Girl of Shadows (5 page)

And she was confused because she couldn’t decide whether she felt guilty or angry about what he’d done. She was so accustomed to feeling guilt that whenever anger popped up it muddied everything. But she did know she wasn’t ever going to speak to James Downey again.

Harrie entered the welcome shade of the new George Street market sheds and bought enough fruit to feed the Barretts for the next few days, then headed north down the sloping street towards the Rocks. On the way she stopped and peered into a shop window displaying lace and paper fans, gloves, embroidered and lace-trimmed pelerine collars, horn and tortoiseshell hair combs, fur muffs — as if anyone would need a muff during an Australian summer! — silk parasols, and fancy beaded and embroidered reticules.

Tapping her finger against her bottom lip she wondered: her own embroidery was, frankly, superior in both design and execution to that displayed here, even if it was imported from England. Could she make something that might compete? Handkerchiefs? Embroidered collars, perhaps? Not reticules — the beads were too expensive to buy. Would she have the time? Not really, especially if she was
going to sew Friday some new dresses. But after that, perhaps? And if she actually made a profit she could make a genuine financial contribution to the Charlotte fund and stop feeling so useless. And perhaps even send a bit extra home to her mother.

She turned away from the window, full of ideas, and that’s when she felt it: someone was watching her. But she walked on, eyes straight ahead. It could be anyone; it could even be a feral dog. She would be all right; there were dozens of people on the street.

She hurried along until she came to the plaza in front of St Philip’s Church and turned into Charlotte Place. The being-watched feeling stayed with her. She went straight past the turning into Gloucester Street and at Cumberland turned right and walked quickly, her boots crunching in the powdered limestone gravel, until she came to Overton’s grocery store. Risking a glance over her shoulder she glimpsed the shadow of someone ducking out of sight. So, not a dog, then.

Her heart knocking she entered the shop. Eleven-year-old Merry Overton stood behind the counter.

Her pretty face broke into a smile. ‘Hello, Harrie!’

‘Hello, Merry. How are you today?’

‘Dandy, thank you. Can I help you?’

God, Harrie thought, was there anything Nora Barrett needed? ‘Two pounds of crystallised white sugar, please.’ Nora was always making jam.

While Merry measured out the sugar Harrie went to the door. There were half a dozen people abroad but no one sinister-looking. ‘Merry, may I speak to your father, please?’

Merry nodded, twisted the package of sugar closed and disappeared into the back of the shop.

Harrie had been assigned to the Overtons for a few months but, after doing her deliberate best to behave incompetently, had been returned to the Factory, where she had cared for Rachel during the later months of her pregnancy. Harrie had liked the Overtons,
except for the unpleasant older son Toby, and they seemed to have forgiven her for her earlier bumbling transgressions.

Merry reappeared. ‘He’ll just be a minute.’

‘Thank you.’ Harrie counted out the money for the sugar. ‘How’s Toby?’

Merry made a face. ‘Same as usual.’

‘Oh well. And baby Johanna?’

‘Toddling all over the place and getting into everything.’

Harrie laughed.

Henry Overton came through from the back wiping his hands on his apron, his face even redder than usual from hefting bags of flour. ‘Harrie Clarke, hello, girl!’

‘Hello, Mr Overton. It’s nice to see you.’

‘You look well.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What can I do for you?’

Harrie felt her face grow warm. She put her packet of sugar in her basket. ‘I’m on my way home and I was wondering … actually, I think someone might be following me.’

Mr Overton’s expression darkened. ‘Some man, you think? Can you point him out?’

‘Well, I’m not sure. I
might
have seen someone. I’d be very grateful if you could just watch from your door until I turn into Surrey Lane.’

Henry Overton came out from behind the counter. ‘I can certainly do that. Better to be safe than sorry.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Overton.’

He waved away her thanks and planted himself in the shop doorway, a bastion of respectability and decency.

As Harrie scurried off down the street, he nodded to a couple strolling past, then to a pair of girls going the other way, then a smartly dressed gentleman who raised his hat and said, ‘Good afternoon.’

There was no sinister man following her. She was a sweet girl, Harrie Clarke, marvellous with the children, but hopeless at everything else. Highly strung, too. Henry went back into his shop.

Harrie had almost reached home on Gloucester Street when, suddenly, she knew. She ducked down the side of the house, praying she reached the back door in time. Digging frantically around among the apples and pears in her basket for her key, her heart racing, she started violently when a hand settled on her arm.

‘Dr Downey!’ she burst out. ‘Will you stop following me!’

