Girl of Shadows

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘I can’t tell you. Really, I’m sorry, I just can’t.’

  ‘You’re being blackmailed, aren’t you?’

  Friday felt her cheeks redden, and turned her face away.

  ‘If it’s money you need, I can help, you know,’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘I’ve got money. But thanks, I appreciate your offer.’ Friday hesitated, then asked, ‘Why are you being so kind?’

  ‘You remind me of someone,’ Elizabeth said. She examined her perfectly manicured fingernails for a long moment. ‘Someone who was very dear to me.’

  Friday opened her mouth to ask who, then decided Mrs H was entitled to her secrets, too. If she wanted to tell her, then one day she would.

  Elizabeth lay a plump hand on Friday’s arm. ‘Well, I’m always here if you want to talk to me about it. Believe me, there’s nothing worse than carrying the weight of a secret all by yourself.’

  But Friday didn’t have to suffer the burden of this secret alone, and for that she thanked God.

  ‘What time will James be home?’ Friday asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m not his wife.’

  ‘Well, where is he?’

  ‘Still at the surgery, I expect.’

  Friday had called an emergency meeting at Sarah’s. She’d grabbed Harrie on the way, telling Nora it was essential she come out for an hour, and now here they were once again sitting around Sarah’s dining table, where they seemed to have done so much of their planning, plotting and worrying. She fished Bella’s latest note out of her pocket and passed it to Sarah.

  She read it quickly. ‘Double-crossing bitch,’ she said for about the fifth time since Friday had told her. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her.’

  ‘I didn’t trust her,’ Friday said. ‘Not really. Did you?’

  ‘What do you think? There’s no honour among thieves. I should know.’ Sarah gave the note to Harrie. ‘Do we have the money?’ she asked Friday.

  ‘We do. And I got Matthew the other day to withdraw Janie’s payment for the next few months, so that’s all right. But there’ll be hardly anything left.’

  ‘How much? By my reckoning there should be about fifty pounds, after this. Is that right?’

  Friday nodded. They all knew fifty pounds would be a small fortune to many, but not to three girls regularly being blackmailed, who also had three dependants in the Parramatta Female Factory.

  ‘How does she know we can afford it?’ Harrie asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s underlined the word “know” as though she’s sure of how much money we have in the bank.’

  ‘She can’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘Apart from us, Matthew’s the only other person who knows that.’

  ‘The bank clerks must,’ Friday pointed out.

  ‘She can’t be bunging them,’ Sarah said. ‘Can she?’

  Harrie frowned. ‘How would she even know we have a bank account?’

  Sarah turned to Friday. ‘You haven’t told anyone, have you?’

  ‘Why the hell would I?’

  ‘More to the point, would you remember?’

  ‘No need to be snarky. Of course I haven’t bloody well told anyone. Oh shite.’

  Sarah pounced. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it was Mrs H who gave me the idea of us having a bank account. We were talking about it in her office. But I can’t remember if I said anything about how much money we have.’ And she really couldn’t.

  ‘And?’ Sarah prompted.

  ‘She might have been listening at the door.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Lou. I told you she’s been spying on me. I’m bloody sure she’s working for Bella.’

  ‘More likely Bella’s made a shrewd guess,’ Sarah said. ‘She runs a brothel, she’ll have a good idea of how much money you make. Christ, she’s probably managed to find out how much Adam and I earn. Though I bloody hope not. She’ll be blackmailing us for that next.’

  They lapsed into silence until Harrie laid the note on the table, gave it a little push so it skated away from her and said in a deflated-sounding voice, ‘I thought this was all behind us.’

  Friday gave her a genuinely sympathetic look. ‘Did you?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. Not really.’

  ‘It was worth trying,’ Sarah said. ‘It did all seem a bit easy, didn’t it? The lying cow.’

  ‘We’re back where we started, aren’t we?’ Harrie said.

  ‘Well, no.’ Friday folded the note and stuck it in her pocket. ‘We got rid of Gellar and Adam’s coming home. Have you heard anything, Sarah?’

  Sarah scowled. ‘No, I bloody haven’t. Rossi said it would be a month and the month’s not quite up yet. If I could I’d be down at the wharf every day to meet the ships but I can’t leave the shop.’

