A few minutes later, his heart still racing, Willy chanced to glance through a window into one of the plush parlors; there sat Mrs. Whitechurch, together with a dozen other impeccably dressed ladies and young maidens. At one end of the room stood an upright piano, with two portly women sitting on the bench, playing a duet and laughing giddily. A large silver bowl of strawberries and cream sat on a table near Mrs. Whitechurch, together with an ample tray of biscuits, pastries, and finger sandwiches. With a steward in white tie and tails to pour their tea or coffee from shining silver pots, held in each of his white-gloved hands. (Willy’s own lunch, a couple of hours earlier—no different from the other third-class passengers—had consisted of a single boiled potato and a piece of stewed beef so impregnated with salt he’d had to spit it back into his tin plate, and, of course, there would be no afternoon tea.)
Yet it was not the lavish victuals, adorning the lace-covered table behind which Mrs. Whitechurch sat so primly with the other dainty ladies, that so disheartened Willy. It was not even the idea that his mother and sisters were absolutely barred entrance to that particular parlor. It was the fact that Juliette was not sitting on the chesterfield couch beside her aunt.
He turned around and walked sullenly back to his own deck, in his own third-class portion of the ship—hopping the railing and stepping boldfaced past the deck steward—as though daring his reproach.
But on that fifth morning of the voyage, as Willy stood at the windward rail bracing himself against a stiff breeze, staring away at the gray, whitecap-littered, limitless sea, an idea occurred to him. He left the deck and the handful of other third-class passengers gathered there with their tattered coats and blankets wrapped around them. Willy descended the narrow, steep stairs, three levels below, to the cabin he shared with his sisters.
Willy knew that their family cabins would be unoccupied at that hour of the morning. Particularly now that everyone was over their initial bouts of seasickness. His mother would be in the third-class parlor, most likely with a circle of other women sitting on their blankets on the plank floor—possibly Georgina and Mary as well—each with a skein of yarn in her lap and a pair of knitting needles in her hands. What articles of clothing they could possibly be making, Willy hadn’t a clue: sweaters for the tropics? Sometimes the women played draughts, gossiped with one another about Lady So-and-so or the French comte traveling in upper class, or they told stories and sang songs with the children—Amelia would be playing with a handful of other girls nearby.
His father would be up on deck with the other men, deep in discussion on some topic relevant to life in the West Indies or the TES—unless they were listening to a lecture given by Mr. Etzler himself or the comte—or he’d be with Mr. Whitechurch, drinking whiskey in the saloon. The other gentlemen aboard, Willy’s father had told him, found it highly amusing that although Mr. Stollmeyer and Mr. Etzler had privileges in that facility, they entered it only occasionally—and not even to partake of an after-dinner cordial and cigar—but strictly chamomile tea or lemon bitters.
Willy shut himself into the cabin he shared with his sisters. He got down on his knees to rummage beneath Georgina’s berth, until he located her lace brassiere. Tucked behind her parcel of clothing, Willy removed her only pair of high-heeled shoes. A pair of Mary’s bloomers from the bundle beside it. He took out the small purse she shared with Georgina, containing a cake of cashmere powder and a lipstick.
Now Willy crossed over to his parents’ adjacent cabin, closing the door behind him. He removed his clothes and dressed himself in his sisters’ underclothing. He paused for a second: Willy ransacked the tall stack of his father’s handkerchiefs, balling them up and stuffing two or three into each cup of Georgina’s brassiere. Then he sat on the edge of a lower berth and rolled his mother’s pair of wool stockings over his pointed toes, up along his stringy calves and knobby knees, clipping them into her “French” garters. From a package carefully wrapped in tissue paper, Willy removed his mother’s red silk dress: practically shoulderless, with a daring V at the neckline and an extremely narrow waist, puffy mutton sleeves, and a quilted fringe along the hem of its wide skirt (she’d made it specially for herself before the voyage, and planned to wear it to the Captain’s Ball when they arrived at the Azores). Willy stepped into the dress. He struggled for nearly fifteen minutes with his arms twisted and contorted behind his back—his breath held and his abdomen sucked in hard—before he managed to fasten the seven tiny hooks along the length of his spine.
