The Secret Journey (33 page)

Thus comfortably settled in her mind, she sat back in her seat and lazily contemplated the advertisement for Pears' Soap which hung in front of her. She got off the tram a few minutes later and made her way to the ship. Only when she beheld the ship did she realize, with a pang, the arduousness of the journey. Miss Mangan loathed the sea. Having shown her ticket, she descended the gangway, at the head of which the porter was already waiting with her luggage. The air was full of a warm and sordid smell. They were loading cattle for the lairage at Birkenhead. It was against the cries and bellows of the beasts, that seemed to overwhelm the ship, that Brigid Mangan three times raised her voice in an endeavour to inform the porter, who now leaned lazily on the bulkhead, that he must bring the luggage to her cabin. And after some two minutes of frantic shouting into his ear, the porter picked up the luggage and followed the stout lady along the deck. Miss Mangan stepped between boxes and bags, delicately manœuvring her weight over ropes, wires, and hatch covers, where the concord of sound rose from the holds as the terrified and bewildered animals were driven below.

At last she reached her cabin. ‘Put them on the settee, please,' she said, almost out of breath after her exertions.

‘Yes, mam.' The porter seemed to have regained his hearing, whilst his eyes, that watered freely, focussed themselves on Miss Mangan's black bag.

The lady took a shilling from her bag and handed it to him. ‘There you are,' she said, ‘thank you very much,' and watched the astonished porter finger the coin as he exclaimed, ‘Have you iron in that bandbox, mam?' and with a scowl, and not even waiting to hear the lady's reply, stamped his way out of the cabin.

Miss Mangan shut the door and sat down. ‘The noise,' she said, ‘the awful noise. Those poor beasts!'

Whilst still in the middle of regaining her breath, the door opened, and the stewardess, after examining her ticket, asked if she required anything, for her experienced eye told her at once that here was a lady whom the voyage might very well upset, and therefore attendance upon Miss Mangan seemed a vital necessity.

‘Will you bring me a tot of brandy in some hot milk, please?' said Miss Mangan.

‘Yes, mam,' replied the stewardess, and hurried away.

Brigid Mangan lifted the bandbox from the settee and pushed it under the bunk. She took off her hat and placed it in the empty top bunk. She still hoped—though she made no enquiries—she still hoped that she would have the cabin to herself. In any case she had managed the bottom bunk, and that was a relief. To have to climb into a top bunk—it was just unthinkable. She was telling herself, with continuous sighs of relief and satisfaction, that she had been wise to travel saloon. No fuss, no crowding, no loss of dignity, and, best of all, she had only to fall into this bunk and lie there. In the steerage! that would have been quite impossible. The stewardess returned with the hot milk and brandy.

‘Thank you,' said Miss Mangan, who was at that moment taking off her shoes.

‘There's a bell behind your head should you want me,' indicated the stewardess as she turned the knob of the door. ‘Good-night, mam.'

‘Good-night,' replied Miss Mangan.

She locked the door, and at once began to undress. Miss Mangan was determined on one thing, to be snug in her bunk before the ship left the quay. All she wanted to do was to fall fast asleep, a long and deep sleep, helped on by the brandy and milk, and to wake up only when the ship was beginning to tie up at the quay in Gelton.

She undressed only to the essentials, put on her dressing-gown, and slipped into the bunk. She wrapped the gown round her feet, covered herself with the clothes, and then reached out for the hot milk and brandy. She sipped this with an air of comfortable satisfaction. She looked to the bell, and to the light switch. She felt warm and snug, and very pleased with herself. She thought that there was nothing like money, for one could have every possible comfort with it, and when she put down the glass, conscious of that pleasurable inner glow that hot milk and brandy gives to the body, she did not forget, as she said her night prayer, to thank God for her comfort, and for her ability to be able to travel saloon.

‘I am glad I came saloon,' she thought. She blessed herself, blew out the light, and having made herself thoroughly comfortable, gave herself up to pleasurable thoughts.

‘I must write to Mr. O'Toole as soon as I reach Gelton,' she was thinking. ‘I should have done it before.' Then she thought of her sister. No doubt she would arrive in Gelton the same time as the letter. Well, at least Fanny could never say she, Brigid, had not warned her. ‘And I wonder—I wonder, if that old woman will really meet me as she says? I very much doubt it, for Biddy is far from being the woman she was, though her handwriting is a credit to her. I wonder what Father looks like now? Poor Dad.'

