3 Great Historical Novels

by Fay Weldon

‘A what?’

  ‘A photogenic drawing – like a painting of a group of men.’

  ‘Oh, that. I saw it when I took him the salt.’

  ‘The salt?’

  ‘The day before. I couldn’t think why he’d want a bowl of salt, so he showed me the picture. It wasn’t there when I found him. I know it wasn’t there because I looked around, to see how it might have happened.’ He was still struggling to be brave, this boy with a man’s life. He looked down at his feet again and ran his big toe along a crack in the decking, but Rhia had already seen the tears. ‘I never understood it,’ he said. ‘Painting with light, he called it. Too clever for me.’

  Rhia barely heard him. ‘Maybe whoever killed him has taken the portrait.’

  ‘Who’d want it?’

  She shook her head. Who on the Rajah, besides Margaret, even knew about the portrait, let alone wanted it? ‘Albert, can you get into Laurence’s cabin?’

  He shrugged. ‘If I wanted to.’ It was clear that he didn’t.

  ‘If the portrait hasn’t been stolen, then it must be in the cabin somewhere. If you find it—’

  ‘If I find it, it’s yours.’

  ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘You’re not easily pleased, are you, Mahoney?’

  ‘If I were, I wouldn’t be on this cursed ship. I need to send a letter. Is it possible before we sail?’

  ‘We sail tomorrow. I’ve leave to go ashore tonight. Is that letter writ?’

  ‘It is.’ She’d used paper from her red book and the envelope that Laurence slipped beneath her door. Her precious fountain pen was near emptied of ink, but the letter was in her apron pocket. She gave it to Albert. ‘Be sure the postmaster uses sealing wax,’ she said. ‘Albert, I’ll pay you for this as soon as … soon.’

  Albert rolled his eyes. ‘I’ve already bought myself a cutlass and I’ve coin to spare.’

  ‘How long will it take the post to reach London?’

  ‘Depends. Usually three weeks by clipper.’ He turned to go, but there was something else Rhia needed to know. ‘Albert, is he … ?’

  ‘He’s in the ice chest in the infirmary. Surgeon wanted to take a good look, so he’d know how it happened. They were going to take him ashore, but the port authority wouldn’t have it.’

  ‘But what will happen?’

  ‘He’ll be buried at sea, soon as we’re out of the harbour.’

  *

  Agnes started it by insisting that a madman was picking off the passengers one by one. She said there had been three deaths already, which was why they’d all been confined below, and reckoned that he’d be coming for one of them next. Georgina had heard that a gentleman had his throat slit for a purse full of silver, but they’d caught the killer and thrown him in a dungeon in Rio. Someone else judged that the cook looked the sort to be going about sticking knives in people. Rhia had the same thought – besides, the cook had the best selection of knives. It was generally agreed that at least one person had got it in the neck from a madman, but debate about the finer details, and whether or not the killer was still aboard, was tireless.

  On the third morning out of São Sebastião, the air hung heavy with humidity and apprehension. There were no wardens in the mess, so Margaret sat in her hammock with her bowl of gruel, which she wasn’t even eating. Rhia had the chintz in her apron pocket to show to Margaret before she made a final decision. She had not yet reached Margaret when the women’s idle chatter stopped abruptly and the table fell silent. Instantly she knew – things were about to get messy.

  Georgina was slurping her gruel as loudly as she could because she knew that this, above all else, irritated Jane. Jane glared at her dangerously. Nora grinned happily, enjoying the tension, and the others were eating warily, waiting. Jane finally hurled her spoon at Georgina, hitting her on the bridge of the nose.

  ‘Bitch!’ Georgina shrieked. She stood up, leaned over the table and upended her bowl onto Jane’s head. The gluey stuff coated Jane’s short hair and slid down her neck. She cursed, all godly pretensions forgotten, and hurled her bowl towards Georgina, but hit Agnes who lurched at Jane and toppled her off her bench. They rolled around the floor, tearing at each other’s clothes, screaming and pulling each other’s hair. No one attempted to pull them apart.

  When Miss Hayter arrived Nora was urging them on with cheers and Nelly was wailing. The others, including Rhia and Margaret, were watching. There was nothing else to do. Miss Hayter barked orders like a military commander, and the two were eventually separated.

