“Come on now, Blackwell,” Owen was drawling when I raced back to the hut, “you can do better than that.”
“I’m not going to fight you, Owen,” he said. “Get the hell out of here.”
Owen swung a wild fist. The blow landed on the side of Blackwell’s jaw, knocking him backwards into the wall of the hut. I heard a cry of shock escape me. The two soldiers darted forward, each grabbing one of Owen’s arms and yanking him away from the lieutenant.
“You all right, sir?” asked one.
Blackwell rubbed his jaw. “Fine. Just get rid of him.”
One of the marines shoved Owen hard in the back, making him stumble into the street. “Get out of here, you mad bog-jumper.”
Owen chuckled. He dug his hands into his pockets and began to walk in the direction of the tavern.
“What?” I demanded. “He’s just to walk away after—”
“Eleanor,” Blackwell snapped, silencing me.
One of the marines glanced at me, then at the lieutenant. “Shall I get rid of the lag too, sir?”
“No. That won’t be necessary.”
I stood with my arms wrapped around my body, watching as Owen disappeared around the corner.
And I realised it then. Realised why the blacks had been blamed for the death of Maggie Abbot, when so many fingers pointed to Patrick Owen. I turned to look at Blackwell. He was staring after Owen too, a hand pressed to the side of his jaw.
“Owen is untouchable,” I said. “He can do as he likes and he’ll never be punished. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Blackwell didn’t answer.
“Why?” I pushed.
But he had retreated to silence. I could tell it was up to me to put the pieces together. I bent down to pick up one of the tubers that had rolled into the road.
“Fetch some water from the river,” Blackwell said tersely. “There’s a lot of cleaning to do.”
*
The next day was a visiting day; a day when the men crowded the factory floor and watched as we paraded ourselves as potential wives. A settler just arrived from Sydney Town had been given his marriage certificate.
“A wife is required for this man,” the superintendent said, sounding as though he’d never been so bored in his whole damn life. “Those willing to be married, please step forward.”
For a moment, I thought of it. Choose me. Take me away from this place. Make me wife. My label of concubine sat heavy on my shoulders.
But I had seen how this circus worked. And I knew there would be questions.
Have you ever been married before? Yes? What happened to your husband?
I didn’t want my whole shameful story spilled out on the factory floor.
I stayed motionless, staring at my feet. Women from the Norfolk stepped forward, along with several others. The settler seeking a wife was young and handsome. A far better catch than most of the pock-faced scrubs who came traipsing through this place.
He chose a young girl from the Norfolk; a scrappy blonde thing who’d cried all the way to Gibraltar. Petite and birdlike, she made me feel like an ogre.
She gave the settler a tiny, shy smile, looking up at him with enormous blue eyes. I imagined her in her trial, weeping before the magistrate while telling a pitiful tale of a stolen cloak to keep out the snow.
“You ever been married before?” the settler asked her.
“No sir.”
And I thought of Jonathan Marling with a bullet in his chest, sure I’d be at the factory forever.
We drank at the river in celebration of the tearful girl from the Norfolk. Within an hour of the settler’s visit to the factory, she’d been hauled off to the church to sign her marriage papers. Now she was on her way to her new husband’s farm with a ticket of leave in her pocket.
Lottie sat beside me on the log, and we passed the dregs of a rum bottle back and forth between us.
“I thought you would have put yourself forward,” I told her. “Or did he not take your fancy?”
Lottie didn’t return my smile. “You know it’s not about that,” she said. “Marriage is a necessity. It’s the only chance I got of getting out of here. Getting out of old Bert’s bed.”
“So why did you not put yourself forward?”
Lottie hiccupped on the rum. “I’ve got to marry an Irishman, don’t I. My poor da would be rolling in his grave if he knew his only daughter had married a sasanaigh.”
I hugged my knees. The men had fashioned a cricket bat out of a fallen tree branch and were whacking a cloth ball across the riverbank.
