by Meg Keneally
‘I might as well, missus. The only trade I know, and he’s a decent man. I should think we’ll be heading east by month’s end. He wishes to be in Sydney by Christmas, to pass that day in the busyness of setting up his operation there.’
‘Poor man,’ said Mrs Mulrooney. ‘He mustn’t think less of himself. She was an artful woman.’
‘He does think less of himself, though. And he feels particularly culpable when it comes to you, missus. He says you nearly burned to death thanks to his gullibility.’
‘I don’t lay any of the blame on him.’
‘Kind of you. I’m hoping, then, that you’ll accede to a request he makes. There is a particular item he wishes never to see again. He very much hopes you are willing to accept it as a gift, but will understand if you are not.’
Henson reached into his jacket, pulled out a small velvet pouch, a vibrant blue though it had some dark smears on it. He passed it over the table to Mrs Mulrooney.
When she opened it and reached inside, the stones felt heavy and cold. But the necklace was in pieces, some of the links charred, some broken. The clasp was bent, and a few of the small diamonds around the largest sapphire had popped out of their settings.
‘I don’t want this, Mr Henson. It is too valuable a gift, with too many devilish memories attached.’
‘Indeed. Mr Nelson said that under those circumstances I was to ask Mr Monsarrat to sell it and to give you the proceeds.’
‘I shall certainly do so,’ said Monsarrat. ‘It is a most generous gift, and will be of far more use to Mrs Mulrooney as a tradable item than as a piece of jewellery.’
Mrs Mulrooney tipped the pieces of the necklace back into the bag, as though they were river pebbles. ‘Take the cursed thing then, Mr Monsarrat. Do what you will with it on the condition I never have to look at it again.’
Helen, meanwhile, had placed fresh tea in front of each of them, together with a plate of freshly baked shortbread that Mrs Mulrooney had coached her to make. It was nearly gone by the time Henson stood, bowed to Mrs Mulrooney and wished her a speedy recovery and many happy years of use of her tea set.
As he left, Mrs Mulrooney smiled at Helen and turned to Monsarrat. ‘What is this about a tea set?’
‘Do you know, I nearly forgot the thing. I ordered it as a pretext for asking about the thefts at the warehouse. But I did have certain individual sensibilities in mind when I chose it.’
He fetched the crate, and as he drew each item from its sawdust packing Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘The finest china I’ve seen since Port Macquarie,’ she said. ‘And those clovers, they look almost like shamrocks. More than enough for me to forgive them for being green.’
‘I thought they were clovers too,’ said Monsarrat. ‘Until I realised that in actuality they probably are shamrocks. Look.’ He lifted the lid of the teapot, turning it over. Underneath someone had painted, with exquisite delicacy, the harp of Ireland.
‘And what will a man like you do with a tea set so grand?’ asked Hannah.
‘It’s your tea set, not mine. As to what’s to be done with it, one presumes it will be used to make tea.’
Mrs Mulrooney’s glare left Monsarrat in no doubt that he would be subjected to a flick of the cleaning cloth as soon as his housekeeper regained her mobility.
Then her face clouded. ‘This sort isn’t for the likes of me,’ she said.
‘I would have thought it was perfect. Someone of your wealth should have a tea set this fine.’
‘My wealth? With the pittance you pay me?’
‘Now don’t forget, in addition to your pittance, you are soon to have the proceeds from the necklace.’
‘I doubt a trinket like this will fetch all that much, damaged as it is.’
‘I think you may be surprised. I think it’s highly likely, Mrs Mulrooney, that you are now far wealthier than me.’
Chapter 36
Rebecca Nelson was still missing by Christmas, which was far from riotous, but still among the noisiest Monsarrat had experienced.
He had asked Eveleigh – again – to talk to those in power at the orphan school about the release of Helen’s daughter Eliza into his household, at least for the Christmas season, and the child’s watchful nervousness had slowly given way to smiles, and then laughs, as she sat at the kitchen table playing with jacks made from boiled-down pigs’ knuckles while her mother worked, Mrs Mulrooney promising unlimited shortbread as soon as she was back on her feet. And on her feet she was by Christmas Day, moving a little cautiously but well equal to producing pan after pan of shortbread.
