‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Pam Griggs said, pushing a straggle of hair back from her face.
Ma nodded, summoning a smile. She clearly didn’t trust herself to speak.
‘It’ll be warm and sunny. No problem getting the clothes dry.’
Still no answer from Ma.
‘Tom wants to work as a station hand. A man can earn forty pounds a year working out in the bush. Imagine that! No more strikes or fretting about the rent, no more haggling over the price of bread. We’ll eat meat three times a day.’
Ma didn’t care about the money. Bridie could tell. Or about the meat. She certainly didn’t care about Tom Griggs’ job. Her chin quivered as she stared down into her milky mug of tea. Bridie might have felt sorry for her, if not for the notebook. But, really, it served Ma right. She ought to have thought before she decided to emigrate. Before she married Alf. He’d been on about Port Phillip from the beginning. Long before Bridie’s dad died, when he was simply another lodger in the house. A big, dull, friendly man who spoke of lost opportunities, endless hours working in the market shop, and the need to make a fresh start.
In the end, Ma had married Alf—and agreed to emigrate, although she wasn’t content. The idea of sailing halfway round the world frightened her, as did living in a strange, back-to-front place without cobbles, carriages or shops. Mostly she worried about the baby. Bridie wondered whether this one would live.
Her eyes found the back hatch. It would be nice to go on deck, see the river at dusk. Ma didn’t look capable of bag inspections this evening and Pam Griggs’ bird-like chatter showed absolutely no sign of ceasing. Yes, why not?
The main deck was cool and quiet after the close, dark fug of steerage; the ship’s three great masts tall and stark like winter trees against the dusk-lit sky. Laughter and pipe smoke curled up from the sailors’ quarters beneath the fo’c’s’le. A horse whinnied in its makeshift stable. Through her half-open door, Bridie glimpsed Mrs Scarcebrook, the ship’s pretty-as-a-china-doll matron, reading in her deckhouse cabin.
Between deckhouse and horsebox, two small boats lay lengthwise in preparation for the morning’s departure. A hound had been kennelled beneath one of the boats. The other filled with cages of ruffling hens.
Bridie gazed out over the blackened river. Mills turned slowly on the Isle of Dogs opposite. Small piers and granaries broke the smooth, dark silhouette of its shoreline; the sight strange and foreign, as if they had already crossed an ocean. Somewhere, beyond the docks, mudflats and the City of London, lay the cobbled streets of Covent Garden. The streets her dad had walked, their lodging house within calling distance of the theatres. The musical, magical cellar where she’d etched his fairy tales onto the crisp new pages of her notebook and run her finger over his final message and still felt his presence, long after he was gone.
She didn’t know how long she stood there, only that the light thickened and the night air fell like a chill shawl on her shoulders. Turning back towards the hatchway, she heard an eerie drawn-out sound from beyond the deckhouse. She halted, nerves feathering her spine. A long, slow note pierced the evening. The fiddle? Ah! Rhys. He was playing an air, an-oh-so familiar air, from the Beggars’ Opera. One her dad had played so many times—towards the end with tears coursing his cheeks.
She walked slowly toward the sound.
In the shadow of the deckhouse she stopped, her breath coming hard and fast. Every piece of music held a story, her dad told her—a thread that attached itself to the heart. She’d become attuned to those threads, growing up to the strains of Mozart’s Magic Flute, and Purcell’s music for The Tempest, hearing tales of fairy queens, Arabian nights and midsummer dreams—and this was a sad song, quite apart from Peachum and his cronies in the Beggars’ Opera. A long haunting melody that spoke of a sadness and longing.
Head bent, eyes closed, Rhys’s lashes made a smudge against the night-white of his cheeks. It might have been the melody, or simply her fear of discovery. Maybe the memories of her dad. But she saw a struggle in the lines of his body that went beyond the music. Something in the long, measured stroke of his bow that put her in mind a sapling bent hard by the wind. She found herself dissolving at the sight.
She stood for an age, with her fist jammed in her mouth, trying not to sob aloud. Forever, it seemed, until the music drew to a gentle close. She didn’t clap, though his performance surely deserved it. She turned quietly to leave.
