Into the Storm

by Avi

  “I heard they were taking on at the Appleton Mill.”

  The man shook his head. “Only Irish.”

  “Mr. Jenkins wants to get rid of the Paddies.”

  “Does he now? Well, they’re hungry too, I suppose.”

  “Not as hungry as us,” Jeb declared.

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Grafton said with an indifferent shrug. “I ain’t never seen into a man’s belly, but I expect they’re all the same.” He tapped the newspaper. “Got a good yarn here, this week,” he said. “It’s about a ship at sea in a storm.”

  “Mr. Jenkins is a powerful man.”

  ’Cause he gave you a half dime? Pshaw!” Mr. Grafton read a bit more to himself before folding up the newspaper. “Look here, Jeb, let’s see your money.”

  Jeb smoothed down the child’s curly hair, then gently put him aside, took off his coat, and wrapped it around him. From his pocket he drew out his earnings, went to his father, and dumped the money onto the table.

  Mr. Grafton counted the coins carefully. “Twenty-five cents,” he said approvingly. “You did fine.”

  “You could go to California,” the boy blurted out. “Find some gold for us. Not right that just me and her” — he nodded toward the inner room —” do all the work.”

  “It costs money to go to California.”

  “You could walk. Lots are.”

  “Walk? Three thousand miles? Pshaw!”

  Frustrated, Jeb grabbed the candle in its cracked saucer and, with his cap pulled low, crept to the doorway of the back room and looked in at his mother. Sarah Grafton sat on the bed, her back propped against the wall. A blanket was drawn around her. Her long black hair lay in disorder and contrasted sharply with her pale thin face. About her mouth Jeb saw specks of blood. Now and again she coughed, deep racking coughs, but she made no movement to suppress them.

  Her son went to her side and sat on the bed. Mrs. Grafton looked at him with dark enormous eyes. “Jeb, darling, you mustn’t go at him so,” she whispered. “It ain’t his fault.”

  “I know,” Jeb returned.

  “Is it a nice coat you got?”

  “Best in the world.”

  She smiled. “I’ll look at it later. I was just waiting up for you. But I’m tired. Go on now,” she said. “I’ll be fine.” She closed her eyes.

  Jeb watched her face — which was full of pain — for a while. Then he went back into the front room. “Do you think a doctor would come?”

  Mr. Grafton shrugged. “To cure the cotton cough? Don’t you think I’ve asked? The doctor, with his medicine, costs ten dollars. Have any notion where to get that?”

  “I could ask Mr. Jenkins.”

  “Maybe you should,” his father said. “Truth is, Jeb, they say the only cure is to get away from the mill.”

  Jeb said nothing.

  “Look here, son, I was turned off at the mill for objecting to the speedup. They’ve got my name down. Blacklisted. That’s why I can’t find work. Anywhere. If she got turned off too, where would we be?” He scooped up pennies and stood. “I’ll fetch some bread and tea. Maybe some milk. You stay home now, do you hear?”

  A series of coughs came from the inner room. Father and son exchanged looks but no words. Mr. Grafton went out the door.

  For a while Jeb remained motionless. Then he turned to his brother and gathered him up on his lap once more. The baby laughed and wave his hands in glee.

  “I hate them Irish,” Jeb whispered into his brother’s small ear. “I hate them. But that Mr. Jenkins said he’d do something. And I’m going to help him. Won’t that be grand?”

  In one corner of his small room, Mr. Jenkins knelt before a shrinelike assemblage upon a low table, a cluster of multi-colored ribbons, silk flowers, and seashells. In its very corner was a Daguerreotype of a dead boy’s face: Mr. Jenkins’s son.

  As he stared at the image, the man clasped his hands together, not in prayer, but in a tight fist. “Revenge …,” he whispered over and over again. “Revenge….”

  All during his first night on the Robert Peel an uproar of singing and coughing, groaning and weeping and praying had interrupted Patrick O’Connell’s sleep. On one side of him, Bridy Faherty tossed restlessly. On the other side stretched Mr. Drabble, one arm dangling down from the platform, long legs twisted awkwardly. His breathing was loud.

