by Meg Keneally
It was not until everything had been set right, put away, smoothed over, that Sarah allowed herself to acknowledge that this was her last night at the English Rose. She could, she supposed, have left the evening’s service to Lizzie. She probably should have – she was likely in danger of arrest at the English Rose, but she wanted to prove to Mrs Thistle that she was not a thief, of time or anything else.
Lizzie had gone to bed, and the fire was dying. Sarah had not told the girl about the change in management, and although she felt a dull ache of guilt, she could not bear all the questions the revelation would bring.
Sitting at the kitchen table and staring at the wall, Sarah did not attempt to stir the embers. She almost welcomed the dark as it slowly erased the corners of the room. If the kitchen was no longer real, then her removal from it, perhaps, would not be as painful.
Her entire world was populated by ghosts now. Even the living were so lost to her, they might as well be dead. She doubted she would see Henry again, even as she heard his chains in the rattle of the kettle when she replaced it on its hook above the fire. She hoped Mrs Thistle was not feeling vengeful enough to punish him for Sarah’s dishonesty. The old woman had a spectral form too, one who sat beside her and berated her for destroying what could have been the best of friendships.
When the fire had died down to a pile of glowing embers, Sarah stood, took her cap from a peg by the kitchen door, hung her apron in its place, and walked out.
She had lived at both ends of the earth. With Henry serving his brutal sentence, there was no one free left for her at either of them. Except, perhaps, one person. This person might just be prevailed upon to help her. To hide her. Perhaps even to find her a place in the bowels of another ship.
*
Sarah had never seen Mrs Addison in a good temper in daylight, so she certainly didn’t expect the woman to be in a better mood when roused by a knocking at the door at such an unreasonable hour.
Sarah was not disappointed. Mrs Addison, her hair untied and the colour of a musket barrel, violently pulled open the door as though she was trying to punish it for committing the crime of being knocked on. She said nothing, just stared at Sarah, her stance demanding explanation. Sarah found herself oddly in the grip of an impulse to curtsy, which she squashed. But she supposed a bit of politeness could not hurt. ‘I am sorry to bother you, Mrs Addison. I know this isn’t a convenient time, but is Keenan in?’
‘I thought you were too sensible a girl to get entangled in this business.’
Sarah was not sure to which business she was referring, but Mrs Addison was already gesturing her inside. The room looked oddly cavernous without the jumbled collection of chairs and people. The only chairs visible now were at a corner table, occupied by Keenan and Baxendale.
The younger man rose politely when Sarah entered, while Baxendale leaned back in his chair, folded his arms over the top of his belly, and glared. ‘You surely don’t mean to involve her,’ he said to Keenan.
‘If she has any sense, she won’t let you,’ said Mrs Addison. ‘Come to that, I just remembered I’m not entirely sure what all this is about. I’ll leave you to it.’ She went through the door at the back of the room, slamming it behind her.
‘I did not involve her,’ said Keenan to Baxendale. Then to Sarah, ‘Are you in need of assistance?’
‘I am, as it happens. But I don’t wish to disturb your work, whatever it may be.’ She looked at the table between the men. It bore a map of the docks, and on top lay a stub of graphite that had been used to circle the part of the dock nearest the Thistle warehouse.
The part where Mrs Thistle liked to inspect her cargo most mornings at dawn. Where she could be expected to do so tomorrow.
Poor, brave, stupid Keenan.
CHAPTER 33
Sarah was about to leave without a word and try to warn Mrs Thistle. But if lies had brought her here, she thought, perhaps the truth could help her head this plan off. And it would not be her fault if Baxendale and Keenan interpreted the truth in their own way.
‘I am to be out on the street,’ she said, ‘after an argument with my employer.’
Keenan fetched another chair and insisted on helping her into it, with what seemed to be his approximation of a courtly gesture. She noticed he was blushing. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘This sort of thing – it is why, you must see, all your thoughts of persuasion, of suffrage – noble as they are, I’m not saying otherwise – will not work. Stronger action is needed. Something emphatic.’
