by Lena Dowling
‘Betsy, don’t be rude. This is Mr Biggs, Papa’s friend, not a pirate.’
‘Mr Biggsie, the pirate.’ The child re-enunciated the word ‘pirate’ with a determination that indicated she was completely unconvinced by her father’s denial.
‘Could I trouble you for a piece of paper, and something to write with, James?’
‘Of course,’ James said, motioning to the area set aside for a study.
Samuel crossed the room and sat down behind a magnificent mahogany desk. Grasping a quill and a sheet of paper he made a quick sketch of a roguish sea-dog complete with eye-patch, a kerchief tied around his head, and a cutlass. On a whim he added a terrier with an eye-patch and a kerchief slung across the little dog’s neck.
With a final flourish he captioned the drawing Two great dogs of the sea.
Curious, the child wandered over, craning her neck to peer above the tabletop. ‘Now that’s a pirate,’ Samuel said, handing the sketch to her.
‘Papa, look! Biggsie drew me a picture.’
‘So he has, Betsy, and see, Mr Biggs looks nothing at all like a pirate.’ James grinned at him. ‘They can be quite delightful when they want to be and then — ’
Betsy shrieked, ‘Mama, Mama, Mr Biggsie is here. Mr Biggsie...’ James stuck his fingers in his ears until the child had finished. ‘And then that.’
‘That’s quite alright.’
It had been a terrible disappointment when Amelia had been unable to conceive. At the time Samuel had made all the appropriate sympathetic and reassuring noises expected of a dutiful husband, but privately it had left him bereft.
After the number of Amelia’s miscarriages and stillbirths climbed into double figures, they had been forced to acknowledge parenthood wasn’t in their future. It had been tempting to shy away from children and the savage reminder they brought of what was not to be, but the fact was he enjoyed them too much. The few brats on the ship had lightened the mood with their refreshing honesty and naïve enthusiasm.
Incidents that troubled or frightened the adult passengers had been mere adventures to the children. New and outlandish sights in in port were not so much intimidating to the little ones as sources of delight.
Rare flashes of joy in an otherwise long dark channel of grief, briefly illuminating the way to the end, before the lights went out again.
‘I’m so sorry, James, I didn’t know we had a visitor,’ James’s wife said from where she had appeared in the doorway.
‘Lady Hunter.’ Samuel bowed.
‘Please do call me Thea, or Dorothea if that makes you more comfortable.’
Biggs baulked at the surprising suggestion of familiarity. He thought it unlikely he should do anything of the sort.
‘Thea, this is Samuel Biggs, formerly my man of business in London. You’ll remember that I have spoken of him.’
‘Of course, Biggs the artist.’ Lady Hunter motioned to a familiar miniature on the wall.
Familiar because Samuel had painted it.
Betsy shook the caricature he had drawn up at her mother. ‘Look what Mr Biggsie drew, Mama.’
‘Wonderful. I do believe it’s a pirate, darling. Why don’t you run along now and find Nanny. You can show it to her. I’m sure she will be very pleased to see it.’ The suggestion had barely left Lady Hunter’s mouth and the child was gone in an excited storm of little arms and legs.
Samuel smiled after the child. Moments of joy had become such a rarity that it was a pleasure to be able to forget his own situation for a spell and enjoy watching the child in the throes of it.
James stepped up to the sideboard and poured a glass of claret then turned to his wife. ‘I’ve offered Samuel the overseer’s position, and he has accepted.’
‘And Mrs Biggs? Is the position acceptable to her also?’
‘Samuel is on his own, Thea, I’m afraid.’
‘But James, we agreed on a married couple, so that I would have additional help in the house.’ Lady Hunter lowered her voice to a whisper, projecting the words from the corner of her mouth as if the reduction in volume would somehow also diminish the effect of contradicting her husband in the presence of a guest.
‘Samuel is a widower.’ James said, patiently.
Lady Hunter gave a start, raising her hand to her mouth.
‘My sincerest apologies and condolences, Samuel, I had no idea.’
