This last struck home, as he had intended.
She stood. ‘I think I should get back to Elinor.’
‘Sit down.’
She did not move.
‘Sit down!’
She sat.
Maud Clark had told him that Jane had called to see Cuddy while he was away. It had annoyed him, such high-handedness. He thought he had better spell out one or two things to her.
‘Cuddy Marshall is my servant. Nothing more. If I decide to make her something more, that will be between her and me. I shall be asking no one else’s opinion about it, you can be sure of that.’
She quivered, eyes averted, as though he had struck her. ‘You hate me.’
‘Of course I don’t hate you. But Jane,’ he said gently, ‘it really is none of your business.’
‘I know it,’ she whispered. ‘It is only …’ She stopped.
‘Only what?’
‘I am jealous,’ she whispered.
‘I really don’t see what jealousy has to do with anything,’ he told her.
She gave him a rueful half-smile. Her eyes were suspiciously pink. ‘You wouldn’t, would you?’
‘Not that there are any grounds, you understand.’
She stood and held a finger to his lips. ‘Shhh …’
She was very close to him, almost touching. It seemed natural enough to put his arms round her. The stiff clothes rustled between them. Beneath them, her body was warm and soft and pliant.
He kissed her gently on the forehead, smiling down at her.
She smiled back. ‘Is that the best you can do, Mr Tremain?’
Her lips were warm and inviting. He kissed her again, properly this time, and felt them open beneath his. His hands moved over her. She gasped but did not try to break away. They ran out of breath, eventually. They parted and for a moment she leaned with her full weight against him. He could feel her trembling.
He smiled down at her. Eyes swimming, she tried a half-defiant smile. It did not work very well.
‘We really had better rejoin your friend. She’ll be wondering what we’re up to.’
‘Elinor knows very well what we’re up to.’ She straightened her dress. ‘I’m sorry I said what I did,’ she told him. ‘About being jealous.’
Embarrassment returned. ‘Not important.’
Her eyes sought his. ‘It’s just that … I could become … attached to you. I think.’
‘You shouldn’t say such things!’
‘I wouldn’t. If it wasn’t true.’ A wisp of a smile. ‘I suppose it affects how I see things. I’m sorry.’
He stood at the door and watched them as they walked away from him down the lane leading to Jane Somers’s house.
A nice girl? Perhaps. He hadn’t forgotten how she had called on Cuddy, when his back was turned. And something about the way she had been just now … Why did he have the impression she had been acting? Be careful, he told himself. Be very careful.
He glanced down at the harbour. Another ship had come in while the two girls had been with him. He looked casually at her, then his eyes sharpened.
A small craft. Two stubby masts. Blunt-prowed, ugly …
Pelican was back.
*
Within the hour, Cash was closeted with Silas Pike in Centaur’s immaculate stern cabin.
‘Almost six thousand skins,’ Cash said exultantly. ‘Another hundred tons of sea-elephant oil. That’s fifteen thousand skins and three hundred tons of oil. A full cargo for you, Captain!’
‘Where is it?’
‘Same place. Doggett offloaded on his way up the coast.’
Pike’s strong fingers pulled dubiously at his chin. ‘An awful lot of people getting to know that inlet of yours.’
‘Only Doggett and yourself.’
‘And his crew and mine.’
‘Don’t you trust your crew, Captain?’
‘My crew I’ll answer for. I’ll have the hide off anyone who tries to be smart and they know it. I know nothing about Doggett’s men.’
‘If they can’t read a chart, they can’t tell anyone how to find the inlet.’
‘Anyone with eyes can see the line of the cliffs thereabouts. That headland is very distinctive. All you got to do is follow the coast down for three or four hours and you can hardly miss it. Not if you know what you’re looking for.’
‘All the more reason to get under way as quickly as you can, Captain. When can you sail?’
‘With the tide. I must round up my crew, then we’ll be away.’
‘I’ve papers for you.’
