A Tattooed Heart (46 page)

Oh God, Harrie thought. God, God, God. She opened her mouth, but Sarah beat her to it.

‘Look, Captain. Lucas,' she said, her voice gentle with uncharacteristic compassion. ‘We're so sorry to have to tell you this, we really are, but Rachel isn't with us any more. She passed away nearly three years ago.'

Lucas looked as though his remaining hand had just been chopped off.

‘We're so sorry,' Sarah said again.

Lucas stared down at his lap. Then he stood, so quickly that Harrie thought he was about to have some sort of fit. ‘Excuse me. I'll just be . . . outside for a few minutes,' he mumbled, and disappeared from the room.

They heard him striding down the hallway, then a muffled bang as the back door rebounded against the wall. Harrie flinched.

Sarah said, ‘Shit.'

‘Will we tell him how she died?' Friday asked.

‘No.'

‘What about Charlotte?'

‘No,' Harrie said.

Friday nodded. ‘Poor bugger. You know, I didn't think he was real.'

‘Well, clearly he is,' Sarah said.

Lucas came back twenty minutes later, with swollen, red eyes.

‘Please forgive me. Of all the scenarios I've imagined, I never considered this. How did . . . ?'

‘She had an illness, and when the time came she didn't suffer,' Harrie lied. ‘I was with her. She passed peacefully.'

Lucas nodded. ‘She's buried here in Sydney?'

‘At St John's Cemetery, out at Parramatta,' Harrie said.

‘How do I get there?'

Harrie stood and brushed the creases out of her skirts. ‘We'll take you.'

By the time they reached Parramatta it was five o'clock in the afternoon. Isaac had driven James's carriage, with Harrie, Sarah and Lucas on one seat inside and Friday and Aria on the other. The day had been hot and they'd had to stop twice to water the horses, and on arrival they were all liberally coated with the dust that had drifted in through the open windows; they'd left the shades rolled up to let in air.

Isaac parked on O'Connell Street not far from the cemetery lychgate. Climbing down from the carriage, Friday carried the basket of (slightly wilted) flowers hurriedly picked from Harrie's garden for Rachel's grave — and for the graves of Janie and Rosie.

Lucas followed the girls westwards through the cemetery towards the section where inmates from the Parramatta Female Factory were buried, and waited respectfully a short distance away while Janie and Rosie were visited and the flowers laid.

Finally, Harrie said, ‘Capt— Lucas, she's over here.'

Three rows beyond Janie's grave lay Rachel's with its slightly crooked headstone reading:

SACRED

to the memory of

RACHEL FLORA WINTER

Who departed this Life

3rd March 1830 in the 17th Year of her age

REVIRESCO

The girls stood back as Lucas knelt and ran his fingers across the chiselled indents of Rachel's name. Then he pressed his face against the sandstone and closed his eyes.

‘Oh dear,' Friday whispered.

A minute passed, then he rose, wiped his nose on his sleeve and stood with his hand in his pocket. ‘She told me she was eighteen.'

‘She did tell a few lies,' Sarah said. ‘But we loved her. We still do.'

They arranged the flowers on the grave, each sent a private and silent message to Rachel, then Harrie asked Lucas, ‘Would you like some time alone with her?'

‘No, thank you. I just needed to see where she's resting.' He tapped his chest. ‘I carry her in here, constantly. But I'm very grateful to you for bringing me out here. You've no idea what it means to me.'

Harrie thought she might.

They walked back towards the lychgate, the sinking sun stretching their shadows out ahead of them across the baked ground.

‘Harrie.'

She turned and there she was, standing beside her grave, her hair a dazzling silver in the dying sunlight, her skin as white as new milk.

‘Look!' Harrie cried. ‘Look! Can you see her?'

And the others turned.

This is the final volume in this series. It's been huge fun for me, and a bit sad in places, too, but now it's time to move on to other things. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to say goodbye to some of the characters, though — Friday, Harrie, Sarah and Aria, especially — so they could well make guest appearances in future books. It'd be nice to know how they're getting on in their world when they're older, perhaps.

The lines I've quoted at the beginning of part one of this story are from ‘Where the Dead Men Lie', by Australian poet Barcroft Boake. Part two opens with a line from Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem ‘Luke Havergal', and part three with two lines from Christina Rossetti's poem ‘Song'.

I was going to do a little spiel here about why I chose to include a storyline in this series about the trade in upoko tuhi, also known as toi moko, but really, the subject is just too huge and deserves far more than a couple of paragraphs. If you're interested in learning more about it, and, in my opinion, the social, cultural and spiritual damage the trade inflicted, hop on the internet and have a look at some of the articles on the subject.

A few things in this last volume might need a bit of clarification. The towns in the Hunter Valley I've described as Morpeth, Maitland and Muswellbrook were, in 1832, known respectively as
Green Hills, Wallis Plains and Muscle Creek. But if I'd called them that, people might not have recognised them so I've used their modern names.

Ann Binder (née Burrell), who appears as publican of the Australian Inn in Newcastle, really was publican of the Australian Inn. Transported to New South Wales for seven years in 1816 for theft, she received a further one-year sentence the year she arrived for a colonial offence and was sent to the Newcastle penal settlement. She married Richard Binder, an ex-convict farmer and District Constable at Patersons Plains, in 1818. By 1828, Ann and Richard had moved back to Newcastle and become publicans of the Australian Inn. When Richard died in 1830, Ann continued to hold the licence herself. Good on you, Ann.

