Toward the Sea of Freedom

by Sarah Lark

  “You’re useful otherwise, so you can stay. I’ve thought of something else: You’ll be married. You can have Cecil, the gardener. He’ll be delighted, I’m sure, and you can move into the old coach house. But whether that will satisfy your lust . . .” Mrs. Smithers reddened.

  Lizzie felt panic well up within her. If she lived in the coach house, she would be fair game for both men. And she would be deceiving Mrs. Smithers and her own husband. At some point she would be caught again. Lizzie saw no way out.

  “But, madam, your husband—”

  “Not a word against my husband,” Mrs. Smithers thundered. “It’s decided. I’ll talk with Cecil, and he’ll make his proposal.” She tore the basket of roses out of Lizzie’s arms and strode with dignity into the house.

  Lizzie remained helplessly behind. Now explaining was the only solution. She had to talk the matter over with Cecil. The gardener was a prisoner himself. He had to understand.

  That night Lizzie remained unmolested—Mr. Smithers was getting drunk with his guest. The man was a soldier who coordinated the employment of prisoners in the region, and he wanted to do his host a favor by sending a chain gang to clear the acacias from the garden.

  Lizzie eavesdropped on the conversation while she was serving, and Mrs. Smithers inquired about dangers the men might present.

  Sergeant Meyers, a short, stocky man with the face of a bulldog, comforted her with a laugh. “The bears are all chained up, madam—for months, at that. They’ve given up on foolishness. Over time they all become peaceful here. We raise them into good Christians, each and every one of them.” He raised his glass to Mr. Smithers.

  Lizzie turned away in disgust. She spent the night brooding desperately. How should she begin her conversation with Cecil, and what solution should she propose? In the end, it would depend on him anyway. Perhaps he wouldn’t even care about sharing her with Mr. Smithers. Then she would be lost. But with a little luck, he would refuse to take her for his wife under those circumstances. In that case, she would need to find a new betrothed as soon as possible—best would be someone influential enough that she would no longer have to work in the Smitherses’ house. Lizzie would never have imagined it possible, but she began to long for Jeremiah.

  The next morning, Cecil the gardener was busy directing the men of the chain gang. Sergeant Meyers had not exaggerated. At sunrise, an overseer drove the twelve chained men to work. Lizzie watched from the house, waiting for Cecil to be done so she could talk to him. Before she even had a chance to try, Mrs. Smithers had him called up to the house.

  “What does she want now? New plants to show off?” grumbled the cook.

  Mrs. Smithers was a passionate gardener, but she did not understand that most plants from her homeland did not thrive on their own. And she took no interest in native plants, which she thought of as weeds.

  “Well, it has to do with husbandry,” said Lizzie, sighing. She busied herself with the dusting just across the hall from Mrs. Smithers’s receiving rooms so she’d know when Cecil left.

  He seemed beside himself with joy when Mrs. Smithers finally dismissed him. Lizzie heard him thank her what seemed like a thousand times. Her own courage sank. This conversation would not be easy. Perhaps it would be better to wait until Cecil had calmed down a bit. No, it had to be now. Lizzie put her feather duster aside and walked determinedly to the garden.

  She was not prepared for his greeting.

  “Lizzie!” The short gardener beamed across his entire gnomish face when he saw her. He ran up to her, twirled her through the air, and kissed her unrestrainedly on the mouth.

  “I knew you would want it too. You were just shy, says the missus, and that’s fine by me. But now we ought to show our love.”

  Lizzie’s heart all but broke at having to destroy his joy. Though she was anything but in love with the gnome, she valued him as a kind person and a friend.

  “It’s not that simple,” she began, drawing him out of view of the house and into the shadow of a eucalyptus tree. “Cecil, I, the mistress . . .”

  As she spoke, first the joy and then the color drained from the gardener’s weathered face.

  “So you don’t really want to marry me?”

  Lizzie sighed. “Cecil, what I want has nothing to do with it. I’d be happy to marry you, but I’d remain Mr. Smithers’s property.”