  ‘When’s Bernard back?’

  ‘In a few days, I think.’

  ‘How are you getting on with James?’ Harrie asked.

  Sarah’s face relaxed. ‘Actually, quite well. Better than I expected. He’s a lot less fussy than I thought he would be. I thought he’d have to have his sausages all lined up on the plate half an inch apart facing in the same direction and his handkerchiefs folded into perfectly symmetrical squares and all the rest of it, but he’s not like that at all. And he does a lot of things for himself. Comes from being in the navy, I suppose. Thoughtful, too. He seems to know when I don’t feel like talking.’ She blushed and started to smirk.

  In anticipation Friday giggled, too.

  ‘The other night he was having a bath in front of the fire in the parlour. I forgot and barged in to get my mending and there he was standing in a foot of water in all his glory. I nearly died and so did he.’

  Friday shrieked with laughter.

  ‘You,’ Sarah said, pointing at Harrie, ‘don’t know what you’re missing.’

  ‘Don’t be coarse,’ Harrie said.

  ‘And you stop being so stubborn and stupid. The man’s really quite spectacular. Mind you, I didn’t see him for two days after that. Went out early and came home late he was that embarrassed.’

  Friday was still tittering as she walked home along Harrington Street. Things were looking up, in spite of the fact Bella had made another blackmail demand. Harrie and James were talking again, Sarah was tolerating James living in her house surprisingly well and so far her sarcastic tongue hadn’t driven him back to his own cottage, and surely it couldn’t be much longer before Adam himself arrived home.

  There had been no sign of Jared Gellar. His trunk still sat on Sarah’s porch, the ends of the leather straps beginning to curl. If he had any sense he would be on a ship halfway to England, though she had no idea if he was or not. She’d only said that to Harrie so she wouldn’t feel guilty about dobbing him in to Bella.

  Two days later Sarah received another letter, from, according to the script on the outside of the folded and sealed sheet of paper, the Office of Captain Francis Rossi, Superintendent of Police and Police Magistrate.

  She tore open the seal and read:

  Dear Mrs Green,

  It is with great pleasure that I inform you of your Husband’s release from Port Macquarie Convict Penitentiary forthwith. I have requested that the Commandant of the penitentiary, Captain Henry Smyth, be kind enough to arrange your Husband’s passage back from Port Macquarie to Sydney on the next available ship.

  Yours Faithfully,

  Captain F. Rossi

  Feeling light-headed and sick with relief, she crouched on the floor in the centre of the shop, her palms pressed against the tiles for balance, the rest of the post forgotten.

  ‘Sarah? Are you all right?’

  She glanced up, her head swimming, to see James standing over her.

  ‘He’s coming home, James. I just … I couldn’t be better.’ And she burst into tears — this was happening to her a lot these days.

  James took her elbow and helped her to the stool behind the counter. She sat blindly, wiped at her eyes with her sleeve and thrust
the letter at him.

  He read it, and nodded. ‘I’m very pleased for you both, Sarah, I really am. Decent of them to ship him back.’

  ‘They shouldn’t have sent him there in the first place!’

  ‘No, quite. But you should try not to think about that now. He’s coming home, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘God, are you ever anything but sensible?’ Sarah said.

  ‘I volunteered to cohabit with you, didn’t I?’

  Sarah gave a crooked little smile. ‘That’s true.’

  James glanced at the letter again. ‘He could be home in four days. Perhaps even three.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Sarah’s eyes shone with hope.

  ‘The letter is dated twenty-first of June — four days ago. If Rossi sent the letter of release by sea the same day, it will have arrived by now as I believe it takes, under fair conditions, three days and two nights to make the voyage from Sydney to Port Macquarie. Providing Adam is able to leave Port Macquarie straight away, he should arrive here on … Wednesday, perhaps?’

  ‘Really?’ Sarah was delighted. ‘Then I’ll go down to the wharf tomorrow. He could be early.’

  ‘Not that early, Sarah,’ James said gently.

  ‘Which wharf?’ she asked suddenly. ‘King’s? Campbell’s? Pitman’s? Bloody Market Wharf? I can’t be waiting at them all!’

