what I mean.” She closed her eyes and threw back her head, embracing the air, an invisible lover. A warm flutter passed through Margaret. She felt herself blushing. Mrs. Randolph let out a dreamy moan, her back arching, the stool teetering. She toppled off sideways, hitting her head with a solid thud.
“Mrs. Randolph! Are you all right?”
The cabin door flew open. Storming in ahead of the children, clumsy Henry nearly stepped on Mrs. Randolph’s outstretched hand. She rolled out of his range and stood awkwardly, brushing herself off, starting to laugh. Margaret laughed too. She couldn’t help herself.
Henry stood staring, looking as if he’d happened upon a cell of loons. “I heard the noise. What are you up to here? I thought my wife had fallen out of bed.”
“It was nothing,” said Mrs. Randolph, breathing hard. “Just a bit of cheer.”
She left a moment later, with a sisterly kiss to Margaret’s cheek and a promise to look in on her later. When Mrs. Randolph knocked at two, Margaret was sleeping, and Henry didn’t wake her.
“I hadn’t the heart,” he said.
They put in at Malta the next morning. Margaret looked for Mrs. Randolph at breakfast, but then the ship began taking on coal, a filthy process. A dry black dust rained down on the decks, their faces, their clothes. She and the children were forced below because of it. Soon after leaving tranquil Malta they were in rolling seas again. Henry ventured out toward the end of the day, bringing back cheese and warm milk that was to be their supper. The captain had ordered the decks cleared and the hatches closed.
“It’s expected to get worse before it gets better,” said Henry, breaking up the cheese with his hands.
They remained penned for the better part of two days. It fell to Henry to dump the pot and fetch the food. Margaret stayed with the children, entertaining them with stories and spillikins, a simple game when played on land. Players take turns selecting a jackstraw from a scattered pile, losing if another straw is disturbed. Margaret should have known that the ship’s movement would spoil the game, although the children didn’t seem to mind. They spent hours playing, riding John’s lower berth together.
On the third morning Henry returned later than usual from his constable’s duties. “Your Mrs. Randolph is gravely ill, I’m afraid.”
Margaret stood to leave. “You’ll mind the children?”
“I’m sorry, Meg. I cannot allow you to go. She might be contagious.”
“Think of all she’s done for me, Henry. I’ll stay no more than a minute, I promise. I’ll simply peek in to show I’ve come.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
She kicked the stool instead of him. “Imagine my preventing you from going to a friend in need!” John quit playing suddenly, gathering up the jackstraws. Josephine began nibbling her thumb, her wary eyes darting from parent to parent.
“Never mind,” Margaret said to the children. “Carry on with your game. Or would you rather a story? Shall I read some Tom Sawyer?” Henry hovered too close, looking infuriatingly contrite. There was no place to turn with her anger.
MRS. RANDOLPH DIED the next day. Margaret left John and Josephine with Henry and attended the service alone, joining a clutch of women on the lower deck. The cause of death was internal convulsions. So said the dentist. He volunteered the information straightaway, before anyone might think to inquire.
“I did everything within my power,” he said.
Margaret spoke up. “She didn’t respond to the orange cure?”
The dentist turned, glaring at her, drawing up his collar. As if her remark had sharpened the day’s gray bite. “I beg your pardon?”
“Mrs. Randolph complained to you of a stomach disorder early on, did she not?”
The dentist cupped a hand to his ear, feigning deafness. Margaret was about to repeat herself when Mrs. Randolph’s sailcloth-wrapped body arrived. She made a heartbreakingly paltry package. Margaret wept. There was so little to her in death.
Two African sailors brought her. The somber, broad-beamed Captain Burns—the bounder who’d allowed the dentist to pose as physician—followed behind, Bible in hand. Margaret bowed her head and prayed curses. God blast them both.
When she lifted her eyes, the sailors were in position at the rail. The Africans shivered in the damp air, awaiting their cue from the captain, who appeared impervious, both to weather and death. Almighty Burns began with a great heave of his shoulders, a world-weary glance skyward. A minute was given Mrs. Randolph, two at the most.
“We therefore commit Martha’s body to the deep…”
The mourners were forced aside to allow the crew room. Her body fell with a flat splash into the choppy sea, floating only a moment inside the weighted shroud.
“Looking for the general Resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose second coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead…”
All sails were full. She was already gone, behind them. Somewhere off the stern, in the Mediterranean Sea, east of Malta, out of sight of land. Margaret imagined meeting Mrs. Randolph’s relations one day, or George from London, and having only these few unlovely facts to offer.
A week later, approaching Aden, Margaret pulled her own aching tooth with a string. She’d extract every tooth in her head, she told Henry, before she’d betray Mrs. Randolph by seeking out Dr. Pritchard.
“What does one have to do with the other?” said Henry. “Besides, you hardly knew the poor woman.”
Margaret tried, but she couldn’t make him understand an affection forged in a single morning. The small transactions between women, particularly mothers, cannot adequately be explained to a man. Some, like hers with Mrs. Randolph, will bind women for life.
CHRISTMAS CAME. Carols were sung. A plum pudding was served. They were nearly halfway quit of this wretched, murderous bark.
SOMETHING HAD GNAWED a shilling-size hole straight through the trunk. Margaret stepped back and gave the contents tentative pokes with the umbrella. Nothing stirred. The vermin was gone. She leaned in again and unfolded the teal-blue arrival frock, a ridiculously expensive thing with exquisite glass buttons. Her family slept on, oblivious to the shouts and clomping boots above, the lovely symphony of men preparing to anchor. At her back, Henry shifted fitfully, thrashing his sheet to the floor. He’d been seasick two days running now. She retrieved the sheet and covered him, feeling his warm forehead, stroking his shoulder. “Today’s the day, dear heart.”
He murmured something unintelligible and turned on his side.
“I’ll wake you when it’s time,” she said, returning to the business of their wardrobe, brimming with energy and health. She felt exhilaratingly liberated, like a servant just released from indenture. Let the sailors request her assistance with the heavy mooring lines. She’d have a go at it.
She roused the children before they were ready and dressed them as she would two posts, putting them in the twin costumes sewn up for the occasion, black-and-white-checked ensembles with sweet sailor collars. “Perfect,” she said. “Now make believe you’ve just been introduced to the governor.”
John made a lackluster bow and sat back down on the edge of his berth. Josephine curtsied and did the same. Margaret clapped her hands sharply. “On your feet. Today’s the day. What did Tom Sawyer say to his mates? Shake out that maintogalans’l! Sheets and braces! Now, my hearties!” She bent and kissed them, turning her cheek to their cool