by Hope Adams
Kezia stopped walking. “Do you suspect such a thing? Are you sure your men are to be trusted? My women have been told repeatedly not to consort with the crew.”
Charles said, “I’ve no doubt you’ve given your instructions, and so have I, but if I know anything about my men and the direction of men and women’s natural impulses, I’d wager that a certain amount of . . . friendship has gone on. My men know what’s allowed and what’s not, but I’d be foolish to expect complete obedience from every one of them.”
Where? she wanted to say. When? Every moment of the women’s time was accounted for. They were cleaning the living quarters or washing clothes and themselves in inadequate buckets and barrels of seawater. They were preparing what meals there were. They were eating them. They were sewing, most working alone, but her women were stitching together the patchwork coverlet for many hours of the day. They chattered among themselves, they fell into arguments—which sometimes became fights, with hair pulled, scratching and spitting—they felt ill, they walked the decks at the time set aside for exercise. When was there a chance to meet sailors and do whatever they did with them? It would be the women blamed if they were caught.
They walked together in silence along the deck. The wind blew strands of her hair into Kezia’s eyes, and she tried to forget the anger and anxiety she felt by staring toward the horizon, which often calmed her. Clouds lay low in the sky, and Kezia pulled more closely around her shoulders the shawl she was wearing against the chilly wind.
14
NOW
7 July 1841
Ninety-three days at sea
The Newgate Nannies were tramping the deck.
“What’s the point, I’d like to know? Can’t go anywhere you want to go, and there’s nothing to look at that you haven’t seen before, so I say it again, what’s the blasted point? I’ve trod these sodding decks for miles and miles and weeks and weeks, and what good’s it done me? That’s what I’d like someone to tell me.” Dwyer threw a baleful glance at her two companions, who were marching along the deck beside her during the exercise period.
“It’s her, innit?” said Selwood. “Matron. Says we need to move or we’d all freeze into a sitting posture forever, down on the lower deck. I like breathing air. Don’t you like breathing the air, Dwyer?”
Dwyer glanced at her out of the crooked eye that was turned in her direction . . . You could never tell with Dwyer if she meant her gaze to fall on you or on something else entirely, but Selwood and Tabitha were both used to her. “Nowt wrong with air as such,” Dwyer grunted, her words almost blown away by the stiffish breeze. “But you can’t half get too much of it. Look at it. Can’t trust the weather, can you? Calm this morning and blowing a gale now. I’d call that a gale, I would.”
“That’s not a gale,” said Tabitha. “That’s nothing like a gale.”
“Well, hark at Mistress Sailor who suddenly knows about such things as gales and ships and the sea. Her, who’s never been near water in her life . . . a stranger to the contents of her washbasin, she is. Nearest you’ve come to water, Missy, is when you’ve been pissing in a corner!” Tabitha didn’t bother answering. Dwyer had been flinging insults at her ever since Tabitha had met her, seven years ago, when she’d been serving her first sentence. Dwyer only made an effort to insult those who had been her cronies for a long time: they understood one another. Dwyer added: “Weather’s the least thing I’m thinking about. I like being out here, away from holes and corners where stabbers might be hiding . . . Didn’t get a wink of sleep all night, fretting.”
Selwood changed the subject. “What’s up in Matron’s gang, then, Tabitha?”
Dwyer stood for a moment at the rail of the ship and looked down at where the caps of the waves were tipped with white foam.
Tabitha said, “Nothing’s come to me that you don’t know. They’re a wishy-washy lot, mostly, but now they’re worrying about the questions and answers going on with the captain and them. Not got any closer to finding who stabbed Hattie. That much I do know. Phyllis is a bossy baggage, who thinks she knows better than anyone else. Alice never says nowt, but mutters prayers from time to time, and she’s handy enough with the singing. That hymn! It goes round in my head in my sleep, that does.” Tabitha put her hands together and piped up in a surprisingly high voice:
All may of thee partake.
