by Lena Dowling
She read the words one at a time, sounding out the trickier ones as she came to them.
Rowley frowned. ‘I don’t need to tell you. There can’t be any trouble.’
‘I know.’
Guilt tumbled down on her like a pallet of bricks. Rowley had vouched for her with the Governor. She could have done with more muscle, but if she paid for that, she couldn’t afford the fiddler and she wouldn’t be able to fix that until she was making more money. If Pikelet couldn’t keep control, it wasn’t just her who would suffer, it would be Rowls as well. The Governor trusted him because she had never put him crook on the advice he took back to the Governor, but that could all change if Rowley turned out to be wrong. Plenty would like to see him fall off his perch.
Anthony Tompkins for one.
She felt terrible about putting Rowls in that position, but what choice did she have? She had to have something that would bring the customers in. And it wasn’t as if it would be forever. It would only be until she was making enough money, and then the first thing she would do would be to pay for another doorman.
‘Are you ready for tonight?’
‘I will be once I send word that I’ve got the licence, and the barrels are in.’
‘You went to Tompkins?’
‘I had to.’
‘He’s the lesser of two evils, I suppose. You can’t be taking in anything illegal in your position and I presume you needed credit and he’s about the only one who can finagle it. You know I would have loaned you what I could.’
‘You’ve done enough. I’ll not take the bread out of your children’s mouths.’
‘You’d hardly be doing that, they’re practically grown men.’
‘Their adventures then.’
Rowley dipped his head in a rueful nod. ‘That’s just like you—always thinking of others before yourself. But I’ll admit it’s been a stretch to kit Luke out for his explorations.’
‘How is he doing?’
‘He’s had a passage through the mountains named after him. Somerset Pass.’
‘Somerset—so it’s named for you as well then?’
Rowley blushed red. It would mean a lot to him that his name would be connected with something courageous and manly.
‘That’s grand. Rowley, it really is.’
‘What sort of interest is Tompkins extorting for the credit?’
‘Ten per cent a month.’
Rowley whistled. ‘That’s barefaced thievery, even for him.’
‘It would have been less if I’d been prepared to scratch his back.’
‘Scratch or caress?’
‘You can guess the answer to that.’
‘Sadly I can.’ Rowley frowned. ‘I’m sorry to say I had better be off now.’
‘You’re not coming to the show?’ Nellie said, panicked. She had imagined Rowley would be there for her first night, that there would be at least one friendly face in the crowd.
‘That would be tricky.’ Rowley said, apologetic.
Rowley’s wife had tolerated his having her sing for their friends at their home once, but coming to a public house, to see her in the evening hours, wouldn’t go down at all.
‘I forget sometimes.’
Rowley smiled. ‘I do too.’
While Rowley’s wife knew perfectly well that there was nothing between her and Rowley, Lydia still cared how it might look to other people, especially her high-class friends. She had given in to Rowley and let him have her sing at one of their parties that one time, but only if she came in the back door, sang, and left straightaway afterwards. But it hadn’t worked out like that. Afterwards the men had all crowded around her, wanting a word. She hadn’t been able to get away for ages and Lydia was fit to be tied.
Rowley gave her arm a squeeze. ‘I’ll try and drop in later in the week to hear how your opening night went. And make sure you pin that up behind the bar nice and high where people can see you have the proper authority. Shall I stop in and give Tompkins the news?’
‘Would you?’
‘It would be my pleasure. While I’m there, I can remind him the excise attaches to the purchase price as well as the interest he’s extorting from you, just in case he had any ideas about taking a cut of that for himself. Let him know he’s being watched on that much at least.’
Rowley took a sweeping look around the room and breathed in deeply. ‘We had some good times in here, didn’t we?’
‘Especially the picnics.’ Rowley brought her food when all she’d had to live on were the rations Danny gave them. He kept them lean because he didn’t want to waste any more money than he had to on the girls, and because he was always going on about them not getting fat. And the food had also helped her and Rowley pass the time, since they’d never been doing what Rowley had paid for.
Rowley had only made appointments with her to try to scotch the rumours about him being a molly. They had ended up talking about anything and everything while they scoffed the treats Rowley brought with him: real English Cheshire and Double Gloucester cheeses, pickled walnuts and gherkins, fine white bread and sugar candies. Every week he had some new ‘find’ smuggled from home or bought from one of the warehouses selling goods that came in off the ships. Apart from the ghastly things he’d called olives, what he snuck up to her room was always delicious.
Nellie knew all there was to know about his children, two boys, and his dream of becoming Secretary to the Governor one day. And that was also how she had come to learn about his problems at work and at home and how she’d helped to solve them; well, some of them. There were some problems that could never be solved.
‘You know, at the risk of having my head bitten off, Chester’s a good-looking man, isn’t he?
‘You want to be careful where you say that, or you’ll be taken for a molly.’
Rowley’s shoulders slumped. ‘Plenty enough think I’m of that persuasion already,’ he said, sounding so sad that Nellie regretted the tease.
‘It doesn’t matter what they think.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘He’s easy enough on the eye.’
