Girl of Shadows (24 page)

She certainly worked for her money. And when she wasn’t working, she liked to relax and forget about all that and these days, for her, relaxing meant getting drunk.

She would much rather spend her free time with Harrie and Sarah, the way they used to. Sarah, though, was busy with Adam now, and it was obvious where that was heading. Sarah swore she wasn’t interested in him, but what a lot of bollocks; she was, and probably she should be. He was a nice-looking man and, it had
turned out, a bloody decent one. He knew she’d been robbing him blind and hadn’t done a thing about it. But what it all amounted to was Sarah was drifting away, and while it was a nice thing for her, it made Friday sad. If she were the sort of person to get lonely, she’d say that’s how she was feeling. But she wasn’t that sort of person. Occasionally she did think how nice it would be to have someone special to come home to, but the one time she’d had that — or
thought
she’d had it — the pain of losing it had been so brutal she’d sworn she never wanted to experience it again. But she’d been younger then, so of course it had been hard. She was older now.

As for poor Harrie: what on earth were they going to do to help her? She’d always been the calm, sensible one, whose job it was to soothe and mother them all. But these days she fretted constantly — about Bella Jackson, and James, and what they’d done to Keegan. It was so hard to watch, as though Harrie were slowly unravelling before their eyes.

She’d popped around to the Barretts’ yesterday and Harrie had seemed even worse. Mind you, she’d got a hell of a shock herself when Harrie had passed on James Downey’s revelation about poor Rachel’s head. A brain disease! Jesus Christ. Perhaps they shouldn’t have kicked Keegan to death after all. But they had, and there was no changing things now. And whether or not what he’d done to Rachel had actually killed her, he’d still hurt her horribly. He’d had to pay.

And now Harrie was in a right state about
that
. She and James were speaking again, but instead of crossing him off her list of things to fret about, she’d apparently decided she didn’t deserve him because of committing such a terrible sin. She, Friday, had had to sit on her hands to stop herself giving Harrie a good clip across the ear. It didn’t matter what you said to her these days, she seemed mired in melancholy. Admittedly the business with Keegan
had
been pretty awful — and was even more complicated now — and they were
all
worried sick about the power Bella had over them,
but the strain seemed to be ruining Harrie, wearing her down and fraying her from the inside out, until soon there might be no Harrie left, just a little pile of disconnected threads.

She finished her gin and heaved out a long, gusty sigh. She feared Harrie was gradually losing her mind, and knew Sarah did, too.

As she turned to order another drink, someone bumped her newly tattooed arm and she winced. The peacock was finished and it looked fabulous, though it was sore. She thought she might have a little pus developing around the tail feathers, and was finding it very difficult to resist picking her scabs. She was refraining, however, because Leo had explained that if she did, the clarity of the lines would be permanently compromised, so bugger that. There would be no smudged peacock for her.

The barman slid her drink across the bar and she moved into the crowd, looking for somewhere to sit. A hand shot up and a voice called out her name.

Friday made her way across to the long table.

Her voice raised to counter the noise, a pretty dark-haired girl sitting at one end said, ‘It is you, isn’t it? Friday Woolfe?’

‘Sally Minto? From the
Isla
?’ Friday hadn’t seen Sally since the Factory.

Sally Minto smiled, and shoved along on the bench, making room.

Friday returned the smile and sat. ‘God, you look well. What have you been up to?’

Sally really did look good. On the voyage out from England she’d been a skinny girl with pasty, pimply skin and lank hair, and apparently hadn’t possessed the gumption to say shoo to a goose. Now she was positively buxom, her spots had vanished leaving only a few small scars, her cheeks were rosy, and her dark brown hair had the sheen of a well-polished saddle.

‘I was only in the Factory a week and I got assigned to a baker and his wife on Kent Street, down near Millers Point,’ she said. ‘I’ve
been there ever since. Can’t you tell?’ she added wryly, pointing at her small double chin.

‘A good assignment, then?’ Friday said, fishing her smoking gear out of her reticule.

‘I’m happy. Days are long but the work isn’t too hard, I’ve a nice little room to myself, the food’s good, the master leaves me alone and I get two half days off a week. I’m living better than I ever did back home. Yourself?’

‘I’m a housemaid in a hotel. The Siren’s Arms.’

‘Are you?’ Sally took a sip of her drink. ‘That’s a fancy dress for an assigned housemaid.’

