Dangerous Women

by Hope Adams

  Since that night, I’ve not slept well. I’ve been back too many times to the same question: what would have happened if I’d said no? Did I ruin Nora’s life or save it? I left her child to die but what would that baby’s life have been? I found it easier to deal with the others who came after Nora. I found other, kinder ways of ending a tiny life.

  Nora stayed with me. She was grateful for my help and also happy to be released from her mother’s constant moaning, happy to be away from brothers and sisters who were piled on top of one another in a house that was no better than a slum, happy to be in charge of her own life, happy to be in her own bedroom, however small.

  As my maid, she sewed my curtains and bed hangings, and knitted pretty garments. After some time, she began to help me in finding homes for the babies of other women as desperate as she’d once been. After that first night, she never asked again about her own child, but she knew that sometimes, when homes couldn’t be found, you could get rid of babies in ways no one would choose but which sometimes you were forced into using. Nora learned quite quickly what had to be done in such cases.

  This was what I did. What many did, to earn a living. We took the babies of young, poor, unmarried girls who’d become pregnant and, for a fee, we cared for them. I told the girls that everything would be for the best, and they believed it. Dead bastards mean little to the law. Babies are frail, and some families would pay handsomely for a healthy child. I might have been helping young women even now, living in my pretty house, but I did something worse and could not deny it. I stuck a knife between a man’s ribs, and would do it again if I had to, even though it took me straight to the gallows.

  Dawn sailing: the sun comes up behind the Rajah as she makes for the west. Her unfurled sails are tinted mauve and pink. Birds, inhabitants of small and distant islands, visit the ship for scraps and perch unsteadily on the masts. The sea is calm and every wave is edged with gold.

  29

  NOW

  8 July 1841

  Ninety-four days at sea

  KEZIA

  The weather was growing colder as they moved across the water. We are all thinking of Hattie, Kezia told herself. Haunted by her. The women are worrying for poor little Bertie. How can he visit his mother every day and not despair to see her there, drained of color and talking nonsense when she did speak?

  As the women took their place on deck, they wrapped their shawls around themselves. The wind was quite sharp but, still, it was better to be out there, and not in the stuffy convict quarters. The days had been passing too slowly. The women had gone from speculating about who had stabbed Hattie to fretting about everything. Three groups of women were sitting close to one another on the deck, and Kezia felt momentarily heartened. Perhaps they found it distracting to work. Perhaps it helped to go on stitching when thoughts were unbearable. And it was possible to see, Kezia thought, that the patchwork was becoming something beautiful. There was harmony here, and even evidence of careful needlework, but also places where the pieces had been rushed and squeezed in, so that the stitches puckered. Several of the women she’d chosen hadn’t been as skilled as she’d thought. But they’d been making something together, and in these darker days that seemed to count for something. For a fleeting moment, Kezia wondered what her mother would have thought of their accomplishment, if she could see it. All through her childhood, her own handiwork had been compared to Henrietta’s and found wanting.

  She sighed. The distance between Kezia and her mother had grown as the years had passed. It gradually became clear, even to Henrietta, that their mother’s irritation with Kezia had become stronger. After being presented with a series of young men as possible suitors, Kezia had not only set her face against every one but had also felt a growing distance from her mother. One particular gentleman presented to her was, her mother explained, very wealthy. She did not seem to notice how ill-favored and sullen he was. Kezia tried to explain herself.

  “I’m not interested in marrying, Mama,” she said.

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Hayter replied. “How can you say such a thing? A young woman in your situation can’t afford to be ‘not interested.’ You haven’t considered how you will live, after my death.”

  They were sitting on either side of the fire, and the tea table between them was laid with fine china and a large teapot patterned with garlands. Mrs. Hayter lifted it and paused as she poured tea, then passed the cup and saucer to her daughter. “Who will care for you? You’ll have no position, no money, no influence, not to mention no children if you constantly set your face against any young man to whom I introduce you.”

  Kezia could hear the exasperation in her mother’s voice. She sipped some of the hot tea but tasted nothing. Placing her cup and saucer on the table, she took a deep breath and made another effort to explain. “Mama, I’m not eager to have children—” she began, but was interrupted.

  “You think you don’t want children! You say that now, when you’re young and vigorous.” Mrs. Hayter leaned over the table and shook a finger in Kezia’s face. “You’ll be of a different mind, I promise you, when old age comes upon you. A woman must have children to care for her in her dotage.” She sat back and folded her hands on her lap. “Why, without my sons, what would become of me, when I’m unable to care for myself any longer? I would be out in the cold. And there’s dear Henrietta, of course. She won’t leave me to die all alone. But you, Kezia, you are so caught up with Mrs. Fry and Mrs. Pryor and their care of prisoners that I would not be certain of any attention from you, if you remain single.”

  “You wish me to marry someone—anyone—in order that I may care for you at some future date?”

  “How dare you?” Mrs. Hayter shouted. She rose from her chair, and swept away from the tea table. At the door, she turned. “You are a foolish girl,” she said coldly. “It’s your welfare I’m thinking of. Your future. Well, I’ve always known I couldn’t trust you. Not to look after me, and not to make me proud.”