He had brought with him documents relating to the cargo – the number of skins, the weight of oil. There were letters to merchants in London, names Gough had given him. Another letter, impressively notarised, authorised Silas Pike citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to act on behalf of the owners of the goods. The letter made it clear that Captain Pike was following instructions in sailing direct from New South Wales to England in defiance of the East India Company embargo.
Pike put the papers neatly together and locked them in the drawer of his desk. ‘I doubt it’ll help but it might.’
‘I don’t want it to help too much,’ Cash said. ‘I want to break the embargo, not slide around the edge of it. I want the Company to challenge us in court and lose.’
‘We’ll be challenged, all right,’ Pike told him. ‘They can’t let us get away with it and do nothing. As to losing …’ He shrugged. ‘None of us knows that.’
‘You must get to London,’ Cash said. ‘If you’re arrested and taken to Bombay or Calcutta, we’ll have no chance. The Company’s all-powerful in India.’
Pike said, ‘I’m not worried about that. Give me fifty miles of sea room, I’ll outrun any vessel they can put against me.’
Cash stood. ‘I’ll see you at the inlet then.’
Pike looked at him. ‘You coming down there?’
‘Of course I’m coming! You’ll need a hand to load the skins. Besides, I wouldn’t miss it. This voyage is the beginning of new things, Captain. Just think of London as our marketplace!’
‘Just think of losing my ship!’
‘That’ll not happen.’
Cash was as confident as he sounded. The confrontation with the East India Company was ordained by fate. The colony’s destiny was to be independent, to trade in the way that suited it best. It was his destiny to make the first move towards establishing that independence and he was exultant. It was unthinkable that they could lose.
‘An historic occasion, Captain! It’s bad enough not to be coming with you. I’ll not let you sail off without being there to bid you goodbye!’
He strode down the deck, heading for the ladder and his boat waiting to take him ashore.
*
The tavern was dark. Pale sunlight shone upon the shabby furniture, the dust motes swirling in air stinking of stale alcohol, tobacco smoke and dirt. Two off-duty soldiers huddled over a glass in one corner, otherwise the room was empty. Morning was a quiet time.
Duggan leant closer to Reilly’s massive shoulder. ‘Centaur’s crew’s ordered aboard. Mr Thornton wants to know where you’re going. He wants to know now.’
‘I heard London.’ Reilly’s lips scarcely moved. He was afraid of talking, even more afraid of keeping quiet.
‘London?’ Duggan’s mouth was dubious. ‘You sure?’
‘Course I’m not sure! Pike never tells anyone what’s in his mind. All I know is we’ve loaded a lot more food and water this trip. Double.’
‘What’s the cargo?’
‘Same as last time. Skins and oil.’
‘Are they on board now?’
‘Not yet. We’re picking them up from the same place as before.’ He went on with increasing exasperation, ‘Though why he chooses to do things in such a cockeyed way I’m sure I don’t know …’
‘Where is this place?’
‘A cove. Four hours down the coast. I got a note of its position.’
&nbs
p; ‘Give it to me.’
Reilly slid a piece of paper into the other man’s palm. Duggan glanced at it and thrust it deep into his pocket.
‘When are you sailing?’
‘Tonight. With the tide.’
‘So you’ll be loading …?’
‘Tomorrow.’ He picked up his tankard and drained it.
Duggan snapped his fingers. Immediately, the tankard was refilled. ‘You’ve done well,’ he said.
The mate said, ‘It’s one hell of a risk I’m taking, I’ll tell you that.’
Duggan smiled coldly. ‘Payment for favours given. But seeing you’ve been co-operative …’
The leather bag clinked as he handed it over.
Reilly looked at it. ‘How much?’
‘Ten guineas. Less the two I advanced you the other day. Mr Thornton doesn’t expect you to work for nothing.’
‘I hope he’s not expecting me to do any more for him either.’
Duggan thought Reilly couldn’t know Thornton very well, to hope a thing like that. Bought and sold, that was what he was. Until death. ‘I’ll see you when you get back,’ he said.
‘God willing,’ the Irishman said gloomily.
