Ship of Dolls (16 page)

Lexie looked once more at the corner of the wheelhouse and pictured Louise with Emily Grace. “You’re not worth the trouble,” she whispered. With her head high, she walked back along the deck.

She didn’t see Louise again until later that day in the dining salon. With wide eyes, Lexie looked around the vast high-​ceilinged room in the middle of the ship. A waiter drew out a cushioned chair for Grandma. Lexie sank into another at a round table covered with a white cloth that draped almost to the polished floor.

As other passengers found their tables, their voices murmuring around her, she traced the gold-​banded rim of her china plate. She could hardly believe she was still traveling on a seagoing ship.

An older couple joined them at their table. They seemed used to dining aboard and, after greeting Grandma and smiling at Lexie, began discussing menu choices. Moments later, a tall man with worried brown eyes and an unsmiling little girl of about five took the remaining two seats. The man sat next to Grandma. He introduced himself as Mr. James and his daughter as Millicent. When Grandma tried to speak to the girl, the father said quietly, “Millicent has decided not to speak for a while. Her mother . . . There was an accident. We lost her. I’m taking Millie to her grandparents in San Francisco.”

Grandma murmured sympathetically. Lexie wanted to tell Millicent that she knew how she felt, but she didn’t think she should call around Grandma and Mr. James. Millicent wasn’t listening, anyway. She had her face pressed against her father’s sleeve.

Then Louise, her complexion a yellowish color, sat with her mother at the next table, and Lexie forgot about Millicent. The elegant dining salon had almost made her forget how angry she was with Louise. Suddenly she remembered again.

“My goodness,” Grandma said with a glance their way. “I’m afraid Louise doesn’t take well to ship travel.”

Maybe Louise would lose her lunch among all this elegance and embarrass herself and her mother. If that was a vengeful thought, Lexie didn’t care. But she didn’t say it out loud.

Mrs. Wilkins had the kind of sharp voice that made you listen whether you wanted to or not, and her comments came clearly to their table. “Louise, do not watch other people eat. Sit straight. And take small bites. Remember, you are a Wilkins and a lady.”

“She doesn’t get a chance to forget that,” Lexie whispered while a waiter poured tea for the adults.

Grandma picked up her teacup. “Fortunately, we need not concern ourselves with Louise or her mother.”

“Because Lewis ladies don’t do that,” Lexie said.

Grandma covered her smile behind her napkin, but it glinted in her eyes. “Exactly,” she said when she had her voice under control.

Mrs. Wilkins said in a tone she probably thought reached only Louise, “Your outside fork, Louise. You know a dinner fork is not for salad.”

Memory struck, and Lexie said softly, “Mama’s mother must have been a lot like Mrs. Wilkins. Mama said she got so tired of trying to be perfect for her mama that she gave up and just did whatever worked for her.”

Grandma looked startled. After a moment, she said, “She still does. That explains a lot.”

“She said she wouldn’t raise me like that,” Lexie added. “She said I was already the bee’s knees just being me.”

Grandma sipped her tea, then replaced the delicate china cup in its saucer. “You’re doing very well being you,” she said, looking straight into Lexie’s eyes. “Most folks couldn’t ask for better.”

Lexie’s heart filled with too much warmth to leave room for an answer, but Grandma didn’t seem to expect one. She had turned to a waiter to ask how the salmon was prepared.

By the time lunch was finished, the river had grown so wide, the shores were far away at either side. “We’re nearing the bar,” Grandma said. “It’s going to be rough while we cross the surf into the ocean. We’ll wait in our stateroom.”

“Can’t I watch?” Lexie asked, picturing waves crashing into the ship’s bow.

Grandma left no room for argument. “No. You may not.”

After all the warnings, Lexie felt let down by the bar crossing. She had expected the ship to bounce up and down and maybe lurch from side to side. But this was no fishing trawler. The ship was big and heavy and simply plowed through the surf. She might have felt jolts if she had been at the bow, but the lack of thrill-​ride action in their stateroom disappointed her.

