Dangerous Women

by Hope Adams

  There were still a few women left on deck when the screaming began.

  40

  NOW

  12 July 1841

  Ninety-eight days at sea

  CLARA

  The seven of us, one of whom might be guilty of murder, are working next to each other now, and the others draw away from us a little. They try to behave as if everything is as it was before, but they sit further away than they used to, and closer to one another, turning their faces from us. What are they saying about us? Which of us do they think it might be? If anyone had a motive, it’s me. I’m the one who needed her to be silent. If they knew my past, these women would not believe I was innocent.

  Miss Hayter sits down next to Tabitha.

  “We’re thinking about Hattie today,” she says. “We’re all very sad, but we have to find out the truth. And I’m sure we’re close to an answer. We’ll soon know who the guilty person is. She’s among us, that’s certain . . .” Miss Hayter looks around but every woman is staring at her work and won’t meet her eye. She goes on to talk of other matters, and to move around the circle, admiring Izzy’s work, helping Phyllis and Lottie to put the final touches to the last border, making sure that the stitches lie evenly. Silence falls, which is unusual, but as ever, the work takes us away from our thoughts for a short time. Miss Hayter goes from one of us to the next, examining our handiwork.

  When she reaches me, she says, “Come to the end of your thread now, everyone. Finish as soon as you can, please, and, Sarah, if you could help me take everything to my cabin, I’d be grateful.”

  I push my needle through the fabric and run the thread through a few stitches on the back of the work. Then I cut the cotton, put my needle away and stand up, waiting for the others to do the same. When they’ve stopped sewing, they roll up the work in its cotton sheet and Miss Hayter and I pick it up. We haven’t sung the hymn today.

  Steady sailing: the Rajah has the sunset behind her. It’s been a calm day and toward evening the sky was striped gold and pink. Pink has deepened to scarlet and the ship is entirely red as she sails toward the eastern horizon.

  41

  NOW

  12 July 1841

  Ninety-eight days at sea

  KEZIA

  “Thank you,” said Kezia. “Please come in. You can put the work over there.”

  “Yes, Miss,” Sarah said, bending over to place the burden carefully. Then she said, turning toward the door, “May I go now?”

  “I’d like to ask you something first, Sarah. Please sit down.”

  Sarah seemed very pale. She went to perch warily on the only chair and Kezia sat on her bunk, facing her. “You look tired, Sarah,” she said.

  Sarah shook her head.

  Kezia continued. “I have to ask you something now and I beg you to answer me honestly.”

  “I will, Miss,” Sarah said, so quietly that Kezia had to lean forward a little to catch what she said.

  “I was with Hattie when she died,” Kezia continued. “I heard her last words. She was near death and not herself, of course, but one of the last words she spoke was your name. She mentioned you by name more than once. Is there something you want to say to me before I go on?”

  Kezia watched Sarah carefully. Her head was bent, and she’d made fists of her hands, driving her nails into her palms. She didn’t look up but spoke into her lap.

  “If Hattie said I stabbed her, that’s a lie. I never stabbed her, Miss,” she said, raising her head a little and speaking more confidently. Her lips had narrowed to a pinched line in her face. “I’d not do something like that. Never. Not that. You have to believe me, Miss. I wouldn’t.”

  Silence fell and Kezia waited. At last she said, “Hattie said something else.”

  Sarah looked up and her eyes were wide with fear. “What? What did she say?” Her voice had fallen again and Kezia could hardly hear her.

  “She spoke of being told not to tell anyone something . . . Do you know anything about a warning left for Hattie?”

  Sarah stood up abruptly, and turned away, facing the chest of drawers. She stood silent for so long that Kezia was about to ask the same question again, but then she turned. Her back, Kezia noticed, was straighter than before. She looked taller.

  “Yes,” she said, taking a deep breath and looking directly at Kezia. “I needed her silence.” Her voice was different and stronger, but then she sighed and bent her gaze to the cabin floor. Kezia could see the torment and distress of her thoughts marked on her face. “I stitched some words on a square of fabric. And she said nothing; she must have kept quiet, because I’ve been left alone.”

