This Golden Land (9 page)

     "It's called photography, Mrs. Ritchie."

     Agnes looked at the picture again. "Look how peaceful he seems. Like he isn't sick at all."

     Agnes's friends helped her to sit up, and then crowded around to gawk at the picture. Soon it was being passed from hand to hand, as everyone stared and remarked and marveled over the likeness Donny Ritchie. Many who had never seen a photograph turned it over to look at the back, to see where the image was coming from.

     Neal found himself smiling. Watching the picture go from man to woman to child, passed around and back again to Agnes Ritchie, who filled her eyes with Donny's face and then passed the picture around once more—to feel their excitement and joy made Neal Scott's heart warm in a way it had not in a very long time.

     Agnes Ritchie looked up at him then and said, "God bless you, sir," in her thick Scottish brogue. "I know now that my Donny will get better. Just look how healthy he is here. There is a place in heaven for you, sir, and that's the truth."

     Neal modestly accepted everyone's praise, including that of Captain Llewellyn who said that, for now, the mutiny had been averted, adding cautiously that it still depended on whether the boy lived or not. Then Neal returned to the sick bay, to give Hannah the good news. He found Dr. Applewhite there, examining Donny. When the doctor told Hannah she could leave, Hannah insisted upon staying. And as there was little room for the doctor and his girth, Applewhite retreated to his own cabin for a much needed rest.

     Neal brought in a small wooden chair for Hannah, but she said, "It won't fit. There's no room."

     "But you can't sit on the floor all night, Miss Conroy."

     "I shall be fine, Mr. Scott."

     He left again, to return with the two pillows from his own bunk. "Then at least sit on these." And Hannah gratefully made a cushioned seat for herself, her pearl-gray skirts billowing out around her, making Neal think of a cloud.

     Situating the chair in the doorway, he took a seat and watched as Hannah placed her ear to Donny's chest. She could hear his heart fluttering like a tiny sparrow struggling to get out.

     "What are his chances?" Neal asked quietly, listening to the hammering of his own heart. His emotions were heightened and he did not know why. It had to do with the strange, nameless feelings Mrs. Ritchie had aroused in him—well, Mrs. Ritchie at first, but now Hannah Conroy as she sat so devotedly at Donny's side. Neal Scott, scientist and explorer, a man who believed that everything in the universe could be measured, quantified, and categorized, was at a complete loss to identify the alien emotions that had invaded him today.

     "Dr. Applewhite said the next few hours are crucial," Hannah said. "If I can wake Donny enough times to get water into him, he will be fine by morning. But the smelling salts are having less effect on him. I think his lungs are becoming used to the shock from the chemical."

     Daylight waned and Simms the steward brought Neal and Hannah a dinner of sausages, potatoes and peas, with wine and bread and butter, but their trays went untouched. He asked about the boy, reported on the other
dysentery cases in steerage, not as bad it seemed, likely to pull through, and then left after saying ominously, "It's this boy we're all worried about."

     When darkness fell, Neal offered to give Hannah a break. "Go topside, get some air."

     But she would not leave. So Neal went to stretch his legs and see what the situation was with the immigrants, while Hannah roused Donny, gave him sips of water and sponged his hot skin. When Neal returned, Hannah had him lift the boy from the bunk so she could change the soiled sheets. There was less discharge this time, she noted, and it had been hours since Donny had vomited.

     "How is Mrs. Ritchie?" she asked.

     "She is much better. Able to keep water down. She keeps looking at the photograph. I think it is helping. And I think you should get some rest, Miss Conroy. You'll be no good to Donny if you drop from exhaustion."

     "Yes," Hannah whispered as they stood close together in the dimly lit cabin, rocked together in the embrace of the
Caprica
on the undulating ocean. Neal brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek. She looked up at him, his face so near that she detected the fragrance of shaving soap. She wanted to lean into him, let him take her weight and her fatigue, hold her for a while. Neal wanted to put his arms around her and draw her against him. But that was not why they were here. There was sickness on the
Caprica
, and possible mutiny brewing. This moment, this night, was not a luxury for them to enjoy.

