In the Land of the Long White Cloud

anything. The outfit was too new.
    “I’ll bring you all a thank-you gift tomorrow; I promise!” she told Dorothy as she turned to go. “And you’ll make a good housewife someday. Or a maid to very fine people. I’ll be seeing you!” Gwyneira waved to Helen and the girls and ran lightly up the plank.
    “She doesn’t even believe that herself,” Daphne stated, spitting behind her. “People like that always make promises, but then you never see them again. You always have to see that they pay up right away, Dot. Otherwise, you’ll never get anything.”
    Helen lifted her eyes to heaven. What was that about “select, well-behaved girls, raised to serve meekly”? She needed to clamp down on them.
    “Daphne, you will clean that up immediately! Lady Silkham doesn’t owe you a thing. Dorothy offered to be of service. That was politeness, not business. And young ladies do not spit.” Helen looked for a cleaning bucket.
    “But
we’re
not ladies!” Laurie and Mary snickered.
    Helen glared at them. “By the time we get to New Zealand, you will be,” she promised. “At the very least, you will behave like you are.”
    She decided to get their education under way that very moment.

    Gwyneira heaved a sigh of relief when the last gangways between the dock and the
Dublin
were hauled in. The hours of good-byes had been exhausting; her mother’s tears alone had soaked through three handkerchiefs. Added to that were her sisters’ wailing and her father’s composed but funereal manner, better suited to a hanging than a wedding. Finally, there was her brother, whose obvious envy got on her nerves. He would have traded his inheritance in Wales for such an adventure. Gwyn suppressed a hysterical giggle. What a shame John Henry couldn’t marry Lucas.
    Now, however, the
Dublin
was finally ready to embark on its journey. A rustling as loud as a squall let it be known that the sails were set. The ship still had to clear the Channel and sail for the Atlantic this evening. Gwyneira would have liked to be with her horse, but naturally, that wouldn’t have been proper. So she remained dutifully on deck and waved down to her family with her largest scarf until the shore had almost disappeared from view. Gerald Warden noticed that she did not shed any tears.
    Helen’s charges wept bitterly, though, the atmosphere in steerage being more fraught than among the rich travelers. For the poorer immigrants, the trip almost certainly meant a permanent farewell; in addition, most of them were sailing into a much less certain future than Gwyneira and her traveling companions above deck. Helen felt in her bag for Howard’s letters while she consoled the girls. At least someone was expecting them…
    She nevertheless slept poorly the first night on board. The sheep were not yet dry, and the stench of manure and wet wool continued drifting into Helen’s sensitive nose. It was an eternity before the children fell asleep, and even then they would start at every noise. When Rosie crept into Helen’s bed for the third time, she no longer had the heart or the energy to turn her out. Laurie and Mary clung to each other too, and the next morning Helen found Dorothy and Elizabeth snuggled up against each other in a corner of Dorothy’s berth. Only Daphne had slept soundly; if she was dreaming, they must have been good dreams because the girl was smiling in her sleep when Helen finally woke her up.
    The first morning at sea proved unexpectedly calm. Robert Greenwood had warned Helen that the first few weeks might be stormy since there were mostly rough seas between the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. That day, though, the weather extended the émigrés’ grace period. The sun was pale after the rain the day before, and the sea shimmered a steely gray in the wan light. The
Dublin
moved sedately across the smooth surface of the water.
    “I don’t see the shore at all anymore,” Dorothy whispered, afraid. “If we sink now, no one will find us! Then we’ll all drown!”
    “You would have drowned if the ship had sunk in the harbor in London,” Daphne observed. “You can’t swim, you know, and you would have long since drowned before they finished rescuing everyone from the upper deck.”
    “You can’t swim either,” Dorothy retorted. “You would be just as drowned as me.”
    Daphne laughed. “I would not! I fell into the Thames once when I was little but doggy-paddled out. Scum floats on the surface, my old man