Girl of Shadows

by Deborah Challinor

  Friday lay a soothing hand on Harrie’s forearm. ‘Calm down, love.’

  Harrie swatted the hand away. ‘No, I won’t calm down. You don’t understand! If we don’t adopt her she’ll go to the orphanage and she’ll die there and we’ll have lost both of them!’

  ‘I didn’t say we couldn’t have her,’ Sarah said, her voice conciliatory now she’d realised how upset Harrie was.

  ‘You don’t want her, though, do you?’ Harrie accused.

  ‘I did not say that, Harrie. I just meant it would be a lot to ask of Adam.’

  ‘It would, too,’ Friday agreed.

  ‘And a lot to ask of me,’ Sarah added. ‘And poor little Charlotte. You know I’m not very good with children.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Harrie said so bluntly that Friday laughed. ‘But she’d be so much better off with you than in the orphanage.’ And she put her face in her hands and started weeping again.

  Sarah suddenly knew what this was about. ‘You really want her, don’t you?’ she asked gently.

  Harrie nodded, tears squeezing out between her fingers and running down her hands. ‘More than anything.’

  Sarah glanced at Friday in dismay: they both knew Harrie was asking for something she just couldn’t have. She was an unmarried, assigned convict girl at the long end of a seven-year sentence, and she was mentally unstable and didn’t seem to mind who knew it. No one in authority would give her custody of a small child.

  Harrie lowered her hands, wiped her nose on her sleeve and peered at them through bleary eyes. ‘I love her. I love her as much as I love Rachel. To me she is Rachel. And every time I hold Lewis I see Charlotte. Every time he cries I hear her when she was a tiny baby. And Rachel … Rachel’s telling me I’m the one Charlotte needs, I’m the one who should have her after she leaves Janie. And I can’t have her.’

  Friday and Sarah exchanged a ‘bloody hell’ look.

  ‘Is there really no way you’d marry James?’ Friday asked.

  ‘I can’t,’ Harrie said flatly.

  ‘You keep saying that, but why not?’

  ‘He hasn’t asked me.’

  ‘Only because you won’t talk to him. He would if you gave him the chance.’

  ‘The last time I talked to James he told me we’d murdered an innocent man!’ Harrie burst out.

  ‘Harrie, for God’s sake!’ Sarah said, wincing and pointing through the hood of the carriage towards the driver’s seat. ‘Keep your voice down!’

  ‘But hang on, didn’t Rachel tell you we’d done the right thing?’ Friday said. ‘An eye for an eye? I thought you were square with that?’

  The most awful look of confusion and guilt crossed Harrie’s face. ‘I thought I was but now I don’t know. I’ve asked her and asked her to explain it again but she just won’t talk to me about that any more.’

  ‘Is that why you won’t have anything to do with James?’ Sarah asked shrewdly. ‘Because you think you’re such a terrible person?’

  ‘No. He’s found someone else. He’s got Rowie now.’

  ‘My fat arse he has,’ Friday said. ‘She cooks his meals and he eats them, and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘Harrie?’ Sarah probed. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

  Harrie, who’d been staring at her hands in her lap, slowly raised her head. ‘I am a terrible person. I’m rotten and evil and I’m a murderess.’

  After a short silence Friday said, ‘You can sew really well, though.’

  Sarah laughed, and then they all did, though Harrie’s laughter had a discordant, hysterical edge to it.

  Friday patted her knee. ‘Don’t worry, love, when the time comes we’ll work something out. One of us will have Charlotte, and Rosie too, if Janie can’t keep her when she’s assigned. You don’t really want to see Rosie in the orphanage, do you?’

  Harrie shook her head.

  ‘You’ll see. Things have a way of sorting themselves out. And anyway, it isn’t for ages yet. Charlotte’s only just turning one. We’ve got years.’

  Part Three

  Phantoms on their

  Errands Glide

  Chapter Fourteen

  March 1831, Sydney Town

  The afternoon was so hot that even the rosellas in the tree outside the workshop window had ceased their usual bickering, and slumped now among the wilting leaves like tattered, dusty trimmings on an unloved hat.

  ‘God, I can’t stand this,’ Sarah said as sweat trickled down her face and pasted strands of hair to her cheeks. She pushed away the oil lamp and wiped her face and hands with a cloth. ‘I’m going to leave this soldering until tonight.’

