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feeling hardens within her. Meggy has never once cried with Isabella about Daniel, and losing a child is far worse than losing a wife. Meggy, who has never had a child of her own, had merely said, “You’ll have another, and this sadness will turn to sunshine,” as though children were like tea sets and the loss of one could be compensated easily with the purchase of another.
    Isabella gets the devil in her.
    She stands, calls out, “Mr. Harrow!”
    Meggy shrinks up, knees against chest, putting Isabella in mindof a spider when one raises the broom at it. “Isabella, don’t!” she hisses.
    But it is too late. Mr. Harrow turns towards them and raises his hand in a wave. Meggy climbs to her feet, in the hope of escape. Isabella beckons Mr. Harrow with one hand, while capturing Meggy by the upper arm. Isabella is strong, tall and queenly; Meggy cannot get away. Mr. Harrow’s shiny pink face is curious as he approaches.
    “Yes, Mrs. Winterbourne?”
    Meggy has turned her face away, deep red with embarrassment. The first tendril of regret touches Isabella, but it is too late. Her mouth has already started to form the words. “Mrs. Whiteaway and I were just having a little chat, and it seems that Mrs. Whiteaway admires you greatly.”
    Now it is Mr. Harrow’s turn to glow with embarrassment, and Isabella can’t for the life of her recover the evil spark that has made her start this nonsense, and shame creeps across her skin. She releases Meggy, who runs past them and down the fore hatch with a sob. Mr. Harrow watches her, then turns back to Isabella. She cannot read his expression. Is he angry? Puzzled? Perhaps he is sweet on Meggy too?
    Ah, of course he is. They travel all over the world together, and it’s “Mrs. Whiteaway” this and “Mr. Harrow” that and dropped eyelids as they pass each other in the narrow wood-paneled corridors of the saloon.
    “I’m sorry,” Isabella manages. “I don’t quite know . . .” She trails off, nods once, then goes to the anchor deck to recite her morning plea to the ocean.
    She realizes it is unlikely Meggy will speak to her for the rest of the journey and for a few hot moments she doesn’t care. But then she cools again, and despairs because she is a woman whois too broken to reassemble herself nicely when the situation requires. Too broken, surely, to move among other people, whose hearts are whole.
    T he ship is large, but the rooms are very close together. Isabella and Arthur have two cramped bunks in what is otherwise the bosun’s cabin. The bosun, for this journey, sleeps with the crew at the dark end of the ship. At night the ship creaks. The sound of wind gusting outside. The sea slapping the boards. But Isabella has never slept so well in her life, rocked in the arms of the ocean.
    At night, when she lies in her bunk, she can hear Arthur and the Captain talking in the saloon. They don’t know she can hear them, because they talk about her readily and clearly. Her body tenses as she hears her name.
    “My wife is inconsolable this evening, Winterbourne. Isabella’s gone and done something silly.”
    Arthur harrumphs. There is the sound of a drink being poured. “Did Meggy tell you what she’d done?”
    “Wouldn’t divulge. Simply said that she’d embarrassed her greatly, and that she is as wild as a spitting cat.”
    Isabella’s heart wilts in her chest. Meggy has turned on her. She knows why, but she still feels betrayed. Why can nobody be kind to her? As kind as she needs them to be? Is there something in her face or bearing that invites people to unkindness?
    “Ah, yes. That’s Isabella,” Arthur grumbles. “She wasn’t always this way, Francis. When I married her she was much more amenable. The infant’s death . . .”
    “I have to speak plainly to you, Winterbourne. She can’t keep using that as an excuse.”
    “Some women never recover from it.”
    “Because they don’t want to. They’re in love with their own grief. You say Isabella