Meet Letty Page 2

  But Letty didn’t want either. She buried her face in Lavinia’s nightshirt.

  ‘That’s enough tears, Letty.’ Lavinia pushed her gently away. ‘We’re already awash in salt water. And I’ve only got one nightshirt. Here.’

  In the darkness, Lavinia pressed a piece of cloth into Letty’s hand. It was light and soft as kindness – Lavinia’s best lace handkerchief, already damp.

  At least Letty had not lost Lavinia, she thought. Even if her big sister had not meant her to come. ‘I love you, Lavinia,’ she said.

  ‘Mmm,’ replied her sister, as the sea rocked them off to sleep.

  THE next few days were awful. As soon as the Duchess sailed out of the bay, the open sea tossed the ship around like little Charlie shaking his rattle. Most of the women and children were ill. Letty didn’t know about the men. They were at the other end of the hold.

  ‘This place makes me sick just to smell it,’ Lavinia moaned on the fifth day. ‘Let’s get up.’

  Letty felt as if the sea had churned out all her feelings. Her arms and legs were weak. She’d had nothing in her stomach but black tea since Gravesend. She climbed the ladder shakily. But each gulp of the salt air above made her stronger. She was glad to escape the murky hold.

  The two of them rested on a box, in the sunlight. Lavinia wrapped her shawl around them both. Letty was surprised to see that there were plenty of sailors on deck. They looked busy and not at all sick. The boy who had helped with the hope chest was scrubbing the deck. He had cleaned off all his slime, Letty noticed. He looked less alarming now.

  ‘Mind you-er feet, if you will, ladies.’ The words rolled off his tongue in a funny way, like singing.

  Lavinia moved her boots. Letty stood on the box.

  ‘Look, Lavinia!’ she said.

  As far as Letty could see, there was nothing but a grey stretch of waves and sky. The ship, which had seemed so big, now seemed much too small. Letty felt very insignificant. ‘The land’s all gone,’ she said to Lavinia. ‘Every bit!’

  The boy smiled as he scrubbed. ‘Aye-aye!’

  ‘So – where are we?’ Lavinia asked him.

  ‘Movin’ at a tidy speed, we are,’ said the boy. ‘We’re already through the channel and into the Atlantic.’

  ‘Are we nearly at Sydney?’ Letty asked. Surely they must be, since England was so far behind. Maybe in Sydney the ship would let people off and turn around, she thought hopefully. And she could go back home.

  The boy stopped scrubbing and gave her a serious look. ‘No, miss. We’re still closer to the old South Wales than the new one. By a lot.’ Letty knew, from other passengers, that New South Wales was another name for Sydney.

  ‘Another three months at sea, most probably,’ the boy went on. ‘For you, at least. Then off to China for the Duchess, Captain says. Good day, Miss.’ The boy moved away to scrub another patch of deck.

  Letty did not want to believe it. Three whole months on the ship? Everyone had somewhere to go and something to do. Everyone except her.

  A deep shiver ran up and down Letty.

  ‘Sit down or you’ll die of cold,’ said Lavinia.

  Letty sat.

  ‘Lavinia,’ she said, ‘how can you bear it?’

  Lavinia shrugged. ‘Once we get our sea legs we won’t feel queasy and faint anymore.’

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ said Letty. ‘I mean leaving them all. England. And Papa. And everyone.’ She had a different sort of queasiness. In her heart, not her stomach.

  ‘Oh, that!’ Lavinia gave a little toss of her head. She pursed her lips. ‘Papa doesn’t want me, Letty. I’m too much of a handful. He’d rather have a good girl, who does what she’s told. Like you, or Stepmama. Someone he doesn’t have to think about.’

  This did not make Letty feel better.

  ‘That’s why he let me go,’ Lavinia continued. ‘Of course, he didn’t mean you to come too, but he won’t worry too much. The littlies will cry, though.’

  Letty felt like crying with them.

  ‘We’ll write to them, when we get to Australia,’ Lavinia said. She took a letter from the front of her dress. ‘See this? It’s an offer of work, for me. From a friend of a relative of Papa’s. Or a relative of a friend. It doesn’t matter which.’ She tucked the letter away again. ‘We’ll be all right, Letty.’

  Lavinia would be all right, Letty was sure. Lavinia could make scraps of cloth into lovely clothes. She could turn hard hours of scrubbing into a joke. But would she leave Letty behind, or lose her, as she had on the day the ship left?