  ‘Might not be any cooler,’ Adam murmured. ‘Could even be worse if the breeze dies. Damn.’ Blinking rapidly, he put down the brooch on which he was working.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Sweat in my eyes.’

  ‘You’ll end up with blight if you’re not careful.’

  ‘No I won’t.’ Adam removed his spectacles and carefully blotted his eyelids.

  ‘That’s looking nice,’ Sarah said, referring to the brooch.

  ‘It had better be. It’s driving me to distraction. I hope the bloody things go out of fashion soon.’

  Adam had spent the past three hours using white horse hair to sew more than a hundred tiny pierced seed pearls onto a mother-of-pearl frame backed with a gold clasp, a task guaranteed to make anyone’s eyes burn, regardless of the temperature. The finished product would be charming, however: a pearl-encrusted fleur-de-lis only an inch and a half high.

  The bell over the shop door rang.

  ‘I’ll get it.’ Sarah rose, her shift sticking unpleasantly to her bum and legs, and hurried through to the shop.

  Two police constables stood before the counter, while another hovered near the door. They all stared at her impassively.

  Sarah’s stomach plummeted; she felt instantly disoriented and gripped the counter with one hand. ‘Can I help you?’ she heard herself say.

  ‘Senior Constable Durrant,’ the eldest of the constables said. ‘Is Mr Adam Green the owner of this shop?’

  Sarah nodded slowly, her heart pounding thunderously.

  ‘Is he here?’

  No! No he isn’t!

  ‘Sarah?’ Adam appeared in the doorway.

  The senior constable faced him. ‘Adam Green?’

  ‘Er, yes.’

  ‘Adam Green, I’m arresting you on suspicion of receiving stolen goods.’

  Adam’s mouth fell open. ‘What?’ He shot a shocked glance at Sarah. ‘What stolen goods?’

  The senior constable flipped up the hatch in the counter: it tipped over with a resounding crash and he stepped through, pushed past Sarah, grabbed Adam’s arm and pulled him around.

  ‘Get off me!’ Adam exclaimed. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I’m warning you,’ Senior Constable Durrant told him, ‘if you don’t come quietly, it’ll be both of you I’m taking up the street.’ He produced a pair of manacles and clamped them around Adam’s wrists. ‘Right, have a look,’ he ordered his colleagues.

  ‘Have a look for what?!’ Sarah demanded, panic sweeping over her in great, crashing waves.

  She was ignored. One of the younger constables went to the drawers behind the counter, and methodically rummaged through them one after another. From the last he extracted a black velvet bag.

  He emptied the contents into his hand and, clearly thrilled with himself, exclaimed, ‘It’s here, boss.’

  ‘You just planted that, you bastard!’ Sarah spat.

  ‘I did not!’ the boy said, his face going as red as the contrasting collar on his blue uniform jacket.

  He must have; Sarah had never seen the brooch of gold and carved red coral in her life. She glanced at Adam. He shook his head, looking equally baffled.

  He said, ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t,’ Durrant agreed.

  ‘Someone’s set me up.’

&
nbsp; ‘Let’s leave that for the magistrate to decide.’ The senior constable gripped Adam’s sleeve and pulled him through the gap in the counter.

  ‘No! You can’t take him!’ Sarah grabbed Adam’s other arm and jerked him back.

  ‘Let go, girl,’ Durrant warned.

  ‘It’s Mrs Green to you, arsehole,’ Sarah snarled, yanking even harder on Adam’s arm.

  Adam’s eyes flared in panic. ‘Sarah, don’t.’

  ‘I’ll ignore that,’ Durrant said.

  Sarah could see that, unlike his underling, Durrant wasn’t particularly happy to be arresting Adam — he was simply doing his job. It didn’t make any difference, though: Adam had been framed and she would not allow them to take him away. She let go of him and ducked through the gap in the counter, her intention to block the door so they couldn’t move him into the street. But the other constable, a tall, red-headed boy — a currency lad, by the look of his wide shoulders and long legs — pushed her violently to one side and opened the door. She tripped over her skirts and fell. Durrant swore but didn’t stop, concentrating on manoeuvring a struggling Adam through the doorway.

