Great Historical Novels (32 page)

She did much of her work kneeling on the rough wooden floor, bent over spiky seed pods and wands of feathery, paperthin leaves. Today, there were dried Michaela’s daisies from America and there was frangipani from Tahiti, as well as henbane and burdock and feverfew. She found it easier to work on the floor, now, and to feel the swelling and falling of the waves beneath her. She did not trust the furniture. She’d been thrown from her bench in the orlop too many times, everyone had. By the end of an afternoon with Mr Reeve, her knees were always cramped and her back aching.

After an hour or so she straightened and stretched. She caught him watching her again. He looked back down at his book, quickly. She knew he must wonder about her crime and her past, but she doubted that he would ever have the nerve to ask her outright.

‘You seem to know a lot about botanicals, Mahoney.’

She shrugged. ‘I like to find patterns in nature, and I like to know the name of what I’m looking at.’

‘But to what ends? What use could such knowledge possibly be to …’

‘To a woman?’

‘Well, yes. Yes indeed!’

‘I don’t mean to shock you, Mr Reeve, but the female mind is capable of more than counting stitches and weaning babes.’

‘I don’t expect that you are a conventional woman, Mahoney.’

‘Thank Christ for that!’ She had Mamo to thank, really. Mr
Reeve looked shocked, which was gratifying. It silenced him for the rest of the afternoon.

Rhia usually had a few minutes to spare before she was due in the mess for supper. There was a secluded corner in a ’tween decks cranny where, through a vent called a scuttle, she could see part of the main deck and a narrow strip of ocean. It was manageable, this much sea. As they held their course south, there were more daylight hours, and she began to notice how the seascape she had thought so monotonous was, in fact, constantly changing. Sometimes it looked as dirty and lifeless as the Liffey on a winter’s day, and at others like a giant looking-glass reflecting the sky and the clouds. On some days its curves and frills were seductive, and on others there were ridges of water, serrated and menacing. The sea had a mean glint today, so after her first sighting Rhia did not look at it again. In the stories of Manannán, ships that disappeared in storms drifted to the enchanted or haunted islands of the Otherworld.

Rhia turned her back on Manannán and saw Albert’s frayed breeches emerge through a hatch to the upper deck. She called to him as loud as she dared. He jumped from the stairs to the deck, lightly, and was in front of her, beaming, in a moment.

‘I see you’ve found my hideaway, Mahoney.’

‘Yours! I thought it was my hideaway.’

‘Ye’ll see that me tobacco tin’s here.’ Albert reached into a dark knot in the timbers and pulled it out. ‘Like a smoke?’

‘Another time. I’ll be late.’ She hesitated, even though she’d made her decision. ‘Albert. I’ve a favour to ask.’

He shrugged. ‘Let’s ’ave it.’

‘Do you know the passenger Laurence Blake?’

‘With the haystack?’ He gestured to his hair. ‘The one who puts parchment out on deck in the sun?’

‘That’s almost certainly him. Would you give him a message from me?’

Albert’s smile broadened. She knew what he was thinking.

‘Tell Mr Blake where my cabin is.’

His eyes filled with mischief.

‘You needn’t think it’s anything – there is nothing – I mean, Mr Blake is a friend. As it happens, I knew him before I was – I knew him in London. I need to speak with him. It’s important.’

‘Sure it is,’ Albert said, his grin widening. Rhia didn’t care what he thought. Albert mock-bowed, and swaggered away, whistling. 

Valetine

Jane and Georgina were laying the table, sullenly, the clang of pewter bowls being slammed down signalled that all was not well between them. Georgina was scowling and periodically scratching her hair beneath her cap. The two had almost come to blows on the quarterdeck over head lice.

‘It only takes one itching head to send the little beasties stomping through every scalp,’ Jane was saying, so if you don’t drown them in vinegar I’ll tip a bottle over you with pleasure. Otherwise I’ll ask Matron to shave your head.’ Georgina burst into tears and threw herself onto her hammock.

Supper was dried biscuits, pea soup and suet pudding. Already the fresh food was being used sparingly, and they were still ten days off Rio. Albert said they would take on fresh water, fruit and meat, rum, tobacco and Portuguese wine – all the essential stocks – when they docked.