Now, utilizing his mother’s small hand mirror, Willy hurriedly painted his mouth a bright crimson with the lipstick. He drew small circles with the lipstick on each of his cheeks and rubbed them in, just as he’d seen his sisters do—somewhat dismayed by his mousy mustache and line of stubble along his jaw. Willy quickly applied the cashmere powder to his face. He removed a black lace scarf of his mother’s, which he spread over the top of his head and tied in a large floppy bow beneath his chin. Willy took up her black lace shawl and spread it over his shoulders. Then he pulled on a pair of his mother’s matching lace gloves, reaching to midforearm. He stepped into his sister’s high-heeled shoes.
Willy realized that a couple of hours remained before the first-class ladies would assemble in their parlor for afternoon tea. He sat on the bunk again, waiting and listening. Before long he heard the clang of the steward’s bell calling the third-class passengers to their lunch in the dining room two levels above his head. He listened to the scuff of their shoes as passengers entered the room, the clatter of tin plates and eating utensils being laid down upon the rough plank tables, even the scrapings of the steward’s ladle against the sides of the stewpot.
Despite his hunger, Willy was happy enough to avoid this lunch!
He settled himself against the bulkhead, closed his eyes, and eventually dozed off.
He was awakened some time later by the sound of his younger sister, Amelia, bursting through the cabin door—which, in his haste, he’d neglected to latch shut.
“Oh!” She stared up at him, shocked.
Willy felt simultaneously embarrassed and panicked; his breath caught in his throat. But after a second Amelia’s expression of alarm changed to one of gentle amusement—
“Nice to see you’re in a better mood,” she smiled. “Back to your old self!”
Amelia reached around him and began to search through the things under their mother’s bunk.
“Seen Moffie?” she asked. “Mum said she packed her with the blankets under here … .”
Amelia grabbed up her rag doll and started out of the cabin. But she stopped short and turned around, still smiling—
“Better hurry. There’s cocoa for the children this afternoon, left over from upper class!”
She closed the door behind her.
Now Willy became alarmed that he’d missed the ladies’ teatime altogether. He waited for a minute, then slipped out of the cabin and up the narrow stairs, stepping as lightly as he could manage in Georgina’s high-heeled shoes on the wood planking. Though wide at the bottom with its thickly quilted hem, the dress was several inches too short for Willy, exposing his thin, unsteady ankles, thick stockings bunched up around them. A handful of third-class passengers—most of whom Willy recognized as fellow members of the TES—were back up on deck, their tattered blankets wrapped around them against the breeze. Willy held his head up and clutched the shawl around his shoulders. He walked straight past them, clacking across the boards in his sister’s shoes. Willy continued directly past the deck steward, stationed at his post behind the galley. But when he arrived at the low railing he’d hopped so easily the previous afternoon, he stopped short; there was no way he could negotiate the leap in his mother’s dress and his sister’s shoes. He began to panic.
A second later the steward was at his side, grinning peculiarly. He bent over and, to Willy’s surprise, unhinged a portion of the rail, doubling it back on itself.
“Please, Miss,” he winked in a manner Willy recognized as lad
en with meaning—though what, precisely, that meaning was, he hadn’t a clue—presenting his arm.
Willy took hold of the deck steward’s forearm in his lace-clad hand. He held his head up and stepped through the gap in the rail, raising his skirt with his other hand and proceeding, as gracefully as he could manage, down the short flight of steps, clacking across the boards.
As he entered the parlor reserved for the first-class ladies, the steward in charge—dressed again in white tie and tails—immediately took notice and put down his silver pots. He approached Willy from the other side of the room, much to his alarm. But the steward merely offered Willy his arm, ushering him to a seat—fortunately, at some distance from a small group of women sitting on the chesterfield couch, all chatting enthusiastically, cups of tea and little plates of pastries and finger sandwiches held daintily on their laps. The same pair of portly women sat before the upright piano, playing on the keys and giggling.
Willy looked around—Mrs. Whitechurch had not yet arrived.
