The Lost Daughter

by Iris Cole

  “Come on,” he ordered, marching across the room to grasp her by the wrist. She barely had time to grab her carpetbag of belongings before he yanked her out of her chair.

  Though she would have gone willingly, he all but dragged her out into the narrow passageway, and all the way through the belly of the ship, up to the top deck. There, a few sailors cast her curious looks, and a few waved in gratitude, pointing at the various body parts that she had helped heal. But she did not wave back. She looked across the deck instead, desperately searching for Bill.

  “I really am sorry,” she said quietly, as Captain Wilks hauled her down the gangway to the wharf below.

  He snorted. “Count yourself lucky you didn’t try this with a different captain, or you’d be in a watery grave instead of on dry land.”

  She gave a mute nod and turned her gaze up to the bulwark. There, she saw him at last.

  Bill…

  He was halfway up the rigging, peering down at the wharf with his hand to his brow, to block out the glare of the already-risen sun. A sad smile graced his lips as he caught sight of her, and her breath hitched as she watched him raise his hand to his chest, his palm covering the exact spot where his coin must once have rested.

  In reply, she brought her hand to the coins that lay just below the notch at the bottom of her throat and clasped them tightly. His hand curled, gripping the fabric of his shirt, while he gave her a nod that seemed to say: “I’m coming back for that token… and you.”

  It might have comforted her, if someone had not made that same promise to her seventeen years ago and failed to keep it.

  But perhaps Bill would be different. Or, perhaps, by him allowing her onto the ship, she had doomed him to some awful fate out there on the open sea. She supposed she would only find out which it would be in time, even if she did not know how long the wait would be. Surely, it would not be another seventeen years.

  “Don’t let me see you again, lass,” Captain Wilks hissed, giving her a push.

  Clary bowed her head. “You won’t, Captain.”

  But I do hope I’ll see you again, Bill. She hoped that, somehow, he knew what she was thinking. Indeed, she would have raised a hand to wave farewell to him, but she did not dare to with the captain watching her. She had managed to spare Bill from being cast from the crew; she did not want to ruin that good work now.

  And so, she turned on her heel and walked away from the Dawn Voyager, wearing the clothes of a stranger, in a city she did not know at all, to find a family who had abandoned her, with everything she owned hanging off her shoulder.

  Chapter Eleven

  Upon finding a vacant corner of a ramshackle warehouse where she would not be disturbed by prying eyes, Clary changed back into her female attire and stuffed the borrowed clothing into her carpetbag.

  She had contemplated dumping it in this very warehouse, but sense told her she might need it later. After all, there had been no time for Bill to give her the money he had promised, so she would have to be wise about her plan to return to London, if Manchester bore no fruit.

  Throwing the bag over her shoulder once more, she wandered back toward the wharves, careful to avoid the place where the Dawn Voyager was harboured. Then again, with her hair down and now attired in a dress, perhaps Captain Wilks would not recognise her.

  Even if he saw her swollen eye, he would likely just think her to be another unfortunate wife who had been on the receiving end of a violent husband’s fist.

  “Excuse me?” she called out to a nearby sailor.

  He turned, adopting a somewhat lecherous smile as she approached. “Aye, duck. What can I do for ye?”

  “Might you tell me where I can find Captain Dunbar?” she asked, ignoring his stares.

  The sailor raised an eyebrow. “What are ye wantin’ with him, eh?”

  “I just need to find him,” she replied tersely.

  The man laughed. “Well, ye’re a few months too late, duck.”

  “What do you mean?” Her heart began to pound rapidly, fearing the captain she was looking for might be dead.

  “He sailed off to America a few months back. If ye’re wantin’ a word with him, ye can find him here in another few months,” the sailor said, eyeing her abdomen. “What’s the matter, eh? Ye carryin’ his wain or somethin’? The auld dog has one in every port.”

  Clary gaped at him. “I am not carrying anything of the sort,” she snarled defensively, more to hide her crushing disappointment than anything else.

  If Captain Dunbar was not due to return for several months, then she had come up to this part of the country for no reason whatsoever.

  Staring off toward the glinting ocean, where the cold sunlight turned the frothing tips of the waves a jagged silver, she gripped her twin coins once more.

  Conflict reigned inside her mind: one battalion telling her to retreat to London, to the offer of employment and a familiar, comfortable life, while the other told her to remain steadfast and wait here until she could find what she had been looking for, all these years.

  But what am I to do here whilst I wait? I don’t know this place. The fine hairs upon her forearms stood on end, chilled by the whipping wind that blew off the sea.

  She turned back to the sailor. “Could you tell me where I can find the Dock Office?” If there was anyone else that might know the meaning of the markings on the back of her father’s coin, it would be someone there.

  Even if they did not know of her father specifically, they might have manifests dating back to seventeen years ago, that might shed more light on why she had been left behind.

  Unless those manifests are in London…

  A prickle of anxiety beetled up her spine, for if there were manifests in London with her father’s name upon them, then this journey had been doubly useless.

  Then again, she had to remember that she did not know her father’s name. She had only his initials. And there might be a hundred F.C.’s in manifests up and down the country. She just needed to find the one that had sailed with Captain Dunbar.