The best thing about supper was not the gritty suet pudding, which occasionally had a little molasses in it, but the ration of wine. It was the cheapest, the roughest imaginable, and was served in a dented pewter tankard, but it may as well have been the best claret in the world. It shortened the shadows and sweetened tempers.

After supper two lanterns were lit and placed at either end of the table, in order that the women could sit and read the scriptures. No one was allowed to light a lantern or a taper
without a warden present, and – as yet – no one yet had broken this rule. There was no means of knowing what punishment dissenters could expect to face. However, it was known that Agnes was a whisker away from a flogging. There were irons chained to the timbers in a certain dark corner where the bilge water leaked into a cupboard of a cell, large enough only for a person to crouch in. The wardens’ favourite threat was being added to the surgeon superintendent’s list. Nobody had a clue who was on the list, or what offences were considered suitably grave to deserve being listed. How would the theft of two tapers, a flint and some matches be looked upon? Rhia had slipped them into her apron pocket whilst a quarrel was in progress. She was a convicted thief, so what difference did it make?

Margaret beckoned to Rhia from her hammock while the others were mending, reading from their Bibles, or checking each other for lice. She passed Rhia a flat, silk wallet, which she slipped into the pocket of her apron. This done, Margaret made a great show of a piece of valetine, a blue figured silk that she’d discovered in her sack. It was not large, perhaps half a yard squared, but it was a pretty find and they agreed that it was too fine a piece for a quilt and should be put aside for ‘later’, to make a purse or a reticule.

Rhia trod the leeward passageway timidly when it was time to return to her hutch. The sea was rising high and falling heavily, and the deck felt greasy beneath her boots. The moon was as full and luminous as a giant pearl behind the masts. She’d not noticed it waxing. She had stopped believing that the Queen of the Night gave a damn what happened to her. The best she and her moon lantern could do for Rhia now was to help her safely back to her cabin. The moonlight cast silver shadows on every cresting wave. As she turned away, one
reared up like a horse on its back legs and showered her with icy water. She had not seen it coming and it shook her to the core. Manannán be damned.

Rhia took off her boots and practically crawled back to her cabin. When she closed the door she leaned against it and shut her eyes. When she opened them she was looking at a small white square on the floor. She picked it up and lit a taper.
Laurence Blake, Photogenic Drawing, 64 Cloak Lane, the City of London.
On the back were the words:
Tonight, ten o’clock.

Rhia lay on her hammock and stared into the dense dark, determined to stay awake. She must keep her mind where her boots were, as Annie Kelly was fond of saying. If you let your mind wander into regrets, you would fall backwards, and if you let it loose on imaginings, it was hurtling forwards without you. What was there for her in the present? Only the hollow feeling that she had failed. Why else would she be here? A gentle tap on her door made Rhia sit up, disoriented. Was it already ten o’clock? She scrambled from the hammock to her feet, finding her cap. Her hair had grown a little, but washing it in a bucket of saltwater could not be enhancing it. She opened the door. It was Laurence.

They stood looking at each other. He stepped into her cabin and Rhia closed the door. In the dark, he embraced her as though it were the most natural thing in the world. His lips touched hers so lightly that she couldn’t be sure that he’d actually kissed her; that she was in the arms of someone who gave a damn what happened to her.

Rhia turned away to hide her confusion and to wipe her tears on her apron. She fumbled in her pocket for a taper and matches. Once the taper was lit, she felt awkward and self-conscious. There was only a yard of floor between them.

‘This is a long way from Cloak Lane,’ said Laurence.

‘It is,’ she agreed.

‘Antonia would approve of your new Quaker colours, but you’ve grown thin.’

‘The food is awful. Someone should complain. I miss Beth’s ginger loaf terribly.’ Laurence was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher.

‘It’s very good timing that you should visit this evening,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve something to show you.’ She took the parchment from its wallet.

Laurence needed to take only one step to examine it more closely. She held the taper over it. To her, it looked like a piece of cartridge paper with a sheen like polished cotton.

Laurence looked perplexed. ‘Where on earth did you get a photogenic negative?’

‘I thought that was what it was.’