Nothing can be so mean
Which with his tincture (for Thy sake)
Will not grow bright and clean.
“You’re blistering our lugholes with that squawking, Tab,” said Dwyer. “What’s it mean anyway? What’s a tincture? Tell us what one is—go on.”
“That means”—Tabitha frowned—“that it don’t matter how low and horrible you are, if God puts His mark on you—tincture means something like color—you’ll stop being horrible and low and get bright and clean, like it says.”
Dwyer’s laughter bubbled up from her stomach. “Not worked yet, though, has it?” she asked. “Not on you, it hasn’t. You’re not bright and clean that I can see. Is she, Selwood?”
“She’s not,” said Selwood, joining in the general mirth. “Even her loving mother couldn’t call her that. But never mind about hymns. Tell us what’s going on with the others.”
“Ruth’s a tough lass,” said Tabitha. “Lottie’s the best of us with her needle, though Joan’s good. Bit spiteful, a couple of them, and mean, and some of them stupider than a chair leg, like fat Susan Downer, but no one’s a stabber, I reckon. Izzy and Rose are all lovey-dovey. Sarah Goodbourne’s about as interesting as a plank. Emily’s soppy over Hattie. She’s good with the teaching, though, and Bertie’s always hanging around her. She doesn’t send him away, not that I’ve seen. Doesn’t want to fall out with Hattie, I daresay. Louisa’s a bit slow to catch on, but no one is dangerous.”
“If no one’s dangerous, then why’s the deck still dark from where Hattie’s blood soaked it? Tell me that!” Dwyer nodded to make her point more forcefully. “Someone wanted Hattie dead. Why?”
“She knew something about someone, that’s why. That’s the only thing I can think of. A secret.”
“She was a real chatterbox, that Hattie,” said Selwood. “She didn’t know no one from before. Not that anyone told me. Not that I’d seen.”
“How about a man?” Dwyer ventured. “Wherever there’s trouble, there’s usually a man at the bottom of it.”
“Hattie wasn’t putting it about,” said Tabitha. “Too busy with her boy. And chatting to all of us, sewing.”
“She might just be better at hiding it than some. Know that young sailor, William? Have you seen him? I’ve had my eye on that Emily for a bit, but others don’t seem to have taken notice. Come across them more than once, hidden away in corners. Having more than just a quick peck on the cheek, I reckon. She’s all over him.”
“I’d be all over him, too, given the chance. He’s as tasty as a plum, that one.”
“Two plums!” said Tabitha, and giggled. “Love to suck those two plums myself. You wouldn’t have to ask me twice!”
Dwyer and Selwood clutched their sides, laughing. “Not sure,” Dwyer said, “what Matron would think of women who . . . let’s say consorted, as we’re being fancy, with members of the crew. Not sure what the captain would think about a sailor of his who put himself in places he’d no business to be.”
Tabitha and Selwood nodded.
“Meanwhile, we’re stuck here trudging this blasted deck. Don’t give her much of a chance, that Hattie,” said Dwyer.
A sailor approached them as they reached the companionway. “Tabitha Brown? Is there a Tabitha Brown here?”
“Me,” said Tabitha. “I’m Tabitha Brown.”
“You’re wanted in the captain’s cabin. I’m to take you there now.”
Tabitha smirked at the others. “There you are. I’m summoned.”
“Keep a watch on yo
ur flapping lips,” said Selwood. “Least said, soonest mended, don’t they say?”
Tabitha and the sailor began to walk away.
“I’ve had enough of this exercising,” Dwyer said. “Time to go down to our lovely drawing room on the lower deck and see if the butler will bring us a cup of tea.”
