Friday laughed. ‘And Bella, the poor old mot.’
They were silent for a long, reflective moment. Inside the house, upstairs, they could hear Sophie shouting at Anna. The sooner Lucy opened her school the better, Harrie thought.
Then Sarah said, ‘We’ve lost a lot, haven’t we?’
‘We have,’ Harrie agreed. ‘But, well, I don’t have to say it, do I?’
She didn’t. Though they’d lost people they’d loved, they’d gained far more than they’d ever dreamt they would.
‘Would you give it all up to have them back?’ Friday asked. ‘I think I would, you know. Except for Bella, maybe. But not you, Aria. I wouldn’t give you up.’
‘I know.’ Aria kissed Friday’s cheek. ‘And I will never relinquish you. Not for the whole of the world.’
‘I’d give all this up,’ Harrie said, waving vaguely at the garden, ‘especially if we could have Rachel back. And Janie. But I couldn’t go without James or the children. And I’d definitely have trouble giving up Charlotte, even if it was back to Rachel.’
‘And I couldn’t give up Adam,’ Sarah said.
Friday broke off a piece of cake but didn’t eat it. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? When I ended up in Newgate that last time, all I really gave a shit about was money. But then I met you lot, and now I’ve got more money than I know what to do with —’
‘Not yet, you have not,’ Aria interrupted.
‘Well, in a few years, then. But now all I care about is the people I love.’ She paused, then added, ‘And the people I’ve lost.’
‘Perhaps you’ve finally grown up,’ Sarah remarked.
Friday made a face. ‘Don’t be such a smartarse.’
‘I’m not. I’m just saying.’
‘Where’s Charlotte?’ Harrie asked, a note of panic in her voice. ‘Charlotte? Charlotte!’
There was no need for her to worry about Charlotte wandering around unguarded now that Jonah Leary was locked up in George Street gaol awaiting trial, but she was finding it a hard habit to break.
‘Here, Mama!’ Charlotte emerged from the shrubbery, with twigs in her hair, the iris bouquet hanging around her own neck, and three parallel scratches on her fat little forearm. ‘Angus mean to Lotta.’
Harrie trotted down the steps and picked her up. ‘Yes, he was, wasn’t he?’ She kissed the scratches. ‘But perhaps he didn’t want to wear the bouquet.’
‘Mean Angus.’
Daisy appeared on the verandah. ‘Miss Harrie, there’s a gentleman at the door asking for you. Sort of.’
Harrie stifled a sigh. Daisy was an excellent housegirl, and absolutely wonderful with Charlotte, but really not very good at communicating on a social level. Especially with men. The result, she supposed, of being raised in an orphanage full of girls.
‘What do you mean “sort of”?’
Daisy looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t really know. And he’s got a funny hand.’
‘Funny in what way?’
‘It’s not there.’
Harrie handed Charlotte to her. ‘I’ll go and speak to him. Did he give you his name?’
‘Um, I think he said it was . . . Lucas Carew?’
Captain Lucas Carew sat in the parlour, staring guardedly back at them. He was a handsome man, Harrie thought, with a wonderful physique, and she could see why Rachel had been so enamoured of him. His left hand was missing from just above the wrist, a jarring defect compared to his otherwise very fine looks. He seemed ill at ease — but not as ill at ease, she expected, as they were.
‘Shall I start at the beginning?’ he suggested. ‘I find that’s usually the most sensible course of action.’
‘Good idea,’ Friday said. ‘Start at the bit where you abandoned Rachel in London, alone and with no money.’
‘Pardon me?’
Sarah raised a hand, palm up. ‘Hang on a minute. Before we get into all that, I want to know how you found us.’
Lucas Carew sipped from his teacup, then said, ‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather tell my story in chronological order. It could get somewhat complicated, otherwise.’
Sarah blinked at him, then nodded.
‘Has Rachel told you of our elopement to London while I was on leave?’
They all nodded, including Aria, who’d heard the story several times.
