The Linnet Bird: A Novel (29 page)
Read The Linnet Bird: A Novel Online
Authors: Linda Holeman
T
HAT NIGHT
I
WENT
to his room. His eyes were open, facing the door as I came through it, almost as if he were waiting for me, although I had given no indication that I would visit him. It crossed my mind that perhaps he had waited for me other nights, even though he had acted, the first time I presented myself to him to thank him—in the only way I knew—as if he could not lower himself so.
I knelt beside his bed in my thin nightdress, stroking his brow. And this time he did not turn away. This time he sat up, pulling back the coverlet, and I thought, then, that perhaps my old whore’s ways might never leave me, that I would always be willing to offer up my body. But in the next instant I felt a strange rush of confusion—for suddenly I saw that it was not just me offering him a part of myself in gratitude, but the other way round.
I pulled my nightdress over my head, allowing him to see me in the moonlight. He drew one deep breath and held it. I settled myself beside him, and he expelled his breath in a long, shaky exhalation. We lay, facing each other, eventually breathing in unison. His bedshirt smelled of carbolic soap. When I kissed his mouth it smelled faintly of parsley, a clean and refreshing smell. My own mouth had been violated in so many ways, but I had never kissed anyone before. The feel of his lips on mine was pleasing.
Slowly, gently, although trembling violently, Shaker tightened his arms around me, his lips responding to mine, and I felt him against me, ready, with only that brief, sweet contact.
I turned on my back, pulling him atop me, and used my own hand—for his quivered too terribly—to guide him inside me, and lay very still, my bent knees hugging his hips. Within a short time his body ceased its uncontrollable shaking, and then, slowly, as if with a former familiarity, we moved together. His cheek, as he lowered it to mine, was wet with tears.
Afterward he was still, completely still, in a manner I had never witnessed. It was as if his trembling had, temporarily, flowed out of him along with his physical release. And my throat constricted, aching, as I watched him sleeping on my scarred breast, his lashes damp. He was a man of honor, to be trusted. He would keep me safe.
And I knew, with a sad certainty, that safety was not the only thing I wanted.
Chapter Sixteen
I
WATCHED AS WE SAILED AWAY FROM
L
IVERPOOL.
I
SAW THE GRAY
smoke over the factory chimneys. Under my feet, the deck tilted. I smelled metal and steel—the anchors, chains, clamps, hasps. The scent of tar brought back the image of Ram Munt and his hands.
My own hands held the railing, wet with fog. My heart pounded; I was sailing away, sailing, as in my dreams, from the place that had brought me mainly misery.
This is not my true life,
Chinese Sally’s words rang in my head. And now I was sailing toward a new place, what must be the beginning of my true life.
I watched the chimney pots of Liverpool grow small. I thought of Shaker, the light limning his body as he stood on the dock, one hand lifted in a final farewell.
August 1830
My dearest Shaker,
It is over a month since we left Liverpool on this tall-masted frigate, and today is my birthday. Today I am eighteen, and to celebrate this occasion I am writing to you. I know this letter cannot be posted for months, but I am feeling a strange sense of loneliness tonight, and the act of putting quill to paper always comforts me. I daily record this life aboard ship in my journal—the one you gave me as a parting gift—but tonight I felt inclined to address my written words to you. This is the first letter I have ever written.
I have taken to the life at sea as if I had been born to it. How strange; as I write this, I think of my stepfather’s words. Because my arm bears the mark of a fish, he often told me I was the daughter of a sailor. Of course I didn’t believe him; my mother’s story of my noble father is much more compelling, and it is the one I will always believe. And yet my feeling aboard this vessel is that the sea—in all its strength and mystery—does speak to me in a language I understand.
The accommodations are cramped and less than clean; we are below deck, in a room separated from other women by strung canvas. There is little light or air; the doorway opens into the steerage. Faith and I share our tiny cubicle, with its bucket behind a suspended piece of calico, with a large, whey-faced woman of indeterminate age, Mrs. Cavendish. She has lived in Delhi for fourteen years and has made this voyage a number of times. After a visit home, she is now returning to her husband, a general in the Indian army. Because of her seniority, Mrs. Cavendish chose the bed nearest the door. Faith and I are relegated to string hammocks. Although Faith appeared crestfallen at sleeping in a sling bed for the next number of months, I secretly love the way my hammock swings with the rock of the waves, and, so cradled, feel the unraveling of the tangles of my former life as I drift to sleep each night.
