For a moment I imagine I am the one with the ticket for England in my hand. The one with the freedom to leave this place at will. Would I climb onto that ship if I had the chance? The woman I am now has no place in London.
And is there a place for me here, on the edge of this vast wilderness? I have been gifted the life I thought I was to lose, and I want to believe there is something for me in it beyond the misery of the factory. A purpose beyond mere survival.
I can feel Blackwell’s eyes on me. He peers beneath the brim of my straw bonnet, trying to catch my gaze. I’m acutely aware I’ve barely spoken a word to him as the hot morning has stretched towards afternoon.
I reach into my pocket for the letter. Hold it out to him. “When you go back to England, I need you to deliver this.”
He frowns. “What is it?”
That morning, I had penned a letter to the magistrate who had sent me across the seas. I had outlined the role Henry Wilder had played in my husband’s coining venture. And I had outlined my firm belief that he had murdered Jonathan Marling in order to keep his involvement a secret.
Perhaps Wilder will not be found guilty. Perhaps I am too late in finding my voice. But I can no longer stay silent. There is already far too much injustice in the world.
Blackwell slides the letter into his pocket. “Is this the reason you came today? To see that the letter got back to London?”
I hesitate. Would I be here otherwise? I don’t know. But here I am.
The boat knocks against a narrow jetty. Ahead of us, the trees part to reveal manicured farmland, the outline of a large brick cottage in the distance. I frown.
“Who lives here?”
“Captain Macarthur and his wife.” Blackwell climbs to his feet, helping me out of the boat. I stay planted on the jetty, swatting at the flies that are circling my face.
“Why have you brought me here?”
“I’ll show you.” He puts a gentle hand to my elbow, ushering me up the path from the jetty and across a wide brown lawn towards the house. Fledgling trees waver on either side of the path.
My nerves are roiling. Once upon a time I could have held my own against people like this. Dined on jellies and drunk champagne. But I am wearing threadbare skirts from Parramatta market, my stained convict papers tucked in my pocket. I don’t belong in this world any longer.
I look edgily at Blackwell. Is this an attempt to parade me on his arm? To show me he has found a way past his shame?
But then I see it is more than that. Because after stilted introductions, Mrs Macarthur leads me into a drawing room where a fortepiano is sitting against one wall.
“Lieutenant Blackwell tells me you play,” she says.
I stare at the piano, hardly able to believe the sight of it pressed up against the wall. “Yes,” I manage. “At least, I used to.”
“A surgeon on the First Fleet brought it over with him,” says Mrs Macarthur. “When he returned to England he had no mind to take it back. The dear man left it for me.” She gestures to the instrument. “Please.”
For a long time, I don’t play. I just sit at the bench and stare down at the keys. I have left behind so much of who I once was, a part of me feels lost and unsure. I was a lady when I last sat at the keyboard. I don’t want my skills to have left me.
From somewhere deep in the house, I hear the ringing of servants’ bells, footsteps, children’s laughter. I feel almost unbearably small. I know well that following last night’s coup, Captain Macarthur has taken joint control of the colony. I am a factory lass sitting in the drawing room of the most powerful man in New South Wales.
I bring my hands to the keys. Lower my fingers into a deep, resonant chord. The sound feels oddly out of place with the forest encroaching on the window. But it brings a smile to my face. Brings a warmth to my entire body.
My fingers move, uncertain and imprecise, as they begin to remember this part of me. Faster they go, churning through preludes and fugues, and neat, rippling sonatas. And then a freeing improvisation that goes some way to easing the grief pressing down on my chest.
Blackwell enters the room. He sits beside me on the piano bench and watches my fingers move.
I stop playing, letting the silence settle. And I turn to face him. “Thank you. This means more to me than you could know.”
A nod. “Of course.” He puts a hand to my wrist. “We ought to leave if I’m to get this letter back to the ship in time.”
When we are gliding back down the river, I say, “Are you not to leave New South Wales?” Blackwell’s farewell with Mrs Macarthur had been casual, brief. Not the farewell of a man leaving for the other side of the world.
His eyes drift towards the bushland on the edge of the river. The Owens’ hut is there somewhere with its bloodstained walls, being slowly devoured by the forest. Then he looks back to face me.
“Eleanor,” he says carefully, “I didn’t come to Sydney to find a ship back to England. I came to find you. To tell you the truth about Sophia. In hope that you might find some way to forgive me.”
I open my mouth to speak, but find nothing but silence. I had never questioned the fact that Blackwell was to leave. But had he ever said as much? Or had I drawn the conclusion on my own?
“That day at the Whaler’s Arms, you told me your ship was leaving in a fortnight.”
He looks at me pointedly. “And you told me you were to be married.”
“Oh,” I say. “I…” My unformed sentence trails off. The sailor leans on the tiller, easing the boat through the mangroves encroaching on the centre of the river. If he has heard our murmured conversation, his face gives nothing away.
Blackwell shifts forward on the bench, so his knees are inches from mine. “I know I will never make things right with Owen. It’s something I must live with.” He looks up to meet my gaze. “But perhaps I might begin to make things right with you?”
There is apprehension in his eyes; a certain shyness completely mismatched with the ruby gold brilliance of his uniform. That shyness makes my breath catch. Because for the first time, I see without doubt that I matter. That a factory lass with a bloodstained ticket of leave might be the difference between this officer staying in this place or sailing away.
But I also realise that I do not want that power.
