The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming

by J. Anderson Coats

  We talk for ages. Flora finds the promenade deck as delightful as I do and the deckhands as interesting, but I’m also trying to avoid indoors, because Mr. Mercer is bound to have confronted Mrs. D about the cards by now. The longer I can keep away from her, the more time she’ll have to stitch her angry into shirts instead of loosing it at me. By midafternoon, though, Flora wants to go write some letters, and I should check on Jer, so we agree to find Nell and all sit together at supper.

  There’s no dinner because the galley wants some sorting out, so by suppertime I’m hungry enough that I’m willing to hear any number of complaints about my behavior as long as I can do it over a plate of something hot.

  The dining room is called the saloon. The captain, his family, and the officers sit at a long table at the front, along with Mr. Mercer. The girls cluster at another table, married couples and families and bachelors at a third, and widows and their children at the last.

  Flora is sitting with her mother, and at the far end of the table Nell is perched at the right hand of a sleek young man who’s perhaps Mrs. D’s age. He must be Nell’s brother. His black hair is perfectly oiled and he’s wearing a frock coat so plush even I know it must be expensive.

  Nell’s shoulders are rolled forward, and she’s studying the table like it’s a reader. This is not the saucy, grinning girl who proposed playing cards in the necessary.

  There’s a purple bruise down her jaw.

  I wave to Flora and she waves back. When I get near the families’ table, Mrs. Pearson nods to where the widows are sitting and says, “You’ll want to join your moth—stepmother at that table, dear.”

  “But Jane and I have so much to talk about,” Flora protests.

  “Mr. Mercer insists there be no impropriety on this voyage,” Mrs. Pearson replies. “We’ll sit where he asks us. Poor man has enough troubles without us adding something so silly and petty.”

  Flora grumbles, but I say, “Yes, ma’am,” and I mean it. I owe Mr. Mercer too much to worsen whatever troubles he has, even if he is going to set my stepmother on me.

  “Shall we meet again tomorrow?” I ask Flora.

  “I’d like that. We’re room 68.” She smiles at me and pokes Jer’s belly to make him giggle. “I hope you’re up for finishing the matter from earlier today.” She tips her chin the smallest bit toward Nell. They must not have gotten Nell’s cards back. Either they didn’t try, or they tried and were caught.

  One way or another, it’s not something to discuss in front of Mrs. Pearson.

  “I think so,” I say, and when Flora grins like a month of sunrises, I know for sure I’m up for it.

  Mrs. D sees Jer and me coming toward the widows’ table and holds out her arms. “Here’s my honeydarling now. Isn’t he just as sweet as a big slice of sugar pie with sugar on top?”

  The other widows chime in on what a honeydarling Jer is, and all around the table are sappy faces and outstretched hands.

  “Sit down, Jane. You look like a scullion.” Mrs. D jabs a thumb at the empty place at the end of the bench. Before I can yes ma’am her, she adds, “Mr. Mercer had some interesting things to say about you earlier.”

  She laughs, high and cruel. My whole heart goes cold.

  Then I realize she’s not laughing at me. She’s laughing at Mr. Mercer.

  “A deck of cards!” Mrs. D snorts quietly. “Imagine, a man whose reputation is in such tatters that he had to hide in the coal bin until we were well out of New York harbor, lecturing me on the quality of my child-rearing.”

  “Am . . . am I in trouble?” I croak. “Ma’am?”

  “Oh heavens, Jane!” Mrs. D sighs patiently. “Eat your supper.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I reply, but she’s already turned to her companions and leaped back into her speculations on the bachelors of Washington Territory. Most of the widows insist they’re going for useful employment rather than to simply get married, but they all seem to be paying mind to Mrs. D’s delighted ramblings on the bankers and lumber tycoons waiting for them.

  I can breathe again.

  Across the room Nell winces as she tries to open her mouth enough to slide in a spoon. Her brother sips a glass of honey-colored liquor and surveys the saloon like we’re animals in a zoo.

  He’s clearly taken a much dimmer view of a deck of cards than Mrs. D.

  Sitting with the widows sounds like it would be boring, but they’re the worst kind of gossips and I learn a number of interesting things, starting with the names of every person in the room, down to the babies, and what brings them on Mr. Mercer’s expedition.