  The family below them never seemed to quiet. Even the sound of people scratching — lice, no doubt — had irritated the boy. Everything on the platforms — people and possessions — shifted and stirred constantly.

  Patrick dozed. When he awoke again, both Maura and Mr. Drabble were gone. With a spurt of resentment, he recalled the scene he had witnessed earlier, the actor on his knees before his sister. Sure, but she’ll be having less time for me, he thought.

  Then he considered Bridy. She was at the opposite end of the berth now, hunched against a post, staring at him. “Bridy Faherty,” he asked, “how old would you be?”

  “Eight,” she whispered, so low he almost could not hear her.

  “You need not be fearful of me,” he said. “I’ll not do you any harm.”

  The girl said nothing.

  “Well then, did you see where my sister or that Mr. Drabble went?” he asked.

  Bridy shook her head.

  “Wouldn’t it be fine if they were getting some food,” he said.

  When the girl gave no further response, Patrick thought of Laurence. His friend must be famished!

  Lowering himself to the floor, Patrick made his way to the central stairway, then down to the first cargo hold. Just as he started toward the open hatchway, Mr. Murdock loomed before him.

  The boy jumped back in fright.

  “Where do you think yer going?” the first mate demanded.

  “Just looking about, Your Honor,” Patrick stammered, afraid to raise his eyes.

  “Look at me when yer speak,” Mr. Murdock snapped, jerking up Patrick’s chin. “Yer allowed on the steerage deck, the main deck, and the forecastle deck. Nowhere else. Go poke where yer allowed,” the officer growled. “If I catch yer out of place again, I’ll break your neck. Get on now!”

  Patrick turned, ran to the steps, and hurried back to their berth. But seeing that neither his sister nor Mr. Drabble had returned, he again left the steerage deck.

  The main deck was crowded. People were milling about or silently watching the sea. Some were in line for the two privies available to the steerage passengers. Set on the forecastle deck and enclosed on but three sides, they afforded little privacy.

  Yet another line led to the fireplace, the only cooking space made available to the emigrants. It consisted of a metal grill surrounded by bricks stacked loosely on three sides of a brick-and-mortar floor. Ashes and smoke spewed onto anyone near it. Regardless, the line of passengers waiting to cook on the fireplace lasted all day and into the night. Now and again people did try to slip into the line or bully their way forward. Then harsh words and fists erupted.

  When Patrick saw neither his sister nor Mr. Drabble on either of the lines, he took himself up to the forecastle deck. Near the billethead he spied the actor deeply engaged with his gentleman student, Mr. Grout.

  Patrick watched them from a distance, glad that the actor was not with his sister. But he did wish he knew where she was.

  From the height of the forecastle deck Patrick was able to look across to the quarterdeck at the aft section of the ship. It was there he saw his sister. She was not alone. A gray-haired gentleman was talking to her. Two sailors stood near as though on guard. Immediately, Patrick recalled what the first mate had just told him, that steerage people were not allowed there.

  Worried, he watched. From the way Maura’s head was bowed, her hands tight together, he sensed she was in trouble.

  He hurried down from the forecastle deck, ran across the main deck, then dashed up the steps toward his sister.

  “Here now,” a sailor barked, trying to keep him from coming closer. “Get off with you!”


  Deftly, Patrick darted around him and reached his sister’s side. She gave him a quick glance, lifting a hand in warning.

  “And who is this?” the man who had been talking to her demanded. It was Ambrose Shagwell.

  “He’s my brother, if it please Your Honor,” Maura said.

  The man grunted. “Another one going where he’s not wanted. Well, you can repeat what I’ve been telling you, that you Irish are making a mistake coming to America.”

  Maura looked up. “It was our father who sent for us, Your Honor.”

  “Your father!” the American scoffed. “He shouldn’t be there either. Take my advice, girl, and board the first boat back home. You’ll be better off — and good riddance.” Mr. Shagwell turned on his heels and walked away.

  “All right now,” one of the sailors said harshly, “get along. The two of you. And don’t come back.”

  Maura turned stiffly and led Patrick down the steps. Neither spoke a word. Only when they reached the main deck did her brother say, “And what was that all about?”

  Maura said nothing at first. Instead, she leaned over the bulwark and stared out at the waves.

