by Jana Petken
When the doctor came, Mercy had held her tongue, preferring to listen to Julia’s long story instead of telling her own. The doctor had been shocked, Mercy believed. She’d seen disgust and anger in his eyes, and she now began to wonder if the man she’d killed had also been ignorant of the truth. Would he have pitied her had she told him that she was a prisoner? Would he have left her alone, maybe even helped her escape? Had she taken a life when all that life had wanted was what he’d paid for? She was racked with guilt. At this moment, she could not speak or listen to anything other than her own recriminations.
She stared out of the porthole, hiding her shame from Julia. Julia had done herself proud, Mercy thought now. She’d imparted every piece of information, every memory, and every detail of the torture and murder they had both witnessed in Madame du Pont’s house of horrors. She had left some details to the imagination regarding her rape. She had thanked God and his angels, telling the doctor quite simply that the man had hurt her, but he had not damaged her soul. God had turned off her mind to his actions, and she had therefore not involved herself in the ordeal.
Julia’s bravery and maturity were still new to Mercy. She had not seen this side of the girl’s character before. Julia had shed a few tears, which she wiped away with annoyance, but Mercy took that as a good sign. The poor girl might still be in shock and unable to comprehend what had happened to her. She could wake up tomorrow or the day after, fully realising the extent of the horrors she had lived through. But today she was revealing a serenity and dignity well beyond her years. Mercy wanted to scream. Why couldn’t she have been like Julia? She was going to be scarred for life and live with nightmares and guilt until the day she died.
She watched Julia eat a hearty breakfast, but she couldn’t think about eating. Her stomach was knotted, and waves of nausea threatened to spill over. She could barely talk. She was afraid to talk. She was filth, a murderess and arsonist.
No one back home would believe what she’d done. There, she couldn’t even bring herself to kill the rats that scurried across the floor in her grandma’s house. She wouldn’t have hurt a fly. Yet here she sat in a grand cabin with blood on her hands and with the guilt of knowing she had snubbed out a life, or lives, like candles.
She could not speak as Julia had, for she was not a victim. She could not talk about the fire, for she had set it. She could not bring herself to utter the name Carver, for she was terrified that by giving it, she too would be sent home.
Home? No, not home. She fought the very idea of it. She could never go back to her grandparents’ house – ever. She would rather wander the streets of Liverpool until she died or was killed.
She thought about her impending marriage. She hated Big Joe more than ever, yet he was not the guilty party. Her grandparents had sold her to him with no regard for her feelings, and that made them guilty in her eyes. They had done it to survive, to feed the family, to buy her new garments, and to make their lives easier, but they were just as bad as the slave traders she had heard about, living in distant lands. They were almost as bad as Madame du Pont!
This terrible ordeal had taught her more about life than she could have ever imagined. The world was a cruel place, where money had the power to buy people, enslave them, and kill them on a whim. She had seen this with her own eyes. She’d been bought and paid for like the whores at the du Pont manor, but Big Joe would not receive his merchandise. She would rather slit her own throat in a Liverpool back street than give herself to him. And best her family and Southwark thought her dead, for then the deal would be off. As for her grandparents – well, they would have to deal with the consequences of their actions.
The stateroom’s door rattled with a loud knock. Julia stopped eating. Mercy stared unswervingly at the door, wondering who would enter. Fear once again crept up on her. Coppers could be lurking outside. They would take her away in chains. Someone might have witnessed her appalling deeds.
Fear would live with her for the rest of her days. Fear of the unknown, the constant worry that death would result from a wrong word or action. Fear of ever walking out alone. Fear of Madame du Pont finding her, taking her to some dark place, and slitting her throat. Peace, Mercy knew at that moment, would come only after she was sure that, Eddie, Sam, and Madame du Pont were dead.
Mercy heard a second knock. It was a gentle, unthreatening tap. She looked down the length of the table. There were breads and cold cuts. The maps had been removed. Flowers had been brought and placed in a crystal vase right in the centre. Whoever had ordered these kind offerings brought by the doctor might be on the other side of the door.
