“I know,” I said. “It’s not right. I was there when it happened. Any fool could see they were just speaking their own language.”
Brady tilted his head, considering me. I could tell he was surprised by my agreement.
“And yet here you are,” he said, “staring out into the night after your lieutenant.”
I felt my cheeks burn. Was grateful for the darkness.
I didn’t reply. Admitting to it made me feel like a fool.
Brady jabbed his pipe in the direction the soldiers had disappeared. “You think this is right, sasanaigh? The redcoats out training to take us all down? So Blackwell can take more innocent lives?”
I clenched my teeth, forcing my anger away. “Instead we’re all just to sit back and let the croppies take over the colony? Do you truly think that’s what’s best for this place?”
Brady chuckled. “What does a factory lass know about what’s best for this place?”
I said nothing. He was right, of course. What did I know?
“I know how it feels to be powerless,” I told him. “Just like you do.”
“That’s right,” said Brady. “You do.” He took a step closer, pointing a long finger at me. “But here’s the difference between us, Nellie. Us croppies fight for what we want. The factory lasses just sit back and accept things the way they are.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“A light punishment for rebellion will excite revenge, not terror … Transport all prisoners in the gaols and give full power to the generals.”
Advice from England to Undersecretary Cooke, Dublin
The Rebellion Papers
12th March 1797
The next day, the Irishmen from the chain gang were dragged from the cells for a flogging. Robert Leaver, the most patriotic of Englishmen, herded us all from the farmhouse to watch. A crowd had gathered, the murmur of voices thick in the air. Soldiers lined the edges of Jail Green, rifles held at the ready. Reverend Marsden paced in front of the triangle, thick arms folded across his chest.
The two prisoners were dressed in grimy shirtsleeves and breeches that reached just past their knees. They were led out to the green, a mess of bloodied faces and swollen eyes.
I thought of untouchable Patrick Owen, merely sent on his way after striking an officer. Protected from punishment by his position as the rebels’ leader.
Was this the government’s way of striking back against the Irish? Flogging two lowly convicts for speaking their native language? Surely no one truly believed them capable of inciting another uprising. These were simply men they could punish without fearing backlash. Or was I just being naïve?
The first of the prisoners was shoved towards the triangle, shirt yanked from his body and his arms bound to the structure, high above his head.
I glanced around the crowd for Blackwell. There was no sign of him. No doubt he had marched off on last night’s drill. I wondered stiffly what he would think of all this.
No. I knew what he would think of this, and the thought was an uncomfortable one. Blackwell was a lieutenant in the New South Wales Corps. He had fought in the Castle Hill uprising. Had fought in the rebellion in Ireland. Hardly a man who would sympathise with a couple of lowly croppies. I pushed the thought aside. What difference did it make? The only one of Blackwell’s thoughts that mattered was his decision to send me away.
The first crack of the whip made my shoulders tighten. The prisoner cried out as it tore through his bare skin. Beside me, Amy murmured and turned away.
The flogger hurled the cat again. The prisoner tried to swallow his cry.
“This isn’t right,” I said, to no one in particular. “These men aren’t plotters.”
On the other side of me, Leaver’s farmhand chuckled, taking the pipe out from between his teeth. “I hadn’t picked you as a rebel sympathiser.”
“I’m not a rebel sympathiser,” I said. “Those men just didn’t understand what was being asked of them. Any fool could see that.”
“Aye.” He took a long draw on his pipe. “It’s politics. It weren’t about their crimes. It were just about the government making a point.”
I clenched my teeth. There hadn’t seemed to be a point to make when Owen had his hands around Maggie’s throat.
I felt horribly on edge. Each crack of the whip rattled through me, as though the cat were striking my own body. I felt my muscles tighten, my stomach turn over. My thoughts were storming; with Maggie, with Lottie, with Owen. With wife and concubine and these blood-streaked convicts.
The officer overseeing the flogging stepped close to one of the prisoners, their noses inches apart. “What are you planning?” he hissed.
The prisoner groaned out a line of Irish.
“Give him another hundred,” said the soldier. A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Afraid as I was for Blackwell, I understood then why the Irish felt the need to rise up, to fight against the hand they’d been given. I thought of what Dan Brady had told me the night the Rum Corps had left on their drill.
The factory lasses just sit back and accept things…
There’d been anger among us the day of Maggie’s murder. But how quickly we’d been put back into our place. How easy we were to tug back into line. While the croppies plotted and planned rebellions, we just lifted our skirts so we might have a place to sleep. Bared our skin in the lamplight so we might have a little sway. We were weak and voiceless.
“This isn’t right,” I said again.
I felt a firm fingers digging into the top of my arm. Turned to see Leaver inches behind me.
“Shut your mouth,” he hissed, breath hot against my cheek. “Just who do you think you are?”
I clenched my teeth, closing my eyes as the whip fired again. I felt as though an enormous weight were pressing down on me.
Tonight those prisoners would sleep with flayed backs because they had dared speak their own language. Marsden’s register was on its way around London, painting us as concubines. And now Owen, the man who had taken Maggie from us, was to take Lottie as well.