  “Maura …,” Patrick pressed.

  “I was just wandering,” she said at last. “Faith, no one told me we weren’t allowed up there. Then that wretched man stopped me, and didn’t he make me listen to his ugly sermon.”

  “Did he do you any harm?” Patrick asked, studying his sister’s face.

  Maura jerked her head to toss her hair out of her eyes. “Not a bit,” she said. “Sure, but he’s just a stupid man with no courtesy about him. I don’t intend to pay it any mind. And neither should you. It’ll take more than that to stop us.”

  Mr. Phineas Pickler, new bowler hat in one hand, a paper-wrapped package in the other, stood before Lord Kirkle in his lordship’s study. Upon the desk between them lay a few pinned sheets of paper — Mr. Pickler’s report regarding the running away of Sir Laurence Kirkle.

  Having just read the report, Lord Kirkle sat with his hands clasped before him. Pain filled his red watery eyes. As Mr. Pickler waited — and he had been standing quietly for several minutes — his lordship, in an agitated state, kept lifting up and putting down the papers.

  Restless, Mr. Pickler glanced about the room. He contemplated the cost of the heavy furniture. He wondered if anyone actually read the many leather-bound books that filled the shelves. He ventured to ask himself if the green velvet curtains covering the front windows were ever pulled back so as to let sunlight in, thereby making unnecessary the fireplace, with its hot, glowing coals. Finally — and not for the first time, for he had read it on his earlier visit to this Belgrave mansion — Mr. Pickler pondered the familyMOTTO, chiseled below the gleaming marble mantel.

  FOR COUNTRY, GLORY — FORFAMILY, HONOR

  What price honor? Mr. Pickler asked himself silently, and thought of his own home, of his wife and two children.

  Lord Kirkle stood up. The light cast by the fireplace flames caused his black silken waistcoat to gleam and the gold watch and chain that stretched over his stomach to glow. Slowly, he asked again in anguish, “And you are quite sure, Mr. Pickler, that my son has left England?”

  “I do not have absolute proof of it, my lord,” the investigator replied. “But all indications lead me to that conclusion.”

  “And where has he gone, do you think?”

  “I believe he boarded the packet ship Robert Peel, which is bound for the American city of Boston.”

  “Boston …,” his lordship murmured. “As a stowaway.”

  “I fear so.”

  Lord Kirkle shuddered visibly. “And that one thousand pounds he … borrowed?”

  “As my report indicates, it was apparently stolen from him. By whom I cannot say.”

  “How … how could he do this to me?” Lord Kirkle sighed.

  “My lord, he had help.”

  Lord Kirkle looked up sharply. “From whom? And why doesn’t your report say that?”

  Mr. Pickler stared into his new bowler. Recollecting that Lord Kirkle had not told him the truth about the circumstances of Sir Laurence’s leaving, he felt constrained to be wary. “In the last instance,” he said, “he received help from a street urchin by the name of Fred.”

  “A street urchin?” Lord Kirkle asked incredulously. “A boy by the name of Fred?”

  “That seems to have been his only name.”

  “And who is he, sir?”

  “My lord, I believe Sir Laurence became a pawn in a struggle within a local organization in Liverpool called the Lime Street Runners Association. This … Fred was a member, if you will.”

  Lord Kirkle took up and dropped Mr. Pickler’s report as if it were a leaden weight. “All this is beyond my understanding,” he admitted. “What I need to know is why my boy left. You don’t say that in your report either, do you?” He looked right at Mr. Pickler. The investigator slowly lifted his eyes. The two men stared at each other.

  It was Lord Kirkle who turned away.

  “No, it is not written there,” Mr. Pickler allowed.

  Lord Kirkle moved from behind the barrier of his desk and approached the fire. He held his hands out and washed them in the warmth, his breathing labored. “I appreciate your tact,” Lord Kirkle said at last. “All the same, sir, I desire you to say what needs to be said.”

  Mouth dry, heart beating rapidly, Mr. Pickler squeezed the rim of his bowler. “My lord,” he began, “just before your son left this house he was — I believe — beaten.” Though Lord Kirkle’s body stiffened, he said nothing.

