The Wives of Henry Oades (18 page)

V
IRGINIA NEXT ORGANIZED
a pie auction, which was held on St. Paul’s green grounds. Margaret and the children were obliged to line up on the auctioneer’s platform and face the bidders, a jolly crowd, quite boisterously pleased with their generous selves. The people waved huge wads of notes in the air, paying outrageous sums for the ladies’ pies. At the end the auctioneer came for Margaret, taking her gently by the elbow, as if she might turn to powder, escorting her to his podium. He left her there alone to express her gratitude, which she did in an even voice, belying the humiliation she so keenly felt.

Virginia later remarked that Margaret might have tried to appear appreciative during the auction, offered a smile, a wave, a measly nod or two. Sufficient money would have been raised had she deigned to look half pleasant, not stood like a glowering post the entire time.

“I’m very disappointed in you, Margaret. Very disappointed indeed.”

Virginia quite clearly had had enough. She augmented the donated funds with her own money, paying for steerage accommodations on board the
Sacramento
, which was due to sail in two days’ time. Margaret searched out pen and paper, making a mess of the first letter and starting over, giddy with joy.

“You cannot count on your note arriving first,” said Virginia. “Mr. Oades may not be on hand to meet you.”

“Rest your mind,” said Margaret. “I shall find him.”

She began immediately to prepare, going through the boxes of donated clothes, setting aside two frocks apiece for the girls and herself, shirts for John, an extra pair of trousers. One lady had knitted bulky gray scarves which were meant to be wrapped across the lower half of a pitted face. Margaret kept the scarves from Josephine’s sight, choosing instead wide-brimmed felt hats with fresh blue ribbons. Blue had always been Henry’s favorite color.

March 1899

U
NBEKNOWNST TO
M
ARGARET
, Virginia Bell had bartered Margaret’s services for a reduced fare. Margaret was expected in the galley twice daily, at five in the morning and again at three. In addition, she was to mind the captain’s two young daughters. They were hours out to sea when the first mate came around to inform her. Virginia had also offered up John as a cabin boy, which suited her son just fine.

Except for Deborah and Lillith, the captain’s motherless girls, Margaret and her children were the only passengers on board. They kept to themselves mainly, passing their nights in a dank hole. There was no piano to divert their attention, no singsongs, no library, no berths with sheets, only hammocks slung close together. John fell out of his when the all hands bellow came from above. He was due on deck during the most furious of gales, expected to reef the heavy flapping sails right alongside experienced, sure-footed men. Margaret lay swaying in the dark, nauseated, listening to the pounding boots overhead, the shouting, fearing in the next moment her boy would be swept overboard. For John it was adventure, high and pure.

“It was nothing, Mum,” he said every time.

The
Sacramento
, formerly the
Governor Bartholomew
, was a creaking, shuddering old tub of an English brig. Margaret judged her to be at least thirty years old. She carried Australian wool and seal pelts that stank to high heaven, particularly on the leeward side of the ship. There was no getting used to the odor of decomposition, no getting used to the rats and cockroaches, the weevil-specked flour, the yellow water, and the rancid meat. There was only endurance, and the reward of a splendid sunset, signifying the end of another wretched day. Her stoic children did their best, as they had in captivity. There was little complaining to be heard. They simply kept at it, like the mindless cockroaches themselves, only without the same sense of urgency.

O
NE NIGHT
in the galley Margaret learned that they were to put in at the Sandwich Islands within three or four days. Once there, the current lot of native sailors was to be let off and another set taken on. She asked the taciturn American cook how long they’d be in port, but he did not know. “Can’t say,” he said, with his usual paucity of words. “And the place is called Hawaii now. We took it last summer.”

The captain and mate, Americans as well, were the same way, saying little unless the subject centered on America’s military brilliance. The army would make mincemeat out of the Filipino gooks, said Mr. Grady, the mate. The navy had Guam sewed up.

“Took Wake Island while she was sleeping,” he said, erupting in a rare laugh, thinking his little play on words extremely amusing. Mr. Grady scraped green mold from the last potato and pitched it into the pot. “China’s next,” he said. “Mark my words.”

Mr. Grady looked for American men-of-war every day, but never did spot any. He’d come away from his watch like a lad who’d found coal in his Christmas stocking, treating everyone but the captain to a fit of the sulks.

The captain was another odd duck, though one of a different plumage. No display was made of it, but he had to be in mourning, having lost his wife to pleurisy only four months earlier. He was the indifferent sort, fairly ignoring his poor girls, who were naturally grieving themselves. They did not take to Margaret, perhaps because her pitted face frightened them, perhaps because she was alive and their mother was not. Who could guess the reason? They were ten and twelve, lithe little monkeys, at home on a slippery deck.

“Your stories are silly,” the eldest said straight to her face. They needed no assistance braiding their hair or washing their frocks. “We’re perfectly capable of minding ourselves.” After a week of hovering, Margaret let out the tether, inviting them to come to her anytime. But they never once did.

T
HE WINDS DIED DOWN
on a Wednesday. It was another ten days before the lovely Honolulu harbor came into sight. By then the necessary rationing had begun to take a visible toll on them all.

The gaunt sailors sent up a rousing cheer. Their brown kin paddled out to meet them, bringing music and flowers and exotic women. The sailors dropped their lines one by one and commenced jumping overboard. The lucky lads were quit of this rat-infested bark. Envy made Margaret even hungrier.

The stinking cargo was unloaded first thing. The captain and crew then lowered a boat in preparation for a trip ashore. Fresh stores were sorely needed. Margaret stood watching, wondering when they might weigh anchor and be on their way again. Deborah and Lillith scrambled over the side without so much as a ta-ta for her. Captain Fisk followed, turning to Margaret at the last moment.