‘Of course m’lady,’ Samuel said, settling on the generic term of address rather take the uncomfortable step of calling the daughter of an earl by her Christian name.
‘A widower. You know, I might be able to — ’
‘Thea, please!’ James said. ‘Samuel’s bereavement is recent. Samuel is here to work, not to play pawn in one of your matchmaking endeavours.’
‘Of course, James,’ Lady Hunter said a little too quickly and sweetly for Samuel to be convinced that she had actually heeded her husband’s instruction.
‘I apologise for my wife, Samuel. She would have every eligible man in the district married off to one of her convict prodigies at The Factory if she could.’
‘Thank you for thinking of me m’lady, but I’m afraid it is far too soon for me to contemplate remarriage.’
James might not have succeeded in completely scotching Lady Hunter’s plans for matchmaking, but it would make no difference. Samuel had no intention of taking another wife but since it was expected that after a proper interval a widower would seek to remarry, he had found it easier to agree that in due course he would do so.
‘Of course. You must have loved your wife very much.’
‘Oh yes, m’lady. Very much indeed.’
Grateful admiration came first, affection had grown. But yes, he would call it love. Although, working like a dog on the ship, Samuel found the resulting exhaustion had the unexpected benefit of diminishing the energy he had left to dwell on Amelia’s death.
He had hoped that in a new country among new people to whom he was a stranger he could finally put the past behind him, but having known James Hunter back in London the necessary enquiries and condolences would have to be endured, one more time.
Perhaps sensing his discomfort, James cleared his throat. ‘Could you have Liza bring Samuel some rum, Thea. We don’t seem to have any on the sideboard at present?’
‘Of course. And I’ll have her dig out some clean clothes and draw you a bath, Samuel. There’s nothing like a hot soak after a long journey.’ Thea said, before she left them alone again.
Samuel turned his head down towards one shoulder sniffed, and then repeated the motion in the other direction. ‘Very diplomatic. I imagine I stink somewhat.’
James let out a deep belly laugh.
‘I won’t lie, you are a little ripe, Samuel. But after months at sea you can be forgiven for it.’
Samuel joined him in a chuckle until both men jumped at the sound of something solid being dropped to the floor.
‘Ah yes, well, thank you Liza.’ James hoisted up a crock of rum which the maid had hauled into the room, up on to the sideboard. ‘I had envisaged you would bring something already in a glass, and on a tray, but I’m sure Mr Biggs has had some experience of swigging from the original receptacle.’
‘A recept-a-what, sir?’
‘Nothing. That will be all, Liza.’
Despite having been dismissed, the maid remained where she was appraising Samuel with undisguised curiosity until the trajectory of her interest left him fighting the urge to turn his hands into a makeshift codpiece.
‘That will be, all, Liza,’ James repeated with an increase of volume.
The maid bobbed a curtsey then scurried away.
James waved a dismissive hand after her. ‘One of Thea’s projects — a convict girl out on a Ticket of Leave for as long as she maintains good standards of behaviour.’ James quirked the corner of his mouth. ‘But if you don’t mind me saying, Samuel, it seems that she is also a young woman not wholly oblivious to your new-found vitality.’ James poured a glass of rum from the crock
and handed it to him. ‘I daresay if the maid’s reaction is anything to go by, when the time is right you will have no difficulty finding a new wife. I think Liza rather fancied the look of you.’
Biggs felt a warm glow before the rum even had a chance to hit the back of his throat. While it troubled him that the feeling might be disloyal to his wife’s memory, he was quite enjoying the attention he had been receiving from the fairer sex.
Like some of the other sailors he had shaved his head of what little hair he had left as a practical measure to manage his grooming on board. He had been concerned it would make him gruesome, but in fact, he had enjoyed more female interest than ever before.
Amelia had been the only woman to give him more than a passing glance back home, and he had loved her for it, and while he might have no desire to take advantage of it, the new experience of women finding him attractive was a not unwelcome novelty.
Chapter 3
‘I’m Maggie. Who are you?’
