Behind the Sun

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Sarah,’ Adam said, ‘this is my wife, Mrs Esther Green.’

  Harrie started crying the moment she left the Factory on the morning of the 29th of September. Her new employer, Henry Overton, tried to ignore it but they had a long trip ahead of them and by the time they’d reached Homebush, where he liked to have the occasional flutter at the racetrack, he was ready to tell her to start walking back to Parramatta and bugger his bond.

  ‘For God’s sake, girl, will you stop that wailing?’

  Harrie glanced at him from beneath the brim of her Sunday bonnet. He had wavy brown hair going grey at the temples, side whiskers, a large red nose and tired-looking eyes. His frockcoat didn’t fit him very well and he wore an odd, rough-woven fibre hat to keep the sun off his face.

  ‘Come on,’ he said tetchily, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ He gave the horse’s reins a flick and they surged forwards, the boxes of fruit and vegetables he’d purchased in Parramatta sliding back against the cart’s tailgate.

  Her throat was sore from forcing out sobs and she’d run out of tears ages ago and had had to keep her head turned away so he wouldn’t notice and now her neck hurt. But she really did feel dreadfully upset. Her heart ached and every time she thought about what could happen to Rachel once Friday also left the Factory her stomach roiled with dread. Janie would be there for her, of course, but Janie, for all her kind and practical attributes, wasn’t Friday. And Friday would almost certainly go soon; she was fit and strong, eligible for assignment, and Mrs Gordon thought she was trouble and wanted her out.

  Even Bella Jackson had gone. It had been the strangest thing. First a woman had come to visit her on the Wednesday of two weeks earlier, even though inmates were only allowed visitors on Sundays. The woman had arrived driving her own phaeton and wearing smart clothes and the most enormous leghorn hat. Everyone at the Factory knew about it because the portress had told one of the nurses in the hospital, and she had told everyone else. Bella Jackson, true to form, had not said a word about her visitor, but the following Tuesday morning she was at the front gate in all her finery waiting with her trunks — this again according to the portress — and an older gentleman, quite an older gentleman, had arrived and driven off with her in his fancy rig. The story had gone round that Mrs Gordon had brokered a marriage — nasty, foul-mouthed, devious Bella Jackson married? — but if that was so, who had been the woman in the leghorn hat?

  But even if Bella Jackson had managed to hook a husband, she was still a convict working out her sentence and assigned to a master, though one, if the union was successful, who could potentially offer her a life similar to that of a free married woman while she did. She could share in her husband’s business affairs if he permitted her, be mistress of her own home, and raise a family — though the general consensus was that she was more likely to eat a child than raise one. But she would have to work for it. If the marriage failed before she’d obtained her ticket of leave — which, if you behaved, you could apply for after four years if your sentence was seven, or after six years if you were doing fourteen as was Bella, or eight years if you were a lifer — she would be back in the Factory awaiting reassignment to the same dreary, laborious servants’ positions as everyone else.

  With a ticket of leave, however, she could work as a private individual or start her own business — clearly she was very capable of that — and also be ‘off the stores’, meaning that the colonial government was no longer responsible for supporting her. She would have to pay a fee for the ticket, but that wouldn’t be a problem for Bella, and she would still be a convict in legal terms and have to attend regular musters and not be permitted to move to another district without permission. But from what Harrie had heard in the Factory, she imagined there would be plenty to pique Bella’s business interests in Sydney, especially around the rough Rocks area. And after a certain amount of time she could then apply for a conditional pardon, a remission of her original sentence, though she would not be able to leave New South Wales, and then ultimately an absolute pardon, meaning she could finally return to England. All providing she kept out of trouble, of course. And no doubt she would, as Bella seemed adept at getting other people to do her dirty work for her.

  It seemed so unfair to Harrie. Bella was such an unpleasant and obviously corrupt character and she’d swanned out of the Factory to a life of comfort and relative freedom in a matter of days. Friday had been absolutely spitting.

  ‘I said, cat got your tongue?’

  Harrie realised Mr Overton was frowning at her. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Overland, what was the question?’