  “But what did you need her to be silent about?” Kezia was bewildered. How would Sarah explain herself in a way that she could understand? “Hattie also told me that you were not Sarah Goodbourne. How can that be?”

  Sarah covered her face with her hands and cried out, “Oh, dear God . . .”

  “You’re distressed.” Kezia looked at Sarah and at the door of her cabin. Am I in any danger? she wondered. Would Sarah—would she attack her? Kezia looked at Sarah’s stricken face and knew she was safe. “Come and sit down again,” she said. “Sit down here, Sarah.”

  Sarah Goodbourne obeyed, but said nothing. She was still covering her face. The moments passed, each one, it seemed to Kezia, thick with foreboding.

  “Speak to me, Sarah. Say something. Please look at me.”

  Sarah lowered her hands but could not look Kezia in the face. She turned away as she spoke.

  “That’s true. Hattie was telling the truth. Sarah Goodbourne isn’t my real name. I stole it before coming aboard the Rajah. I’d killed a man. I’d been sentenced to hang. He’d’ve stabbed me to death if I’d not killed him first. I left the real Sarah Goodbourne drugged and tied up in Millbank and took her name to be my own. My given name’s Clara. Clara Shaw.”

  “But how did Hattie know this? I don’t understand.” Kezia felt as if she were groping her way in a fog. “Had you met her before?”

  Sarah’s eyes widened, and for a moment she seemed unable to answer. She looked away from Kezia and fixed her eyes on her own hands, twisted in her lap. Then she said, “I knew her mother a long time ago—Hattie was no more than a child then. Her mother came to see me and brought Hattie with her. She must have been about twelve years old then, but still, she recognized me—I couldn’t, I daren’t be discovered. If anyone had known my real crime, I’d have been sent back to hang. I was not a good person, Miss Hayter. I have done everything since to become better, different from what I used to be.”

  Kezia was silent for a long time. Then Sarah spoke again. “I didn’t stab Hattie,” she said, more vehemently. “I promise I did not. It was on the day she was attacked, as we were finishing our work, that I saw she recognized me. I couldn’t risk her saying anything about who I really was. I beg you to believe me.” Sarah’s voice was beginning to tremble. “I turned away from Hattie at once, and I was walking away, trying to think what to do, what to say for the best, when the screams came. I didn’t. I couldn’t . . .” Sarah fell silent and kicked at a loose plank, over and over.

  Kezia closed her eyes as she tried to understand everything that Sarah . . . Clara had said. One fact stood out above the others. Clara was capable of killing. She’d admitted that she’d stabbed a man to death, and if she hadn’t overpowered some poor creature in Millbank, she’d have been hanged by the neck. Kezia shuddered. There were laws, she knew. Laws of God and laws of man. There had to be punishments visible to everyone that told them: if you do this thing, if you commit this crime, then here’s what you must expect. An eye for an eye, said the Old Testament. But what is merciful, Kezia had often wondered, about killing someone simply for having stolen goods or forged money? There were many crimes for which you could hang. She was certain of one thing in this moment: if the men knew of Clara’s past, they would reach the obvious conclusio
n. Kezia could hear their voices in her head. It must have been Clara who wielded the dagger. She’s more than capable of it. Why, she’d stabbed a man to death not more than a few weeks ago. Said so herself. Admitted it. And hadn’t she admitted to sending Hattie a warning? Kezia stood up.

  “Sarah . . . I will continue to call you Sarah until we have resolved this matter in the inquiry. I shall have to speak to the captain about it.”

  “No!” Sarah sprang up and her voice shook. “I implore you to say nothing. Please, for the love of God, have mercy. The captain will have no choice but to send me back to hang. I killed a man. Please. I beg you!”

  “You say you had to kill him. I would like to know more about the circumstances, if you’ll tell me.”

