Great Historical Novels (6 page)

‘Tell me, Mrs Blake, what progress have you made with Mr Talbot’s mysterious potion? I admit that I am baffled by it, though it has captured the imagination of London as thoroughly as a scandal.’ He was looking at her as though her opinion on such things mattered.

‘It does seem to be the latest sensation, doesn’t it?’ Photogenic drawing had captivated her from the moment Laurence, Josiah’s cousin, showed her his experiments with the calotype process. After that, she begged Laurence to instruct her every time he visited. She still found it extraordinary that light could pass through a small brown box and form a picture on the wall opposite. But to now be able to transfer the light onto paper, as Fox Talbot’s famous innovation could, was simply wondrous. Laurence had been lodging in the house since the news of Josiah’s death, and the entire third floor was now their calo-type laboratory.

‘Speaking of photogenic drawing, what of our experiment?’ Mr Montgomery was smiling. He had no idea what he was asking of her. She was surprised, also, that he considered the experiment to be
theirs
. He had been merely one of her subjects.
Mr Montgomery was conveniently distracted by a customer. How could he understand? Early in the spring, just before Josiah had sailed for Calcutta, Antonia had decided that she wanted to take her experimentation a step further; to
capture
a negative image via its exposure to light. On a bright day soon after, several of Josiah’s colleagues, including Mr Montgomery, gathered at Cloak Lane to discuss a joint venture. Antonia had, that day, not only asked the gentlemen gathered to donate cloth scraps and factory ends to the Convict Ship Committee, but also to be her subjects. In the spirit of supporting the new science (or perhaps to humour her), five gentlemen, including Josiah, allowed themselves to be arranged in a tableau in the garden.

The negative was now carefully preserved in a silk wallet, as advised by Laurence. The paper looked no different at all after its exposure, though he said this was normal. And now, with the recent arrival of her licence, Antonia finally had permission to bring the image to paper. Or, to use the expression coined by Mr Talbot, to make a representation. How could she, though? How could she bear to see Josiah’s face gazing back at her, as though a ghostly portrait had been painted
after his death
. One day she would feel brave enough to expose the negative, and Josiah’s face, to the light. She would be exposing her heart to the truth in a more tangible way than her faith had ever done. Grief, Isaac said, eventually evolved from refutal to acceptance. He would know.

Mr Beckwith returned from the storeroom lugging two bulging sacks. While he fastened them, Antonia noted that Mr Montgomery had donated some exceedingly high grade remainders. He had been more generous than usual since Josiah’s death. For this, Antonia liked him even more. Too much, perhaps. The pattern on a roll of jacquard caught her
attention and she drew closer to examine it. When she looked up Mr Montgomery was watching her.

‘Wonderful, isn’t it? French of course, but one day I will have my very own collection.’ He was interrupted by another customer, so Antonia thanked Mr Beckwith and left hastily. She was not herself.

When she was back in the quiet of her carriage, she ordered her thoughts. She might soon have another lodger. By Ryan’s description, his niece Rhia was an unconventional young woman. Had she been hasty in inviting a stranger and a foreigner into her house? Antonia sighed at her own fearfulness. She should be hopeful rather than anxious. It would be enjoyable to have a female companion with whom she could discuss the trade, rather than the quantities of vinegar and linseed oil required for furniture polish.

Antonia delivered her cloth at the Meeting House and took weak tea with the sombre British Ladies Society, as the convict committee liked to call themselves. Quakerism had, at least, saved her from the helplessness of her gender and class. She approved of the Quaker view that equality and respect were due to women. The integrity of God’s guidance was, of late, a more difficult ideal to uphold. Without Josiah, how could she now be certain of it?

Her gaze shifted and she became aware of the passing view. This part of the City of London was always humming with activity. The Gracechurch Meeting House was in between Lloyds Bank and the Bank of England and only two streets away from the Royal Exchange. All along Lombard and Cornhill were coffee houses where bankers, merchants and stock jobbers met to discuss the shipping news and the international marketplace; to buy and sell Jamaican sugar, West Indian tobacco, Australian wool and China tea. Antonia lived
in the City and passed through the banking district almost every day, but she never grew tired of it. There was an invigorating briskness to the quarter that may well have as much to do with the amount of coffee consumed as with the nature of its industry.

