So, regardless of Friday’s promises, big talk and threats, there wasn’t a bloody thing she could do about Keegan, and it was enough to make her spit nails.
Bella Jackson’s curtain whipped open, her painted face appeared, and she roared, ‘Shut. Up!’
Everyone fell silent, or as quiet as they could be. Liz Parker sat down.
Bella retreated. Friday gave the twitching curtain the finger, hating the way Bella had insidiously managed to assume control of the prison deck while hardly ever coming out of her little rat hole, but she was right. If they played up, Holland would order the hatch locked for the day.
‘Shut up yourself, you bitch,’ Rachel whispered, her eyes fixed on the table top.
Friday stared at her, every sense suddenly alert. ‘What did you say?’ What had happened to Rachel’s high opinion of Bella?
Rachel wouldn’t look at her.
‘Rachel?’ Friday prompted.
Matilda scrambled back onto the bench, grumbling to herself and scraping lumps of gruel off her blouse. ‘This were clean on yesterday.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ Friday snapped. She felt uneasy and a bit sick. ‘Rachel, why did you call Bella a bitch just then?’
But Rachel just shook her head and hid behind her hair.
Had Bella Jackson called in her debt?
Harrie pushed Rachel’s bowl back at her. ‘Finish your gruel. You need to keep up your strength.’ She waited until Rachel half-heartedly began picking out the raisins and eating them. ‘What will you do if we go up and you do see him?’
Rachel paused, a raisin halfway to her mouth. ‘Nothing. What can I do?’
‘You won’t get upset?’
‘No. I want to see him.’
Harrie exchanged a glance with Friday and Sarah.
‘But why?’ Sarah asked again.
Rachel sighed. ‘I just want to show him I can look him in the face. I’m not afeared. That’s all.’
And Friday, Sarah and Harrie, whose long roads to Newgate had all been very different, believed her.
The morning was grey, cold and blustery, though the swell only moderate. The Isla had just crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and in a week would be passing Cape Town, then sailing into the Southern Ocean and the strong southern westerlies of the latitudes known as the Roaring Forties, at their most aggressive from July to September.
About a third of the Isla’s complement of prisoners were on deck, washing dishes, hanging bedding to air and swabbing the boards, and perhaps half the crew. Mrs Seaton and her daughters were on the foredeck taking a brisk morning constitutional, as was Matthew Cutler, who was chatting to James Downey on the port side near the bow. For the first time in five days Gabriel Keegan was also on the foredeck, though Matthew was making a reasonably overt show of ignoring him.
When Keegan had failed to appear the morning after the incident with the girl Rachel, Matthew had fretted for hours, chastising himself for such uncharitable thoughts but wondering if she — and her friend Friday — had lied to him and in fact Keegan was lying in his cabin hurt or even dead. At midday he’d finally knocked on the door and hadn’t known what to think when Keegan had called out, ‘Who is it?’
He’d announced himself and gone in, his concerns turning quickly to anger then a deep repugnance as he’d observed Keegan lounging at his writing desk, stockinged feet on the bed, happily eating cheese and pickles from his private stock and drinking wine. There had been a long, angry scratch on his face.
He’d intended to leave immediately, but instead he’d blurted, ‘There was trouble last night. I found a girl in the corridor, just outside — one of the prisoners. She said you’d attacked her.’
And Keegan had smirked and said, ‘Absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, old fellow,’ and cut himself another wedge of cheese.
Matthew had had to stifle an overwhelming urge to strike him. ‘She’d been…compromised.’
‘Compromised? A convict drap? Well, she’s lying if she says it was me. Close the door on the way out, will you?’
Matthew hadn’t spoken to him since. He had anguished over whether to report the matter to the captain, or even James Downey, but in the end he’d said nothing because he couldn’t see that it would achieve anything positive: Rachel’s friend Friday had been right.
But it was a small ship and James Downey had commented yesterday on a certain frostiness he’d noted between Matthew and Keegan: had they had some sort of falling out? Matthew, while not wishing to be rude, had said yes and left it at that, grateful that the surgeon had, too.
