by Meg Keneally
Sarah stood up, and a murmur ran through the gathering. She waited until it died down, clasping her hands in front of her to stop them from shaking. ‘Please tell me,’ she said, ‘what it is that you want.’
Keenan stared at her, rocking back on his heels in surprise. ‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘isn’t that obvious?’
‘Certainly not to me. Perhaps you are directing your anger at Molly Thistle for having the gall to be a woman who can support herself without the assistance of a man.’
Baxendale got to his feet and said, ‘If she acts as a man in business, perhaps she should be prepared to die like one.’
Sarah was shocked by a sudden surge of protectiveness, an impulse to tell this man that Mrs Thistle did not deserve to feel a blade. Others who’d been put to the sword across the seas had not deserved it either. Her father had not deserved it. And this woman’s death would simply add to the pile of bodies, without improving the lot of those who remained.
Had Sarah sat in this room and listened to these words shortly after her arrival in Sydney, she would have nodded in agreement – she had, after all, participated in a plan to behead Cabinet ministers. She would have imagined a faceless rich woman, a blend of all those she had seen in carriages and walking through gardens, daintily holding handkerchiefs to their noses when they passed the unwashed.
Sarah knew Molly Thistle was shrewd, and the woman certainly did not seem to have any radical leanings. But Sarah was beginning to think she was not entirely self-interested. She certainly didn’t deserve to be run through.
‘You kill Molly Thistle, you kill the rest of them,’ Sarah said, ‘and then what changes? Do you think the King or the prime minister will say, “Oh, well, as you’ve shown yourselves to be so determined, we’d better hand the colony to you.” What is your plan, beyond covering yourselves in the blood of the rich?’
‘And what is your business, asking that?’ Baxendale said, thrusting his chest out. ‘You don’t have the right.’
‘She has every right, as does anyone else,’ said Keenan, over the murmur of agreement that had started when Baxendale had finished speaking. Even some of the women were shaking their heads at Sarah. She remembered the insults from the crowd at St Peter’s Field, female voices calling Delia Burns a whore and urging her to mind her business.
‘Mr Baxendale, murdering people will only enrich the peddlers at your hanging. What you need, what we all need, is a way to make the government fear us – one that they can’t hang us for. If we had the ability to vote—’
Baxendale laughed, percussive and mirthless. ‘Something that cannot even be had in England, unless you own land. They will not hand us the keys to the colony for bloodshed? Neither will they hand men a vote for sitting silently and waiting to die.’
‘Not just men,’ said Sarah.
‘You think women should vote?’ Baxendale started laughing again, and a few others joined in.
One man said, ‘What on earth would be the point? You would only vote as your father or husband told you to!’
‘If we are good enough to bear your children,’ Sarah said, ‘then surely we are good enough to have some influence over the world in which we raise them.’
‘Whose children are you bearing?’ Baxendale asked, glaring at Nell. He walked over to her, bending so his nose almost touched hers. ‘I see you,’ he said. ‘Whoring for the constables. You’ll go off with anyone in a uniform. Did they send you here?’
‘What? No! I—’
Baxendale straightened up. ‘Oh, she drinks with constables but it’s a coincidence she shows up to discussions of rebellion,’ he said in a mocking singsong. ‘Well, if you think they can protect you from righteous anger, you may be disappointed. If you are giving them information, there may yet be another harlot dead in an alleyway.’
Nell clutched Amelia, who started to cry.
‘I remind you, Mr Baxendale,’ said Keenan, ‘that we are here to find a better way, not a different one that is just as bad or worse. Watch your words or I will ask you to leave.’
Sarah took her friend’s hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘I had believed you all valued liberty – everyone’s liberty.’ She put her arm around Nell and walked to the door. Once they had reached the street, she asked Nell, ‘You know him?’
‘Seen him at that tavern. The man with the snake on his arm? That was him.’
‘Have you . . . ?’