‘I wouldn’t have to if you would just concede to speak to me!’ James said equally passionately. ‘And don’t call me Dr Downey. Surely you can proceed to my Christian name after all the tribulations we’ve experienced?’

‘
We
haven’t experienced anything,’ Harrie replied, yanking her arm away and spilling several pears.

‘We
have
, Harrie. If you would only —’

The back door opened and Nora Barrett peered out, a swaddled Lewis clamped against her chest. ‘Harrie, are you all right? Good afternoon, Dr Downey.’

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Barrett. How are you?’

‘Well, thank you.’

Harrie snatched up the pears and ran inside.

Nora Barrett and James Downey looked at each other.

‘Well, good day then, Dr Downey,’ Nora said.

‘Good day, Mrs Barrett.’

Nora shut the door.

The dining room of the Australian Hotel was quite grand, for Sydney Town. Swathes of velvet draped the windows, the carpets on the polished wooden floor were of above average quality, and the tables were set with silver and decent plate. One ordered
á la carte
, which was very modern, rather than dining
table d’hôte
, and the food was reasonably good. James liked it because it reminded him a little of his club in London, though of course sadly absent here were the extensive library of scientific tomes, the demandingly intellectual conversation, and the camaraderie and sense of purpose he’d so relished as a member of the Royal Society. Not that he’d attended a great many Royal Society dinners, as he’d been at sea so constantly. Perhaps someone would found a similar establishment here in Sydney. If so, he would seriously consider becoming a member.

He rearranged the napkin over his lap while he waited for Matthew to return. He’d ordered the cream of onion soup and roast beef with roast vegetables, and Matthew the soup and roast mutton, and James was looking forward to his meal.

He lived alone in a cottage in York Street, ten minutes’ walk from his Pitt Street medical practice, and did his own cleaning and very mediocre cooking, so it was a treat to dine out. He’d declined to employ a live-in housemaid, or even a woman to come in during
the day, as he didn’t want gossip, something with which he’d not had to contend in the navy overseeing the welfare of tattooed, hairy-bottomed, foul-mouthed sailors, and a curse he’d more or less managed to avoid while superintending aboard emigrant and convict ships. Now that he worked among a land-bound civilian population he suspected he was much more likely to fall victim to wagging tongues.

When his wife Emily had died in England the previous year, and he had decided to retire from the navy and settle in New South Wales rather than return to his home in London, he’d taken a position as a general practitioner in Lawrence Chandler’s medical practice. The position had initially been as an employee, but when Lawrence had offered him a partnership in May he’d accepted.

Lawrence was senior to James by twenty-four years and, at the age of fifty-five, was thinking more and more about retiring himself. He was quiet, mild-mannered, very decent and rather proper, and it had been quite a shock to James when he’d discovered that for the past thirteen years Lawrence had happily accepted as patients the prostitutes from the brothel where Harrie’s friend Friday Woolfe now illegally worked.

He’d received yet another shock when he’d expressed his disapproval regarding this arrangement, and Lawrence had bluntly told him not to be hypocritical as most of the brothel’s patrons were gentlemen just like him, and that no true Christian or humanitarian could deny medical assistance to the women employed there. Which had given James something to think about.

Matthew sat down at the table and took a sip of his claret. ‘Still waiting? God, I’m starving.’

The dining room was very full this evening and they’d ordered almost half an hour earlier. James could feel his stomach rumbling. ‘Can’t be far away.’

He and Matthew Cutler, whom he’d first encountered on the voyage out from England on the
Isla
last year, had been meeting
every fortnight for supper at the Australian for the past four months. He liked Matthew, and had done from the outset. He was an intelligent and cheerful young man of twenty-six with a bright future in the Office of the Colonial Architect, and of the two single gentlemen to have paid their passage aboard the
Isla
, he had been far and away the most personable. Of course, the other had been Gabriel Keegan.

‘I only hope the mutton’s not too … muttony,’ Matthew said. ‘It can be, sometimes.’

‘Send it back, if it is,’ James replied. ‘Order the beef.’

Matthew shook his head. ‘I’ll still be sitting here at midnight.’

Their suppers finally arrived and Matthew pronounced his mutton thoroughly acceptable. To accompany it they ordered more claret.

‘I spoke with Harrie this afternoon,’ James said, raising his hand and, behind it, prising a morsel of meat from his teeth with an ivory toothpick.