He hadn’t seen Rachel up on deck since that night and he wondered if she was all right. Actually, he was fairly sure she probably wasn’t. She’d looked in a terrible state. He’d thought about approaching Harriet Clarke, or even Friday, both of whom he had seen, but his nerve had failed him. Harriet didn’t even know him; and Friday, well, he suspected he hadn’t made a particularly favourable impression on her the last time they’d spoken.
He glanced over his shoulder at Keegan and saw that he’d crossed the foredeck to speak to Mrs Seaton, standing near the companion ladder that led down to the waistdeck. He hoped she had her daughters well and truly locked up at night.
‘I’m sorry?’ Matthew realised James Downey had said something.
‘The weather. I think we’ve seen the last of the sunshine for a while. At this time of year and at these latitudes it can get really quite miserable and the seas rather rough,’ James said. ‘Still, almost everyone seems to have found their sea legs.’
‘You’d expect so, though, wouldn’t you?’ Matthew remarked. ‘We’ve been at sea for some time now.’
‘Some people never do, you know. Sick the whole voyage.’ James saw that something on the waistdeck had caught Matthew’s eye and turned to follow his gaze. ‘Ah. Excuse me, will you?’
Matthew took hold of his sleeve and pointed. ‘Wait. That girl down there, the small one with fair hair?’
‘Rachel Winter? Yes, I must have a quick word with her. Excuse me, Mr Cutler.’
Feeling horribly uneasy at the notion that whichever crewman had assaulted Rachel Winter might now be on deck watching her, James took a step forwards.
Beside him, Matthew impulsively decided he couldn’t keep his awful secret any longer, not with Keegan leering and carrying on at Hester Seaton and her two young daughters less than fifteen feet away, and grabbed James’s arm again.
‘Mr Downey —’
But they were both too late.
Rachel was looking out for him even before she stepped off the ladder and onto the waistdeck. She saw him immediately, standing up on the foredeck, talking to the reverend’s wife, his tall, top-hatted figure silhouetted against the sharp, white sky.
Deliberately, knowing that Friday, Sarah and Harrie were right behind her, she looked the other way and walked casually across the deck to a spot between the foredeck and the main mast. She was amazed that regardless of her furiously pounding heart and the hot, red rage boiling up in her, she could still appreciate the feel of the salty wind on her face after the days below, though it was stinging her poor nose a bit.
Should she do it?
She had nothing to lose. Keegan had taken everything. If Lucas had come for her a week ago, he would have been fetching a girl with a convict record, no money, some not very clever domestic skills, and a pretty face. It wasn’t much, but the real gifts she’d been saving for him were her fidelity and her honour.
But they were gone now, thieved in a matter of minutes, nothing left of them but a dirty stain on Keegan’s bed linen.
She raised her eyes to the foredeck just as Keegan gave a hearty laugh and settled his hand comfortably on Eudora Seaton’s upper arm.
Yes. She would do it.
She turned and felt Sarah’s hand on her wrist.
‘What are you up to?’ Sarah said suspiciously.
‘Nothing.’
‘Well, keep it that way.’ Sarah, too, had spied Keegan, haw-hawing away w
ith Mrs Seaton and her daughters. ‘Really, Rachel, ignore him.’
‘I will,’ Rachel said. ‘I promise.’
‘Good girl.’ Sarah let go of Rachel’s wrist.
Rachel snatched up her skirts and made a break for it, sprinting for the ladder up to the foredeck. She was halfway up it before Sarah, her mouth open, started after her.
But Friday, ever watchful, was already there, only a few feet behind Rachel, until Amos Furniss appeared, hauled on her skirt and dragged her off the bottom rungs of the ladder.
‘Convicts ent allowed on the foredeck,’ he barked as he wrestled her to the ground.
Friday lashed out at him but it was too late — Rachel had already reached the foredeck.
She took two swift steps towards Keegan, who was facing the other way, and kicked him in the back of his knee. His leg buckled and he half turned, and she was delighted to see alarm flare in his eyes when he realised it was her. Reaching up she slapped his face as hard as she could.