For the rest of the day, I went about my chores in a daze. I felt hot and disoriented. Unable to see clearly. I spoke to Amy and the cook in terse, one-word answers. And when the house grew dark, I went to the kitchen and pulled a knife from the drawer.
I felt oddly outside myself as I made my way across the farm and stepped into the street. My thoughts were hazy. Likely, there was a part of my brain preventing me from thinking too clearly in case I saw the foolishness of my behaviour.
I strode towards Owen’s hut, my hand tight around the handle of the knife. I felt a surge of determination.
Once, I’d blindly followed my husband, believing I had no other choice. But I saw now that I had had a choice, and I’d made the wrong one. I’d made the choice to believe myself powerless; to let circumstances carry me away like the tide. And now, in this place, where I felt more powerless than ever, I’d made the decision to be powerless no more.
My hand tightened around the knife handle. I would die for this, of course; some distant part of me knew that. But it didn’t matter. It was hard to value my own life when no one else did. I would face the hangman, but Owen would finally have his punishment. Maggie would have justice and Lottie would be safe. And men would learn they would not get away with murdering a factory lass.
The darkness was thick and cold; just a few stars straining through the cloud bank. I could feel the emptiness all around us. A day by barge to Sydney Town. Half a lifetime to the existence I had once known. The place felt inescapable.
I stood several feet from the door of Owen’s hut, feeling the smooth bone handle of the knife between my fingers.
How would it be, I wondered? Was there someone in the hut with him? Someone who would witness his death? Was Lottie in there?
A part of me hoped so. She would see the things I was willing to do to save her. She would see that, even though we had grown distant, I still loved her like a sister.
; How would I do it? A blade through the heart? Or perhaps the throat. The thought caused me to inhale sharply. When had I become a woman who could do such a thing? It was a natural progression, I supposed; obedient daughter to obedient wife, convict to murderess.
I felt capable. And I felt ready.
Here were the footsteps again. Distant, dreamlike. The soldiers returning. They would drag me to trial, put a rope around my neck. But not before Owen was dead.
“Eleanor. What are you doing?”
It took a moment for me to register that Blackwell’s voice had not come from inside my head.
I turned to look at him. He stood a foot behind me, dressed in full uniform, his rifle slung across his back. I slipped the knife into my pocket, keeping my fingers wrapped around the handle.
Blackwell looked at the shack, then back at me. “This is Patrick Owen’s hut.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. “Go away.”
“What are you doing?” he asked again.
I turned back towards Leaver’s farm, unsure what else to do. Blackwell took my arm gently, preventing me from leaving. “What’s happened?”
I felt tears threatening. No, this was all wrong. I was not supposed to fall apart. I was supposed to charge into Owen’s home and deliver the justice he had so far escaped. But instead, Blackwell was leading me towards his hut, his hand around my wrist, and I was going without hesitation.
Inside the hut, everything was just as I remembered, except for the bare space on the floor where my sleeping pallet had been. I wanted to leave. But his hand was still firm around my wrist and I couldn’t find the strength to pull away.
I shifted my fingers on the handle of the knife, to stop it falling from my pocket. Blackwell lifted my hand in his, bringing the blade out into the light.
He looked down at the knife, then back at me. “What were you doing at Owen’s hut?”
“He’s to marry Lottie,” I said, not looking at him.
“And so you will kill him?”
“He deserves to die,” I said. “He murdered Maggie.”
Blackwell stood motionless for a long second. “You don’t want to kill him,” he said evenly.
“And how do you know that?”
He stepped closer, pushing gently against my shoulder, urging me to face him.
No, I didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want him to see this darkest side of me. I felt tears spring up behind my eyes.
“Because once you kill another, it never leaves you.” His voice was low. “The look in their eyes, it stays with you forever. It’s a stain you will never be rid of.”
I thought of Blackwell hunching beside the rebels’ graves. Thought of the heaviness that had hung about him when he had returned to the hut that day. How many ghosts haunted Adam Blackwell, I wondered? Whose invisible eyes watched him at night?
But he was wrong. There was a part of me that did want to kill Owen. To hell with the consequences and the ghosts and the unerasable stain. I wanted to look into Owen’s eyes and see fear. See the realisation that a woman held the power.
For those few precious moments I would be more than concubine. I would hold life and death in my hands.
“You don’t have it in you,” he said.
“Is that what you think?”
But I knew he was right. I had walked that path from obedient daughter to convict, but murderess was still beyond me.
Blackwell wrapped his fingers around mine, his hand dwarfing my own. “Please, Eleanor,” he said, “put the knife down.”
My fingers tensed around the handle. I couldn’t release my grip on it. What I would do with it now, I didn’t know, but it felt like all the power I had in the world. How could I let that go?
“Lottie’s going to die,” I coughed. “Just like Maggie. She’s going to die and no one will think twice on it. They’ll blame her death on the blacks and Owen will walk, just as he always does.”
Blackwell looked down at the knife. “So you will sacrifice yourself for her? Send yourself to the hangman?”
I felt my shoulders sink, as though the earth was tugging me down. I let him take the knife from my hand. He placed it on the ground between our feet. He slid the rifle from his shoulders and opened the chamber, setting the balls and cartridge on the table.