I feel an unbidden happiness at the thought of him staying. But the lies he had told me are still there, not so far beneath the surface. Still I don’t know if I will be able to look past them.
“That choice must be yours,” I tell him. “I can make no promises.”
He nods. “Of course.” But the tiny smile that passes between us makes something warm in my chest.
Last night, I had trudged upstairs long after midnight. Crawled into bed beside Kate and stared out into the darkness. Something felt different about the place; an energy in the air, brought about by the governor’s demise.
I know that, in the aftermath of the Rum Corps’ coup, little will change for those of us at the bottom of the pile. The overthrowing of the governor was all for the benefit of the men at the top.
But things have been shaken, tipped from their axis. And if things can change at the top, perhaps one day they might also change at the bottom. Perhaps an officer and a factory lass might find a way to share a life.
And perhaps when the next barge of women comes gliding up the Parramatta River, they might find a safe place to sleep. Perhaps the next Irish lag to open his mouth will not be tied to the triangle and flogged until his back is raw.
Perhaps if we continue to speak, one day we may be heard.
HISTORICAL NOTE
Reverend Samuel Marsden’s “female register” was created in 1806, classing all women in the colony, with the exception of some widows, as either “wife” or “concubine”. Only Church of England marriages were recognised as legitimate; any woman married in Catholic or Jewish services was automatically considered a concubine. The document reached influential circles in London and led to the perception of Au
stralian women being sexually immoral; a view which survived long into the 20th century.
But the female register was not entirely without benefit. Samuel Marsden was acutely conscious of overcrowding at the “factory above the jail”, and well aware that many women were turning to prostitution in order to secure lodgings, particularly after the fire that destroyed much of the factory in December 1807. The register was part of Marsden’s ongoing attempt to have suitable housing built for the ever-growing number of female convicts. In 1818, he was finally successful, with work beginning on the colony’s second female factory, which would operate from 1821 to 1848. While overcrowding, limited rations, and an unsanitary work environment were still major problems at the new Parramatta factory, the women were at least provided with a place to sleep each night.
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The Castle Hill Irish rebellion became known as “Australia’s Vinegar Hill”, named after a major battle in the 1798 rebellion in Ireland. While the Castle Hill uprising of 1804 was swiftly quashed by the Rum Corps, its ideals of freedom and justice later served as inspiration for one of Australia’s most famous rebellions. In the Eureka Stockade of 1854, in which gold miners protested against over-policing and unfair laws, rebels used the password “Vinegar Hill”.
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In 1793, the trading vessel Hope arrived in New South Wales from America carrying much-needed supplies – along with 7,500 gallons of rum. The Hope’s captain stubbornly announced that he would not sell a scrap of his supplies until every ounce of liquor was first purchased. A group of officers from the New South Wales Corps banded together to purchase all the Hope’s cargo without competition. New South Wales, like many British colonies, was short on coins, and rum (a catch-all term for all liquor) soon became an accepted form of currency, with its value largely controlled by the military. The newly nicknamed Rum Corps soon began importing stills, exchanging the liquor produced for food and labour at extremely favourable rates.
In 1806, William Bligh became governor of New South Wales. He found himself in charge of a colony with a severe shortage of food, largely due to the fact that so much of the grain produced was being used to make liquor, rather than bread.
Bligh had been ordered to control the use of alcohol as currency, and put an end to the Rum Corps’ monopoly on trade. Almost immediately upon his arrival in New South Wales, Bligh clashed with Captain John Macarthur, a prominent landowner, politician and former military officer who held great sway over both the Rum Corps and the colony at large. Bligh was an iron-willed disciplinarian, a trait that had contributed to his infamous mutiny on the Bounty, and was again to be his undoing in New South Wales.
In January 1808, Macarthur was due to face trial over an unpaid fine, however refused to be tried by the judge, Richard Atkins, on the basis that Atkins owed him money. Macarthur received the support of the six Rum Corps officers presiding over the trial.
The following morning, Bligh requested the officers present themselves at Government House to face charges of treason. Rather than doing so, the soldiers called for their commanding officer, Major George Johnson. After almost two years of tension between Bligh and the military, Major Johnson appointed himself lieutenant governor of New South Wales, despite there being no legal grounds for him to do so.
On the evening of the 26th of January 1808, the twentieth anniversary of the First Fleet’s arrival in Sydney Cove, almost the entire New South Wales Corps marched on Government House to arrest Bligh. He and his daughter remained under house arrest for more than a year, with Major Johnson and Captain Macarthur taking control of the colony. The rumour that Bligh was cowering under the bed when the soldiers arrived was almost certainly started by the Rum Corps themselves.
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The colony’s first piano was brought to New South Wales by First Fleet surgeon George Wogan, and gifted to Elizabeth Macarthur several years later. After many years in the custody of Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia, the piano was returned to the UK in 2019, to be restored in Bath.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NOVELS
Bridles Lane (West Country Trilogy #1)
Hills of Silver (West Country Trilogy #2)
Wild Light (West Country Trilogy #3)
Forgotten Places
The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
SHORT STORIES
Moonshine (West Country Trilogy Prequel)
Goldfields: A Ghost Story
The Dutchman
Afterlife
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Johanna Craven is an Australian-born author, composer, pianist and terrible folk fiddler. She currently divides her time between London and Melbourne. Her more questionable hobbies include ghost hunting, meditative dance and pretending to be a competitor on The Amazing Race when travelling abroad.
Find out more at Johanna’s website, or follow her on Facebook or Instagram.
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