Girl of Shadows (12 page)

Harrie nearly laughed; Leo sounded just like a society woman prattling on about the merits of the new fichu-pelerine. ‘Who drew these?’

‘I did most of them. But I don’t have the time these days. As I said, what I pay George will be a sort of retainer for your services. What I’ll pay
you
will be your commission, due on delivery of every flash. And if I have a customer with a specific design in mind, I’ll get you down here to draw the flash on the spot while I’m getting the gear ready. Providing Mrs Barrett doesn’t object. How does that sound?’

‘I think it sounds wonderful!’ Harrie was delighted; now she could send her own money home instead of Friday’s and, at last,
make a real financial contribution to the Charlotte fund! ‘But I can’t let it get in the way of my normal work. Mrs Barrett needs me.’

‘Fair enough. I wasn’t joking when I said they’re a rough crowd who come in here, though, lass,’ Leo warned. ‘You’ll not find much rougher.’

‘Mr Dundas, I spent six months in Newgate Gaol and another four locked on the prison deck of a female convict ship. I think I’ll manage.’

Leo rubbed his chin. ‘Aye, well, when you put it like that, perhaps you will.’

November 1830, Sydney Town

Adam said, ‘Sarah, this is my good friend and colleague, Mr Bernard Cole.’

Sarah shook the proffered hand. It was plump and matched the rest of Bernard Cole. At barely five feet two inches he wasn’t much taller than her, but was considerably wider, with a beaming pink face and hair that looked desperate to curl, if only it could break free from its liberal dressing of Macassar oil. He wore straining fawn trousers and his loud, kingfisher blue cutaway coat revealed a bulging belly. Every finger sported a ring, and an extremely handsome gold watch chain in the byzantine style disappeared into his emerald waistcoat.

‘Good day to you, Sarah,’ he said in a distinctly East End accent. ‘Very nice to meet you.’

‘And you, Mr Cole.’

Sarah suspected that originally Bernard Cole hadn’t come to New South Wales as a free immigrant, but clearly he’d done very well for himself during the years since, as so many convicts had.

‘So, you and I will be working together, will we?’ He regarded her with unexpectedly shrewd and piercing eyes. ‘Adam’s told me much about you.’

Sarah studied him back. He certainly didn’t strike her as stupid;
she might have to curtail her extracurricular activities while Adam was away. ‘It seems so,’ she replied.

‘I hear you’re actually a qualified jeweller.’

‘Yes, I trained in London under Tobiah Cohen.’

‘Adam told me. Old Toby Cohen, eh?’

Startled, Sarah said, ‘Did you know him?’

‘Had dealings with him. A long time ago, though. Miserable bugger. I’m surprised he let you complete your apprenticeship. In my day he had a habit of sacking his apprentices just before they finished. Saved him money, you see.’

Sarah hadn’t known that. Perhaps she’d been luckier than she’d realised: Cohen hadn’t fired her until after she’d qualified, and that had only been because of his son’s advances towards her, for which
she’d
been blamed. ‘But you’re not a jeweller yourself?’ she asked.

He held up his pudgy hands. ‘Not built for it. The good Lord gave me sausages for fingers and they’re fit for wielding nothing but a knife and fork. And counting money, of course. I’ve an eye for a good jewel, though. We do well enough, the missus and me.’

‘Would you like to look around, Bernard?’ Adam asked.

‘Already have. Found the nearest bakery. Very tasty Eccles cakes.’

Adam smiled. ‘No, I mean here.’

Bernard gave the shop a cursory glance. ‘What’s to see? I know my way around a money drawer, I can talk any fool with too much money into parting with it, and the workshop’s Sarah’s domain, isn’t it? I only came today to meet her, and now I have. Did I hear an offer of morning tea? I know what a damn good cook your missus is.’

As Adam led him down the hall towards the parlour, Sarah caught herself smiling. He wasn’t what she’d been expecting, but she thought she might quite like working with him.

Friday moaned seductively as her customer pulled the long satin ribbon all the way out of her corset and lifted it away from her, glad he couldn’t see the annoyed expression on her face. It really was a bugger when they wanted to take it off; it took ages to do up again afterwards. All those bloody eyelets. He ran his (cold) hands down her back and she felt him kiss her all the way along her spine from her neck to the crack of her bum. She moaned again and thought, for Christ’s sake get on with it, you’ll run out of time soon and end up having to go like a bat out of hell.

