The River Sings

by Sandra Leigh Price

  Too long I’d been his creature, his proxy, his doll. I’d chosen Fookes as much as he’d chosen me. Neither of us had stolen each other’s hearts, what we had we had given freely. I’d have my life as if it were a kingdom and I’d live it as my own queen. I stood from the table and swept all with my hand. Time slowed. The dish of water made a crown of droplets before it splashed onto the cobbles and turned the colour of blood, the dish clattering beneath the table, spinning on its base. The Coronation mug hit the ground and cracked, the silver, half cooled and half cooked, oozed out like a wound that wouldn’t be stopped, leaving a silver pool on the floor.

  I opened my drawers and piled everything I owned on the bed; I’d not had time to gather all the things that Fookes had collected, I didn’t even have a bag. Makepeace came through the door, her chatelaine silently folded into her skirt.

  “What on earth are you doing?” she said, looking at all my linens, my few clothes and my bonnet on the bed.

  “Did you know about his plans? To keep me here for himself, to be his hands and eyes and ears and not follow Fookes at all?” I said and Makepeace began to cry. I stood transfixed by it, her tears welling up in her eyes, her face cracked and contorted. She reached into her pockets for a handkerchief, but on finding none swept the lace cap from her head and wiped her face. Makepeace had been my one constant, the house’s erstwhile keeper, my guardian, my grandmother, she’d been all the family I’d had to rely upon.

  “I kept his return secret, yes,” she sobbed, “but I did it for you, to allow you your peace, your chance to follow the road that called you.”

  “So you encouraged me to marry Fookes to get out of my father’s way?” I said, folding my clothes into the smallest parcels that I could make of them.

  Makepeace came and put her arm on mine. “I encouraged you to find your way out, to find some life, to have your own fresh start,” she said and I looked at her face, washed with tears. “But what am I supposed to do? He is my child, Eglantine, the baby I gave birth to and raised as best I knew how. All these years he was gone from us, but for him to return, is it not a miracle? Isn’t it the will of Saint Sarah, to bring him home across the waves? Perhaps one day you’ll understand what a mother’s love is,” she said. She looked at me squarely in the eye until I had to break her gaze.

  My father appeared in the doorway and looked at all my belongings spread out, some in piles, some still strewn, and looked from Makepeace to me.

  “Amberline, you owe it to her, the truth about Patrin. She has the right to pay her respects,” Makepeace said and I watched my father lean on the doorframe, letting the house support him, bear the weight of whatever he’d withheld from me all this time.

  “When is your ship due to sail? Though why you’d want to go to that forsaken place, it’s beyond bearing, but I see now that you are your own woman, Eglantine, and I’ve been too hasty. Forgive a poor father who has missed his family for wanting to keep you close, to make up for lost time.”

  But I knew about time, you never made it up, it was as shimmering as a rainbow in a raindrop and was only allowed its allotted space before dispersing. I could no more make up time than be back in my mother’s womb nor alter the creature I’d become at my father’s making, but I could surge forward, read my own signs, strike out, my feet were Romany after all, my shoes yet tried as a traveller’s.

  “A month,” I said, looking at him briefly before I continued ordering my clothes. I felt all my hackles rise; would he bar my way through the door, would he turn the key and try to keep me his own little convict?

  “Would you stay this month then and not leave early? Let me make it up to you, Eglantine. All the time I was away all I thought of was returning to see you grow, but you’ve gone and grown into a woman without me.” He managed a smile and straightened himself. He walked towards me, a limp in his gait that he tried to disguise by walking slowly.

  Makepeace stood, watching, and I tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at me; between the two of them I felt the pull of the third, the tiny swell of a human life.

