3 Great Historical Novels

by Fay Weldon

  The pickpocket in question was Joey Smith. Joey and his two brothers had all ended up in Sydney, though none of them had intended to, and they had all come from London on separate transports. The family name was contrived, since the Smith boys didn’t know who their pa was, or even if they all had the same one. They had come about the name because it suited their profession. If they had used the full name of their professional calling, fingersmith, then they’d have more trouble from the law than they did already.

  The pamphlet was always two double-sided pages, and was distributed, monthly and secretly by a couple of the newspaper boys from the Sydney Herald. The boys were the sons of Irishmen who had been transported for being intelligent and ideological rather than for other crimes against the English. Ironic, since the Herald was a newspaper for the gentry, whose editors were ministers of the very faith that persecuted (and prosecuted) the newspaper boys’ fathers. Michael had pointed this out to Will in the Shamrock once, and Will snorted and replied that ideology turned clever men into drunks. It was a fair point, seeing as they were surrounded by clever drunks.

  Maggie’s basement was made of clay bricks and there was a blessed chill on its musky, subterranean air. As Michael rose and stretched and buttoned up his braces, he spared a rare thought for the furnace from whose fires these bricks had emerged. He had been assigned to the brick-firing pit, along with other convicts who weren’t half dead after the voyage. They’d nicknamed the brick pit Hades. The punishing days in Hades had acclimatised Michael quickly to the soaring temperatures that baked the earth during the Antipodean summer. He was still not accustomed, though, to the approaching Australian Christmas.

  He started to climb the staircase to the kitchen, then stopped for a moment to appreciate the silence. Sunday was a day of blessed quiet in the brothel. Usually in the morning there were half a dozen or so of Maggie’s girls sitting around in their stays and flimsy housecoats, drinking tea and talking about last night’s custom. It was always rough talk – some of the things these girls came out with would put a Bristol sailor to shame. Michael occasionally found himself pitying the poor sod who couldn’t get a cock stand, or who was puny enough to make a room full of prostitutes laugh.

  This morning Maggie was alone, and it looked as if she’d just had a wash in the copper pail outside, because her wavy brown hair was dripping wet, making the thin fabric of her dress stick to the curves of her shoulders and breasts. It was chinois, Chinese silk, he could spot the stuff a mile off. He’d bought Annie some once, on his travels. Maggie liked expensive things, and what she wore was always cut to show off her best features. Modesty was no virtue when you made a living from fucking.

  ‘Good morning to you, Michael.’

  ‘Nice and quiet.’

  ‘Aye. The girls are like family – it’s good to be rid of them now and then.’ Maggie looked at Michael with an expression she reserved for their rare moments alone. ‘Of course, not for as long as you’ve been separated from yours, my love.’ She put the iron kettle on her little black range. ‘Will you stop with me for lunch? I’ve a treat.’ She nodded her head towards the open door to the back verandah and Michael took a step closer to see what it was. Trussed at the legs and hanging from a crossbeam was a wild turkey, already plucked. He let out a low whistle.

  ‘And that’s not all,’ Maggie grinned. ‘I’ve been saving a bottle and, given that it’s a few weeks till Christmas, I’m willing to start the festivities early.’

  ‘It’s good of you, Maggie.’ It was tempting all right.

  ‘Well, Michael Kelly, if only you’d allow me to, I’d show you greater pleasures than turkey and Rio whisky.’

  Michael sighed good naturedly. ‘We both know how that conversation ends.’

  Maggie chuckled. ‘It could end anyway you want it to.’ She uncrossed her legs slowly, watching to see if his eyes could stay on her face as the chinois slid away from her thighs. He held her gaze only with difficulty.