Inexplicably, the gesture made rage flare inside me. I thought of all the dominance, all the strength, men like him had over the rest of us, casually taking the shells from his weapon with a practised ease. And all I could see was him standing on the jury and letting Patrick Owen walk.
I swung at him suddenly, my blows pounding his chest, his shoulders, his arms. For several moments, he stood still, letting me take my anger out on him. But when I bent to pick up the knife, he grabbed my wrists, pulling me up to him and forcing me into stillness. His nose grazed mine.
“Wave that knife around and you’ll hang for it,” he hissed. “It doesn’t matter if you kill Owen or not. You’re a factory lass. Just carrying it will be enough to put you on the scaffold.”
I shook my head. “I don’t care.”
His hands tightened around my wrists. “I care.”
My tears spilled suddenly; tears of grief, of exhaustion, of frustration. And his arms were around me, holding me tightly.
I closed my eyes, feeling myself sink against him. I buried my head against his broad chest, so he couldn’t see me cry.
He slid his hand over my hair, holding me close. I could feel the warmth of his palm against my neck. Could feel his body rising and falling with breath. A little of the distress inside me began to still.
I wished for my old sleeping pallet beside the hearth. I wished for the sound of him breathing beside me in the night. Nothing more. Just that reassurance that someone was there to know, to care if this place swallowed me whole. I felt my fingers tighten around the edge of his coat. And with the gesture, he pulled away, his hand ghosting over the plait that hung down my back.
“I’m sorry, Eleanor,” he said huskily, “you need to go back to the farm.”
*
On Thursday, I made it a point not to step off Leaver’s property for a minute. I couldn’t bear to be out in a world in which Lottie was marrying Owen.
The next day I woke before dawn, lighting the fires and laying the table. Then I slipped out of the house and made my way to the river, desperate to catch Lottie before she sailed away on the morning barge.
I found her waiting on the riverbank beside Owen, a few other travellers clustered by the jetty. She stood with her arms wrapped around herself, staring across the murky plane of the water. Owen was pacing back and forth across the riverbank, hands dug into his pockets to keep out the cold.
He looked up, his face breaking into a grin. “Nice of you to come see us off, Nellie.”
There was a positive to their leaving of course; no more dead animals hung from Blackwell’s hut, no more rocks through his window. Perhaps in Sydney Town, Owen would learn to forget the anger he held towards the lieutenant. And perhaps with Owen gone, Blackwell could move out from beneath the shadow of Castle Hill.
But with Owen gone, Lottie would be gone too. And the thought of it made me ache.
I made my way towards her. I wanted to plead with her one final time, but I knew there was no point. The marriage permit had been signed, the ceremony complete. Instead, I just pulled her into my arms and held her tightly. I couldn’t shake the fear that the next grave I would be standing at would be hers. Her arms slid around me, pulling me close.
And here came the barge, gliding up the river, ready to carry her away. Ready to carry her to a life as Patrick Owen’s wife.
“Be safe,” I managed, my voice coming out broken.
When I stepped back, Lottie’s eyes were glistening. “And you, Nell,” she said. “He’s not who you think he is.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I opened my eyes to thick darkness, aware something had jolted me awake. It had been several months since Owen had left Parramatta, and I thought c
onstantly of Lottie. Thought constantly of Blackwell and the redcoats out on their midnight drills.
To still my thoughts, I’d thrown myself into my work. As Mrs Leaver’s confinement approached, I’d become something of a lady’s maid to her, running to answer the ringing of her bell throughout the day and night. My devotion to her earned me the occasional smile from Leaver, who was clearly besotted with his young and pretty wife.
I sat up in bed, listening for Mrs Leaver’s bell.
No. That was not what had woken me.
Murmurs were coming from Amy’s room. Male grunts of exertion.
I climbed out of bed. Had one of the farmhands crept into her room? Had he been invited?
I stood outside her door, debating whether to intervene.
A muffled cry came, followed by another grunt; this time one of aggression. I darted instinctively into the room.
In the shafts of moonlight streaming through the gap in the curtains, I could see the square figure of Leaver on the bed, trousers around his knees and Amy struggling beneath him.
I snatched the candleholder; the only meagre weapon I could find.
“Get away from her,” I hissed.
Leaver whirled around and stumbled from the bed, yanking up his trousers and buttoning them hurriedly.
Amy was watching open-mouthed, her blonde hair ruffled, eyes wide with fear. Her nightshift was tangled around her knees.
“Go,” I told her.
She scrambled off the bed and disappeared out of the room.
Leaver came towards me, forcing me backwards. His face was darkened with shadow, his untucked shirt hanging around his knees. “Who the hell do you think you are?” he demanded, voice thin. Beneath his miserable attempt at forcefulness, I could hear the uncertainty, the embarrassment.
I held the candleholder out in front of me. “She’s just a child.”
“She’s my lag. I can do with her what I like.” He tucked in his shirt, looking at me with flashing eyes. “What will you do? Go to the Rum Corps? You think they’ll give a shit?”
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