Colleen dropped her mallet and took a step backwards in the direction from which the voice had come. Forgetting for a moment that both feet were chained together she nearly toppled over. The unforgiving metal pinched her skin and she sucked a painful breath in through clenched teeth.
‘Colleen Malone,’ she said, after she had bent down to rub her ankle, only to be thwarted by the metal band.
Maggie hoicked up phlegm and spat it over her shoulder.
‘It’s the dust that gets to you — that and the blisters.’ Maggie inclined her head down in the direction of Colleen’s stomach. ‘You preggers?’
‘Why?’
Colleen stiffened, wondering what it was about her that gave her away. She wasn’t showing yet. She had barely missed her monthly bleed when Danny had called in the guards, complaining she was slovenly and tardy and demanding she be sent back to The Factory.
‘You keep touchin’ your belly. Like this,’ Maggie said, imitating the way she had her free hand splayed out across her midriff.
‘It’s what got me sent back here. I was at O’Shane’s Boarding House before.’
‘That bastard. The wardens, the Corps, even the Governor himself, I’d be willing to wager, know what Danny’s up to — boarding house my fair Scottish arse — but they turn a blind eye, don’t they?’
Colleen didn’t answer, bending over to give the rock she had been set to break a wallop, but even though she had hit it with all her might, the blow whacked off little more than a couple of chips. She stood up and brushed away the wayward strands that had fallen out of her mob-cap and into her eyes.
‘What about you? Why are you here?’
‘Me? I was given out on a Ticket of Leave to an evil bastard who worked me dawn to dusk seven days a week and never paid me for the overtime like he were ‘sposed to, so one day I up and ran off. They found me though — used one of those black fella trackers who can see a trail a bloodhound couldn’t follow.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Aye, well, don’t let on about the bairn or you won’t get picked.’
‘Picked?’
‘Picked to marry one of the men who comes in here looking for a wife.’
‘They do that?’
‘Aye, but not from among us stone breakers. You got to work yourself up to bein’ a second or first class prisoner for that. So keep your head down, and keep quiet about the bairn or they won’t let you move up the classes neither.’
Maggie pointed in the direction of the prison gates. ‘There’s one now, hoping for a bride.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘See how he’s all done up in his Sunday best? And he’s nervous — fidgeting and pulling at his cuffs and adjusting his neckcloth? And when he passes through us lot here, he won’t know how to act. There won’t be no “mornin’ ladies” like one of the farmers delivering supplies. He’ll walk straight ahead without looking around as if we’re not even here. If he does take a gander, he’ll have a face on him as if us stone breakers are piles of fresh dung and he has to pick his way through having just shined his boots.’
After that Colleen took careful note of the well-dressed men arriving at the prison gates. They all did what Maggie said. None of them acknowledged the stone breakers they had to pass to get inside the factory building, or if they did, they looked down at them bent over their piles of rocks as if they were something foul.
Maggie poked her. ‘Oooh looky there now. That’s Her Majesty. Doesn’t she look fine in her ruby red gown with matchin’ bonnet,’ Maggie said in a voice not much louder than a whisper.
‘Who?’
Colleen had pointed to a striking woman accompanied by another man. The lady’s blonde hair peeked out from beneath her bonnet and her eyes were an unusually vibrant blue which contrasted with the rich colour of her dress.
The woman wore a gown that, until a few days ago, Colleen might have worn herself.
Although as soon as any new frocks arrived at O’Shane’s, Danny had the girls take them up to show off their ankles and scoop the necklines down until they all but showed their nipples. She didn’t miss wearing gowns that marked her out as a whore, but God, she did miss the colour. She drank in the blood-red hue of the lady’s dress deeply and greedily as if it were a glass of wine.
Unlike the other prisoners, she had been pleased to be set to breaking stones. That way she got to see the blue of the sky and different colours of the trees in the distance. Better than being stuck inside the prison bent over a loom all day, never seeing more than four walls and dull grey uniforms.