She was sitting, naked now, on a stool in her ‘boudoir’, the afternoon sun streaming through the gauze curtains at the window and turning the hair on her head and between her legs into a glorious blaze of copper and bronze. She glanced at the rough and ugly tattoos on her pale arms, rendered stark in the pure light, and thought again about Harrie’s new part-time job. The week before she’d gone with her to Leo Dundas’s little tattoo shop on George Street and been utterly bewitched by what she’d seen there. She’d known many tars whose bodies had been tattooed, of course, but Leo Dundas’s work was in a different category altogether. His designs were stunning, bold and precise, his colours vibrant and mesmerising. She hated most of her old tattoos now, and desperately wanted them covered with something new and beautiful.

‘I’m ready now,’ her cully whispered, his voice made husky by lust.

Friday rose from her stool, crossed to the bed and pushed him onto it. Some men didn’t enjoy being shoved around, but this one did. Expertly she flicked open the buttons at the sides of his trousers and yanked them down, grinning wickedly at him as his cock sprang up.

‘No drawers,’ she purred. ‘You naughty man.’

She rucked up his shirt to his armpits and mounted him, making sure her nipples brushed his face tantalisingly. He groaned helplessly as she sank onto him, and closed his eyes. Fascinated,
Friday studied him as she bobbed up and down. He wasn’t an ugly man but he had a disgustingly large blackhead at the end of his right eyebrow; it had been there for as long as he’d been coming to see her and her fingers itched to dig it out.

He began to thrust harder, screwing up his face in approaching ecstasy, while she contracted the muscles in her vagina to encourage him. Squeeze, relax, squeeze, relax.

Squeeeeeze.

Letting out a strangled moan, he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her against his chest as his hips bucked wildly, then he climaxed with a sharp cry before subsiding back onto the mattress. Surreptitiously she turned her head to look at the clock.

She gave him two minutes to get his breath back then climbed off him. His cock, which had fallen out of her as soon as he’d rung his chimes, lay limp and shrivelled on its thatch of pubic hair, like a little blind sea creature left behind on the rocks by the tide. She passed him a towel.

‘Oooh, that was lovely,’ she said, patting his sweaty thigh.

And he
was
quite nice, she supposed, compared to some of them. He didn’t expect acrobatics, he didn’t shove her around or curse at her, and he didn’t go on for hours, wearing her insides out and boring her shitless. Not that Mrs H tolerated outright abuse from any of the cullies in her house; she’d have Jack and Al over in a minute flat if that ever happened.

‘Was it?’ he asked, struggling to pull his trousers back up. ‘I do hope so. I like to think I know how to please a girl.’

‘Oh, definitely.’

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, stood, tucked in his shirt and did up the buttons on his smart vest. Crossing to the looking glass, he retied his cravat and smoothed his hair, then reached for his coat.

‘Here you are.’ He handed her the requisite fiver plus a sovereign. ‘Something a little extra for yourself.’

‘Thank you, sir, that’s very generous,’ Friday said, still lounging naked on the bed.

‘Same time next week?’

‘That would be lovely.’

He lifted her hand and kissed it, and Friday gave him a genuine smile.

As soon as he’d gone, she opened the window and tipped out the bowl of water in which he’d washed himself when he’d arrived, refilled it, then squatted over the used towel. She slid her index finger into her vagina and probed around until she felt the sea sponge, hooked her finger behind it, drew it out and dropped it into the bowl, where it floated around dispersing milky semen. Giving it a good swish about, she squeezed the sponge a few times and set it on the windowsill behind the curtain to dry.

As she was expecting another cully shortly, she took a jar of fresh lemon juice from the night table, poured a little into a small bowl, added a pipette of quinine suspension, and dropped in a new sponge. After a minute she compressed it to remove some of the juice, then inserted it high into her vagina. There would be no more accidental babies for Friday Woolfe; she — and Sarah and Harrie — had Charlotte to look after now.

Finally she had a quick wash with some of the lovely Pears soap Mrs H provided in the rooms, threaded the ribbon loosely back into her corset and wriggled it up her legs and over her hips, put her drawers, muslin robe and silly dainty slippers back on, and went downstairs for a quick drink.

Nine other girls worked for Mrs Hislop, and three — Hazel, Constance, and the new girl Lou — were at present in the parlour, two were upstairs and the rest weren’t on duty.

‘Connie,’ Friday said, ‘be a sweetie and do up these bloody stays for me, will you?’

‘Stephen Davies again?’ Connie remarked.

Connie, whose real name was Aggie Mitchell, was a very buxom, flaxen-haired girl with huge brown eyes, a lovely smile and a patient and generous nature.

Friday nodded as she slipped off her robe and turned her back. ‘Can’t do it with it on. Has to have the bloody thing off.’

‘Then why don’t you
start
with it off?’ Lou asked.

‘Because he likes to start with it
on
. And it’s his money,’ Friday said.