  The smile returned to Cecil’s face. “But not forever,” he said. “We’ll save a bit, and then move elsewhere. And the Cartlands will come back sometime too, you know. Then we’ll work for them.”

  “But not for half a year,” said Lizzie. “At the earliest. Until then . . .”

  “Oh, I can stand it until then,” Cecil declared generously.

  But I can’t! Lizzie wanted to scream. Most of all, she did not want to marry an idiot who did not even recognize the risk of sacrificing her to every horny goat without a fight. Or did Cecil expect some advantage from the arrangement? Would he allow Mr. Smithers’s continued adultery with his own wife for more money and a better position?

  “The offer stands until tomorrow,” Cecil said, beaming with joy. “The missus’ll handle things with the reverend. And you’ll have your pardon!” Cecil had received a pardon himself four weeks before, and with her marriage, Lizzie would be free too. But she had rarely felt so confined.

  Cecil returned to his flowers. Pensively, Lizzie looked over at the chain gang. Martha had charged her with bringing water to the men. She might as well do it now.

  Lizzie filled a pitcher at the well. The men were supposed to have their own cups. She made her way to the acacia jungle in the rear section of the garden, keeping her head lowered as propriety demanded.

  “That’s enough water. Don’t you recognize me at all, Lizzie?”

  Lizzie was just pouring water for the first man in the row, after politely greeting the overseer, when a tall, dark-haired convict spoke to her excitedly.

  “Lizzie Owens, my little angel on the ship?”

  Lizzie looked up, disbelieving, but she recognized the soft, deep voice with the Irish accent from his first words. Michael Drury’s shining blue eyes flared almost rakishly at her.

  “And once again, you don’t leave anything out,” he teased. “What a greeting that just was. Since when do you favor leprechauns?”

  “Excuse me?” Lizzie asked, confused.

  She was already upset, but Michael’s sudden appearance completely rattled her.

  “Leprechauns, gnomes, dwarves—that’s what we call fellows like your short friend there, in Ireland.”

  Michael gestured deprecatingly at Cecil, who was just then toiling to prepare the hard soil for new seeds from England.

  Lizzie pulled herself together. If she were to show weakness now, if she were to reveal the feelings that welled up anew at the sight of Michael, she would never again be able to approach him unselfconsciously.

  “A short man, but a free one,” she mocked. “You, on the other hand, Michael Drury: a year in Van Diemen’s Land and still in chains? Yet all you did was steal a few sacks of grain. Or was that a lie?”

  Michael shrugged. “Perhaps something of an understatement, like yours about the bread.” He winked at her. “Maybe I sold a little whiskey too. How about you?” He smiled.

  Lizzie smiled back, pained. “To be in chains here, you must have done more than that.”

  She struggled to remain calm and, above all, to keep her expression under control. The overseer did not need to know that the two of them were old acquaintances. Slowly she went from one man to the next, pouring them water while she continued to banter with Michael.

  “Three escape attempts,” Michael admitted. “The first on the very first day. I thought it was a good idea to sneak back on the Asia, since I already knew its darkest corner. Direct passage back to Ireland.” He laughed.

  Actually, not such a bad idea. “What went wrong?”

  “I should have waited for them to clean and unload that tub,” Michael said resignedly. “So, they caug
ht me straight away. And then . . .”

  Lizzie had finished pouring water. Everyone had drunk, and the overseer was watching her, likely wondering why she was still hanging around the prisoners. She had to return to the house.

  “Michael, I have to go,” she whispered. “But tomorrow is Sunday. I’m free in the afternoon. Where can I find you?”

  Michael arched his eyebrows. “You mean, where can you find us? We stick together, as you can see. Outside a cell, you’ll only find a chain of us. But Sunday afternoons we are allowed a little fresh air. Somewhere between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth devotional.”

  The other men laughed.

  “Simply walk down the new road. Our barracks are on the river. The old ones from the bridge construction workers. They’re accordingly bug ridden.”

  The overseer raised his whip meaningfully and looked at Lizzie. “Break’s over, men.”

  Lizzie waved and raised her pitcher toward the overseer. “I’ll come,” she whispered to Michael.