‘That’s Lady Dorothea Hunter. One of the toffs. They say she married an ex-convict. She’s a fierce do-gooder on the benevolent committee, and she’s in with the Governor’s wife. She brings books for the first-classers to read, and on marriage-mart days hands out ribbons and fancied up mob-caps for her princesses to wear. That’s what we call ‘em — Dorothea’s princesses. You want to get to be one of those.’
‘Is that her husband?’ Colleen asked, wondering about the man beside her. He was tidily dressed but he wasn’t a gentleman. From his build and the style of his clothes he might easily have been an ex-convict.
‘No, I reckon he’s one who’s looking for a wife.’
‘How can you tell? He’s not all that dressed up. He looks like a farmer, or without the jacket a sailor, maybe?
‘Collar and cuffs.’
Colleen looked again at the man and saw that he pulled at his cuffs and fiddled with his collar. While he showed all the same nervous tics as the four or five men who had run the gauntlet of the stone breakers before him, his clothes also seemed a size or two bigger than they needed to be, which might have accounted for the way he squirmed about in them.
As the pair approached the man stopped and looked in their direction, pausing only a few feet away. He pointed, saying something to the lady that Colleen couldn’t hear. His face was serious, but thoughtful, not full of scorn or embarrassment like the others. He walked towards Colleen and, reached out a hand.
He was tall yet stocky with solid legs, thick like a couple of masts. His hand was a paw, a heavily calloused, rough workman’s hand. His head was shaved — sheared off to a stubble — and yet there was nothing threatening about him. He looked like the sort who despite his stature might be gentle. His face was friendly, set off with lively blue eyes.
‘May I have your mallet a moment?’
Colleen made a questioning motion towards herself with her free hand, and when he nodded she shuffled forward a few steps, handing over the tool. The man grasped the handle and moved over to the stone she had been working on, raising the mallet above his head. He hit the side of the rock and broke off a good-sized piece.
‘It’s all in the angle of the way you strike it — see.’ He hit the rock again, dislodging another reasonable sized stone.
The man handed the mallet back to her. She met his eyes. They were a pale blue, nearly grey — grey and shimmery — smilin’ eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time any man ha
d shown her any sort of kindness. It was as if she had seen straight through to the soft heart encased in his burly frame. Without even stopping to think about what she was doing, she reached out and grabbed his wrist with her free hand.
‘Please, sir, my name is Colleen. Ask for me. I beg you, tell them you want me. I can’t stay here. Please.’
She had barely got the words out when her whole body jerked backwards, a hand taking hold of her by the scruff and dragging her away, almost faster than she could reverse her manacled feet. ‘Have you lost your mind? If you want to save that shiny mane of yours, keep your hands off the visitors.’ Maggie hissed.
Colleen automatically pushed her fingertips up under her mob-cap to touch the hair that she had so far managed to keep.
‘Sincerest apologies, sir, and Lady Hunter, ma’am. She’s new here. It won’t happen again,’ Maggie called after them as Lady Hunter and her companion hurried away. For a moment the man stopped, turning to cast his sparkly blue eyes back over his shoulder before they disappeared through the front door up into The Factory.
Maggie poked Colleen in the arm.
‘You better watch yerself or you’ll be eating bread and water in the dark with a baldie to go with it.’
Colleen shuddered. How could she bear this place? Even worse than that, how could she bring a child into it?
‘This way, Samuel.’
Lady Hunter set off toward the main entrance to The Factory, leaving the group of convicts breaking stones behind them.
Those women needed proper instruction and leather gloves. Looking about there seemed to be nothing under construction in the vicinity, as if their stone breaking had only a punitive purpose.
He had seen the blisters on that poor woman’s hand when she handed him the mallet — ferocious red breaks in the skin where bubbles of fluid had formed and then burst. Thereafter, he knew every touch of the mallet handle would mean pain. Without gloves or bandages, he guessed they would become encrusted with dirt and fester before they calloused over.
A prison was the last place he wanted to be. He would much rather have been back out on the Hunter farm checking on the livestock or building a fence. Even mucking out the pigsty would have been a preferable occupation, but Lady Hunter had collared him the moment James set off for Sydney to attend to his other business interests.