  Kezia found herself unable to utter a word. What she wanted to say, what was screaming somewhere inside her, bottled up behind years and years of silence, rose within her, though she said nothing. You! she thought. It is you who doesn’t love me. You’ve never loved me properly and I’ve always known it. She had been howling thus, silently, since early childhood. Her mother had never noticed.

  After that day, after those words, Kezia could no longer remain at home. She asked to stay with relatives, saying she needed to be nearer the prisons she would be visiting, alongside Mrs. Fry and Mrs. Pryor.

  “Criminals and fallen women,” her mother muttered, on the day she left. “You’re more concerned with the welfare of such creatures than that of your own mother. I am ashamed of you.”

  “Good-bye, Mama,” Kezia said, kissing her mother’s cheek. “I will remember you in my prayers.”

  And so I have, she reflected now. I’ve said a prayer for you every night since I left.

  Kezia’s belongings stood by the front door, packed into two valises. She had picked them up and made her way down the short drive to where a carriage sent by Cousin George was waiting to take her to his house. What she had learned from her cousin and what she’d seen of his work were as important to her as her love of God. He’d allowed her to consider the possibility of making something beautiful, and Mrs. Pryor, when she grew to know her, had shown her practical ways of achieving worthwhile things for her own pleasure at the same time as she was helping others to find a better way of living, a way down a path of righteousness.

  Now Kezia approached a few of the women, sitting down beside Izzy and Rose. Some women spoke ill of these two, and Kezia had had to reprimand the Newgate Nannies for laughing at their habit of always being arm in arm or hand in hand and calling them dabblers. Early in the voyage, Kezia had heard Dwyer use the word and asked what it meant. Immediately, she wished she hadn’t. “It means,” said Dwyer, taking pleasure from Kezia’s discomfiture, �
�that they like paddling about in one another’s fannies. Dabblers, we call such women. Or paddlers, if you like it better.”

  Kezia tried to appear unflustered but feared her blush had given the lie to her apparent composure. She’d fixed her gaze on Dwyer’s one good eye and said, as firmly as she could manage, “If I hear such words uttered once more on this ship I’ll report you to the captain.” And she hadn’t heard any, though she was perfectly sure that worse was said out of her hearing.

  As she regarded Izzy and Rose, she was struck by how close they were, their heads together, their giggles meant only for one another. Rose was so pretty that it was easy to see why Izzy might want to be her friend, but even though Kezia never judged anyone by appearances alone, Izzy seemed to her much less appealing. She was a gawky young woman, with coarse, pockmarked features and a tactless tongue. She was also sly, coming to Kezia often with tales about other women in the circle. Louisa had helped herself to Izzy’s scissors without permission and now wouldn’t give them back. Phyllis was always telling her off for nothing. It was hard to deny that Izzy was a complainer, and Kezia was not sure why Rose put up with her. But she did, and when they were occupied with one another there was less opportunity for them to make mischief among the rest of the group.

  As Kezia sat down next to Dora, the women began to ask questions.

  “Have you seen Hattie, Matron?” Alice wanted to know. Kezia liked Alice, a plain woman with dark hair, for her religious devotion; she was one of many convicts on board whom Kezia found hard to imagine involved in any crime. Alice had, however, stolen three pork pies from a market stall and was in the habit of receiving stolen goods from others.

  “Yes, Alice,” Kezia answered. “I’ve visited her every day, though Bertie and I only stay for a moment. Rest is what Hattie needs. She says nothing but lies in a state of unconsciousness for the most part. As soon as she’s more herself, I’ll visit her for longer and see if there’s anything she can tell us.”

  “She might die,” said Elsie, a slow-thinking woman who didn’t often speak. “And then she won’t be able to tell us anything.”

  Beth sighed. “D’you remember what she said on the night of the storm?”

  “What did she say?” Kezia asked. “If you remember something, Beth, you must tell me.”

  “She said someone was following her. When she was out on deck. Said, There’s someone watching me, Beth. Her very own words. But she asked me not to say. So I haven’t. Not till now.”

  “I’ve not felt safe since she was stabbed,” said Phyllis. “Often feel as if someone’s behind me.”

  “We’re all in danger, when you think of it. Aren’t we?” That was Susan.

  “But why was Hattie followed? Why would someone pick on her?” Phyllis asked. “Or watch her, for that matter.”

  “To plunge a knife into her, of course,” said Beth, ever one to see the most dramatic aspect of every event. “They didn’t succeed then, but someone’s done it now, haven’t they? Found a way . . . Don’t know why . . .”

  Ann, who was not normally given to uttering kind thoughts, said what Kezia was thinking: “Hattie’s a lovely girl and there’s no reason on God’s earth why anyone should want to hurt her.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Rose. “Handsome isn’t always as handsome does. People are deceiving. Can’t go by looks. Hattie looks as if butter wouldn’t melt, but she can be fierce, can’t she? We don’t know what she was before, do we? Not really.”

  No one said anything further, though Kezia could see some heads nodding. Hattie was popular with many, but she thought of the blue cotton piece with those words stitched on it. Speak & you die. Kezia felt a tightening in her chest when she thought about the patch. She should have done more.