Mercy whispered in Julia’s ear, “It may be the nice doctor, Julia. And he was nice, wasn’t he?”
Julia nodded without taking her eyes from the door.
“Come in,” Mercy said with a soft tremble in her voice. Her heartbeat quickened, and she prayed.
Jacob took a hesitant step inside the room. He stood just inside the door, hat in hand and with no intention of moving closer. He looked at the woman and the girl, and his heart melted. His eyes met the woman’s, and he couldn’t tear them away. He tried to focus on Julia, but his eyes automatically slid back to those green eyes.
She was just as beautiful as he remembered, even more so bathed in the mid-morning light pouring through the open porthole. She was dressed in a dark blue gown which would have looked ordinary on anyone else. She, on the other hand, with those green sparkling eyes and flowing hair, was like a rare, exquisite doll. Her bandage had been removed, and the stitches at the centre of the swollen area were visible just beneath her hairline. Jacob’s heartbeat quickened, and he attempted to calm it. He had questions and needed answers.
Mercy looked at the stranger, and grainy images surfaced in her mind. There were dark, blurred outlines and flames dancing, but his face was also there. She was back in the bedroom, being pulled from underneath the bed. She was thrown over a shoulder. In the misty images that followed, she remembered his face again, outside on the grassy verge. He’d saved her. She remembered now. She’d seen him for just a split second before he hauled her out of the room.
She studied him more closely and waited for him to speak. He seemed as tongue-tied as she was. Her fear drained away, for as she watched him, all she could see and sense were kind eyes and concern. He stood tall and was broad-shouldered. He was handsome, she caught herself thinking. He was mesmerising her with deep brown eyes that were locked on her own. How could a man be so perfectly formed?
“Good morning, ladies. I’m sure glad to see y’all looking better. My name is Jacob – Jacob Stone. Welcome to the Christina—”
“What are you going to do with us? Why are we on this ship?” Mercy interrupted him, afraid he’d read her mind. Jacob smiled, and Mercy noticed his perfect white teeth. Her words had come out the wrong way. They had sounded abrupt and ungrateful. “I’m – I’m sorry for interrupting you, sir,” she stuttered.
Jacob waved her apology away. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but first I wish to know your name and where you’re from.”
“Why?” Mercy asked, feeling heat on her skin.
“I need to know who you are in order to get you safely home to your family. I know that you are Miss Julia Cavendish,” he said to Julia, who stood and curtsied. He turned to Mercy. “But you I know nothing about. You need to give me some information, like Miss Julia here, so that I can get you home. Believe me, I just want to set this right. You’ve both been through a terrible ordeal.”
“You’ll never set this right,” Mercy said in a voice laced with anger. “But you can help Julia. She is cousin to the Earl of Sussex. Her family is staying in Knightsbridge, London. If you want money, I know for a fact they’ll pay whatever you ask.”
“I assure you that I want no money from anyone.” Jacob’s voice sounded hurt.
Mercy saw the hurt in his eyes. She’d insulted him. God, she was making a mess of things.
Jacob said, “Isaac, my ship’s doc
tor, is already seeing to Miss Julia’s travel plans, but you – I need to know what we can do for you. I’m asking you your name so that I can inform your loved ones that you’re safe. There is no ulterior motive here.”
Mercy couldn’t take her eyes from him, yet she was now unable to speak. She was like the dumb halfwit that lived in her street back home: robbed of speech and brain. What if this man only wanted her name to turn her in? What if Madame du Pont was already telling lies about her? Oh God, what if this man saw her do the things she did last night? She jumped at the sudden sound of his voice.
“I come from Virginia in America, and that’s where I’m headed tomorrow. I’m going home, and that’s all I want for you. I want to help you get home to your families and to your lives.”
Mercy waited for him to tell her she was wanted by the coppers, but he seemed to be done speaking. She took a deep breath. She might be condemning herself to death, but she had to give him answers. She looked at Julia. The girl was going to be shocked and mortified to hear that she’d bathed with a commoner in the same bathtub.