‘It looks as though it has already been exposed, though it is difficult to say for certain in this light.’

‘I can’t remember what that means.’

‘When a negative image has been “burnt” into the chemicals the parchment is treated with, it acquires a certain ghostly image, a little like a watermark.’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Your eye is not trained to see it. Where did you get this?’

Rhia told him what Margaret had told her, and he shook his head. His face looked eerie in the flickering candlelight. ‘This is extremely odd, Rhia.’ She liked hearing her name. She had been Mahoney for so long. ‘Did your friend Margaret say nothing else?’ he asked.

‘She knows something, but she won’t tell me what it is. She is supposed to be keeping a secret for Juliette.’

The creak of a deck timber outside made them both freeze.
Rhia held her breath. In a moment there was a sound like a footfall, towards the aft stairwell.

She whispered, ‘Do you think someone saw you?’

Laurence shook his head. ‘I was careful. But I don’t want to make things worse for you.’

She shrugged. ‘How could things be worse? Tell me, quickly, how you come to be on board.’

‘Dillon told me the name of your ship, of course. I was fortunate that there was still a berth available – though there was a good chance of it, the transports are not popular passenger vessels. Besides, I told you I wanted to see Australia, the light has always drawn me. But I had a much more important reason to travel at such short notice.’ Laurence took her hand. She wanted him to comfort her, but she didn’t know to what degree. She had thought that she wanted Thomas, all those years ago and that desire came only with true love. It seemed unlikely, now, considering the nightly assignations between prisoners and crew.

Laurence squeezed her hand and let it go. ‘May I take the negative until tomorrow? I’d rather like to see it by daylight. I’ll have Albert return it.’

‘Of course.’

He kissed her again, and left.

Rhia lay in her hammock, awake, for a long time. Her uncertainty disturbed her. She had great affection for Laurence. He made her laugh and she felt safe. Perhaps this was enough?

Balzarine

Antonia gazed into the dim recess where a row of sober grey and brown linen hung.
As limp as my own humility,
she thought. Once, rows of taffeta and silk organza whispered to her, cloths with names –
Andalusian
and
Ariel
. Once, her shawls were as fine as cobwebs, not dull and sturdy. She chose her newest linen, recalling the name the draper had given to the colour:
London Smoke
. Apt.

She made herself reflect, as she dressed, on the purpose of plainness. An unadorned costume was dismissive of fashion and of class. Without finery one was the equal of another, no matter how rich one’s purse. Josiah had even used the singular ‘thou’ rather than the plural ‘you’ that many Londoners found quaint and eccentric. He said the latter was a sign of flattery because ‘you’ was once used to address a superior, as a signifier of title and hierarchy. Antonia thought it a little outmoded, and could not bring herself to alter her speech. She was altered enough.

She smoothed her hair with a wooden comb and knotted it at the nape of her neck, then descended the stairs thoughtfully, her hand slipping over the polished banister. How could her anticipation of Mr Montgomery’s visit mingle so easily with her memories of Josiah? What if her ideology were no stronger than her impulses? Josiah had guided her to the inward. Every day without him was a test of her courage. Without him there
were no gentle words of guidance, no eyes filled with kindness, no loving embrace.

The kitchen was reassuringly warm. Beth always lit the range at daylight. The porridge was already cooked and steaming on the table in its cast iron pot. It was the best porridge Antonia had ever tasted. She had watched Beth make it once – a knob of butter, a pinch of salt and a measure of cream made all the difference. Josiah professed to prefer plain food, so when he had praised Beth for her porridge, Antonia merely smiled.

The house was too quiet without Laurence and Rhia. She now made a habit of sharing the first meal of the day with Beth and Juliette, telling herself that she wanted to feel as their equal when in fact she was just lonely. She simply did not know how to reconcile the idea of equality with the fact that she was a mistress with domestic servants. Of course, she provided employment and the household was the closest thing Juliette had to a family. The tangled feelings of protectiveness and irritation were, no doubt, maternal. Antonia had not been given anyone else to watch over.

This morning, as usual, they discussed which household chores needed special attention, the first being the furniture. The dining table and carved-back chairs looked brittle and were in need of furniture paste. Beth looked perplexed.