by Jean Plaidy
Esther shook her head.
“I wish I could make you see it as I do.”
“Ah, Esther!” said Marcus.
“We are neither of us saints, Carolan and II” “No,” said Carolan, ‘we are sinners … angry sinners. We cannot accept cruelty because God decided that we should. No, we will fight against God; we will fight for ourselves!”
Marcus laughed. How his eyes glittered! She thought. He is already contemplating escape when he gets to Botany Bay. And she warmed towards him; they were much of a kind, he and she. Everard was of a kind with Esther. Everard was ever constant in her mind. Everard who had not come for her, who had accepted cruelty as God’s will. Perhaps he had wanted to come; she imagined his mother’s begging him not to … and Everard’s fighting with himself. Everard the parson. Everard the lover. She had always suspected the parson of being the stronger of the two. Perhaps that was why she had suffered so deeply in the van which had taken her to Portsmouth, for then she had known that Everard was not coming; that was why. in the open van on the Portsmouth Road, she had despaired.
And when she had thrown that rotten apple back into the crowd, she had been throwing it at Everard and Everard’s mother. Had she been unshackled, she would have leapt from the van and fought them with her hands. She was not the sort to suffer in silence, to pine away and die; she was the sort to fight, to hurt herself, to hate… “I wish I were dead.” she said again, remembering.
And then there had been the comfort of seeing Marcus in the Portsmouth jail. That jauntiness of him, that glitter in his eyes! Rogue, thief, philanderer that he was he was more her sort than gentle Everard.
One pain will subdue another. There was poor Mamma getting weaker and weaker, and thinking of Mamma it was possible to forget Everard a little.
The last weeks had changed Kitty beyond recognition. She was like a flower that has been cherished in a hothouse, and is thrown onto a dung heap. No flower could be expected to last long in that condition. When they had come on board and had stayed on deck while farewells were said, Kitty had sat propped up against the rail unable to move. Her face was a greenish colour, her eyes bloodshot, her tongue thickly coated, and her lips twice their usual size. She was, Carolan knew, unaware of her situation, which was perhaps not a matter for regret in itself.
All about them were their ribald companions of the voyage, men, women, boys and girls; murderers and highwaymen, people who had stolen a loaf, of bread, river thieves, counterfeiters the innocent and the guilty. Gin flowed freely. Old songs were sung.
Some sang of their joy to be rid of their country; some were sentimental in a maudlin way about leaving it Men and women embraced openly; young boys and young women, mere children, followed their example. Conversation was as obscene as they knew how to make it. Some danced; some sang; some wept;
some laughed. And Kitty sat there, propped up, seeing nothing.
When the ay of “Clear ship!” went up, Carolan and Esther between them managed to get Kitty below. There they had all remained since in the fetid atmosphere, among the rats which were tame and insolent and had no respect for this rag-tag shipload of convicts. The hatches had been secured; and the only light and air came through one hatchway, and at night there were candles in iron lanterns. Sometimes though, the hatches had to be removed, for the captain did not wish to arrive at the settlement with a cargo of dead prisoners.
Days and nights merged into one. They ate their meagre allowances of food. Kitty had given up eating hers. She lay languid, with her eyes wide open … but they weren’t like Kitty’s eyes.
“Ah!” said the woman who shared their berth, and who had told them she was known to the taverns of Thames-side as Flash Jane.
“She’s a bright one! Hi! Wake up, me lady, and let’s run me blinkers over you.”
“Please do not touch her,” said Carolan.
“She is very ill.” The woman shrugged her shoulders, muttering something about fine ladies’ manners. She would have them know she was of the real quality of a prison ship; none of your half and halfs. Why, curse them, she had been brought up before. She was no newcomer to Newgate. She had robbed many a fine gentleman, she had; ah, and slept with many more. Highwaymen and lords … they were all one to her. River thieves and gentry. Ah! There were things she could tell about them all, but why they wanted to coop her up with a gang like this, she couldn’t be saying. She thought things were managed better than that at Newgate and on board. She had a friend outside who was looking after her. she had; he had come on board to take his last farewell. “Come back in seven years time, Jane,” he said.