  When they were all at the table again, Jane dabbed a long scratch on her cheek and Agnes hoisted her bosom back into her underclothing. Miss Hayter cleared her throat. ‘Get out your sewing, girls,’ she said calmly, as if nothing had happened. ‘Has anyone thought about our centrepiece?’

  This decided Rhia. She took the chintz from her pocket and unfolded it without saying a word, and spread it out on the table.

  Miss Hayter looked surprised. ‘A lovely piece, Mahoney. Was it in your bag?’

  ‘No. It is mine.’

  Jane was leaning over the chintz, tracing her long finger along the wing of a bird. ‘It is fine,’ she breathed. ‘As even a weave as I’ve seen.’

  ‘Yours, Mahoney?’ Miss Hayter frowned. ‘Then you brought it with you?’

  Rhia nodded. ‘It is my own design.’

  Agnes scoffed. ‘Don’t lie, Mahoney!’

  ‘That’s quality, that is,’ breathed Nelly.

  Miss Hayter interjected firmly. ‘Did you not know, Agnes, that Mahoney worked in the trade and is a print designer?’ She turned to Rhia. ‘Was this a design for the House of Montgomery?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t really a designer. I only hoped to be. It is a picture of … it’s from stories my grandmother once …’ She trailed off, confused by the emotion she felt. She must not weep.

  There was awestruck silence as the women crowded around. Rhia caught Margaret’s eye. She was grinning like a proud mother. Everyone was leaning over the chintz now, examining every inch. ‘Them birds are lovely,’ cooed Nelly. ‘I once seen some like that in Covent Garden, in a wire cage.’ There was general agreement that it was a real piece of work and that Rhia was clever as.

  ‘It is quite perfect for the broderie perse, Mahoney, perfect.’ Miss Hayter was shaking her head. ‘It does seem a shame to cut it up, though. Are you sure?’

  Rhia nodded. ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t want it.’ She had never expected to feel that she belonged amongst these women. She hadn’t even known that she wanted to.

  Every seaman who passed by the awning on the quarterdeck was inspected for signs of villainy as well as for the usual attributes. It had been established that the murderer would be dangerous-looking and acting suspiciously, but there was endless disagreement over how these characteristics manifested. Agnes’s current favourite was a Spaniard with a wayward eye and an uneven gait. ‘He’s got to be a madman,’ she whispered.

  ‘Not all killers are madmen,’ reasoned Sarah. ‘Nelly isn’t. My Harry wasn’t when he took the shovel to the rent collector.’

  ‘But only a madman would kill for no reason,’ said Agnes authoritatively.

  ‘I thought you said the killer stole a purse full of silver,’ Nora snapped.

  ‘I never did. It was Jane said it.’

  ‘I did not say so,’ Jane retorted.

  ‘But,’ Agnes continued, ‘if there was a purse full of silver just sitting there because the man whose silver it was had got it in the neck, then I would have had it, and so would you.’

  Nora threw her sewing down in disgust. ‘Don’t be a bloody fool, Agnes. He’s not got into the man’s cabin and killed him then seen the silver. It makes no sense.’

  Rhia pricked her finger with a needle and bit her lip to keep from crying out. Margaret shot her a look. If Laurence’s killer was on the boat, and if they wanted the portrait enough to kill for it, then surely they might come for her. Maybe they still would. At present the cook still se
emed the most likely culprit. Perhaps he was a paid killer? It was difficult to imagine what personal motives he might have. Money, probably.

  The dispute continued all morning whilst they stitched as carefully as if they were mending their dreams. This undertaking had brought them together like nothing else, in spite of the bickering, and today Rhia felt included.

  Later, she found Mr Reeve gloating over some cartridge paper and brown ink he’d bought in Rio. ‘A superior colour, don’t you think, Mahoney?’ He was looking at her over the rims of his spectacles, showing her how he had wasted his new ink on another poor rendering. The illustration was of some plant he had seen ashore, but it looked more like a broom head. ‘I must say I’m rather taken with the colour of this ink. I wonder what plant it is derived from.’