15
THEN
Cotton piece: pale blue ground, scattered with scarlet and blue flowers
April 1841
HATTIE
Hattie could tell that Miss Hayter hadn’t expected so much difficulty when she suggested that some of them come together to work on something. I could’ve told her, Hattie thought. Trying to get people to do something at the same time, trying to get them to listen to what you were saying, let alone do what you want them to do when you want them to do it, was hard, unless you used some kind of force, and Miss Hayter wouldn’t do that. Now she was frowning with the effort of trying to explain to a whole lot of useless convicts what she wanted them to do. I’d not have stood for it, Hattie told herself. I’d have threatened them with something. They’d buckle down soon enough after that, but now they were like cats in a sack.
First, some women didn’t want to sit next to certain others. Ruth Elmerside was muttering, “I’m not sitting by that Phyllis. Never stops talking. Worn my ears out already.”
Phyllis slapped Ruth across the face. “Shut your trap, you lying hussy. Don’t you dare—” She was about to hit Ruth again when Miss Hayter raised her voice. It was the first time Hattie had heard her do so. It wasn’t exactly shouting but she stood up and said, “Silence, all of you,” in a louder voice than she’d ever used before, and Hattie felt more hopeful, but soon others piped up, moaning and complaining: She’s taken my scissors . . .
They’re not your bloody scissors . . .
Why d’we have to do this anyway? . . .
Why d’we need to sit together? . . .
I can’t bear her . . .
She’s smelly . . .
Can’t thread this sodding needle, can I?
Blasted ship keeps moving around too much . . .
Hattie turned to the woman next to her, Joan Macdonald, and sniffed. “Some of the rest of them make my head ache, but you’re all right. I’ve noticed that.”
Joan said nothing, but Hattie thought she nodded. She’d taken a pair of spectacles out of her pocket, and was holding her work close to her face, making a great effort to produce small, even stitches, in spite of the motion of the ship—it could make you lose your rhythm and jab your needle into the fabric in entirely the wrong place—and the moans of her companions. Miss Hayter was now occupied with Marion Williams, who was a funny one: terrified of being in the convict quarters and running up to the deck any chance she got. Sailors would bring her down and she’d start moaning again. Poor creature. She wasn’t right in the head, that was sure. No one liked being in the dark and the stink, but most had got used to it because they had to. Marion was different. Miss Hayter was speaking gently to her.
“Look at this, Marion,” she said. “See this blue cotton? What does it remind you of? The sky . . . If you look at the piece you’re sewing, and try not to see the place you’re in, you’ll have blue sky all round you. The blue will be in your head. Then see this one, white with red flowers. Count the flowers, Marion. See them. Fix your eyes on them. Sew the piece with the red flowers as neatly as you can round this piece of paper, and do the same with the blue piece. Then you can sew flowers and sky together and that will make things easier, won’t it? You’ll have a small garden in your lap.”
Marion picked up the cloth. She stared at it, entranced, as if she’d never seen such a thing before. Then she took her needle and, after some help from Miss Hayter and several failed attempts, threaded it with trembling fingers. Her eyes, which often darted everywhere, full of terror, bent over the work in her hands and Hattie watched her grow calmer as she sewed. Every so often, she’d look up and her face would become panic-stricken again, but then Miss Hayter whispered in her ear and gave her another bit of fabric to look at, which soothed her and made things a little better.
Hattie noticed that the women working on the patchwork had split into small groups, mostly according to age. The young ones, Rose, Izzy and Beth, chattered away together and weren’t paying much attention to their work. Rose had become particularly friendly with Izzy. Becky, who’d been Izzy’s best friend at the beginning of the voyage but wasn’t in Matron’s company, looked sullen all the time. Hattie thought she was being pushed out of Izzy’s affections in favor of Rose. They had their heads so close together that they looked like a two-headed creature.
Whenever they sat working on deck in the open air, any passing sailor caused a flutter of giggles and a frown from Miss Hayter. Ann was silent. Lottie never said much either, but everyone admired her sewing, and Miss Hayter often held up her work to the rest of them as an example. Alice was devout and fervent when prayers were said and sometimes muttered a prayer of her own, as if it were a comforting song. From time to time, a woman would throw her work to the deck and stand up. Today it was Izzy, who had detached herself from Rose for once. She was a skinny creature with long fair hair that she wore in a plait under her scarf.