  Maggie shrugged as if to say he’d come to his senses one day, and got up to make his tea. Her range was the envy of every housewife in the Rocks who had to cook over an open fire. There probably wasn’t another for miles around. She moved slowly; her hips round and smooth beneath the silk. She knew he was watching. It wasn’t as if he’d never been tempted to forget himself in her bed, and he’d been no saint in Sydney. The loneliness got to them all eventually, but that was years ago and he’d regretted it. He’d never bedded any of Maggie’s girls, though. It wouldn’t have been right. There was only one woman, even to the ends of God’s earth, for Michael. He could only barely recall Annie’s face now, but her heart still beat with his. It always had. It wasn’t as if his body no longer wanted to explore the hidden inlets and darker caves of a woman, but he was old enough now to be able to more or less master his cravings. It was only Annie that his heart ached for.

  He sat and drank Maggie’s fragrant tea while she put the turkey in the oven. Tea was a luxury in Sydney; but Maggie always had a good supply. She knew people. She could get hold of just about any victuals, be they contraband, rare or imported from the farthest shores of Africa. She also knew the talk on the street. Her girls got a bonus for keeping her informed of anything interesting they heard from a punter who momentarily forgot himself.

  The morning whiled away nicely while Maggie did her chores and Michael read over his draft for the next pamphlet, making notes. There would be more news from Ireland next time a ship was in. Maggie eventually sat down and poured herself another cup of tea. It was some time since they’d had a quiet stretch together, and Michael wondered if she had any information for him. ‘No more trouble, since the raid?’

  ‘Nothing. As you know, the lads had no clue what they were looking for – they rarely do, these young bobbies who think just because they’re the law, that they’re clever along with it.’

  ‘Lucky for me, otherwise they’d’ve had me for the Stanhope.’

  Maggie laughed. ‘They didn’t even know what it was, bless ’em. I told ’em there had been a shoemaker living here and it was some contraption for mending boots he’d left behind.’

  Michael grinned, enjoying the thought of outwitting the Sydney constabulary, who, aside from his mate Calvin and his hand-picked boys, were mostly thugs in uniform. ‘It’s still awful quiet down the Rocks.’

  ‘Know what you mean. There’s something keeping the boys off the street and it smells profitable, but best to keep your nose clean of the big jobs, Michael. Think of your ticket of leave.’

  ‘It’s all I think of. But I’m curious. Besides, if the likes of the Smith boys are caught up in something too clever for their limited wits, then I want to know who’s paying.’

  Maggie sighed and retrieved the whisky bottle from her cheese cupboard. She poured them each a measure, and from the way her lips were pursed, he knew that there was something she wasn’t telling him.

  ‘All right, Maggie, out with it.’

  ‘Will you promise to leave it alone if I tell you?’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus, you’re a bloody fool.’ She sighed. ‘But you’re a likeable fool, and I don’t want you getting in any strife.’

  ‘I tell you what, if I get another seven years, then I’ll build you a little lean-to out the back, just like you always wanted – somewhere to get away from all the fuss of the business.’

  Maggie laughed. ‘I’ll tell you. Though not for a lean-to, but because I know that you’ll just go asking somebody else and it’s dangerous. All I know is that there’s been crates of something godawful heavy being carried into Mick’s place down on the junction road in the wee hours, and I’ve never known merino yarn to weigh that much.’

  ‘Mick the Fence?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So Mick’s in. It’s high-end robbery, then.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Michael frowned. ‘As soon as there’s comings and goings, then there’s bound to be some activity on the harbour.’

  ‘You�
��re only one man, just remember that when you feel your bile rise against the industrialists, as you call them. It’s all very well writing your pamphlet and encouraging the spirit of rebellion, or whatever it was you called it, but you interfere with a powerful man’s profiteering and you’ll be crucified.’

  ‘It was good enough for Jesus.’

  ‘Don’t joke about this!’

  Michael could see that she was in earnest and felt mildly remorseful. ‘You mustn’t fret for me, Maggie. I can’t help the way I’m made, and if there’s something I can still put right, then I will. You won’t be able to change it.’

  She looked at him, eyes hard as nails, and a moment of understanding passed between them. ‘I see.’ She poured them each another measure. ‘Then here’s to your damned crusade and may you live long and be returned to the lucky woman you love.’

