Girl of Shadows (7 page)

‘How long have you known Jared Gellar?’ she asked, hoping Adam wouldn’t tell her it was none of her business, which it wasn’t.

He didn’t look up, intent on what he was doing. ‘Why do you want to know?’

Because he gave me the shits, Sarah thought. ‘You seem to be good friends,’ she replied.

He did glance at her then. ‘Six or seven years.’

‘Is he in the trade?’

‘No, originally he was a book-keeper. Owns a schooner now and has moved into imports. He also buys up ailing businesses just before they go bankrupt, then injects his own money and resurrects them.’

‘He
is
doing well then, for one of us.’

Adam reached for his flat-nosed pliers. ‘He’s not a convict. He immigrated here about eight years ago.’

‘Is that when you met him?’

‘A year later, perhaps. Why the interest?’

‘He did rather get the royal treatment last night. I just wondered why.’

Sighing, Adam said, ‘Jared Gellar is very wealthy. Esther thinks
my
business could benefit from an injection of his cash. Which really isn’t your affair, Sarah.’

She knew then it was time to let the subject drop. ‘I couldn’t help noticing she wasn’t very happy this morning.’

‘No, she wasn’t.’ Adam put down the pliers, removed his
magnifying spectacles, pushed his stool back and turned to face her. ‘Sarah, what exactly did she overhear you and Harrie talking about? This business about a ghost?’

‘Did she not mention it to you?’ Sarah said innocently.

‘Yes, she did, and she seems very distressed by it. I want to know exactly what was said.’

‘Well, Harrie was here one day and we were talking about the dreams we’ve both been having, about Rachel. Our friend who died.’ Sarah felt awkward lying to his face. It was uncomfortably like stealing from him. ‘Mrs Green must have overheard us.’

‘Yes, but what did you say about her?’

‘Mrs Green?’

‘No,
Rachel
.’

‘Oh. Well, we said that in our dreams Rachel told us she’s all alone out at the cemetery, at St John’s. And just that we had the impression she was angry at us. That’s all.’

‘And this is all true? You’ve both been having the same dreams?’

Sarah nodded, willing herself not to look away from him.

Adam’s dark brows went up. ‘How bizarre. Well, Esther’s got it into her head that there actually is a ghost, that the spirit of your friend is here and causing mischief.’ He reached for a cloth, wiped his pale, sweating forehead and poured himself a tumbler of lemonade. ‘She’s always had an unhealthy interest in the supernatural. She thought the last house we lived in was haunted, too. This won’t do her nerves any good at all.’

Dearie me, Sarah thought, that’s terrible news.

Adam sipped his drink. ‘She told me you planned to consult a cleric. Did you?’

What? Then Sarah remembered her remark to Harrie about accompanying her to church: she’d actually gone on a picnic with Friday to Hyde Park. ‘Yes, we did, the priest at Harrie’s church. He told us to pray.’

‘I think Esther was hoping he might come here.’ Adam swept his hair back off his face. He looked tired and a bit defeated. ‘What do you think, Sarah? Has the spirit of your friend really come back?’

‘I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never encountered a real ghost before.’

‘No, neither have I,’ Adam admitted. ‘I’m not at all convinced there are such things. And if there are, I’m reasonably confident the only place they’re residing around here is in Esther’s mind.’

‘I’m sad to hear that,’ Sarah replied.

Adam gave her a sceptical look.

Hurriedly, Sarah said, ‘Last night she said she wanted me gone.’

‘I know. However, you’re assigned to me, not Esther.
My
signature is required on any documents pertaining to your return to the Factory, not Esther’s, and I have no intention of sending you back. You’re far too valuable to me.’

Equal measures of relief, gratitude and self-reproach washed over Sarah. ‘Thank you.’

The relief was at least partly due to Adam’s admission that he didn’t think ghosts existed. If he did, she would have to rethink her plan regarding Esther’s haunting: it would be too much, even for her, to scare Adam silly as well as rob him blind. She had considerable respect for him, although obviously not enough to keep her hands off his property. She appreciated his intelligence and kindness, his sense of humour and his skill as a jeweller. He was attractive, too, though whenever she caught herself appraising him physically she put an immediate stop to it. Any thoughts in that direction could only lead to danger, trouble and, ultimately, misery — hers.

There had never been a man in her life, not in the romantic sense, and while she didn’t object to the
idea
, she knew the reality would be altogether different, without doubt fraught with difficulty and disappointment, and inevitably tainted by those brutal girlhood memories she seemed incapable of erasing — always there, like bloodstains on a snow-white cloth. She was plain, already set
in her ways, viciously independent, mistrustful and generally sour-natured; all attributes she knew men did not find appealing. Also, she was an extremely competent dip, screwsman and cracksman — again not attractive qualities in a potential mate. And as she had no intention of changing any of those things, that was that. It was much safer to stay the way she was.