     While Neal took a turn at the beside, Hannah went no farther than the wooden chair. She was soon asleep, her head resting against the doorframe. As Neal watched her, he thought of the nightmare that had wakened him one night, with Hannah crying out in her sleep. What was it that haunted her? Her father's death, perhaps? And what had truly caused her father's death? When Hannah spoke of his passing, it seemed to Neal to be in symbolism and ideals—"It was class prejudice that killed him."—but the details, Neal did not know. Exactly how did class prejudice kill a man? He wanted to ask her, and suspected Miss Conroy would freely tell him, but he was afraid of her secrets, because once he possessed them, then he was in danger of growing too close to her, of allowing himself to fall in love, and that he could
not permit. He knew there was no future for himself and Miss Conroy—she a Quaker, he an atheist, she gentle born, he a bastard, she looking to settle down and build a midwifery practice, he under a spell of wanderlust so strong that he could never stay in any town for long.

     Insurmountable odds.

     And so he would not ask her about her nightmare, would not inquire about her father, but would leave their relationship as the shipboard friendship that it was, doomed to end once they were on land and thirteen-hundred miles apart.

     Just before dawn Donny opened his eyes and asked Hannah if she was an angel. He then asked for his mother, and said he was hungry. Giving the boy some warm broth that Mr. Simms had brought, Hannah then cleaned him up and, with Neal carrying the boy, they walked up into the morning sunlight.

     As soon as Hannah and Neal appeared on the quarterdeck, the crowd that had spent the night under the stars rose to their feet and cheered in a blazing sunrise that was turning the ocean to gold.

I
DO NOT LIKE THE LOOK OF THAT SCUD
, M
ISTER
J
AMES
," Captain Llewellyn said as he studied the black clouds on the horizon. Through the brass spyglass, he inspected every mile of the approaching squall and arrived at the grim conclusion that before him lay a storm for which there was no way around, nor was there any nearby port where they might find safe anchorage until the storm had passed.

     "It's a big one, sir," the First Mate said quietly. "And it is approaching fast."

     "That it is, Mister James," the master of the
Caprica
said solemnly.

     "What are your orders, sir?"

     Llewellyn thought for a moment as he studied the height and breadth of the approaching squall, its speed and the look of the seas in its path, then said, "We will not fight it, Mister James. We will lie ahull, and may God have mercy on us."

     The First Mate swallowed in fear. Lying ahull meant bringing the sails down and locking the tiller to leeward, allowing the boat to drift freely and
at the mercy of the storm. He was suddenly thinking of his young wife, Betsy, and their baby back home in Bristol.

     "Batten all hatches and portholes," Captain Llewellyn said. "Secure all cargo and make fast the livestock. Check the scuppers. Extinguish all fires and flames. And try not to alarm the passengers."

     "Aye aye, sir," the younger man said, knowing that he and Llewellyn were thinking of the same thing: the
Neptune
, in these waters at this time last year, going down in a storm with over three hundred souls onboard.

     Llewellyn looked at his passengers who were out on deck, enjoying the mild weather. After passing over the equator without incident, he had informed them that once they had made it through the Doldrums they would navigate away from Africa and towards Rio de Janero where they would pick up a south-westerly to carry them to Australia. The Doldrums lay far behind them now, but there was no longer a possibility of picking up the favorable south-westerly. A storm bigger than any Llewellyn had ever seen lay in their path and they had no choice but to put themselves at its mercy.

     The captain prayed that the loss of life would be minimal.

     Up on the quarterdeck, unaware of the approaching storm, three of the cabin passengers were enjoying the warm sun and cloudless sky.

