The Linnet Bird: A Novel (30 page)

Yours,
Linny

I didn’t wish to describe to Shaker in too much detail what happened during that first storm. It was, if nothing else, rather indelicate, not the sort of topic one who is attempting to be a cultured young woman should think of transcribing on paper.

When I had finally stumbled downstairs during the storm, Faith was in her sling bed, a number of scarves and shawls tied around her middle and knotted into the ropes of the bed. She moaned steadily, a low, sonorous cry, and just as I was flung onto my own hammock she angled her neck over the side and vomited, a huge splashing puddle of reeking yellow. I secured myself in my bed, heart pounding as I heard muffled, weak cries all around me, my initial excitement at the wildness of the storm being replaced first by apprehension and then by growing panic.

During the next hours I questioned—for the first time—leaving Liverpool and the safety and security of life with Shaker. Breathing in the stink of tar and vomit and bodily expulsions, unable to hear anything but the crashing of waves and howling of the wind, I lost track of night and day. I was shaken about in the complete darkness, imagining with every bang and groan of the timbers that the icy water would surely burst through, filling my nose and mouth, drowning me as I lay lashed to my hammock. I lived in my old nightmare of cold water closing over me, of drowning in the Mersey, for what felt like days. Alternately I gasped for breath in the airless room or shivered, my clothes damp from my own sweat. I was convulsively sick, my stomach and bowels emptying where I lay. My voided body continued to heave until I tasted the metallic heat of blood on my lips, knowing the lining of my stomach was being torn away.

I longed for Whitefield Lane, for Jack Street, even for Back Phoebe Anne. I kept my eyes squeezed shut and waited to die; in fact, I believe that for indescribably bereft moments I wished for it. There has only been one other time in my life when I felt this close to death.

E
VENTUALLY
I
BECAME AWARE
that I had been asleep and was now rocking gently. I opened my eyes and saw that the door was open and secured by its hook to the wall. Dim light filtered into the disastrous, foul mess of our room. I heard Faith’s voice, pure and high as a child’s, and realized it was this that had woken me.

“Linny? Answer me. Linny?”

I twisted to look toward her hammock. I saw that Mrs. Cavendish’s bed was empty, stripped of its sheets and blankets. “Where is Mrs. Cavendish?” My voice was a hoarse croak, my throat raw from vomiting.

“She went on deck to wash her bedding. I don’t think I can move.”

I feebly plucked at the scarves and shawls that had stopped me from being pitched to the floor and tossed about in the slime like a pebble, then sat up, grimacing at the pulling of the soiled crust of my undergarments. I stood, shakily, my rib cage and abdomen feeling bruised from the endless contractions of my empty stomach. Helping untie Faith, I gave her a half-smile. “Aren’t we the pair, though? I think the only solution is a bucket of saltwater dashed over us.”

“Don’t joke, Linny. I’m too weak to even cry. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from this.”

“You will,” I told her.

“You’re awake, then, girls,” came Mrs. Cavendish’s booming voice from the doorway. “Come on, change all your clothing and get it and your bedding up on deck, and we’ll get this place cleaned up in no time. Now, that storm wasn’t as bad as some I’ve seen. Once our ship was hit astern, and the force of that water burst over the deck and right below, straight into my room. I can assure you I make a most becoming mermaid.” She gave a hearty laugh. “And I can also assure you that storm won’t be the last on this voyage.”

Faith erupted into sobs, and it took us a good ten minutes to help her compose herself enough to rise.

O
N THE WEST COAST
of Africa our ship was blown off course by another storm; this one sent us close to Brazil, and took us another three weeks to resume course. During this time I studied my Hindi and wrote in my journal and continued writing unposted letters to Shaker.

We had been at sea for three months. Now the food had lost any semblance of being enjoyable; the only meat left was preserved pork, tough and stringy and salty. All sense of order had left the dining room; food was thrown unceremoniously on the tables and whoever had the stomach for it that day reached out and grabbed. The water had turned the color of strong tea and tasted as bad as it looked and smelled. The heat grew intense, and we stripped off our woolen dresses and wore light muslin—until we approached the Cape of Good Hope, where the weather once again grew chilly. As we neared that imaginary line where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian, we saw ourselves in danger of being dashed against the shore when a sudden shift in the winds caught the billows in a dizzying rush. We stopped briefly at the Cape for new supplies and then were off into warmer waters. But we were soon caught in a seasonal hurricane. The ship lurched and pitched; this time, furniture was torn from its fastenings. Although I silently prayed for the ship to withstand this battering, my body did not betray me, and when at last a day and night had passed, I arose, dry-eyed and calm, shrugging my shoulders at Faith, although she would not smile.

