A dull anger churned inside me. I wished I lived in a world where I could give Charles a good telling off, make him right his wrongs, but I knew I would never get the chance. He was the winner of this high-stakes game. “We will weather this storm just as we have all the others. We’ll build a new life in the colonies where no one has ever heard of us.”
Even as I said it, I knew there would be no avoiding this scandal. This news would surely reach Victoria and everywhere else in the empire. There was no escape for Hari. I just prayed it wouldn’t destroy her. I put my arm around her, but she grew rigid and pushed me away.
“Leave me now, Char,” she said. Her eyes glazed over and she had an oddly detached look on her face. “All I want to do is sleep.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Life on the ship changed drastically. While Captain Hellyer still occasionally asked us to dine with him, Sir Richard, Lady Persephone, and most of the other first-class passengers shunned us. Whenever we entered the dining room, there were stares and whispers. Other than Dr. Carson and John, no one invited us to join them. Dr. Carson expressed his sympathy for what Harriet was going through, as did John.
“It doesn’t seem right,” he said. “But these things are seldom fair to women.”
He was so understanding and easy to talk to—part of me wanted to confide the whole story, but I couldn’t betray Harriet’s confidence. She was polite but cool to the two men and withdrew from shipboard society once again. I followed suit, and we took most of our meals in the cabin. Now, more than ever, I needed to make a good marriage. I was determined to make a home for Hari, just as she had for me when Papa died. As much as I liked him, John wasn’t that man, but I was still drawn to him.
On the other hand, Hari no longer minded my working with Dr. Carson, and I continued to do so. The work gave me the opportunity to see Sarah and little Jacob, and Florence, whom I had become quite close to. I appreciated that they didn’t judge me the way the other passengers did. I didn’t have much time to socialize with them though. Dr. Carson needed my help. The number of accidents belowdecks had spiked because of a change in weather.
Ever since we left Bermuda, it had become horribly hot and humid. With the winds nonexistent, the sails were tied off and the ship’s steady progress came from the coal-fed screw engine alone. No trade winds provided relief from the hourly hauling of coal and stoking of engines. I was thankful we had replenished stores of laudanum, which we were handing out to treat burns and crushed fingers and toes with surprising regularity even for Dr. Carson.
As the weeks went by, Hari remained confined to our cabin, though once or twice in the night I woke to find her gone. I never asked her where she went, but assumed she was walking the deck when she could be alone and free of judging stares. When she wasn’t sleeping, she lay listlessly on her bed looking off into space, saying little. The bloom that had flowered in her cheeks in recent weeks was on the wane. She was beginning to have the same hollow-eyed, white-faced look of before. I was deeply worried about her, but I had no idea how to help her this time.
I tried to draw her out with various things, a game of cards, or sweets I regularly bought from the small canteen. Wiggles had sent me a letter, and I even read it out loud in an attempt to buoy her spirits. It was full of news and a funny anecdote about how Edward had made a pompous fool of himself at the village flower show when his roses didn’t win first place. It made me laugh. As much as our prospects were dire, I was thankful that my destiny was no longer caught up with him and his children.
I was standing at the rail, looking forlornly out at the horizon, lost in my worries, when I felt the wind begin to pick up for the first time in weeks. I turned back to the deck, now a blur of activity as the crew scrambled to unfurl some of the sails. For so long, it had felt as if we were almost sitting still, but now, finally we were really moving. All I wanted to do was to get off the ship and be back on dry land.
Many of the first- and second-class passengers came out on top deck to admire the impressive clouds forming in the sky. I saw Sir Richard, Lady Persephone, and the Burks all taking in the sight. A group of young swells gathered at the railing, dressed as though they were heading out for a Sunday afternoon stroll in Hyde Park. They laughed and poked each other with their elbows, pointing at the clouds as they called out names like Thor’s hammer, Odin’s anvil, and Zeus’s chariot with jocularity.
The names that the young men had given the formations were apt. I could imagine what the ancient Greeks would have thought of such a scene. There was Zeus himself, in a mighty chariot, drawn across the sky by four gold-winged chargers. His left hand was drawn back, preparing to release a deluge of lightning bolts. And behind him rode the lesser gods, coming to amuse themselves by wreaking havoc on the wretched mortals below. I had once had the good fortune to visit Covent Garden to attend a performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre and hear “Ride of the Valkyries.” Its bold percussions filled my head as I gazed skyward.
Sun caught