  There are almost three dozen young ladies on board. During the pell-mell that was boarding, they took over a block of staterooms near the rear of the ship. Then they convinced several men and a few families who’d taken nearby rooms to move to different ones, and now they have the whole section to themselves. Mr. Mercer is taking credit for it too, and using words like propriety instead of courtesy.

  Even with so many girls on the ship, not a one is my age. Flora and Nell are the closest, but four years is a lot of space to properly use the word close. I’m tall for my age and they think I’m at least thirteen, so my hopscotch stone had best stay in my pocket.

  Nell’s brother is called Thad. Their parents are dead and he is her guardian. They decided to join the expedition barely an hour before we sailed. Mrs. Grinold is convinced Thad owes money he can’t pay back or perhaps is wanted by the law, but the other widows refuse to believe Mr. Mercer would allow a criminal in our midst. Although such dramatic dealings would make Thad quite interesting, if he weren’t so beastly to Nell.

  The widows spend the most time talking about Mr. Conant, a reporter from the New York Times who’ll be writing dispatches about our trip that will be published for the world to read. Whatever bad things easterners want to believe about Mr. Mercer’s motives—and us, for going on such an expedition—will be cleared up when they read about a sturdy, broad-minded boatful of girls, families, widows, and bachelors who simply want to step off the Continental in Seattle and start as clean and new as the territory itself. Remade in its image. Perfect in every way, right from the beginning.

  4

  JER WAKES UP WHEN IT’S still dark, crawls over Mrs. D, and lands on the floor like a wet bag of flour. Then he bumps around the stateroom talking to Hoss. It would be sweet, if Mrs. D didn’t mumble something ominous about beauty rest.

  So Jer and I go up to the promenade deck, and the deckhands teach us how to tell time by the ship’s bell. When it’s four bells of the morning watch—six in the morning to us landsmen—Jer and I can finally tap on the door of stateroom 68 without it being an unseemly hour.

  Flora is seasick. She can’t even get out of bed. I didn’t think to ask what room Nell is in.

  Looks like it’s just Jer and me playing baby games in the cold, fogbound morning.

  Again.

  Since Jer and I now have nothing but time, I let him climb the promenade deck stairs by himself. The ladder, that is, since the deckhands told me stairs on a ship are always called ladders even when they’re stairs.

  We linger over breakfast. We walk up and down the corridor of the main deck and I count off the stateroom numbers, because if I can’t broaden my mind yet at least I can keep it from shrinkening.

  We make our way aft toward the back of the ship, Hoss galloping over this chair and that ledge. Still no sign of Nell. Perhaps she’s seasick too, or trying to avoid her brother and his temper.

  Just beyond the mainmast there’s a lifeboat on the deck against the gunwale, and it’s full of kids.

  “Ooooh, they’re going to get in such trouble if the captain sees,” I tell Jer. Even as I’m saying it, I recognize Miss Gower standing at the head of the lifeboat. She’s handing a book to the boys in the middle seat.

  The kids in the lifeboat aren’t misbehaving. Two small girls in the front are trying and failing to recite the alphabet. There are several boys in the middle, maybe seven or eight years old, huddle
d over a slate. In the back are a clutch of boys my age, snickering and shoving and pretending to study a geography text.

  It’s a school. There’s a school going on in this lifeboat.

  Miss Gower spots us and nods politely. “Good morning, Jane. Would you care to join the class?”

  “Sure!” I blurt. “That is . . . yes, please, ma’am.”

  “Excellent. We begin at eight bells by the ship’s clock. That’s four sets of two peals of the bell, the one that occurs after breakfast. Please be punctual tomorrow.”

  Miss Gower must mean eight bells of the morning watch. It’s important to say what watch the bells belong to, but I don’t correct her because it’s just ship time and not nearly as respectable as schoolhouse learning, so of course she might not know it.

  “Um . . .” Only mill girls make vulgar noises instead of saying yes, ma’am or no, ma’am like my father taught me. “Can’t I start today?”