“I’ve had enough,” she pronounced to those who were sitting near her. “Blast this patchwork. I want to lie down. My bunk’s not much more than a board, but I’ll take that above bending over some stuff and pricking my fingers till they bleed. My back’s killing me. Worse than forced labor, it is, honest.” She flung down her work and began to walk toward the stern of the ship.
Hattie looked up from her sewing and noticed that everyone was sitting quite still, watching to see what would happen.
Miss Hayter caught up with Izzy and they stood together by the ship’s rail, their heads close.
“What’re they saying?” Phyllis asked. “Anyone hear anything?”
“Silly madam. Can’t you see how far away they are? No one can’t hear nothing.” That was Susan, clearly irritated by being unable to take part in the drama that was going on out of earshot.
“She’s threatening Izzy,” said Rose. “I can tell by the way Izzy’s mouth is trembling.”
“Not much she can threaten her with, though, is there?” said Tabitha. “She’s not going to push her overboard or tie her to the mast, is she?”
There was no need to answer. Izzy and Miss Hayter were walking along the deck toward them. Hattie picked up the two patches she was sewing together and everyone else, she saw, was concentrating on what they were doing. Izzy sat down, picked up the work she’d dropped and began once more to stitch. Rose moved to sit even closer than she was before.
Miss Hayter sat on Izzy’s other side and gazed at the women. “Please, everyone, look at me. If any of you,” she said mildly, “would rather not be working on this coverlet, tell me now and I will find someone to take your place. You’re the best needlewomen from among those being transported, but I’d rather teach someone who’s never picked up a piece of fabric than work with a person who prefers not to be one of us.”
A silence fell as she turned her gaze on each woman in turn. Each said nothing and dropped her eyes to her lap. Hattie could hear the wind sighing through the rigging, the ship’s timbers creaking as the Rajah rolled from side to side, but not a word was spoken.
“Very well, then,” Miss Hayter said. “The subject is closed. We’ll say no more about it.”
Hattie wondered what the matron could have said to Izzy to make her so ready to take her place among them. That, as a maker of the coverlet, she would be given a good character when they arrived at their destination? That if anyone chose to leave the group, their lack of loyalty would be punished? Perhaps she had reminded Izzy that, as the voyage progressed, those making the coverlet would have more time on the upper deck than others. Any of those might have persuaded Izzy. Whatever the reason, whatever she’d said, Izzy
had stayed in the group. Perhaps it had been pointed out to her that they, the eighteen chosen ones, were regarded with envy by more than a hundred other women. You’re privileged, Miss Hayter might have said. You’re lucky.
16
NOW
7 July 1841
Ninety-three days at sea
KEZIA
“Speak up, Tabitha Brown,” said Charles. “We can’t catch what you’re saying if you speak directly to the floor.”
Tabitha Brown smiled and Kezia regretted she’d been given the opportunity to do so. “Tab’s gnashers,” Dwyer called them: long brown tombstones in a very bad state of repair, like a cemetery that no one had cared for in years. Brown teeth for Tabitha Brown, Kezia thought, and she chided herself for such a frivolous notion on such a serious occasion.
Tabitha was more used to benches full of judges and magistrates than Marion Williams was. Her attitude struck Kezia as brazen. She sat on the prepared chair a little restlessly, scratching her armpit and staring quite openly at the splendors of the cabin: the polished wood, the gleaming brass and the soft leather of the well-upholstered chairs.
“This is a proper fancy place and no mistake,” she said, to no one in particular. “Captain’s cabin, eh? You don’t stint yourself, I see.”
“Impudent creature!” Mr. Davies spluttered. “Keep a civil tongue in your head or we’ll have you taken back to your berth.”
Charles intervened. “Let us proceed now, please. Miss Brown will not be taken back to the convict quarters till she’s told us what she knows of the attack on Hattie Matthews.”