  The next morning, she was to see yet another old acquaintance.

  As on every Sunday, she followed the Smitherses to church, although this time she was on the arm of the beaming Cecil. Mr. Smithers looked sheepish. His wife had probably not left him in the dark about why she cared so much about Cecil and Lizzie’s marriage. Lizzie walked with an unhappy face. She could not even muster a smile at the reverend’s congratulations. The cook patted her shoulder comfortingly.

  Suddenly, Sergeant Meyers and his wife demanded all her attention. The soldier greeted the Smitherses from the church entrance. His wife stood, tall and elegant, next to him. She wore a simple brown dress adorned with a lace collar and lace gloves over her delicate hands. A lovely little hat with a cream-colored band sat atop her hair, which she had tied at the nape of her neck into a supple bun. She had black hair, eyes like dark diamonds, and a delicate complexion.

  Lizzie stared in astonishment at Velvet, the watch thief from London. Velvet politely offered Mr. Smithers her hand, saying a few obliging words. Only with a wink did she reveal to Lizzie that she, too, recognized her old cellmate. Then she followed her husband, whom she towered over by half a head, into the church.

  Lizzie could not concentrate on the service. So that was why Velvet had consented to be married. Sergeant Meyers held an elevated post; no doubt he was well paid and could count on a good pension and several acres of land when his military career was over. Lizzie had not known that even such well-off men sought their wives among the convicts, but Velvet was a beauty. Sergeant Meyers was ugly; in England, he might have found a more virtuous wife, but certainly not one nearly as attractive.

  After the service, Velvet and her husband took a ride with the Smitherses. The women had not seen the progress of the road construction in a long time, and Mrs. Smithers wanted to know what her husband did during the week. Velvet climbed gracefully into the chaise, waving surreptitiously to Lizzie. Lizzie merely intimated a wave. Neither of them would gain anything from publicizing their acquaintance.

  Lizzie needed to escape Cecil’s company if she was going to see Michael that day. Unfortunately, the little gardener stuck to her like a barnacle, laying out his tragic life story to her while leading her on a long walk.

  Born the youngest of fifteen children on a farm in Wales, he had fled poverty and hunger and gone to Cardiff. He made a few trips as a sailor but was not very good at it, then made another attempt at farming. Finally, he stole a sheep and was promptly apprehended. That brought him to the colonies.

  “And next time, you’ll tell me your story,” he said. Then, to Lizzie’s great surprise, he said, “Now I’m going to meet with a couple fellows.” Cecil furtively withdrew a pint of whiskey from his pocket. “The master gave this to me to celebrate the engagement.”

  Lizzie shook with rage. Could he not share the booze with her? Good Lord, she could use a couple swigs after the last few days. And worse yet, it had already begun: Mr. Smithers was giving Cecil whiskey, which he accepted gratefully. The two were getting to be well acquainted. What was a wife between friends?

  Lizzie walked down the new road, which was not all that new. Convicts had built the red bridge over the river almost twenty years earlier. Now they mostly did expansion and repair work. On the Elizabeth River, near the bridge, lay the barracks.

  The men in Michael’s gang were enjoying themselves by the river. Two of them had built a makeshift rod with which they tried to fish, but it looked like they were new at it. A few of the others tried to explain what they were doing wrong, but they went ignored.

  Michael gave Lizzie a warm smile as she walked down to them and sat next to him on the riverbank. The river was lovely and peaceful. Plants that Lizzie would have called water lilies floated on it. Probably, though, they were something completely different—nothing in Van Diemen’s Land was quite what Lizzie expected.

  “You’re late. Did your leprechaun keep you so long?” he teased.

  “My betrothed took me on a walk,” Lizzie said with dignity.

  The chain gang laughed, and the men yelled bawdy jokes at her. Each of them offered to marry her, promising greater pleasure than she could enjoy in Cecil’s arms.

  Lizzie frowned and cut them short. “Boys, as it is, you couldn’t have me alone anyway. Now, out with it, Michael Drury. What did you do that they still have you in chains?” She glanced at his wrists, which were red and raw where the chains rubbed. “Heavens, you’re hurt again. You’re lucky it doesn’t get hot here; otherwise you’d have flies bringing you another fever.”