  Miss Gower glances down at Jer swinging my hand like stray line. “You are clearly indisposed at the moment. By tomorrow I imagine you will have worked out arrangements with your mother regarding your younger brother.”

  “He’ll be quiet,” I say, even though I know this isn’t, strictly speaking, true, or even something I can promise. “He’s a good boy. Jer, you’ll be a good boy and sit quietly, right?”

  “No.” Jer beams.

  “Jer!” I growl. “You’d better be good.”

  Miss Gower shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Jane. Your brother is too young for formal education. Not only will you be too distracted managing his behavior to properly pursue your studies, but he’ll disrupt the entire class. You are welcome to join us when you’re not supervising your brother’s activities. Please excuse me.”

  Miss Gower hitches up her skirts and steps into the front of the lifeboat. It’s hard to argue when Jer’s belly-down on the deck, peeling up splinters and stuffing them into my shoes.

  “Hey, Jer, you want to go see your mama?” I ask, like I’m offering candy for supper.

  “Mama!” Jer bounces along the promenade deck toward the ladies’ cabin.

  Mrs. D is sure to be missing Jer by now. Back in Lowell she’d often go whole days without seeing him awake. She wept outright when Jer took his first steps while she was flinging shuttles, and she’s always saying how Jer is so precious because he’s all she’s got left of Papa.

  Like I need yet another reminder I take after my mother—tall and bony, with hair that won’t curl with any amount of heat or grease.

  Mrs. D paces at the top of the portside ladder, hands on hips. “Where have you been?”

  I don’t dare ask about arrangements now. “I went to find my friend Flora, but she’s seasick and—”

  “You’ve shirked enough for today. Mr. Mercer would have the ladies make socks to sell once we reach Seattle. It’ll make us a little money and show off our many talents.”

  Bachelors must be woefully easy to impress. I follow Mrs. D down the ladder, but when I get to the doorway of the ladies’ cabin, I ask, “Wasn’t I supposed to keep Jer away from here? All the sharp things?”

  “Oh, nonsense, girl.” Mrs. Grinold opens her sewing basket. “Bring the little darling in. It’s not as if any of us don’t know how to manage small children.”

  Mrs. D glances at her uncertainly. Then she waves a hand at me. “Quite right, Mrs. Grinold, quite right. Jane, bring Jer in. No need to coddle him.”

  The cabin is stuffy and the light is struggling at best. It’s all widows and a few married ladies and babies too little to run around on deck. And me.

  I wait till Mrs. D has finished her favorite prediction, how a rich banker will catch sight of her on the Seattle pier and fall instantly in love with her.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yes, Jane? What is it now?”

  “A school started today. In the portside lifeboat. I was hoping I could go.”

  Mrs. D shakes out more yarn. “A school? Hmm. Every day? Not all day, surely.”

  “No, ma’am. Just in the mornings.”

  “I see. That might be all right. Who’s the teacher?”

  I can’t tell her. I can’t not tell her.

  “I believe Adelaide Gower is presiding over the makeshift school,” Mrs. Grinold says. “None of these young ladies was in any hurry to take up her vocation. Too many officers to make eyes at.”

  “Miss Gower. Well. Hmm.” Mrs. D starts knitting again. “You can read and write and cipher just fine, Jane. I didn’t even go to school, and what’s good enough for me is good enough for you.”

  Mrs. D said something very similar to Miss Bradley when she called at our lodgings in Lowell to find out why I hadn’t been coming to school. I stood behind Mrs. D with baby Jer on my arm, and Miss Bradley must have seen right away there’d be no changing Mrs. D’s mind.

  That was when Miss Bradley slipped me the little book with all its blank pages and whispered, “Good luck.”

  The other ladies are stitching or knitting most industriously. The whole room is silent. Not even Mrs. Grinold, who dismissed Mrs. D’s ridiculous reasons for keeping Jer out of the ladies’ cabin, will look at me.

  I can’t blame them for wanting no part of Mrs. D’s harsh tongue. Only, they’re the ones she might listen to.

  I sit down and mutter, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mrs. D nods. “Good. Now, come sit here and I’ll teach you a cable pattern.”

  It takes most of the morning to learn the pattern, but by dinnertime I’ve got it down.