  The sailor pointed up the dock, toward a squat white building at the far end. “That’s where ye’ll find it, duck.”

  She did not know why he kept calling her “duck,” but she supposed it must be a northern colloquialism, for he spoke with a broad accent that she had not heard before.

  Turning away from the sailor with a mumbled, “thank you,” Clary hurried along the dock, weaving in and out of the sailors and hawkers and dirt-streaked children that crowded the long, wide platform. Although, it saddened her to see that the same poverty and destitution existed here, as it did at home.

  Most of the children looked as though they had never eaten a decent meal in the entirety of their short lives; she could see their ribs poking through their thin clothes, and the outline of their skulls, where the skin had sunken in, having no roundness to cling to.I wish I could give you some of my coins, sweet children, but if I give it to you, I will have nothing.

  Had she been in London, knowing there was somewhere she could go, she would have given her last coins to them anyway, but this was an entirely different situation. Here in Manchester, she did not know anyone, and did not know of anywhere she could go to seek sanctuary.

  Reaching the Dock Office, she entered the imposing double doors and headed up a short flight of marble steps. A half-circle of high desks, with blank-eyed men behind each one, followed the circular shape of the cavernous hall, though she was not sure which desk she was supposed to approach.

  After a moment of thought, she walked towards the nearest one.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “My name is Clary O’Shea, and I’m looking for information about a sailor with the initials “F.C.” who sailed with Captain Dunbar about seventeen years ago. Would you have those available here?”

  A thin-faced man with even thinner lips, and slicked fair hair, eyed her over the rims of a round pair of spectacles. “Aye, we would, but you’d not be able to have ‘em.”

  “Pardon
?” she blurted out, in surprise.

  “Do you have a written request to look at the manifests?” the man replied curtly.

  Clary paused. “Well… no, but—”

  “Then you can’t look at them. You need a written request, and then you need written permission.” The man flicked his hand in a shooing motion.

  Clary’s expression hardened. “And where would I find the required documents to write my request?”

  “You wouldn’t. We don’t hand them out to women.” The man sneered. “Get back to the seam, or the mill, or wherever you’ve come from. I’ve got work to be doing, and that doesn’t involve pandering to the whims of little girls.”

  Clary’s mouth hung open in appalled shock. “I am searching for my father!”

  “Aye, you and a thousand others.”

  The man waved her away again, but she did not move. “Listen, if you don’t go of your own accord, I’ll have to get some lads to drag you out. So, why don’t you go nice and peaceful, without causing a fuss.”

  Clary continued to stay where she was. “I am not leaving until you tell me where I can get the documents to make my request.”

  “Why don’t you go and ask whichever orphanage you came from instead, eh? Do you know how many children all these sailors have, all around the world?” The man chuckled darkly. “This sailor you’re searching for probably wouldn’t even remember your ma’s name, so why don’t you save yourself the trouble, and just forget you even have a pa. Look in every orphanage, and you can bet half of ‘em have come from a sailor’s loins.”

  Clary felt the prick of stinging tears as his brutally honest words washed over her.

  Of course, she had known that might be a possibility, that she might be the result of one night’s passionate mistake, but she had refused to believe it until she heard this man speak of it so frankly.

  Moreover, there was always the chance that her mother had not even wanted the encounter. What if her father was merely some brute who had done to her mother what those thieves had tried to do to her?

  Overwhelmed with emotion, and not wanting to give this wretched man the satisfaction of seeing her cry, she whirled around and stormed out the way she had come. Once she was out in the biting cold of the morning air, she did not stop until she had reached the dark and foetid corner of the filthy warehouse where she had changed her clothing.

  Only then, nestled in the musty shadows, did she allow the tears to come. And come they did, streaming down her face in unstoppable rivulets that trickled into her mouth, tasting of salt and misery.

  Sitting right in the grime and detritus of the warehouse, she heaved out great, wrenching sobs and hugged her knees to her chest, wishing with all her might that she had never come here.

  “It is hopeless, Bill,” she whispered into her knees. “You offered me reassuring words, and I am grateful for that, but I have to face the truth…” And though she could not speak it aloud, the four tortuous words echoed in her head regardless: I was not wanted.

  Chapter Twelve

  Once the tears ebbed, Clary forced herself to change back into the masculine attire that Bill had stolen for her, one last time, so she might try her luck all the way along the Bridgewater Canal. Surely, someone would take her back to London for the meagre sum of coins she had left in her pocket…

  “Excuse me?” she called to a nearby sailor, as she scratched at her itchy neck beneath the coarse collar of her filthy shirt.

  He eyed her. “What?”

  “Is your ship returning to London?”

  The sailor snorted. “Aye, in about half a year or so.” He squinted. “This ain’t no passenger ship, lad. If ye’re wantin’ those, ye want to take yerself back up to Liverpool.”

  “Liverpool?” Clary’s eyes widened, wondering if this place was, perhaps, close. “How would I get there?”

  She did not remember coming past any such place, but then she had been trapped in the bowels of a ship, without a single window to see by.