“Do you truly want a lifetime shackled to some mindless croppy?” I asked. “It’s not your only way out. They say good behaviour will get us a ticket of leave.”
We all talked about the ticket of leave like it was the key to the greatest treasure in the land. A mythical treasure, for while we all knew someone who’d managed to get a ticket, there weren’t one of us who had ever laid eyes on such a thing.
They said the magistrate handed out tickets whenever it suited him. There was no rhyme or reason to it, as far as any of us could tell. Stories were told of gentlemen convicts who’d stepped off the prison ship and had a ticket pressed into their hands. Others swore they could bribe their way to freedom. I knew several women who had climbed off the Norfolk with their liberty. I’d tried not to think of what they’d had to do to earn it.
“Is it true then?” I’d asked Blackwell one night. “We can bribe the magistrate for our freedom?”
True or not, I knew it was nothing but wishful thinking on my part. For the magistrate of Parramatta was the Reverend Samuel Marsden, and there was no way his fine, upstanding soul was getting bribed by a lowly concubine.
“A ticket of leave is a reward for good behaviour, not bribery,” Blackwell had said, his face as impassive and even as ever.
Lottie snorted. “When did a factory lass ever get her ticket of leave without marrying for it first? And besides, what good is a ticket if you got no man to support you?” Her eyes were on Patrick Owen as he strutted over from the cricket match. The back of my neck prickled with anger.
Untouchable Patrick Owen. His eyes caught mine for a second and he gave me a ghost of a smile.
I stood abruptly. I couldn’t just sit there across from him, sharing a drink like everything was all right. Lottie grabbed my arm and pulled me back down to the log.
“You’ve got to stop this,” she said. “He’s innocent.”
I snorted. “You can’t truly believe that.”
“Yes,” she said after a moment. “I do. The Rum Corps hates the Irish. If they could have put Owen on the scaffold, they would have. So aye, I believe he didn’t do it.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. She had things the wrong way around, I was sure. Owen’s innocence – or lack of it – had little to do with anything.
The Rum Corps hated the Irish, yes, but they knew Owen was revered among the rebels. Send him to the scaffold, and who knew what chaos would be unleashed? The night of his arrest, the settlement had been in disarray.
The authorities were playing a dangerous game; letting a criminal loose among us to keep the croppies down. I knew with grim certainty that Owen had killed Maggie. Maybe such a thing simply didn’t matter to the men who ran this place. What need was there for justice where the factory lasses were concerned? Perhaps it was far more crucial that a second Irish uprising was quelled.
Lottie planted the empty bottle in the dirt and stood, grabbing my arm and pulling me up beside her. “Come on. The drink’s finished. We need to get more.”
She looped her arm through mine as we walked towards the tavern.
“I wish you’d just give him a chance, Nell. That’s all I’m asking. He’s a good man. He’s got a real passion in him. He’s just doing what he thinks is best for his people.”
I decided not to tell her about Owen’s attack on Blackwell the night before. Nothing I said would make her change her mind, especially not where the lieutenant was involved. I k
new it would only lead to conflict between us. And I didn’t want that. Having a friend in this place was far too precious.
But my hatred for Owen was roiling inside me, pushing against my chest. That morning, the side of Blackwell’s face had been purple with bruising after their altercation in the street. And one of the shelves Owen had kicked at had fallen in the night.
As we approached the tavern, I felt my stomach knot. I’d not set foot inside since the night I’d stolen the potatoes. Some foolish part of me was afraid I’d be recognised.
Lottie shoved open the door and we stepped inside through a curtain of pipe smoke. Men were clustered around the counter in mud-streaked shirts, cannikins of drink in grimy hands. I kept my eyes down as I followed Lottie to the bar. I recognised the woman serving as one of the convicts from the factory. Lottie reached into her pocket and handed over enough coin for the new rum bottle.