Mrs Seaton let out a shriek and backed away, taking Geneve and Eudora with her.
‘That’s for taking what wasn’t yours!’ Rachel screamed, then punched Keegan in the stomach.
He barely registered the blow. ‘Get away from me! I’m warning you.’
Rachel raised her hand to strike him again, but he reacted first. He planted his hands on her chest and pushed her hard, the force of it driving her backwards to the top of the companion ladder. She stepped back onto nothing and seemed, at least to the women watching in horror from the waistdeck, to take an age to fall through the air, her skirt and her long silver-white hair fluttering after her, before she finally hit the deck six feet below.
She lay very still, one arm outstretched, her skirt rumpled above her scabbed knees, lines of dark blood already collecting in the grooves of the deck boards beneath her head. The women gathering around her stared down at her in shocked silence, others pushing in close to see. Harrie let out a rising wail of despair.
Then James Downey was there, crouching over her, his fingers against her throat. Behind him Matthew hovered, his face as white as his shirt.
Harrie fell on her knees beside James. ‘Is she dead? Oh, please, she isn’t, is she?’
He seemed not to have heard, his gaze fixed on Rachel’s still face.
Then he said, ‘Wait. I think, yes, I can feel a pulse.’ He glanced up and caught sight of Matthew. ‘Help me, will you? I need to get her below.’
James lifted Rachel in his arms. On the deck where she had lain was a great puddle of dark ruby blood. The crowd gasped and murmured: surely a body couldn’t lose that much of its life force and still be drawing breath? Rachel’s head lolled against James’s shoulder, her blood immediately staining the cloth of his blue jacket black. Harrie tore off her apron, wadded it and pressed it against the back of her skull. Between them Matthew and James carried Rachel very carefully down the ladder to the hospital, followed closely by Harrie, weeping openly.
Seconds later Josiah Holland came running, shrugging himself into his coat, fetched from his cabin by Walter Cobley.
‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded, then stopped short as he noted the gore all over his deck.
Friday, a great rip in her skirt and her face scarlet with rage, pointed up at the foredeck and cried out, ‘Attempted murder by that man there, Keegan! We all saw it!’
Holland lifted his gaze even as his heart sank. ‘What?’
‘He pushed Rachel down the ladder! He tried to kill her!’
Holland looked around for his crew and spied Amos Furniss. ‘Is this true?’
‘The gentleman did push a girl off the foredeck, aye,’ Furniss said conversationally.
‘What was she doing up there?’ The captain looked bewildered. ‘Prisoners aren’t allowed on the foredeck. It’s against regulations.’
‘Fuck the regulations!’ Friday screamed. ‘He tried to kill her! Bloody well arrest him, you buffoon!’
Holland’s face went a deep puce colour. ‘Furniss! Take her down to the hold.’
While Friday was being bundled away to a chorus of loud booing from the crowd, Holland went up onto the foredeck. Mrs Seaton and her daughters were huddled against the starboard gunwale, their arms around each other. The girls were crying.
‘Are you unharmed, madam?’ he asked.
‘We are well, thank you, Captain,’ Hester Seaton replied. ‘It was just rather a shock. She was quite unhinged! And then when she fell!’ She retrieved a lace-trimmed kerchief from her reticule and dabbed at her eyes.
‘Did you see what happened?’
Hester hesitated, then gave Eudora and Geneve the look they knew meant they were not to say a word. ‘Not clearly, no. We were standing over here at the time.’ It wouldn’t do Octavius’s plans for promotion any good if they were to be caught up in a scandal the minute they arrived in New South Wales. It was obvious now who the girl in the corridor the other night had been.
Josiah Holland had the distinct feeling he was being lied to. ‘I suggest you retire to your cabin, Mrs Seaton. I may wish to speak to you and your daughters later, however.’
Gabriel Keegan was sitting on a coil of rope at the base of the bowsprit with his hat in his hands, the picture of dejection. He glanced up as Holland approached.
