Dangerous Women

by Hope Adams

  The narrow bunks were fixed to the sides of the cabin, one above another, where the women would lie like objects arranged on shelves. Some would have to occupy mattresses near the bunks. Ten children would travel with their mothers: those who’d been given special dispensation by the court, because there was no one else to take care of them. Sending them to the other side of the world saved on places in the workhouse or the poorhouse for the parishes they were leaving.

  When she’d first come aboard in late March, Kezia had stared at the wood beneath her feet and at the walls rising up around her. The floor was stained black with years of grime and filth, and slightly sticky with . . . What? Sea water? Blood? The smell was foul in her nostrils and she felt it settle around her shoulders, like a fog.

  One woman had pinched her nostrils together. “Stinks here worse than a midden,” she said. “And that’s before we’ve started using the slop buckets.”

  “And before the ship starts rolling about on the water and most of us are spewing out our guts.”

  Another shrieked: “I can’t! How’re we meant to manage with so little light? Those aren’t proper windows.”

  “I thought this would be better than a common jail. I thought the ship would be cleaner.”

  They’d sat on the wooden benches and gazed at their surroundings.

  “Don’t despair, ladies,” said Mr. Donovan. “All will seem better when you’re settled. You’ll grow used to life on board, though it’ll seem strange at first, no doubt.”

  “But there’s not enough room, is there?”

  Another woman had spoken up: “I thought clink was bad enough but we had proper walls, and floors in there weren’t nearly as scratchy.”

  They’d all stood together, shifting from foot to foot, too nervous to leave the others. At last one brave soul and a few others went to examine the bunks.

  “Stacked like apples in a pantry,” said one. “Won’t we roll off if it gets rough? I don’t want to land on that filthy floor. Or get splinters in me bum.”

  The women who heard her laughed. Kezia had stepped forward, her heart pounding, trying to speak firmly. “We’ll clean the floor and the walls before the ship sails. All of you can help make it better than it is now. We’ll arrange the bedding as best we can. There will be lanterns to provide more light.”

  “And I will see to it,” said Mr. Donovan to Kezia, but in a voice loud enough to be overheard, “that a few sailors are sent down here at once with buckets of salt water. That’ll see to the worst of it.”

  “Thought her ladyship was one of them. Is she going to get down on her hands and knees to scrub?” said a voice, in the kind of whisper Kezia knew she was intended to hear. She had noted who the speaker was—a pretty young girl with a dimple, and a curl escaping from her cotton bonnet—and decided to pretend she hadn’t heard. She’d taken a deep breath, fearful that the women wouldn’t obey her, that they would be rude and crude and take no notice of her.

  She had suddenly remembered her friend Mrs. Pryor’s advice: “If you are firm and kind, they will respond to you. Everyone responds to kindness.” Kezia took another deep breath and turned to the women: “I will do whatever I can to help you.” She was privately pleased at the steadiness of her voice.

  “Indeed, indeed,” said Mr. Donovan. “We’ll make this place more habitable. Please leave your bundles here and come up the companionway after me.”

  Now, two weeks on from that day, Kezia saw that the floor’s dark planks were much brighter, if not exactly clean. The foul smell had almost gone, replaced by the fresher fragrance of scrubbed wood and seawater. She followed Mr. Donovan and the other women to the upper deck, where a sailor approached her. He was stocky and gray-haired, his skin weathered as brown as a piece of leather. When he smiled, his teeth showed very white in his face.

  “If you please, Matron, Isaac Margrove at your service. We’ve settled the last of your luggage in your cabin.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Margrove.”

  “I go by Isaac, Matron.”

  “Isaac, then. I’m most grateful.”

  She followed him along the deck and stepped carefully over a low barrier to what looked like a small house set on the deck.

  He opened a wooden door with a polished brass doorknob and indicated that Kezia should go in. “I’ll leave you now,” he said.