“I will not be the one to forget you.” He was good to me, Jem was … And I was good to nun. Here you … Got long ears now, have you not?” She leaned over and pulled the ear of the trembling girl cowering in the corner. The child was misshapen. alarmingly ugly… almost not like a child. Flash Jane began to whisper to her of her adventures with highwaymen and lords and Jem and others. The child shrunk back into her corner, listening.
“Esther!” cried Carolan.
“How can we bear this!”
Esther said: “We go through the fire, Carolan, that we may be tried, and if we come through safely are we not cleansed?”
“You make me angry. Do you call this a cleansing process?”
Esther tried to reason: “You are suffering more keenly now. Carolan. I have got over the worst. The worst for me was in Newgate when I was alone and friendless. Now I have your friendship I can never be so unhappy again.”
Carolan fought back her tears.
“Oh, be silent, Esther!” she snapped; and then suddenly, putting her hand over Esther’s thin one: “Forgive me! I am so tired of living. I wish the boat would go down.”
“Ah!” said Esther.
“You waited for your lover, and he did not come.”
“What a lover!” cried Carolan.
“I was in Newgate, and he did not come for me. Esther, let me talk to you of him. Let me try to show him to you as he was. So tall, so dear-eyed, so gentle in his talk, so understanding, so mild, so good! I first loved him when I was a frightened little girl. I think I was no more than five, and my cruel half-brother shut me inside the family vault and I was frightened. Everard opened the door and came to me. I loved him from then on. I must go on loving him till I die. And, Esther, I shall never see him again. I am an exile from England for seven years, and what will those seven years bring, Esther? Why did he not come? They say people have escaped from Newgate; I used to dream that he came and rescued me from Newgate as he did all those years ago from the dark tomb.”
To rescue you from Newgate would have been well nigh impossible, Carolan.”
“Still … some would nave attempted it!” She was thinking now of Marcus with his jaunty smile and his blue eyes in his wrinkled face, and the glitter of those eyes … the recklessness of him.
“What use to attempt it, Carolan? Greater trouble would have followed.”
“Oh. you and your doctrines! You make me weary, Esther. I will have none of them. Listen, I have to live through this, have I not? From now on I live for myself … I will steal, I will cheat. I shall think of no one, care for no one…”
“Carolan. what rubbish you talk! While you are yourself you will always care for someone. You must not steal; you must not cheat; for that would not be you, Carolan. I never forget the way you stepped in amongst us with your head high. You looked to me like a leader. Do you know what I mean. Carolan… someone who can fight, but only for what is right. Someone meant to show the way…”
Carolan laughed.
“What a leader! What a noble spectacle in my rags and my dirt!”
“Wilfully you misunderstand.”
“I tell you, you are quite mistaken about me. I am weak and foolish, and I was largely responsible for bringing this tragedy about. I fought those women without any noble thoughts in my mind. They wanted my clothes; I wanted to keep them. Marcus is like I am. Circumstances affect us. Had fortune n
ot changed for him. he would have been a high-spirited squire, fond of fun, whose life is made up of amours and gambling. I am like that too. We are very strong and very weak; things happen to us. and we are no longer the same people… You are different, Esther; you have your faith.”
“Oh, if you but had it too, Carolan!”
“I could not have faith in anything any more, Esther. I can never believe anything without proof. Do you hope to convert me, Esther? Do you hope to convert Marcus?”
A flood of colour rushed into Esther’s face.
“Do you think I could?” she said.
“I think,” said Carolan, ‘that if you looked as beautiful as you do now in spite of rags and filth Marcus would be only too willing to listen … in the hope, of course, of making you listen to him.”