  Sarah scrambled to her feet, spat on the red-headed constable’s jacket, and launched herself outside after Adam and Durrant. Someone shoved her again and she went down once more on her hands and knees in the filth of the street, a passing horse and gig swerving to miss her. Then she was hauled to her feet, but not by either of the younger constables — they were already marching up George Street with Adam and Senior Constable Durrant.

  ‘Adam!’ Sarah shrieked over the noise of the busy street. ‘Adam!’

  Stumbling, he looked back at her, but was jerked forwards again.

  Mr Jellicoe, the cutler from next door, who had picked Sarah up off the ground, demanded, ‘What’s going on? Where are they taking him?’

  ‘He’s been arrested.’

  ‘Oh my Lord!’

  Sarah set off up the street, wiping her bleeding palms on her skirt.

  ‘Mrs Green!’ Mr Jellicoe called. ‘Sarah!’

  She stopped.

  ‘Your shop. Should you close up?’

  Christ. She dashed back, rushed around inside shutting all the windows, and locked both doors. Outside again she pelted off up George Street, arriving at the police office located between the market sheds and the old burial ground, moments after Adam and his escort entered the narrow gate in the high stone wall surrounding the compound.

  The policeman on guard slammed the gate in her face.

  She gripped the iron railings hard enough to turn her knuckles the colour of bone, watching as Adam was led inside the building. ‘Adam!’ she shrieked, so violently she tasted blood.

  But she was too late; they’d taken him to the watch house.

  ‘On your way, missus,’ the guard told her. ‘Go and weep at home.’

  Sarah glared at him, her top lip curling on one side to reveal a rather sharp little eyetooth. ‘Weep? Fuck you! I’ll not be wasting good tears when he’ll be out by tonight.’

  The guard leant into his side of the gate. ‘Any more of that and I’ll arrest you for indecent language.’

  Sarah leant into her side. ‘Fuck. Off.’

  ‘Fuck off yourself,’ the guard growled.

  Sarah did. Actually she would have liked nothing better than to lie down in the road, curl up with her arms over her head and cry, but there were things she had to do.

  She headed off back down George Street. Not to fetch Bernard Cole, or James Downey or anyone else with authority, but to find Friday and Harrie, the two people she knew could comfort her best, the souls she trusted most, and who she knew would never let her down.

  Friday’s cully left feeling a bit short-changed, but from the window Friday had seen Sarah hurrying up Argyle Street, and she knew she wouldn’t be bothering her at work if it wasn’t extremely important.

  In the privacy of Elizabeth’s office, Sarah explained what had happened. She was definitely crying now, since no one but Friday would be witness to her loss of control.

  ‘And you’re sure the brooch wasn’t Adam’s doing?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure!’ Sarah snapped, and blew her nose on a dainty lace handkerchief Friday had found in a drawer in Elizabeth’s desk. ‘We’ve been fencing stuff, but we’ve not been receiving. Everything we’ve bought’s been on the up or it’s come through Bernard, and yes he does send swag back to England on the sly, but everything he imports always has the correct paperwork. And if it doesn’t it certainly looks like the correct paperwork. You’d never tell the difference. And the tax is always paid. But none of that’s the point here. The point is I’ve never seen that brooch before in my life.’

  ‘And Adam wouldn’t have accepted something without you knowing?’

  ‘These days Adam doesn’t even breathe out without me knowing, he’s been trying so hard to make everything right.’

  Friday scowled and helped herself to two measures of Elizabeth’s brandy. She passed one to Sarah, who took a huge, shuddering sip.

  ‘Who would want to frame him?’ Friday asked.

  ‘I can’t think of anyone. Only Esther, but she’s long gone.’

  ‘What about Bernard?’

  ‘Bernard?’ Sarah looked shocked. ‘I don’t think so. Why would Bernard want to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just a thought.’

  Sarah knocked back the rest of her drink, gagging slightly. ‘If Adam goes to gaol, I’ll have to go back to the Factory and he’ll lose everything.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Really? As his wife, don’t you have any rights?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m still a bonded convict. I’m still serving a sentence so I’m not allowed to run a business by myself.’

  ‘Bloody Bella Jackson does,’ Friday muttered. She stared into her empty glass, as though wondering where the contents had gone, and poured herself another drink.