Baxendale leaned forward. ‘And remind me, who is your employer?’ he asked curtly.
‘Molly Thistle,’ said Sarah.
Keenan slapped an open hand down on the table. ‘There you are, then!’
‘There you are, indeed,’ said Baxendale. ‘And very convenient it is too, for one of Thistle’s people to show up just when we are discussing certain arrangements.’
There was little Sarah could rely on, but she was confident in Baxendale’s disdain for women. ‘Mr Baxendale, I did not come here to discuss Mrs Thistle. I am in desperate need of help and thought I might find some here. Are you the sort who likes to talk about helping society, but takes no action?’
Baxendale leaned back a bit, seeming slightly mollified.
‘I am not quite sure what is being discussed here,’ she continued. ‘It is best I leave. I hadn’t thought to catch you in the middle of important business, and am sorry to disturb you.’ She stood up and headed towards the door.
‘I thought you’d been put out,’ said Baxendale. He reached behind his seat to lift up a rifle that he laid across his lap.
‘I will be. She has given me until tomorrow.’
‘Why wait for tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘I do believe that you should stay here.’
‘There’s really no need for compulsion, Mr Baxendale,’ said Keenan, in a wheedling tone. Although he was young, Sarah had assumed his authority with the group had been conferred by Mrs Addison. Now it seemed he only had as much as Baxendale allowed him.
‘No? You don’t think she will go straight to the police? Or to Mrs Thistle?’
‘Well, I suppose—’
‘Mrs Addison!’ Baxendale called.
The woman opened the room’s rear door almost immediately; she had probably been eavesdropping.
‘Make up a bed for Miss Marin. She will stay here tonight. That will be all, both of you. And, Mrs Addison? See that she doesn’t leave.’
Keenan gave Sarah a weak smile. Maybe it was his way of telling her he would take the matter up with Baxendale, but she did not feel hopeful.
Baxendale returned his gaze to the chart on the table, so he didn’t see the mocking curtsy Mrs Addison dropped him. She put a hand on Sarah’s arm and guided her through the rear door. ‘You would think please was coin, the way he refuses to spend it,’ she said quietly to Sarah when they stepped into another room. This one seemed to be Mrs Addison’s domain: a small fire was going, with a single wooden rocking chair pulled up to it. The ceiling was crisscrossed with laundry lines, empty for the moment.
‘Baxendale is a bully,’ said Mrs Addison. ‘Keenan, irritating as he can be, isn’t a bad young lad. Someone’s neck will stretch for this, and Baxendale will make sure it isn’t his. Are you able, do you think, to put a stop to this nonsense in a way that doesn’t get Keenan arrested?’
‘I don’t know, in all honesty. I am certainly willing to try, though.’
‘It’s a shame, then,’ said Mrs Addison, ‘that my back was turned. You took the opportunity to bolt out that unlocked door over there.’ She pointed to the opposite end of the hallway.
Sarah smiled and squeezed the woman’s arm. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘Do not thank me, just save him. And hurry – Baxendale will surely haul his rear end through that door to check on us.’
Sarah nodded, then moved as quickly and quietly as she could towards the door.
*
It was already after midnight. She was
thankful for the full moon, as these streets presented enough opportunities to stumble in full daylight. She felt like a nervous horse, shying at the dark shape of a branch in the light breeze, or the movement of a pig or goat tied in someone’s yard. Most of the houses she passed were shuttered and eyeless. It was not until she got close to the docks, close to the tavern where Nell had died, that any light created by man was visible. She knew better, though, than to get too close to that particular building.
An hour had passed, perhaps more, when she found her way back to the English Rose. The naked dirt of the road that devolved into track was at least light enough to enable her to follow it, although with a new moon and no lantern she would have been helpless.