  Lavinia whisked her shawl away. ‘I’m going to find out about food. You stay here.’

  Letty hunched her knees up under her skirt and wrapped her arms around them. She missed little Charlie and the girls. Letty was too big for hugs and hot milk, Papa often said. But Letty knew that she was not too big to want them.

  Jemima’s head poked over the hatch. She came and plonked herself down beside Letty. ‘I’ve been just so sick,’ she said.

  ‘Are you better now?’ Letty asked.

  ‘A bit. I can’t bear that toilet in the hold. Oo-pooh!’ Then Jemima changed the subject, her eyes sparkling. ‘Your sister’s dress is very pretty,’ she said.

  ‘She sewed it herself,’ said Letty.

  ‘Yours is nice too.’ Jemima fondled the ribbon rosettes, like little flowers, sewn around Letty’s skirt. ‘Our dresses are the same colour.’

  They were too, both cornflower blue. Both worn around the edges. It was Letty’s only winter dress. She had added on new ribbons specially to see off Lavinia.

  ‘And we’re in the same mess group. You know what?’ Jemima moved closer to Letty, until their shoulders were touching. ‘We can be best friends on the ship. We can eat together and wear the same clothes and play together. And everyone will say “Aren’t they sweet?” ’

  Letty smiled back. It was a nice, warm thought. She wanted to be Jemima’s friend and be like her – confident and pretty, and noticed. Lavinia had always been Letty’s best friend when they were little. But now Lavinia was older, she thought more about Australia than Letty, and Letty felt young and silly beside her.

  ‘I’ll do your hair in curls,’ said Jemima. ‘And you can give me some of your ribbons. Come with me!’

  Jemima climbed down the ladder into the hold, with Letty behind her. She went to her mother’s bunk and drew the curtain across. ‘Under here,’ she whispered, lifting up the straw mattress. Jemima’s mother had a bag of tin cutlery and plates like Lavinia’s. From it Jemima pulled out a short, sharp knife.

  ‘Here, sit down.’

  Letty sat on the bunk.

  Jemima smoothed Letty’s dress into a semicircle around her. Then she pinched a rosette in her fingers, so she could see the thread underneath it. ‘I’ll only take every second one,’ she said. ‘That’s fair, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Letty. ‘Lavinia might not like it.’

  ‘It’s your dress, not hers,’ said Jemima. ‘And I’m your friend. I’ve never had ribbons this nice.’ She sighed.

  Letty did not want to hurt Jemima’s feelings. Or turn away the new friendship that she offered. Letty wanted a best friend. Of course they could share.

  So Jemima trimmed off half the rosettes.

  ‘Have you got a needle and thread?’ Jemima asked.

  Letty was too shy to explain she had nothing of her own but her dress. ‘Lavinia does,’ she told Jemima.

  ‘Then they’re yours too, aren’t they?’ Jemima helped herself to the needle and spool of thread from the bag on Lavinia’s bunk. Letty thought that her sister might be cross, but she didn’t want to lose Jemima’s approval either. She hoped Lavinia wouldn’t notice.

  When they’d finished sewing, the ring of flowers on Jemima’s skirt wasn’t quite straight and Letty’s dress was not quite so pretty. But the girls were a pair.

  Lavinia noticed straight away. She frowned at the little holes left by cutting off the ribbons.

  ‘You�
�ll have to fix those,’ she said.

  But when Letty told her that she had to get the needle back from Jemima first, Lavinia got really mad. ‘What you do with your things is your lookout,’ she said. ‘But don’t touch mine!’ And she stormed off to retrieve them from Jemima’s mother.

  By now Lavinia knew Jemima’s mother, and all the grown girls on the ship. The women spent hours talking about Australia while Letty and Jemima played and went to classes on deck run by a schoolteacher passenger. Letty and Jemima made faces at each other behind the schoolteacher’s back. When classes were over, Jemima organised hopscotch. Before bed, they curled Jemima’s hair up with rags. They couldn’t do Letty’s yet, Jemima said, because it was still too short.

  After Sunday prayers, they sang songs to impress the adult passengers. And Jemima taught Letty a clapping rhyme about sailing.

  ‘A sailor went to sea, sea, sea

  To see what he could see, see, see;

  But all that he could see, see, see,

  Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.’

