by Peter McAra
From where she stood at the waterfall, she looked along the beach. It ran for about a hundred yards, a smooth arc of yellow sand set against white surf and blue sea, before it ended in a barrier of fallen rocks washed with spray from the breaking waves. She must walk to that rock barrier and see what lay beyond. Perhaps she would find the wreck of the Swan. She moved slowly, nursing the stiffness in her limbs, attentive to every small thing she saw — shells half buried in the sand, curious seabirds swooping to better study the odd creature which had fetched up in their midst. But no wreckage. No bodies.
When she reached the tumble of rocks, she saw that they were covered with shellfish. She pulled at one. Its bladelike edge sliced her finger. She sucked the wound and spat the blood. How to smash the shells? She found a rock the size of a human head and threw it at the cluster of shellfish. Some of them cracked, oozed clear liquid from the exposed grey meat. They looked like the oysters she had once seen at a fair. She removed a shard of broken shell from an oyster and licked its inside cautiously, opting to taste before she swallowed the meat.
It was so good, she wanted more. She scooped the grey meat from its shell with a finger, and with a look towards Heaven, swallowed it. Surely God would not let her die from poison after the miracle of saving her from the storm. Moments after eating the shellfish, she felt better. Again and again she hurled the rock at the wall of oysters, and ate her fill.
Before returning to the waterfall to drink, she turned to take a last look at the beach. Not a piece of flotsam was to be seen. Why had not a single vestige of the ship been washed up? She climbed a few yards up the rock pile at the end of the beach to better study the movement of the waves, saw a piece of driftwood moving parallel to the shore in the current. The bearing of the morning sun told her the current was moving north, when to the best of her reckoning, she had been cast up south of the shipwreck by the wild seas. The current must be carrying the ship’s debris north, away from the beach. Back at the waterfall, she drank from the pool and lay beside it again. The warm sun, a full belly, and a strange feeling of oneness with this bland, silent place smoothed away her feral wariness. She began to relax, to doze; giving in to the pleadings of her exhausted body.
‘Aaaaaagh!’ A human groan sliced the balmy silence. It was raw, desperate. It speared fright through Eliza like a hunter’s arrow piercing a browsing deer. Her mouth dried. Where had the noise come from? She scanned the beach, the rocks, the breaking waves.
CHAPTER 19
‘Aaaagh!’ Eliza heard the horrible cry again. There could be no mistaking it for the moaning of the sea, or a seagull’s cry. It rang with the anguish of a human soul about to die in a hostile land. Eliza’s heart thudded. She scanned the length of the beach. It was bare and smooth save for her footprints. As she fixed her eyes on the far end of the beach, the sound came again — distinct, alien from its surroundings. As she made towards it, she remembered her nakedness. She snatched the wet smock from the bushes and struggled into it as she ran. Scrambling between the clefts in the rocky barrier, she reached a point where she could look down on another stretch of beach. There, at the base of the rock pile, was a human form, hunched like a baby, face down in the sand, covered with a bloodied smock. It could only be a woman.
Panting, trembling, Eliza scrambled over the rocks; stopped when she stood at the side of the softly moaning body. One leg stretched blue and swollen from under the smock. The other was folded under the body. An arm cradled the head. The hand on the other arm was bent unnaturally — broken at the wrist. Eliza knelt beside the woman, made to turn her over. As gently as she could, she lifted her. The woman’s neck fell back. Eliza pulled aside the mane of sand-caked hair from the face. It was Susannah.
Eliza sobbed. Susannah was the only friend she had made during the hellish months at sea. Then, as the storm raged, they had clung to each other, praying and weeping, in the cramped punishment box all through the long hours of the ship’s helpless floundering.
‘If we live, we’ll be friends until we go to the next world,’ Susannah had said. ‘If one dies, and the other not, let the living toast the dead every year on this day.’
‘But we might both die.’ Eliza had responded, ever the gloomier.