  ‘And here’s to you, Maggie, as fine a woman as ever ran a brothel, and may you find love for yourself.’

  She threw back her head and laughed as though this was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

  8 December 1840

  I woke in the faraway hours and thought I smelt your smell again. I couldn’t sleep so I watched the candle flame until patterns danced from it onto my paper. More leaves, as though every last leaf must fall.

  Daylight has filled the shadows. It will soon be time for Ryan’s burial. It has been four days, and each day I’ve felt that I should be with him. What if he had something else to tell me? Antonia wouldn’t hear of it and no doubt thought me unhinged, even after I explained that in Ireland a family member would always be accompanied until burial. She was shocked, though she tried to hide it, when I told her that dead bodies needed to be protected from thieves and medical students. And from fairies you would say. She assures me that in England anatomical medicine is respected by the public, and there is a ready supply of the dead.

  It feels as though a lifetime has passed, though it is only a week since I arrived in London. Mrs Blake and I sat together in her morning room on Friday afternoon and dipped our quills by turn into her ink pot. She composed an obituary notice to be published in The Times and then, while I wrote and rewrote the letter to my mother, she wrote to Ryan’s friends and associates on black-edged stationery. The wake will be held after the service this morning.

  On Saturday I went to the Petticoat Lane market for black crêpe and green velvet ribbon for a tabard, and sat sewing in the morning with Mrs Blake and Juliette. Juliette is habitually miserable. She barely speaks and hunches her shoulders as if she alone bears the sins of all Catholics. Her gloominess irks me now that I am so wretched myself. I have sewn a tabard trimmed with green ribbon for the coffin and a mantle for myself. I can barely bring myself to wear a black gown, but I must. Only for the burial though, because Ryan told me that he found the excessive mourning habits of the English extremely dull. I would prefer to wear the print I saw in his room, of golden leaves spinning across emerald green. This was a cloth more symbolic of death than black crêpe; a reminder that the falling leaves of autumn sustain the tree that bears new leaves in the spring.

  A gentleman by the name of Dillon has taken it upon himself to mediate with the authorities. Laurence trusts him. I only hope I have not been a fool, telling him as much as I have. Both men have been looking for a letter, written to Ryan by Mrs Blake’s husband before he died, and now I cannot stop wondering what it contained. Perhaps it will explain Ryan’s strange mood on the day before he died. I believe he was in some kind of financial difficulty. Someone is on the stair. I will write more anon.

  Ribbon

  Rhia closed her drawing book and ran her hand over its red cloth cover. It contained designs and sketches of ideas. Now, the ‘letters’ to Mamo were interspersed with drawings of ivy on stonework and winter roses. It felt odd writing at first, but now it seemed the most natural thing in the world. She even wondered if Mamo had always intended that this was how the pretty pen with its shining knot-work would be used.

  There was a light rap on the door and Antonia appeared carrying a breakfast tray.

  ‘You are dressed already,’ she said, surprised.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Nor I. Laurence left an hour ago for China Wharf. Isaac has offered to collect us in his carriage. I thought I’d make sure you had time to dress, but I can see that I needn’t have worried.’ She took the tray to the table and stopped still when she saw Rhia’s painting.

  ‘Is this your work?’

  Rhia nodded.

  ‘But, this is accomplished! I had no idea. I am quite astonished. So delicate. Such inventiveness. You have an eye, my dear.’

  Rhia was pleased to be praised by someone like Antonia, who clearly had an eye herself. She joined her at the table and squinted to assess the worth of what she had painted. The leaves were in different shades of blue, more like spiralling arabesques that whorled across the page like candle flames in a draught.

  Antonia was leaning over the table, examining the design more carefully. ‘Extraordinary that one colour can have so many moods.’

  Rhia nodded in agreement. ‘I once bothered a dyer until he would name every blue in his workshop, probably in the hope that I would go away.’ She pointed out different jars in her box. ‘This is pearl blue and that one mazarine and that is ultramarine. The names were given to different shades of Indian indigo by the dyers of the last century. Before that there was only woad.’

