing her index finger over her mother’s engraved initials on the back. Thirteen tiny pearls ran down and across the front—the one in the center missing.

  She blinked hard to make out the writing at the bottom of Harry’s letter.

  P. S.

  I may never know how this came to be in Boston, but the pawnshop owner told me that the daughter of the man who sold it to him said that “it was good for something while it was in its power.” Marcus Aurelius, right?

  P. P. S.

  Speaking of Marcus Aurelius, did you ever return those library books you took out for me? I’m sure I cannot afford the late fine I must owe by now.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  FOUR YEARS LATER

  MAY 5, 1861, STILLWATER PLANTATION, VIRGINIA

  She had to be careful. Very careful. Bones moved quickly to make up the guest bedroom. The Yankee visitor had only stayed one night, so there was not much to clean up. She told Queenie that she would have plenty of time to polish up the silver when she was through in the big house. It was already outside on the wooden picnic table, which was covered with newspapers and magazines so the polish wouldn’t get all over the table.

  For the last month, there was a different kind of tension around the plantation than ever before. Murmurs among the slaves were hopeful that the North was finally going to set them free. Tense conversations between the Brewsters and their friends about a coming war stopped whenever one of the slaves was nearby. Even Mabel was no longer sent off the plantation to do errands.

  Every day men on horses would come tearing up the long drive with news for Master Brewster. Old Mistress would always rush out behind her husband to hear what the men had to say. Then the men would gallop off, in a hurry to spread whatever news they had throughout the county.

  Bones folded the sheets she’d stripped from the guest bed and looked around. She was alone. She quickly picked up the newspaper the Yankee had left behind and slipped it between the dirty sheets before heading out the door and down the back steps.

  “Don’t forget to spread papers over the table, girl,” Queenie ordered when Bones came in the kitchen house. “Old Mistress got a heap of silver for you to polish up today.”

  “I already did,” Bones said, nodding pleasantly. She was barefoot, slender, and her face was framed by tendrils of dark curls that had sprung loose at her temples.

  She slipped the Yankee’s newspaper onto the pile to the left of the big black stove. Bones’s eyes lit up when she spotted Liza’s latest copy of Merry’s Museum Magazine on the top of the pile. Liza barely bothered to read them anymore.

  Bones tucked the polishing paste in one of her apron pockets and piled clean rags on top of the extra newspapers she’d gathered to add another layer to the picnic table.

  “Make sure you make that silver sparkle,” Queenie ordered.

  “I will,” Bones said. Queenie was moving slower these days. She repeated herself and forgot things. One day she used salt instead of sugar in a peach cobbler. After Old Mistress took one bite, she came storming out to the kitchen house, yelling that Queenie was trying to poison them all. She made poor old Queenie eat a whole bowl of the salty dessert until she gagged.

  Bones made sure that the Yankee’s newspaper was spread out on the picnic table with its front page faceup. It had been months since she’d been able to sneak a look at the Richmond papers that were delivered with the mail once a week. Lately, as soon as the Brewsters finished reading them, they tossed the papers into the fireplace instead of leaving them for Queenie to use.

  Bones carefully read the top lines of the Yankee’s paper:

  New York Herald, April 13, 1861

  THE WAR BEGUN

  When she was an old lady, she would tell her grandchildren about this day and how those words jumped right out at her. Hopped straight off that page like a Fourth of July parade.

  She was seventeen years old now. The space between her two front teeth had come together nicely, but her feet still jiggled and twitched when she was excited. They were fidgeting so much as she read the paper, her knees kept knocking the bottom of the table.

  She could hardly wait till dark, when Mama would be back from the fields, so she could share the information with her. She only wished her granny were still alive to see this glorious day. She had always worried that Granny would die, exhausted, working in the fields. But instead, one night, sitting on their cabin stoop smoking her little pipe, she looked joyfully up at the starry sky she loved and nodded once before her head drooped down onto her chest. Just like that. Mama had said not to grieve too much, because at least now G
ranny was free.

  She finished polishing the coffeepot, and peeled off the top layer of the newspaper to put it in the pile with the dirty papers. Now Merry’s Museum Magazine lay in front of her. She flipped carefully through the pages.

  Bones began to rub slow neat circles over a large sterling-silver tray with vines engraved over the handles when she stopped short at the heading of a story in the magazine.

  AGNES MAY AND ME

  Bones looked up at the windows to be sure that no one was watching her. When she felt safe, she began reading.

  AGNES MAY AND ME

  by Mary Margaret Casey

  Both our ancestors came straggling over on ships. We have that in common. Mine came willingly, to escape starvation and England’s heartless hand. Agnes May’s people came stolen from their homes, their ankles and wrists locked in iron cuffs bolted to the ships’ floors.

  I often try to imagine how her name and the date of her birth came to be tucked into a bottle afloat in the water where it drifted freely with the currents. Why was it I who discovered that moss-draped bottle floating beneath a dark Boston wharf? And I wonder—who is Agnes May, and what is the story behind the bottle and the gold cross necklace engraved with the letters DSS J. K. that shared its journey?

  Bones blinked hard and read the last sentence again. What gold cross? she wondered. Where else could her bottle have traveled and how did it pick up such a thing? She moved the tray off to the side and spread her arms wide over the paper as she finished reading.

  War. Such a tiny little word. It should be longer, loaded as it is with anguish and hope and bitterness and ruthless despair. It should be a word at least a million letters long so that people couldn’t say it so easily. So it wouldn’t roll off men’s tongues so quickly. So when they threatened or declared it, they would have to spend a long, long time considering its bitter, sorrowful results.