‘As you might also know, then, I had to return to barracks for what I thought would be a period of three weeks. I then planned to go back to London and marry Rachel. But while in barracks I received sudden orders to rejoin the rest of my regiment, the 31st Huntingdonshire, in India. I requested a postponement, I paid bribes, I begged, but to no avail. Three days later I was on a transport to the East. I wrote to Rachel frequently, to the lodging house in London and to her mother and father, but I’ve never received a single reply.’ He leant forwards and rubbed his hand over his face. ‘I was at my wits’ end, I really was. You’re right,’ he said to Friday. ‘She must think I abandoned her, and the notion still stabs me in my heart.’
Harrie, Sarah and Friday glanced at one another: he was talking about Rachel as though she were still alive.
‘That money you gave the landlady to pay for Rachel’s board?’ Friday said. ‘Well, the bitch said she’d never received it, and accused poor Rachel of pawning her shitty old sheets and she ended up getting transported for it.’
‘I know. I know. After I lost my hand eighteen months ago I was honourably discharged from the regiment, spent a year recovering, then threw myself into finding out what had happened to her. I learnt she’d been transported here on the Isla in 1829, so decided to come out myself and look for her. Mrs Downey, I believe you wrote to her mother and father several years ago under the name of Clarke?’
‘Yes, I did,’ Harrie said. ‘I was Harrie Clarke before I married. I wrote to them when we were in the Female Factory at Parramatta. I knew Rachel wouldn’t. I just wanted them to know she was safe, and I asked them to write back to her but they never did.’
‘Yes, I visited the father’s farm at Guildford. They showed me the letter.’ Lucas Carew made a face. ‘Well, when I say “show” I mean Mr Winter hurled it at me as he chased me off with a pitchfork. When I arrived in Sydney I went into shop after shop asking after you, as Harrie isn’t a common name for a woman, until a grocer told me he knew you and that your married name is Downey. It was relatively easy to find you after that.’ Lucas put down his cup and saucer. ‘I plan to ask Rachel to marry me, but I must know, she isn’t already married to someone else, is she?’
Oh God, Harrie thought. God, God, God. She opened her mouth, but Sarah beat her to it.
‘Look, Captain. Lucas,’ she said, her voice gentle with uncharacteristic compassion. ‘We’re so sorry to have to tell you this, we really are, but Rachel isn’t with us any more. She passed away nearly three years ago.’
Lucas looked as though his remaining hand had just been chopped off.
‘We’re so sorry,’ Sarah said again.
Lucas stared down at his lap. Then he stood, so quickly that Harrie thought he was about to have some sort of fit. ‘Excuse me. I’ll just be . . . outside for a few minutes,’ he mumbled, and disappeared from the room.
They heard him striding down the hallway, then a muffled bang as the back door rebounded against the wall. Harrie flinched.
Sarah said, ‘Shit.’
‘Will we tell him how she died?’ Friday asked.
‘No.’
‘What about Charlotte?’
‘No,’ Harrie said.
Friday nodded. ‘Poor bugger. You know, I didn’t think he was real.’
‘Well, clearly he is,’ Sarah said.
Lucas came back twenty minutes later, with swollen, red eyes.
‘Please forgive me. Of all the scenarios I’ve imagined, I never considered this. How did . . . ?’
‘She had an illness, and when the time came she didn’t suffer,’ Harrie lied. ‘I was with her. She passed peacefully.’
Lucas nodded. ‘She’s buried here in Syd
ney?’
‘At St John’s Cemetery, out at Parramatta,’ Harrie said.
‘How do I get there?’
Harrie stood and brushed the creases out of her skirts. ‘We’ll take you.’
By the time they reached Parramatta it was five o’clock in the afternoon. Isaac had driven James’s carriage, with Harrie, Sarah and Lucas on one seat inside and Friday and Aria on the other. The day had been hot and they’d had to stop twice to water the horses, and on arrival they were all liberally coated with the dust that had drifted in through the open windows; they’d left the shades rolled up to let in air.
Isaac parked on O’Connell Street not far from the cemetery lychgate. Climbing down from the carriage, Friday carried the basket of (slightly wilted) flowers hurriedly picked from Harrie’s garden for Rachel’s grave — and for the graves of Janie and Rosie.