  ‘Sepia is made from the secretions of cuttlefish,’ Rhia said, enjoying his raised eyebrows. ‘When they are afraid,’ she added for good measure. If humans secreted ink when they were frightened, the ship would be awash in it by now.

  ‘How knowledgeable, Mahoney. It is no wonder you are unmarried.’ He laughed as though this were wit of the highest order. She turned back to the specimens spread on the floor and they worked in silence. After a while the botanist threw down his pencil in disgust.

  ‘I cannot draw this blasted foliage,’ he complained. His frustration with his own lack of skill usually manifested as heavy sighing and the occasional crumpling of paper, but he wanted his records completed before they reached Sydney and he was starting to lag behind. He was as slow an illustrator as he was a poor one.

  Rhia tried not to smile. ‘Perhaps I could help?’

  He looked suspicious. ‘You can draw as well, Mahoney?’

  ‘I am told that I can.’

  He sighed. ‘Very well. Show me what you can do.’

  She took a sheet of his new cartridge paper, running her hand over its smooth surface before she marked it. It was of more use for wrapping up gunpowder than it was to Mr Reeve. She dipped the steel nib of his antiquated fountain pen into the inkbottle slowly, savouring the feeling of its weight between her fingers. She traced the outline of the glossy leaf that lay on the table, then the veins, almost effortlessly. It looked like a camellia leaf but was four times the size. When she looked up, Mr Reeve was watching with undisguised envy.

  ‘You have a steady hand, given the circumstances.’

  ‘The circumstances?’

  ‘Well, given the situation, you know, the news of our friend Mr Blake.’ He was looking at her suspiciously. He probably thought she had something to do with it. After all, she had visited Laurence just before his murder. And in Mr Reeve’s eyes, she was a convicted criminal. She wanted to shout at him that Laurence Blake was not his friend, but her friend. He was on the boat because of her and now he was dead. But she must not shout and she must not confide, even though a grudging camaraderie seemed to be developing between them. ‘It is a shame the ship’s officers have not bothered to inform us of the progress of their enquiry,’ was all she said, hoping that she sounded unconcerned.

  ‘But they have. There was a passenger meeting in the saloon on the evening before we sailed from São Sebastião.’

  Rhia grimaced. ‘Of course. It would not be considered necessary to inform those of us who have not paid for our passage,’ she said sardonically. Just as they had not been invited to Laurence’s burial. Albert had told her about it. As usual, irony was lost on Mr Reeve. He only blinked at her and looked a little confused.

  ‘It has been discovered that Mr Blake was fleeing London after a business enterprise collapsed,’ he said, ‘and that he was in debt to such an amount that his creditors hunted him down and killed him. I hear that he booked his passage in haste.’

  Rhia felt like slapping him. ‘And how did these creditors know of his whereabouts?’

  The botanist shrugged as though it should not be considered important. He was looking at what she had been drawing on his precious cartridge paper. Inside the leaf, where there should have been a lattice of veins, was a triple knot. She was as surprised as Mr Reeve, but she rather liked the way it filled the leaf.

  Don’t forget me, I am Cerridwen, guardian of the cauldron of inspiration.

  How could she forget the muse who had so cruelly deserted her, and who persisted in reminding her of all that she had lost?

  Threads

  Today, every wharf at Circular Quay had a foreign vessel cabled to it. The paved esplanade at the sand’s reach was, as usual, rowdy with fishmongers and foreigners. Everyone in Sydney was a foreigner, of course, but an order of ascendancy prevailed – a result of the farcical notion of British superiority. The quay excited Michael more than any other part of the city. The strip of beach reminded him of his seafaring youth, and now it contained the promise of home. It was his past and his future. It was also where the postmaster’s office was situated.

  There was a letter from Thomas in two parts. The page on top was dated later than the second page. It was brief and, judging by the scrawl, had been written in haste.

  18 March 1841

  We’ve just had word. Rhia Mahoney is in prison. They say she is a thief, but no one here believes it and I know you will not either. She is to be sent to New South Wales. This may not reach you in time. Perhaps you will already be on your way home.