  Kezia thanked him once more, and as he made his way back to the deck, she stepped into her quarters, which she’d visited only briefly on her first time aboard, relieved to see her possessions set neatly in a corner. She felt again a shiver of uncertainty. She thought of everything she was leaving behind and knew that, however much she trembled before the tasks that lay ahead, there was relief to be had in never having to think of certain things again.

  She looked about. The place that was to be her home for the next weeks pleased her. She sat down on the narrow bunk and was aware of the peace and solitude. This little cabin, she thought, is like a nun’s cell. The limited space was neat and clean, with an enamel jug standing next to a basin set into the top of the chest of drawers in which she would arrange her possessions. There was a small cupboard in which the jug could be stored when the weather was rough. The window was small and round, with leaded panes framed in wood, and Kezia could just see out of it if she stood on tiptoe.

  She would have liked to stay longer but a boat was coming from London and she wanted to see the women arrive. She left her cabin and made her way to the deck. She could see someone being bundled along, ready to be placed in a boat to go back to shore. This person was stout, with matted hair, no longer young, dressed in dark, plain clothes. She was keening and wailing, clawing at her clothes. Two other women, thin and grim-faced, were holding her, gripping her arms as she writhed and shook. Prison warders, Kezia thought, accustomed to handling difficult inmates. The woman’s garments were torn. She must be mad, Kezia told herself. What she was hearing could only come from someone who had lost her reason. The woman’s hair was gray and hung in greasy skeins over her shoulders. Her eyes glittered with fear. The screaming went on but now Kezia could make out words, too. “Ma . . . Water . . . Take me back. Have you seen the rats?”

  She had drawn level with Kezia, where she was standing on the deck, and she caught her eye. “Help me!” she cried. “Please, dearest Ma, take me home!” She’d wrenched one of her arms out of a warder’s grasp and a filthy hand with bitten nails reached up and scrabbled at the air, clawing for Kezia’s dress. The warders sprang to pull the woman back.

  “Sorry, Miss, so sorry,” one called to her, as she dragged the unfortunate creature away. “We’ll take care of her, be sure of that.”

  The shrieks turned to sobbing, then to silence as the three women stumbled away, twisted together into a single dark, six-legged creature. Kezia stood very still, shaken by the encounter. I must recover myself before others notice, she thought. She drew her cape more closely around her shoulders and began to walk away.

  As she moved further along the deck, she became aware of someone calling her name.

  “Miss Hayter! Miss Kezia Hayter!”

  Captain Ferguson was approaching her. Though she had visited the Rajah often, helping the women to clean and arrange the living quarters, she had only glimpsed the captain previously from a distance.

  “Miss Hayter.” He bowed, and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone: “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Charles Ferguson, master of the Rajah. You are welcome.”

  She looked at him closely, the man who would have their safety in his hands. He was of medium height but still more than a head taller than she was. His shoulders were broad and he wore his jacket with some style. Every one of his brass buttons shone, and Kezia noticed that the linen at his neck and cuffs was very white. Captain Ferguson’s blue eyes were wide, set in an open face, and his hair was on the fair side of brown. His voice, though quiet, was clear.

  “Thank y
ou, sir,” she said.

  He looked down at his feet and frowned. “We will meet later, madam,” he said, bowed again, then turned and walked briskly away.

  Kezia watched him as he vanished from sight, then moved to look over the rail and saw the dock in the distance. The line of roofs was like a silhouette cut from black paper, laid against the pale sky. Once again, she felt misgivings, and her heart was suddenly beating fast. The words of some distant members of her family came back to her.

  “Van Diemen’s Land? Are you quite certain, Kezia dear? It’s so far away. And so hot there. Strange animals roam about, do they not?”

  She smiled. The ladies who said such things were avoiding their real terrors about the trip. They weren’t concerned at the distance from England, the heat, the flora and fauna. What upset them, gave them pause, was the company Kezia would be keeping. Common women. Felons.

  Dearest Henrietta,

  Here is my first letter to you from the ship. I’ll write whenever I have the time and occasion. Then I can feel close to you, even though every day takes us further from one another. I’ll send all my letters when we reach Hobart.