‘I’d like Esther to see a doctor about her nerves,’ Adam confided. ‘But she won’t. I’m sure you’ve noticed she can be quite irrational at times. And … I think she’s getting worse.’

Sarah stared at her hands. It was quite useful hearing about Esther’s precarious state of mind, but embarrassing as well.

‘Does she have any lady friends?’

‘She has friends she meets when she goes out, to take tea with and what have you.’

‘Why doesn’t anyone come here in the evenings?’ Since Sarah had been assigned to the Greens, Jared Gellar had been the first visitor they’d entertained at home.

‘We used to have supper parties. But, well, now we don’t.’

The bell over the shop door rang.

‘I’ll get that,’ Sarah said.

Relieved, Adam turned back to his work. He wiped his hands on his cloth and put his spectacles back on. Talking to Sarah was the highlight of his day,
every
day, but he did wish she wouldn’t ask so many difficult questions. Other people might consider her overly curious, impertinent even, but he saw her for what she really was; a girl with a shrewdly intelligent and deeply enquiring mind.

The reason he and Esther no longer hosted social functions at their home was that two and a half years earlier he’d had a brief affair with the wife of an associate after they’d met at one of Esther’s suppers. Esther’s rationale since then had been that if no women came into the house, he wouldn’t be tempted. It had been the beginning of why she disliked Sarah so much and wanted him to send her back to the Factory — though since then antipathy had
certainly grown between the two women, and now there was this ghost business. But there had been no jewellers among the male convicts at Hyde Park Barracks for some time — he had specifically enquired — and anyway Esther needed someone to help her with the housework, given that she refused to lift a hand to do anything at all except cook.

He’d had the affair for purely selfish reasons. Esther was a beautiful woman and he loved her. Or, more truthfully, he loved the memory of the woman she’d been when he’d first met her. Now he cared about how she felt and for her welfare, but that essential spark of passion that drives lovers to be together had died well before his affair, extinguished by Esther’s ever-increasing demands on him to make more money. He’d felt belittled by her, and her apparent inability to stop spending what he did make created a never-ending treadmill about which she constantly chastised him, withholding sex as punishment when he flagged and maintaining stony silences and foul moods for weeks on end.

So when pretty Cynthia had offered the promise of a few stolen hours of uncomplicated fun and sexual relief, he’d accepted. He hadn’t loved her, and she’d been a little noodle-headed and quite possibly fairly annoying in large doses, but she’d had lovely breasts, smooth white skin and the most deliciously perfumed quim, and he had enjoyed himself. But she’d told a friend, who had told someone else and Esther had found out. Whether or not Cynthia’s husband had ever realised, Adam never knew; he’d seen the man often enough since with no unpleasantness.

There had been very unpleasant repercussions with Esther, however. While many women might have looked the other way, she hadn’t, and he hadn’t expected her to. There certainly had been no sexual relations whatsoever since, and no let-up in her drive to ruin him; he was beginning to view her spending as an obsession if not an actual form of sickness. The fact that she was also ruining herself seemed not to deter her at all. So he’d done the
only thing he could do and that was to work harder and make more money, which ironically was what Esther had wanted in the first place. And to do that he’d had to take on an appropriately trained assistant, who was Sarah, another constant irritation to Esther. To appease her he’d agreed to go to Hyde Park Barracks whenever a new shipment of convicts arrived, on the off chance one might be a jeweller, but whenever that occurred he would simply wander down to the Rocks and have a cup of tea somewhere for an hour or so, come home and say there wasn’t anyone.

Because he didn’t want to replace Sarah.

She was an excellent jeweller but, more than that, he thought he might be in love with her.

Wilting in the sun and swatting at flies, Harrie and Friday stood outside the tall wooden gates of Parramatta Female Factory.

‘Jesus, hurry up, will you?’ Friday muttered. ‘It’s bloody hot out here.’ She raised a fist and pounded on the wicket. ‘
Visitors! Open up!
’

Finally, the wicket swung open and the porter peered out. ‘Hold your horses.’

‘You hold yours, we’re bloody melting out here,’ Friday replied as she barged her way through.

‘Just as hot in here, you know,’ the porter grumbled, mopping his brow with an enormous celery-green handkerchief.

But Friday and Harrie had already set off towards the second set of gates in the inner wall. The portress, peeping through the slot in the wicket from the other side, opened it and let them in.

‘Ta, Glad,’ Friday said.

‘Thank you, Gladys,’ Harrie echoed.

Gladys asked, ‘How are yis?’