  30

  THEN

  Cotton piece: bright green printed with a closely spaced pattern of four-leafed clovers

  May 1841

  HATTIE

  “He’s sweet on me,” Emily said, under her breath, as she and Hattie sat near one of the masts, joining squares together as neatly as possible. Hattie’s stitches were almost invisible while Emily’s were bigger and more careless, possibly because she was more interested in talking about William and less interested in the way one square was joined to the next. The wind was blowing a little more strongly today, too, and the women stitching the coverlet had tried to place their bundles in such a way as to stop them flapping. Phyllis was as cautious as ever. “I’m not trusting that wind,” she said, and she began to put every piece of fabric she could find into her bundle.

  Hattie rolled her eyes and pulled her needle through the cloth. She looked at Emily and laughed. “You’re sweet on him, you mean. He’s even younger than you are and you’re pulling the wool over his eyes.”

  “No!” Emily said. “I’d never do that, Hattie. He gives me titbits from the galley. We’ve not snatched more than a kiss or two. I daren’t walk about like Miss Hayter.”

  Hattie nodded. Miss Hayter had begun walking the deck with the captain, toward sunset, like an elderly married couple, which was strange because neither of them was old. Perhaps, she thought, it was this liking that led to stitching being allowed on deck when the weather was fair. Hattie loved such times, even when the wind made sewing more difficult. It was easy to imagine a different life, a warmer life under the Antipodean sun, and as her tiny stitches bound together two pieces of fabric, she had time to enjoy her own handiwork, and that of her companions.

  Hattie had come to admire Miss Hayter very much. She was calm in all her dealings and was ready to listen to anyone in the company who went to her for help. Now, as she stitched two brightly colored pieces of chintz together, Hattie glanced at the whole coverlet, and felt her heart lift at how the colors were beginning to come together.

  “Look at Bertie,” Emily said. He was rolling about on the deck with one of the other children and the little ones were watching. Something like a shadow fell over her face. “It’s time I brought them to the benches for a story. Or perhaps a few songs today. And the alphabet . . .”

  “That sounds like hard work to me,” said Hattie. “How lucky that you’re here to keep them occupied. When they’re with you, they don’t have to be watched in case they fall overboard.”

  “They won’t fall overboard,” said Emily, laughing. “One of the sailors told the bigger ones such stories of drowning, and the monsters that lurk in the depths of the ocean, that they hardly dare look over the rail at the water.”

  Hattie was fond of Emily even though she thought her a little silly. Bertie liked her, too, and Emily enjoyed teaching the children, in spite of the complaints she sometimes made about them. That, at least, reassured Hattie that she was sensible underneath the grumbling.

  Hattie listened to the children chanting the alphabet in unison and the sound of their voices soothed her. She looked out over the sea, blue today under a blue sky. Sometimes the water seemed angry to her, but now, whipped by the brisk and playful wind, the mighty ocean was dotted with white-crested waves. The motion when she walked the deck felt no more threatening than that of a rocking horse.

  * * *

  * * *

  A creak, someone trying to step quietly, woke Hattie from a dream. She sat up, going at once to look at her son’s small mattress, but he was asleep and lay quite still. She could see his sweet face in the first traces of daylight. The night was over. There’d been darkness in the dream, one darkness falling over another, like a length of black silk rolled out on a black table. Something had fallen on her face. A leaf? A feather? Had something touched her?

  Hattie shivered, then ran her fingers over her forehead and through her hair. Looking down, she saw something pale caught in the folds of her blanket: a square of pale blue cotton. Someone had crept up to her mattress in the night. She’d been half aware of it. They’d left a square of fabric on her blanket.

  As she turned
the square over in her hands, she didn’t understand what she was seeing. Who would have taken the trouble to make such a thing? She took a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly. The message was still there, stitched roughly on the cloth in black thread, clumsily executed. Even in the dim light, she could read the letters clearly and a chill closed round her heart. Speak & you die.

  The words swam under her gaze. Who would put such a thing on her pillow? What did it mean? What must she not say? She sat in the cold dawn light and searched her mind for any secret she knew . . . There was nothing. Nothing she could hide, even if she wanted to. Terror washed through her, leaving her for a moment almost unable to draw breath.

  Miss Hayter: she’d know what to do. I must go to her now, Hattie decided. Before she’s up and about her business. Otherwise the whole ship will know of this. She took her shawl and wrapped it round her shoulders. Bertie stirred on his mattress.

  “It’s not time to get up yet, Bertie.”

  “But you’re getting up, Ma,” he murmured, and rolled over, fast asleep again. Hattie looked at him. How could she leave him here by himself, with such danger lurking close by? Emily—she’d wake Emily and ask her to keep an eye on Bertie. She’d tell her why later and think of some excuse. Emily wouldn’t mind and she’d do it for her. Hattie stared into the darkness and wondered which of the sleeping bodies had left the fabric square. The Rajah was rocking gently tonight, and she lay for a moment listening to the creaking of the timbers. The sun would be up soon. I must be quick, she thought. The rhythmic groans and snores of the women rose and fell around her as she tiptoed over to Emily’s berth.