‘And we might both live, dear. Then there’ll be two of us to drink the toast.’ Susannah had waxed cheerful even when the shadow of death hung over them. Now Eliza remembered. Whenever she gave way to despair, Susannah turned some flippant quip. Always, this pulled Eliza’s thoughts back from the dark edges she had so often visited on this voyage to hell.
‘Susannah. It’s me. Eliza.’ She smiled at the still shape as the tears coursed down her face. The woman’s bloodied, lips twitched. A croaking sound, barely audible against the noise of the surf, emerged from her half-open mouth.
‘Eliza. My baby — coming. Help him.’ Her body arched in spasm. She groaned again. This time, the sound conveyed a resignation, a farewell, a relief.
Eliza had seen many a puppy, many a piglet, come into the world. She must lay her horror of death aside. She lifted Susannah’s smock. The crown of an infant’s head, covered with black hair, its skin wet, red, alive, showed between her legs. With a detachment she wondered at, Eliza bent to ease the head from the womb.
As Susannah groaned, Eliza worked. With each contraction, more of the head emerged — ears, a tiny squashed nose, eyes, a mouth which opened, drew breath. Then one miniature arm, another, and the tangle of the umbilical cord. With a final heave, Susannah pushed the baby into Eliza’s hands. Eliza bit the cord in two, spat the blood, then tied a knot onto the stump protruding from the baby’s belly. The wrinkled, naked creature lay on the sand. It began to cry, to flex its legs, its arms. Eliza’s heart overflowed. Tears flooded her face again.
She took the baby from the sand, held it close, still sobbing. It was a girl. Now there was joy in her tears. She looked at the baby’s face, scrutinised her perfectly formed, if squashed, features. She found a sharp shell, and gently cut off the remnants of the cord. The baby seemed unconcerned that she was covered in sand. Already she was making single-minded efforts to nurse. Eliza looked down at Susannah. She lay peacefully, eyes closed. Could she be dead?
‘Give me my baby,’ Susannah said without opening her eyes. Eliza hesitated, then obeyed. It seemed not to matter to Susannah that one of her hands was bent awry. With the other arm, she held the baby to her breast. The baby sucked with a will.
‘Water, Eliza.’ Susannah’s whispered croak woke Eliza from her trance. Her numbness suddenly melted. Susannah was near death. She must have lain between these rocks for a night and more. In her state, she could not have moved to find water. And she had just given birth. She might be about to die of thirst. But how to fetch water for her? There was no jug or pannikin. She ran to the waterfall, racking her brain for a means to carry water. At the side of the pool, she saw a carpet of dead brown grass under the low bushes growing round the pool. She gathered it as fast as she could and made it into a bundle. Then she held the bundle under water until it was soaked through. When she took it out it had grown heavy with water. She hurried back to mother and baby, trying not to spill the water from the improvised sponge. Perhaps Susannah would already have given up the ghost.
As Eliza reached them, she heard the baby’s cries. She sucked ineffectually at her mother’s flaccid nipple. Had Susannah fainted away? Eliza let water from the wet straw drop onto Susannah’s face. After a moment, she opened her mouth. As Eliza dropped water into her mouth, she swallowed it, at first slowly, then urgently. Eliza ran to fetch more. When she returned, Susannah’s eyes were half-opened. Again Eliza aimed the stream of water into Susannah’s dry, sand-encrusted mouth. Watched as her scaly tongue scraped over her lips.
‘I have my baby. Is he beautiful?’ she whispered.
‘Your baby is a beautiful girl, Susannah.’
‘Good. A boy could not survive in this Godforsaken place.’ Susannah fell asleep, smiling.
CHAPTER 20
; Choosing a day when his father paid a visit to his friend Samuel Hitchens, Harry De Havilland mounted his trusty horse Caesar. Patting his pockets to ensure that the eighty guineas from his card game at the inn was safe, he set out for London. He had already written to Maynard Hailsham, a friend from his Oxford days, who had many times lectured him on the delights of playing the stock market.
‘Why, man. I’ve seen many a young blade make a fortune before the day’s end,’ he had told his naïve friend one evening as they dined at an Oxford inn frequented by students. ‘If ever you need a quick fortune, you simply visit the exchange. What could be simpler?’