“You are hard on him. He means no harm.” Carolan turned away. Dear Esther, who thought that Lucy of Newgate was a mere acquaintance of his, and the dark-haired gipsy who was hanging round his neck while they said goodbye to friends on deck, was merely expressing her gratitude for some small kindness!
“You’re sweet,” she said suddenly.
“I wouldn’t have you otherwise. Stay close to me, Esther. Listen to me when I want to be listened to. Let me be angry with you when I want to be angry … and please, please do not let my ill temper make any difference to our friendship.”
Kitty began to moan.
Carolan leaned over her: “Mamma, Mamma, is the pain worse then?”
“Is that you, George?” said Kitty.
“She is dreaming,” said Carolan, ‘dreaming of Haredon, her old home, the place where I was born.”
“Do you think her leg is worse?” said Esther.
Carolan lifted Kitty’s rags and looked at the leg. When she had seen it on deck she had been deeply shocked. The discoloration and the swelling presented an alarming sight. Something ought to be done quickly; the irons removed, a doctor called. She had shouted to one of the Marines, whose duty it was to look in on the prisoners now and then, that her mother was sick and needed attention, but the Marine had orders not to speak to any of the convicts: any complaints were to be put before a senior officer; he had been warned that he was travelling with the equivalent of a cargo of wild beasts who, ignorant as they might seem, were possessed of beast cunning, who would be for ever planning violence since violence was second nature to them. Therefore he ignored Carolan’s plea for help.
“It does not look any worse,” said Carolan, and added, ‘as far as I can see. If only they would strike off these irons. I am sure it would heal.”
Kitty lifted her hand and Carolan took it; Kitty’s was icy cold, which was extraordinary, for the fetid atmosphere of the prisoners’ quarters was stifling, and Carolan’s hands were burning.
“Mamma,” said Carolan, ‘do you feel any better?”
“Yes, my darling, I feel better.”
Carolan touched her mother’s forehead; it was as cold as her hands.
“She is better!” whispered Carolan.
“She knows me.” There was a haze in the atmosphere which came from mingled breath and the steam of sweating bodies; it was foul with the slime and muck of years, with disease and filth and the odour of vermin. There was a good deal of noise down below the constant muttering and grumbling and shrieking and chattering and laughing that might come from a cage full of monkeys. Those above had found it impossible to insist on silence down below; there must be certain privileges even for. wild beasts. So the prisoners talked and laughed and wept aloud, and they walked about in the narrow space between the tiers of bunks, like grim spectres in an underworld. They fought among themselves; they planned escape; they boasted of past successes in the worlds of crime and lust; and degradation was their, god, to be bowed down to and worshipped, and those who had achieved most in his service were considered the cream of the prison society.
Carolan, holding her mother’s hand, listening to the conversation going on around her, watched the ghostly figures prowling about in the dim light, stared through that hazy atmosphere and asked for death. An old hag with bare, pendulous breasts, hideous in the extreme, was squatting on her, berth telling her berth mates how she had most successfully combined a life of lust and profit. Every now and then one of them would burst into shrieks of unnatural laughter. Another old woman, her back bent, her limbs gripped with rheumatism, was murmuring to herself of the revenge she was going to take on someone home in Wapping, when she had done her seven years. Someone else was singing in a loud, discordant voice.
“Carolan…” said Kitty.
“Yes, Mamma. Do you want to be raised?”
Esther leaned forward, and together they raised Kitty.
Ts that better. Mamma?”
Kitty said: “Climb in beside me, Carolan. What a little thing you are! Tell me, darling, is she kind to you … Does she beat you? You would tell me, if she did … surely you would tell me?”
Carolan whispered to Esther: “She is wandering. She is back in my childhood.”
Carolan put her lips to her mother’s forehead, and went on: There was a nurse whom I was afraid of. Now I see how weak she was … how I need not have been afraid. Esther, do you think … years hence … we shall see that we need not have been afraid… even of this?”
“Yes,” said Esther, “I know. We shall look down on the suffering we endured here below and smile at what we were.”