‘You’ll give her a stomach ache,’ Monsarrat said as Mrs Mulrooney lifted the third square of shortbread to the child’s lips that sultry morning.
‘Nonsense,’ Mrs Mulrooney said, not bothering to look at him. ‘Do the poor thing some good, it will.’
‘We must take care,’ Monsarrat had said quietly, ‘not to make things harder for her when she has to return to the orphan school.’
But he still acquired, from Henson, some marbles and a porcelain doll. And as the days after Christmas unfolded, no one came for Eliza, no one asked after her. Then February, with its grinding, slick humidity, arrived, and still the little room by the kitchen was occupied by mother and child.
With sleep elusive on the stickiest nights, Monsarrat was hoping for long, calm hours in the soothing cool of the Government House cellar, sorting the Female Factory records. But Eveleigh had other plans, for he had received word that the new governor, who had left Van Diemen’s Land and had been stamping his authority on Sydney, was expected any day in Parramatta.
The man was known to have an eye for administrative detail, so Eveleigh insisted that an inventory be drawn up of the residence – every painting, chair and cushion; the number of logs in each fireplace, fire bellows and pokers; drapes, beds and hip baths. Monsarrat was required to stalk through the bedrooms upstairs and the fine, broad reception rooms beneath them, counting pillows and tassels.
Eveleigh had assumed the role of majordomo with the governor’s pending arrival. Housekeepers and maids were being procured, with assistants for them sent from the Female Factory. They would turn the beds, wash the sheets, beat the curtains, clean the chimneys, and make everything ready for the house’s new occupant. One morning Monsarrat was walking back into the administrative outbuilding, past Eveleigh’s office, when he heard voices.
‘Of course it’s not impossible, man. Simply cut them all the same length. And get started. I’ve not yet been told when the governor will be arriving, but it won’t be too long. We do not want him riding up the driveway to find that the grass on one side is a different length from the grass on the other.’
The convict groundskeeper had only just recovered from the post-Christmas tribal gathering, a tradition started by Governor Macquarie when local tribes were invited to sit and eat by the grace of His Majesty on land which, in the mind of any fair person, might have been considered as theirs alone in any case. He walked out of the office, glaring at Monsarrat on his way.
‘Monsarrat. In here, if you please,’ Eveleigh commanded.
‘Mr Eveleigh,’ Monsarrat said, entering his employer’s office. He had become accustomed to sitting down without being invited to, but given the man’s current mood he decided not to risk it.
‘Oh, sit down, for God’s sake. I hate it when you pace around. Have you done the inventory?’
‘Yes. I’ve simply to make a fair copy.’
‘It can wait. That matter you asked for my assistance with – I have word.’
Monsarrat had spent so many years without hope, he barely recognised it when it arrived nowadays.
‘With regard to Grace O’Leary?’ he asked tentatively.
‘Of course with regard to her! Who else – the King?’
Whatever he was about to be told, Monsarrat thought, he’d best stay out of Eveleigh’s way for the rest of the day. The heat and workload were clearly deranging the man.
‘Rohan has approved
your request – he doesn’t know it’s yours, of course. Miss O’Leary will be allowed in the yard during the day. The windows in the Third Class penitentiary will be fixed, and the women there will have proper mattresses. I told Rohan that the governor would be touring the place at some point – and who’s to say he won’t? – so he’s motivated to get things in order.’
‘Thank you, Mr Eveleigh. Truly. It is a good thing that you’ve done.’
‘I know. Nice to have some good news. Had some disappointing intelligence from Daly. The woman he sent a ship after to Van Diemen’s Land, the one with red hair, is not our miscreant. Still, it is hard to disappear. I believe the likelihood is that her bones lie in the bush, for they have not been sighted in incarnate form.’
‘I am sorry, sir, for the disappointment.’
‘Ah well. Best get on with that inventory.’
