The Unmourned

by Thomas Keneally

‘There’s a young fellow named James Henson. A Quaker, like Mr Nelson. He runs one of the warehouses, the one where the thefts were occurring. Seems a nice enough boy. I doubt he would welcome questions about thieving from me, though,’ Mrs Mulrooney said.

  ‘But you feel I might have more luck.’

  ‘He can be found down at the docks most mornings. He has a measure of authority to make purchases on Mr Nelson’s behalf. He’s easy to recognise, too. He is a young man, but his hair is almost entirely white.’

  ‘I shall see what I can do, then.’

  ‘See that you do. In the meantime, I have a few wrinkles of my own.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, I’ve told you about the madwoman, Lizzie. Rebecca has a great deal of affection for her, it seems, despite striking her. But she’s reluctant to let me anywhere near her now. After introducing me to her in the first place. Quite odd. And one more thing – I’ve heard two of the convicts refer to someone called the pirate queen. Any idea who that could be?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Nor I. Except … we were told stories of a woman called the pirate queen as children. And the woman’s name, as I recall, was Grace O’Malley.’

  ‘Hmm. You think there’s a connection with Grace O’Leary?’

  ‘Perhaps. I will see what else is to be known about it, and you have your job to do.’

  ‘And all this time I thought Ralph Eveleigh was my only master.’

  ‘That was foolish of you. I don’t know what Mr Eveleigh’s like but, as you know, I can be rather unforgiving.’

  * * *

  Monsarrat wasn’t sure how forgiving Eveleigh would be were he aware of the course of action his clerk intended to take.

  Monsarrat had, as instructed, reported the next morning to Eveleigh before setting out for the Female Factory.

  ‘Mr Monsarrat,’ Eveleigh said as he walked in. ‘I understand you have been in conversation with Mr McAllister.’

  ‘Yes, he approached me outside church on Sunday,’ said Monsarrat. There was no point in dissembling. Eveleigh may already be aware of the details of the conversation, in any case. ‘He suggested to me that it might be hazardous to make any further visits to unlicensed drinking establishments.’

  ‘Did he indeed? An interesting caution, coming from him. You didn’t discuss any other matter?’

  ‘No, sir. It was my impression that beyond steering me away from the likes of Michael Crotty, Mr McAllister had no interest in me.’

  ‘Probably true. But why he was steering you away in the first place, that’s a rather more interesting matter. The man is probably right about the dangers of shebeens. But he himself poses the greater danger. A rich man with the legal power and few discernible scruples is not someone I would wish to see you provoke.’

  ‘Nor one I would wish to provoke myself, sir.’

  ‘In any case, Mr Monsarrat, you’re well aware that you are forbidden from looking into this matter except at the Female Factory itself, during daylight hours. So I suggest that you set about on your business this morning.’

  ‘Of course. With your permission, Mr Eveleigh, I’d also like to call on Dr Preston. Not only was he the man who examined Mr Church’s body, but he has treated a great many of the women at the Factory. He may have a useful perspective, now that he’s had some time to think about his initial findings.’

  ‘Very well. The hospital, the Factory, and then back here. I look forward to a full report of your activities by tomorrow morning.’

  Monsarrat bowed and left the room. He did indeed intend to call on Preston. But first he had a task that had been set for him by a far more intimidating force. He decided to try the docks.

  Monsarrat didn’t like the docks. There was always a sense of unease when he saw a ship being unloaded, a remnant of the times he’d been unloaded from one himself, against his will. But he also knew that Eveleigh would be carefully quantifying the minutes Monsarrat was out, so his trip there must, of necessity, be a short one.

  He stood off to the side as Henson negotiated with the master of the Phaedra over some bolts of calico. The proprietor of the Caledonia Inn was also there this morning, doing business with the ship’s master over several barrels.

  As Henson finished, jammed his broad-brimmed hat on his head and turned to leave, Monsarrat stepped forward. ‘Mr Henson?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Forgive me for accosting you like this. I understand you met my housekeeper, Mrs Hannah Mulrooney, yesterday?’