“Ah!” sighed Carolan impatiently.
“I was not thinking of what would happen to us beyond the pearly gates. I mean… here… in this world. I talk of reality, not dreams. Oh, forgive me, Esther, I am a beast! I am wicked. Why do you not hate me?”
“Hate you! That makes me smile. What cause have I ever had but to love you!”
“Carolan!” said Kitty.
“Are you there, my daughter?”
Carolan bent over her mother.
“Darling, does it not tire you to sit up so?”
“Carolan … you laugh, but do you know life as I know it? I tell you, he does not belong here … A gentleman of the quality he is … Have you not noticed the way his eyes look at you, Carolan… A parson! My daughter, the wife of a parson.”
Carolan began to cry.
“It is raining.” said Kitty.
“I must go now, Darrell… Peg will let me in; she is my friend … Aunt Harriet will be sleeping in her room…”
“I do not like to hear her talk thus,” said Carolan.
“It frightens me. And yet, she is more coherent than she was. I wish we had water. How hot it is in here! Esther, how long will it take to get to Botany Bay? How long have we been at sea?”
“I do not know.” said Esther.
“Several days and nights … I think I have counted six, but I cannot be sure.”
“I like the rain on my face, Peg,” said Kitty.
“It is so good for the skin… as good as your lotions. Therese and you know it!”
Kitty attempted a laugh, but her lips were so thick and dry it scarcely came through, and it ended in a gurgling in her throat.
“It is well that she does not know she is here.” said Carolan.
“Esther, I wonder what is waiting for us on the other side of the world!”
“Nothing could be worse than prison and this ship, could it, Carolan? We shall have work to do, and surely any work is better than no work at all.”
That I cannot say. How will my mother fare there, do you think? She has been used to a maid to dress her hair; I remember well how the colour of ribbon could be the burning question of the day.”
Kitty stirred in her arms. She began to sway a little, there was coquetry in all her movements. Now she was a young girl in a coach, and her broad-brimmed hat hid her eyes from the ardent gaze of the young man opposite. Now she was mischievous, slipping out of a house in late evening to meet her one true love in a wood. Now she was married to George Haredon, the sensualist who had desired her so strongly .that he had married her and provided the solution o
f her troubles, and even when he had discovered how she had deceived him. still yearned to be her lover.
“George…” came through her cracked and swollen lips.
“I… hate… you… George… Do not touch me…” Her heavy lids closed over her eyes; her lips curled up at the corners; she was excited. George was being as cruel, as exciting in her thoughts as he had been all those years ago at Haredon.
Her mood changed quickly. A gracious lady receiving the Prince at the head of the staircase of her country house … a fascinating creature who had thrown herself away on her own true love and must pass her days in the shop parlour of a secondhand shop… A young girl repressed in the household of a spinster aunt, a wife running away from her cruel husband with the man she loved… “She is getting better.” said Carolan. ‘her mind is active. But how cold she is! I wish we had something with which we could cover her. How swollen her leg is! It is festering there. Oh, Esther, surely we can make them do something! I know they do not care how we live down here, or whether we live at all. but we must make them! I am going to do something. Esther. I will not endure this. When one of them comes down here again I will seize him; I will insist. I will make them do something!”
Flash Jane, who had been crooning to herself, sat up listening with sudden interest. When she moved, an indescribable odour rose from her.
“Going to make them, eh?” He! He! Going to make ‘em do something, eh?” laughed Flash Jane.
Carolan turned on her.
“Do you think I am afraid of them?”
“He! He! You will be, I’ll warrant, when you’ve had the lash about your shoulders. It ain’t nice, lady, the lash ain’t. Ye’re a pulp of bleeding flesh when they’ve done with yer … and then there’s the maggots crawling in your sores, driving you well nigh crazy. I know. I’ve seen it. lady.”
Esther began to tremble. Carolan said: “Bah! Do you think I am afraid!” But she was afraid, horribly afraid.
“We should not endure it!” she said fiercely.