  The sailor stared at her as though she were quite mad. “Same way ye got here, I expect.”

  “Could I walk there?” Clary pressed.

  He raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Aye, I suppose ye could, but ye’d not get a place on any passenger ship worth its salt, lookin’ like an urchin.” He paused. “Ye’ll have to explain to me, lad—are ye lookin’ for work or lookin’ to get somewhere?”

  “I need to reach London as soon as possible,” she replied, for she knew she could not stay here for several months in the hope of happening upon Captain Dunbar. Taking action on Bill’s suggestion, her new plan was to go back to London, and then seek passage back up to Manchester in a few months’ time, when she could be more certain that she would find the man she was looking for.

  After all, her employment at the Saint Pancras Female Orphanage would not wait for her, and, this way, there would be time for her face to heal before she arrived for her first day of work.

  The sailor nodded blankly. “Then good luck to ye. Most of these here ships are sailin’ out to America, to take shipments of cotton goods and receive the raw cotton to bring back. Ye might find one kindly captain who’ll take ye back as far as Liverpool, but I don’t fancy yer chances.”

  “I see.” Clary dipped her head in thought and, when she looked back up, the sailor had gone. Puzzled, she walked on, stopping to repeat the same pleas and questions to every sailor she encountered. All of them said the same thing, though not all said it quite as nicely.

  “Get out of here before ye spread yer fleas!” one howled at her.

  “Ye’ll be lucky to find the gutter, never mind London,” said another.

  “Scarper, lad, and don’t let me catch ye wanderin’ around here again. I know what sorts like ye are up to—ye want one of us poor sods to take pity on ye, then ye’ll rob us blind and run off at the next port!” raged a third, who had obviously been on the receiving end of such a ploy.

  “There’s no work for you here,” claimed the next. The answer was always of the same manner.

  Either one of derision or suspicion each time she asked “Line up with the rest of the lads looking for work. You don’t get to cut in when there are already plenty of lads bigger, and stronger, and hardier than you waiting on the docks each day.”

  By the time afternoon stretched into evening, and the sky had begun to bleed purple and bronze with the setting sun, Clary’s stomach gnawed painfully, and her legs ached from walking up and down the same stretch of land over and over again. Even if she had possessed some additional strength in her limbs, she could not muster a single ounce of energy in her exhausted and emotionally drained mind.

  Realising that she would gain no generosity from the dock workers today, she urged her lead-heavy feet into the city itself. Perhaps, the coins in her pockets would be enough to buy a room at a boarding house for the night, since it seemed her money was no good here on the docks.

  On her way, however, she paused once more in front of the Dawn Voyager. Her eyes scoured the vessel for a glimpse of Bill, though she braced herself in case she needed to run from the livid presence of Captain Wilks.

  She saw Bill, just for a moment, as he crossed the top deck with several large sacks balanced on his broad shoulders.

  A sad smile graced her lips, her weary heart urging him to turn around and look at her. When he did not, she touched the copper coin around her neck and whispered, “Keep your promise to me, Bill. Please… keep your promise.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and headed away from the docks, knowing she would be back the next day, and the next, and the next, until someone… anyone… allowed her to go home. For though she had come to this place willingly, she did not want to find herself trapped here, half a country away from everything and everyone she knew.

  If she had only glanced back, at that moment, she would have seen a figure standing on the prow, imploring her to look at him, just as she had done. He even cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, to draw her attention
, but his voice was whipped away by the wind.

  All he could do was watch her sad, slow-moving shape blend into the encroaching darkness, and feel the weight of the small pouch of money in his hand, intended for her. But he was as trapped as she was, for if he so much as set foot away from this wharf, Captain Wilks would not allow Bill to stay on the crew.

  And so, the ill-fated pair had no choice but to part ways, neither knowing that the other had longed for them to turn around and see them.

  But as long as one kept their promise, and one refused to lose hope, perhaps their paths would one day cross again, under happier circumstances.

  Until that day, however, they would have to proceed alone, and endure whatever fate, and the world, and unknown places, and the open sea threw at them.

  Chapter Thirteen

  That night, Clary walked despondently through the crowded streets of Manchester, where carriages clattered along the roads at breakneck speed, without a care for those on foot, and every face she saw seemed to reflect the exhaustion and starvation of her own.

  There were children trying to scrounge dumped cheese rinds and vegetable peelings from the gutter, some of them cheering triumphantly when they found a carrot top with some actual carrot attached. Meanwhile, mothers watched them absently as they sipped from ceramic jars; the women’s eyes glassy and distant.

  I’ll freeze to death if I can’t find a place to sleep tonight, she fretted, pulling her woollen cloak tighter about herself. She had already tried at least six boarding houses, but they had all given her similar responses.

  “We’re full.”

  “We don’t want your sort in here.”

  “Try the one down the road.”

  “What are you—a lad or a lass? Either way, we’ve no rooms for the likes of you. You look like trouble.”

  Clary knew she might have fared better if it had not been for the bruising upon her face, and the fact she was now wearing her dress over the top of the boy’s clothes for additional warmth, but there was little she could do about either.