Lizzie, My Love
By
Sara Bennett
Copyright © 1984 by Kaye Dobbie
CHAPTER ONE
LIZZIE paused by the bulwark, leaning against the thick salt-scented wood, and gazing rapt at the grey, rolling sea. Big brown eyes dreamed on days past and days to come. I want to see the world, I want to go places! had been her heart’s cry ever since she turned ten and had seen how grim and hopeless her adult future seemed, stretched out before her like a bleak, sooty tunnel.
“You’ll go and stir the soup, and then you’ll tend to your baby sister,” had been her mother’s answer. Her mother was dead by the time Lizzie reached fifteen, her baby sister in a home for the homeless. Lizzie had already been in service in a big, impersonal London town house. She had found a sort of pride in shining silver and polishing Chippendale. She had found pride, too, in the cook teaching her to read and speak ‘proper’, and learning a little of the world outside great, grubby London.
“I reckon as you could be a lady’s maid, if you were to work at it,” the cook told her, the most glowing tribute Cook could pay anyone. But it was not to be.
The deck was swarming with life. Seamen climbed the riggings, swabbed decks and toiled with ropes. The passengers strolled or sat, chatting and laughing and sitting silently, lost in contemplation, like Lizzie, of the past and future. The Governor was not a new ship. She had been on the Australian run for some years past, ever since she was adjudged too old and slow for trade to the Indies. She was an ugly ship, but somehow comfortable with it.
Someone tapped Lizzie’s arm, and she turned with a start. A plump, but petite girl with flushed cheeks, aged about seventeen plopped down beside her.
“Blimey, it’s hot!”
Big blue eyes, their guilelessness belying a glint of cunning, surveyed the other passengers and alighted on the nearest available male, the middle-aged, unsympathetic doctor. Jane fluttered her lashes at him, and he bowed at her, flushing under his luxurious side-whiskers.
“Jane! Must you behave like a ... a hoyden?”
Lizzie had been looking after her sister Jane ever since her mother had told her to, but of late Jane had become more and more troublesome. She laughed now, tossing her blonde mane. The two sisters were bounty girls, in this year of 1834, which meant that when they were landed at Sydney Town, the owner of the Governor would be paid a certain amount for each girl. It was no wonder most bounty ships were packed to capacity and more. Women were still a rarity in the new colony, the men far outnumbering them. Women were therefore being encouraged to emigrate, and advertisements blazoned on London streets how good life was in Australia. The workhouses and orphanages were flooded with leaflets, listing the wonders of the new colony. Employers, said the print, were begging women to work for them, and the women were naming their own price! Husbands were swarming like flies—rich and poor alike. It was the land of opportunity, a virtual paradise, and Lizzie had been drawn by the glowing accounts like an alley cat to a saucer of country cream.
“Name our own price!” she had cried to Jane when the two girls met on Sunday afternoon, the only day they were free to do so. Jane’s blue eyes sparkled like sunlight on water.
“Husbands! God Almighty, Lizzie, it sounds like heaven on earth.”
“Don’t be vulgar, and don’t be blasphemous,” Lizzie retorted, but more from habit than any belief that she could change her sister’s ways. Besides, her thoughts were far too busy with planning and scheming: if they could pool their money they might have enough for the necessities of shipboard life, and as it was a bounty ship they would have their passage paid for them. And if they got work immediately on arrival, they would be well up on their outlay!
They had nothing to lose, that was for sure. Lizzie had toiled constantly during most of her twenty-five years. There had been no wealthy parents to shelter her from the degradation of poverty, and Lizzie had laundered and stitched when still a toddler, to help her mother feed the fatherless family. When she was five, she had been farmed out to a factory, and when she was ten had been lucky enough to go into service. She remained there until she was twenty-four, and ill-health had caused her employers to place her in the workhouse. For the past year she had remained there, firstly recovering from the almost fatal fever she had contracted, and then working at cleaning and stitching in the house itself.