‘I’ve never heard you say that about anyone before.’
‘Rubbish. I used to tell you how handsome William was plenty of times.’
‘William, yes, but never any other man.’
‘Get away with you. I’m sure I must have.’
Rowley slid her a sideways glance. ‘Well, I’m sure you need to get ready, and if you’re anything like Lydia it will take hours.’
She wasn’t anything like Lydia. But as she said her goodbyes, she kept that thought to herself. Rowley worshipped the ground his wife walked on and who was she to tear that down?
With Rowley’s weight creaking down the stairs, Nellie opened the wardrobe.
She had spent years wearing garish, noisy silks that were cut so low it was the Devil’s job just to keep from falling out of them. Once Danny died, she’d had new gowns made up, silent ones, in sensible dull colours and heavy fabrics. But none of them would do for entertaining a crowd.
She pushed far in the back and pulled out her silk gowns, dumping them on the bed. Most women would probably have given their eyeteeth for them, all in a fashionable cut. Red, blue, pink, purple, yellow spilled across the coverlet. To anyone else, the sea of colour might have even looked beautiful.
But she had never thought she would wear them again. She had only kept them for a rainy-day fund. The silk made them worth something in the colony, where not much cloth got made except coarse and ugly stuff. If it came to it, and assuming she could shift them, the money might keep her out of the Factory for a few weeks, but not much more than that.
But tonight she needed to look her best for Harry. Not that she was trying to impress him. But she had to prove to him that she was capable of running this place.
She settled on the red silk. She frowned into the mirror on the wardrobe door at the fine lines that hadn’t been there before, which only made them worse. She had t
oo much colour from all the time spent tending the garden and hanging out the washing. And her hair—what a fright.
She changed into the gown and smoothed down her hair. It was the best she could do. At least she wasn’t caked in paint. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen herself. Not having to plaster herself with cosmetics anymore, she had no need of a mirror. With the guests keeping her busy from dawn to dusk, she had no time for primping herself in front of the glass neither.
She turned away from the mirror. Most of the rooms had one. It must have cost Danny a pretty penny. Glass on its own cost a fortune, but there were customers who liked the door open and positioned in such a way they could watch themselves. Customers like Tompkins.
Nellie shuddered.
She took up the licence she had left on the bed and hurried to do what Rowley had said, so no one could say she didn’t have the right to be serving drinks.
She ran down the stairs as fast as her legs could carry her, through the passage and out into the dining room, where she pulled up short. Everything she might have used to stand on to get up onto the bar, she and Pike had cleared away out into the stables. What Harry had said was true. Most of her customers came off a ship and only stayed the once. Not many arrived with a horse.
But nothing was going to get in the way of her pinning her licence to the wall. Going around the back of the counter, she found some pins then legged it up on the bar, using the shelves at the back for steps.
At first the licence sprang back, determined to spiral itself back up. She rolled it the opposite way, and satisfied it was going to stay put, she turned to get back down off the bar. It was only then she realised it was a lot easier to get up than to come down. The overhang of the countertop meant she couldn’t climb down the same way she’d got up. There was nothing for it but to sit on the front of the bar and push off with her hands and feet.
She jumped, the floor flying up to meet her; but when she struck it, only one foot was there to take her weight. The other caught fast, the heel of her shoe snagged in the hem of her dress. She toppled, reaching out with her hands, but there was nothing to break her fall.
She cursed in Irish, struggling to free her foot, when an outstretched hand, tanned and sprinkled with familiar dark hair, appeared in front of her.
‘Allow me,’ Harry said, stepping forward; and without waiting for an invitation, took her hand, grasping her opposite elbow and pulling her up onto her to her feet. He smelled earthy and musky and her skin tingled at the sensation of his hands, firm and warm on her skin.
He frowned, stepping back. ‘What were you doing? You could have broken your ankle.’
Nellie pointed to the licence pinned above the bar.
‘Then perhaps a ladder next time.’
‘And perhaps you shouldn’t sneak up on people,’ she said. He seemed to have no notion of what she had just done, pinning a licence, her licence to the wall. A woman and a convict with her name on a licence to sell liquor.
Harry looked around at the empty room. ‘How many are you expecting?’
‘Could be a couple of hundred or more if we fill it the way Danny used to.’
‘Standing room only—isn’t that optimistic?’
Nellie shrugged. Pikelet hadn’t only been thinking of numbers. He had also insisted they move out anything that could have been turned into a missile or a weapon, but she wasn’t about to let on to Harry about that. She could only hope and pray that the crowd behaved.
‘We’ll just have to wait and see.’
Harry strode around to the back of the bar and poured himself a drink.
‘You’re staying?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then mind you pay for that,’ she said, sharper than she’d meant to.
The thought of Harry staying to watch her sing gave her the jitters, but then why wouldn’t it? He held her whole life; everything she’d worked for, and everything she had dreamed of, in his hands.
***
Harry sampled the rum. Not as good as O’Shane’s stash of brandy, but not the worst spirit he had ever tried. He was about to tip the glass again to confirm his appraisal when the sound of an altercation stopped him.