A few minutes later she was fast asleep. The engines hummed, but she did not hear them. About two in the morning she woke up suddenly, to the sound of continuous pounding. The ship was experiencing anything but a calm passage.

‘Oh dear!' she said, ‘I do hope I'm not going to be sick,' and she thought of the light and the bell behind her head. But she dropped off again, and it was broad daylight when she woke. The ship had passed through St. George's Channel, and already the loud crying of gulls reassured Miss Mangan they were not far off now. She sat up in her bunk.

‘Wonder what time it is?' She pulled her watch from under the pillow. ‘Well, imagine! I must have slept ten solid hours.' And she rang the bell.

‘Tea?'

‘Yes, tea, please,' she announced as the stewardess stood by the door, betraying in her face a certain disappointment with her charge. Why this stout, middle-aged lady, who looked so much a heart case with her violently red cheeks, should come through such a rough night without once ringing the bell was beyond the lady's comprehension. Miss Mangan, in the middle of her morning prayers, was now thanking God and our Blessed Lady for an excellent passage, one free from inconveniences of every kind.

‘Thank you very much,' she said smilingly, as the tea appeared. ‘What time do we get in?'

‘About ten, mam,' said the stewardess.

‘Thank you.'

Once more Miss Mangan gave up her thoughts to Gelton. Perhaps her sister might even come down. Well! Well! Here she was back again after an absence of thirteen months, and with what pleasurable anticipation she could now look forward to seeing her father, to seeing everybody, in fact! ‘Things have altered, of course,' she was saying to herself. ‘If all that Biddy tells me is true, there have been big changes in that family. I wonder—I just wonder if Fanny would return to Ireland?' Horrible thought. She must not even think about it. That would upset
all
her plans.

Having finished her early-morning tea, Miss Mangan got out of bed, gave a little shiver, and looked at herself in the mirror on the bunkhead. She filled the wash-bowl and began her ablutions. Half an hour later she was on deck, the key of her cabin clutched tightly in her gloved hand. She was completely dressed in brown even to her stockings, and she walked leisurely round and round the deck, interesting herself in everything. She watched the sailors getting the ropes ready, and studied the clothes of the other passengers, who seemed to be as happy and carefree as herself. After a while she sat down on the hatch and looked out over the waters. Gulls wheeled round the ship, the steam-whistle blew—passengers crowded to the rails. There was the land. ‘Gelton at last,' exclaimed Brigid Mangan under her breath. ‘Gelton.' It couldn't be long now. Thank God! What a lovely calm journey! She only hoped—all going well—God willing, that the journey back with her old father would be as smooth and as uneventful. Still, that was hoping too much, perhaps.

The rails were lined with cheery and excited passengers. From the saloon deck Miss Mangan could look down upon the main deck where the less fortunate were also gathered, though, unlike the saloon passengers, they seemed all huddled together as though for warmth. Indeed, as Miss Mangan looked down she could not espy a single happy face. Women with children—men carrying tool-boxes and bags—men from the West going to work in the harvest at Gelton—potato-pickers, labourers, young girls, a motley crew, and about their feet an indescribable conglomeration of bags, boxes, and cases. The deck littered with orange-peel, chocolate papers, cigarette-packets. ‘How untidy they are!' thought Brigid Mangan. Nobody moved. This mass huddled together on the after-deck seemed quite unconscious of the nearness of Gelton. From the hull there rose the warm animal smell of the cattle and sheep. She turned away and went back to her cabin. Only ten minutes or so and the ship would be tying up at the quay. The ship was drawing nearer, the life of the river became more crowded, the gulls' cries became more and more frantic, as though the voyage would end without a single crumb being flung into the swift flowing waters over which they wheeled and hovered, their cries at length drowned by a series of loud blasts upon the ship's whistle.

