The Wives of Henry Oades (3 page)

“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.

Wellington
February, 1891

S
OMETHING 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 foreheads. “Time for breakfast, my darlings.”

“What about poor dad?” said John.

“He’ll come round once on land, son. You’ll see.”

Up top the warm wind lifted Margaret’s hat from her head. Perspiration streamed from her temples, her underarms, pasting her fine new overcorset to her flesh.

“My word,” she said, coming abreast of the first officer. “Such unusual weather.”

“Not at all, madam,” he said. “’Tis summer here, you know.”

She hadn’t known. Nor had Henry. He was dressed when they returned, decked out in the handsome wool purchased with the governor’s welcoming party in mind. Even now he was unhealthily florid, panting.

“You’ll roast alive,” said Margaret.

“I’ve nothing else,” he said, gesturing toward the corner. The cabin boys had already come for the trunk.

She brushed a bit of lint from his sleeve. “Well, never mind then. We’ve arrived. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Tonight we’ll enjoy supper in our own cozy flat. Won’t that be lovely at long last? I might start a pot of cow-heel soup if we’re settled early enough and there’s a decent butcher on hand. How does that strike you?”

He touched her cheek. “You’re the best girl.”

T
HE
L
ADY
O
PHELIA
was anchored some distance from the wharf. A queue to board her tenders wound around one deck and down a flight. The line moved at an encouragingly swift pace and then abruptly stalled.

Margaret gazed landward. After eight weeks aboard, the Arctic steppes would have been a welcoming sight. Still, she hadn’t expected such an idyllic storybook place. They were moored in a perfect bowl. Small houses dotted the rocky shore. Farther back stood lush blue-green hills.

A man spoke behind her. “The head of the fish. It’s hardly a fair description, is it?”

Margaret turned, smiling at the bespectacled officer. “Sir?” She knew him by sight, not by name. He’d been particularly kind to the children on board, winning them over with small treats from his pocket.

“North Island is shaped rather like a fish,” he said, “or so the Maori legend goes. Wellington is its head, the sweetest part.”

“Maori, sir?”

“The indigenous peoples, madam. Did you not attend the captain’s lecture Friday last? He went into some detail on the subject.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Margaret. She’d had no interest in anything the captain had to say. “I couldn’t leave the children.” The officer tipped his cap and wished her good day, good luck.

To the west a double rainbow arced, a thrilling spectacle, the best of all omens. “Lovely,” she murmured, more to herself. Henry had been right. It
is
good to get to know other things and places. Beside her, Henry bowed over the rail, as if about to pray or die.

“Why not take off your coat?” He shook his head, not opening his eyes. She gave him a pet. “Just think of the luxury coming. I’ve been dreaming of a real bath for weeks now.” The queue started up again. He pulled himself from the rail and shepherded his family forward.

Boarding was a tricky proposition, given the swell in the harbor. The secured tender came and went sideways, banging against the ship’s hull. The tender’s skipper stood waiting inside the narrow open boat. Fashionable ladies stepped down cautiously, clumsily, into his large grimy hands. Margaret stood single-file behind John and Josephine, who were behind the corpulent vicar and his wife, and about to go on. In the next moment, Henry made a strangled noise and vomited between ship and tender, into the water and down his brass-buttoned front.

The children cried out in unison. “Dad!” The mangy skipper snatched them up, John first, and then Josephine, sitting them down hard on the tender’s wooden bench. He beckoned to Margaret, growling that he didn’t have all day. Margaret pulled Henry free of the soiled coat. They boarded the tender, she shakily, bulky coat and satchel on one arm.

Onshore the soft ground swayed. Her legs wobbled, felt about to give way. People swarmed, meeting in raucous reunion, kissing and hugging. Margaret and Henry scanned the wharf in all directions, looking for the governor’s welcoming committee. They stood for half an hour, smiling at various clutches of well-dressed men. No one approached except a yellow-eyed mongrel with an oozing gash in place of an ear. Josephine stood in the dog’s path, howling. Margaret put herself between child and beast and stamped her feet. The dog fled. Josephine blubbered on. Henry collapsed onto a cask. “Where could they be?”

“Never mind,” said Margaret. She adjusted the brim of his good hat, shielding his face from the beating sun. “Stay with the children. I’ll find a hack.” She bent and whispered to John and Josephine. “Keep an eye on your dad.” They gave dull nods, John boring a finger into a red ear, Josephine snuffling up, her nose running like an urchin’s. It was just as well that they were on their own. The governor’s pomp would have done her family in completely.

She headed toward the road, asking the first woman she encountered, a plump lady in an everyday dress, about to drive off in an open rig. “Oh, I don’t imagine you’ll find a hack this time of day,” the woman said. “They’ll still be in church, or gambling their babies’ milk money away. One of the two.”

Margaret thanked her and turned to resume her search.