Friday met her gaze and held it; Sally knew, and Friday didn’t care. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ She rolled a sliver of tobacco between her thumb and forefinger and tamped it into her pipe.

‘It’s nothing like I thought it would be, here,’ Sally said. ‘I thought we’d be in leg irons, getting whipped and fed gruel and treated like slaves. I do miss my family, though.’

‘I think it’s different for some of the men,’ Friday said.

Sally nodded. ‘Mind you, I know a girl, her master’s on her every night, poor thing.
And
he’s an emancipist himself. You’d think he’d have some sympathy. She’s already had a child to him. It’s in the orphanage now.’

Friday lit her pipe. Stories like that really annoyed her. Why did the stupid girl put up with it? ‘Do you see anyone much from the
Isla
?’

‘A few of the girls. I don’t know if you’d know them. Lil Foster? The woman who worked in the ship’s hospital? She comes into the bakery occasionally.’

‘Really? I must tell Harrie. She liked Lil.’

‘Harrie was lovely. How is she?’

‘Oh, she’s well. She’s with a nice family and doing quite a lot of sewing.’

‘Yes, she was good at that, wasn’t she? And what about Sarah? Do you still see her?’

Friday nodded, smoke trickling from her mouth. ‘She works for a jeweller.’

Sally laughed. ‘That’s a good assignment for a convict, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll say. Ha ha.’

‘And Rachel? How’s she? Did she recover from … well, what happened?’

‘No. Actually, she died.’

Sally’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘From … what that man did?’

‘It turned out he made her pregnant and she died having the baby.’

‘Oh my
God
.’

‘So that’s what Janie’s doing. She’s still at the Factory looking after her girl Rosie and Rachel’s baby.’

Sally frowned. ‘Janie? Someone told me she’d been assigned up the Hawkesbury River somewhere. At the start of this year.’

‘Well, someone told you wrong.’

‘Oh. I’d really like to see Janie again.’ Sally looked around. ‘Good pub this, isn’t it? How’s your drink?’

‘Gone. Fancy another? My treat.’

Sally said yes. When Friday came back, Sally said, ‘I’ll tell you who else I’ve seen — that Bella Jackson. She must live nearby because she comes into the bakery now and then and buys our macaroons. Her, or Louisa Coutts or that Becky Haggle.’

‘Hoddle.’

‘Hoddle. And sometimes Bella has that cove with her, the crewman from the
Isla
? The really nasty one? I nearly died when I saw him.’

‘Amos Furniss?’

Sally nodded. ‘What’s he doing with Bella Jackson?’

‘I’ve heard he works for her now. She lives on Cumberland Street.’

‘I don’t understand it. She comes in all gussied up in these fancy clothes waving her money around. Isn’t she supposed to be a convict like us?’

‘She got herself married to a rich old man.’

‘Married! But she’s
horrible
. Who’d have her?’

Friday gulped her drink. That was three now and she wasn’t even feeling muzzy. ‘Well, you know what a conniving bloody cow she is. Drink up. I’m going next door to the Pat. Do you want to come?’

‘Just for a quick one. And I’ll have to tell my friend.’

‘Your man?’ Friday indicated the sandy-haired lad sitting to Sally’s left.

Sally leant in to Friday’s ear, though there was no need; the noise in the pub was such now that her companion had no chance of hearing her. ‘No, but he’d like to be. I only came out with him to shut him up.’

The lad wasn’t very happy about it, but ten minutes later Friday and Sally left the Bird-in-Hand, walked ten yards along Gloucester Street, up the steps and through the double front doors of the St Patrick’s Inn. The scene of conviviality inside was identical to the one they’d just left and they stayed half an hour, long enough for Sally to drink a short ale and Friday, relieved to at last be feeling a little drunk, to knock back two more large gins.

Descending the steps on their way out, Friday spied Matthew Cutler walking past and was struck by the most excellent idea.

‘Matthew!’ she shouted. ‘Matthew, wait!’

Matthew turned and spotted her.

Friday leapt down the last three steps and landed beside him in a froth of skirts and a flash of shapely calf, pinching his backside and making him jump. ‘Where are you off to?’

‘The Australian,’ he said, embarrassed and glancing about to see if anyone had observed what she’d done. ‘To have supper with James.’

‘Oh, what a pity. I’d’ve come with you but I’ve been banned from there.’

‘Oh dear, that’s a shame.’ Noticing Sally, Matthew tipped his hat.

‘This is Sally Minto,’ Friday said. ‘She was on the
Isla
with us. Sally, this is Mr Matthew Cutler.’

