Journey to the River Sea

‘Yes.’ She peered at the hideous umbrella through her thick glasses. ‘I broke it on the back of a boy called Henry Hartington,’ she said.

Maia shrank back.

‘How—’ she began, but her mouth had gone dry.

‘I threw him on the ground and knelt on him and belaboured him with my umbrella,’ said Miss Minton. ‘Hard. For a long time.’

She leant back in her seat, looking almost happy.

Maia swallowed. ‘What had he done?’

‘He had tried to stuff a small spaniel puppy through the wire mesh of his father’s tennis court.’

‘Oh! Was it hurt badly? The puppy?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘One leg was dislocated and his eye was scratched. The gardener managed to set the leg, but we couldn’t do anything about his eye.’

‘How did Henry’s mother punish him?’

‘She didn’t. Oh dear me no! I was dismissed instead. Without a reference.’

Miss Minton turned away. The year that followed when she could not get another job and had to stay with her married sister, was one that she was not willing to remember or discuss.

The cab stopped. They had reached Euston station. Miss Minton waved her umbrella at a porter, and Maia’s trunk and her suitcase were lifted on to a trolley. Then came a battered tin trunk with the letters A. MINTON painted on the side.

‘You’ll need two men for that,’ said the governess.

The porter looked offended. ‘Not me. I’m strong.’

But when he came to lift the trunk, he staggered.

‘Crikey, Ma’am, what have you got in there?’ he asked.

Miss Minton looked at him haughtily and did not answer. Then she led Maia onto the platform where the train waited to take them to Liverpool and the RMS Cardinal bound for Brazil.

They were steaming out of the station before Maia asked, ‘Was it books in the trunk?’

‘It was books,’ admitted Miss Minton.

And Maia said, ‘Good.’

Chapter Two

The Cardinal was a beautiful ship; a snow-white liner with a slender, light blue funnel. She had two state rooms, a dining room and lots of deck space where people could lie about and drink beef tea or play games.

‘Isn’t it lovely?’ said Maia, and she imagined herself standing by the rail with the wind in her face as she watched the porpoises play and the white birds wheel and circle overhead.

But the beginning of the voyage wasn’t at all like that because after the ship left Lisbon, the Cardinal ran into a storm. Great green waves loomed up like mountains, the ship rolled and shuddered and pitched. Hardly anyone got as far as the dining room, and the doors to the decks were closed so that any passengers still on their legs did not get washed overboard.

Maia and Miss Minton shared a cabin with two Portuguese ladies who spent their time in their bunks groaning, being sick, praying to the Virgin and begging to die. Maia thought this was going too far, but it is true that being seasick is so awful that people do sometimes wish that the ship would simply sink and put them out of their misery.

Maia was not seasick and nor was Miss Minton. They did not feel exactly hungry but they managed to get to the dining room, holding onto everything they could find, and to eat some of the soup which the waiters poured into the bowls fastened onto the table with a special gadget that came out in storms. It is difficult not to feel superior when everyone is being ill and you aren’t, and Maia couldn’t help being a bit pleased with herself. This lasted till Miss Minton, hanging onto the saloon rail with her long, black arms, said that this would be a good time to start learning Portuguese.

‘We shall be undisturbed.’

Maia thought this was a bad idea. ‘Maybe the twins would teach me. They must speak it if they’ve been there for so long.’

‘You don’t want to arrive in a country unable to make yourself understood. Everyone speaks Portuguese in Brazil. Even the Indians mix it with their own languages.’

But the lessons did not go well. Miss Minton had found a book about the family of Senhor and Senhora Olvidares and their children Pedro and Sylvina who did all the things that people do in phrase books, like losing their luggage and finding a fly in their soup, but fixing their eyes on a page when the boat was heaving made them feel definitely queasy. Trying to read when you are being tossed about is not a good idea.

Then on the second day of the storm, Maia made her way to the main state room, where the passengers were supposed to sit and enjoy their drinks and have parties. Miss Minton was helping the Portuguese ladies and Maia wanted to get out of the way.

It was a huge room with red plush sofas screwed to the floor and long gilt-edged mirrors lining the walls, and at first she thought it was empty.

Then she saw a boy of about her own age, peering into one of the mirrors on the far wall. He had fair hair, long and curly, and was dressed in old-fashioned clothes – velvet knickerbockers and a belted jacket too short in the sleeves – and when he turned round she saw that he was looking unhappy and afraid.

‘Are you feeling sick?’ she asked him.