‘Good,’ Harrie replied. ‘Yourself?’

‘Can’t complain. Janie and the kids’ve been waiting for yis. Wait here an’ I’ll get ’em.’

‘Hold on.’ Friday surreptitiously passed Gladys a decent-sized block of tobacco. ‘Don’t smoke it all at once.’

‘Oooh, very nice.’ Gladys sniffed it appreciatively. ‘Ta.’

She hurried away across the yard and disappeared into the entrance of the three-storey dormitory building dominating the Factory compound; a few pale faces could be seen staring down from the windows. It was past midday so Sunday services and dinner would be over by now. Neither the matron, Mrs Ann Gordon, nor her assistant, Mrs Letitia Dick, were anywhere to be seen, which was fortunate as Friday and Harrie were smuggling in a large bag of contraband.

Gladys returned minutes later accompanied by Janie Braine carrying baby Charlotte on her hip and leading her daughter Rosie, a toddler, by the hand. Janie wore the regulation Factory skirt and blouse, plus a bright blue waistcoat, a red kerchief at her throat, black boots and a straw bonnet that made her large pink ears stick out even more than they normally did. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a tidy bun and her good eye was healthy and bright, though the left one, as usual, stared forwards sightlessly. Behind her trailed a tall and very solidly built girl.

Janie embraced Harrie and Friday and presented both babies for kisses.

‘Afternoon, Pearl,’ Friday said to the big girl.

Pearl nodded pleasantly.

Gladys said, ‘Visitors’ room’s empty.’

The group trudged across the yard and settled themselves in the airless visitors’ room, Charlotte on Harrie’s knee and Rosie on Friday’s, though Pearl stayed outside, sitting on the step, smoking her pipe.

‘Have they been well?’ Harrie asked. ‘Have you?’

‘We been good, haven’t we, chickens?’ Janie smiled fondly at the children. ‘Rosie fell down the other day,’ she said, indicating a scab on the toddler’s knee, ‘but she’ll mend.’

‘No coughs or nasty rashes, no runny bottoms?’ Harrie persisted.

‘For God’s sake, Harrie,’ Friday said, ‘Janie’s a grown woman. Don’t talk to her like she’s a child. Runny bottoms! It’s called the shits.’

‘No, none of that,’ Janie confirmed. ‘They been good. Well, Charlotte had a touch of the runs a week ago but it didn’t last long. Everyone did. Hospital’s full of folk with dysentery at the moment.’

Friday handed over the cloth bag packed with supplies: Janie opened it and looked inside.

‘Oooh, lovely. I’m nearly out of decent clouts.’

There was also clothing for the girls made by Harrie, and soap and skin cream, and the nipple salve and bottles of tonic Janie had asked for in her letter as she was still breast-feeding both children, plus playing cards and trinkets for trading, plenty of fresh and preserved food, and money. Most of the money was for Pearl, whom Janie paid to look out for her. After Harrie had left the Factory for good it hadn’t taken Janie long to realise she couldn’t watch over two babies
and
keep an eye on the contraband the others brought in for her. Without Pearl, who was extremely loyal providing she was paid on time, she’d be robbed in a minute.

Harrie gazed fondly down at Charlotte, and flicked a fat, lazy fly off her arm. ‘She looks more and more like Rachel every day, doesn’t she?’

‘Thank God,’ Friday said grimly. ‘Imagine if she favoured her rotten bloody father.’

Charlotte’s hair had been the colour of wheat when she’d been born and had grown paler since, strands catching the sun and turning silver the way her mother’s had. Her eyes, however, had not lightened and were a very dark brown, clearly inherited from Gabriel Keegan, as Rachel’s eyes had been a startling cornflower blue. In her round baby face there were hints she may grow into a beauty, but this young such a prediction was too early to make with confidence. At least she no longer resembled the scrawny-necked
little creature she’d been when born, though even then Harrie had thought she was beautiful.

Rosie was a sweet child but, based solely on the size and angle of her ears, it was clear who her mother was. She was happy and managing to thrive even in the misery and filthy conditions of the Factory, unlike most of the children there, many of whom died before their first birthday. But then they didn’t have the benefits that Friday, Harry and Sarah made sure Charlotte and Rosie received.

‘Lotta,’ Rosie said, laying a proprietary little hand on Charlotte’s chubby bare foot.

‘Yes! That’s Charlotte, isn’t it?’ Harrie said, delighted. ‘When did she start talking, Janie?’

‘Said her first proper word two weeks ago,’ Janie replied proudly.

‘Really? What was it?’

‘Bugger.’

Friday roared with laughter, startling Charlotte so her little hands flew out.

Janie laughed, too, when she heard about Sarah’s plan to haunt Esther Green, but shook her head reproachfully as Harrie told her about James Downey’s latest attempt to get her to talk to him.

