Cinders to Satin. Fern Michaels
about leaving, not when it meant being thousands of miles away from Peggy and the children. A pervading sense of loneliness that she had been fighting since boarding that wretched steamer in Dublin threatened to erupt in a spring of tears. Damn Patrick Thatcher and his adventure! Callie bit into her bottom lip. No, that wasn’t fair. She’d never confided why she was emigrating to America; Patrick and Beth could have no idea that she’d been all but exiled by her own mother. They seemed to trust her so; she couldn’t tell them that she’d become a thief and that was why she was being sent away. If they were to know the truth and decide they didn’t want her companionship, she’d be alone again. Alone and frightened.
Paddy continued to sleep against Callie’s shoulder. If Patrick was right, the child would awaken just as it was their turn with the doctor. Poor little thing, he always coughed and hacked when he awoke. Maybe because he was sleeping upright against Callie, he wouldn’t be so congested. She had her own views on Paddy’s condition; still, he wasn’t her child, and it wasn’t her place to voice her beliefs. Surely Beth and Patrick couldn’t really believe Paddy had nothing more than a cold.
The line at the back pressed forward, pushing Callie into almost direct contact with the family just ahead of them. She narrowed her eyes, really noticing them for the first time. Each was more dirty than the next. Callie’s eyes widened still further when she saw a body louse half the size of her little fingernail crawl up the neck of the man in front of her. She backed off a step and bumped into Patrick. She motioned to him to look at the man’s neck. Patrick seemed as disgusted as she and took her back another step. Callie watched in horror as another louse joined the first, crawling between the oily strands of the man’s hair. The man’s wife turned to say something to her husband, and Callie drew a deep breath. She was what mum would call a slattern—filthy and unkempt, dark scabs from where she had picked sores dotted her face. Abhorred by her first real contact with filth, Callie squeezed her eyes shut. Thank the good Lord they wouldn’t be sailing on the Yorkshire. The physician would take one look at them and send them somewhere to clean themselves and get well.
In dumbfounded amazement Callie watched as first one child then the next held out his ticket and the doctor stamped it perfunctorily while asking to see his or her tongue. Obediently each child stuck out his tongue and then laughed and scampered away, waving his ticket for all to see. Callie was aghast. What manner of doctor was this? In Dublin the kindly doctor wore a spotless white apron and had clean hands, unlike this disheveled man whose smock was gray with grime and food stains.
Noticing Callie’s amazement, Beth whispered in her ear, “There’s so many like them.” She indicated the family in question.
“By the time we set foot in America, no doubt we’ll be just like them, scratching the lice till our skin bleeds.” Her tone was so resigned, so listless and forlorn. Callie turned to reassure Beth that as long as there was water and she had a bit of soap, she’d never be that way, but the doctor was calling “next,” and Patrick was jostling Callie ahead of him.
“Stick out your tongue.” Callie obediently did as she was told and watched as her ticket was stamped. This was a certification that she was fit and healthy, carrying no communicable diseases. She jostled the sleeping Paddy a bit and had to resort to pinching his cheek so he would stick out his tongue for the doctor. His ticket was stamped, and Patrick had it back in his pocket when the examiner called, “Next!” and Beth stepped forward.
Outside the crowded offices, Patrick put his arms about the three of them, smiling broadly. “I told you we’d pass with flying colors, didn’t I? Now all we have to do is wait for the captain of the Yorkshire to admit passengers. But first we’ll see about getting Callie’s extra provisions, and we’re all going to make a visit to the privy.”
Where did the man get his energy? How could he remain so excited and enthusiastic after all they’d been through? Callie herself felt flattened, deflated, her usual ebullience gone. Beth was feeling the same way, she knew. Callie reached out and took Beth by the arm, helping her skip across wide, muddy puddles. She wondered at this feeling of guardianship, protectorship, she felt for Paddy and his mother. Was it because Patrick was like Thomas in so many ways?
A raw, wet wind was whipping up again, portentous of another storm, sending up cloudy sprays of mist. It was colder than before, a damp cold that went straight through the bones. Callie longed for home and her faded, warm quilt where she would snuggle between the warm, soft bodies of the twins. She noticed the dark circles of exhaustion beneath Beth’s eyes, the drawn lines around her gentle mouth. Only Patrick, with his ruddy cheeks and zest for life, looked hale and hearty.
Several hours later, just as the lamplighters came with their long sticks and lanterns to touch spark to the tall gaslamps lining the wharf, they watched as the longshoremen loading the cargo into the Yorkshire’s great, dark hull began closing hatches and removing empty casks and barrels from the boarding area.
Callie could feel her stomach churn with anxiety. Soon now she would be aboard the Yorkshire, sailing among hundreds, perhaps a thousand strangers. So far from Ireland, a world away from her mother and family. Would she ever see them again? Even amidst the growing commotion, she imagined she could hear Peggy’s voice calling her name. Her feet felt leaden, the weight of the moment crushed down upon her. A prickling of tears burned the back of her eyelids. Her child’s heart cried for her mother and the security of family. “Oh, Mum, you should never have sent me away,” she moaned inwardly, feeling the undeniable need to bury her head in Peggy’s lap and feel the comforting touch of her mother’s hand brush back her hair.
It was not to be, if it was ever to be again. Callie James was about to board the packet ship Yorkshire, her face turned to the west, an autumn storm wind drying her tears upon her cheeks.
Callie sat in the oily glow of the gimbaled lanterns, which were hung from the inner ribs of the Yorkshire’s hull. It was very late, according to the call from the crew’s watchman who patrolled the decks. In the relative silence that was broken only by muffled snores and the occasional whimpering of a child, his voice rang true. “Three bells! Three bells!”
Paddy slept at the far end of her own bunk, the warmth of his feverish little body pressed against her stockinged feet. In another berth, erected against the bulkhead beneath a porthole as Beth had requested, Patrick slept with his wife, his arm thrown over her swollen body. Even in sleep he wedged against her, attempting to steady her from the rolling pitch of the ship, which caused her such misery.
Touching the pen nib to her tongue, Callie smoothed the thin white sheet of paper that Patrick had given her and continued with her letter:
Mum, I’m that happy to be with the Thatchers. They’re fine people and have taken me into their family. It is Mrs. Thatcher, Beth, who worries me. This whole business of emigrating has been very hard on her and her condition. When it was time to board the Yorkshire, the blue flag was raised from the mast. Never in your life have you seen such a wild scramble! People pushing and shoving to get aboard. When the gangplank was stuffed up, many tried to climb over the side only to fall into a rushing crowd. One man was trampled, and this minute he lies nursing wounds to his head and limbs. It was terrible, Mum, so terrible. We are so much cattle without decency. I’m awful scared, Mum. I can’t think what will happen to me. If all the people in America are like the ones I wrote you about in Liverpool and some of those on this ship, it must be the closest place to hell anyone could know.
I managed to find a place for the Thatchers and me by running ahead. Being as I am so small, I was able to squeeze through the crowd. Good thing, since many families are sharing the smallest of quarters together with others. Mr. Thatcher almost had to beat off those who wanted to shove us out of our place. Mum, you never heard such fighting and arguing in your whole life. It was worse than Bayard Street when the good Church was handing out bread and soup.
But this is our second day out, and things are quiet now. So far the seas are calm, but you’d never know it from how many people are down with the seasickness. It mostly hits the grown people; children seem to do well.
Oh, Mum, the people, say a prayer for the people. Never have I seen such suffering. Women with swollen eyes cry for the ones they left behind. Men have a scared