Dim light was coming from the English Rose’s top floor – perhaps those unable to sleep were soothing themselves with books. The lower floor, though, was in darkness. She paused, looking for the outline of the coach and not finding one. She exhaled in relief; hopefully Mrs Thistle had not sent her driver to make sure she hadn’t left.
Ten minutes later, Sarah was in her bedroom. She supposed she should pack, although she owned very little. She stripped the bedsheets hoping that whoever made her room ready for its next occupant – Lizzie, probably – would have one less thing to do.
Sarah could not risk sleeping past dawn and missing her opportunity to get to the docks in time to warn Mrs Thistle. In any case, she doubted her jumbled mind would admit the possibility of rest. Mornings usually came far too quickly, before she was ready to meet them; this one was dragging, as though it had gathered up her wishes for more time and was granting them all at once.
She thought about what she might do after warning Mrs Thistle. Walk into the bush, perhaps, towards the smaller outlying settlements. Try to get a job as someone’s cook. Or beg passage aboard a ship in exchange for work.
None of those eventualities seemed desirable, or even plausible. The only prospect that brought her close to anything resembling peace was the idea of walking straight to the superintendent, laying her story before him, and waiting for the trial at which she would be found guilty of high treason. There would be some pain, and some fear, and then – well, that depended on who you listened to. But the possibility of a reunion with her parents and Sam, and with Maisie, Coombes and Nell. Or, failing that, oblivion.
She sat down at the room’s small desk, and reached for the pen and ink pot. Only a few weeks ago she had used it to write orders for supplies and keep the accounts up to date, usually while trying to ignore Amelia’s fidgeting when Nell was working downstairs.
Now Sarah opened the drawer, drew out a piece of paper and placed it on the desk’s inlaid leather surface. She was less careful with the ink than usual, and the page was soon festooned with blotches, some nearly obscuring words. She hoped that if Molly Thistle ever read this, it would be legible enough.
What would Sarah do with this letter? She doubted Mrs Thistle would take it from her hand, and she had no means of getting it to the woman’s house. Perhaps she would leave it in the drawer, then, in the hope that whoever was next in this room might find the package addressed to the landlady.
Dear Mrs Thistle,
I do not seek forgiveness, as you have made it clear that none will be forthcoming. I ask only that you read this, for in it I attempt to explain my actions. You will no doubt still find them inexcusable, but perhaps a little more understandable.
I mentioned my mother, when we last spoke. Her name was Emily. I believe you would have enjoyed her company. Sadly that opportunity will never arise, as she was trampled to death by a horse while my father, Jack, lay near her with his chest slashed open, both murdered for listening to a man talk about suffrage.
I believe you would have also liked my brother, Sam, although he may have frustrated you at times. He did me – a young man of extremes, either paralysed by despair or rushing to action.
I think that Aidan Briardown, the man who led us in London, liked that in him. He could wave a perfumed handkerchief in front of Sam’s nose and watch my brother bound off, following the scent.
I loved Sam, of course. And I saw him hanged for a crime that was not actually committed. My brother’s biggest mistake was putting too much faith in one man and the vision he created that could never come into being.
I have asked myself many times whether I wish we had succeeded. In truth, I wish we had not tried. But we could not see any other way. You have been where we were. You and I share something that people like Superintendent Greenwich will never know: the memory of an empty belly, with the knowledge that there is no prospect of it being filled. The action my group planned was, we believed, the only possibility of relief.
You will say, of course, that I am making excuses – I do know how you hate that. But I am not. I have done what I have done, and I have lost what I have lost.
There are only two people left for me in this world. One is the man I told you about. If you are able to let him know what has happened to me, I would be grateful.
The other, I lost to my own dishonesty.
I wish you long life and health.
Yours in regret,
Sarah McCaffrey
Sarah blotted the mess of the page and folded it into a small packet, writing Mrs Thistle’s name on the front and secreting it in the drawer.