Later, while Grandma rested, Lexie asked if she could walk on deck again.

“Wear your hat,” Grandma warned, somehow seeing with her eyes closed that Lexie was bareheaded. “And if it starts to rain, come inside before you catch your death.”

Lexie pulled her knit cap over her hair, then carefully wrapped the pink knit scarf around Annie. “Wait until you see the ocean,” she told the doll. “It goes on forever, all gray and bumpy, with the tops of the waves blowing away in the wind.”

Remembering Louise with Emily Grace, Lexie walked forward toward the bridge and looked around the corner. She didn’t expect to see Louise, but she was there, sitting on a coil of rope with tears streaming down her face.

Lexie thought about walking away but couldn’t bring herself to do that. She tucked Annie into her coat. She didn’t need to hear Louise’s opinion of a hand-​sewn cloth doll. Then she stepped into sight to ask, “Should I get help? Are you sick?”

Louise scrubbed her sleeve across her face. “I hate this ship. My stomach churns all the time. And Emily Grace is
gone
!”

“G
one!” Lexie felt sure her heart had dropped to her shoes, as if Louise’s words had smashed it right out of her chest. Wind whipped across the deck. She clutched Annie tighter beneath her coat.

Louise’s nose was running, and tears slid down her face. Lexie hesitated, then offered a handkerchief from her pocket. Momentary sympathy faded. “Where is Emily Grace? What do you mean, she’s gone?”

“I don’t
know
! I got sick. From the water moving all the time.” Little hiccups choked Louise between her words. “I put her here. Inside this coil of rope. I had to go to the rail. I thought I would throw up. Then Mama came out and called me for lunch.”

She looked at Lexie, her expression tragic. “I had to leave Emily Grace. What else could I do?”

Taking care that Annie didn’t slip, Lexie braced her hands on her hips the way Grandma did when she was upset. Rain was coming. She felt it in the damp wind. Maybe they were steaming into a storm. “You left Emily Grace out here? Alone? During the bar crossing!”

Louise began crying again. Lexie didn’t have patience for tears. Not with Emily Grace missing. Not with a storm coming. “Stop that. Tell me what happened!”

Still sobbing, Louise said, “I told you. I had to leave her. And then I had to go with Mama to lunch. And when I came back, she was
gone
!”

She began crying harder, leaning forward with her head in her arms across her knees. Lexie looked at her, wondering what to do. Maybe there wasn’t anything she could do. Maybe she should just leave Louise here.

Louise looked up, her flushed face glistening with tears. “You have to help me.”

“Help you!” Did Louise remember who she was talking to? “You wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t stolen my letter! And Emily Grace would be in the hold where she belongs. Why should I help you?”

“Don’t you understand? They expect me to look good for them, like their fancy house and their big Packard. I have to be the best at everything because that makes them look better! And now I’ve ruined it all!”

They? Them?

She meant her parents. Lexie sank onto a crate and resettled Annie inside her coat.
Grandma doesn’t worry that something I do might make her look bad
, she told herself.
When she worries, even when she gets cross, Grandpa says it’s because she wants me to grow up to be sensible and honest.

Grandma was stern — sometimes too stern — because she loved her.
Grandma and Grandpa just care about me growing up happy, and that means being a good person inside.

She looked again at the loneliness and misery on Louise’s face and even though she had thought she could never feel that way, she felt sorry for her. She remembered when she had felt like Louise did and thought that living with Grandpa and Grandma, especially Grandma, was the worst thing that could happen.

But they loved her. She knew that now. She had known it when they used the rainy-​day money to buy tickets so she could go to San Francisco.

Sympathy vanished. Emily Grace was lost on the deck with rain coming, maybe even a storm. She might have bounced off when they crossed the bar. What if she had rolled over the side? She couldn’t let herself think about that. “Why did you even bring her out here?”