‘It’s called “Ar Hyd y Nos”,’ his soft voice followed. “All through the Night”, you might say in English.’
Bridie stopped, hugging her arms to her chest.
‘Welsh, it was, long before Gay made use of it in his opera. A love song, recorded by Mr Jones in his Relicks of the Welsh Bards. I’ve heard it many a time, though I’m not convinced of the lyrics. It speaks sorrow to me, quite apart from the romance. Death, perhaps, or ambition gone wrong? A secret? What do you say, Bridie Stewart? Am I being fanciful on the eve of a long and difficult journey?’
He knew. How did he know she’d been listening?
‘I’ll not force you to speak, bach. Only seeking your thoughts, as you’re haunting the deck along with me.’
Silence. He waited. She stepped forward, pulse thrumming.
‘I can’t stay out long, Mr Bevan, because of Ma. But I liked your playing and I agree about the melody. It speaks sorrow to me too.’
‘Indeed!’
‘My dad was a theatre musician. So I’ve heard that tune loads of times. I’ve always fancied it a lament—for a fairy who had died.’ She stopped, aware of how foolish that must sound. For some reason, she didn’t want to appear foolish before this soft voiced young man with truth-seeing eyes. ‘I suppose, if there are Welsh words written in a book, I might be wrong. About the fairies, I mean. Not about the sorrow.’
He laughed. ‘You mustn’t apologise, Bridie Stewart. Where I come from, beauty is often attributed to the fairies.’
Was he in earnest? She peeped up at him through her lowered lashes. Found his smile, a pair of warm, dark eyes, an eyebrow raised in query. But how to explain about her dad’s love of fairy tales? How, in the early days, before he got sick, her world had been filled with wonder and stories, how they lived still in her memories?
‘We played this game, in the cellar of our lodging house in Covent Garden, with spangles and feathers and a magic stone. My dad made it up to keep me amused while he was practising. If I played quietly, without once interrupting, the fairies would leave a gift for me. Nothing fancy, only baubles and trinkets. Back then, I thought even his music came from the fairies.’
For a while, Rhys didn’t speak. Turning, he laid violin and bow in the case at his feet. ‘Is that what you’re hiding, Bridie Stewart? A gift from the fairies?’
‘Yes.’
‘Something forbidden, you couldn’t bear to leave behind?’
‘Forbidden, yes, but not bad, Mr Bevan. At least, I’m not doing any harm. It’s a notebook, filled with fairy tales. My dad gave it to me before he died.’
‘And now you are leaving the home of your childhood, with its cellar and magic fairy memories, and you wish to carry his presence to the far side of the world?’
She nodded, a lump forming in her throat. He knew. How did he know? How did this young man understand what Alf and Ma couldn’t?
‘Ma wants me to forget him, Mr Bevan, and his stories. But I won’t, ever. Even if I have to keep my notebook hidden in Port Phillip.’
‘Rhys, Bridie Stewart. You must call me Rhys, seeing as you’ve made a smuggler of me.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. Thank you … Rhys. I won’t ask you to hide anything else, I promise.’
Hands in his pockets, he gazed out over the blackened water. ‘We all have secrets, Bridie Stewart. Yours is safe with me.
The tables had been cleared by the time Bridie climbed into her bunk. Ma’s grief had driven her deep into sleep. Alf sat, woe-faced, on the bench beside her, his big blunt hand stroking her shoulder. In the upper bunk
, next to Bridie’s, Pam Griggs was brushing and plaiting her hair. Her husband Tom had donned a striped green nightcap. Keeping her back to the open deck, Bridie undid her bodice, pulled a nightdress from her bag and slipped it over her head. She touched a finger to the corner of her notebook before snuggling down beside Annie.
‘This time tomorrow we’ll be at sea,’ the older girl whispered. ‘Are you nervous?’
‘A little, yes.’
‘My aunt told me there will be savages in Port Phillip, with spears and wild dogs. We’ll live in tiny wooden huts, in the middle of nowhere, never knowing when we are going to be attacked.’
Bridie shivered. Annie’s aunt didn’t sound like a cheerful woman. Although, Alf had told similar tales. She could scarcely credit them, nor imagine living in such a strange place. Would she still be able to feel her dad’s presence without the music and magic of the cellar? Or would she reach the other side of the world and find everything had changed?
