Read Great Historical Novels Online
Authors: Fay Weldon
‘Is that what they think – that I fancy myself genteel?’
‘What else?’
‘How did you know I was from the trade?’
‘Word gets around in a prison, Mahoney. You’ll see. Besides, I’ve seen
ladies
of all sorts and I can tell who’s who and what’s what.’ Margaret’s expression became earnest. ‘To be truthful, I’d a word with Mrs Blake and she asked me to look out for you. It’s down to her that you’re in this ward, you see. She knows people. Everyone in our ward will be on the same transport. That’s the way it works.’
‘Mrs Blake was here? When?’
‘Two days after you came in, but new prisoners aren’t allowed visitors or letters until they’ve settled a bit. The wailing gives everyone the collywobbles.’
Rhia could have wept. Antonia had been at Millbank. Margaret looked cautiously sympathetic. She shook her head in warning. ‘Remember, no wobbles, Mahoney.’ She jerked her head at Nora and company. ‘They already think you’re soft, so you’ll need to toughen up, or at least pretend to. Tomorrow’s a visiting day and you might have someone in.’
Rhia fought off the emotion. It was always only a breath away. ‘How do you know Mrs Blake?’
‘Quakers often visit. Saints the lot of ’em, but Mrs Blake especially, with her own troubles and all. She told me her maid has been poorly, though I can’t say I’m surprised by it. She’s not the full shilling anyway.’
‘Juliette?’
‘Barmy. Completely. She told me … but I mustn’t say – I promised I wouldn’t.’ Margaret looked disappointed. Presumably she was keeping some kind of secret for Juliette.
A morsel of gossip was suddenly of huge interest. ‘It was something foolish?’ she coaxed.
‘Oh,
aye
. I’ll tell you this much: Juliette gave me something to carry to Sydney, which is where I’m bound for, and if you were to see it, you’d know she was batty.’
Before Rhia could ask any more about Margaret’s odd secret, or about Sydney, the clang of the iron bell at the gate to the yard interrupted them and they were rounded up and led back to their cells and their sewing.
By the time there was no light left to sew by, Rhia longed to sleep for ever. In fact, sleep was no friend in this place and she was often wakeful. At least she now knew why she had received no letter from home. Surely by now her mother would have heard from Dillon. What if Brigit was ashamed and couldn’t bring herself to write? Rhia put the thought firmly from her mind. If nothing else in the world was true, then she could at least be sure of her mother’s love.
Her thoughts turned to Laurence. Even if his advances had been mere flirtations, she still missed him. She might never see him again. He would not think her so desirable now. Her vanity was in tatters, like a bright print left in the weather to fade and tear.
The moon must almost be full, because a pale beam fell across the wooden cover of the washbasin and the shelf above it. In some of Mamo’s old stories, the moon was the lantern of the Queen of the Night, whose name varied from story to story, from Anu to Cerridwen, Rhiannon and Cailleach. Rhia thought of Antonia’s icons. Mary could also be Queen of the Night. The beam lit the shelf and the only reading material Rhia had seen in weeks, a Bible. She had barely noticed it and had not touched it. If the sighing shadows would not show themselves, then tonight, she decided, she would be Catholic. She reached for the moonlit holy book, before she could think better of it, and opened it randomly. The psalm she read made her close the book just as swiftly:
119:37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity and quicken thou me in thy way.
There was no need to look for signs of spirit when they were pushed under your nose. She was not sure if she should feel comforted or reprimanded but for now at least she felt less alone. She slept until the morning bell.
The wardswoman Miss Hayter let herself in to Rhia’s cell the next morning. Miss Hayter had shown her the unforgettable kindness of sitting with her on her first night, when Rhia was frightened and almost beside herself with loneliness and homesickness. She did not speak, but sat by the door with some sewing while Rhia sobbed herself to sleep in her hammock.
Miss Hayter was bird-like, plain and quietly spoken but, more than any other warden, she engendered respect amongst the women. Perhaps it was because she was diminutive, so not physically threatening, or because she seemed genuinely concerned for their well-being, or because she appeared to be able to look right through you when she spoke to you. Everyone liked her and wanted to be liked by her, Rhia included.