As she passed the Jerusalem Coffee House, she was certain that she saw Isaac through the window. It was hard to mistake him. He was a large man; not corpulent, but tall and broad of frame. He was deep in conversation with another gentleman, whom she recognised as one of the bankers at Barings. Josiah had forsaken all ties with this bank upon discovering that currency from the sale of opium was deposited in its vaults. For the use of the Crown. Antonia was startled. Why would her husband’s close friend, a Quaker, have reason to meet with such a man? She turned away, chastising herself for her lack of trust. Of course Isaac would have a perfectly sensible and morally sound reason for his actions. She was not herself.

Calico

Juliette inspected herself in the only looking-glass in the house. The sight did not cheer her. Mrs Blake only ever used the glass in the hallway to fasten her bonnet or brush lint from her dull costumes. It was a shame for someone like Mrs Blake to be without vanity. To have the purse for silk but to choose wool seemed against the natural order of things. Surely the whole point of wealth was in flaunting it. Her mistress was pleasant-looking, though certainly no stunner, and would look well in India green or Lavinia blue.

Juliette leaned a little closer to the glass and smoothed her flyaway brown hair. She looked every bit as unquiet as she felt, though she tried so hard not to be anxious. Ever since Beth said fretting made the flesh flee from your bones. If the reverse were also true, then it explained the scullery maid’s contented roundness. Beth’s cheeks were like pink apples and she had a beam as round as a laundry tub beneath her black calico skirts. Black did nothing for Juliette. Today, her narrow face had a red spot high on each cheek and her forehead looked like crumpled linen. She examined her every angle and flaw until her gaze reached her hands. Her knuckles were as white as a boiled joint from the fastness of her grip where she clutched the letter.

She turned away from the disappointing portrait in the glass and marched the length of the hall. She did this another three times before she heard the jingling and huffing of
carriage horses, and then the clip of sensible boots on the stone stair.

Immediately, Mrs Blake looked concerned, which made Juliette feel better.

‘Is something amiss, Juliette dear?’

‘Not amiss. Not exactly. But the afternoon post has come …’ Juliette took the grey mantle and the grey kid gloves, noticing the unnatural shine to Mrs Blake’s eyes. She had been weeping again. She showed no other sign of it though; she was not one for self-pity.

‘It has arrived!’

‘Well the postage mark is Sydney Town.’ Juliette’s voice quivered. This letter had been long awaited.

‘You’ve not opened it?’

‘Oh no, it is addressed to you, and my reading’s no better than my writing.’

‘Well, then. Shall we brew some tea and sit at the table in the kitchen. It seems cruel, I know, to make you wait just a little longer, but I think it wise that we are composed and have a tonic at hand.’

Juliette hurried away to put the kettle on the range, unable to stand still a moment longer. It had been Mrs Blake’s idea, that they – she – write to the Quakers in Sydney, to ask after the situation of her mother, Eliza Green. If Eliza had survived, she would by now be a free woman for five years since serving her seven year sentence.

When they were both seated in Beth’s gleaming kitchen, and Beth had left to sweep out the larder, Juliette laid the letter on the table. They both looked at it nervously. It lay innocently on the smooth pine, but its contents might, at any moment, be deeply affecting. Mrs Blake had been so kind, and was so concerned, that Juliette felt almost as afraid for her disappointment
as for her own. She put her hands up to her cheeks as the seal was broken and a plain, yellowish page removed.

Friends Meeting House,

Sydney Town

4 July 1840

My dear Mrs Blake,

Pertaining to thy letter, written on behalf of thy domestic servant Juliette Green, we have, these past months, made certain advancements into discovering the whereabouts of her mother Eliza Green.