‘Sir,’ said Monsarrat, not entirely sure he was wise in doing so, ‘I wonder if it’s possible …’
Eveleigh sighed, met Monsarrat’s eyes. ‘Yes,’ he snapped.
‘But you don’t know …’
‘You’re going to ask to see her.’ Eveleigh snorted. ‘Officially you’re there to get her to sign a statement. Unofficially … I don’t care to know.’
Monsarrat smiled. ‘Thank you, sir, I can’t begin to …’
‘Don’t begin then. I’ve had far too many people stampeding around here today as it is – just go; you’re giving me a headache.’
Grace looked pale as she washed at the trough in the yard with the other women. She now had as much liberty, if that was the word, as any other Third Class woman. True, this meant she could break rocks with the rest of them, but it also meant she could bathe, eat, converse.
When the women had finished and the bell had gone, Monsarrat approached Tom Felton, who was herding them back into the workrooms.
‘I’m to interview prisoner O’Leary,’ he said to the guard.
‘I’ve had no word of it,’ said Felton. ‘Can’t allow it without the superintendent’s approval.’
‘Well, Felton, you can certainly go and check with the superintendent. However my orders come from the governor’s secretary, and in the governor’s absence they might as well come from the governor himself. Therefore you’d simply be delaying me, and Mr Eveleigh does not like it when I am late back. He is liable to take it out on those who caused the delay. So I suggest, man, that you allow me to speak to prisoner O’Leary.’
Felton muttered, shambled after a knot of women who were moving towards the weaving rooms and grabbed one by the shoulder, pulled her roughly backwards. She trod on his toe in a stumble which looked like it may not have been entirely accidental.
‘O’Leary! This gentleman wants a word. See you back at the loom within half an hour, or your pay will be docked.’
Grace walked towards Monsarrat smiling. In the sunlight, he could see chips of green in her eyes, small but distinct flashes. Far more intriguing than Sophia’s uniform blue.
‘Mr Monsarrat,’ she said. ‘You wanted to see me? We had best get on with the interview. Felton rarely keeps his promises but I think he’ll keep that one.’
‘Well then,’ said Monsarrat. ‘Our former meeting room, I understand, is no longer our only option, and I am sure you feel you have spent quite enough time in there already. Unfortunately the only other possibility is the Room for Useful Purposes …’
‘The dead are no concern to me, Mr Monsarrat. It’s the living who are the monsters. I have no objection to that room.’
The windowless room smelled strongly of lye, and the thick walls were doing their best to keep the worst of the heat at bay. Nevertheless, even with the door open, the place was stifling and Monsarrat could feel a film of sweat forming over his face. The notion irritated him. Yet why should you, he asked himself, care whether a convict sees you sweating? His own response came straight back at him: not like you, Hugh, to ask questions you know the answer to.
‘It’s good to see you unconfined,’ he said.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Less confined.’
‘I urge caution on you, though, in pursuing those former activities that centre on the stores,’ Monsarrat said. ‘Superintendent Rohan is not the type to overlook transgressions.’
‘It is my fervent hope I won’t need to transgress as much. The new superintendent seems to be lacking in a certain amount of compassion, but, as you told me, at least he doesn’t actively seek to harm the women. As long as that situation continues, I see no reason to disturb the peace.’
‘On that point … I have spoken to the governor’s secretary.’
‘Well done. You do move in exalted circles.’
He looked at her, trying to determine whether the statement was a jibe, but she was smiling and after some years of Mrs Mulrooney’s friendship he recognised an affectionate insult when he heard one.
‘I do, as it happens, and you’ll do well to remember it,’ he said, grinning back at her.
‘And what does the esteemed governor’s secretary have to say?’
‘Well, Mr Eveleigh has a great deal to say, on a range of matters. One of those concerns conditions at the Factory. I have convinced him that the matter requires urgent attention. An efficient factory needs an efficient workforce. One that is fed and clothed and not subject to continual abuse.’
‘Ah, yes. We could do with some more … efficiency.’