‘Good evening, sir,’ Sally said. ‘You were a passenger, weren’t you? Paying, I mean. Of course.’ She blushed.

‘Yes, I was. How are you finding life in New South Wales?’

‘Very well, thank you.’

Sally smiled prettily at Matthew and fluttered her eyelashes; he smiled somewhat sappily back.

Her work done, Friday said brusquely, ‘This is jolly, but we’re wasting drinking time. Come on, Sally.’

‘Yes, I must be off myself,’ Matthew said. ‘Don’t want to keep James waiting. Very nice to meet you, Miss Minto. It is “Miss”, I take it?’

‘Yes, it is. Very nice to meet you, too, Mr Cutler.’

Friday dragged Sally off back towards the Bird-in-Hand, but when she glanced over her shoulder Matthew was staring after them. Smirking, she waggled her fingers at him.

Sarah’s bum had gone numb. She stood, stretched, moved to the window and checked her watch again: twenty-five minutes past eleven. Christ, she could have emptied the entire house by now.

But at last she thought she heard something. She opened Mrs Tregoweth’s bedroom door, checked to make sure the servant girl was nowhere in sight and crept down the hallway to the big window overlooking the front of the house. There was nothing there, but she was sure she’d heard a carriage. She hurried back to Mrs Tregoweth’s room and peeked through the window overlooking the back garden.

As she did, light spilt across the rear verandah and a curricle drew up on the carriageway running along one side of the house. A man in a top hat — presumably Mr Tregoweth — climbed out and handed down Mrs Tregoweth. She stumbled and whacked him on the arm. Words were exchanged, though Sarah couldn’t clearly hear them. Mr Tregoweth led the horses towards the stable while his wife stepped up onto the verandah and entered the house.

Sarah padded silently into the dressing room, lay on the floor and rolled under the bottom shelf, shuffling her bum and shoulders hard against the wall. All she had to do now was wait for Mrs Tregoweth to go to sleep, then take the jewellery and leave. Of course, it was rarely that straightforward. Wandering around
people’s houses when they weren’t in them was easy; stealing from right beneath their noses was a different matter altogether, and she felt an unpleasant buzz of nervous anticipation ripple through her muscles. But that was all right; only complete idiots didn’t feel fear just before a job.

She heard voices, the door to the bedroom creaked open and someone entered. No, two people. A dim, flickering light leached into the dressing room, then grew brighter as the wall lamps were lit.

‘Tea, thank you, Josie,’ Mrs Tregoweth said. ‘And three of those almond biscuits Mrs Bunyard baked this morning.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Josie, so that really was her name. Josie Light-Fingers.

Mrs Tregoweth’s feet appeared in the dressing room. The hem of her velvet mantle dipped then disappeared, hung on a hook. One foot eased a satin slipper off the other, the bunioned, silk-stockinged foot vanished from view, followed by the sound of cracking toe knuckles and groaning. Sarah winced. The other slipper came off and was discarded on the floor with its partner.

Mrs Tregoweth left the dressing room and sat on something that protested squeakily. Her bed? The chair at her dressing table? Not much happened for a few minutes, then Sarah heard her cross the room and take the dog painting off the wall. There was the distinctive sound of a key turning in a lock, some shuffling, then the safe was locked again and the painting replaced.

A knock on the door and Josie called, ‘Ma’am? Your tea.’

‘Come in.’

A tray rattled as Josie entered.

‘Help me with my gown, will you?’

Sarah stifled a sigh; Mrs Tregoweth could be buggering about with her toilet all night.

But with Josie’s help it only took twenty minutes and finally she climbed into bed, complaining that now her tea had gone cold. Josie brought her another pot.

As she slurped it in a very unladylike manner and noisily munched her almond biscuits, the door opened again and a man’s voice said heartily, ‘Ah, all tucked up like a bug in a rug, I see?’

A clink as the teacup was replaced on its saucer.

‘What do you want, Phillip?’

Another creaking noise. They could do with a bit of maintenance around here.

‘Is there room for me in there?’ he wheedled.

Oh
no
!

‘After the way you behaved this evening?’ Mrs Tregoweth snapped. ‘I very much doubt it.’

‘Oh, Eunice, be reasonable. I couldn’t help that.
She
was flirting with
me
!’

‘You could have walked away. But then you never have, have you?’