We sat becalmed for two weeks in a still sea under a blazing sun, the sails limp, their rents and tatters now visible. No one had the energy for talk or cards, and the heat made the thought of dancing incomprehensible. The only sound was the teasing lick of the water against the ship’s side, and the answering creak of its timbers. The sea looked like a silver plate, untarnished, hard and immobile. The crew was surly, muttering as they repaired the canvas and frayed halyards, casting irritated glances at the passengers who stepped around them in an endless circle of the deck, hoping for even the whisper of cooling air.

And then finally, one morning I awoke to movement, and when I went up on deck, the sails were unfurling, reaching for the wind. The sea was smooth and yielding as the ship cut through it. I felt such a rise in my spirits that I smiled at the most taciturn of the deckhands, the one with bulging forearms and tattoos that shifted with the movement of his muscles. Only the day before he had eerily reminded me of Ram Munt. Now he bore no such resemblance.

It grew even more unbearably hot, and we moved our bedding up to the decks. The ladies slept on one side, the gentlemen on the other, and a sail was rigged between us for decency’s sake. That first night on deck I couldn’t sleep. Carefully stepping over Faith and the other women, I went to the railing. Standing in the dark, I watched the sea as it reflected the moon, creating a long, winding road of silver. And then the water began to glow with a strange brightness I could not describe, as I know no words for that kind of light. It was as if myriad tiny candles blazed just under the water, as if they floated there, beckoning. I watched, transfixed, until my eyes hurt from the intensity of staring. Was it some underwater creature? Or was it another sign, a sign that this was my true path?

During the day the Indian Ocean was filled with life: flying fish swept past us like narrow silver coins, and, as Faith had predicted, whales and porpoises raced alongside the ship. The sun was clean on my skin, burning deep, seeming to warm the very marrow in my bones, and I wondered if I had ever before been truly warm. As I stood on deck one day, closing my eyes and turning my face toward the glorious burning disk overhead, I realized that I had not had my nightmare for many, many nights—perhaps weeks. It was as though this sun—infinitely stronger than anything possible in England—had burned that terror out of my brain, had eaten into it, destroying it, just as surely as the bold rats scurrying below deck had eaten holes in our clothes.

There was a sudden spray of warm water over the railing. It wet my face. I licked my lips, savoring the ancient, wild taste of the sea. As I did so I turned to the young couple who stood down the deck from me. They had married just before we set sail and were traveling first to Calcutta and then overland to Bombay, where the man had a position with the East India Company civil service. We’d exchanged pleasantries a number of times; now I imagined we would smile, sharing the humor of the unexpected shower we’d all received. But in the moment that I looked toward them, I saw that they were lost in each other, unaware of me. The young man lowered his face and slowly licked the salty water from the tiny hollow at the base of his new wife’s throat, and she put back her head and arched her neck. In that instant I felt shock, a deep thudding and sobering emotion. The girl’s slight movement and the look on her face brought me down from my moment of giddy hope. That soft and yielding expression, I realized, could only be desire. And I also realized I had never known or felt it, and for this I was filled with sorrow and grieved, suddenly losing all fascination with the sea. It now appeared nothing more than a wearying, endless distance of furrows.

W
E DREW INTO
N
OVEMBER;
we had been at sea almost four months. Swallows swooped near the railings, indicating land nearby. Mrs. Cavendish likened these busy, twittering creatures to the dove with its olive branch. But she was right, and within another day villages were spotted along the coast. The water became noisy with dozens of tiny rocking boatloads of Indians. Bumboat men, Mrs. Cavendish called them, shouting to be heard over the cries of the villagers as they boasted of their merchandise, hoping to sell coconuts, bananas, or tamarinds. I hung over the railing, watching as the natives threw ropes with baskets attached over the ship’s side. Some of the crew called down to them in a strange tongue that I couldn’t identify, putting coins into the baskets. The baskets were lowered, and then came up again, filled with whatever the sailors had requested. I longed to try the strange-looking fruit, but Mrs. Cavendish, with a slight shake of her head, indicated that it would be beneath us to purchase anything in this way.

During the last few days, as we grew ever closer to our destination, excitement grew in me. At first I attributed it to the beauty of the water and sun, the flying fish sending little droplets of water onto the smooth sea, but then realized it was something else. I detected a difference in the atmosphere, and whether it was in the air itself or the degree of heat I couldn’t say. Perhaps the smells carried in the wind contributed to the unexplained breathlessness I experienced. My nose filled with the strange smells of an unfamiliar populace, the scents of unknown vegetation. I felt as heady as I had when twirled in my first quadrille.