  What was a month? For one born already it was but a cluster of days in a season, but for an unborn baby it was like my mother’s namesake, a patrin, the signs of the leaves, each month a different message telling it to grow, to turn, to unfurl into the baby it would become. For the first week my father took to his bed, the miasma of London air seeping into his lungs with a wild cough rattling through the floorboards. Makepeace gave him teas and broths and concoctions made from the simples she bought, her own herbs neglected by inattention, while she helped me gather all the things the immigrant guide suggested – Fookes’s money disappeared into six chemises, six pairs of stockings, two flannel petticoats, two lighter petticoats, two pairs of good shoes, one warm cloak with hood, one hat or bonnet for hot weather; our needles worked in unison in the kitchen listening for my father’s call. At the back of my mind was always the thought that he’d prevent me from going, that the knocking would come again. Makepeace and I dared not open the door, we kept the curtains drawn and took extra care in case it was the law. In the night my father called out, his shout into the silence making me wake in a sweat.

  As he gained his strength he bade me sit by him and show him my hands, my long fingers and fine wrists, his hands running over their veins and the shape of my nails, and I let him.

  “Remember the game we used to play, Eglantine, how light your touch was? Do you think you can still remove the handkerchiefs without the bells ringing?” I drew my hands away. He shuffled over to his chest of drawers, forgetting that Makepeace and I had cleared the lot out to take in lodgers. He opened the drawer and on seeing it bare shut it with a bang.

  “Was there anything of mine kept?” he asked, but there was nothing to say that would satisfy him.

  “You don’t know what you are heading into, Eglantine,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed in his clothes that Makepeace had laundered and mended. I’d not go pluck coins for him as if they were just fruit from an overhanging tree. He licked his thumb and wiped a thread off his jacket. “It’s not bloody Eden, not by a long shot, no Elysium, it’s at the end of the earth.”

  “Well what is it like then?” I said, watching him flex his fingers and shift his coat onto his shoulders.

  “It’s hell, that is what it is. But you can make hell hospitable if you can deal with the devil. The voyage was death, but once we were all chucked off the ship we were assigned masters to work for, but allowed to return to our own huts and have the evenings for ourselves. I’d never felt more like a Romany in my life, living in a lean-to, the weather mild, seeing the stars wheel across a southern sky, woken by the crazed caw of the cockatoos sharpening their beaks on the bark of my hut.

  “The first master I had was a kindly man who had me mind his sheep and move them from pasture to pasture, but it is an idle man’s job and my mind grew idle until the blacks came and helped themselves to the flock and my master returned me to the depot. My next master was a despot, tight with the food and quick with the punishment, but I’d not be a slave to any man. He was a Methodist minister who avoided the rum and lived closer to the town. He picked me from the depot to care for his horses, though the only thing I knew about horses was from observing how gypsies dealt with them when I lived with your mother’s family, but I knew that rum was worth more than gold to some. He kept jugs of it in his stable, not to drink but to use as currency, so I took my chance and filtered off whatever I could, replacing it with water. From my cot next to the horses I woke every morning with the smell of the sea, the air crisp with eucalypt and a possum who used to scratch his way across the roof, furrier than a cat he was and had a louder hiss as well. When I rode my master to the city for his services, I’d wander off down to the harbour to watch the tall ships unload their goods and scavenge any remainders, the sailors all chattering their different languages like a flock of parrots, selling off whatever I’d harvested from my dry Methodist until I was able to buy myself some sailo
r’s clothes and sign on, knowing this house with you in it waited for me.”

  I looked at him squarely, sensing the thin gossamer threads of a lie. It wasn’t his words that gave him away, it was his hands, they grew stiller and stiller as his story went on.

  Bang, bang, bang! My father and I started at the mad knocking again; the sound of it made my father shrink into himself, every pore of him listening. Though he’d regained his robustness, his skin browned by the sun, he seemed to blanch and go transparent, his hand to his heart, breathing ragged. The knocking was persistent and determined for the good part of a quarter hour and then at last it went quiet. Makepeace appeared in the doorway, her mortar and still in her hand, the blooms of the foxglove mashed beneath the pestle. She bid my father open his mouth and she dipped the tip of her finger in the mash and wiped it on his tongue, leaving him gasping for a sip of water. I passed some to him and he drank it down.