‘Captain. I am as appalled as you, I really am. Obviously it was an extremely unfortunate accident. And as for her absurd allegations, I have no idea to what she was referring.’
Holland experienced a very unpleasant stab of anxiety. ‘What allegations?’
Rachel’s hair looked as though it had been dyed the colour of garnets.
She lay on the examination table on her side, breathing shallowly, one leg straight and the other bent so she wouldn’t roll onto her face. James had carefully parted her hair over the wound and was now attempting to wash away the blood with damp lint.
‘Won’t the salt water be stinging it?’ Harrie said.
Lil Foster patted Harrie’s arm. ‘I don’t think she’ll be feeling it, love.’
Harrie nodded, choked on another sob, and dropped the tin bowl she was holding in case Rachel vomited again.
Without looking up, James said, ‘Harrie, I know this is upsetting, but if you can’t manage your emotions a little more effectively, I’m going to have to send you away. This is most unlike you.’
‘No! No, really, it’s just…’ Harrie stopped babbling and picked up the bowl. ‘I’m all right, really. Please let me stay.’
James sat up straight. ‘I’ll have to cut some of her hair.’
Harrie burst into fresh tears.
Ignoring her, James waved his hand. ‘Pass me the scissors, Lil.’
He trimmed away the blood-sodden hair around the wound, swabbed it thoroughly with a weak solution of costic, and sutured it shut with catgut threaded through a curved, ivory-handled surgical needle. Twenty-one stitches running from the top of her head, across the back of her skull to the base of her left ear.
Deeply unconscious, Rachel didn’t stir once. James had shouted in her face, slapped it lightly, lifted her eyelids and held the lamp close to her eyes — both pupils were markedly dilated, not just the right one this time — and tapped her knees and inner elbows with his plexor, all with no response. Yet she was still breathing, albeit shallowly. She had also vomited, and it had been very fortunate they had arranged her on her side or she could well have choked to death. It was clear the severe blow to her head had rendered her comatose, which was a grave state of affairs. He had seen only a handful of patients recover from coma, particularly those caused by blows to the head, and to his knowledge most of them had gone on to live lives fraught with problems both physical and mental. At this point, he didn’t know whether Rachel Winter would recover at all, let alone to what extent.
He did, however, now know who had assaulted her five nights earlier — or he thought he did — and he was at least as disappointed with himself as he was with Gabriel Keegan. It was his responsibility to oversee the co
nvicts’ welfare and he’d let his inherent snobbery blind him to the possibility that it may have been a paying passenger who’d attacked Rachel Winter, not a crewman.
Gabriel Keegan should be tried in a court of law for what he had done — for both his attack on the girl today and for his initial assault on her. As soon as he had finished here, James was going to demand that Holland arrest the fellow and sling him in the brig for the rest of the voyage. It was absurd to think he should be allowed to wander at liberty about the ship. First, however, he would have to make very sure he had his facts straight. He finished winding a bandage around Rachel’s head and tucked in the loose end.
‘Harrie? Rachel’s broken nose: she didn’t injure herself walking into a post, did she?’
Harrie stood very still, staring down at the bowl in her hands, her ears slowly turning pink. James could see she was trying to decide whether or not to lie. It was very endearing, but at the moment not helpful.
‘I need to know, Harrie, so please tell me the truth.’
‘No, she didn’t,’ Harrie finally said. ‘Someone hit her.’
As gently as he could, given how angry he felt, James said, ‘It was Gabriel Keegan, wasn’t it?’
A look of angry defiance flashed across Harrie’s face at the mention of the man’s name. ‘Yes, it was. It damn well was.’
God, how was he going to ask this next bit? ‘And during that episode, when her nose was injured, are you aware, Harrie, did Keegan perpetrate any other harm against her person?’
‘Well, he bloody well raped her,’ Lil said, banging the bandage box back on the shelf to demonstrate her disgust.
‘Lil!’ Harrie was aghast. ‘How did you know?’
Behind the Sun Page 24