  Michael shrugged. “I’m smarter now, you see. But it takes time to learn. It was stupid to run away unprepared. But I had hoped there would be bigger cities here where a fellow could disappear.”

  “Even prepared, it’s just as hopeless,” said one of the convicts. He was not shackled, and he also seemed to know how to fish, having apparently caught three that now lay next to him on the beach. “The cities are glorified villages, and the whole thing’s an island, in case you lot haven’t noticed. You can’t get out.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” one of the other men declared. Lizzie recognized the sailor who had come over on the Asia in the berth next to Michael’s. “We have a plan, anyway. As soon as they let us out of these chains, we’re off.”

  Michael nodded and threw a rock into the water.

  “You still want to escape?” Lizzie asked, stunned. “If you’re caught again, you’ll spend your whole sentence in chains. Accept it, Michael. Without a ship, captain, and crew, you won’t reach Ireland.”

  “Ireland, no,” said Michael, sticking a blade of grass in his mouth. “But . . .”

  “Now, don’t reveal the plan,” warned the sailor. “The moll is after a pardon. You hear it, don’t you? She’ll betray us.”

  “You’re doing a good enough job of that yourselves,” Lizzie said angrily. “Who’s behind this brilliant plan, anyway? The twelve of you?”

  Unsurprisingly, two other Irish were there, and Lizzie thought there might be something to the talk of their incorrigibility. Dylan was a squarely built, red-haired young man who one could tell was Irish at first glance. His upper body was muscular. Will looked just as strong, and he was taller. He was a giant of a man with blond locks, a sloping forehead, and the small, vicious eyes of a pit bull.

  “The three of us, and Connor here as navigator,” Michael said proudly. “Connor’s sailed at sea. He’d find it blind.”

  “What is it? What would he find blind?” Lizzie stared at him.

  Dylan lamented about betraying the “secret.” Lizzie shook her head about the supposed secret, shared with twelve others—and probably half the other residents of the barracks. Not that it was a problem. No one would betray the men. Fleeing Van Diemen’s Land was so hopeless that those in charge did not bother to advertise rewards for betraying others’ escape plans.

  “New Zealand,” announced the former sailor. “It’s right nearby; the trip’d be easy as you please.”

&
nbsp; “That’s why half the convicts’ve already gone there,” the fisherman mocked them.

  “When you know what you’re doing . . .” the sailor retorted.

  “What is New Zealand anyway?” Lizzie asked. “Another colony?”

  An hour later, her head was swimming with contradictory information. Will and Dylan depicted New Zealand as a promised land; Michael had heard it was supposed to resemble Ireland; and Connor, whom they most believed, told fantastic stories of whale and seal hunting. The West Coast was mentioned again and again. Once more, Lizzie longed for Jeremiah. His reports had mostly been reliable.

  Lizzie tried to learn some things on her own. There was a globe in the Smitherses’ study, and she looked around Australia for islands, but besides Van Diemen’s Land, she only found New Guinea and few smaller islands on the other side of the country. Sailing there seemed like madness to Lizzie. You would have to sail along the entire Australian coast.

  But then she discovered two islands on the other side of the Tasman Sea: a long one and a smaller one shaped similarly to Van Diemen’s Land. New Zealand. So it did exist, and its western coast lay toward Van Diemen’s Land. But getting there meant crossing an ocean. Lizzie tried to estimate the distance, and she became dizzy.

  “What are you doing there, kitten?” Lizzie winced when she heard Mr. Smithers’s voice. “Dusting the globe? Yet you don’t even have your bonnet on.”

  Lizzie sighed. “I’m off this evening, sir,” she whispered. “But if you want, I, I can go put it on for you. Just don’t tell . . .”

  “Don’t tell what? That you were a little curious how the earth looks? Of course not, sweet, why would I? With your wedding imminent, you are surely dreaming of returning to England with Cecil. But look how far you have to sail, kitten. England is fifteen thousand miles away.”

  He kissed the nape of her neck.