  ‘Overton. Not Overland, Overton. And I said, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been bawling like a calf since we left the Factory.’

  Harrie put as much of a sad little wobble in her voice as she could manage. ‘I miss my friends.’

  Mr Overton rolled his eyes. ‘We’re only just out the gates this morning! I asked for a girl with a sound constitution, a good mind and no fear of hard work, not a homesick little halfwit!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Overland. I’m trying, I really I am.’

  ‘It’s Overton, for God’s sake!’

  Harrie looked away, terrified she might smile. She didn’t think it was just her annoying him, though; he’d been out of sorts when he’d arrived to collect her from the Factory. Perhaps he’d been short-changed when he bought his onions, potatoes and carrots. He was a grocer, selling fresh produce and dry goods in Sydney. He was married and had several children and her job was to help with the little ones and the domestic work while Mrs Overton assisted in the shop.

  In a long letter she’d sent off the other day, Harrie had also told her mother and Robbie, Sophie and Anna that the Overtons were well-off and lived in a lovely big house on a hill overlooking Sydney Harbour with gardens full of flowers and fruit trees and a pond with goldfish, and that she was very lucky to be working for such a generous and well-respected family. She’d made it up but her mother would never know that. It would set her mind at rest, though, and so would the money she’d included in the letter to cover the enormous cost of receiving it.

  They rode in silence for some time and, with every jolt and bounce of the cart, Harrie became more aware she needed to pee.

  Mr Overton said, ‘You were transported for shoplifting, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And what was it you pinched?’

  ‘A bolt of cloth, sir.’

  ‘Well, I’m warning you, if I catch you stealing anything from my shop, or my home, I’ll have you up in front of the magistrate so fast your feet won’t touch the ground, understand?’ Mr Overton said, looking at her sharply.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ As if I’d want to steal your poxy carrots or green potatoes.

  Eventually they came to a hotel. Mr Overton pulled off the Parramatta Road, climbed down off the cart and went inside, leaving Harrie sitting by herself. She wondered, just for the very briefest of seconds, if she grabbed the reins and took off, how far she’d get. But she really did have to get down if she wasn’t to embarrass herself, so she slid off the seat and walked around the side of the hotel looking for somewhere private to squat.

  There were four or five big wooden barrels stacked against the wall and if she kept her head down and her bum in, and no one walked around the building from the opposite direction or looked out of the window from above, she should be safe. She hoisted her skirt, crouched and let go. Honestly, it went on forever, the wee making a widening lake in the dirt between her boots, but finally tapered off to a few last dribbles and stopped. She shook herself and straightened, and that’s when she heard it: a tiny squeak so piteous her heartstrings twanged like a fiddle’s.

  She turned around, searching for the source. It came again, a reedy little mewing, but still she couldn’t see where it was coming from. And then, finally, on her hands and knees, she did.

  Wedged between two barrels, right at the back against the wall of the hotel, its eyes glittering in the shadows, was a very
small kitten.

  ‘There you are,’ Harrie whispered. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

  The kitten opened its mouth but this time nothing came out.

  Harrie reached into the gap, her palm grazing the egg-shell fragility of its skull beneath silky fur, pinched its scruff between her thumb and index finger and carefully pulled it out. It hung shivering from her hand, bright blue eyes blinking in the sunlight, back paws curled against its tummy, front paws extended like little starfish.

  It was black and white, but quite possibly the oddest kitten Harrie had ever seen, with a face divided exactly down the middle by black fur on one side and white on the other. But it was very fluffy, which, in Harrie’s opinion, more than made up for its unfortunate colouring. It surely couldn’t be more than three or four weeks old and weighed almost nothing.

  ‘Aren’t you the sweetest little thing?’

  It squeaked again, revealing a pale pink tongue and the beginnings of miniature teeth.

  ‘You must be hungry. Are you?’

  No response. It certainly wasn’t very warm. Harrie cupped its quivering little body in her hand and had another good look around the barrels in case there were more, but couldn’t see any. Obviously she couldn’t leave it here to starve or be eaten by…whatever ate defenceless kittens in this part of the world.