The ship’s carpenter extinguished the lamps. Steerage lay in darkness, with only a dimmed light to mark each hatchway. Bridie heard whispers and muffled sobs, the ship’s bells tolling the half hour. She lay awake, listening to the deep, dark lap of the Thames and the groan of their vessel adjusting to the tide.
Sometime around midnight, she heard a stumbling around the main hatch. As the footsteps drew closer, she realised they belonged to Rhys. His appearance provoked a whispered explosion in the bunk next to Alf and Ma’s. Bridie didn’t understand the Welsh. But she fancied Siân was trying to reason—and that Rhys was in no mood to listen.
She woke again in the early hours of the morning. Groping her way back from the privy, she collided with Rhys.
‘Sori,’ he gasped, panting, as if he’d been running.
Bridie watched him stagger along the deck, boots in hand. He might have been going for a stroll in the moonlight. But Bridie didn’t think so. His jerky flight up the ladder made her think of secrets, and the words long and difficult journey.
Chapter 2
Bridie woke the next morning to the clamour of six bells. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, saw the brooding deck boards above, her bag hanging from its peg, felt the empty rumple of blankets on Annie’s side of the bed. All around her, women wriggled into shifts and bodices. Bleary-eyed men pulled shirts over tousled heads. On the deck below, Pam Griggs struggled to dress her children.
‘Stand still, Billy. Let me button your trousers. Thumb out of your mouth please, Lucy. I can’t fasten your bodice. Oh, thanks, Annie. She needs a fresh pinafore.’
By the time Bridie had dressed and slithered down from her bunk, two-year-old Lucy was perched on Annie’s lap, thumb wedged firmly in her mouth. Giggling and squirming, her face pinked with pleasure as Annie played This Little Pig on her toes.
‘What about me?’ Billy’s head popped up smiling like a Jack-in-the-box. ‘I got little pigs too.’
‘If you want a turn, you must ask politely.’
‘Can I ’ave a go please, Miss Annie Bowles?’
Annie laughed, patting the bench. ‘Yes, come on, sit here beside me.’
Billy grinned, wriggled onto the bench, and held out a grubby foot. ‘I got five little pigs. I’ve counted. But I mightn’t giggle like Lucy, or squirm nearly as much. Coz I’m older than her.’
Fresh bread had been delivered to the ship while they slept. Ma hacked their loaf with a long-handled knife. Alf scooped leaves into the teapot while Tom fetched boiling water from the galley. Bridie helped Siân set plates out along their section of the table. Rhys was nowhere to be seen. Had he returned to steerage in the early hours of the morning? Or stayed on the main deck? The tight press of Siân’s lips suggested the latter. From the dark shadows beneath her eyes, Bridie guessed neither the Welsh girl, nor her husband, had enjoyed a good night’s rest.
After breakfast, Siân held up a shiny new penny and announced that she and Rhys were going to throw it over Lady Sophia’s bows as they got under way.
‘For luck,’ she said, her eyes a flash of sudden tears, ‘and goodbye. Maybe also for wishing.’
Imagine that, a whole new penny—and a wish. Bridie thought her heart might stop. She didn’t have a penny (and one look at Ma’s face told her it wasn’t worth asking). But if she stood beside Rhys and Siân as their penny spun through the air, she might borrow some of its magic. If she closed her eyes, hands gripping the bulwarks, and made a wish, then maybe, just maybe, her notebook would stay safe on its peg for the remainder of the voyage.
Doctor Roberts arrived while they were finishing the breakfast dishes. He sat, straight as a yard rule, though the wherry bobbed on the morning tide, one gloved hand gripping the rim of his silk top hat, the other resting on a silver-handled cane. He might have been a pleasure seeker out for a jaunt along The Strand, if not for his portmanteau and the set of travelling drawers he had hauled over the side of the ship.
Within half an hour of boarding he called a cleaners’ meeting. Alf’s name topped the list. His big, round face glowed with pride as if he’d won a prize. Ma kissed his cheek and straightened his cap as if he were an overgrown schoolboy. It was all rather embarrassing, as far as Bridie was concerned, and annoying—because Ma wouldn’t go on the main deck without him and, if Ma wouldn’t go on deck, neither could Bridie. She was trapped between decks.