‘Yes, and the fortune I make must be the fortune another has lost, must it not?’ Harry had asked.
‘My friend, you are young, educated. You understand the industries of the world: sugar, rum, coal, tobacco, steel, ships, paper, coffee. At the exchange, you stand alongside old men, no doubt rich from their inheritance. And those men have no knowledge of today’s world. They have no need to. They visit the exchange to while away their tedious days — a thousand profit, a thousand loss, what difference does it make to a man worth a million or more? See it as a game of cards, Harry. But a game where our youth, our connection with the world, works for us. Who knows, those old men may not have read a newspaper in ages.’
Harry met Maynard as arranged, at his family seat of Brierley Hall, a day’s ride from Marley. After a few indolent days on the estate, enjoying its prolific gardens, Maynard bid Harry join him on a visit to the London Stock Exchange. They took rooms at a fashionable inn nearby, and dined there on their first evening in London. Harry watched as Maynard nodded to friends, bowed to prettily dressed young ladies. For a moment, Harry pictured Eliza in a fashionable crinoline. He tried to dismiss the thought, then decided to enjoy it. Who knows, in a day or two, he might — just might — have the wealth to thumb his nose at his father, at Agatha, and find Eliza. Sure, he might need to travel to the ends of the earth. No matter. If he had money…
‘I am, er, a virgin in the ways of stocks and shares, Maynard,’ Harry murmured as they walked to the exchange next morning. ‘As well you know. How should I…?’
‘The time is now come, Harry,’ Maynard laughed. You must lose your maidenhood. I will introduce you to my broker. Intelligent fellow, name of Elias Throckmorton. A while ago he put a sizeable chunk of my funds into a gold mine in Brazil. Trebled my money in a month.’
They entered a large hall, noisy with the shouting of men buying and selling.
‘Shares in a shipping line to the Americas.’ Harry heard the educated bellow as they walked. ‘New World Enterprises. Last sold at one guinea. Specialising in the shipment of sugar, molasses, rum. Seven ships plying the Atlantic. Two more ships to be constructed at Southampton. What am I bid?’ Then the spirited shouts from eager men who stood waving papers.
‘Ignore him,’ Maynard said. ‘We must take Throckmorton’s advice.’ In no time, they sat before a beefy individual who sat holding a mug of steaming coffee in both hands. Maynard introduced Harry.
‘Wool,’ the man said immediately, without having been questioned by the new arrivals. ‘Botany Bay wool. Fortunes being made daily. The spinning mills of England — hungry for it. Falling over each other to buy the next shipment.’
Harry smiled to himself. It would be amusing if the money his father had lost to the wool grown half a world away now found its way into his son’s pockets.
‘The Southern Cross Agricultural Company,’ Throckmorton continued, putting down his mug to rub his hands together. ‘A shipload of fine wool to arrive at the London docks within the week. Wise investors will double their money the day that ship docks. The mills will fight over that wool — bid up the price as the bales hit the dockside. Have you not heard of the scramble for fine British serge? And what is it made from but Botany Bay wool.’
‘Eighty guineas, Harry?’ Maynard intervened. ‘A trifle, but if you walk away at the end of the week with, say, two hundred guineas, then you can partake in more serious opportunities. What say you?’
‘I…’
‘Come on, man.’ Maynard smiled at his nervous friend. ‘This is no place for the faint-hearted.’
‘Very well.’ Harry counted out the money as Throckmorton scribbled on a paper. With an unspoken prayer, he handed over the handful of coins. If that money was lost — but he must put away such thoughts. Too much depended on the investment’s success.
That night, Harry found his mind possessed by the gamble he had taken. With the money he acquired over the next few days, he could pay his fare to Botany Bay and begin the hunt for Eliza. Where would he find her? She might be locked away in a secure prison, perhaps far away from Sydney Town. How would he find her? Love will find a way, his inner voice whispered.
A mere three days later, Maynard greeted his friend over breakfast. ‘Stiff luck, old chap.’
‘Stiff luck?’ Harry froze.