Jane, who had gone into an orphanage when their mother died, had had a more chequered career. She had been shunted around from house to house as a youngster, until at twelve she was put into service. The endless drudgery of routine and pride in work had bored her, just as it had suited her sister’s orderly mind. She ran away, at sixteen, and had a spell in the House of Correction before being returned to duty.
‘You’ll be the death of me, you will!’ Lizzie had cried, when she came to see her sister.
Jane had wept repentantly and promised never to stray from the path again. But the temptations in London were endless, and Lizzie could see her sister was not strong enough to resist them. Australia would be good for Jane. She could find steady work there, where no one would know about her past record. She could start again; they both could.
Only things had not gone as smoothly as Lizzie had planned once they were aboard the old Governor. As well as being a bounty ship, the Governor carried paying passengers, up in the saloon quarters. The girls had the midships to themselves; a big, sprawling, open living quarters in which they slept, and lived, and ate. The mariners had the steerage for their quarters, but the more luxurious saloon was for the twenty wealthy passengers travelling in comfort to Sydney Town on business or pleasure.
Jane was a pretty girl, and the attention she had been subject to since they sailed went to her head. Lizzie had learned to frown at the seamen who were always hanging about, hoping for a smile or a chat. They were easily quelled. It was the saloon passengers with whom she had difficulty. When Jane appeared in her shabby bonnet, they came down from the saloon deck to tease and flirt like dapper magpies attracted by, the plumage of a parrot. And one could not simply frown at a gentleman passing the time of day, nor could she threaten him with informing the captain, as she did the common seamen. In fact there was nothing she could do but stick close to her sister in the self-appointed position of chaperon, and be as unwelcoming as possible. Most of them seemed to get the message eventually.
“You encourage them!” Lizzie hissed, when Jane had been particularly outrageous.
Jane tossed her head, her pretty face flushed with triumph. “It’s so boring, Lizzie, and I like them. Why shouldn’t we talk? They’re gentlemen, aren’t they? Not any old rubbish? You’re always saying as how real gentlemen are worth a dozen... ”
“Yes, yes, but... Jane, you know very well what I mean!”
“We’re only talking, Lizzie,” Jane said, and fixed her sister with a mocking blue gaze. “What are you frightened of?”
Lizzie bit her lip. She had heard well enough from a few of the girls about some of the bounty ships. Lax morals had ended in girls becoming with child on the voyage out, and tales of rapine and virtual orgies caused Lizzie’s rather innocent mind to boggle.
But it would never do to tell Jane of them! So she folded her lips and sniffed. “Never you mind. Just don’t encourage them, that’s all.”
Jane pulled a face, eyeing her sister with amusement. In some ways she often felt twice as old as Lizzie. Lizzie was such an innocent.
“You’re just jealous,” she retorted.
Was she? Lizzie searched her heart for such an emotion, but could find no clear-cut answers. She had looked after Jane for so long it was difficult to allow her to grow up. And yet she was such a child still, in so many ways. Sometimes, when her sister had be
en particularly vexatious, she would wish she had sailed alone. And then, in the creaking, washing darkness of night, with Jane breathing softly beside her in the crowded midships, she would look at her and see their mother in her and be overcome with love. Jane would always need looking after, and who was there to do it but Lizzie?
“Penny for them?” Jane broke in on her reverie, an elbow jerking into her ribs.
“Ow! I was thinking of home, if you must know.”
“What’s at home to think about?’ Jane muttered scornfully, and eyed the seaman nearest them, returning his grin with a bashful flutter of black lashes. “Only a few more weeks to go, so they say,” Jane went on. ‘I’ll be glad to have my feet on firm land again. How about you, Liz?”
“I won’t be sorry.”
“Mr. Gray says he can find me work, if you’ll let him. You’re so frosty to him, Lizzie. He knows you dislike him.”
Mr. Gray! That was all she’d heard, ever since the man had come aboard at Cape Town. Mr. Gray had caused her nothing but trouble. He had set his sights on Jane from the moment he saw her, and unlike the others, Lizzie could neither quell him nor pretend to herself that he meant nothing by it. She had seen his sort before, while working in the London house. Why, one so-called ‘gentleman’ had even tried to kiss Lizzie in the passageway! She would never forget the feel of his lips wet on her cheek, and the sudden, dark thrill when his hand fumbled at the starched frill on her bodice. That knowledge still made her blush, even now, and feel ashamed that she could have, for one moment, enjoyed the experience. No, whatever Mr. Gray might profess to be, and despite the fact he was travelling first-class, his intentions towards Jane were certainly not honourable!