  Emboldened by the silence, Mr. Pickler continued. “His clothing was cut in many places, my lord.” Putting aside his bowler, the investigator unwrapped his package and drew forth Laurence’s filthy torn jacket. He laid it upon the desk.

  Lord Kirkle held up the jacket. Light showed through the rents. The man groaned.

  “Moreover, my lord,” Mr. Pickler went on nervously, “the boy bore a disfiguring welt upon his face. Presumably … it came from that beating.”

  In the stillness of the room, the clock’s ticking sounded like a heartbeat. “My lord,” Mr. Pickler ventured after a moment, “if what I said is untrue and I have brought an unjust accusation, I will withdraw from your house immediately.”

  Lord Kirkle stroked the torn jacket, even looped his fat fingers through the rips. In a choked voice he said, “It is true, sir.”

  The investigator allowed himself a deep breath. “It is my judgment,” he continued in a stronger voice, “that the beating as well as the wound on his face not only propelled Sir Laurence from this house, but made it easier for another to prey upon him.”

  Lord Kirkle looked up sharply. “Another sir?”

  “I have come to the conclusion, my lord, that while in the first instance Sir Laurence desired to leave London, he was aided by someone.”

  “Who?” Lord Kirkle demanded.

  “My lord, does the name Matthew Clemspool mean anything to you?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “My inquiries have informed me that he has a business called Brother’s Keeper. On Bow Lane. In the City. Its principal purpose is to exploit the conflicts between younger and older brothers in families of wealth.”

  “I don’t grasp your meaning, sir.”

  “If,” Mr. Pickler explained, “a younger brother wishes to trouble or push aside an older brother, he engages Mr. Clemspool. By the same token, if an older brother wishes to trouble or push aside a younger one, he also engages Mr. Clemspool.”

  From his pocket Mr. Pickler drew out the tincture of rhubarb. He held the bottle up. “This, sir, was procured for your son by this Mr. Clemspool. A chemist had advised me it contains something beyond the tincture. He suspects a sleeping potion.”

  “Despicable! I will have this Clemspool fellow arrested!”

  “He seems to have vanished.”

  “I’ll track him down!”

  “He is not to be traced.”

&n
bsp; “Are you implying, Mr. Pickler, that this scoundrel abducted Laurence?”

  Mr. Pickler bobbed his head and swallowed hard. “No, sir, I am not saying that.”

  “Then, good heavens, man,” Lord Kirkle thundered, “what are you saying?”

  “My lord, you have another son.”

  “What about him?”

  “Perhaps, my lord,” the investigator offered, “it would be wise to ask —” He hesitated. Then, speaking more softly, he added, “Ask Sir Albert if he has had any dealings with this Matthew Clemspool.”

  It took a moment for Lord Kirkle to absorb the thought. When he had, his face turned fiery. “Mr. Pickler,” he cried, “are you fully aware of what you are saying?”

  “My lord, this Mr. Clemspool informed me himself that he helped Sir Laurence leave London and reach Liverpool. He was employed to do so, I believe, by … your elder son. Once in Liverpool I am quite sure Sir Laurence got on a ship that sailed for America — as a stowaway.”

  The blood drained from Lord Kirkle’s face. His body sagged. He would have fallen if he had not grasped the edge of the desk. Only with great effort did he pull himself up to his full height.

  “Mr. Pickler,” he whispered in a breaking voice, “do you think my boy is … alive?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, my lord. But they do not treat stowaways kindly. And … many die on these emigrant boats.” Mr. Pickler looked into his bowler, which, for security, he had retrieved from the desk. “Even if your son survived the voyage and reached America, I don’t know how we could find him.” The investigator looked up. “America is a measureless place. We have only the Robert Peel’s destination to go on.”

  For several minutes Lord Kirkle said nothing. Then, speaking very slowly, he said, “Mr. Pickler, I thank you for your efforts. Your services are no longer required. Consider yourself dismissed.”

  Mr. Pickler was so astonished by Lord Kirkle’s words that he had no breath to respond.

  “Leave my home immediately, sir,” Lord Kirkle croaked hoarsely. “At once! You are not to share your speculations with anyone — anyone. If you do, it shall be worth your life.”