  ‘Ah, yes! The Irishwoman.’

  ‘Quite correct. It will surprise you, I’m sure, to hear a servant spoken of in this way, but she is a woman of exceptional character whom I hold in high esteem. She told me you might be able to assist me. Your employer is a merchant, I understand? I am interested in purchasing a tea service. The best quality. Does that sort of thing happen to be your line?’

  ‘Most certainly, and as it happens we are expecting a shipment of some of the finest Meissen. Quite delightfully decorated, too. Perhaps you would care to call on me at the warehouse?’

  Monsarrat agreed to do just that, and walked away cursing himself for committing to exhaust some of the major’s dwindling gift on a tea set which he had not, five minutes before, known he needed.

  Chapter 21

  Rebecca Nelson, Hannah thought, seemed to quite enjoy ringing the bell on its ornate stand. The bell which marked out the stages of the prisoners’ march towards freedom or the grave.

  While the new superintendent was finding his feet, Rebecca had made herself indispensable. Already with a good understanding of the daily workings of the Factory, she had so completely occupied the role of unofficial matron that Hannah wondered whether it would cause her some sadness to give it up when the lady from Van Diemen’s Land finally sailed up the Parramatta River.

  Over the past few days Rebecca had spent hours closeted with Superintendent Rohan in the matron’s residence, taking him through the Factory’s workings in a detail Hannah had not known she possessed. How many women wore clothes that would need to be replaced. How many had proper shoes – this number counted in the tens. Realistic expectations for the Factory’s output, and the adequacy of the rations for the First, Second and Third Class women, including those who were expecting babies.

  She even suggested that the superintendent repair the windows in the Third Class penitentiary. ‘I’m sure a man of your discernment will understand this,’ she said to Mr Rohan. ‘We must be above reproach in our treatment of the prisoners, including the one who seems to have ended your predecessor’s life. An efficient prison is a humane one, don’t you agree? Particularly when the prisoners are partly responsible for producing the funds needed to run the Factory.’

  Hannah all the while stood by, cleaning and making tea or being sent out on a variety of errands – to the storekeeper to check on the rations of flour and salt beef, for example, and to the guard outside Grace O’Leary’s room for information on her condition.

  Entering the Third Class penitentiary today, Hannah was unable to see the turnkey, but had no trouble hearing his low voice and Peggy’s giggle from the shadows inside. She crept back out and waited quietly a little to the side of the penitentiary door, so she wouldn’t immediately be seen by anyone exiting.

  Whatever Peggy was doing with the guard, she was not doing it quickly. Perhaps half an hour passed, and Hannah was wondering whether she would need to abandon her vigil – Rebecca would surely be missing her by now – when the door opened and Peggy stepped out.

  She wasn’t alone. A moment later, Bronagh followed her and the pair started across the penitentiary yard.

  ‘Erin go bragh,’ Hannah said.

  They immediately turned, gaping at the source of the phrase they had thought was theirs.

  ‘You’ve a full tummy and clean clothes which fit you,’ said Bronagh, in her Cork accent. ‘You’d not know the meaning of those words.’

  ‘I said them when you weren’t yet born,’ said Hannah. ‘Wh
en they did have a meaning. And they might mean something still, if some from the south hadn’t rolled over to have their full tummies rubbed by the British.’

  Hannah refused, usually, to give the ancient anger its head. Not in this place and time. Its rightful targets were dead or across the seas or both, and she feared that if she allowed it to run, it would consume her in the place of those who shot croppies.

  But hearing these girls – speaking with the accents of the North Cork militia, of those who had carried a Catholic missal in one hand and a pike covered in Catholic blood in the other – use the phrase as though it were a game, as the price for entry to some childish club and then tell her she understood nothing of their meaning, Hannah felt rage unfurl, push its way to her fingertips so she half-expected to see sparks flying from them.

  Bronagh stepped backwards, as though expecting to be struck. ‘You were there. The revolution. You saw it?’