  ‘But the authorities don’t know about that, do they?’ Sarah snapped, anger drying her tears. ‘They think … Well, I assume they think her husband is running those businesses. If Adam goes to court, the magistrate will know it’s just me and him in the shop, and that I’m an assigned convict. So if he’s gaoled, that’ll be that. I can’t afford to go back to the Factory, Friday. What about the Charlotte fund? And Bella’s bound to make another demand. And apart from all that, I just bloody well refuse to do nothing while everything Adam has is taken away from him because some bastard has set him up.’

  Friday emptied her glass a second time. ‘But what can you do? He’ll get a bloody stiff sentence, an ex-convict committing a crime here.’

  ‘He didn’t commit a crime. I don’t even know who to ask for advice. You’ll be mashed in a minute,’ Sarah said, watching Friday pour a third brandy. ‘Stop that.’

  ‘James might know.’ Friday slumped forwards, elbows on her bare thighs, her face in her hands.

  ‘Is Harrie talking to him at the moment? Should we get —’ Sarah stopped. Friday was crying. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh shite, Sarah. I’ve been a right bitch. I did the most terrible thing.’

  For an awful, dreamlike moment Sarah thought Friday was about to say she had framed Adam.

  ‘I told Adam he shouldn’t even think about taking up with you.’ Friday’s expression was wretched. ‘I said you’d never settle down with any man, and sort of suggested you’d make his life a misery. In fact I more or less implied you’re a tart. I couldn’t help it, Sarah. I’m sorry. I was jealous. And I’ve felt that rotten and it’s been eating a bloody great hole in me ever since.’

  ‘I know,’ Sarah replied mildly. ‘He told me.’

  ‘What?’ Friday was outraged. ‘I swore I’d beat the living shite out of him if he said a single word!’

  ‘Well, he did.’

  They burst out laughing, and then they were hugging fiercely, and then crying again.

  ‘It doesn’t matter that I married him, Friday,’ Sarah said. ‘I love him, but … well, I love you, to
o.’ She brushed at a tear-dampened patch on the shoulder of Friday’s robe. ‘Adam’s … extra. It will always be you and me and Harrie, no matter what else happens. Always.’

  ‘You’re not roaring ’cos I tried to scupper everything?’

  ‘Of course I’m not. You did it from here.’ Sarah touched the place just below Friday’s left breast. ‘And he didn’t listen to you anyway. He has a lot more backbone than you obviously thought.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Friday said, her face sour. ‘D’you know, that’s the first time I’ve heard you say you love him?’

  ‘Is it? God. I suppose it is, isn’t it?’

  ‘You do love him, don’t you? You really do.’

  Nodding, Sarah’s face crumpled again, and Friday’s heart ached for her.

  ‘Well, come on, then,’ she said. ‘We haven’t got time to sit around bawling. Let’s go and get Harrie and make a plan.’

  Harrie was stunned — aghast and immediately brimming with concern for Sarah. While Sarah recounted to her what had happened, Friday took Nora Barrett downstairs for a quiet word.

  ‘We’ve been worried sick about Harrie,’ she said without preamble. ‘She told us a little while ago — actually admitted to us as plain as you please — that she’s been having conversations with the ghost of our friend Rachel. The girl who died at the Factory?’

  ‘Yes, I know who Rachel was.’ Nora shifted Lewis from one hip to the other. He grabbed at her hair and she put him down on the ground and watched him crawl jerkily off to annoy Angus the cat, who had been contentedly lolling in the sun at the bottom of the back steps.

  ‘Have you noticed anything odd about the way she’s been carrying on?’

  Nora said, ‘I quite often hear her talking in her room at night. Lewis! Be careful, he’ll scratch you!’ She wrinkled her nose disapprovingly. ‘Friday, have you been drinking?’

  ‘I might have had a small one, for medicinal purposes. Well, don’t you think that’s a bit, um, barmy? Talking to a dead person? Or even to yourself?’

  Nora shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s harmless, isn’t it? She has been a bit highly strung lately, I’ll grant you that, but she never lets it get in the way of her work. She’s marvellous with the little ones, and good around the house, and the best needle-worker I’ve ever encountered. And is she barmy? Quite a few folk have the second sight, Friday. It’s just something they have to live with.’ She fixed Friday with rather a stern look. ‘I suggest you and Sarah learn to live with it, too, instead of hounding her. She came home very upset after that talk you had with her, you know.’