‘God, no. He’s so joyless. Sits by himself, drinks, occasionally tries to pick a fight, leaves with great huff and bother if too many constables or soldiers walk in. Why were you arguing, though? You wanted to kill people in London.’
‘I wanted change,’ she said, ‘and that seemed the only way to achieve it – the only way presented to me, anyway. Now, if you see Baxendale again, be careful of him.’
‘He’s harmless,’ said Nell, but she was still frowning in the direction he had gone, while clutching her daughter.
CHAPTER 28
‘I don’t mind not going – been getting sick of the sight of you, to be honest,’ said Nell, smiling and rocking Amelia as she sat on the bed.
A thick envelope had been hand-delivered by a servant to the English Rose earlier that day. It contained a stiff card on which someone with far better handwriting than Sarah would ever possess had inscribed the details of a garden party to be held at Mrs Thistle’s home, and informed her that her presence had been requested.
‘You should have been invited too, though,’ said Sarah. ‘Should I ask?’
‘Absolutely not. I shall stay here and make sure everyone is fed and no one leaves without paying. You may have the boring conversations, and endure the stares and the sneers. Do bring me back a honey cake, though.’
Mrs Thistle had sent a coach for Sarah. She had never been on horseback, and until she had come to Sydney the only real conveyance in which she’d ridden had been the rickety cart that had taken her and Sam, and some other human flotsam sundered by the events on that Manchester field, to London.
She had not thought about it as a child, not even when a carriage wheel had splashed her with mud, or a horse whose rider assumed the right to move without impediment had forced her to scramble to the roadside. She must have assumed that those able to travel this way were somehow more deserving of such comforts, otherwise why would God have bestowed them? As she had grown, she had begun to ask herself not what their virtues were, but what they had done to earn their place on the padded seat or in the saddle. Whose suffering they had ignored or augmented, and from whom they had held back succour. Whom they had refused to feed, and whose cries they had refused to answer. Whom had they cut down on a peaceful field.
The seat that she sat on now, the coachman and the horses, had been paid for by Molly Thistle. Had the woman blocked her ears to cries for help, or even been the cause of them?
Sarah felt the weight of what she had heard at Mrs Addison’s. Perhaps she should warn Mrs Thistle of the potential danger, but such a warning would mean telling her employer about where she had been. That might be enough to send noses sniffing in Sarah’s direction. And she had seen no indication that the group planned to do any more than talk – it was all bluster, she told herself. No sword would actually come down on Mrs Thistle’s neck; no gun would send a bullet towards her.
Was it cowardly to stay silent, though? You have asked me to be brave too often, Sarah thought, although she wasn’t sure whom she was addressing.
*
The coach drew up to a house on the bend of a river. Its square turret overlooked the water, a two-storey building extending from its flank, with broad verandas and many windows hinting at the vast space inside.
Sarah could see the gathering from quite a distance. The brightly coloured clothes of the women were threaded through the jackets of the men – mostly black, but occasionally blue along with one or two red coats belonging to soldiers. These guests were ambling around an extensive lawn that sloped down from Mrs Thistle’s house towards the river.
The old woman must have seen the carriage pull up and recognised it as one of her own. She strode over the grass to the door, which she hauled open before the coachman had a chance to dismount from his little seat. As always, she was wearing a dark-blue dress; this one, though, had a broad lace collar of such a startling white that it must have been new.
‘Don’t stare, my dear,’ Mrs Thistle said, following Sarah’s eyes over to her guests. ‘Quite rude – wouldn’t want to embarrass yourself. Or me, of course.’ She cupped Sarah’s elbow and propelled her into the party.
As they passed by, almost everyone stopped talking and stared, then whispered to their companions. It was as though Sarah was there to provide relief from the monotony of the music being scraped out by a lady violinist sitting on a stool near the river.
Mrs Thistle nodded towards the musician. ‘One of my daughters,’ she said. ‘She cannot resist performing. Confident lass. I just wish she had any interest in the business.’