  Once the freckly sailor boy heard them as he climbed down from where he had been working, very high in the rigging, and smiled. ‘You’er singing about me, now?’

  Jemima looked at his bare feet and gingery hair.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not even English. Let’s play somewhere else, Letty.’

  Letty was not sure why they had to go somewhere else. She didn’t mind the sailor. But Jemima pinched her and whispered in her ear, ‘I’ll show you a hiding place.’

  Jemima led her up the front of the ship. ‘Here!’ Jemima lifted the corner of a large canvas. Behind it was a rowboat on its side, and a dark space just big enough for the two of them. Jemima looked over her shoulder. She giggled. ‘Freckle-head’s coming. Let’s get in.’

  The two girls crouched in the curve of the boat. Letty saw the boy’s bare feet approaching. His long toes curled against the boards of the deck.

  ‘Ugh!’ said Jemima, and flicked the canvas to cover the opening. ‘This can be our secret spot. Just ours.’ Jemima’s voice tingled in the darkness. ‘I’ve shown you this. Now you share a secret, Letty.’

  ‘I don’t have any secrets,’ Letty answered, although she did. She hadn’t told Jemima how she’d got on the ship. She didn’t want to.

  ‘You must,’ Jemima insisted. ‘Who do you like on this ship?’

  ‘Lavinia.’

  ‘Not her – she’s your sister.Who else?’

  Not the First Mate, or the Doctor, or Jemima’s loud mother. ‘You,’ said Letty.

  Jemima moved closer to Letty. ‘I’ll be your best friend always,’ she promised.

  From then on, Jemima made it a game that they couldn’t talk to ‘Freckle-head’. Instead they had to run away when he was on deck. Running and hiding was fun. But the boy sometimes looked sad, Letty thought, even though it was just a game. He still reminded her of her big brother who’d gone off to work a few years back. That made her sad too, and made her think of Papa. Lavinia had said he wouldn’t worry about Letty. But that only made Letty feel sadder, and smaller. She was nothing but a lost dot on the huge, cold sea. Being Jemima’s friend, squashed together in their special spot, helped her feel found again.

  THE further they sailed, the warmer the weather became. It seemed to Letty that the sea had changed. The water was not grey and choppy anymore. Letty liked to go to the focsle at the front of the ship. She leaned out and watched the jewel-box of ocean colours – deep purple, emerald, sapphire and flashes of silver.

  Letty thought she might be changing too. She was not so frightened now, and didn’t feel queasy. She knew to be on time for dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when their mess got fresh bread. She knew not to go on the poop deck or talk to the Doctor. If Letty thought of Papa, she felt an ache in her heart as wide as the sea. But she was with Lavinia, and she had Jemima as her friend.

  ‘Beautiful, aren’t it?’ the boy sailor commented when she was sea-dreaming one day. ‘But as moody as First Mate,’ he said.

  Letty smiled. Like my sister, she thought.

  ‘Letty!’ On the deck below, Jemima stamped her foot. Letty’s sea-dreams faded as Jemima signalled for her to come. Letty waved at the young sailor and hopped down to the deck.

  ‘Don’t you know what’s happening?’ Jemima said. ‘Today the Captain has ordered passengers’ luggage to be brought from the hold. So we can take out our summer clothes.’

  The passengers assembled around the deck. Lavinia’s hope chest was first out, because it had been nearly last in. The brass knobs were looking dull and greenish, but it was all in one piece. Lavinia gave a little hop when she saw it.

  ‘There it is, Letty!’ Lavinia lifted a ribbon from around her neck, out of the ruffley folds above her bodice. A key hung from the end of the ribbon.

  ‘So that’s where you keep the key,’ Letty said.

  ‘Shhh!’ warned Lavinia. ‘You can’t be too careful when you have to look after yourself.’

  Letty knelt in front of the chest and traced her fingers over the brass patterns. Lavinia fitted the key and opened the lid. Letty breathed in the chest’s strong smell of lavender.

  ‘Everything’s there,’ Lavinia said with satisfaction. ‘Here’s my summer calico.’ She lifted a cotton dress carefully by the shoulders. She smoothed it over one arm. ‘I can change petticoats too. The ones I’ve got on are stiff as boards – it’s so long since they’ve been washed.’

  ‘What about me?’ Letty asked.

