The Last Geomancer

Scene 8: Jack Meets Mary Hassett

Howel had gone for a bit of an explore. Having grown up on and around ships, Jack had advised him that the more interesting parts, like the engine room, would be off limits to passengers. He’d been jovially rebuffed.

“Not as interesting to you, sea dog, but much more so to me,” Howel proclaimed with a laugh. “I’ll try not to be underfoot.” He waved a hand in the general direction of a passing crewman. “I know they’re busy, I’ll stay out of the way.”

They’d claimed bunks down at the far end of the steerage quarters, furthest from the hatch but closest to the porthole. Jack had set his basket in the upper berth as soon as he’d noticed nobody had claimed the one by the only source of fresh air.

“Sure, it’s going to be cold at night when we can have it open,” he’d told Howel, “but trust me, you’re going to want the air.” Howel took the lower berth with very little complaint, after casting a somewhat dubious eye around the room at the other passengers.

Most everyone else was rushing about trying to deal with the settling-in and the departure and maybe going to the rail to watch or off to another steerage cabin to find friends or relatives. Folk had their own business to tend to, and like as not, none of them would remember anyone else’s name later. There’d be time for proper introductions over dinner after the ship had sailed.

“Well, then,” he’d wished Howel, “enjoy your explore and maybe you’ll be able to show me a bit of the ship I didn’t know was there.” And with that, they’d parted company, and now Jack stood by the top of the gangway to the portside stern deck.

A crew-only area down the centerline divided the passenger area into port and starboard sections, each with its own gangway from below and forward, and a narrow bridge of iron planks and wire netting, accessed by a three-step iron gangway at either end, to make a sort of tunnel over the crew passage. Forward of all this, the aft mast stood with its triangular sail currently half-unfurled, luffing a bit in the random breeze through the harbour.

The woman standing by herself at the railing had a space around her full of social awkwardness. She was young, early twenties at most, obviously with child, ready to drop his mum would have said, and dressed in someone’s hand me down widow’s weeds. She stood with her back to the harbor, crying quietly into a handkerchief, most of her face hidden in its folds.

Jack chose a slow approach, coming round first into her line of sight, and keeping an eye on her reaction. When she made little show of noticing him, he cleared his throat, and spoke gently as a bard.

“Jack Hollow, ma’am. Is there ought here that a man of honor could do?”

She snorted, the sound muffled and soggy through the kerchief. “A man of honor?” she asked, the hint of a melancholy laugh fading not quite into existence at the edge of her voice. “You’re dramatic enough for Ivanhoe, I suppose. And are you? Hollow, I mean?”

Jack gave a one shoulder shrug. “Eh. Me mum said I had a hollow leg.”

She gave a bit of a mock sigh, a deliberately obvious ennui accompanied with drooping shoulders. “Well, I don’t suppose I could have expected this to go on like a gothic romance, the hero with the peculiar, foreboding name arriving with the regency pickup line.” And then she flustered for a moment, and flushed, and with some effort focused on Jack’s face, her eyes overly bright, pupils large and dark.

“I’m terribly sorry, I’m not this forward, the apothecary gave me something to help with boarding and departure and it’s making me feel funny.” She glanced down, more or less at Jack’s knees, with a sudden frown. “I’m afraid I may need to take your arm, I think I –”

And then Jack had spun her round and leaned her over the railing as she was abruptly sick. He held her while the convulsion passed, then returned the handkerchief he’d snatched out of the air on the way to her side. Stepping back, he gave her room to recover her dignity while being close enough to catch her if she fainted.

She took a moment to dab at her mouth with the handkerchief, blink away the tears, and take a deep, shuddering breath. She held it for a brief second, then let it out slowly through pursed lips, like she was trying to rid herself of hiccoughs.

“Mary,” she said at the end. “Mary Hassett, since I have your name and didn’t give you mine. I’m, um, i don’t even know how to address this.” She couldn’t quite look at hm, wan from the shock of her sudden illness, thank God she’d had the presence to hold her nose. Another deep breath, and she stood up a bit straighter, blinked, still a bit aghast and unfocused. “Not the best foot forward.” She resettled the black crocheted shawl that had fallen off her shoulders.

Jack shrugged. “Then don’t. Everybody gets sick their first time on a ship. Ignore it and start over.” He gave her a moment to collect her thoughts, waited to see where she was heading.

“Come up for the fresh air?” she ventured. She met his eyes, holding hers steady with a visible bit of effort, fighting off the physical and social impact of the recent spasm.

Jack laughed once, bitterly. “Nar, you want fresh air aboard ship, you go up t’the bow.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder in a general forward direction. “I notice that’s all marked off for the saloon-class passengers. Us steerage folk will have to make do downwind of the funnels, in the sparks and the smoke, and keep an eye out for the boom on that lateen rig on the third mast.” He gave a nod in the direction of the potential offender.