Two convicts, judging by their coarse clothing, had a woman, another convict, sandwiched between them. They jostled at the door that was sufficiently wide only for two. At the jamb a scuffle ensued, neither man willing to give up his hold.
In the end it was the woman who chose, brushing off the shorter of the two.
‘Rum’s tolerable,’ he said.
‘You won’t do much better, except for maybe at that fancy club on Macquarie Street.’
It was a statement of fact but the acid in her tone was unmistakable. Nellie’s eyes burned with a sentiment he recognised, and one that tweaked his conscience. He’d had a good relationship with the villagers and the tenant farmers back home. Many he had come to count as his friends, with the Mallards being as close as a second family. Cousin Robert would be reasonable—but whether he was strong enough to stand up to his father worried him. He felt as if he had deserted them all, but there was nothing he could do about that now except take another drink and try to forget.
The bar had filled around them. A motley assortment of rank and file soldiers, sailors and convicts arriving to confirm Nellie’s optimism about patronage. There was every chance she would draw a decent crowd.
Pike appeared from out the back, placing a gnarled paw in the crook of Nellie’s arm. ‘I think you better make a start with the show.’
‘Happen you’re right.’
Harry would have escorted her to the pallets piled up for a stage, but Pike was ahead of him, shielding Nellie with his thick boughs of arms to the front from the men who stretched out to touch her or tried to catch a word.
All around him, the cry of ‘Nellie, Nellie, Nellie’ went up and Harry had to remind himself he was in a tavern at the bottom of the world about to watch a convict songstress, and not in Covent Garden to hear the latest sensation.
The raucous crowd went from tumult to near silence as Nellie’s first few notes fell like a silken blanket silencing the noise of the crowd to a murmur.
She sang songs that jogged a faint memory with words that were unfamiliar. But only to him. Much of the crowd knew every word, particularly those in the rough attire that marked them out as being on tickets of leave and therefore still in service at His Majesty’s pleasure.
All around him, men broke into to song on the choruses.
Nellie sang songs in sets, pausing between to encourage the revellers to fill their drinks, and cannily not beginning again until the lines of customers had been served.
In between, Harry helped with serving the customers.
Pike didn’t try to stop him, but for a good while he felt the man’s eyes boring into him, particularly as he took the money and gave the men their change. It irked him that the man doubted his counting skills.
After the fourth set Nellie bowed to the crowd, then gestured to the fiddler who received almost as much applause. She whispered in his ear and the musician stepped up to centre stage.
Groans and boos erupted from the crowd.
Harry jumped. A tankard smashed against the back wall behind Nellie. With her attempt to exit met with a barrage of jeers and shouts, Nellie hesitated, but the fiddler commenced with the ‘Irish Washerwoman’, and as quickly as the crowd had reared up, it was won over. Much of the crowd linked arms and kicked up their heels, providing sufficient distraction for Nellie to slip off the stage and through the door to the back.
Both concerned at what he had witnessed and wanting to be the first to congratulate her on her performance, Harry followed.
In the passageway, a lamp suspended from a hook in the corner lit the way, but he was forced to pause to allow Mr Green and another guest pass by him.
‘You put on a good show,’ he said to Nellie, who he found sitting stacking empty pie trays in amongst a table littered with crumbs.
&nbs
p; ‘I reckon we got over a hundred through the doors, at least that’s what it looked like from the stage.’
‘I bow to your wisdom. You were right about the numbers.’
Her face lit up.
It was no wonder Pike had had to shield her way to the dais, with every man’s hand outstretched straining to touch her hair, her arm, the fabric of her dress. On stage, Nellie had shone like a beacon.
The sound of a male throat clearing caused Harry to pivot around, Pike’s head and shoulders appearing from behind the door.
‘Have we got any more pies?’
‘There’s one lot left, I’ll get them,’ Nellie said.
While Nellie retrieved the tray, Pike made no effort to conversation. Lack of cheer wasn’t a crime, but it wouldn’t have hurt the man to exchange pleasantries.
‘How much do you think you would have taken in tonight?’ he asked when Pike had gone.
‘Could be as much as several pounds—depends how much more we sell before last orders.’
‘You’re very good.’
Nellie’s cheeks flushed pink. ‘The only teachin’ I ever got was what the nuns who ran the choir for the local church gave us.’
Nellie looked down, placing her hands, slender fingers entwined, on the table. In the flattering deep red gown, with her face fresh and clean of paint, it was easy to forget her past.
It would have been all easy to forget himself.
Harry straightened up, reminding himself to keep his mind on matters at hand.
‘Did you make those?’ He pointed to the pie pans empty of all but a few crumbs on the table.
‘Yes, why?’
Harry strode across to his room. ‘With the way they’re selling, you should make more next time.’
Nellie’d had a good night; but then, she’d had novelty on her side. And, he reminded himself, the arrangement was only temporary.
***
The morning after her first night back on the stage, Nellie made her way down the empty bar room following vicious sweeps of her broom, right to the back of the bar where Harry had been standing.
Right in her spot, putting her off.