“Is there anything out of the ordinary you might require, madam?”

The offer took her by surprise, and so she said no at first, immediately changing her mind.“A book or two would be lovely. How kind of you to ask, sir. Any sort, on any subject, will do.”

“Consider it done,” he said. With that the hellfires still ahead seemed quenched by a good ten degrees. If he brought back just one book she would divide the pages by days at sea to make it last. Two books and she’d be in her glory. More than two was asking too much.

W
ITH THE SHIP
entirely to themselves, Margaret decided on a sea bath, thinking it would do them all a world of good. John had no interest, but kept watch, turning his gentlemanly back as she and the girls stripped down to chemise and drawers. Her modest girls hopped about, hugging themselves, poking each other in the ribs. Skimpy, bony things. As if Margaret had room to speak. She felt quite fit; she simply didn’t look it. She’d like to say it was of no concern, but it was. A woman with a complexion as ravaged as hers was entitled to an ample pleasing figure. Fair’s fair. A husband’s eyes must have someplace to rest.

They climbed down the rope ladder and slipped into the warm water. There were fish of all colors, beautifully speckled and striped. The girls lathered each other with the last of the soap, splashing about, giggling. They were holding hands, dancing a watery minuet, when a long shadow passed behind them. Margaret put an immediate end to the frolicking, refusing their pleas. “A minute longer, please, Mum.” She hadn’t always been so fearful; though perhaps that wasn’t true. She couldn’t reliably recall her former self anymore.

The remainder of the day went by without sign of captain and crew. Just after dark a Kanakan boy paddled up in his canoe. A yellow lantern hung from a pole in his bow. Margaret and the children could see the boy quite clearly. His face was round, his teeth chalk-white. He banged on the side of the hull and lifted a large fish by the tail.

“From the captain!” he yelled in English.

John let down a basket and brought up the fish, along with a bowl of clay, which the boy demonstrated was edible, dipping two fingers into the gray stuff and licking them clean. He signaled for the basket and John dropped it again, pulling up a bar of soap, a tin of lamp oil, and kindling for the stove. Other canoes approached, curious boys in them, chattering happily in their musical tongue. A grand three-quarter moon hung low, throwing ripples of light on the calm water. John lowered the basket a third time. Margaret and her girls leaned over the side of the ship, eager to see what was coming next. They received another glistening fish, some rice, sugar, and flour. Then before her weak eyes a book was pulled from beneath a tarp and placed inside the basket.

“Gently does it now. Don’t drop it, son.”

It was only one, but it was nice and thick. Dickens perhaps. How silly to be so excited. Here it is, here it is. She plucked the book from the basket and turned it over, her shoulders sagging with disappointment. A Bible.

The boy pushed off and paddled away. Margaret made a megaphone of her hands. “Thackeray,” she called. “Austen. Trollope. James.” The boy waved, grinning, flashing his bright shark teeth.

“God bless you also,” he hollered. “God bless you one thousand times.”

Two days later, the boy returned, bringing fish and more taro mush, but no other books. Margaret shouted down, “Any word from the captain?” The boy shook his head no.

On the fourth day, Captain Fisk approached in the ship’s boat. Margaret thought it peculiar that he was alone. At the same time she was hopeful. The winds were out of the west, a perfect day for sailing.

He came bearing gifts, strangely enough. She and the girls were presented with Kanakan dresses, calico frocks that went from neck to toe without a break. “How practical, sir,” said Margaret. “Thank you.”

John received a telescope, which he immediately trained on majestic Diamond Head. The back of his head looked afire in the sunlight, reminding Margaret of a young Henry in England, a walk down to the stables in winter, the Saturday before they married.

“I’ve sold the ship,” said Captain Fisk. “My daughters and I are staying on.”

Margaret broke from reverie. “Sir?”

There was a certain wildness in his gray eyes. “God has called me, Mrs. Oades. There was no mistaking it. My work is here now, among the Kanakans.”

“All best wishes, sir,” said Margaret, baffled by the news. What sort abandons passengers and crew mid journey? “Will the new master be sailing straightaway for America?”

The captain ran his hand along a teak rail in need of oil. “I’m afraid not.”

Her underarms wetted.

“Mr. Bainbridge is a sealer,” he said. “He’ll be heading south. I cannot say when precisely.”

John lowered the glass and moved to Margaret’s side. Her girls stared up at God’s newest servant, clutching their colorful frocks to their narrow chests.

Margaret found her voice. “And as for us, sir?”

“I’ve given your situation long, hard thought, Mrs. Oades.”

Margaret nodded, needles of apprehension pricking. “And?”

“I believe you and your children will best be served by staying on as well. There’s a great deal of work to be done.”

“Sir, we cannot possibly consider…”

He raised his hand and closed his eyes, shaking his woolly head. “Don’t dismiss me so readily, woman.” He flung out an arm. “Look! Open your eyes and look, will you? Look at the sea! The beautiful bountiful sea! Have you ever in your life known any place like it? Here’s latter-day Eden, I tell you. Every day is as now. You’ll never again suffer an English blizzard, or a blistering, mosquito-infested summer. This is God’s own sacred place. Do not suppose you are here by chance, good lady, by some mercurial quirk of fate. God brought you here, and he means you to stay. I prayed on it. Day and night I prayed on it.”

He was breathing hard now, but still did not allow a word in. His daughters would benefit from Margaret’s presence, he claimed, from her wise maternal comfort and guidance. His rabid tone shifted, becoming soft and courtly. “I myself would welcome your company. I try not to question the Lord’s plan. But there is a dearth of eligible white women here.”

“I am not an eligible white woman, sir. I am married.”

“So you say.”

Margaret looked him directly in the eye. “So I do indeed say.”