Then she walked slowly down the stairs to the kitchen. She would have left a note for Lizzie, but the girl did not have her letters. Sarah would just try to make the morning as easy as possible for her.
In the kitchen she took out the ingredients and tools to make bread. She had always been fascinated with the transformation of water and flour into a new substance, and she loved sinking her fingers into the dough, pushing her palms down as she kneaded, the repetition unclenching her jaw and sending her into a blank state where no feelings existed.
When she had finished she put a muslin cloth over the bowl of dough, leaving it in the middle of the table where Lizzie would find it.
*
By the time Sarah was halfway to the docks, the sky was lightening so much that she feared she would miss Molly Thistle.
She could see the mast of a ship rising over the low building in front of it, next to the Thistle warehouse. If its captain was not already getting an earful, he was probably bracing for one.
Sarah walked down one side of the warehouse, peering around the corner. She knew that if Mrs Thistle saw her coming, the woman would simply turn her back and walk away.
The door was open while supplies were being carried in, under the eye of Ash. Sarah wondered what would happen if she approached him – would he refuse to listen, perhaps even restrain her?
Then he saw her. He strode towards her, while signalling to someone beyond her. She started turning to see who it was, but she stopped when her eyes passed a stack of crates piled up about ten feet from the warehouse. Crouching there, hidden from anyone on the wharf, was Keenan. The barrel of his musket rested on top of a crate.
Sarah ran towards the wharf, but Ash thundered up and grabbed her by the shoulders. She tried to squirm around him and saw Mrs Thistle standing by some tea crates.
‘Watch out!’ Sarah yelled at the top of her voice. ‘Watch out, he has a gun!’
It was the work of an instant. For the constables who had been approaching from behind to pinion her arms. For Keenan, taking advantage of the momentary confusion, to pull the trigger. And for Molly Thistle, who had been staring towards her, to fall to the ground.
CHAPTER 34
Sarah now found it almost laughable that she had spent so much time thinking about what she would do after warning Molly Thistle. The decision, of course, was made for her.
In the prison, a warden took her past a few cells in which several women were jammed. Some of them leered or called out, and she thought she would be taken to another such cell, to sit on a bench, and to be befriended or beaten depending on the mood of her cellmates.
Instead she was shoved into her own tiny stone room. A bucke
t in the corner still smelled of the excretions of the previous occupant. She wanted to avoid sitting on the dirty floor, a small patch of which was covered by straw. She smiled a little when she saw that; at least she had experience sleeping on straw.
The smile did not last. She had achieved precisely nothing at the docks, except giving Keenan enough time to shoot Molly Thistle.
She told herself the injury might not have been fatal. Perhaps Keenan had ultimately left Mrs Thistle with nothing worse than a scar and a story.
But Sarah had seen the way the woman had fallen. Molly Thistle had not put her arms out to protect herself and had not scrabbled at the air on her way down, showing no sign at all that she was sensible of her journey to the timbers of the dock.
Sarah recalled what Henry had said of his time in Newgate. All she wanted, now, was to be granted enough time to prepare herself so that she would not be remembered as the woman who cried and howled on her way to the gallows. She had heard talk about ‘making a good end’, but she had never understood it until now.
After a time she sat on the straw, hugging her knees and resting her forehead on them, while keeping her eyes closed and watching small pinpricks of colour swirl in the darkness behind her eyelids. They might well be the last colourful things she would ever see.
The door opened. She did not bother to look up, expecting it to be a warden with some feeble sustenance.
‘So sunk in despair already, Miss McCaffrey?’
It took a second or two for her to register that Superintendent Greenwich had used her real name.
She gathered the strength to look up. He was standing there in his black coat with its silver buttons, so like the ones the Bow Street Runners had worn. He was holding a piece of paper in one hand, and he kept himself a little away from the muck-coated stone wall.
‘Mrs Thistle,’ said Sarah, ‘is she . . . ?’
‘Dead? You wish to know if your plan succeeded?’