She gave a slow nod, as if afraid to move her head too quickly. “You’re a sailor then?”

“Not at present,” Jack admitted, “but fisherman’s child, grew up with one foot on land and the other on deck.”

“Here in Plymouth?” She brightened slightly at the possible connection. “My husband is - I mean -” She dropped her eyes, gently placed her right hand over her belly in a move at once cherishing and protective. “Was. He was an accountant for a shipping firm.” She held out her left hand, stretched out her fingers, stared at the plain silver band on the index, a mark on the ring finger not yet starting to fade.

“I’m so terribly sorry, ma’am.” Jack didn’t quite know what to do at that point. Back home in Forcette, he would have known Mary well enough to treat her as family at that moment, and offer her a warm shoulder to lean on and a strong arm about hers, an affirmation of support. All he knew about this woman was what he’d learned in the past few minutes. He couldn’t follow his instinct. If nothing else, he felt no connection.

In the silence, Mary went on, in a still, small voice, speaking more to her unborn child than to Jack. “He was a shipping accountant, and a good man, and a hard worker. Two months back, he fell in between the ship he’d just finished auditing and the tender.” She paused. Jack waited, still uncertain.

“It was night,” she went on, her voice quiet, calm, telling a story she’d rehearsed far too often, “and raining, and he slipped on the gangway and went over. They found the body three days later.”

“I’m so sorry,” Jack tried, after a moment.

“We’d been wed not quite a year. Henry and I had thought ourselves so blessed to be with child so quickly. The company gave me a cash settlement, enough to pay my passage and bring a few things along. I’m on my way to relatives in Melbourne. With the keepsakes and heirlooms and other possessions they’re willing to take.”

That hung in the air for a little while before she waved it off with the abused handkerchief. “I’m sorry, I’m still in the bitterness of widowhood or something, I suppose.”

Jack found a point of commonality, set his compass by it, went for a gambit. “Me Da was lost in a storm back when I was seven.”

When he waited for a response, she glanced up at him, hand still over her incipient child. “That must have been hard.”

Feeling prompted for detail, Jack nodded agreement. “Martin had forgot to latch the aft covers down. Me Da went out quick to try and get them before the squall got worse and salt water got in. He didn’t take the time to put himself on a line, trying to save the catch. Salt water hitting the ice would have thawed it faster and the fish would have spoiled before they made port. The wind got there before the water, snapped the sheet over.”

Jack paused for a breath. Mary waited patiently. “Da was hit with a wall of wet canvas,” he went on finally, “swept over the railing into the teeth of the squall and gone before they could get a rope thrown out. He’d got the one latch dogged down, though, and that was enough to secure the hatch until someone got on a line and got out there proper-like to see to the rest. Martin never forgave himself. Drank himself into his grave two years later.”

He took a moment, and Mary again waited. Jack went for a new tack. “Have you got a name picked out?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, with a quick shake of her head and an avert sign made with her left hand over her heart, a quick crossing and circling. “We hadn’t wanted to choose names until the birth was closer so as not to hex the delivery.”

Jack’s first thought, to apologize for steering the conversation back out onto thin ice instead of to solid ground, got drowned out as it formed by the ship’s whistle. A great bellow from multiple steel throats shouted across the harbour that the great ship was casting off and preparing to get under way. A tugboat maneuvered into position at the bow, lanterns across the stern for a “Follow Me” sign rather than a line being secured between the two vessels. A great cheer went up as the echoes of the whistle began to die away, both from the docks and the ship along the fore and aft railings.

The noise gave both an opportunity to break away from a conversation that had gotten very personal for a chance meeting, after an unpleasant and awkward beginning. Mary and Jack both turned to the rail, the buffer of social protocol now wrapping around both of them and giving them plenty of room.

With a great chuff of smoke from the funnels, the ship began to swing away from the pier. The forward sails remained under shroud. As the SS John Lawrence cleared the pier, and started to put her bow out to sea, the aft sail filled out, giving the ship a bit more push from the stern and the rudder a bit more bite. Within minutes, they’d cleared the port, and were setting a course following the tugboat down between Drake’s Island and the point of Mount Batten, and from there out to where the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean blurred into each other.

“You shouldn’t watch the land out of sight,” Jack said finally, when the tumult of departure had died down and conversation in polite tones was possible. “That would be bad luck.”

“So the same as watching a ship out of sight from land?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the view as Plymouth receded.

“Pretty much. That sort of thing is usually true from both ends. Luck gets reflective like that.”

She nodded, made a decision. Turned to Jack. Offered her left hand, ring prominent. “A man of honour could see me to my berth, and ensure that I get to what passes for my home in safety.”

Jack offered his arm, let her take it above the elbow. “It would be a pleasure to render such a duty.”

She came about as close to a smile as she’d gotten since Jack had seen her, but did not speak again as they made their way below.