Duggan was more concerned with man’s will than God’s but seamen were always superstitious. ‘God willing,’ he agreed.
They left the tavern separately; Reilly to rejoin his ship, Duggan to walk the two hundred yards to Thornton’s building where he climbed the stairs to the office.
‘Centaur’s sailing on the tide,’ he told Thornton as he walked through the door.
‘Be that right, by God?’ Thornton went to the window and looked out. Two or three boats were headed for Centaur. Another couple lay alongside.
‘Where’s she goin’?’
‘London.’
Thornton swung round, face dark. ‘Thee’s daft! Pike tries owt like that, Company’ll have his boat, quick as winking.’
‘That’s what Reilly said.’
Thornton looked at him thoughtfully. ‘’appen he’s lyin’.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘They’ve not loaded ’ere. Where’s cargo?’
‘An inlet down the coast. Reilly gave me the coordinates.’
Thornton took the piece of paper from Duggan’s hand and walked to a chart pinned on the wall behind his desk. For the most part it was little more than an imaginary sketch but for a hundred miles or so north and south of Port Jackson the chart was detailed and accurate.
A finger followed the coastline. Stopped.
‘There,’ he said.
He pondered as he walked back to his chair.
‘Could be Reilly’s right.’ He sat for a while, chin on his steepled fingers, then looked up. ‘London, eh?’ He cackled maliciously. ‘Damn fools.’
He picked up a brass bell and rang it vigorously, then drew a piece of notepaper from the drawer of the desk and began to write.
Wilkes put his head through the door. ‘Sir?’
Thornton looked up, quill in hand. ‘I need someone to take an urgent note to Captain Owen of Pluto,’ he said. ‘Smartly, mind.’
*
That afternoon Cuddy sat in Maud Clark’s kitchen, breathing in the smells of cooking and exchanging gossip. A wind had got up and was boasting and thumping around the house as it sought a way in.
Maud would never admit it, but she and Cuddy had become friends. She still ordered her about – the girl still had to be kept in her place – but, all in all, things had turned out better than she had expected when Cuddy had first arrived.
‘That Jane Somers,’ Cuddy said, ‘can’t stand ’er.’
Maud was busy chopping vegetables. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Always got her nose stuck up in the air.’
‘They’re all like that.’
‘Her more’n most.’ Cuddy resurrected the old grievance. ‘Wantin’ to know what I was doin’ at Parramatta! ’s if she didn’t know!’
Maud put the chopped vegetables into a saucepan. ‘Trying to be friendly maybe?’
‘Friendly?’ Cuddy was scornful. ‘Not her. She ’ates me cos I’m workin’ for Cash Tremain, that’s what it is. I tell you somefin – she ever marries ’im, I’ll be out the door afore you can turn round.’
‘That’ll never happen.’
‘Wouldn’t put it past her to try. She was up there yesterday, wasn’t she, when I was over ’ere?’
‘Not alone. She had that friend of hers with her.’
‘I don’t take no account of ’er! Never opens her mouth. Reckon Jane Somers’s got her twisted round her little finger.’
‘She won’t be able to do that to Cash,’ Maud Clark said.
Moodily, Cuddy inspected a hole in her apron. ‘Don’t stop her tryin’, though, do it?’
‘Fancy him yourself, do you?’
Cuddy looked up, startled; general chitchat was one thing, confidences something else.
‘Dunno,’ she said.
‘Wouldn’t blame you if you did,’ Maud said.
She had some mutton soaking to rid it of the salt in which it had been preserved. She fetched it, dried it with a piece of cloth and spread it out. She took a knife and began to cut it into chunks.
‘What you makin’?’
‘Stew. Fond of his stew, the Captain is.’
‘Fond of you, too, I reckon.’
Maud looked affronted. ‘None of your business if he is.’
Cuddy was not as easily intimidated as she had been. ‘No ’arm sayin’ it, is there?’ She thought for a moment. ‘When Cash first brought me ’ere, I thought … well, you know what I thought.’ She smiled, remembering. ‘’e never done nuffin about it, though. Suppose ’e must ’a changed ’is mind.’