I am learning card games—whist and piquet and ecarte and lanterloo. I simply decline joining in when asked until I’ve observed each game enough times to be confident of the rules. Occasionally there is dancing on board as well, and I take these opportunities to ensure I will be able to conduct myself without embarrassment. Do you ever dance, Shaker? I don’t recall you mentioning.
To date I have perfected the minuet and the quadrille, and know my
dos-à-dos
and promenade. I sail from partner to partner—although most of us are women!—on those evenings when the sea is calm and some of the passengers can be persuaded to bring out the instruments they have brought—violins and clarinets and violas—and perform.
Do you know, Shaker, that most people are too much about preening and being watched to observe others? This has been in my favor while acquiring these needed skills before we arrive in India. It is all Faith chatters about on her good days—the dances and salons and evenings of cards we would attend. Even she doesn’t seem aware that I am a novice at these things, although I have come to see that Faith is, like many of the others, one who enjoys being watched, and doesn’t always observe keenly that which is around her.
We take our meals in the dining room, and are enjoying the luxury of fresh meat because of cows and sheep brought on board, as well as root vegetables that are still plump and tasty—although I don’t see how much longer they will remain fresh.
For much of the time during these first weeks on the gray Atlantic I have wrapped warmly and spent many hours on the deck, either sitting on a bench and studying the books on India Faith and I have brought—the customs, the weather, and learning what I can of Hindi—or else walking briskly, stepping over coiled rope and stacks of chain, breathing in the cool salty breeze and marveling at the endless furrowlike swells of the metallic waves.
I am sorry to report that Faith has grown wan, sighing and constantly warning me that I am looking far too ruddy-complexioned from the wind, and that I should spend more time below, resting, as she does. But I have spent enough of my life in small, foul-smelling quarters.
I am filled with strange optimism, Shaker, an odd, cheery nudging that is unfamiliar. I am pleased by it. I do hope you are keeping well, and visiting with friends and accepting social invitations. It’s important that you spend time with others.
Yours,
Linny
September 1830
Dear Shaker,
I trust you will read these letters in order, as this one, written three weeks after the first, will tell a very different tale of my life aboard ship. Although the sea is still my ally, it has shown its other face.
Fooled by the even waves and steady wind giving us good speed for our first month, Shaker, I imagined the rest of the voyage would be uneventful and easy. But a storm blew up on our sixth week at sea. The sky grew dark and ominous mid-morning, the wind whipping and cruelly cold, and by afternoon the waves had transformed into huge jagged crags. Sitting in the shifting dining room, we were advised by the gruff captain to retire to our cabins and lash ourselves to our beds until it had blown over. Faith turned to Mrs. Cavendish immediately, her mouth open as if confused. Dear Mrs. Cavendish, who has taken us under her wing, tried to console her. “I’ve seen many a storm, my dear,” she said. “They get even worse as we round the Cape. Usually it’s possible to ride them through.”
“Usually?” Faith replied, the color around her mouth and eyes edging into a delicate yellow-green. “You mean . . . does a ship ever—” She couldn’t finish the sentence. I stared at her. Had she really not considered the possibility of dying en route to India, Shaker? Of the ship overturning in a storm just like this one? Of pirates, in the warm Indian Ocean, attacking the ship and looting it for the passengers’ goods, possibly killing anyone who got in their way? I had thought of all of these eventualities—and more—although they held little concern for me. But Faith . . . for one so clever about some things, about others she is woefully naïve.
Mrs. Cavendish murmured into her ear, patting her arm. “We’ll get you some Jamaica gingerroot; that will help settle your stomach for at least the next little while,” she said comfortingly, and the two of them, supporting each other on the sliding floor, lurched out. But I had to stay for just a few more minutes and watch, through a porthole in the dining room, what was happening to the ocean.
It was the landscape of a monstrous dream. The waves had become sheer cliffs rearing up in front of us and we rode up, up into that face and then plunged, sickeningly, down its other side, only to be faced with yet another and another of the seemingly endless walls of water. A deckhand, seeing me being thrown violently from side to side while hanging on to the brass rail that ran around the wall of the dining room, shouted at me, cursing, and I managed to get down the gangway and to our cabin, my clothes thoroughly soaked.
The storm was terrible but—as I am here to write about it—I survived! And, as you can see, I am now quite enjoying recounting the drama of it all to you. I never believed myself one for drama. Perhaps it is the freedom I feel that is loosening it within me.
