The cabbie had an impertinent twinkle in his eye, and a crumpled tweed cap. 

“And oo’re you, then?” Jill demanded, tapping her high buttoned shoe on the cobblestone sidewalk. 

He rested the heel of a worn boot on the brake and surveyed her from his seat atop the hansom. “Which the name’s Banks, miss. Sent over to fetch you.”

“In a ‘ansom cab?” She looked at the giant brass-bound trunk planted in the gravel in front of the inn. Little Bessie perched on the lid, blue eyes wide with all the sober judgement of four years of life experience. “Where will we put the trunk, on our laps? I asked for a carriage.” 

“That’s mor’n I know, miss. No one said there’d be luggage.”

“Then off with you! We need a carriage, see, not this tiny little thing.” She took out her pocket watch. “Good Lord preserve us, the time!” A good half an hour’s journey ahead of them, not counting loading the blasted trunk, and only twenty-five minutes before the ship left. She glared at the cabbie. “What you waitin’ for, then, judgement day? We’ve got to get it in somehow. Step down and give a body a hand.”

He scratched the dark stubble on his chin and grinned. “No miss. Sorry, miss. That big old trunk wouldn’t fit if I used grease and a shoe-horn.” 

“We’ll get a carriage, then.”

“Suit yourself, miss.”

Farmer Bates would have one, only his house was a ways down the road, and the ship wouldn’t wait, neither. Both of the inn’s carriages were gone. It was either give up the boat ticket Robert sent them—he’d bought them first class, too, so proud he was of his new position in America—or the trunk, and all they had. Grandfather Merryland’s Bible. The christening gown Robert’s mother made him.

Bessie’s solemn eyes remained fixed on her mother’s, and her face clouded.

Jill pasted on a smile. “Never you mind, love. Come along now, and we’ll just ask the innkeeper to watch the trunk for us.” She swept Bessie off the trunk, picked up her carpetbag, and shot a glare at the cabbie. “You wait ‘ere.”

Bessie trotted along with her hand in Jill’s. “Why can’t we take the trunk?”

“Because it won’t fit.”

“I know, we can carry it on our heads.”

“Bless you, where’d that idea come from? Hurry now.”

The innkeeper said he’d be happy to watch the trunk, in return for the last of the money she had, excepting the fare for the hansom and one solitary sixpence. What else could she do, caught between the devil and Beelzebub, and time ticking away? She handed over the banknotes and extracted a promise to send the trunk after them once she’d wired the money—God only knew where it would come from. 

 Back outside, Jill helped her daughter into the cab, gathered her skirts, gave the cabbie a nasty look, and stepped in. A cluck from the driver and the horse paced away, leaving the trunk all forlorn in front of the inn. 

“We’re leaving the trunk?” asked Bessie.

“Only for now, love. It’ll follow us later, in America, when we’re with Daddy.”

“What if someone steals it?” 

Jill set her teeth. “Then I hope the scarves choke ‘em and the clothes don’t fit right and the dishes all break.” She rummaged for her handkerchief and mopped her nose. “And the Bible puts the fear of hellfire in ‘em.”

They traveled on to the rattle of the hansom and the snorts of the horse. Ten minutes left, and they hadn’t even passed the railway station. What if thieves got the trunk, and they didn’t make the ship after all? Visions of slow death in the poorhouse flitted through her mind, Robert losing his fine new job a-coming to find them, only to arrive too late.

The hansom stopped at an intersection to let a clanking tram cross. A grubby toddler caught her eye, marching along the crowded sidewalk by himself. No one seemed to notice him.

None of her concern, that much was certain.

The river lay just ahead. Just last month they’d pulled a child’s body out of it, floated up with the tide, poor soul. 

The tyke climbed unsteadily off the edge of the sidewalk and marched into the street. The hansom began moving again.

Jill rapped on the ceiling with her umbrella. “Stop the cab,” she howled. “Stay here, love, I won’t be long—I hope.”

She leapt out and scrambled towards the brat, dodging horses and carriages, cursing under her breath. “We ain’t got time. Lord knows we don’t. Why don’t somebody else take care of ‘im?” The child stared at her when she scooped him up almost under the wheels of a heavy cart, and wiped his muddy hands on her traveling dress. 

No one on the street seemed to be looking for a lost toddler. They all hurried on, intent on their own business. She darted into the first store and asked them, but no one had seen the child before. Out on the street again, she consulted her pocket watch. The last of the passengers had begun to board. What would they do if they missed the boat, sleep in the gutter? 

A shoe-shine boy caught her eye, and she bustled over to him. A right fine looking boy, who, for the price of her last sixpence, promised to return the child to its mother. 

The hansom bounced as she climbed in. “Go, cabbie, get on! To the docks!”

The cabbie gave the gelding his head, and the hansom flew, turning corners at a speed that made the wheels slide. One minute after another slipped by, and Jill couldn’t help but think better of the cabbie. He might be cockney, but Lordy, that man could drive, as two shop’s boys and a stray dog almost learned to their lasting sorrow. 

The dock was crowded with folk come to see the ship off, so crowded the hansom had to stop before it’d gotten right to the gate. 

“We’ll make a run for it,” she said. “Now just hold on to my hand, love, and don’t let go.” They waded through the crowd, Jill wielding the carpet bag like a battering ram, until they reached the gangplank, and two sailors in matching coats unlashing it from the dock. “Two more,” Jill hollered. “Just you try it, mister. Let us through!”

 The sailors stood. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” one said.

A steward trotted down the gangplank. “Ticket, please.”

Jill produced it with a flourish, flushed and out of breath. She drove her elbow into a man who had stepped too close and dug for her handkerchief. 

A sailor took the carpetbag. Jill patted her daughter’s hand, blinking back tears. They’d made it after all, and soon she’d be with Robert again!

The steward looked up from the ticket and gave her a nod. “Please to follow me, ma’am, and welcome to the R. M. S. Titanic.”

The idea for this story came from an author friend of mine, Esther Wallace. You can check her out here: https://www.theblackphantomchronicles.com