  ‘You’ll have to wear your undershift, Letty. Now I’m going down to our bunk to get changed. You stay here and mind the chest. We know how well you can do that.’ Lavinia looped the ribbon with the key around Letty’s neck. Then she wafted off in a cloud of lavender.

  ‘Is that your chest?’ asked Jemima. ‘Isn’t it a stunner?’

  Letty nodded. She told Jemima how it had once belonged to a lord or lady.

  Jemima looked impressed. ‘Show me the inside,’ she said.

  Jemima and Letty lifted the heavy lid together. Jemima looked at Lavinia’s linen and breathed the chest’s smell.

  ‘Your things aren’t bad, are they?’ she said.

  Letty did not say they were actually Lavinia’s.

  ‘You know,’ said Jemima, ‘I could use one of these pillowslips. The ship ones are made from horrible old sacks.’

  ‘Mmm,’ agreed Letty.

  ‘So you could give this to me,’ said Jemima.

  Letty froze inside. She shouldn’t do that. They weren’t hers. But she couldn’t get the words out either. She didn’t like to say no.

  ‘Letty,’ said Jemima, as if Letty was being a bit thick, ‘if you want to be friends, you have to share. Or don’t you want to be best friends anymore?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Letty. Of course she did.

  Jemima gave her a look: sharp-eyed, head on the side, like a seagull about to take food. She folded the pillowcase up into a tight square, and tucked it under her arm. Then she looked at Letty again to see if Letty would stop her. Letty felt guilty about letting the linen go, but just as bad about refusing her best friend. So she said nothing. Jemima skipped off towards the hold, curls bouncing.

  Lavinia came back humming, almost dancing. The admiring eyes of the sailors and the gentleman passengers followed her.

  ‘It’s so good to feel pretty again,’ she said to Letty.

  Letty didn’t answer.

  ‘Cheer up! We’ll embroider some flowers on the front of your shift. I’ll sew a band to bring in the waist too, so it doesn’t look like underwear.’

  Lavinia dumped her woollen winter dress and her used petticoats on top of the linen in the chest. She locked it, without checking its contents again.

  Letty breathed a sigh of relief. She hoped that one missing pillowcase wouldn’t matter. It was the price of Jemima’s friendship.

  Letty and Lavinia started work the next day on turning Letty’s shift into a dress. Jemima and her mother came over to hav
e a look.

  ‘You’re good with a needle,’ said Jemima’s mother. ‘Every household in Sydney will want a servant like you. When we get to Sydney, I’ll introduce you to our connections. My hubby’s already in the colony. He knows people there.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ said Lavinia.

  ‘Now, Jemima,’ said her mother, ‘what do you have to say to the Beddows?’

  ‘Thank you for the pillowcase,’ said Jemima sweetly, with a little curtsey.

  Lavinia looked surprised.

  ‘The one our dear Letty gave her,’ explained Jemima’s mother.

  Letty hung her head. She dreaded what was coming.

  ‘I see,’ said Lavinia. She swept the embroidery threads and the shift from Letty’s lap. ‘Excuse us! The light is bad for sewing all of a sudden. Letty!’

  ‘I told you not to touch my things!’ Lavinia said, once they were in the hold. ‘They’re all I have.’ She threw Letty’s shift down on the mess bench. ‘I’m so angry, I won’t sew your shift. And you can’t use even one of my coloured threads.

  ‘Why do you listen to that little minx Jemima?’ she went on. ‘Why do you do whatever people tell you? Haven’t you got any sense of your own? You weren’t even supposed to be here. I’ve had it with you!’ Lavinia marched off, in a great rustle of clean cotton.

  Letty lay down on the bunk and sobbed into the mattress. She knew she’d done the wrong thing by her sister, but Lavinia’s anger was scorching.

  A while later, Jemima sat down on the bunk beside Letty. ‘Are you crying?’ she asked.

  Letty sniffed.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be here? Is that what your sister said? What did she mean?’

  It hurt Letty to talk about how she left England. She wished Lavinia had kept her secret. ‘It was a mix-up,’ she said. ‘I got on board by mistake.’

  ‘Didn’t you pay?’

  Letty shook her head.

  ‘Ooo! No wonder the Doctor doesn’t like you much,’ Jemima said thoughtfully. ‘And now your sister doesn’t want you either.’