‘You have a visitor, Mahoney.’
Antonia! Rhia almost felt light-hearted as she pulled on her cap and tied her apron strings. Miss Hayter waited quietly, watching with her earnest expression. ‘I hear that you are a draughtswoman, Mahoney?’ she said.
‘I almost was.’
‘Perhaps your skill will be useful to you, when we sail.’
‘When we sail?’
‘Why yes, have you not been told?’
‘Told what?’ A shiver crept up Rhia’s spine.
‘The ward has been assigned to the next transport, the
Rajah
. It is to depart on April the fourth. I myself am to be the matron in charge.’
Rhia opened her mouth, mutely. Miss Hayter was watching her. ‘It must seem sudden, but it does happen occasionally. There is a need for literate women in Australia, and particularly for women with a trade.’
‘London needs women with a trade too, Miss Hayter, and women who are literate.’
The warden had the grace to look abashed.
‘What is today’s date?’ Rhia whispered.
‘It is March the twenty-sixth.’
‘Then I have less than two weeks left.’
Miss Hayter nodded. ‘There is great opportunity in Sydney, and for one such as yourself—’ Rhia didn’t hear the rest. She didn’t want to hear praise for the colony, she could think only that two weeks wasn’t enough time for an appeal to be made. She was not to be saved.
She followed Miss Hayter to the refectory where visitors had been shown. She looked for Antonia among the faces of the free. The people from outside were like brushstrokes of colour – a red scarf, a green hat, blue breeches.
Antonia was not here.
Then she saw Mr Dillon. She supposed he had visited a prison before because he seemed perfectly at ease. He had the good grace not to let his eyes stray to her prison uniform, nor to remark on her appearance. She recalled last night’s lesson with some difficulty. His eyes held hers.
‘Good morning, Miss Mahoney.’
‘Good morning, Mr Dillon.’ His face looked different. Though maybe she had never really examined it before. He was somewhere between the beginning and middle of his thirties, she thought, and had a light dusting of freckles on the pale skin
of his nose, cheeks and forehead. His hair was as black as her own and tied back with a ribbon. His eyes were a mottle of mossy hazel, like a forest floor. He looked back at her, his eyebrows arched, and retrieved his pocket book from some hidden recess inside his long coat.
‘I have word from your mother. I advised her to send any return correspondence to my address. I promised that I would honour its privacy and bring it safely to you. I have fulfilled both promises.’ He passed the letter, hidden beneath his hand, across the table towards her and Rhia kept her eyes on his face.
‘Is anyone watching?’ she whispered as her hand touched his. He cast his eyes about the room and shook his head. He withdrew his hand and Rhia slipped her mother’s letter into her apron pocket. A look of co-conspiracy passed between them. ‘We are good at this,’ she said. He nodded, but his smile quickly disappeared.
‘I’ll come straight to the point. I’ve set in motion an appeal to the crown, but it is a lengthy process and could take months. In my opinion, you were targeted to look guilty of this crime, and I’m in the throes of convincing Mr Montgomery of the fact. He says that his wife is certain that you stole the cloth and that you took the key to the storeroom.’
‘But I did not! Mrs Montgomery gave the key to Isabella.’
‘Prunella Montgomery is not a reliable witness,’ Dillon agreed, but the Crown is not interested in that. Your defence was not present at the court, which is an abomination and a matter I’ve still not been able to get to the bottom of. Mrs Blake engaged one of the best counsels in London, but he will not receive me, nor answer my letters. Mrs Blake herself was going to visit you today, because we’ve not been allowed to see you before now, but apparently her maid has taken a fit of some kind.’ He shook his head. ‘It would appear that the maid doesn’t
want Mrs Blake to see you. At any rate, she will come next time.’
Rhia bent her head. ‘Then Juliette will have her way and I will not see her. I have been assigned to a transport that sails to New South Wales on April the fourth. So you see, there is no hope.’
Dillon looked shocked, and then angry. But when he spoke his voice was low and even. ‘That is very soon indeed, Miss Mahoney, but there is always hope.’