Louise should at least have looked ashamed. Instead, her eyes flashed as if someone had done harm to
her.
“Because Mama just let me
look
at her, not
play
with her. ‘Don’t mess her hair,’ she said. ‘Don’t wrinkle her dress.’”

“She isn’t yours to play with,” Lexie snapped. “She’s for girls in Japan.”

“My mother will say I disgraced her. And my father . . . !” Louise put her head on her arms again, her body shaking. “Please help me, Lexie.”

I won’t feel sorry for Louise, the cheat
, Lexie told herself. But she knew that if she had brought Emily Grace on deck and lost her, Grandma would be horrified. Then she would help find the doll, not worry about how bad it would look for the family name if Lexie lost her.

Again, unwanted sympathy for Louise tried to creep into Lexie’s heart. They’d made the same kind of mistake, after all.
I should have told Grandma about taking the doll from Miss Tompkins’s room that day.
But I didn’t know Grandma then, not the way I know her now.

And somehow her own voice was saying, “Stop crying. We’ll find Emily Grace together.”

Maybe not together. She corrected herself at once, pulling back. She hadn’t forgiven Louise, even if she was sorry for her. If she had to spend time with Louise, the sorry would disappear fast.

“You look one way. I’ll look the other.” She glanced across the deck at boxes and crates. Finding one small doll on this huge ship seemed impossible. She held Annie tightly through her coat, almost afraid she might get lost, too. “There’s a lot to cover, and it’s starting to rain.”

Through her tears, Louise exclaimed, “I’ve looked everywhere already!”

“Where?”

“Here. In the rope. Over there by those boxes, in case she bounced out and rolled.”

“That’s not everywhere. That’s not even a start!”

“It’s no use. She’s gone!”

“You’re giving up? You haven’t even looked and you’re giving up!” Lexie wanted to grab the other girl, to force her to her feet, to make her
look.
“Emily Grace is on this ship somewhere. Alone!” She had to be. Lexie couldn’t even let herself think of Emily Grace falling overboard.

“Louise!” Mrs. Wilkins shrieked from the doorway to the cabins. “Louise Marie Wilkins! Come in out of the rain!”

Louise jolted to her feet as if her mother had pulled her by a rope. “Find her!” she said, and ran toward the cabins.

“You don’t give me orders,” Lexie yelled. There wasn’t any satisfaction in it. Wind whipped her hair and pulled at her coat. What was it doing to the doll?

She looked out at white tips flying from the water. The doll wasn’t out there tossing from one to another. What
was
happening to Emily Grace?
Think!

There weren’t any dogs aboard to run off with her. The ship was heaving in the rough waves, but not enough to bounce the doll out. Not if she had really been settled in the coil of rope. Lexie made herself believe that even when they had crossed the bar, the doll wouldn’t have bounced overboard. The ropes would have held her.

Unless she was never in the coil. Could Louise have left her on top and lied about it?

Lexie didn’t think so. Louise had been too upset to lie about that, too shocked to find Emily Grace gone.

Suppose a sailor had found the doll! He would have put her somewhere safe, wouldn’t he? Where? Lexie wondered if she should ask the captain, but she didn’t know where to find the captain. And it was raining harder. There was no
time.

She looked in one direction and then another and then along the rail toward the stern. Her search stopped at the door into the Grand Salon. She said softly to Annie inside her coat, “Wouldn’t the Grand Salon be a safe place where everybody would see Emily Grace sooner or later?”

A sailor who found a doll left on deck with rain coming would think of that. He’d know that the owner would come through the Grand Salon eventually.

“She’s there! She has to be!” With her heart singing, Lexie ran to the doorway and pushed it open. The salon was a warm space in the heart of the ship, with cushioned chairs around small tables and tufted benches wrapped around gleaming wooden support columns.

And there was Emily Grace, on one of the benches. She was snuggled in the arms of that little girl, Millicent, the one whose mother had died in an accident. While Lexie watched, Millicent kissed Emily Grace’s rosy cheek. For the first time since Lexie had met her at lunch, Millicent was smiling.