This was, in fact, as far as he had proceeded with his plan: to get himself past the two stewards, and into the tea parlor. When Mrs. Whitechurch appeared he could attempt to communicate with her—in some secret manner he hadn’t quite figured out—ascertaining first of all that Juliette was, indeed, aboard ship. He could then arrange for the two of them to meet.
But as he sat in his deeply cushioned lounge chair waiting for Mrs. Whitechurch—listening to the ladies tittering enthusiastically on the chesterfield couch, the women at the piano giggling away—he began to grow bored with himself; he also began to feel hungry. Now it dawned upon Willy that, in truth, he was famished. He’d scarcely eaten a thing since his family had boarded the ship six days before. Willy mustered up his courage, stood on unsteady ankles with his mother’s thick stockings bunched up around them, and he approached the table spread lavishly with food. He took up the pair of silver tongs and, with some difficulty in the lace gloves, helped himself to a ham sandwich and one of cucumber, placed carefully side by side on a small porcelain plate.
But even before he could return to his seat, he’d consumed the sandwiches—practically inhaling each of them in a single bite—and unbeknownst to himself, doing a fine job of smudging the crimson lipstick he’d applied so neatly to his lips. Willy went back to the victuals at the table. Disregarding the tongs this time, he piled up a precariously tall stack of five more finger sandwiches—two of cucumber and three of Spanish ham—in addition to pouring himself a tall glass of iced lemon bitters from the pitcher.
Just as he went to turn around again, one of the portly little women who’d been playing on the piano approached the table from behind him. She looked up into Willy’s face for a moment, smiling sweetly.
A second later the woman let loose a screech like a cat with its tail caught beneath a wagon wheel—causing Willy, in his state of shock, to toss his little plate and glass into the air—cucumber slices and ham slices and perfect little squares of thin white bread with the crust removed, in addition to chipped ice and lemon bitters, raining down upon the little woman’s head.
Willy could think only to try to clean up the mess he’d made. Reaching quickly for the little plate, he attempted, with his lace-clad fingers, to pick up several squares of now-soggy bread; Willy slipped on a thin slice of ham in Georgina’s high-heeled shoes and his mother’s wide skirt, and he went sprawling across the plank floor, slick with spilled lemon bitters and ice chips and littered with disassembled finger sandwiches.
One lace cup of his sister’s handkerchief-stuffed brassiere popped out of the dress’s low neckline and the black lace scarf that Willy had tied beneath his chin somehow inverted itself—with the floppy bow now centered on the crown of his head—like the poodle in red sequins he’d seen promenading the deck on the previous afternoon.
By this time several other women had joined in for a chorus of screeching cats, and the tea parlor had dissolved into chaos. Willy struggled with considerable difficulty to regain his footing in his high heels and the wide, heavily fringed dress on the slippery floor. Aided by a small woman, her arm around his waist helping him up, whom he believed, in his state of alarm and utter confusion, to be the same portly one from the piano he had just flung his food over; she turned out to be Mrs. Whitechurch.
“Willy, my boy! What in heavens!” She reached up and tucked the cup of his brassiere back into place. “Juliette’s been asking for you! Poor girl—she’s been seasick since we started!”
For a split second Willy’s heart burst with joy. He twisted the scarf around his smudged face, fixing the floppy bow beneath his chin again, breathing deeply, smiling with delight.
Then he felt a firm hand take hold of each of his elbows: at one side stood the steward in charge of the tea parlor. At the other—Willy now realized with sudden alarm—the deck steward stationed behind the third-class galley. And with the same indecipherable, queasy grin on his face.
“We’ll give ’er some tea ’n’ pastries!” the deck steward exclaimed.
“Directly!” said his companion.
The two men began to drag him off.
Willy looked backward over his shoulder, forlorn and frightened, at Mrs. Whitechurch—still wearing her own expression of concerned bewilderment.
The stewards hurried Willy out of the tea parlor via a service door at the back. They lugged him along a hallway past the first-class galley, then down a series of dark, narrow stairs, lit solely by a hatch at deck level. With Willy stumbling along beside them in the high-heeled shoes—twisting his ankles again and again painfully—the two stewards dragged him brutishly down the stairs.