Lucas followed the girls westwards through the cemetery towards the section where inmates from the Parramatta Female Factory were buried, and waited respectfully a short distance away while Janie and Rosie were visited and the flowers laid.
Finally, Harrie said, ‘Capt— Lucas, she’s over here.’
Three rows beyond Janie’s grave lay Rachel’s with its slightly crooked headstone reading:
SACRED
to the memory of
RACHEL FLORA WINTER
Who departed this Life
3rd March 1830 in the 17th Year of her age
REVIRESCO
The girls stood back as Lucas knelt and ran his fingers across the chiselled indents of Rachel’s name. Then he pressed his face against the sandstone and closed his eyes.
‘Oh dear,’ Friday whispered.
A minute passed, then he rose, wiped his nose on his sleeve and stood with his hand in his pocket. ‘She told me she was eighteen.’
‘She did tell a few lies,’ Sarah said. ‘But we loved her. We still do.’
They arranged the flowers on the grave, each sent a private and silent message to Rachel, then Harrie asked Lucas, ‘Would you like some time alone with her?’
‘No, thank you. I just needed to see where she’s resting.’ He tapped his chest. ‘I carry her in here, constantly. But I’m very grateful to you for bringing me out here. You’ve no idea what it means to me.’
Harrie thought she might.
They walked back towards the lychgate, the sinking sun stretching their shadows out ahead of them across the baked ground.
‘Harrie.’
She turned and there she was, standing beside her grave, her hair a dazzling silver in the dying sunlight, her skin as white as new milk.
‘Look!’ Harrie cried. ‘Look! Can you see her?’
And the others turned.
Author’s Notes
This is the final volume in this series. It’s been huge fun for me, and a bit sad in places, too, but now it’s time to move on to other things. I’m not sure I’m quite ready to say goodbye to some of the characters, though — Friday, Harrie, Sarah and Aria, especially — so they could well make guest appearances in future books. It’d be nice to know how they’re getting on in their world when they’re older, perhaps.
The lines I’ve quoted at the beginning of part one of this story are from ‘Where the Dead Men Lie’, by Australian poet Barcroft Boake. Part two opens with a line from Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem ‘Luke Havergal’, and part three with two lines from Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘Song’.
I was going to do a little spiel here about why I chose to include a storyline in this series about the trade in upoko tuhi, also known as toi moko, but really, the subject is just too huge and deserves far more than a couple of paragraphs. If you’re interested in learning more about it, and, in my opinion, the social, cultural and spiritual damage the trade inflicted, hop on the internet and have a look at some of the articles on the subject.
A few things in this last volume might need a bit of clarification. The towns in the Hunter Valley I’ve described as Morpeth, Maitland and Muswellbrook were, in 1832, known respectively as Green Hills, Wallis Plains and Muscle Creek. But if I’d called them that, people might not have recognised them so I’ve used their modern names.
Ann Binder (née Burrell), who appears as publican of the Australian Inn in Newcastle, really was publican of the Australian Inn. Transported to New South Wales for seven years in 1816 for theft, she received a further one-year sentence the year she arrived for a colonial offence and was sent to the Newcastle penal settlement. She married Richard Binder, an ex-convict farmer and District Constable at Patersons Plains, in 1818. By 1828, Ann and Richard had moved back to Newcastle and become publicans of the Australian Inn. When Richard died in 1830, Ann continued to hold the licence herself. Good on you, Ann.
Although it isn’t made clear in the story, Bella Shand died of arsenic poisoning from the lotion she used to rid herself of body and facial hair, an ancient chemical depilatory originating from the Middle East called rhusma, or rusma. The preparation was also very popular in Europe up to and during the nineteenth century, and was made by mixing slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) or quicklime (calcium oxide) with orpiment (natural arsenic trisulphide), and sometimes rose water to improve the pong, then applied to unwanted hair to dissolve it. It also often burnt the skin under the hair.