Eliza Green was assigned to private service after passing four years at the House of Correction for Females in Parramatta. Whilst there she worked in the laundry, cleaning linen for the hospital and orphan school. As far as we can ascertain, Eliza Green remains unmarried, is healthful, and is now engaged by a squatter with a sheep station at Rose Hill, some miles west from Sydney.

Upon hearing that her beloved daughter, Juliette, was enquiring after her, the lady was overcome by emotion and told our Quaker sister (who visited the station) that she was hopeful to return to mother England but could not find the means for her passage. This is a sad truth which strikes many of those who have served their sentence here and in Van Diemen’s Land, and is more common to the women, for the men can often work the passage home.

She bade us send to her daughter the most heartfelt love and blessings, and her ardent wish that they shall see each other again in this life. She promises that never a day passes that she does not think of her and offer a prayer. She was most comforted to hear that her daughter is no longer in the
workhouse but has found a position in a respectable household.

The Friends here are wholly at thy service to convey any further correspondence to those who have need of comfort.

Thy interested Friend,

Mary Warburton

Juliette laughed and then cried and then she seemed to be doing both at once and couldn’t stop. She clasped both hands over her mouth, worried that Mrs Blake would think her hysterical. Mrs Blake only handed her a pristine white cambric square and, serenely, poured tea into each of their cups.

‘There, there. It is perfectly reasonable to feel overwhelmed, after all. Your poor mother. It is wonderful news, and a relief, yet at the same frustrating and terribly sad. You must not feel that you are in any way responsible for her situation, I hope that you do not? Juliette?’

But Juliette knew that she was responsible. Eliza had only been thieving so that her daughter would not go hungry. She was less certain, though, if she was also accountable for her father’s death. It was the memory of that evil day that finally overcame her, and, in spite of wanting to appear sensible, she put her head in her hands and wailed.

Merino

The ale house was as rowdy as ever and the Lafferty boys had the corner table. Their fiddle and tin whistle were out already. Every face was familiar. Many were assigned, like Michael; beholden to wait out the last years or months of their sentence in private service. They would be sheering merino, or working in a quarry or boot factory or, like he, as a carpenter on one of the many new public buildings on Macquarie Street. There were many here who would never go home, even in the unlikely event that they could pay for their passage. Once you had a ticket of leave, wages were better than in Ireland or England and a redeemed convict with a trade or even just an able body, was assured a good living.

Michael had never once considered staying on. Mostly because of Annie. He’d been living like a free man for almost two years, assigned to the governor’s building agent, and it was not a bad life. The harshest sentence had always been being away from his wife and son. Annie’s hair might be grey now, like his own. And Thomas, who was little more than a lad when Michael was arrested, now a man. His son, a man.

The letters from Thomas came every few weeks with news of Annie, Greystones and the Mahoneys, and were Michael’s most treasured articles. Thomas never wrote plainly of the activities of his men, it was too risky, but he managed to convey whether they were safe and had been successful. Most of the
underground news from Ireland came from the steady stream of new arrivals, and this fed Michael Kelly’s small, secret press in the form of a monthly pamphlet.

The dark brown bitter that they called porter tasted more like charred malt, but at least at the Harp and Shamrock you could be certain to never encounter a colonist. Here all Irishmen, be they free settlers, prisoners or pardoned, were treated as equals. The bar was lined with the men without a choice; the survivors of ’98, the biggest uprising Ireland had ever known. They were all old men now, and their exile was political and unrepealable. They lived to tell anyone who would listen of the way things had been for them when they arrived. Michael had listened a good many times, at first out of interest and then out of sympathy. Now he just pretended he was listening. He had a good picture of the barren shanty town Sydney had been, once, where the prisoners were always hungry and where people were either killing or being killed by the natives. Michael had heard, more times than he cared to mention, of subterranean isolation cells, and water pits where a prisoner was unable to sleep for fear of drowning; of leg irons and lashes and the godawful loneliness. It was the loneliness, they all agreed, that was the worst.