  Antonia was listening intently. ‘Wasn’t that what the Irish painted themselves with before going into battle?’

  ‘It was. To frighten off the Romans. Perhaps we should try it on the English …’ Rhia trailed off, remembering that she was talking to an Englishwoman, but Antonia was smiling.

  ‘You are well-read,’ was all she said, and she didn’t seem displeased.

  ‘Too much so, according to my father. When he is angry he says that no man will have me. And I have made him angry rather a lot.’

  ‘Some men are at loss to know what to do with a woman who can think for herself. They cannot help it. They are bred to believe that they are our intellectual superiors, and to be proven otherwise would topple their world from its perch. But topple it we must! I hope that you will never consider marrying a man who does not want you to think for yourself.’ Antonia was quiet for a moment, looking at the blue arabesques. ‘Do you have others?’ Rhia nodded and unearthed her binder. She had been unable to bring herself to leave behind all her paintings, they were like a journal; each one reminding her of the day it had been created. Antonia examined design after design, exclaiming over knot-work roots, brightly coloured vines and twirling ribbons of lilies. She said she loved them all, so Rhia showed her the chintz from Thomas. Antonia seemed quite in awe as she trailed a finger along the golden feather of a bird, and then a bough laden with jewels of fruit.

  ‘How wonderful,’ she breathed finally. ‘My dear, this is a treasure. You must never part with it!’

  They ate a little bread, though neither had the stomach for it, and then waited in the entrance hall until they heard bridles clinking outside.

  Rhia was intrigued by Isaac Fisher immediately she stepped into the carriage. He wore a flat-brimmed hat and the white neck tie that made Quaker gentlemen resemble clergymen. He was large, though not corpulent, and the shoulder length hair beneath his hat was greying brown. His gaze was distant, but his handshake firm. He only spoke to ask where Laurence was, and after Mrs Blake explained that he had left early to supervise the casket bearers, they rode across London Bridge in silence.

  In the small, overgrown churchyard of St Andrews, there were perhaps a dozen gentlemen in black hats and coats, but Rhia recognised only Mr Dillon. He stood a short distance from those gathered at the grave. She suspected his presence was more than a mark of respect for a man he had barely known. Did he expected to find some clue here, amongst her uncle’s mourners, or did he already know why Ryan had taken his own life? He caught her eye and bowed deferentially.

 
The casket bearers arrived and discharged their sombre duty impeccably. Rhia was glad that she had decided not to be present when Ryan’s body was nailed shut into his coffin. It was kind of Laurence to offer to oversee the formalities, particularly as he seemed a little nervous about doing so. Rhia would only have feared for her uncle’s comfort and the lack of air within the casket. It was foolish but she could not help it.

  Laurence was at the front of the queue of bearers, his hand resting beneath the front of Ryan’s coffin as gently as if he were carrying a precious object. The priest seemed vaguely inattentive and kept trailing off as though he had forgotten where he was or what he was doing. The service was brief. Before the casket was lowered into the earth, Rhia stepped forward and draped her crêpe tabard over it. As the dirt was shovelled carelessly into the grave, Laurence came to stand by her side. They watched until only a corner of ribbon was poking through the brown dirt. It was the green velvet ribbon disappearing into the gaping earth that was Rhia’s undoing. The irrevocability of it. Her knees suddenly felt like aspic. Antonia rested a hand beneath her elbow, and each held the other up a little straighter than they could have managed alone.

  The mourners stirred when the last clods of earth were in place, and two men approached. The taller had the self-assured air of a successful gentleman and looked aristocratic. His companion was slight and a little stooped, and more modestly attired. Rhia took him to be a clerk.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Blake,’ said the tall gentleman. ‘And this must be Miss Mahoney?’

  Rhia saw Antonia’s hand flutter to her hair before it was corrected. Who was this man who made the Quaker self-conscious? Antonia composed herself quickly and smiled her gracious smile.