She had watched her sister and Mr. Gray constantly now for some weeks. She had watched the way he teased Jane, sometimes with a mockery only thinly covered with syrup, and sometimes with a look in his eyes which made Lizzie’s heart quake unpleasantly. He was dangerous, and single-minded, and wicked. Jane was fascinated. She had never met anyone remotely like him, and thought him the most marvellous thing since the steam train. She tried to return his barbed compliments and innuendos, and did her best to show him how worldly she was. Lizzie feared, however, she was very much out of her league when it came to Mr. Gray.
“You’re just jealous,” Jane cried, after a particularly virulent outburst. “Because he likes me and not you! Because he thinks I’m pretty and you’re ugly!”
Lizzie had flounced away, deeply hurt by the exchange. Later, she had crept back to their bunk and peered into Jane’s little slab of polished glass and taken a long look at herself. Jane was right. She was ugly. She had white skin, dead white like a corpse, and her neck was grubby though she tried so hard to put into practice the cleanly habits she had learned in service. And her hair! Wildly curling and black as pitch, it framed her face like a chimney-boy’s brush. Brown eyes, the colour of strong tea. Nose too long, and mouth too wide. It was an uncompromising, stubborn face. She scowled, tears brimming in the brown eyes. No, not pretty at all. But—and she dried her tears determinedly— she was honest, and strong, and she could work hard. That must make up for the rest. Later, Jane had apologized and hugged her.
“I’m sorry, Liz. Really I am. But Mr. Gray doesn’t mean anything. And even if he did… I can handle him. I know I can.” Lizzie had sighed, and forgiven her. But she remembered she was ugly, and the misery of it simmered still beneath the gruff manner she affected to hide her own dangerous vulnerability.
“Mr. Gray’s coming,” hissed Jane, startling Lizzie with another dig from her elbow.
Lizzie looked up and saw two men. As she looked one of them began to make his way down to their deck, a man of above medium height, quite strongly built. Black hair, a little too long at the collar, and dark eyes, much darker than her own. Skin tanned golden by time spent in a sun much hotter than that of England. Mr. Gray had informed the Banister sisters the first time they met that his living was made in Australia, and the sojourn in Cape Town had been for business purposes only.
The other man was following. Taller and slimmer than Gray, he was smoothing his moustache, which he wore with the air of one wearing precious diamonds. His hair was more red than brown, and his eyes a twinkling, kindly grey. Lizzie preferred Mr. Jason Wilson to his companion, and made no bones about showing it.
Jane was smoothing her skirts, and biting her lips-to make them red. Lizzie caught her eye impatiently.
“I don’t know why you bother to make such a fuss,” she said stiffly. “The man’s not worth it.”
“Lizzie!” Jane hissed. “He knows you don’t like him, but you could be polite.”
“I don’t care if he does know. I find him totally repugnant.”
“What sort of word is that,” Jane retorted. “You learned to talk lah-de-dah at that house you were at, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.’” She glanced up, and her anger faded, her blue eyes suddenly dreamy. “He’s so handsome,” she sighed.
“And knows it!” Lizzie retorted tartly, not usually one to be influenced by outer appearances.
Jane giggled. “Mr. Wilson is more of a coxcomb than Mr. Gray.”
“Yes, but... there’s no harm in him, Jane.” Her plea went unheard.
Jane stepped forward to greet the two men with her prettiest smile.
“Morning, Mr. Gray, Mr. Wilson. A fine day, is it not?”
Her carefully enunciated words made Lizzie squirm. Mr. Gray looked her up and down with obvious pleasure, and something more, a gleam in his eyes that made Lizzie long to box his ears. It was a look of ownership; as though Jane already wore a chain and a collar, diamond-studded of course, and was broken to his hand.