  I’m quite comfortable in my cabin. I have my journal and some books to amuse me, and though I feel a little uncertain of what lies ahead, I’m not in the least frightened, so you can imagine me equal to anything that might face me on this voyage.

  But, dear Henrietta, I will miss your presence so very much! Your smiling face, your happy voice telling me all that’s happening in society. There’s no one here to tease me and chide me when I’m being foolish, so I will have to manage as best I can to imagine your remarks. I hope that, as the voyage goes on, we’ll settle down together and look to the future. But I’m not being transported, remember. I can return to England at any time if I find Van Diemen’s Land not to my taste.

  Kezia wondered how much that last thought would console her when she was in the middle of the ocean. She tried to dispel a sudden nervousness that had come over her while she was writing. She picked up her pen again to sign the letter, seeking a form of words that would convey to her sister how much she missed her and longed to see her.

  From the moment she’d agreed to travel on the Rajah, Kezia had known she wanted to do something other than merely instruct the women under her care in the basic skills of needlework. For the first time in my life, she’d thought, I’ll be able to make something . . . something out of the ordinary. What she had planned, what she was determined to make on this voyage, with the help of the convict women, she knew would improve their situation more than any simple lessons in hemming handkerchiefs.

  Just then a shaft of sunlight touched the edge of the mast with gold—a good omen for the voyage? The clouds had blown away and Kezia felt a lifting of the heart.

  3

  THEN

  Chintz piece: a densely printed pattern of blue, red, green and white flowers on a black background. Also leaves and small branches bearing blossom

  April 1841

  CLARA

  Tonight. I’ve got to do it tonight. At dawn, they’ll come for those women sentenced to transportation to take them to where the Rajah stands at anchor. I’ve heard the ship’s name spoken, whispered in dark corners from one person to another, and I’ve said the word over and over to myself for two days, ever since I was pushed into this cell. I can’t pray, not anymore, but I say over in my head, Please, O God, please, take me to the Rajah. Take me far, far away from here.

  I don’t believe in God any longer, but I’m trusting myself to get away from here. Ever since they threw me into this cell, I’ve kept to myself and spoken scarcely a word to any of the other women. It wasn’t hard. No one was paying me any mind. They’re too far gone, this lot, to care about me. The idea of a sea voyage terrifies them, and they dread a life away from what they know, far from those they love. They stand about in small groups, muttering, or picking fights over nothing. Many just sit on their grubby mattresses, rip at their clothes and weep.

  I’m not like them. I want to board the Rajah and I’ve planned what I must do. But I’ve got to act at once. It’ll be daybreak soon. Some things, though, fell out right for me, coming here, and I’d already chosen my quarry.

  Soon as the cell door closed behind me, I noticed her. The others left her alone, because she was feebleminded and small, too. I’m glad of her size. It’ll be easier if I have to use force. I hope . . . I truly hope . . . it goes easy for both of us, but I’m ready. I’ll do what I must if I have to.

  Last night, in the dark, I tore my petticoat to strips. The fabric seems thin. Will these makeshift bandages be strong enough to bind her arms and legs? When I was a girl, and doing what I did in those days, I could bind limbs tighter than most. Now I’ll have to truss her like a chicken, poor thing, and gag her, too. She mustn’t cry out. I can’t feel sorry for her. I tell myself, Be firm. Tying her up won’t hurt her. She’ll be drugged and know nothing.

  I feel often for the bottle hidden in the pocket I’m wearing under my prison gown. I dreaded a search when they moved me here, and terror closed my throat as we approached Millbank, but the guard who brought me had his eye on the wardress, and she seemed taken with him. I thought how, over days and weeks, those two must have exchanged looks, then words and probably more than that. Most people forget their duty when lust comes over them. They forget prison rules, and I thanked my stars for that. They never found my secret hidden bottle. They never even looked for it.