If being trapped wasn’t enough to ruin her morning, Ma’s mood certainly would have. She wasn’t crying anymore. Neither was she happy. This morning, her tears had turned to ice—and she was snapping.
She’d re-rolled their mattresses at least twenty times since breakfast. Swept beneath their bunks until Bridie feared the boards might wear thin. Taken the mugs from their hooks and polished them as if they were silver instead of tin. Now, she’d run out of tasks and turned her attention on Bridie—and their luggage.
‘There’s a bonnet missing. The one I embroidered for the baby’s christening.’
‘It’ll be in our trunk, Ma. In the cargo hold.’
‘No. I’m sure I kept it out.’
‘You couldn’t have.’
‘It’ll be in your bag, Bridie. Get it down, please.’
Her bag!
Bridie’s stomach lurched, her gaze darting along the raised table-edge. She found the back hatch. The hatch! Where on earth was Alf? He ought to have returned long before this. For once, she’d have been thrilled to see his round, earnest face. She might even have managed a smile if he’d arrived at that moment, though she didn’t normally encourage him, because, although boring and stupid, he did have a soothing effect on Ma.
Lady Sophia creaked and groaned, swaying in her mooring. Overhead, shouts competed with the thud of feet and the occasional clank of a brass bell. Sounds of cheering drifted down through the hatchway, the toot and bellow of river traffic. From somewhere far off, Bridie heard a rhythmic chugging sound.
‘The tugs! Listen, Ma. Can you hear them?’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ Ma snapped back.
‘Don’t you want to say goodbye to London? The things we’ll miss?’ Bridie lowered her voice. ‘I’ll look after you, I promise. Alf’s probably forgotten we’re waiting between decks. He’ll be searching the crowd, even now, Ma, worried sick.’
‘If Alf said he’d meet us in steerage, he will, Bridie. There are no two ways about it.’
This was true. Alf was horribly reliable. He went to church on Sundays, worked in the market shop on weekdays and stayed home of an evening. He hardly ever went out drinking. If Alf said he’d be in a meeting, that’s where he’d be—standing to attention like one of the palace guards, as if the whole voyage depended on him.
There was only one consolation in this gloomy picture. If Alf was in a meeting, so was Rhys. His name had also been on the cleaners’ list. And if Rhys was in a meeting, he couldn’t be throwing pennies. Which meant she might still be able to make her wish.
‘You can’t stop the ship, Ma. Even if we have left the bonnet behind.’
‘And you’
d rather I didn’t search your bag, is that it?’
‘No!’
Ma’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve been watching you, Bridie—refusing Alf’s help at the watergate, hovering over that blessed bag for hours on end. You’ve been skittish as a colt since we left Covent Garden, as if you’re hiding something—and I’ve got an inkling what that something might be.’
‘I’ve lied. Is that what you’re saying? Been sneaky?’
‘Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
Ma gathered her skirts and stepped on to the bench. Bridie lunged forward, grabbing her arm. ‘No! Don’t climb up. It’s … dangerous.’
‘Then perhaps you’ll get the bag down for me?’
They stood, eye to eye, in a bubble of silence. The tugs had drawn alongside, their rhythmic wheeze all but bursting through the sides of steerage. Bridie heard a bark of orders, the rattle of anchor chains, a high, shrill cry of many voices, and all the while her fingers shackled Ma’s arm, as if she could stop the moment unfolding.
She couldn’t. Her dad’s death had shown her that. Some things kept on happening, no matter how tightly you held on. This was one of them. And, no matter how much she valued her notebook, it wasn’t worth a tiny coffin.
She stepped onto the narrow bench, grabbed the bedpost and hauled herself onto the bunk. She couldn’t crawl fast. The overhead beams were too low. Although she’d heard Alf say the clearance was generous for steerage—around eight foot. She paused, adjusting her petticoats. Maybe if she handed the bag over, head held high, Ma would lose interest, give it only a cursory glance? Or maybe she could delve into the bag now, while Ma wasn’t looking, and shove the notebook under her bedclothes? She glanced back over her shoulder.
The Tides Between Page 2