She studied the dark-eyed man with hair as black as her own. He was hypnotising her with those kind eyes that were boring holes into her soul. She had to speak. “Did all the other girls get out? Did they escape too? Did anyone die in the fire?” She needed to know first.
“Your fellow captives are all right. I saw to their release myself.”
Mercy heard herself choke on a sob. She threw her hand to her throat. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I was so worried about them. We both were.”
Julia nodded.
“When we were looking for you, we found a charred body,” Jacob said.
“You were looking for us?” Mercy heard the words tumble from her mouth.
“We were looking for anyone who might have been trapped upstairs.”
“Oh, I see.”
Jacob continued. “Please don’t think about last night. Just know that I believe all the women in that place were saved from the fire and from Madame du Pont, who will, I assure you, be hunted down and punished. The local coppers would like to ask you a few questions about her and about your experiences. They want to help. Will you speak with them?”
“Speak to coppers? No!” Mercy shouted without thinking. “No, I don’t want to talk about it. Julia has told you everything. It’s all true. Julia, do you want to speak to them?”
“No. I just want to go home, please,” Julia said.
Jacob nodded. “Okay. No one will compel you to answer any questions, but I still need your name,” he told Mercy.
“Mercy – my name is Mercy Carver. I come from the poor side of London, on the wrong side of London Bridge. I have no family and no one to go back to. I’m an orphan. I don’t – didn’t – have employment, and I don’t want to go back to those streets.”
Julia’s mouth was open. She stared at Mercy as though seeing her for the first time. Mercy threw her an apologetic look and refused to look at Jacob. “I’m sorry I’m not from a rich family, Julia. I thought you would have guessed that by now. You all spoke so nicely, and I tried to copy you to fit in. I thought Madame du Pont might kill me if she knew I had no value.”
Mercy then looked at Jacob. His eyes were dark and unfathomable. She thought she saw anger in them. Was he disappointed too?
Julia said, “Mercy, I don’t understand. You’re beautiful, and you had on such a lovely gown – and your hair … I thought you came from a family like my own. You don’t speak as I do, but you looked like a lady. So you mean you’re poor?”
“Looks can be deceiving, but I assure you, I’m not a lady. I’m as common as the muck on my street,” Mercy told her, hurt by Julia’s snobbery. “I’m just a girl from the wrong side of the river who wanted to have tea and look inside St Paul’s Cathedral. There, now you know. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that’s why I was taken.”
Mercy lowered her eyes in shame. She felt as though she’d just committed a crime. She looked up at Julia’s eyes again and noted that they were looking at her in a different light. Her shocked expression had not abated. Mercy’s disappointment in Julia was now turning to anger. “And the dress you talked about – I borrowed it from the local dressmaker. I saved up for a year to have my day. So in answer to your question – yes, Julia, I’m as poor as a church mouse.”
For a moment, there was silence. Mercy fiddled with the bandage on her hand. Why was she surprised? Julia was a spoilt young girl who had probably never cavorted with a commoner in her life. Mercy had no doubt now that her friendship with the young girl was over. She was well aware of her station in life. She was the kind of woman Julia’s family would employ to work in their mansion’s kitchen, not one who would ever be allowed to sit upstairs drinking cups of tea and eat dainty pastries. For just a short time this morning, she had hoped that maybe, just maybe, Julia would ask her to go home with her. But the Julia she’d known, protected, and soothed had gone.
Mercy finally looked at Jacob and saw pity, which felt even worse than Julia’s open display of disappointment. She had to get off this ship now. She didn’t want pity from either of them. “Please, sir, I want to go now. I can look after myself. I’m sure I’ll find employment here in Liverpool. I don’t need your help or anyone else’s, for that matter,” she lied. She had never felt so alone or desperate. “Please just get Julia home. That’s all I ask.”