Sarah very carefully rolled onto her stomach and peeped through the open doorway. Eunice Tregoweth sat propped against her pillows with the bedclothes drawn up to, and tucked tightly under, her armpits. She wore a nightgown fastened at the frilled neck, her hair invisible beneath a lace nightcap. Her vibrant orange wig now resided on a mannequin on her dressing table, looking disturbingly like a decapitated head.

Phillip Tregoweth, tall, sunken-faced and thin, sat hunched on the edge of his wife’s bed wearing a floppy nightcap and a calf-length nightshirt; this last revealed white legs bulging with worm-like veins, and flat feet with thick, yellow toenails. He settled a hopeful hand on his wife’s knee and she jerked violently away from him.

‘Eunice!’ he said sharply, ‘I wish to exercise my conjugal rights.’

‘Then I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place,’ his wife shot back. ‘You should have considered that when you bought me fake glass trinkets instead of real emeralds. Why don’t you go and pester that red-headed whore of yours down on Argyle Street?’

Surely she couldn’t mean Friday? Oh God,
surely
not!

‘That wouldn’t be exercising my
conjugal
rights, would it? That would be exercising my God-given rights as a male. Anyway, they’re closed.’

Christ, what an arsehole!

Eunice said, ‘Go away, Phillip, and leave me alone.’

‘I see that as usual you’re going to insist on being selfish,’ he replied.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘It’s no wonder I’m forced to look elsewhere for my pleasure.’

‘Oh, just get out,’ Eunice said wearily. ‘Go on.’

Phillip stood, took his candle in its brass chamber stick and left, banging the door truculently behind him. Sarah watched as Eunice opened the drawer in her night table, found a small packet and emptied the contents into her tea. She stirred briskly with a teaspoon, drank it down, grimaced, then tugged the bell pull next to her bed.

When Josie arrived, smothering a yawn, Eunice said, ‘You can douse the lamps now, I intend to go to sleep. And lock the door on your way out, will you? I have the other key under my pillow. And Josie? Lock your own door tonight.’

‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.’

Sarah made a face. Damn, that meant she would definitely have to leave via a window. Was that a sleeping powder Eunice Tregoweth had tipped into her tea? Fingers crossed it had been. How long would it take to work?

The lamps went out one by one, Eunice removed her false teeth and set them on the night table, and Josie left.

In the dark Sarah couldn’t see her watch, so she counted to sixty, ten times.

Eunice Tregoweth’s breathing wasn’t settling. Mind you, she was probably upset by what her rotten husband had said to her. What a bastard. God, was he really one of Friday’s customers? How disgusting. Poor Friday, she really did work hard for her money.

A loud snoring noise came and Sarah jumped. She counted off another five minutes, and another, until Mrs Tregoweth’s breathing finally slowed and assumed a reasonably regular pattern.

Sarah turned onto her back, listening with straining ears to the depth and timbre of the breathing, willing the woman with every ounce of her being to be properly asleep. Outside, not far away, a night bird gave a lonely, eerie call.

At last she rolled out from under the shelf and into a crouch. She remained completely still, but after the figure in the bed hadn’t stirred for some minutes she uncurled herself and moved across to the tallpost, her bare feet making no sound at all on the thick carpet.

Eunice Tregoweth lay on her side, her mouth open, emitting a series of gentle snores. Her knees were pulled up to her belly and her arms tucked into her chest; with the quilt up around her ears and her nightcap tied at her throat, barely any of her was visible. It was a hot night: she must be sweating like a pig under there.

Sarah padded silently across to the dog painting and carefully lifted it off the wall, resting it on the floor near her feet. She dug in her pocket for the skeleton key and, with both hands to minimise her nervous tremor, guided it into the keyhole and opened the little door.

The interior of the box was in complete darkness, which didn’t matter at all as she already knew what she wanted. She gently felt about until her hand closed over one of the small velvet bags; squeezing, she knew she’d found the diamond ring. She tucked it into her satchel, followed by the second velvet bag containing the cannetille bracelet. The two cases containing the paste parure and sapphire rivière she didn’t touch; Mrs Tregoweth could keep her lead-glass jewellery, and though the sapphires were pretty and valuable, they weren’t spectacular enough to risk stealing and attempting to fence. The ring and the bracelet, however, were a different story. Both would have to be sent back to England, but Bernard could take care of that.

Working more quickly now, but just as carefully, she closed the safe and locked it, listening all the time for a change to Mrs Tregoweth’s breathing. She lifted the painting off the floor and, peering into the blackness between the wall and the frame, snagged the cord at the back of the painting over the picture hook and cautiously let go.