Maud said nothing, but her mind was busy. Cuddy had been here four months now and she was very different from the scrawny, lousy baggage she’d been then. Forever asking questions about the things she saw, the things she heard, the things she did – everyday things, you would think, but not to Cuddy Marshall. It was as if she’d spent all her life in a cave and had now come into the light. The change of diet had made a difference, too. Maud would have sworn she had grown, both in height and in weight. Not that she was fat, but you would no longer mistake her for a boy,
All of which added up to a problem, if she was thinking of Cash the way Maud suspected. The trouble was, she was the last person to advise Cuddy on the subject. The girl was thinking that if it had worked for Maud and Gough Tremain, why not for her and Cash? It didn’t follow. Even in her own case, she never made assumptions. Gough could turn her out tomorrow if he’d a mind to. Not that he would, of course. But Cuddy and Cash … She didn’t know what she should say about that. Nothing, maybe.
‘When’s Cash due back?’ she asked.
‘Two or three days, ’e said.’
‘You’d better stay here then.’ She didn’t mention the man in the black coat. ‘Safer that way.’
Cuddy shook her head. ‘These are officers’ quarters. I’ll be all right ’ere.’
The truth was she was looking forward to her first night alone in her own home. Not hers, of course, not really, but there was no harm in pretending. For the first and possibly last time, she wanted to kid herself she was a lady.
Maud looked dubious. ‘A girl on her own in this place …’ She had placed the pot of stew on an iron trivet over the hot coals of the fire and now it was coming to the boil. She wrapped a cloth about the lid and lifted it to inspect the contents before shifting the pot closer to the edge of the hearth where the wood had burned down to white ash. She looked at Cuddy through a thin smear of steam rising from the pot.
‘Someone breaks in during the night, where’ll you be?’ she asked.
Cuddy had heard no more from the man in the dark clothes. She wasn’t worried about him. Talk, that’s all it had been. Thornton would fix her up if he could but these cottages were used by officers and officials of the colony. She was safe here. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she sa
id.
*
The night came down. Stars began to gleam over the dark expanse of the vast, brooding land. Centaur’s bows lifted to the first Pacific rollers as she stood out from the Heads and set her course for the invisible horizon.
A signal flashed from the station on top of South Head as she passed: Thornton’s watchers did not sleep. Pike knew that his sails would be visible a long way offshore, even at night, so he stood well out to sea before jibing onto the starboard tack for the trip down the coast. There was no hurry. He preferred to enter the inlet at high water and the tangle of shoals and currents off the entrance made it sensible to do so in daylight.
Centaur continued on her course under the stars-filled night while the west wind blew from astern and the occasional flash of phosphorescence gleamed from the riding seas.
*
Shortly before sunset, three men had gathered in Thornton’s office and watched through the windows as Centaur unfurled her sails and stood down towards the invisible sea.
‘She’s off, then,’ Thornton said. ‘Question is, what do we do about it?’
They were sitting in chairs grouped around Thornton’s desk.
Formal in navy blue jacket with brass buttons, Captain Owen said, ‘Surely that depends on where she’s going?’
Thornton’s pale eyes flashed. ‘She’s goin’ to yon cove down the coast. We all knows that!’
‘The point, Mr Thornton, is not where she loads but where she heads after she’s loaded.’
Jonathan rolled a quill pen to and fro across the desk top. ‘The inference is to London, surely?’
Owen said, ‘I deal in facts, not inferences.’
‘Talk round t’ harbour is she’s for London.’
Owen laughed disparagingly. He looked down on the ex-convict and saw no reason to hide it. ‘My dear sir, I need something a good deal better than dockside gossip if I’m to arrest a ship on the high seas.’
‘Nobody knows!’ Thornton told him. ‘Even the mate couldn’t say for certain!’
‘My point exactly, Mr Thornton.’
‘You wouldn’t prefer to see her master’s orders, I suppose?’ Jonathan asked sarcastically.
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