Sarah and Mrs Thistle came to a stop near a knot of men, all facing each other, all nodding earnestly as one of them spoke. Mrs Thistle reached out an age-spotted hand to tap him on the shoulder, in a way that to Sarah seemed every bit as rude as staring. He was smiling, though, not scowling at a perceived insult.
‘Here is the lady with whom you wished to speak,’ Mrs Thistle said, smiling brightly as befitted the host of a party trying to jolly everyone along. ‘Miss Marin, may I present Mr Nicholas Greenwich, superintendent of police.’
He bowed briefly to Sarah and nodded to Mrs Thistle. ‘Miss Marin and I are acquainted. We met at the inquest into the wreck of the Serpent.’ He turned to Sarah. ‘It is a pleasure to see you under happier circumstances. Would you walk with me?’
She looked over her shoulder at Mrs Thistle, making no attempt to keep the anger off her face, the rage at being presented like a neatly wrapped package to a man with unknown intentions. But Mrs Thistle just gave her a broad smile, waggled her fingers, then walked towards her other guests.
The man’s hand was on the small of Sarah’s back, guiding her towards the edge of the garden party. She stepped forward to put some air between them, and he laughed softly. ‘You need have no concern of me. In fact, you could not be safer.’
‘Could I not?’ she said. ‘Are superintendents always above reproach?’
‘Of course not. But in this case, I assure you I have the purest motive in seeking you out. That of maintaining public order.’
‘I am a threat, then? Men quake at my approach?’
‘I couldn’t say. Would they have reason to?’
‘Well, look at me! I am hardly imposing.’
‘How you look is irrelevant,’ he said. ‘I have seen a man filleted by a wife who stood barely to my shoulder. What you say is of far more interest to me than how you look – and I am very interested in what you’ve been saying of late.’
‘Asking people if they would care for marmalade with their breakfast bread? Things must be very slow in Sydney, if I am the focus of the leading protector of the peace.’
They were nearly at the river’s edge, and he stopped, staring across from the precisely clipped lawn to the unruly pale trees and scrub on the other side. He expected, perhaps, to see a face peering back at him, that of a fugitive who had eluded capture.
He looked at her abruptly, all pretence of banter gone, and she had an uncomfortable feeling that if he was hunting for a fugitive, perhaps he had found one. ‘Please be assured, I am concerned for your welfare. I am told, well – many things. Among them, that a young woman has been asking for information. About certain societies with certain views that do not sit well with me, and that are hardly conducive to peace here.’
Sarah felt a surge of fear. She tried to slow her breathing, as she suspected that Greenwich would interpret anything but calm as an admission of guilt. Perhaps one of those at the meeting had recognised her as the survivor of the wreck and was secretly in police employ; perhaps they had also reported Nell’s presence. Sarah did not know what happened to babies whose mothers went to prison, but from what she had seen of the colony, she suspected the courts did not exert themselves in finding them homes.
‘I would very much like to know, superintendent, of what I am being accused.’
‘Nothing. This is more in the way of a warning,’ he said, his face serious. ‘You should seize the opportunities of this new town, and if you’re not willing to work towards its success, at least don’t undermine it. I am not actively pursuing this matter, but I do assure you that if more reports reach my ears, my approach will change with alarming speed.’
‘I thank you,’ said Sarah. ‘However, I am not in a position to cease an activity in which I haven’t been engaged.’
‘Of course not. And I haven’t acquainted Mrs Thistle with my concerns – as yet. You may, after all, be as innocent as you claim.’
CHAPTER 29
Nell grinned as Sarah undid the bundle Mrs Thistle’s maid had given her. The woman had been silent while she wrapped the treats in a piece of cloth, slanting glances towards Sarah; she had clearly been unused to requests for honey cakes from Mrs Thistle’s guests.
Nell picked up the small square, smelled it and closed her eyes. ‘All right then, was it?’ she said after a moment. ‘The party?’