Rhia stared at her hands, noticing that her fingertips were scoured red from needlework and cold.
‘There is something else,’ he said quietly. ‘I wish that I didn’t have to be the one to tell you it.’
What could be worse than this?
‘It concerns the death of your uncle.’
Rhia tensed. ‘Please be direct, Mr Dillon.’
‘Very well. I don’t believe Ryan Mahoney’s death was accidental.’
‘Then you think he took his own life after all?’
‘No. I believe he was murdered.’
The bell clanged but Rhia didn’t stand.
Mr Dillon stood and bowed as though they were in a drawing room and he was her guest. He said something about Laurence Blake certainly being back in London before the
Rajah
sailed, and something about her belongings being delivered to Millbank, and then he was gone.
She was alone.
Behind Me – dips Eternity –
Before me – Immortality –
Myself – the Term between –
Death but the drift of Eastern Gray,
Dissolving into Dawn away,
Before the West begin –
’Tis Miracle before Me – then –
’Tis Miracle behind – between –
A Crescent in the Sea –
With Midnight to the North of Her –
And Midnight to the South of Her –
And Maelstrom – in the Sky
Emily Dickinson
A murmur rippled along the procession of rowing boats. The
Rajah
was little more than a dark triangle in the mist, but it was as chilling a sight as a prison van emerging from a London fog. Each creak of the oars brought it closer.
The form of a barque took shape.
The rhythm of the dipping oars gave way to the collision of steely waves against timbers. Above was the mournful cry of gulls. A hush descended as the boats neared the towering hull of the transport.
Further away, through the salty mist, was something even worse, something that made the transport seem like a paper sailing boat by comparison: a dark battalion of leviathans anchored a league away by great chains, each link the size of a carriage wheel.
Hulks.
Finally, something to be grateful for – better to be sent into the unknown than to end up on a prison hulk. A chorus of Hail Marys caught on the wind to be whipped away.
One by one, the rowing boats pulled in to the
Rajah
’s shadow. A rope ladder appeared over the ship’s railings, lowered down for the wardens and prisoners to scale the creaking hull to the deck. One by one each woman took her turn and ascended the swinging rope lattice with instructions shouted from above not to look down.
Not that they could help it. The prancing ocean demanded an audience. It might rise up and coil a wave around an unwary ankle. Someone froze midway and was first cajoled and then ordered to keep climbing until finally, tearfully, she crawled up and over the banister at the top.
The rowing boats were eventually empty, and every woman – whether by mettle or by coercion – had reached the deck.
Nelly was still fiercely whispering her Hail Marys as the last of the women assembled on the main deck. Rhia counted each prayer as though it were a rosary bead, until she lost count. There was no chance of freedom now. She looked at the sky, the same sky that stretched above Cloak Lane and Greystones, yet not the same at all. This low, leaden sky was the ceiling of another prison.
In silhouette against it were three masts. Rhia counted the sails. It was something to do. There were six, she thought, though she couldn’t be sure because they were furled. She didn’t yet want to inspect the rest of the vessel that would carry her away to another world. To the Otherworld. Men hung from the rigging of each mast like monkeys from a tree. She lowered her gaze quickly. They were making her dizzy.
There were too many sailors to keep track of, scurrying about like barefooted clerks. At first, they appeared to be too busy to have noticed the one hundred and fifty women standing on the lilting deck, but close scrutiny revealed this was not the case. The women were each being assessed expertly and craftily. Every time Rhia caught a seaman’s eye, it darted away as if his gaze had landed on her by accident rather than by design. The seamen were a motley bunch – some willowy, others brawny, some smooth and youthful, others weathered kegs.
Rhia counted eight penitentiary officers and wardens, all women, standing in a huddle, being addressed by someone who might have been a ship’s officer. He was dressed for the town, and although Miss Hayter had mentioned that there were a small number of civilian passenger berths on the
Rajah
, this man seemed to be someone more significant to the ship. He had an air of authority as starched as his sober brown coat. Miss Hayter was listening to him compliantly, as though he were her superior.