Although it isn't made clear in the story, Bella Shand died of arsenic poisoning from the lotion she used to rid herself of body and facial hair, an ancient chemical depilatory originating from the Middle East called rhusma, or rusma. The preparation was also very popular in Europe up to and during the nineteenth century, and was made by mixing slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) or quicklime (calcium oxide) with orpiment (natural arsenic trisulphide), and sometimes rose water to improve the pong, then applied to unwanted hair to dissolve it. It also often burnt the skin under the hair.

Death from prolonged use — essentially death by arsenic poisoning — took a long time, but was very unpleasant. Symptoms caused by long-term use are: headaches, drowsiness, confusion, dark and foul-smelling urine, diarrhoea, stomach pain and muscle cramps, discolouration of the skin and wart-like growths, pigmentation of the fingernails, sensory and motor nerve defects, breakdown of the internal organs, cancers, and eventual death. The presence of arsenic in the body used to be impossible to detect, and it was therefore very popular for knocking off people and often referred to as ‘inheritance powder'. It wasn't really until the end of
the nineteenth century that people began to realise how poisonous arsenic is, and it finally disappeared from food, paints, cosmetics and dyes, etc.

The house that Matthew buys at auction is based on the real Glover Cottages on Kent Street in Sydney, built in the 1820s by ex-convict, stonemason and publican Thomas Glover, who came to a very sad end. Google him.

I made up the ships the
Sheffield
, the
John Tanner
and the
Trident II
, but the
Red Rover
, the
Princess Royal
and the
Florentia
, and their departure and arrival dates, are real. The
Sophia Jane
and the
William the Fourth
, the paddlesteamers that travelled regularly between Newcastle and Sydney, are also real, and in 1832 it actually did cost twelve shillings and sixpence in steerage to travel one way, or twenty shillings for a private cabin.

The things you learn looking through old newspapers.

Sadly, I found that I didn't really need to buy any new books for this volume,
as my ever-expanding private library proved perfectly adequate for the job, which
tends to happen when you write a series. However, my friend and colleague, Kerrie
Ptolemy, alerted me to this most awesome website:
https://coalriver.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/virtual-newcastle-circa-1800-1830-ad/

It gives you multiple colour 3D views (fly-throughs) of a virtual model of Newcastle in 1830, based on detailed historical archival maps, surveys and records, and is the work of Charles Martin assisted by Russell Rigby. You can see the beaches, the river, the streets, the buildings — everything! — and it's all historically correct. I had no end of fun imagining Friday and the girls trudging up the sandy streets, peering in cottage windows, then running like hell across the dunes with Leary after them. Have a look — it's well worth it.

As usual, I had lots of help writing this book. Thank you once again to the team at HarperCollins Australia: publisher Anna Valdinger, who is and has always been unfailingly and cheerfully enthusiastic, committed and supportive; meticulous and gracious editor Kate Burnitt, who says it doesn't matter when I send in the wrong version of the manuscript, but actually it does; and publishing director Shona Martyn, who has always supported me and my books.

Thanks also to freelance editor Kate O'Donnell, who has put her heart and soul into editing this series. It's been great being able to bounce ideas off Kate and Anna, knowing that they love my characters as much as I do.

I'm also grateful to HarperCollins New Zealand, who have really got behind me with new covers, publicity material, speaking events and plans for the future. Thanks, guys.

My agent Clare Forster of Curtis Brown also deserves a big shout-out — while I've been doing the easy bit, sitting in my office writing, she's been working away, doing all sorts of clever things on my behalf.

Thanks also to my writing group in Australia, Hunter Romance Writers, for loads of ongoing support, and to Kerrie Ptolemy for helping me to nut out the last third of this book, and also to my
friend and colleague Ngahuia Te Awekotuku for the cut-throat razor idea.

A special thank you needs to go to ‘the girls' — you know who you are. I very much appreciate the time and information you gave me: I hope I've done your stories justice. May you find more happiness than poor Bella did.

Finally, thanks, as always, to my long-suffering husband, Aaron Paul. It's hard going being married to a writer. Or so I'm told.

DEBORAH CHALLINOR
has a PhD in history and is the author of twelve bestselling novels.
A Tattooed Heart
is the fourth in a series of four books set in 1830s Sydney, inspired by her ancestors — one of whom was a member of the First Fleet and another who was transported on the Floating Brothel. Deborah lives in New Zealand with her husband.

www.deborahchallinor.com

FICTION

CONVICT GIRLS Series

Behind
the Sun

Girl
of Shadows

The
Silk Thief

A Tattooed Heart

CHILDREN OF WAR Series

Tamar

White
Feathers

Blue
Smoke

THE SMUGGLER'S WIFE Series

Kitty

Amber

Band of
Gold

Union
Belle

Fire

Isle
of Tears

NON-FICTION

Grey
Ghosts

Who'll Stop the Rain?

HarperCollins
Publishers

First published in Australia in 2015

This edition published in 2015

by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

Copyright © Deborah Challinor 2015

The right of Deborah Challinor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins
Publishers

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Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

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195 Broadway, New York NY 10007, USA

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Challinor, Deborah, author.

A tattooed heart / Deborah Challinor.

ISBN: 978 0 7322 9679 7 (paperback)

ISBN: 978 1 7430 9906 3 (ebook)

Challinor, Deborah. Convict girls ; 4.

Female friendship—Fiction.

Women convicts—Australia—Fiction.

New South Wales—History—1788–1851—Fiction.

A823.3

Cover design by Astred Hicks and HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover images: Girl by Yolande De Kort / Trevillion Images; View of Sydney from the east side of the Cove, ca. 1811 / John Eyre / Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW

Map uses detail from
Map of the town of Sydney 1836
, Dixson Library, State Library of NSW — Ca 88/7; adapted by Laurie Whiddon, Map Illustrations