‘Well, no, not really. I had an odd conversation.’
‘You can tell me about it,’ said Nell, ‘but don’t expect me to answer for a little while.’
She began nibbling at the cake as Sarah told her about Superintendent Greenwich.
‘You think he knows what we’ve been up to?’ Nell asked. ‘Or even what you did in London?’
‘I worry that he might know everything. But surely if he did, I’d be in prison. Or already dead.’
‘Unless he wishes to investigate Keenan and the like.’
‘Well, there is that, I suppose. Perhaps that’s why he hasn’t told Mrs Thistle.’
Nell swallowed and put her hand on Sarah’s. ‘But you must tell her. About everything. If she knows what happened to you in England, she’ll understand.’
Every time Sarah saw Mrs Thistle, she felt the urge to tell her. But the police superintendent had eaten her food and drunk her wine, and Sarah knew it was more important than ever to stay silent.
‘Oh, must I? Why do you believe she will not hand me to Greenwich?’
‘Because she’s jealous, that one, of everything she owns. And she believes she owns us. That may be enough to make her protect you – but if she learns the truth from Greenwich, or anyone else, she will have a fit. She’ll buy a prime vantage point at your hanging, and her face will be the last you see before they lower the hood.’
*
Sarah was used to awakening before the rest of the boarding house. Once her mind knew what time it was expected to come to consciousness and reanimate her body, it did so with remarkable punctuality.
The morning after the garden party, though, she was awoken by Amelia fidgeting and mewling in her tiny straw basket. Sarah expected to hear Nell shushing and soothing, the sound of fabric moving as she undid her collar to feed the child. The little girl, though, received no such attention; her tiny, questing noises strengthened into a tentative cry, then another, then a series of staccato sobs.
Sarah rolled over, intending to shake Nell awake and tell her to attend to her child for God’s sake, but no one was there.
Nell had never returned this late before.
Sarah snatched the baby up from the cot and strode in her nightdress into the lightening kitchen where Lizzie was setting out the breakfast things. Thrusting Amelia at her, Sarah took a breath to steady her voice. ‘Have you seen Nell?’
‘No, miss.’
Sarah had tried to get Lizzie to call her by her first name, but the girl was too cowed by her experiences in other households to comply.
‘Do you think you can take care of the little one? I hope I’ll be back in time to help you with breakfast. Perhaps you can use Nell�
�s sling – it’s up in our room.’
Sarah was asking a lot, she knew, but Lizzie nodded and gave her a concerned look. ‘Is Mrs Flaherty all right?’
‘I hope so. I certainly hope so.’
*
As Sarah ran towards the docks, she passed a chain gang. Was Henry among them? It didn’t seem that any of them recognised her, because a few made lewd comments as she sped by.
By the time she got to the tavern Nell visited most often, her thin leather shoes were worn through. The detritus of the docks was nestled against the walls, crates and baskets and ropes slowly decaying, a moat of rot that no one cared to remove. She rattled the front door, but the sun was still a little too low to bring out even the morning drinkers.
Sarah went to the side of the building where she found an alleyway and tentatively began to walk in. ‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Nell?’
The sun had no interest in illuminating this slice of the earth. Sarah heard a crunch, then winced as a shard of broken glass punctured her foot through the worn sole.
The crates in the alley were not collapsing quite as much as the ones at the front of the building, which had surely felt the weight of staggering drinkers as they passed. Some bore the name THISTLE, the type in which tea was imported. Nell loved breathing in the fragrance of leaves from the tea chest.
It was the shoe Sarah saw first, dangling off the tip of a still toe. She walked, slowly, towards where the leg disappeared behind a barrel.
She stopped just before she could see what was lying there. As long as she did not see it, there was a chance it wasn’t real. That Nell was sleeping, perhaps, or that this was some other woman.
Nell did not need a friend now, though. Nell needed a witness.
So Sarah crossed herself, gesturing to a God she believed was either uninterested or non-existent, and stepped forward.