Jacob looked at Mercy’s tired face and saw fear written across it. She had tried to hide it from him and from Julia, but as she sat there like an innocent, lost child, wide-eyed and apprehensive, he knew instinctively that with nowhere to go, no one to help her, and no funds, she would be doomed to an early death – or worse, forced to become the very thing he had just rescued her from.
“Mercy – might I call you Mercy?” he asked her.
Mercy nodded.
Jacob said tentatively, “My doctor tells me that you have a concussion and that your head is still swollen. You have stitches, which may become infected if not treated properly. I implore you to stay a while longer, at least until tomorrow morning. I can find you some respectable lodgings for a few months and give you funds until you find employment. Allow me to do this for you.”
Mercy’s eyes filled with tears that slid down her cheeks. She’d never heard such kind words or seen so much concern. His character and handsome face were chiselling away at her hard, impenetrable facade. Her strength had always been her greatest ally, but this man’s smile and patient, sensitive character left her nearly breathless. She was left panting in short, sharp bursts.
He was undoing her family’s sacred teachings. They had told her never to feel sorry for herself and never to cry in public during moments of weakness. She had been taught that it was dangerous and unwise to allow another person to see her with her heart on her sleeve. But this man, Jacob Stone, was dragging her heart and soul right out into the open, making her vulnerable and turning her into the same pitiful creature her grandpa had despised for as long as she could remember.
Her mind wandered to the one her grandpa still hated – her father, Thomas. He was continuously blamed for Grandpa Carver’s all-too-frequent angry outbursts. In his eyes, Thomas was a man without strength of character, courage, or will. He’d never forgiven his son. He would go to his grave cursing him for the act of suicide that had gone against everything the Carvers stood for: stoic acceptance of misery, hardship, and poverty. A Carver accepted a life without vision or ambition to raise himself above the trials that God had set him.
Mercy gulped for air, but she could no more control her tears than she could her own self-pity, which was surfacing and overflowing like the river tide in a winter storm. What would it be like and how would it feel, she wondered, to have a man such as Jacob Stone by her side to protect her, displaying kindness towards her every day in deed and word? How lucky she would feel to have those piercing eyes and that handsome face look at her in the morning and at the end of the day. She would probably never know another man
like him. She had never been kissed, never been loved, because her grandparents had never allowed her to go anywhere or do anything. She suddenly realised that she had been imprisoned her entire life.
She had always envied the other girls in her street, huddling together and whispering about their dalliances, secret picnics, kisses behind buildings and in the park under shady trees. She had seen the sparkle in their eyes as they spoke about boys they liked. She had never once had that sparkle in her eyes. For fear of punishment, she had never allowed herself to like a boy.
She wiped her tears and realised that she’d been crying for quite some time. She was a pitiful creature. Her head was pounding again. She sat up straight and tried to recuperate the small amount of pride that she still possessed but couldn’t find. She was resolute in her decision never to go back. Forward, she told herself; forward was the only direction she would take from now on.
“Thank you, Mr Stone, for everything, but I really don’t need your charity. I would just like to rest a while longer. My head hurts.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Jacob walked onto the jetty, still thinking about Mercy and wondering how he could help her when she had repeatedly turned down his offers of assistance. She was stubborn and afraid, and she intrigued him even more now. She had fire, ice, and spirit in her veins, yet she was soft and as vulnerable as a kitten. She also had too much pride for her own good.
She was determined not to return to London. It was not his business to ask why she had come to such a steadfast decision. Her young companion, Julia, had not offered Mercy safety or refuge with her aristocratic family. This had disappointed him, but he had not been surprised. The two appeared to be close. Mercy had obviously looked after the young girl during the past couple of weeks, judging by the way Julia had clung to Mercy’s side, yet he understood Julia’s reluctance to take Mercy with her. Mercy would be considered undesirable in Julia’s world. She had no family, no title, and no money. Though her voice was as smooth as honey, her accent was markedly different from Julia’s. Mercy would not be considered a good companion, and she would never be accepted as Julia’s equal.