‘Quite so. And as it transpires, Mr Eveleigh believes he can spare me to interview you and a number of other convicts regarding the conditions you have been subject to until now. He will give the resulting report to the governor, together with recommendations. It is by no means a guarantee of change, but it is all I have to offer.’
‘It is a great deal,’ said Grace, and her eyes shone for a moment. Monsarrat knew that many convicts lost the capacity to shed tears, and he welcomed this small proof that Grace was not amongst them.
‘First, though, I have another duty to perform,’ he said.
Her posture immediately changed. She sat straight, her hands folded in front of her. The model of propriety.
‘Grace, why are you guarded? What are you expecting from me?’
‘I have learned to expect the worst from everyone, Mr Monsarrat. While I do not think I shall receive the worst from you, I must confess you have done me a cruelty.’
‘In what way? Please tell me, so that I can set it to rights.’
‘You’ve given me hope, Mr Monsarrat. And hope that cannot be realised is the worst torture.’
‘Grace, I don’t know what you hoped for, and it’s true that if freedom is your hope, I cannot provide it now. But if you wish for a willing ear, and the promise of a friend once your sentence expires – which is less than a year away, I would like to remind you – that is something I am most definitely in a position to assist with.’
Her eyes shone again, and this time a small tear formed in the corner of one of them, quickly dismissed by her hand.
‘Forgive me, Mr Monsarrat. I am being silly. What is the other matter you wish to discuss?’
Monsarrat knew it was costing Grace to keep her composure. Perhaps she would welcome it if he put matters on a more official footing.
‘Only the legal niceties in relation to the murder of Robert Church,’ he said. ‘I am to take a statement from you. That statement you said you wouldn’t swear to – I transcribed it anyway. Now, of course, someone else will hang, although not the person who should. Mrs Nelson, it seems, has disappeared into oblivion. I need your signature on that statement.’
She took the paper, holding it in front of her at arm’s length as though afraid the lines of words would free themselves from the fibres and reach out to strangle her.
‘Very well,’ she sighed. He handed her a pen, and she inscribed a signature with almost as many loops and flourishes as Monsarrat’s.
‘I am relieved,’ he said, ‘that you are no longer insisting on going to your death.’
‘No. I don’t think I�
�ll be doing that, Mr Monsarrat. It seems I might now have the shadow of a reason to continue breathing.’
The rhythms of the Factory were starting to return to normal. Production was steadying after a drop in the weeks following Church’s death. Men who had been rebuffed in the weeks following the murder were being admitted again to select wives or servants from among the First Class women.
If there was one advantage in Grace remaining in the Third Class, Monsarrat thought, it was that no man would walk in seeking a wife and walk out with her. Unless, of course, one were able to make a special request … He had no idea what the Factory regulations said on that point, but resolved to ask.
There were a great many today who seemed in need of a spouse or servant. Stephen Lethbridge had appeared too, with his pie box, and was attempting to educate the crowd on Aristotelian principles. He was not having much luck, but as ever his pies were in demand.
Monsarrat wove through the men until he stood beside Lethbridge. ‘I must thank you for your help. An innocent has escaped hanging because of it.’
‘My pleasure, Mr Monsarrat. Here, beef and kidney. No, I insist, you can pay for the next one. I anticipate good business this week, for while a certain person has escaped, the gallows will have their fodder. Tell me, will you attend the hanging?’
As a convict Monsarrat had witnessed a number of executions. The most recent refused to leave his dreams.
‘I think not. I’ve no stomach for hangings, and Grogan will be just as dead whether I am there or not.’
‘That he will. But you’d be surprised how many people do have a stomach for that sort of thing. Seems to make them hungry. I do not take pride in this, but I am more than happy to assist them with killing their hunger, though I assure you I won’t feel like eating. So you may indeed wish to stay north of the river, Mr Monsarrat, as the south side will be crammed with those who like nothing better than the edifying spectacle of a man choking to death.’
Two days later, as the hanging was taking place, Monsarrat heard a flight of bats scrambling through the air above the office. A loud noise had sent them on their way: hundreds of people shouting as a man dropped through a trapdoor and into the beyond.