In the Land of the Long White Cloud (12 page)

“Rosemary!” Helen called in alarm. The girl shrank back and let go of the dog, which turned back to her and raised an imploring paw.

Gwyneira laughed and made her own placating hand motion. “Don’t worry about letting the little one play with her,” she told Helen calmly. “Cleo loves children. She won’t harm her. I’m afraid I must be going. Mr. Warden will be waiting. And I really shouldn’t even be here, as I should be spending some time with my family. After all, that’s why my parents and siblings came all the way to London. It’s just more nonsense though. I’ve seen my family every day for seventeen years now. Everything’s been said. But my mother has been crying the whole time and my sister bawls alongside her in accompaniment. My father’s wallowing in self-pity for sending me to New Zealand, and my brother is so jealous he’d like nothing better than to strangle me. I can’t wait for us to push off. What about you? Did no one come for you?” Gwyneira looked around. Everywhere else in steerage, people were weeping and wailing. Parting gifts were exchanged, final well wishes relayed. Many of these families would be forever separated by this departure.

Helen shook her head. She had set out from the Greenwoods’ home in a cab alone. The rocking chair, her only cumbersome piece of luggage, had been picked up the day before.

“I’m traveling to meet my husband in Christchurch,” she explained, as if that would explain the absence of her loved ones. But she didn’t want under any circumstances to be pitied by this rich and obviously privileged young woman.

“Oh? Then is your family already in New Zealand?” Gwyneira asked excitedly. “You must tell me about it sometime; that is, I’ve never been…but now I really must be going. I’ll see you tomorrow, children. Don’t get seasick! Come, Cleo.” Gwyneira turned to go, but little Dorothy stopped her, tugging bashfully on her skirt.

“Miss, pardon me, miss, but your dress is dirty. Your mother is going to yell.”

Gwyneira laughed, but then looked down at herself, concerned. “You’re right. She’ll have a fit! I’m impossible. I can’t even behave during good-byes.”

“I can brush it off for you, miss. I know velvet.” Dorothy looked solicitously up at Gwyneira, then motioned her to the chair in the cabin.

Gwyneira sat down. “Where did you learn that, little one?” she asked, surprised, as Dorothy went to work skillfully with Helen’s clothes brush; apparently, the girl had observed earlier when Helen had laid her things in the tiny wardrobe that was part of each berth.

Helen sighed. When she’d bought that expensive brush, she had not planned for it to be used for the removal of muck.

“We get clothing donations all the time at the orphanage. But we don’t keep them; the clothes are sold. Before that, though, we have to clean them of course, and I always help with that. Look, miss, it’s all pretty again.” Dorothy smiled shyly.

Gwyneira hunted in her pockets for a gold piece with which to reward the girl, but didn’t find anything. The outfit was too new.

“I’ll bring you all a thank-you gift tomorrow; I promise!” she told Dorothy as she turned to go. “And you’ll make a good housewife someday. Or a maid to very fine people. I’ll be seeing you!” Gwyneira waved to Helen and the girls and ran lightly up the plank.

“She doesn’t even believe that herself,” Daphne stated, spitting behind her. “People like that always make promises, but then you never see them again. You always have to see that they pay up right away, Dot. Otherwise, you’ll never get anything.”

Helen lifted her eyes to heaven. What was that about “select, well-behaved girls, raised to serve meekly”? She needed to clamp down on them.

“Daphne, you will clean that up immediately! Lady Silkham doesn’t owe you a thing. Dorothy offered to be of service. That was politeness, not business. And young ladies do not spit.” Helen looked for a cleaning bucket.

“But
we’re
not ladies!” Laurie and Mary snickered.

Helen glared at them. “By the time we get to New Zealand, you will be,” she promised. “At the very least, you will behave like you are.”

She decided to get their education under way that very moment.

Gwyneira heaved a sigh of relief when the last gangways between the dock and the
Dublin
were hauled in. The hours of good-byes had been exhausting; her mother’s tears alone had soaked through three handkerchiefs. Added to that were her sisters’ wailing and her father’s composed but funereal manner, better suited to a hanging than a wedding. Finally, there was her brother, whose obvious envy got on her nerves. He would have traded his inheritance in Wales for such an adventure. Gwyn suppressed a hysterical giggle. What a shame John Henry couldn’t marry Lucas.

Now, however, the
Dublin
was finally ready to embark on its journey. A rustling as loud as a squall let it be known that the sails were set. The ship still had to clear the Channel and sail for the Atlantic this evening. Gwyneira would have liked to be with her horse, but naturally, that wouldn’t have been proper. So she remained dutifully on deck and waved down to her family with her largest scarf until the shore had almost disappeared from view. Gerald Warden noticed that she did not shed any tears.

Helen’s charges wept bitterly, though, the atmosphere in steerage being more fraught than among the rich travelers. For the poorer immigrants, the trip almost certainly meant a permanent farewell; in addition, most of them were sailing into a much less certain future than Gwyneira and her traveling companions above deck. Helen felt in her bag for Howard’s letters while she consoled the girls. At least someone was expecting them…

She nevertheless slept poorly the first night on board. The sheep were not yet dry, and the stench of manure and wet wool continued drifting into Helen’s sensitive nose. It was an eternity before the children fell asleep, and even then they would start at every noise. When Rosie crept into Helen’s bed for the third time, she no longer had the heart or the energy to turn her out. Laurie and Mary clung to each other too, and the next morning Helen found Dorothy and Elizabeth snuggled up against each other in a corner of Dorothy’s berth. Only Daphne had slept soundly; if she was dreaming, they must have been good dreams because the girl was smiling in her sleep when Helen finally woke her up.