  “I’ve not spoken of it since that night,” Sarah said. She twisted in the chair, as though to turn as far away as she could from Kezia’s gaze.

  “I will make no judgment,” said Kezia. “I’ll listen to you and that’s all. I give you my word.”

  Sarah bit her lip and found it hard at first to speak. She hesitated for a time that seemed to stretch into minutes. “We were both—the man I was accompanying and I—a little the worse for drink. I admit that, and I’m not proud of it. It was a summer night and we were happy and the beer may have made us silly. No more than that, but not ourselves. Perhaps we drew too much attention. A man came up to me and began to paw at my arm. His hand was thick and none too clean, and I pushed him away. That angered him and he began to call me names. Dreadful words. Drab, whore and worse.”

  Sarah lifted her eyes and met Kezia’s gaze. “He assumed I was on the town. A prostitute. He came to that conclusion because my companion looked like a respectable man.” She sighed and continued. “When we left the inn, our path took us through some quiet streets and then through a park of sorts. We hadn’t noticed anyone following us but there he was, behind us. He attacked Edmund first . . . my companion. Knocked him down with a blow to the head. Then he came for me.”

  Kezia wondered if she should stop the narrative there. Was it right to make Sarah relive such a dreadful night? It seemed to her clear that Sarah was telling the truth. Her account was sincere and even the most skeptical of the men—even Mr. Davies—would believe her if he were present. She put out a hand but Sarah waved it away and leaned forward.

  “You won’t know such things, Miss, but they go on. Men acting as though you’re there for their pleasure. Many thoughts were going through my head, and I was fuddled with the beer. I thought, Let him do his worst. Then it’ll stop and this’ll be over. Then I thought, I can’t bear it. I’ll fight him. I wanted him battered into pulp. Still, I wasn’t entirely off my head. I knew that if it came to it, he’d beat me into the middle of next week. He’d torn off my skirt and my drawers and hit me about the head a little, getting me ready. I was flat on my back on the earth. He was talking about what he’d do to me, now, just as soon as he could, and pushing my legs apart with those filthy hands . . . well.” Sarah paused and a long silence fell in the cabin. Kezia felt herself hot with the shame of hearing such a thing. Sarah went on. “Then he did. Didn’t take long. After, he gave an almighty roar and rolled off me. But Edmund had come to his senses and he lifted the man to his feet before he’d quite recovered, and turned him round so they were facing each other. I got up as quickly as I could, too.” Sarah covered her face with her hands.

  “Would you like to stop, Sarah? I think I’ve heard enough.”

  “No, no, you haven’t. It’s taking time to tell it, but when it happened it was so quick. Over in a couple of blinks. He had a knife and stabbed Edmund. In the heart. I began to shriek. What’s next is muddled in my head but I ran and sank my teeth into his disgusting hand. I bit him very hard on the hand that was holding the knife and he dropped it. He wasted seconds swearing and cursing and jumping about with pain. I took the knife from where he’d dropped it. I went for him. Got him in the neck just by his ear. Put the knife in up to the hilt. Did I want to kill him?”

  Kezia said nothing and Sarah went on. “I did. At that moment, I did and I was happy I did. My love was dead and I cared nothing for anything else. My shouts brought the constables. The rest comes from that.”

  “I cannot imagine your pain, Sarah. You were provoked beyond reason. Wouldn’t the Bench have looked favorably on you for that?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Stabbing’s stabbing, Miss. Death is death.”

  Kezia could find no answer to that. “I’ll plead for you with the others, Sarah. I’ll make certain the captain doesn’t act hastily. I promise you that. Nothing will be done yet . . . We still, don’t forget, have to find who killed Hattie. That’s the most important task to my mind. I’m more concerned with that than I am with seeing you brought to justice, either for killing a man, or for impersonating someone. Though that, of course, was very wrong of you . . .” Kezia’s voice faded to nothing. “Did it not occur to you that the real Sarah may have been hanged in your place?”