  Michael reread the postscript in disbelief: he was not mistaken, yet it did not seem possible. Rhia Mahoney a thief? She’d always been a mischief, and he had not seen her in more than seven years, but still. He rolled up a smoke, lost in thought, before he read the letter proper. It was about wool, mostly. Thomas said he’d asked Brigit Mahoney, and yes, she was interested in merino from Sydney. Other news though, was sobering.

  Sean O’Leary fell by a landlord’s firearm last Sunday, leaving his Mary a widow and two wee lads.

  Mam sends her love and wishes every day that she had learnt to read and write.

  Freedom,

  Thomas

  Michael folded the thick, coarse paper slowly and deliberately and threw his fag end into the sand, grinding it in with the heel of his boot. Calvin would know which transports were due in.

  The Port Authority office was awash with towers of black-spined books and scrolls. It seemed unfeasible that a mind as sharp as Calvin’s could function in such a messy place. A young sergeant was sitting at a table with his back to the door scribbling away strenuously. Calvin was at his desk, frowning over a pile of paper. He looked up.

  ‘Afternoon, Michael.’ His tone said he didn’t like Michael’s chances of getting his attention.

  ‘Cal.’ Michael nodded. ‘Mind if I use your yard to smoke?’ Michael shot him a look and Calvin nodded.

  ‘Give me a minute.’

  Michael left the bungalow via the verandah at the back. Beyond, there was a log and a patch of sand. All around, the spiky grass trees rustled with life; with birds big enough to make a shrub move, and reptiles the size of dogs.

  He sat on the log and rolled two. It helped him to think. In Thomas’s previous letter, he’d said Rhia was lodging with a widowed Quaker in London who was in the cloth trade. A Quaker widow. He shook his head. He was being foolish.

  Calvin appeared and Michael handed him a roll-up. The policeman took a deep draw and closed his eyes for a minute, then looked sidelong at Michael. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I had a tip about a robbery at Government bloody House. You know anything about that?’

  ‘Nope. When?’

  ‘Not too recent.’ Michael frowned. ‘So they’ve kept the constabulary out of it. That makes it more interesting.’

  Calvin shrugged. ‘Cagey lot. Some guv’s obviously got a personal interest. What got flogged?’

  ‘Silver. Foreign coin.’

  ‘Well, well. Things might be starting to make some sense.’

  ‘Are they?’ It didn’t make sense to Michael. He remembered Thomas’s letter. ‘By the way, did you say the dead Quaker in Bombay was a cloth trader?’

  ‘Tha
t’s right.’

  ‘Heard any more about him?’

  Calvin shook his head. ‘Sodding sailor’s disappeared. He’s probably gone bush. Might need to get Jarrah after him. You think there’s a connection?’

  ‘No. Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘Well that’s concise.’

  Michael shrugged. ‘Just a feeling. But if there’s a coining racket on, then I might have something else for you. I’d sooner make my own enquiries. It’s not the small-fry forgers that interest me, it’s their master. By the way, have you seen any Cape and Orient ships in the harbour? Medusa, Raven, Empress … can’t think of any others just now.’

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘The shipping company is owned by the Crown bankers.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘They take delivery of all the silver from the opium trade – once it’s laundered through the Calcutta exchange.’

  ‘I’m not following you, Michael. What’s opium got to do with a counterfeiting operation?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet, but the bank’s filthy. Always has been. Their last mercantile was the slave trade. Their Cape and Orient fleet are for hire to any pirate who’ll pay. I’ll wager that there’s Cape and Orient clippers coming through Sydney with silver bound directly to Barings, no questions asked.’

  ‘I think you’re getting in a bit deep, mate.’

  Michael shrugged. ‘Is there a transport due?’

  Calvin nodded. ‘The Rajah. Any time now.’

  ‘Would you let me know if there’s a Rhia Mahoney on board?’

  ‘Passenger or prisoner?’

  ‘Prisoner.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Of my boy. I’m starting to get an itch … there’s a connection, but I can’t for the bloody life of me figure it out.’

  Calvin threw his fag end into a rusting bucket and got to his feet. ‘If there’s one thing you’ve a knack for, it’s pulling the threads together.’

  ‘I’m a weaver.’

  ‘Weaver, publisher, sailor, zealot. What else?’