  “Wonderful!” Mrs. D says, and for once she isn’t being false or snide. “You keep up that good work, child. We’re going to make a fortune on that Seattle pier with these beauties.” Lower, she adds, “Believe you me, we’re going to need it.”

  After dinner I’m ready to turn the heel on the first sock. The pair will be a decent piece of work, even if they’re made for a man and ridiculously large. A loggingman might buy them, or maybe a miner.

  Later, lying in my top bunk and nursing stiff fingers and a sore backside, I pull out Mr. Mercer’s pamphlet and reread the chapter on Trade. There are several paragraphs on things that might be made, bought, or sold, but nothing about socks.

  I improve the chapter by adding a number of lines in the margin about the benefits and virtues of handmade garments and how each and every loggingman, farmer, sailor, and miner needs at least ten pairs to keep him fit for work. I finish with: The best time to make socks is in the afternoon, once the mind has been suitably exercised and hopefully broadened.

  I should make a pair of socks for Flora. A lighthouse keeper’s feet will probably get cold as well. It’s something a friend who’s like a sister would do.

  That gives me an idea.

  5

  “WHY NOT?” I ASK, AND if I’m honest it’s more of a whine. “He’s no trouble. Really!”

  Flora snorts. “Five minutes ago you had to convince him to stop eating crusts he found under the tables. When he didn’t like hearing that, he flung them at you.”

  We’re in the saloon, and the scullions are clearing up the breakfast dishes. Jer is under our table, eating the crusts I dodged. The ship’s bell will ring any moment now.

  Nell comes up to us. She missed breakfast, and the bruise on her jaw is now a ghastly pale green, but she puts one arm around Flora’s waist and the other around mine. “Are we ready to take care of that small matter, girls?”

  We. I smile in spite of myself.

  “Not yet, more’s the pity.” Flora tips her head at Jer. “Also, Jane wants to go to Miss Gower’s primary school for little kids, and she wants me to watch her half brother because her stepmother’s a harpy and won’t do it.”

  Flora says primary school like it’s something she outgrew with diapers and teething straps. I can’t even enjoy learning a new thing to mutter under my breath at Mrs. D.

  “Jer is my brother,” I say curtly. “He’s not half of anything.”

  Nell scoffs something dark about brothers being half
of something, but then she grins. “I’ll watch him. After we’ve gotten my cards back from you-know-who.”

  We both stare at her. Nell in her fancy ruffled bodice and shiny bone-buttons does not look like the sort of girl who’d willingly agree to wipe sticky fingers and play hide the thimble.

  “Although I can’t imagine why you’d want to go to school instead of playing cards,” Nell singsongs. “I never took you for a schoolma’am in training.”

  “I promised my father I’d get a leaving certificate,” I reply quietly, and it’s the last thing I promised him too, when he came home for his furlough just before he got sent to Vicksburg. “That’s why.”

  Flora ducks her head. Her father was too old to join a regiment, her brother too young. The worst thing that happened to her because of the war was having to wear linen drawers instead of cotton.

  I touch my hopscotch stone in my pocket. Then I take a deep breath and add, “It’s irksome when someone decides she knows what you want just because it’s what she wants. It’s unkind.”

  Nell’s smile quiets. “I’m only teasing, Jane. Forgive me. I don’t mean to be unkind, especially about something one of my friends thinks is worthwhile.”

  Maybe if I hadn’t promised Papa I’d leave school properly, I might not care either. Yet every day I’m not on a bench with a reader in my hands, that promise presses a little harder.

  Nell just called me her friend.

  “Now then.” Nell motions both of us closer. “I have it on good authority that Mr. Mercer is staying in stateroom 4. An officer’s berth, if you can believe such a thing. I just saw him pestering Julia Hood to walk with him on the promenade deck, so we’ll have some time.”

  “Well, best of luck. I’ll have to stay behind.” I nod at Jer, who’s trying to balance Hoss on a bench rung. “He couldn’t possibly go with us. You both said as much.”

  Nell grins. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve been thinking it over. If we get caught, what could be a better excuse than Ohhh, the baby ran in here and we were just getting him back? So we need you in particular, Jane. We really can’t do this without you.”