  Sarah didn’t answer. There were tears in her eyes. “I couldn’t allow myself to think such things. It would have—it would have prevented me. I have had to make myself unfeeling. Uncaring. I am trying . . . I hope one day.”

  Kezia was not in the least certain that Charles would be as prone to mercy as she was. He would not be as sympathetic to Sarah’s attempts to become a better person. She had no certainty that she could persuade him to her point of view, and in that case justice would take its course and she could not prevent it. A gallows would be waiting in Van Diemen’s Land. Sarah, or Clara, would be handed over to the authorities and would certainly be condemned to hang. But she must know that, Kezia thought, so why would she protest her innocence in the matter of Hattie’s stabbing? Kezia believed her. The truth seemed as far out of reach as ever.

  “May I go back to the others now?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes, of course,” said Kezia. “Thank you for telling me what you did. I will pray for you. And please come to me with anything that you remember about the evening Hattie was stabbed.”

  Almost before Kezia had shut the cabin door, before she had properly collected her thoughts, someone was knocking on it again: a swift succession of blows on the wood. She went to open it, alarmed, and there was Sarah again, her breath coming fast, as though she’d been running.

  “What’s wrong, Sarah?” Kezia said. “Has something happened?”

  “Miss Hayter, I must speak to you again.”

  Kezia stood aside and Sarah came in.

  “It’s only that I wanted to ask you . . .” She hesitated again before saying, all in a rush, “I want to beg you to say nothing to the other women about my real name. I’m sorry for what I did to Sarah Goodbourne but I have to forget Clara Shaw. I want to put her and everything she was behind me. Please, Miss Hayter.”

  “But wouldn’t they understand your situation?” Kezia asked. “Just as I’ve understood it?”

  “Some may. Others won’t. But I don’t want their sympathy. I want . . .” Sarah fell silent for a few moments, then said: “I would like to be invisible.”

  “Then I will say nothing for now,” Kezia said. “Though perhaps you misjudge your companions in the convict quarters.”

  “Thank you, Miss Hayter.” Sarah opened the door and left the cabin, almost running as she made her way to the deck.

  42

  NOW

  14 July 1841

  One hundred days at sea

  KEZIA

  “But do you not see it, Kezia? Cannot you understand?” Charles stood up from his desk and took the chair next to Kezia. As he spoke, Kezia turned away her face. He went on. “This woman, whatever her real name is, is a criminal. Quite apart from what she did to gain a berth on this ship, she confessed to you two days ago that she stabbed a man to death. It’s true that the circumstances were . . . Well, she was provoked. But, still, she committed murder. What more evidence do you need, Kezia? W
hy d’you not see it?”

  How to answer him? Anger and hurt rose in her so strongly that she knew this: if she opened her mouth, words would emerge that she’d regret. She took a breath to calm herself. She forced herself to look at Charles. He would not, she knew, deliberately want to anger her, and if she were honest, she could agree that, on the face of it, Sarah, or Clara, was the obvious suspect. Kezia spoke as evenly as she could. Her fury felt to her like a rock in her stomach.

  “Simply because she’s the obvious suspect, it doesn’t mean she is guilty. If you’ve done something in the past, it doesn’t follow that you will continue to do those things in the future. Does it? Is there no hope of redemption? I believed her. She was sincere. I’m sure of it.”

  “Forgive me, Kezia.” Charles was looking at her with a wry smile, which made her want to kick him. “You are a kind and virtuous person and can’t imagine, I’ve no doubt, the sort of mind that finds it easy to lie and continue lying. Why would Sarah change? She’s been used to lying throughout her life. Why should she not go on thus, especially when her life is in danger?”

  Kezia stood up and faced him. “Because she has nothing to gain from lying, that is why! She’d already told me . . . simply by confessing she knew, she must have known, that she’d signed her own death warrant. Knowing what you know of her, will you not give her to the authorities in Van Diemen’s Land for them to deal with her according to the law? Is she not already likely to end on the gallows? Why, in such a case, would she need to lie about Hattie?”