“Stay and keep us company, ginger,” said one of the men at the bar, sliding a hand around my waist. I shoved him away, his friends’ laughter ringing in my ears.
On the walk back to the river, Lottie was harping on about Owen and his cohorts again. My head was beginning to ache.
“Some of the croppies,” she began, “they were sent here after the rebellion in Ireland without their convict records. They were only sentenced to seven years. But it’s coming on eight now, and there’s no word of them being freed.” She turned to look at me, her hazel eyes shining. “Tell me you wouldn’t be angry if you that were you.”
I frowned. “I understand that, Lottie. But this is about Owen killing Maggie and leaving her body on the side of the road.”
Her eyes hardened. “You don’t understand,” she said. “How could you? How could you have any idea? How could you have any idea what it’s like to struggle and fight and not know where your next meal is coming from?”
I sat back on the log and began to trace a stick through the dirt. I’d not spoken a word to Lottie about my privileged upbringing – I’d not spoken a word about it to anyone. But I was beginning to see it was not a thing I could easily hide.
“You think I don’t know, Nell?” Lottie pushed. “You think I can’t hear it in the way you speak? And the way you bleat on about Marsden’s register as though once you were actually worth something?”
I didn’t reply. I felt chastened; an intruder in someone else’s world.
“Why a toff like you was caught thieving I’ll never know,” said Lottie. Her tone suggested she was not interested in my answer.
I’d not been transported for thieving, as I’d told Lottie I had. I’d not needed coin, or food to fill my empty belly. But I’d craved security, nonetheless. Needed someone to show me how to live my own life. And so, when my husband had held out his hand and told me to follow him down the wrong path, I had done it without question.
I took the bottle from Lottie and gulped down a mouthful, coughing as the rum seared my throat.
Look at us!, I wanted to scream. Here we were side by side in matching slops, matching blisters on our fingers, the same rum bottle passed back and forth between our hands.
But I knew all the blisters in the world would not make me understand what it was like to grow up with nothing. I had no thought of what it was to struggle and fight because I’d never had to do it before.
Lottie stood suddenly, and made her way towards Owen and the other men. I rested my aching head against my arms, letting the drunken conversations wash over me.
I found myself longing for London; for the glittering, diamond and ruby world I had once known.
There was nothing for me to return to in England, of course. My husband and father were dead, and I would never be welcomed back into my old circles after leaving this place on a prison ship. But I ached nonetheless for the cluttered grey skyline, the constant rattle of hooves and wheels, for the twists and turns of the river. Ached for a world I would never see again. Most of all, I wished for my own ignorance, for my ability to turn a blind eye. I wished for the naïve fool I had been when I had married Jonathan Marling.
I gulped down the rum, seeking drunkenness, seeking foolishness. I wanted my thoughts to still; wanted them to stop churning over Owen’s exoneration and Maggie’s blank eyes. But for better or for worse, I didn’t know how to live in ignorance anymore.
My thoughts did not still. Instead, they crystallised. I wanted to speak to Reverend Marsden. Wanted that conversation I had been denied when he’d sent me on my way after seeing me at the courthouse in my bloodstained convict slops. At the back of my mind, I knew nothing I said would make a difference – Owen was free, Maggie was dead, and the female register was on its way across the seas. But just for a moment, I wanted to be seen. To be heard. To be more than an insignificant concubine. I would tell the reverend of the bruises on Maggie’s arms. Tell him of the way she spent her nights by the river to escape Owen’s fists. Pander to Marsden’s hatred of the croppies and make him see that Patrick Owen deserved to be hanged.
Rum churning through my blood, I stood dizzily and strode towards the vast expanse of Marsden’s land on the north-eastern edge of the settlement. I pressed my shoulders back and lifted my chin. I was a well-spoken woman from Clerkenwell who deserved to be taken seriously. Tonight I would make sure Reverend Marsden saw that.