  ‘Saw it, took my own part in it, lost everything to it,’ Hannah said, in a voice which amazed her, as she had expected it to shake. ‘Shall I avenge a few drops of Wexford blood by reporting you? I noticed no guard at Grace O’Leary’s door, but I heard him well enough – and you, Peggy. You’d get to spend more time with him as a Third Class prisoner.’

  ‘Do you think I want that? He’s foul and rough – not as bad as Church but near enough – and if you understood what we were doing, you would praise me for my sacrifice – one such as you would, anyway, if you really lived through it.’

  ‘Make me understand then.’

  Bronagh sighed. ‘You’ve seen how thin everyone is. You know how little food we receive – less even than the pitiful amount rationed for us. Even with the new man, we’ve not seen an increase in our rations. He’s not yet tried to take any of the girls, but who’s to say he won’t turn into as big a monster as Church? And who’s to say he won’t start skimming our rations, profiting from our hunger? You profess to care about the fate of the women here. Surely you can see how poorly we are fed and how badly we are clothed.’

  Hannah had held out some hope that Mr Rohan’s arrival would have put an end to the near-starvation of some of the women. The fact that he had not yet addressed this most urgent of problems concerned her. What was Rebecca doing closeted with him all this time if not urging him to protect the women? Were her pleadings falling on deaf ears, or – and Hannah tried to silence the thought as soon as it occurred to her – was she not pleading at all, beyond the platitudes she used in front of Hannah?

  Still, she merely nodded. She did not want to give Bronagh and Peggy any encouragement, any comfort which might stop them revealing the true nature of the situation. And, she had to admit, she was still angry.

  ‘So,’ said Bronagh, ‘Grace is helping us do what we can.’

  ‘And what can Grace do from her cell? Were you with her, Bronagh, while Peggy was entertaining the turnkey?’

  Bronagh looked up to the sky, a futile hope if she was expecting help from that direction. ‘I don’t suppose Grace’s situation can get any worse, even if you do report us. Mine can, though. I am trusting you, now, and praying my trust isn’t misplaced,’ she said. ‘Grace is smart, you see. She seems to know exactly how much the women need to eat to avoid dying from hunger, and how much we can take from the stores without being noticed.’

  ‘But what can she do from behind a locked door?’

  ‘She can tell us what to take and when. From behind her door she can hear when the guards are moving about and when they are not. And she can hear them planning card games. On those nights, we know they’ll be drinking rum, we know they’ll be less vigilant. So that’s when we act.’

  ‘Act? How?’

  ‘We raid the stores, of course.’

  ‘Are you not in fear of your lives when you do this?’

  ‘Of course we are. But all our lives will end from hunger if we do nothing. And we do have some protection. Grace can see the store from her window and she’s wonderful at imitating birdcalls. What’s that owl one, Peggy? A tawny something or other?’

  ‘Frogsnout, is it?’

  ‘Frogmouth! Tawny frogmouth. They make the oddest sound. And Grace’s call could fool even another owl.’ Bronagh made her best approximation of the sound. ‘But Grace’s call is far better than that,’ she said. ‘And when we hear it, we know we have time to leave the store before whoever is approaching finds us. If she does it twice, we hide in there until the danger has passed, until we hear the call again.’

  ‘How do you transport the food?’

  ‘Oh, we don’t take much. Only as little as can be carried in our aprons. And then we share it out in tiny amounts, so that the other women think we’re giving of our own rations.’

  ‘So Erin go bragh is your watchword. And Grace is the pirate queen?’ said Hannah.

  ‘You know the story?’

  ‘Of course I do, eejit of a girl. Wasn’t I told it before your ma met your da?’

  ‘If you say it so,’ Bronagh said through lips so tense the words were barely able to escape. This woman, Hannah thought, would be used to rebukes and worse from the men who kept her confined, but would not take well to an insult offered by another woman. ‘But now I must ask you – what do you intend to do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Hannah. ‘Beyond taking a report back to Mrs Nelson on the condition of Grace O’Leary, as I’ve been asked to. But I must urge you both to leave off with the raids for the moment. There are going to be more watchers with the new man in place. Be careful. Especially with a murderer about.’

  ‘Murderer? I say saviour,’ said Peggy.