She eyed Lou, whom she didn’t like. Loulou Lacroix had replaced Rowie. Apparently she had a French grandmother or something, hence her fancy working name, though her actual name was Effie Tuttle. She’d told them she was descended from a long line of courtesans accustomed to consorting with the aristocracy — though, in Friday’s opinion, she was about as French as Friday’s arse. What a disappointment it must be, Friday had said to her, to find herself in a bawdyhouse on the Rocks servicing businessmen, government officials and the odd sailor with a pocketful of money.

To give her her due, though, Lou was an attractive girl — raven-haired, fine-boned, and poised and elegant in a way Friday knew she would never be. Except she wore too much scent. Tuberose; a cully had given it to her. Lou had thought herself so special until she’d discovered the man had also given Rowie some in an even prettier bottle when she’d been in residence. And Esmerelda, one of the other girls. He must have got a job lot from somewhere.

In a way Lou reminded Friday of Sarah — they were both small, neat and dark — but without Sarah’s quick intelligence and wit, and certainly none of her loyalty. Lou was a free immigrant to New South Wales, whereas Connie had a ticket of leave and Hazel, whose full name was Hazel Wicks, had originally been assigned to Mrs Hislop as a domestic, as had Friday.

‘Breathe in,’ Connie ordered.

Friday did and Connie yanked vigorously on the laces, causing Friday inadvertently to fart.

Connie, Hazel and Friday exploded in almighty fits of the giggles.

Not Lou, though. ‘
Must
you be so vulgar?’ she said, ostentatiously fanning her face with her hand.

‘That’s good, coming from you!’ Connie said. ‘I heard you the other day out in the privy. I thought it was the guns going off at the battery.’

Shrieks of laughter from Friday and Hazel.

‘Girls!’ Elizabeth Hislop exclaimed, appearing in the parlour doorway. ‘What’s going on in here? Keep it down, please. The customers will hear you.’

When she’d gone Friday slipped her robe back on and helped herself to a tumbler of brandy from the drinks trolley. Her tipple was gin but there wasn’t any; Mrs H’s well-heeled customers would rather die than drink common gin, preferring spirits or port.

‘I thought we weren’t supposed to touch that,’ Lou protested.

‘Oh, fuck off, Lou.’

Hazel and Connie exchanged a gleeful glance; they didn’t like Lou either, and were eagerly waiting for her and Friday to finally come to blows. Or at least slaps. Lou was sharp-tongued, self-serving and had a very high opinion of herself. She was also mean and last week had suggested to Hazel — who was fractionally slow and could never formulate suitably acerbic rejoinders — that she do something about the little roll of fat on her belly, and consider applying henna to her hair to improve its ‘stockyard’ brown colour. The former hadn’t mattered to Hazel as men adored her full figure, but the latter had stung as she was very proud of her luxuriant, cocoa-coloured hair.

‘What did you say?’ Lou demanded.

Collapsing onto the sofa and tucking her slippered feet beneath her, Friday replied, slowly and clearly so there could be no mistake, ‘I
said
, fuck off.’

‘Don’t you speak to me like that!’

The bell in the hall rang; on her way past the parlour Elizabeth warned sharply, ‘Girls, that’s enough.’

She opened the front door, spoke briefly and closed it again. Entering the parlour, she handed Friday a letter.

Friday turned it over but there was no indication of the sender. ‘Who’s it from?’

Elizabeth shook her head. ‘I don’t know. A lad delivered it.’

As Friday broke the seal and read the short message, her face went as white as bleached cotton.

Wearing her best bonnet and dress, one she’d recently made herself, Harrie felt extremely self-conscious sitting across the little table from Matthew. She suspected everyone in the tea shop was looking at them because she was unchaperoned, and though there was no reason she should be chaperoned — she was only a convict girl after all — no one else knew that. They probably thought she was a tart. She wondered if Matthew was aware of the attention they were attracting.

‘These are jolly nice little cakes, aren’t they?’ he said, offering her the plate.

She shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’

She’d had one already, which had been a mistake; she was nervous and her mouth was dry and it had taken most of a cup of tea to wash it down. Now that they were here she was wondering whether this had been such a good idea after all, and couldn’t think of anything to say to him. And yesterday she’d realised that having afternoon tea with Matthew Cutler wouldn’t teach James a lesson for hiring Rowie Harris, if he didn’t even know she’d
had
afternoon tea with Matthew. Because how was she going to tell him if she wasn’t speaking to him?

‘Do you have family at home?’ Matthew asked.

‘My ma, and my brother Robbie, who is ten, and my sisters Sophie and Anna, who are nine and eight.’

‘And what does your father do?’

‘He died when I was quite young.’

Matthew’s brow furrowed as he attempted to work out the Clarke family structure.