Jane took his smile at face value, and strutted a little, glancing at him coyly under her long, curling lashes. She was a very pretty girl, and had learned to like admiration since they boarded the Governor. But Lizzie blushed for her now. Had she no pride at all to look at a man in such an inviting manner?
“A very fine day, now that you’re here, Jane,” Mr. Gray replied, and his smile was wicked. “However, I could wish we were off this poxy vessel, and somewhere less... crowded.”
“It’s not poxy!” Lizzie retorted, missing the byplay, and then wished she’d stay a scornful observer when they all turned to her. “It’s... it’s homey,” she went on gruffly, and glared. Mr. Gray raised his eyebrow, and Jane giggled. “Oh Lizzie, how can you talk so? It’s a dreadful old boat!”
The dark eyes shifted from one sister to the other, and their expression of idle indulgence changed to bored politeness. For a moment Lizzie was betrayed into meeting them, something she did as little as possible. Her opinion of him must have been quite plain, because he raised his eyebrows at her, and the silence stretched until she looked away, her pale cheeks flushing a bright pink.
“I find it very difficult to believe you both sisters,” that cool voice said, softly but with a sting. “You’re like... honey and vinegar.”
Lizzie clenched her fingers on the stiff cloth of her skirt. “Jane takes after our mother,” she said coldly.
“Ah, that would be it then!”
His black eyes mocked her with the knowledge that she was the vinegar, while her own shone pure hatred.
“I hardly remember her,” Jane was saying, blithely unaware. “Liz has been sister and mother to me for a long time now,” she added. ‘”Lizzie is always so... so thorough about things.” She squeezed her sister’s arm affectionately, and Lizzie recognized with misgiving the mood that usually preceded Jane doing something particularly outrageous.
Perhaps Gray recognized it too, for he winked at Jane and said aside to his friend, “Wilson, perhaps you would chat with Miss Banister here, while Jane and I take a stroll. You two always have so much to say to each other.”
Jason Wilson smiled uncertainly, worry marring his brow. “But, Zek, did not Miss McFarlane ask you to attend her this morning?”
Hezekiah Gray laughed softly, and something in the sound caused
the hairs on the back of Lizzie’s neck to prickle. Jane giggled, enjoying it all immensely.
“Miss McFarlane wants me to wed and bed her, in that order. Unfortunately, I’m not an orderly man.”
“Gray, I say!” Jason Wilson glanced at Lizzie, apology in his grey eyes, as he straightened his coat. “There are ladies present, man!”
“Are there?” Gray glanced at Lizzie, his smile mock-apologetic. “My pardon, Miss Banister.” Jane giggled, as they turned away.
“Miss Banister, allow me to apologize for my friend’s behavior,” Jason Wilson said softly, and Lizzie met the worried grey eyes with stiff features. “He is unconventional, I know. But it’s just his way. He means no offence.”
“No?”
Jason cleared his throat. “He’s the sort of man who cares little what others think, Miss Banister. Perhaps that’s a good thing. I sometimes think we worry too much about how we look to our friends and associates, and worry too little about our own happiness.”
Lizzie sniffed.
A pause.
“Miss Banister,” and he sounded suddenly urgent. “Zek Gray is my friend, but I feel I must warn you. Miss Banister, you seem to me a most intelligent woman, and that is more than I could say, I beg pardon, for your pretty sister.”
Lizzie was all attention now, though all she said was, “Jane is very young.”
“Zek enjoys the company of women, and makes no bones about it. Your sister shouldn’t construe too much from his... partiality towards her.”
“If you mean to tell me he’s not about to call the banns, I know that well enough!”
“Miss Banister,” he said, more urgent than before, “if it were merely a flirtation I would not speak, and if I thought your pretty sister was... well, wise to the game, so to speak, I would not speak. But I think she is young, and flattered, and I see that you worry for her and seek to protect her. I speak as much for your sake as hers. My friend is a man who takes what he wants, Miss Banister. It would not occur to him that his actions were in any way reprehensible—your sister has been as eager in her pursuit as he in his, Miss Banister.”
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