  She slipped it down the front of her blouse so that it settled just above the waistband of her skirt and hurried back to the cart. Rachel would love it.

  As Mr Overton drove the cart down George Street, still reeking of the whisky he’d imbibed earlier, Harrie saw Sarah outside a shop, cleaning the windows. Her heart almost leapt out of her chest and she shouted out her friend’s name at the top of her voice, almost deafening Mr Overton, who clapped his hand over his ear.

  Sarah heard, turned and waved wildly as the cart rattled past.

  Harrie grinned hugely and waved back.

  ‘At least something’s put a smile on your face,’ Mr Overton grumbled.

  Harrie was still smiling when they turned left off George Street into Charlotte Place past what Mr Overton informed Harrie was St Philip’s Church — which had what Harrie thought was a strangely ugly fat round tower on the end of it — and had to stop temporarily to allow a group of shabbily dressed men to cross the dirt and gravel-strewn street, their leg-irons clanking as they shuffled along in single file.

  ‘Convict work gang,’ Mr Overton observed morosely. ‘That was me fifteen years ago.’ Then he brightened. ‘Not now, though. Self-made man, I am.’

  He flicked the reins and they drove uphill then turned right into a street named Cumberland. The street headed north towards the Battery at Dawes Point, around which the women from the Isla had been rowed from Sydney Cove on their way up the Parramatta River, but Harrie had no sense of direction and no idea where she was now (and hadn’t then, either). She would have to walk these streets half a dozen times before she found her bearings.

  Mr Overton was a shopkeeper, so she wasn’t surprised when the cart slowed outside a store. The street itself was pleasant enough, a mix of cottages and shops on the side of a hill overlooking the harbour — a street where tradespeople lived and worked, she thought. And perhaps even wealthier types, as farther along, towards the northernmost end of Cumberland Street, she spied the chimneys of grander houses, though on the hill below, in the narrow lanes and alleys, roofs crowded together and backyards were mean and dank, and the stink of cesspits and slaughterhouse rose up on the sea breeze.

  The little whitewashed cottages on Cumberland Street, however, had verandahs and occupied plots with enough room for trees and gardens; one even had birds in a cage near the front door, a pair of pink and grey cockatoos. Harrie had seen them in the trees outside the Factory and heard their dreadful screeching racket, too.

  Mr Overton didn’t stop outside the shop, however, but turned the horse down an alleyway at the side of the store, arriving in a fenced and roughly cobbled yard littered with dog turds and crowded with wooden crates and barrels and pallets. A boy of around eight, about to hurl a stick for a squat white bulldog, froze when he saw the cart.

  Mr Overton glowered. ‘Toby! I thought I told you to work in the shop today!’

  Toby dropped his stick; the dog grabbed it and raced off with it. ‘I am in the shop!’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘I’m having my tea. Merry’s behind the counter.’

  Harrie looked around. On one side of the yard a single stable sat adjacent to a shed whose door was fitted with a solid, dully gleaming padlock. In the opposite corner was wedged a chicken coop, though the chickens were roaming freely, annoying a tethered goat munching its way through a pile of hay and the remains of a cabbage. Between the stable and the coop lay a cesspit, its ill-fitting lid doing little to curb the stench rising from it.

  She slid down from the cart, careful not to wake the sleeping kitten nestled against her midriff. Rescuing it had seemed such a marvellous idea at the time, but she was fairly sure convict servants weren’t allowed to keep pets. And it had done a wee — she could smell it.

  ‘Get your things, Harriet, and follow me,’ Mr Overton said.

  Harrie hoisted her Factory-issue bag over her shoulder and followed him through a back door into a tiny vestibule with just enough room for a wall of shelves loaded with packets and paper bags and jars, and a narrow staircase. From upstairs came the sound of a child wailing. Peeking through the door that led into the shop, Harrie saw a girl of about ten or eleven behind the counter serving a customer.

  The wailing grew louder as Harrie ascended the stairs behind Mr Overton, praying fervently the kitten wouldn’t wake up, Toby thumping up behind them. At the top there was no landing: the stairs simply arrived in the middle of the Overtons’ parlour. A large, harassed-looking woman with dark brown hair escaping from a house cap sat in an armchair rocking an infant perhaps a year old. The baby wore a white cotton gown and a broderie anglaise bonnet, though the bonnet had slipped sideways to reveal an extraordinary shock of black hair. Its face was bright red from bawling.