As I approached the gates, a soldier came out of the blackness. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I lifted my chin. “I wish to speak with Reverend Marsden,” I said, trying my best to sound like an educated lady and not a lag filled up with rum. I wished I were wearing my worsted gown.
“Reverend Marsden don’t have nothing to do with your kind,” he said on a chuckle.
His dismissiveness made anger burn inside me. More than that, I hated that one look at me had told him I was a government woman. It was far too dark to see the tell-tale blue stripes on my skirts. What was it about me that told him I was not just the wife of a settler? Perhaps it was that bitterness in my words, or the fire in my eyes. Perhaps Hannah had been right when she’d claimed I couldn’t blend into a place if I tried.
“It’s very important,” I said, continuing my march towards the house. It had never felt more pressing that I be permitted that conversation.
He grabbed my arm, fingers digging in hard. “Did you not hear me? The reverend don’t have nothing to do with the factory whores.”
Sudden anger tore through me. Before I knew what I was doing, I was swinging my arm, striking his nose and making blood spurt down the front of his coat. I stared open-mouthed, unable to believe I’d done such a thing. In a second he was on top of me, pinning me to the ground and wrenching my arms behind my back. Pain lanced through my shoulders. I felt hot drops of his blood against my ear. A shout into the night and two more soldiers came running. They yanked me to my feet, delivering me to the factory and the waiting hands of the superintendent.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I would rather die than go out of my own country to be devoured by savages.”
Convict Sarah Mills, refusing transportation in favour of the death sentence
1789
They threw me into the cells on the bottom floor of the jail. Five days of solitary confinement. I’d not been given so much as a chance to explain myself, though I knew, even if I had, I’d have found no excuse for what I’d done. What did the Rum Corps care that I’d been mortally offended?
The cell was near lightless. Nothing to sleep on but the cold stone floor. I could only guess at the time of day by the clatter of footsteps up and down the staircase leading to the spinning room. Shivering in a corner, I drifted in and out of sleep, and soon lost any sense of whether the footsteps on the stairs made it morning, night, or somewhere in between. Once a day, a hunk of stale bread and a cannikin of water appeared inside the door, bringing with it a precious and fleeting gasp of light.
My anger at Marsden and Owen shifted into anger at myself. I was troubled by what I’d done. I’d been a criminal for some time, of course, but
my crime had been carefully calculated. I had never acted so violently, so rashly in my life. I scared myself. My attack on the soldier had been rum fuelled, yes, but it had been a reaction to the injustices I saw in the world around me. I began to wonder what else I was capable of.
My dreams were vivid, filled with lags and blood and Jonathan. Time began to lose meaning, and I felt as though the whole rest of my life would be consumed by this dark cell.
I lost myself in my thoughts. My world was no longer Parramatta, populated by Owen, by Blackwell, by Hannah, by Lottie. Instead, I was back in a townhouse in Clerkenwell, with roses in the front garden and a fortepiano in the parlour.
I’d known from the first days of our marriage that Jonathan had secrets. There were many nights that he’d return home late, his explanations vague and insubstantial. I assumed he had taken a mistress, and like a dutiful wife, I did not ask questions. On the rare occasions we saw each other, he was affectionate and kind, full of questions about the books I was reading, the pieces of music I was learning, the ladies I had taken tea with.
It had never occurred to me that Jonathan might be bad with money. His jewellery business was flourishing; churning out fine pieces for ladies of our class and beyond. I had everything I needed; staff in the household, fine clothing in my wardrobe. Food and wine on the table and a bookshelf that reached the ceiling.
I had no idea that, with each day of our marriage, my dowry and inheritance were being frittered away in a string of bad business investments, and the occasional sorry night at the gambling halls.
A week after New Year, Jonathan took me to Hanover Square to hear a Handel cantata. A generous thing, I’d thought, for him to indulge my love for music, when I knew such a thing would bore him to tears.
One of Us Buried Page 10