  I walk across the cell to where she’s sitting. The other women are mostly asleep now, or if not, they’re sobbing into their thin pillows and groaning. She’s sitting up, staring at the space before her. I sit down beside her.

  “What’s your name, dear?” I say, in the voice I used to the women who came to me at their wit’s end.

  She tells me. I make her repeat it, pretending not to catch it the first time. I’ve got to be sure. Then she pulls something out of the neck of her grubby dress. It’s a piece of knotted string, and hanging on it, something like a label. She holds it out to show me and there’s her name, punched out in the thin metal. “We’ve all got labels round our necks,” she says. “Scratchy devils they are, too.” She loops the string over her head and tosses the label down beside her.

  “And what crime are you being transported for?”

  “Theft of linen goods from the market.”

  “You’ll be on board the Rajah tomorrow. D’you know that? There’s those who fear it, but there’s nothing to fear.”

  She turns her eyes on me, as if seeing me for the first time. Her lank hair falls over her face. What I can see of her skin is like white cheese.

  “I fear it,” she says. I think those are her words, but they’re hard to hear because someone is crying so loudly.

  On the other side of the cell, an argument has broken out. Voices are raised. Women take sides and join in. No one’s looking at us. We’re far away from the din. I reach under my skirts for the bottle. I smile at her. “A little drink will help, won’t it? Only don’t say a word . . .” I hold out the bottle and, for the first time, it seems she’s understanding my words. A light comes into her eyes.

  “Aar . . . a drink.” She reaches out. I know what it’ll do to her. It’s one of the drugs that’s been useful to me for many years, and in many different circumstances. I uncork it and give it to her. Quicker than a blink, she throws her head back and swallows every last drop. The hair falls away from her face and I see she’s marked by the pox. She sinks back at once onto the mattress. I call her name softly, bringing my lips close to her ear. She doesn’t stir.

  I don’t wait. Her mouth’s fallen open. I gag her, slotting the cloth between her teeth and tying it gently enough at the back of her head not to cause pain but firmly enough to shut off any cries. I’m trembling, trying to remember to breathe. I deal with her hands and her feet as quickly as I can, and pull her discarded label over my
own head. When she’s hobbled thus, I push her to the edge of the mattress and roll her off it into a kind of gutter that runs beside the wall. Then I push the mattress back and, as best I can, cover with her filthy blanket what can still be seen of a body. Anyone looking carefully might notice a lump by the wall but I’m hoping, more than I’ve ever hoped for anything, that all will be in a rush tomorrow. I cross the floor of the cell to my own mattress and lie there, putting on a show of sleep, willing the time to go by, longing for the light.

  It’s strange to think I’m losing my own name. Clara Shaw . . . I’m no longer Clara Shaw. From now on, I’ll be known by the name that belongs in truth to the poor creature bundled up under a foul blanket. I mustn’t think of her. I have to think of myself.

  I can’t sleep. Tormenting thoughts, dreadful images move behind my eyes whenever I try to close them. What if she wakes before we leave? What if the drug’s lost some of its strength? Or if she has resistance to it? The cell is quiet at last, save for snoring and the sounds of nightmare. I lie staring at the lump near the wall, trying to see any movement. I’m cold. My mouth is dry. Where’s the dawn? I stare at the small barred window, waiting for the sky to lighten.

  By the time the men arrive to fetch us to the Rajah, I’m almost fainting with a mixture of fear and hope.

  “Women prisoners for the Rajah,” says one. “Line up here.”

  Will someone spot me as I take my place? I look at the floor. I shuffle in behind a gang of noisy women, who are fussing, crying out and calling attention to themselves.

  “Silence there,” says the wardress. “You’ll miss your name on the register.”

  “No time for that,” said the second man. “Count heads. That’ll do.”

  The turnkey counts under his breath but I hear him. Eleven of us are leaving. I keep my head turned away slightly and don’t lift my gaze from the floor. Now, I think. Let’s leave this very second. She might stir. She might cry out . . . Even now I could be stopped.