  On a sofa opposite perched a little girl embroidering a handkerchief, her tongue sticking out like a tiny round of boiled ham, and on the floor sat a toddler making a high-pitched, slightly frenzied humming noise as he played with a spinning top he couldn’t make spin. The moment he saw his father, he pushed himself to his feet and lurched towards him, anchoring himself to Mr Overton’s trouser leg.

  Throwing his hat on a side table, Mr Overton announced, ‘Susannah, this is Harriet Clarke. Harriet, this is my wife, Mrs Overton. Harriet, you’ve met Toby, this is Lydia, six, and Bart, two, and baby Johanna. Merry, my ten-year-old, is downstairs in the shop.’

  Harriet felt a pang of sadness. The children looked nice — they reminded her of Robbie, Sophie and Anna.

  Susannah Overton heaved herself out of the armchair and passed the baby to Lydia. Susannah’s stays, Harrie saw, were strained to their limits and her chest was quite remarkable, though that was understandable if she was still nursing. Her wrist bones were very fine, however, which suggested she was not naturally a heavy woman. Perhaps having five children in a row had taken their toll — though where Harrie had come from that usually wore a woman’s body to the bone, not the opposite — or maybe it was being married to a successful grocer that had filled her out.

  ‘You’re later than I was expecting,’ Mrs Overton said somewhat crossly.

  ‘Waylaid,’ Mr Overton said, as though the single word explained everything.

  ‘Bushrangers?’ Toby asked eagerly.

  ‘Business,’ his father replied.

  Mrs Overton moved closer to Harrie and looked her up and down. ‘Well, dear, at least you look healthy. The last one we had coughed all hours of the day and night and spent half her time in bed.’ She wrinkled her nose and stepped back. ‘What is that smell? It reminds me of…cats. I really can’t tolerate cats.’

  Seventeen

  1 October 1829, Sydney To
wn

  Over the past fortnight, Sarah had discovered three things.

  The first was that Adam Green didn’t own the shop or the rooms above it where he and Esther lived, but paid a significant amount of money every six months to lease the property, shops on George Street being considered prime real estate. He’d taken out the lease in 1825 for a period of ten years, with an option to renew at the end of 1835, and there were heavy financial penalties if he broke the agreement. Sarah knew this because one night she crept down the stairs from her tiny room at the top of the house, picked the lock on the drawer in Adam’s desk and went through his papers. He banked with the Bank of New South Wales and had two accounts, one for savings and one for the business. According to correspondence from the bank, the business account had sufficient in it to serve as working capital as far as she could tell, but the savings account went up and down alarmingly. This, she suspected, was probably due to Esther’s spending habits, about which Adam and his wife fought frequently.

  This was the second thing she had discovered — Adam and Esther’s marriage didn’t appear to be a very happy one. They argued often, though never when they thought Sarah could hear them, though she usually did, and the atmosphere in the small house was often frosty. Esther was fond of raising her voice, and Adam wasn’t, so Sarah had to strain to hear his side of the disagreements, which always followed a similar theme: she wanted him to make more money and he wanted her to spend less.

  The third thing was that Esther Green didn’t like her — that had been plain from the day she had arrived. Far from being the old bag Sarah had imagined, Esther was very attractive — infinitely more alluring than Sarah believed herself to be — so why she’d taken against her, and so immediately, Sarah didn’t know. It was possible she just didn’t like the idea of another woman in her house, but as Esther refused to do laundry, sweep floors, wash pots or dishes, make beds, clean fire grates, empty chamber pots, sew, dust, polish, scrub or do anything else that resembled housework, it was clear she had desperate need of one. Surprisingly she did cook, and rather well. She also enjoyed reading; fiction was her favourite, especially books by lady writers such as Jane Austen and Fanny Burney. She was intelligent, that was obvious, and Sarah wondered why she didn’t help Adam by doing the accounts for the business.