  ‘I’ll make enquiries with the harbourmaster. But he really won’t be back tomorrow. Monday at the very earliest, and more likely Tuesday.’

  ‘Monday, then,’ Sarah agreed grudgingly. James knew what he was talking about. But she knew the wait would be utter torture.

  Monday’s weather was atrocious. From the harbourmaster James had discovered that a ship could be arriving from Port Macquarie some time that day or evening — possibly earlier than expected due to the heavy winds tearing down from the north — carrying a cargo of cedar to be unloaded at Campbell’s Wharf. At eight o’clock in the morning, a drenched Sarah appeared at the Siren’s Arms to collect Friday, who had offered to spend her day off waiting with her.

  Not accustomed to hauling herself out of bed so early, Friday nevertheless made a supreme effort for her friend, and together they staggered down to George Street into a vicious wind laced with rain as sharp as needles, hats clamped to their heads and skirts whipping around their legs. Friday was soon as soaked as Sarah.

  They found themselves a pair of stools near a low window in a gloomy little pub on George Street, just past the Naval Offices, with a view of Campbell’s Wharf and the wildly seething cove. Everything was grey — the sea, the sky, the buildings, the muddy streets.

  Friday sipped at her gin.

  ‘A bit early for that, isn’t it?’ Sarah said.

  ‘I’m cold.’

  So was Sarah, though the temperature wasn’t anywhere near as freezing as that of London’s. She wondered if they’d got used to the warmer weather in Australia, and grown a bit soft.

  ‘You’ll be mashed by the time he gets here,’ she said.

  ‘No I won’t.’

  They watched as the wind battered indignant, squawking gulls, raised waves against watermen straining mightily to reach the shore, and hurled rain into the faces of folk dashing past the window in shapeless, dripping hats, coats and cloaks.

  ‘What shitty weather,’ Friday remarked.

  They had a pie each, Sarah had an ale, and Friday ordered more gin. Closer to midday the pub began to fill, the room grew warmer and smoke from other pipes added to Friday’s.

  Sarah didn’t feel as cold now, though she still shuddered uncontrollably every few minutes — she was getting heartily sick of it. It was her nerves, grabbing her by the neck and shaking her. She should be feeling deliriously happy because her man was coming home, but she wasn’t. What if he wasn’t on this ship? What if a ship came in tomorrow and he wasn’t on that one either? Or the one next week? What if he never came home?

  ‘Cheer up, love,’ Friday said. ‘It could be worse.’ She laughed. ‘I said that to Harrie once, in Newgate. She went all bristly, you know the way she does sometimes? And she said, “How could it be worse?” And I said, “Well, you could be swinging.”’

  ‘I bet that helped.’

  ‘No, actually, it didn’t.’ Friday’s face sobered. ‘You know, I was bloody sure I was for the gallows, that last time I went up in front of the magistrate.’

  Sarah nodded; she’d had the same bowel-churning fear, even though her crime was no longer a hanging offence.

  ‘But look at me now,’ Friday went on. ‘Look at us! This is bloody paradise compared to what we had at home. Well, not today it isn’t, it’s pissing down. But I’m making tons of chink working for a good boss, you’re married to a decent professional man and doing what you love, and Harrie’s doing her drawings and dressmaking and being chased by a man who thinks the sun rises and sets on her.’

  Sarah stared at her, her face expressionless.

  Friday stared back. ‘On the other hand, Rachel died, I hate my job, Adam isn’t actually back yet, Harrie’s losing her mind, and we’re being blackmailed by a cast-iron bitch. But you can’t deny we are eating well.’

  Sarah smiled slightly. ‘That’s true. I’ve put on weight.’

  ‘You had. Now you look like a pipe-cleaner again. I’m the one with the arse like a beer barrel.’

  ‘A fabulously curvaceous beer barrel, though.’

  Friday put her hand on Sarah’s clenched fist. ‘He’ll be home soon. You just have to hold on a little bit longer.’

  ‘I know. Thanks.’