When Brigid Mangan came out on deck again, there wasn't even elbow-room at the rails. She could see nothing of the quay towards which the ship was now nearing. She saw hands raised, handkerchiefs flying, heard shouts, laughter, but beyond this long line of black and serge suits worn by the men and the many-coloured dresses worn by the women Miss Mangan saw nothing at all. Indeed, her height was her disadvantage now, for not even by trusting her fifteen and a half stone to the tremulous and uncertain balance of her toes could she avail herself of the sight and scenes upon the quay. Her eagerness pushed her forward, but her small stature was against her. The quay was crowded with waiting relations and friends. ‘Heavens!' thought she, ‘there seems such a crowd gathered down there and I can't even see them'—and it was so necessary that she should. To descend the companion-way was impossible. The main deck was littered with every kind of obstacle, and sailors were raising the mail-bags out of the hold. Hardly a sound from the holds, as though the beasts below, dimly aware of this sudden cessation of the ship's engines, were now terrified into absolute silence. ‘Thank God!' said Brigid Mangan, when a sudden bump shot her forward and one fat hand clutched desperately at the tail of a gentleman's coat. This man now left the rails and Miss Mangan took his place. What a crowd! What a noise! What confusion! Was there one single face amongst them which she could recognize? Desperately her eyes darted from one corner of the crowd to the other. Her eyes ransacked this welter of excited faces but without reward. There was no Fanny Fury there. There was just one chance. Miss Pettigrew, braving the rigours of a down-town journey at her great age, might by a miracle be in that crowd. Again Miss Mangan's eyes roamed desperately about, looking at one, now another face—and every face seemed the same.

‘Dear! dear!'

Well, she would get a cab and drive direct to Hatfields. The gangway was going up. The crowd at the rails seemed to wheel round in a body and surge towards the companion-ladder. The rows of faces on the quay seemed suddenly to disintegrate, people were hurrying towards the gangway. Then Miss Mangan smiled and said half aloud,' Thank God!' For she had espied not a face but a bonnet, and in that bonnet some red roses which, for some reason, bobbed violently about.

‘My Lord!' she said. ‘Biddy's here. Dear old soul! Marvellous old woman!'

Miss Pettigrew indeed was there, standing isolated now, dressed in her black satin skirt, black cape and bonnet, in which the roses still continued to bob as though they mirrored the agitation of the old woman herself, whose clasped hands held a useless white handkerchief, useless, for she had been quite unable to wave it, hemmed in as she was by the crowd round the gangway. But there she was. And there was Brigid Mangan.

‘Oh, Biddy!' cried Miss Mangan, and began waving her handkerchief. Miss Pettigrew's head bobbed up and down. She smiled acknowledgment, and even at that distance Miss Mangan could see that toothless cavern of a mouth.

‘Dear Biddy! Dear Biddy!' she exclaimed under her breath, and, picking up her bandbox, struggled to the ladder. Here a kindly sailor carried it down for her.

‘Please take it to the quay for me,' she said, and watched the man raise it on his shoulder. She followed him down the gangway.

She rushed forward and smothered the old woman in a passionate embrace.

‘My dear! My dear Biddy!'

Then she looked round at the ship, at the hurrying crowds, the procession of cabs and lorries—heard the shouts and cries and laughter—and once more she hugged the old woman in her arms. Miss Brigid Mangan had arrived in Gelton at last.

CHAPTER IX

‘My dear! My dear!' said Brigid Mangan, who seemed loath to release the old lady from her grasp. Judging by the now puzzled look upon Biddy Pettigrew's face, it seemed that Miss Mangan's degree of affection had exceeded itself, for she continued to hold the old woman in her arms, beaming down into that queer, wrinkled face, the while a patient porter stood by holding the bandbox, quite indifferent to this display of human warmth. ‘Biddy! How wonderful you are,' she said for the third time, ‘coming all this way so early in the morning to meet me.' She looked round on hearing strange, guttural sounds to find the porter communing with himself, whereat she said sharply, ‘Do get me a cab, man.'

‘Yes'm.'

‘You shouldn't have done this, Biddy,' remonstrated Aunt Brigid, releasing the old woman at last. ‘It was good of you, nevertheless. I looked round on the off-chance I might see my sister, but I never expected to see her, of course. Now! Here's the man with the cab. How well you look!' concluded Miss Mangan. Then to her astonishment a young woman came up, smiled at the old woman, saying, ‘Are you all right now, dear?' and then proceeded to subject the buxom arrival to a thoroughly scrutinizing examination.