Death from prolonged use — essentially death by arsenic poisoning — took a long time, but was very unpleasant. Symptoms caused by long-term use are: headaches, drowsiness, confusion, dark and foul-smelling urine, diarrhoea, stomach pain and muscle cramps, discolouration of the skin and wart-like growths, pigmentation of the fingernails, sensory and motor nerve defects, breakdown of the internal organs, cancers, and eventual death. The presence of arsenic in the body used to be impossible to detect, and it was therefore very popular for knocking off people and often referred to as ‘inheritance powder’. It wasn’t really until the end of the nineteenth century that people began to realise how poisonous arsenic is, and it finally disappeared from food, paints, cosmetics and dyes, etc.
The house that Matthew buys at auction is based on the real Glover Cottages on Kent Street in Sydney, built in the 1820s by ex-convict, stonemason and publican Thomas Glover, who came to a very sad end. Google him.
I made up the ships the Sheffield, the John Tanner and the Trident II, but the Red Rover, the Princess Royal and the Florentia, and their departure and arrival dates, are real. The Sophia Jane and the William the Fourth, the paddlesteamers that travelled regularly between Newcastle and Sydney, are also real, and in 1832 it actually did cost twelve shillings and sixpence in steerage to travel one way, or twenty shillings for a private cabin.
The things you learn looking through old newspapers.
Bibliography
Sadly, I found that I didn’t really need to buy any new books for this volume, as my ever-expanding private library proved perfectly adequate for the job, which tends to happen when you write a series. However, my friend and colleague, Kerrie Ptolemy, alerted me to this most awesome website: https://coalriver.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/virtual-newcastle-circa-1800-1830-ad/
It gives you multiple colour 3D views (fly-throughs) of a virtual model of Newcastle in 1830, based on detailed historical archival maps, surveys and records, and is the work of Charles Martin assisted by Russell Rigby. You can see the beaches, the river, the streets, the buildings — everything! — and it’s all historically correct. I had no end of fun imagining Friday and the girls trudging up the sandy streets, peering in cottage windows, then running like hell across the dunes with Leary after them. Have a look — it’s well worth it.
Acknowledgments
As usual, I had lots of help writing this book. Thank you once again to the team at HarperCollins Australia: publisher Anna Valdinger, who is and has always been unfailingly and cheerfully enthusiastic, committed and supportive; meticulous and gracious editor Kate Burnitt, who says it doesn’t matter when I send in the wrong version of the manuscript, but actually it does; and publishing director Shona Martyn, w
ho has always supported me and my books.
Thanks also to freelance editor Kate O’Donnell, who has put her heart and soul into editing this series. It’s been great being able to bounce ideas off Kate and Anna, knowing that they love my characters as much as I do.
I’m also grateful to HarperCollins New Zealand, who have really got behind me with new covers, publicity material, speaking events and plans for the future. Thanks, guys.
My agent Clare Forster of Curtis Brown also deserves a big shout-out — while I’ve been doing the easy bit, sitting in my office writing, she’s been working away, doing all sorts of clever things on my behalf.
Thanks also to my writing group in Australia, Hunter Romance Writers, for loads of ongoing support, and to Kerrie Ptolemy for helping me to nut out the last third of this book, and also to my friend and colleague Ngahuia Te Awekotuku for the cut-throat razor idea.
A special thank you needs to go to ‘the girls’ — you know who you are. I very much appreciate the time and information you gave me: I hope I’ve done your stories justice. May you find more happiness than poor Bella did.
Finally, thanks, as always, to my long-suffering husband, Aaron Paul. It’s hard going being married to a writer. Or so I’m told.
About the Author
DEBORAH CHALLINOR has a PhD in history and is the author of twelve bestselling novels. A Tattooed Heart is the fourth in a series of four books set in 1830s Sydney, inspired by her ancestors — one of whom was a member of the First Fleet and another who was transported on the Floating Brothel. Deborah lives in New Zealand with her husband.
www.deborahchallinor.com
Also by Deborah Challinor
FICTION
CONVICT GIRLS Series
Behind the Sun
Girl of Shadows
The Silk Thief
A Tattooed Heart
CHILDREN OF WAR Series
Tamar
White Feathers
Blue Smoke
THE SMUGGLER’S WIFE Series
A Tattooed Heart Page 43