I heard a sound behind me. A man—yet another servant, I assumed—brought in my trunk and opened it. Then he left.
I went back to staring out the window.
“If you please, miss,” I heard Bridget say, “your father said I was to bathe and dress you.”
“Bridget, my name is not miss. It’s Charlotte.”
“I’ll not be wanting to take the liberty, miss.”
I turned to face her. “Even if I want you to?”
“I don’t think the master would approve, miss.”
“But if I asked you ...”
“Not wishing to be impertinent, miss,” Bridget said in a barely audible voice, “but it’s master who pays my wages.”
I looked into her eyes. Bridget looked down. I felt a pain gather about my heart. There was a soft knock on the door.
“Shall I answer it, miss?” Bridget whispered.
“Yes, please,” I said with great weariness.
Bridget opened the door to the other maid, Mary.
Mary entered and curtsied. “Miss,” she said to me, “master asks that Bridget take and destroy all your old clothing, miss. He also requests that I bring your journal down to him, miss.”
I looked at the two of them, the timidity of their postures, the unwillingness to engage me with their eyes.
“Mary,” I said. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Would you call me Charlotte if I asked you to. Be my friend?”
Mary stole a nervous glance at Bridget.
“Would you?”
“I shouldn’t think so, miss.”
“But . . . why?” I pleaded.
“Master wouldn’t have it, miss. I should be dismissed.”
I could not reply.
Then, after a moment Mary said, “I’ll be happy to take the journal down now, miss.”
“Shall I fetch it, miss?” Bridget asked me.
I went to the trunk, found the book, and gave it to Mary. She curtsied and without another word—and still avoiding my look—stepped soundlessly from the room, shutting the door behind her. I went back to the window.
“Shall I assume that all the clothes in the trunk, miss, are old?” Bridget asked finally.
“What will happen to them?”
“Give them to the poor, I should think, miss. Mistress is very kind that way.”
“There is one thing I must preserve,” I had the wits to tell her. Hurriedly I removed my sailor’s clothing.
“Are those to be kept, miss?” Bridget asked in puzzlement.
“I wish to show them to my parents,” I lied.
“Very good, miss.”
My trunk was unpacked. I bathed. How strange that was! The filth fairly floated off. I dressed, helped—or rather interfered with despite my protestations—by Bridget. But instead of going downstairs I dismissed her, then sat on my bed, marveling at its softness.
In truth, I was trying to compose myself. I was afraid to go downstairs. A call, I knew, would come soon enough. But, as I sat there a memory came of my first moments upon the Seahawk. How alone I felt then. How alone I was now! “Oh, Zachariah,” I whispered to myself. “Where are you? Why don’t you come for me!”
It was my father’s call that came—but not before two hours had passed. Mary returned with a request that I go directly to the parlor. With a madly beating heart I started down the broad, carpeted stairs, my hand caressing the highly polished balustrade. Before the massive doors to the room I paused and drew breath. Then I knocked.
“Come in,” I heard my father say. I entered.
My mother was seated in a chair; my father was by her side, standing with his legs slightly apart, as if bracing himself. A hand gripped one of his jacket lapels. The other hand rested protectively on Mama’s shoulder. She stared down at the carpet.
“Charlotte,” my father said, “please shut the door behind you.”
I did so.
“Now come stand before us.”
“Yes, Papa.” I advanced to the place indicated by my father’s pointed finger. Only then did I notice that the room—even for an August midday—was uncommonly warm. I glanced toward the fireplace and was startled to see a blaze there. It took me another moment to realize that my journal was being consumed by flames.
I made a move toward it.
“Stop!” my father cried. “Let it burn.”
“But . . .”
“To ash!”
I turned to them in disbelief.
“Charlotte,” my father began, “I have read your journal carefully. I have read some of it—not all—to your mother. I could say any number of things, but in fact will say only a few. When I have done we shall not speak of any of this again. Is that understood?”
“But ...”
“Is it understood, Charlotte!”
“Yes, Papa.”
“When I sent you to the Barrington School for Better Girls, I had been, I believed, reliably informed that it would provide you with an education consistent with your station in life, to say nothing of your expectations and ours for you. I was deceived. Somehow your teachers there filled your mind with the unfortunate capacity to invent the most outlandish, not to say unnatural tales.”
“Papa!” I tried to cut in.
“Silence!” he roared.
I closed my mouth.
“What you have written is rubbish of the worst taste. Stuff for penny dreadfuls! Beneath contempt. Justice, Charlotte, is poorly served when you speak ill of your betters such as poor Captain Jaggery. More to the point, Charlotte, your spelling is an absolute disgrace. Never have I seen such abominations. And the grammar . . . It is beyond belief.
“An American tutor, miss, shall instill a little order in your mind. But the spelling, Charlotte, the spelling . . .”
“Papa . . .”
“That is all we have to say on the subject, Charlotte. All we shall ever say! You may return to your room and you will wait there until you are summoned again.”
I turned to go.
“Charlotte!”
I stopped but did not turn.
“You are forbidden—forbidden—to talk about your voyage to your brother and sister.”
My wait to be called was a long one. The simple truth is I was not allowed to leave my room. All meals were brought by Mary on a tray. I was permitted no callers, not even Albert or Evelina. “She’s seriously ill,” people were told. And no matter how much I tried, Bridget, the one person I saw with any regularity, would not yield to my efforts of friendship.
From my mother I received little comfort but many tears. From my father, a vast quantity of books that he deemed suitable for my reclamation. Not a word, not a question, to console me.
But I did not read. Instead I used the books, the blank pages, the margins, even the mostly empty titlepages, to set down secretly what had happened during the voyage. It was my way of fixing all the details in my mind forever.
One week had passed in this fashion when I thought to ask Bridget for a newspaper.
“I’ll have to request it of master,” she replied.
“Bridget,” I told her, “for every day you bring a news paper without informing my father I shall give you a gift.”
Bridget gazed at me.
After a momentary search of my vanity table I selected a pearl-headed hairpin and held it up. “Like this,” I said.
She complied with my request. Within a week I found what I was searching for under the listing of “Departures for Europe.”