     Reverend Merriwether, seated in a wood and canvas deck chair, was engrossed in one of the many books he was transporting to the colony, while his wife knitted at his side. Abigail wished she could loosen her corset and divest herself of the cumbersome crinoline and petticoats. Women's fashions were not designed for the semi-tropical climate of the Southern Atlantic Ocean. But she was used by now to the inconveniences of long distance travel. She had grown accustomed to the constant sway and yaw of the
Caprica
, and the ship's every creak and groan, to hearing the sound of the ship's bell marking time and regulating the crew's watches, and to hearing the bosun's whistle issuing high-pitched commands.

     She wished they could keep sailing forever. The Aboriginal mission had been described as "in the back of beyond and the savages go about naked."

     Swallowing back her secret fears, Abigail focused her attention on her fellow cabin passengers. They seemed not to mind the inconveniences of ocean travel. In fact, since the day the little immigrant boy had recovered
from the dysentery—and the others also recuperated with no new outbreaks—Mr. Scott and Miss Conroy seemed to be possessed by a curious zeal. They had also grown friendlier with each other, Abigail thought as her knitting needles flew. She noticed how Miss Conroy occasionally raised her head from the book she was currently reading to look out over the main deck, her gaze always going straight to Mr. Scott who was toiling away at a perplexing labor, with the assistance of a few brawny immigrants. Mrs. Merriwether suspected that a special bond was forming between the two young people. She had even confessed to her husband that it would be a great delight if Miss Conroy and the American were to marry on board the ship, with either the captain or her husband presiding.

     As if sensing Mrs. Merriwether's scrutiny, Hannah paused in her reading to look up and smile at the older woman. Then she saw the captain on the bridge, where he stood at the wheel in his white trousers and long dark blue coat with the brass buttons, his little blue eyes squinting out to sea. Earlier, Captain Llewellyn had been peering through his spyglass and having what appeared to be a serious dialogue with Mister James. The First Officer had then left the bridge, on an urgent errand it had seemed to Hannah. What could the problem possibly be? The sky was clear, the ocean calm, and things appeared to be normal aboard the ship.

     Hannah's gaze went to Neal Scott, who was down the main deck working at his new invention—a camera stabilizer that would allow photographs to be taken from a ship. Mr. Scott had made friends among the immigrant men, some of whom now helped him with the sawing and hammering of his wooden contraption. He had removed his jacket and worked with his shirt sleeves rolled up, suspenders criss-crossing his broad back. Neal Scott was a husky man, like the wrestlers Hannah had seen at country fairs taking on challengers for prize money, and she thought again how much more suited to physical labor he seemed than the gentlemanly pursuits of scientific study.

     Forcing her eyes away from him, Hannah returned to the book in her lap.

     Since the dysentery, Hannah had been helping Dr. Applewhite see to the medical needs of passengers and crew. She had learned more from him—the use of powdered ginger, for example, as a medicine for sea sickness—and had even assisted him in setting the compound fracture of a sailor who fell
from the rigging. From these experiences, a new curiosity had germinated in Hannah's mind. After Donny, there were no new cases of dysentery. No more deaths. The contagion disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as it had first appeared. Why? Where had the contagion suddenly come from, and why did it end so quickly and mysteriously?

     When Hannah had sold her cottage in Bayfield, she had packed her father's medical instruments and microscope to take with her, as well as a thick portfolio of laboratory notes chronicling his research in the cause and cure for childbed fever. Hannah had not looked at these things as they brought back painful memories. But her curiosity about the contagion on board the
Caprica
prompted her to open her father's portfolio—a collection of loose papers held between two stiff covers and secured with a ribbon—hoping to learn more of his techniques for treating illness. She had expected to find remedies, pointers on how to diagnose, and medical answers. Instead, his personal portfolio was filled with baffling notes, equations, recipes, and even more questions. And they were all out of order. John Conroy, as conscientious a Quaker as ever lived, abiding by rules, ethics, careful thought and rigid ways, had been surprisingly haphazard in his laboratory practices.