The woman called after her. “I can take you where you’re going.”

The unexpected kindness brought Martha Randolph to mind. “We’ll gladly pay.”

The woman laughed. “Did you bring anything for bunions?”

“Sorry, madam. No.”

“You’ll owe me then,” said the woman, introducing herself. Mrs. Anamim Bell.

“A lovely name,” said Margaret. “Biblical.”

“It’s a horrid name,” said Mrs. Bell. “You’ll call me Mim or I won’t take you.”

“Mim, then. Thank you, Mim. Thank you very much indeed. And you’ll call me Margaret. Or Meg if you prefer.” Her earlier energy had leaked away. She was tired now, wishing only to be settled. And here came her bedraggled family. “My husband, Henry Oades. My children, John and Josephine. We call her Pheeny.”

“The poor lambs,” said Mrs. Bell. “Step up now. You’ll send for your things. I know a reliable man. Though you won’t get him to work on the Sabbath.”

So be it
, thought Margaret. They’d make do one night, sleep in their underclothes. All she asked for was a stable floor and a stationary bed. She sat up front, next to Mrs. Bell. Henry dozed behind them, an arm curled about the limp children.

“You’re nearly dead, aren’t you,” said Mrs. Bell. “Poor girl.”

Margaret smiled, beginning to drowse. She pictured a nice big bed with crisp dry linens, her husband sleeping beside her for the first time in months. Supper first, though. “Can you recommend a butcher, Mrs. Bell?”

“Can you recommend a butcher,
Mim.
”

“Of course. Sorry.
Mim.
”

“The most handy is a blackguard from whom I wouldn’t buy a bone for my dog.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Jones is the best of the lot. His gristle at least comes with a morsel of flesh. You’ll want to keep watch on his fat thumb, though. His wife’s as well. They cheat for sport here.”

Mim began to list the town’s shops, describing the goods within each, naming the slippery-fingered sneak-thieves to be avoided. “You’ll find everything you need, but it’s not like home.”

“I don’t imagine,” said Margaret, fighting to stay awake. The woman’s drone would put an insomnious owl to sleep.

After a while, Mim asked, “What’s your man to do here?”

“He’s been asked to take over the new accounting system at Her Majesty’s distillery.”

Mim nodded. “Quite the cap feather for one so young.”

Henry cleared his throat. Margaret turned around. He smiled, waggling bushy eyebrows, vindicated. Margaret smiled too, rolling her eyes.

They came over a wooden bridge, passing a broad orchard. “What’s grown here?”

“Pip fruit, mainly,” said Mim, “Apples and grapes. And tedium.”

They arrived in late afternoon, tying up the horse in front of a dull brown building with small windows. A cheese shop and a sneak-thief bookbinder occupied the ground floor. “His paste doesn’t last a week,” said Mim. The flats were located above the shops, eight homes in all. Mim offered a hand with the children and satchels, bustling about, not waiting for an answer. Margaret started up the building’s stone steps behind John, thinking mainly about relieving herself.

Theirs was number four, two steep stories up. John opened the front door. “It reeks,” he said, looking around.

He was right. The air was stale and musty. A chamber pot sat in full view, in it a desiccated mess. Margaret scraped the pot along the gritty floor with her foot, moving it behind the coarse curtain separating the sleeping alcove. She summoned the children, saying don’t look, feeling their foreheads for fever as they squatted, opening her reticule then, dealing out a toilet square each. An aunt had presented her with a generous supply before sailing, saying you never know what you’ll find. Margaret took a square for herself and loosened her drawers, hovering over the putrid pot. Henry the camel feigned no urgent need, shy of Mim Bell, no doubt.

Henry led the tour. The main room contained a green divan, an empty curio cabinet, and three straight-back chairs, one with elegant tapered legs. There were no books, no paintings, no vases for flowers. The stove was greasy, the tub beside it filthy with private hairs and insect husks. There was no oil for the lamps. The kitchen curtains were dreadful, dirty and tattered, and they were one bed short. Margaret hung her head after a brief inspection, defeated. Henry came to her, springy, as if with a second wind. It was how they were, how they’d always been. When one tottered, the other rallied.

“We’ll hire a girl,” he said. “There’s no need to lift a finger.”

His beard was crusted with salt; his fetid breath turned her stomach and weakened her knees. “I’m a bit dizzy,” she said.

Mim produced a hankie and began flogging the worn divan. “Sit now, why don’t you?”

“Just for a moment perhaps,” said Margaret, grateful. “I seem made of rubber.”

“Mr. Bell and I arrived five years ago Saturday,” said Mim. “I remember the wretched day all too well. It’s the queerest feeling being on land again, the bobbing and weaving, the addled thinking. It’ll be with you awhile, I’m afraid. You’ll go to take the bread from the oven and find the raw loaf still sitting in the bowl.”