  ‘Is your saviour Grace O’Leary?’ said Hannah.

  ‘We would be even more grateful to her than we already are if she were. But she can’t have been, you see. It is not possible,’ said Peggy, twitching her arm to dislodge Bronagh’s suddenly encircling hand.

  ‘Why?’

  After being so profligate with detail, Hannah saw a sudden caution descend on them. They glanced at each other, as if in mutual warning that they might already have told Hannah, countrywoman though she was, too much.

  ‘There’s no question that Grace is an innocent woman. But innocence has no value here for any of us. We were raiding the stores the night he died,’ said Peggy. ‘So Grace was looking out for us from her window. We saw her – we always look to check that she’s there. And while we were inside, we heard two calls. Normally whoever it is passes by quickly, but this time we must have waited ten minutes. Then we heard footsteps – running footsteps – and we thought the guards were running to arrest us. But they passed. And then we heard the signal from Grace. We hurried back to the First Class sleeping quarters, and that was that.’

  ‘Did you ask Grace what happened?’ asked Hannah. ‘What she’d seen from the window?’

  ‘Of course. But she said it was too dark to see anything and urged us not to ask again.’

  ‘Do you believe she saw something related to the murder of the superintendent?’

  ‘Well, after she told us not to ask anymore, just to accept the fact that the monster was gone, she said, I think, that help can come from unlikely places.’

  * * *

  Hannah returned to the matron’s residence to tell Rebecca and Superintendent Rohan that the turnkey had informed her Grace O’Leary said nothing and did nothing. The turnkey, of course, had said no such thing, but she was confident she would not be contradicted. The man would not want to admit he had been absent from his post.

  Hannah knew that Mrs Nelson intended to sit again with the superintendent that afternoon, to present to him a list of supplies she felt the women in the lying-in hospital needed. The midday meal, she thought, would be her best chance to talk to the other women. It was possible Grace may not have been the only watcher that night.

  So when Rebecca Nelson reached up her expensively gloved hand towards the bell-pull, Hannah said, ‘Would you like me to supervise, today?’

  Mrs Nelson always stood by as the mass of women surrou
nded the communal cooking pots eager to make their rations palatable enough to swallow and knowing they had only a short amount of time in which to do it. Anyone who had not managed to cook and eat their food by the time the bell next rang would go hungry. So if Mrs Nelson saw anyone struggling, perhaps saw one of the newer inmates being pushed aside by long-timers, she would step in, take the girl’s rations and cook them herself before handing them back (probably, Hannah suspected, with a prayer of gratitude that her own victuals were considerably better).

  Now, Rebecca Nelson frowned slightly at Hannah’s suggestion.

  ‘It was just a thought,’ Hannah said. ‘I watch, of course, the way you manage things. You’re an absolute paragon of efficiency, and I seek to model myself on you, you see. So I have a fair idea of what to do, and I know you’ve been busy enough with Mr Rohan.’

  As she was speaking, Hannah was chastising herself for allowing the flattery to reach heights she hadn’t intended to scale. She feared Mrs Nelson would feel mocked or, worse, would guess at the truth – that Hannah was trying to get her out of the way.

  Indeed, Mrs Nelson did not seem convinced by Hannah’s suggestion. As she rang the bell, there was a slight frown when normally the action would make her smile.

  ‘Well … I suppose … Having been a convict, though, I’m not sure you’d be allowed.’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s no trouble then. I just thought it might be a help to you, you know, with everything you’ve to do this afternoon. And of course as it is not an official task, I thought it might be all right if you were to hand it off to somebody such as myself. No matter, though. How can I assist you while you’re supervising, then?’

  Mrs Nelson’s eyes were unfocused. She moved her mouth to one side, so that the outline of her teeth was visible underneath the stretched skin of her right cheek.

  ‘Well, as you say, it’s not an official position. I suppose it could do no harm, and of course I am extremely busy. You are certain you know what to do?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Although I’m sure I won’t accomplish it with the same finesse as you.’ Rebecca smiled, didn’t contradict Hannah.