  At a little after two o’clock the driving rain eased, though it didn’t stop completely, and three ships sailed into the cove, one after the other. Two furled their sails — no easy task in the high wind — and dropped anchor while the third tacked closer to the western shore. By this time Sarah and Friday were standing as close to Campbell’s Wharf as they could get, it being private property, holding on to their hats and squinting against the sea spray.

  Two watermen swaddled in voluminous oilcloth coats launched a boat from the shore to the ship and a long cable connected to the vessel’s capstan was rowed back and attached to the wharf. The sails on the ship were furled, crewmen heaved against the capstan, and, after what felt to Sarah like hours, the ship was warped in. When the bow was almost touching the wharf, crewmen threw more ropes to waiting lumpers, who threaded them through blocks, heaved mightily and manoeuvred the ship around one hundred and eighty degrees so that at last she came to a restless, creaking halt alongside the wharf, facing out into the cove.

  There was a further delay while the ship was more firmly secured, and the gangway locked into place. A man moved onto it; Sarah’s heart lurched and goose bumps broke out all over her, but it wasn’t Adam. Too tall.

  ‘I’m going up,’ she said to Friday.

  Friday nodded. ‘I’ll be here.’

  Sarah wrapped her saturated shawl more tightly around her shoulders and, picking her way through the mud, stepped onto the rain-sodden boards of the wharf.

  One of the lumpers intercepted her. His hair was plastered to his head and he didn’t look pleased to be out working in the rain. ‘Sorry, missus, private property, order of Robert Campbell.’

  ‘I know. Has this ship just come from Port Macquarie? I believe my husband is a passenger.’

  ‘Port Macquarie yes. No passengers, but. Just crew.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know. This was a last-minute arrangement,’ Sarah insisted.

  ‘Here’s another one. Bugger off.’

  ‘Bugger off yourself. My husband’s on that ship. Will you just —?’

  Then Sarah caught sight of him, leaning on the rail at the top of the gangway, staring down at her.

  She dodged around the lumper and sprinted along the wharf, her boots thumping on the boards and her bonnet flying off and swooping into the sea.

  He met her at the bottom of the gangway and caught her in his arms and, oh God, he was very thin but it was him, it was Ada
m, she had him back!

  Friday watched them from a distance, trying to decide whether she was happy for them, or jealous. Probably happy, given she was dabbing at tears. Or perhaps it was a bit of both. And that was all right, wasn’t it?

  She moved to the water’s edge and poked with her soggy boot at shells washed up by the waves. Torn off the rocks or churned up from the seabed by the rough weather, perhaps? They ponged something terrible, and she wondered if some still contained their occupants, going over now they’d died. Then she noticed something else, a clump of rubbish, bobbing about just beneath the wharf in about three feet of scummy water. She wandered along the beach for a closer look.

  The smell got worse, like badly gone-over meat and brine and Billingsgate fish market all mixed up together, and the clump took on a vaguely recognisable shape.

  ‘Sarah,’ Adam breathed. ‘Oh my bloody God, Sarah.’

  She leant back from his embrace. His skin was pale and his eyes sunken and underlined with shadow, but he was smiling.

  ‘Oh, my love, what did they do to you?’

  ‘Well, I’ve certainly eaten better.’

  They gazed at each other, oblivious to the rain, then giggled hysterically and hugged again, hard enough to squeeze the life out of themselves.

  ‘I missed you so much, Sarah. I’d almost given up.’

  ‘I missed you, too. Horribly. And I thought you had given up. Your letter, it … made me sad. And bloody angry.’

  ‘Five years, Sarah. It’s a long time. I didn’t want you to feel you had to wait for me.’

  ‘You stupid man,’ Sarah said, but she said it gently.

  ‘Are you all right? You look exhausted.’

  ‘It’s been a hectic couple of months, Adam. Did you get any of my letters?’

  ‘Not allowed them. Nearly broke my heart. I knew you would have written.’ Adam pushed back his wet hair and wiped the rainwater out of his eyes. ‘How did you get me released? The first I knew of it was the commandant telling me he had a letter from Rossi saying my conviction had been quashed. It was Gellar who framed me, wasn’t it? How did you prove he did it? And where is he? I’ll bloody well kill him.’