The first morning at sea proved unexpectedly calm. Robert Greenwood had warned Helen that the first few weeks might be stormy since there were mostly rough seas between the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. That day, though, the weather extended the émigrés’ grace period. The sun was pale after the rain the day before, and the sea shimmered a steely gray in the wan light. The
Dublin
moved sedately across the smooth surface of the water.

“I don’t see the shore at all anymore,” Dorothy whispered, afraid. “If we sink now, no one will find us! Then we’ll all drown!”

“You would have drowned if the ship had sunk in the harbor in London,” Daphne observed. “You can’t swim, you know, and you would have long since drowned before they finished rescuing everyone from the upper deck.”

“You can’t swim either,” Dorothy retorted. “You would be just as drowned as me.”

Daphne laughed. “I would not! I fell into the Thames once when I was little but doggy-paddled out. Scum floats on the surface, my old man said.”

Helen decided to interrupt the conversation for more than simple pedagogical reasons.

“Your
father
said, Daphne,” she corrected. “Even if he did not quite express himself in such a genteel manner. Now stop scaring the others or they won’t have any appetite for breakfast. Which we can go get now. So, who’s going to the galley? Dorothy and Elizabeth? Very good. Laurie and Mary will take care of the water for washing…oh, that’s right, my ladies, we will wash up. Even when traveling, a lady insists on cleanliness.”

When Gwyneira walked through steerage an hour later to check on her horses, she came upon a strange sight. The corridor outside the cabins was almost empty, most of the passengers being occupied either with breakfast or homesickness. However, Helen and her girls had brought out their table and chair. Helen sat enthroned, proud and upright, every ounce a lady. In front of her, on the table, was an improvised place setting, consisting of a tin plate, a bent spoon, a fork, and a dull knife. Dorothy was in the midst of presenting Helen with imaginary serving platters of food while Elizabeth handled an old bottle as though she were graciously serving a fine wine.

“What
are
you doing?” Gwyneira asked, dumbfounded.

Dorothy curtsied carefully. “We’re practicing what to do when serving at table, Lady Silk…Silk…”

“Gwyneira Silkham. But you may call me
miss
. And, could you tell me again now—you’re practicing
what
?” Gwyneira eyed Helen suspiciously. Yesterday the young governess had seemed completely normal, but perhaps she was a little odd.

Helen blushed slightly under Gwyneira’s gaze, but composed herself quickly.

“This morning I discovered that the girls’ table manners leave something to be desired,” she said. “In the orphanage, they must have approached meals as though they were caged carnivores. The
children eat with their fingers and stuff themselves full as if it were their last meal on earth!”

Ashamed, Dorothy and Elizabeth stared at the ground. The reproach had less of an effect on Daphne.

“Perhaps they wouldn’t have gotten anything to eat otherwise,” Gwyneira speculated. “When I see how thin the girls are…but what is that supposed to be?” Once again she pointed to the table. Helen corrected the placement of the knife.

“I’m showing the girls how a lady carries herself at table and in the process teaching them how to serve skillfully,” she replied. “I don’t think it likely that they’ll be taken in by larger households where they would specialize in being a lady’s maid, a cook, or a cleaning maid. The personnel situation in New Zealand is supposed to be extremely bad. So I am going to give the children as comprehensive an education as I can on the way over so that they can be useful to their employers in as many different capacities as possible.”

Helen gave Elizabeth a friendly nod; the girl had just poured water into her coffee cup with perfect form, catching any spilled drops with her napkin.

Gwyneira remained skeptical. “Useful?” she asked. “These children? I wanted to ask yesterday why they were being sent overseas, but now it’s becoming clear to me…am I right in guessing that the orphanage wanted to get rid of them, but no one in London wanted little half-starved serving girls?”

Helen nodded. “They’re pinching pennies. Housing, feeding, clothing, and sending a child to school costs three pounds a year in the orphanage. This passage costs four, but then the children are gone for good. Otherwise, they would have to keep Rosemary and the twins on at least two more years.”

“But the half-price fare is only for children twelve and under,” Gwyneira objected, which astonished Helen. Had this rich girl really inquired about steerage prices? “And the girls could only first take a position at thirteen.”

Helen rolled her eyes. “In practice, at twelve, though I’d swear that Rosie cannot be more than eight. But you are right: Dorothy and Daphne should really have had to pay full price. However, the honorable ladies of the orphanage committee probably made them out to be somewhat younger for the journey.”

“And we’ll have hardly arrived when the little ones age miraculously in order to take positions as thirteen-year-olds!” Gwyneira laughed and searched through the pockets of her white housedress, over which she’d thrown a light shawl. “The world is no good. Here, girls, have something proper to munch on. It’s nice to play at serving, but you won’t put any meat on your bones that way. Here you go!”

The young woman happily pulled out muffins and sweet rolls by the handful. The girls forgot their newly acquired table manners for a moment and pounced on the treats.

Helen attempted to restore order and distribute the sweets properly. Gwyneira beamed.

“That was a good idea, wasn’t it?” she asked Helen, as the six children sat on the side of a lifeboat, taking small bites as they had been taught and not sticking the whole things in their mouths at once. “On the upper deck they serve food as though it were the Grand Hotel, and I couldn’t help thinking of your scrawny little mice. So I polished off the table a bit. I wasn’t out of line, was I?”