  “The man is still on the doorstep, Amberline,” Makepeace said. “He seems most determined to strike camp there. Who is he and what does he want?” My father looked at each of our faces, lay down and turned to the wall. That man was the truth my father was hoping wouldn’t speak.

  Makepeace and I left him and closed the door, the sound of the knocking started up again and echoed through the house, leaving Makepeace and I stranded on the landing, feeling like the house was being demolished knock by knock around us.

  “Come, Makepeace, out with it, who is it at the door?”

  But she shook her head. “He’s not said a word. His heart has been strained by all he’s been through. He makes light of it, tells it like a snippet from the papers, but I’ve seen his back, turned to rope with the lash,” she said, her voice wedging in her throat. The knocking continued.

  The banister was slippery beneath my hand as I held on to it for support and took each step as slowly as possible, avoiding the step that creaked, avoiding walking on my heel, I needn’t have worried for the knocking concealed any sound that I made. Makepeace’s footsteps followed behind me, her chatelaine silenced.

  I stood behind the door, watched it rattle in its frame and when the knocking halted again I opened the door an inch, wedging my foot behind it. On the doorstep stood a gentleman of means – his coat collar high around his neck, a snowy cravat tied with a fine knot at his throat. As soon as he saw me he swept his hat from his head and raised it in the air, his hair oiled down, pressed with the circle of the hat, like the puddle of water one made when adding water to yeast.

  “Good morrow, miss, I’m here to make an appointment to see Mr Stark, who I believe is at this residence,” he said, his vowels so round that I could have stuck my finger in his mouth and popped a bubble.

  “And who are you to be asking?” I said bluntly, not liking the cut of him, his fine clothes, his tone.

  “A gentleman, that is all. You may call me Mr Royston. And you are?” he said, leaning in, his hand coming around the door like an insect. “Don’t tell me – his daughter, he’s spoken highly of you, he has, all the way from Sydney to London.” He looked me over as if I was a piece of porcelain that had endured the fire only to be found wanting with a hairline crack.

  “Whoever you are, sir, please state your business and be gone,” I said, standing closer to the gap of the door, ready to throw my weight on it if I needed to. I’d not be intimidated by a dandy.

  “Of course he gave me a pretend address, but I caught him in the noose of his own lie now, didn’t I? Just tell your father, Miss Stark, that I’ve come to have his debt settled and to take rightful ownership of all he promised me,” he said and laughed, reaching out his hand to touch my cheek. Shocked, I used my shoulder to try and force the door closed, but his hand was already on my neck, his arm barring the door from closing.

  “It’s Mrs Fookes, I’ll have you know, and my father is in New South Wales,” I said, extracting his hand from my neck, readying my knee for his groin.

  “Is he now?” His eyes smiled. “If he reneges his side of our agreement,” he patted his coat pocket, “I’ll be forced as any good citizen should to notify the correct authorities as to his whereabouts.”

  “You do that,” I said, “for he’s not here, and they’ll arrest you for the nuisance you are.” With great effort I pushed the door closed. He narrowly avoided having his fingers broken with the force of it.

  Makepeace and I stood behind the door, waiting for the blows to rain down on the other side, but they didn’t come. I was livid, still feeling the damp suede imprint of Mr Royston’s gloved fingers on my neck. I looked to Makepeace, but she wouldn’t meet my eye.

  My father stood at the top of the stairs, shaking his head.

  “What tangle have you made, Amberline?” Makepeace said beneath her breath. “Untangle it.”

  He beckoned for us to come to him and I railed at being bid to do anything at all at his command, but I saw how unsteady he was on his feet.

  He sat back on the bed, his head in his hands. “Forgive me,” he said.

  “Forgive you for what?” Makepeace said, the anger staining her cheeks red so that she looked painted in rouge like a doll. “What is this ‘agreement’?”

  “He found out who I was, the marks on my back sign enough that I was no sailor, and I made a bargain that wasn’t mine to make, to keep myself safe until I returned,” my father said, broken and slumped.

  “What did you promise, Amberline?” Makepeace said. My father was silent. But Makepeace had no patience left for him. She slapped him on the face, her hand cracking like doom, and my father, child-surprised, looked up at his mother in shock.