‘Word’s just in. Your shipload of wool. The ship foundered in the Bay of Biscay. Lost with all hands. Too bad, what?’
Harry swallowed his horror, manufactured an excuse, and left London that morning. As he rode back to Marley, paying for his lodgings with the last few pennies in his near-empty pockets, he agonised over his loss. It would take a miracle for him ever to see Eliza again. A picture of Agatha Thurber flicked into his mind, her scornful scowl etched across her pimply face. Now he had no option but to court her, marry her, sire children with her. There must come a time when he gave up all hope of ever holding Eliza in arms that ached to pull her to close to him…
CHAPTER 21
Eliza sat herself beside the sleeping mother and child as they sheltered in the shade of an overhanging cliff. By now it must be midday. The hot sun had already seared her exposed skin. She would have but half a day to care for her charges before night fell. The shade was the only good thing about their resting place. If they stayed there, a high tide might drown them. Susannah had lain sorely injured for a night and a day. Then she had given birth. Her broken wrist must be splinted, and she must be fed and made comfortable. She must be moved from this bleak spot soon. Then, please God, she might live.
Throughout Eliza’s years in Marley, it seemed that someone in the village was always with child, or giving birth, or raising babies. To Eliza, babies had been of no account. But Susannah’s child was different. Eliza had helped her into the world. She thought of the baby as a grown woman, perhaps marrying a fine gentleman, having babies of her own. Eliza fancied herself teaching it letters and telling it fairytales. She pushed these thoughts aside. At least the pool by the waterfall would provide water in plenty. For the moment, the oysters passed for food, though whether they would help a nursing mother make good milk was questionable.
Eliza ran to the pool to drink before returning to Susannah, looking about her for a place she could make into a shelter. No cranny among the tumbled rocks could pass for a place to make a home. The thought of savages had gnawed at the back of her mind since she first opened her eyes that morning. With an optimism her common sense told her was ill-founded, she decided that no savages lived at what she now fancied as her beach. Surely, no one had visited in the few hours since she had been cast ashore. There was no sign of visitation — no fires, nor the bones of animals they had killed, nor weapons. If savages visited, they would make for the waterfall. Though it already seemed like a home to her, it must not be the place to build a permanent refuge.
She returned to Susannah and her baby, having collected some oysters, and carried them in the hollow of a flat stone, wishing she had the wherewithal to bring water as well. She would turn her mind to that task later. It would be wise to find another path to where they lay. Leaving a trail of footprints across the sand for savages to follow was stupid. She set her course as high up along the tumble of fallen rocks as she could to avoid setting foot on the sandy beach. As she clambered over the rocks, a small blue bird flew out from almost under her feet. She studied the tumble of rocks and saw a wedge
of darkness at the level of her ankle. The bird must have flown from somewhere inside it.
She knelt and looked inside the dark cleft. It opened into a cave as big as a large room. Above a sandy floor, the rocks had buttressed against each other to make a vaulted ceiling. She tugged at the small slab of rock which partially blocked the entrance. It moved. She wriggled into the cave and stood, looking down at the dry sandy floor, and up at the solid slabs of rock arching over her head. Here and there, disused birds’ nests fell from niches in the face of the rock. It smelt faintly of birdlime. But it was shelter against rain and sun. It would make the perfect hideaway for them.
As Eliza walked the short distance back to Susannah and her baby, she pictured herself clearing the birds’ mess from the cave and spreading clean sand on the floor. She thought of making beds from animal skins, and cooking in pots she might make from clay, admitting to herself that this was fanciful when she had not even the means of making fire.
‘Eliza! My guardian angel returns!’ Susannah was awake. She looked deathly pale. When she moved, her face twisted with pain. As she spoke, she made a gallant effort to charge her voice with the cheeky lilt that Eliza had come to know and love. The baby slept beside her. ‘I smell food! I could eat dog flesh, green and rotting off the carcass,’ she croaked. ‘What’s my guardian angel prepared for me in the wilderness?’
‘Oysters. I picked them off the rocks. They — ’