“In ’ere!” the deck steward shouted.
He indicated a rough plank door with a hole for a handle, latched shut with a short piece of wood nailed in the middle.
The deck steward turned the latch and flung the door open. They shoved Willy forward, into a dark hallway lined on both sides by other plank doors. In the dim light Willy saw that each had a dark hole for a handle, but these doors were locked with brass padlocks.
“Where’s ’em clatty keys?” the deck steward demanded. “I’m risin for to the jab awready!”
“Hold yer hoses!” The parlor steward reached deeply into his pocket, feeling around.
“Fuckin ’ell!” The deck steward slammed the first door shut, enclosing the three of them in pitch darkness—
“We’ll give ’er the jab right ’ere!”
“Better hope Cook don’t come a-search of bacon!”
“We’ll give ’im ’is fair share a bacon!”
Willy sat on the plank floor where the stewards had thrown him. Surrounded by darkness and scared out of his wits. He pressed backward, instinctively, to the far end of the hallway. Willy heard the two stewards pursuing him, feeling their way in the dark. Suddenly, in a burst, he shoved under and past them—regaining his feet in the high-heeled shoes—and somehow aware, simultaneously, of the dress’s seven hooks along his spine, snapping open one by one. He moved in a rush toward the single spot of light in the darkened hallway: the small hole in the door at the end. He burst out and slammed the door shut.
Willy turned the latch, locking the two stewards inside.
He paused, leaning against the closed door, catching his breath; how he’d managed to escape, unscathed, and in a matter of a few seconds, Willy could not be sure himself.
He hurried away, the stewards pounding on the door and crying out behind him. On his way up the narrow stairs, he seemed to notice a flash of light coming from the corner of one of the steps. Willy thought to ignore it. Then he turned around and reached down quickly to pass his gloved hand across the floorboard—taking up what he realized a second later was a ring containing several iron keys.
Willy tucked them into his sister’s brassiere.
Counted among those passengers traveling aboard the Rosalind were a handful of wealthy English and French estate owners. Some of them, including the notorious Comte César de Beauvoisin—as loud
as he was large, with the somewhat disagreeable habit of animating his speech with one or the other of the half-eaten mutton legs held in his hands—even boasted claims to nobility. Having vacationed in Europe during the pleasanter autumn months, they were returning to the warmer climes and their properties in Trinidad. The conversation among these plantation owners centered, with little exception, upon the great hardships suffered in recent years: of the enormous monetary losses they had sustained since the emancipation of the African slaves.
Once the glittering jewels of the British crown—her veritable money machines!—the West Indies now lay bankrupt and in ruins. Not even the recent proposal of Sir Robert Peel and the conservatives, of imposing a duty on foreign sugar (e.g., Brazilian, Cuban, and American slave-produced sugar), offered any tangible hope. For even if West Indian sugar, exempt from such duties, could be bought cheaper in the mother country, who would work the fields at home here in the islands? The local population and the now-free Africans far preferred to toil a few leisurely hours tending their own small plots than to labor long, harsh hours beneath an unrelenting sun for the meager wages offered on the estates. At the end of the day their hard-earned wages bought them less food than they could grow in their own gardens—less goods than they could purchase if they bartered their excess produce at local markets—and with scarcely any effort a-tall.
But despite the unceasing litany of complaints coming from this group of plantation owners—of financial devastation, vast tracts of land that lay utterly abandoned, formerly fruitful fields overtaken by bush and returning to forest overnight—their conversation was animated. The estate owners had taken matters into their own hands. They had sought to solve their own problem (this problem created for them by the self-righteous, sanctimonious, bill-mongering MPs in London), and in a manner that seemed perfectly West Indian. Hope was, indeed, on its way! It traveled upon the very same sea that they did. Bound, inexorably, for the same West Indies—for the very same island of Trinidad! This hope, however, arrived from a different direction. And although it was the same general direction in which Africa lay, it originated in another continent. For at that very moment, on another ship called the Fatal Rozack, a cargo of 217 indentured East Indian laborers was making its way from the city of Calcutta, bound also for the estates in Trinidad.
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