‘Did you?’ Matthew kept his eyes on his plate. He always felt deeply uncomfortable when James talked about Harrie, having never summoned the nerve to confess that he had himself entertained thoughts of marrying her. And still would, given the tiniest chance. Though that was clearly out of the question now, with James so besotted with her and, even more unfortunately, his choice of Matthew as his confessor. Actually, it had been out of the question before: Harrie Clarke barely even knew he existed. And there was also the matter of his mother at home in England, who would rather die than allow her precious youngest son to marry a convict girl. Of course, he could have just done it, making it impossible for his mother to object. But it was too late now anyway, so he’d resigned himself to having to listen to James go on and on about Harrie once a fortnight across the supper table.

‘Yes,’ James said, placing the toothpick on his plate. ‘Like a half-starved cur, I followed her all the way from George Street market
to her house on Gloucester Street, then I frightened the life out of her just as she was opening her door.’

Matthew kept quiet: he knew James was annoyed with himself.

‘Then I made a fool of myself,’ James went on. ‘An even
bigger
fool of myself, by attempting to speak to her, just before her employer told me I should leave.’

‘Did he? That was rather rude.’

‘It was Mrs Barrett. Actually, she didn’t, not exactly. But I left anyway.’ James sighed and dropped his napkin on the table. ‘I’m at my wits’ end, Matthew, I really am. It’s been almost seven months and she still won’t talk to me. And neither will her friends. God, she really is the most extraordinarily bloody-minded person.’

To be honest, Matthew wasn’t sure if he’d be talking to James yet either, if he were Harrie. Although he liked James enormously, in Matthew’s opinion what he’d done had been pretty awful. James was a man of science, it was true, and he supposed that went some way towards mitigating his behaviour, but still, to just wade in and hack up a girl’s corpse like that. Especially that poor girl, after everything that had already happened to her. It really
was
almost unforgivable.

‘And to round off the afternoon perfectly,’ James said, ‘do you know who I saw loitering on the corner of Bridge and George streets on my way back home?’

Matthew shook his head.

‘That damned scoundrel Amos Furniss, that’s who.’

Later that night, well after the bats had set forth and the moon had risen high in a cloud-tattered sky, Nora Barrett and Harrie sat in the parlour. After a day of colic Lewis had finally gone down, the older children were also in bed and Nora was enjoying a rare hour of peace and quiet.

‘You know, Harrie,’ she said through a mouthful of pins, ‘most girls in your position would leap at the chance to be courted by the likes of Dr Downey. A
doctor
, Harrie, and a navy captain to boot.’

‘He’s not courting me, he’s plaguing me.’

Nora removed the pins. ‘Hark at you! A convict girl with six years to serve of a seven-year sentence, complaining because a gentleman’s taken a fancy to you!’

‘It isn’t as though I can’t take my pick, though, is it?’ Harrie replied.

Which was true. The number of men in the colony of New South Wales, convicts and otherwise, so vastly outnumbered females that women really could choose with whom they took up, no matter their status.

‘Don’t be so ungrateful, Harrie. That’s not like you. And you’re so disrespectful to him. You want to be careful there.’

Harrie said nothing.

‘Granted he doesn’t quite have the looks to set a girl’s heart racing, but that’s a good fair head of hair on him and his eyes are kind. He’s tall, too, and I’ll bet there’s more under that mourning suit than meets the eye.’

Harrie bristled: actually, James did set her heart racing. Still.

‘And he obviously thinks a lot of you,’ Nora went on, putting in the last pin. ‘Otherwise he would’ve given up by now. He’d marry you, too. Not like my George — we were common-law for ten years and I’d had Abigail and Hannah before I could convince him to make it official. And don’t forget, people will always sneer: you’ll be a convict whore for life if you remain a spinster.’

‘I’m not a whore!’

‘Doesn’t matter, love, you’re still tainted.’ Nora held up the inside-out bodice. ‘Does this placket look straight? I haven’t marked where the buttons are going yet.’

‘Perfect,’ Harrie said quickly, glad Nora had changed the subject.

‘Good. I have to have it all tacked together by tomorrow dinnertime. She’s coming in for a fitting.’

Noting Nora’s tired, red eyes and the myriad needle pricks marking her swollen fingers, Harrie set down her embroidery frame.
‘Mrs Barrett, I know this is none of my business, but do you not think you’re trying to do too much? With Lewis and everything?’

Nora draped the bodice over the arm of the chair beside her and sighed. ‘Well, yes, but what choice do I have? George in his wisdom has decided I’m to keep up my side of the business. But he’s right, really. We need the money. That’s why we employed you, to look after the children.’