The painting fell to the floor, hitting Sarah’s bare foot and the polished floorboards with a hollow crack.

Her pulse galloping and sweat popping out all over her face, she whipped her head towards the bed; Eunice Tregoweth had stopped snoring.

‘Nnnuunh?’

Sarah held her breath, calculating the distance to the dressing-room door. A fair way, but Mrs Tregoweth was old; she could be across the room and out the window before the old trout even had her feet on the floor.

A snort, a long sigh, nothing for almost half a minute, then the snores started up again.

Feeling faintly sick Sarah silently let out her own breath, and at last allowed herself to rub her throbbing right toes against the back of her left calf. She lifted the painting again, this time holding the cord as she slipped it over the picture hook to make sure it was secure, and kept a firm grip on the frame as she let the cord take the weight. Bloody thing must weigh half a ton; her toes were killing her.

It held.

She limped back to the dressing room. The window sash opened without protest, and she climbed onto the sill and reached across to the drainpipe, testing its strength. It felt secure so she transferred her weight to it, with some difficulty easing the window down again, then descended, wincing as her wounded toes struggled to grip. She climbed down until she was level with a lower-storey roof, crossed to it and scuttled across the tiles until she’d reached the
eaves at the far end, then swung herself to the ground using another drainpipe.

She scaled the Tregoweths’ fence, retrieved her boots, cap and jacket, and retraced her earlier footsteps until she came out on Gloucester Street, not far from the Argyle Street intersection. Where, as he’d promised, Adam was waiting for her in an alleyway across the road.

She stood in the shadows, silent and hidden, watching him. He’d discarded the wig and fake whiskers and was dressed once more in his normal attire, the black trousers and coat he usually favoured. He was fanning his face with his hat against the night’s heat and looked on edge, starting every time a passer-by approached the entrance to the alley. He didn’t have to meet her here; they both knew she could easily find her own way home.

She knew he wanted her. There’d been the kisses, and she’d noticed his cockstand earlier. She wasn’t blind. Or stupid.

She couldn’t deny she was attracted to him — to Friday she could, perhaps, but not to herself — and they worked so well together, but, oh, what she would have to sacrifice! Not just the special bond she had with her precious friends, but also her privacy, her identity, her bed, her time and, most important of all, her independence. And he would always be her master; for the next six years he would hold her assignment papers, he would never forget she’d stolen from him, and he would
forever
be the head of the house. She knew she couldn’t tolerate it, and she couldn’t have Friday and Harrie believing Adam would take precedence over their friendship.

And what of the secret she carried from her past like a festering sore that wouldn’t heal, a corruption that had infected her with shame and soured her view of the world for years? How could she ever make peace with such rottenness within herself, and could she expect it of anyone else?

But Adam’s lips were so soft and his eyes burnt with such heat.

She stepped out of the shadows.

Friday arrived at the Black Rat just past midnight. She’d been to all the hotels she’d set out to visit, but when she’d bumped into Molly Bates from Mrs H’s at the Saracen’s Head she’d decided she didn’t feel like going home yet and they’d staggered down to the Black Rat, as mashed as each other.

Like all of Mrs H’s girls, Molly was spectacular. She was petite and curvaceous, and used potassium lye to bleach her thick, springy hair a startling yellow blonde. She drank as often and as much as Friday and Mrs H had forbidden them to go out together, but Elizabeth Hislop was the last thing on their minds as they lurched through the door of the Black Rat, giggling and leaning on each other.

Friday, however, was fast reaching the stage of inebriation that, for her, meant she would very soon explode into violence. It was a strange thing but when she hit the mash hard, she inevitably reached a point at which she
knew
she should stop before it was too late. But she never did stop, and after she passed that point there was always a horrible plummeting sensation in her belly and everything that had been fun and exciting only minutes earlier suddenly felt sour and maddening and intolerable.

The pub was still packed despite the hour, its stinking hot, smoky, dark recesses crowded with locals and sailors of many nations harboured up in Sydney Cove while the town’s stevedores and provedores plied their trades. Heading for the serving counter Friday and Molly bounced between Chinamen, Arabs, astonishingly tall African men with gleaming skin the colour of coal, Portuguese, ruddy-skinned American Indians, Frenchmen, Maori traders from New Zealand, British tars, Dutchmen and Mauritians.

‘Rum?’ Friday shouted over the din.