  “I promised our home to him, this house,” he said so quietly it was a strain to hear him.

  “After all we’ve risked to keep it?” Makepeace said, her voice rising.

  My father looked at the floor, avoiding our faces and I recalled the touch of the man’s hand on my skin, the lines at my throat prickled hot with panic, frightened of what he was going to say.

  My father spoke again, barely able to make the words with his mouth, the ghost of his voice came through his lips. “And I promised him Eglantine.”

  I was mute with my own fury. I was not some thing to barter for and exchange.

  “You’ll fix this, Amberline, and you’ll do right for once in your life,” Makepeace said. “You’ll take Eglantine to see where her mother lies and then we’ll take whatever is needed to bribe her onto a boat to New South Wales and get her free of this mess, even if you have to go and steal it yourself.” Her voice was firm.

  “And you’ll do it tonight,” she said before leaving the room and taking me with her.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Eglantine, 1838

  In silence we packed all that would fit into a small bag; not all of the recommended list of items would fit, so Makepeace made me dress in as many layers as she thought I could stand, and with each tie of petticoat and shirt I felt the tightness around my waist increase, the heat threading up and down my torso in waves, and I willed the sickness to heal. My hands began to shake at what we were to undertake, at the thought of leaving, of saying goodbye. All the unsaid surged around us, Makepeace and I doing our best to avoid each other’s eyes, both of us stewing in our thoughts. Makepeace led me down to the kitchen and made me eat though my stomach rebelled, making me drink a cup of milk and the cream. She filled my pockets with bread for sustenance and protection and sewed whatever remained of the coins to my chemise, so that I was like Saint Sarah, readying for the moment to be carried into the ocean. We sat waiting in the cool of the kitchen for the sun to fall out of the sky and into the river. My father returned at the first sign of darkness, he had made all ready, but neither Makepeace nor I acknowledged him.

  “Have you your doll, Eglantine?” my father said and I looked at him, treating me like a child from now until the end of time. I nodded and he sighed.

  Under the cover of darkness, we scuttled along the street to the waterman’s stairs. My shoes slipped on the mossy steps. Makepe
ace led the way, her lace cap grey as moth’s wings, catching the last of the light to the wherry waiting at the bottom of the steps. My father stepped in with ease, his sea legs still upon him, and he reached out his hand to guide me in, but cumbersome as I was in my layers, I’d not take it. My skirts dipped to the black dye of water before I took my seat and watched Makepeace hitch up her skirts with one hand and twist them to the side, her stitched and worsted stockings revealing themselves like a stork’s bony knees. She sat down beside me and patted my hand as I felt the ripple of her movement into the boat, the river stretching in all directions, black as molasses, crumbs of starlight stuck in it, forever shifting. From out on the water the lamps of various vessels swung like pendulums, but our lantern remained unlit.

  My father took an oar, pushed it against the jut of the step and for a moment the rocking ceased as we glided and I felt myself go still at the relief of it, but it was brief. My father started rowing and Makepeace and I sat on our watery pew, her hand curling around mine, and I focused on counting my father’s long strokes rather than let tears fall, little traitors from my eyes.

  My father kept a cracking pace, panting with his labour. We passed cargo ships and under the shadows of bridges, the black strip of shadow beneath them darker than the inside of an eyelid. The river lulled me and I felt my eyes close watching the dark peaks and swells of the Thames, until I fell asleep and dreamed each of them was a watery hand reaching out of the water, but I didn’t know if they were ferrying me onward or trying to pull me down. I woke with a start, my father’s command in my ears bidding us to pull our cloaks over our heads, against the light.

  Beside us loomed a huge ship, its hull high above us, pouring off it the sound of singing; my father rowed harder then, using the oar to push off from the leviathan and with his steady strokes we cleared it. At some distance I saw the British Naval standards flying and felt my father’s need to be quick, for to be seen by them would return him to nothing but a fish in their net. I’d been hasty, harsh, angry. What would I have done to leave a prison, a banishment, a hell?