I’m not employed, Harrie thought — I’m assigned. If I were employed I’d be receiving a wage. ‘You’ll have to sit up most of the night to get that dress tacked together in time,’ she said.

‘I know. But I have to be awake anyway to feed Lewis, so I might as well.’ Nora reached for a sleeve. ‘You get off, though, Harrie.’

‘Are you sure?’

Nora nodded. ‘Just leave your lamp here, would you?’

Harrie obliged, and lit a candle to guide her way upstairs. She washed quickly in her bowl, brushed out her hair and undressed. Then she climbed into bed, using her feet to shunt a complaining Angus to one side of the mattress.

She re-read a scrawled and misspelt letter from Janie Braine detailing Rosie’s and baby Charlotte’s latest little milestones, and listing what they needed the next time anyone planned to visit at the Parramatta Female Factory, then extinguished the bedside lamp and lay down. Thinking she would be awake for ages, her head was that full of thoughts, she fell asleep almost immediately, but woke again several hours before dawn with a crawling, prickling sensation that told her she wasn’t alone.

Slowly, her stomach feeling fluttery and her heart beating a little faster, she sat up and peered into a dense blackness that had gathered around the little rocking chair in the corner of her attic room.

‘Rachel? Is that you?’

Sarah licked her finger and touched it lightly against the flat iron: there’d be hell to pay if she singed Esther’s best white damask tablecloth. No instant blister on her skin; the temperature was right. She wrapped an extra rag around the handle and ran the iron over the fabric until every tiny crease had been obliterated and the heavy cloth slid smoothly beneath her hands.

Some friend of Adam’s was coming to supper; he must be worth impressing as Esther had been in the kitchen since morning cooking all sorts of complicated dishes. Adam didn’t seem overly excited, though. He’d been in his workshop and the shop as usual, and had just received an earful from Esther for spilling sticky lemonade down the lapel of his good frock coat.

Sarah carefully carried the tablecloth through to the dining room and spread it over the table, then laid three place settings including enough different plates to sink a ship, four glasses per person for the wines, and a great clattering heap of silver she’d spent hours polishing. In the centre of the table she placed a silver and cut-glass epergne, now filled to bursting with rather a lot of rosemary and a lavish assortment of cut flowers Esther had sent her up the street to fetch from the market this morning. Then there were the ivory napkin rings and starched napkins that had taken ages to fold properly, and the fancy cruet set, the salts and all the other fripperies Esther had trotted out. Sarah thought it was absurd: what was wrong with a plate, a knife and fork and a mug? You’d think the new king was coming for supper.

Finally, everything was ready. Adam and Esther were both upstairs, Adam changing his coat and Esther dressing in her finery, when Sarah heard a loud rapping on the shop door. Wiping her hands on her apron as she hurried through from the dining room, she eased back the heavy bolt and opened it.

Before her stood a gentleman wearing a blue cutaway coat with fashionable raised shoulders, rolled collar and gilt buttons, a mint-green silk waistcoat over a white shirt with a pointed collar and a
precisely tied cravat, pale trousers fastened over the instep of his gleaming boots, and a beaver felt top hat, which he didn’t bother taking off to her. Good God, what a dandy. A heavy gold watch chain with a bloodstone fob peeked from beneath the waistcoat. Mmm, tempting, Sarah thought. He clutched a bouquet of flowers in one hand, a bottle in the other.

‘Good evening, sir,’ Sarah said.

‘Evening. Jared Gellar. I believe I’m expected?’

He had a pleasing voice, though Sarah couldn’t see his face clearly beneath the brim of his hat.

‘Yes.’ She stood back to let him in, then led him through to the parlour. While he wandered about having a good look at Esther’s pricey furniture and bits and pieces, she turned up the wall lamps so she could see him properly. ‘Mr Green shouldn’t be long.’

Jared Gellar’s face matched his voice — attractive. His dark features were regular and strong, his eyes shrewdly intelligent and, now he’d finally removed his hat, she saw his hair was a deep, glossy brown and curly enough to make most women jealous. He wore it in the slightly unruly style that she thought was effeminate, but which was all the rage among the wealthier classes.

‘Jared, my good fellow!’ Adam exclaimed, rushing into the parlour as though he’d been told to hurry up and get downstairs. ‘Delighted you could come tonight!’

Sarah looked at him; she’d never heard him call anyone his ‘good fellow’ before and it didn’t suit him. Adam wasn’t one for toff banter; in fact he was dismissive of those who were, so why was he doing it now?