‘You know, Harrie, you been playing this silly game for ages. Don’t you think it’s time you got off your high horse? He’ll get sick of it and find himself a lass who
will
talk to him,
and
warm his bed. Then you’ll be sorry.’

‘James isn’t like that,’ Harrie said stiffly.

Janie and Friday looked at each other and laughed. ‘He’s a man, isn’t he?’ Friday said. ‘’Course he is.’

‘You don’t understand what he did,’ Harrie insisted.

Janie said, ‘I do so, I were there, remember?’

‘Well, I can’t forgive him.’

‘You mean you won’t.’ Friday rolled her eyes.

Janie shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. But sure as eggs you’ll lose him.
Some pretty little thing’ll come along and —’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Just like that he’ll be gone.’

Harrie said nothing. She ran her fingers over the silky softness of Charlotte’s hair and down her plump pink cheek. The thought had occurred to her, of course; James could well give up his pursuit of her, tired at last of her constant rebuttals, and find himself someone else. And then what would she do? But she could not bring herself to forgive him, she just couldn’t.

‘I don’t want him, anyway,’ she said.

Friday and Janie exchanged a knowing glance but remained silent. The remainder of the visit passed pleasantly, filled with gossip, Janie’s sharply witty character assassinations of her fellow Factory inmates, and the removal of a half-chewed piece of nougat from Rosie’s hair. But soon it was time to leave.

Outside the visitors’ room someone other than Pearl was waiting for them.

‘Look what the cat’s dragged in,’ Friday remarked.

‘Afternoon, Miss Harrie, Miss Friday,’ Matilda Bain said, giving a wobbly half-curtsy.

Matilda had been transported on the same convict ship as Sarah, Rachel, Friday and Harrie, but at the age of seventy was too old to be assigned and had languished in the Factory ever since. She was frail, suffering from dementia related to tertiary syphilis, partially blind and missing most of her teeth. Today her sparse white hair, stained ochre in places by tobacco smoke, lifted in the slight breeze like liberated dandelion spoors and her ragged Factory slops hung crookedly off her skinny, bent frame, exposing one bruised and bony shoulder.

Friday rummaged in her reticule and handed her a good-sized bottle of gin. ‘Here you go.’

‘Thank you, Miss Friday. Much ’preciated.’

It was Friday’s atonement for shoving, shouting at and insulting Matilda on the voyage out from England. There had been no real
reason for her behaviour other than she’d needed a punching bag, and whining, irritating old Matilda had been it. So every time Friday visited the Factory now she gave Matilda something. Neither had discussed the matter — that would be too embarrassing for both of them — but each knew exactly why Matilda was getting gifts when Friday came to see Janie and the children.

But this time, instead of scurrying off across the yard, Matilda turned to Harrie.

‘I got something to tell you, Miss Harrie.’

Joggling Charlotte up and down to make her giggle, Harrie raised her eyebrows. ‘What’s that, Matilda?’

‘I seen her,’ Matilda said.

Harrie stopped joggling. The hairs on her arms rose and her skin broke out in goose bumps, because she knew: she knew without Matilda having to say a single word more.

‘Who?’ Friday demanded.

‘That young lass Rachel. Standing by winder where she used to wait, watching them bats go by.’ A fly landed on Matilda’s nostril; she didn’t seem to notice.

Janie, seeing the look on Harrie’s face, took Charlotte from her and said, ‘You’re mad, Matilda. Rachel’s gone, remember?’

Matilda shook her head vehemently; the fly hung on. ‘I got up to use bucket and there she were, plain as day.’

‘You must have been dreaming,’ Friday said, and turned to Harrie. ‘Like you have, eh?’

Harrie nodded, but she knew Matilda hadn’t been dreaming.

‘James?’ Lawrence Chandler called out as James passed his office door. ‘Do you have a minute? I’d like a word.’

James, bag in hand, was about to leave for the night but he did have a minute, several in fact: no one was waiting for him at home and all he had to look forward to were two pork chops he would more than likely carbonise over his fire.

‘Sit down,’ Lawrence said, indicating the chair beside his desk.

James sat, his bag on the floor at his feet, hat balanced on top.

‘Whisky?’ Lawrence offered.

‘Just a small one, thank you.’

Lawrence poured two drinks from the cut-crystal decanter on his desk. ‘I had a patient in here today, someone I’ve known in a professional capacity for some years. A very kind-hearted woman.’

James nodded politely.

‘She currently has working for her a girl who, for medical reasons, is no longer able to continue in her present capacity and is therefore looking for more suitable employment. Apart from this one particular matter concerning her health, which is not generally limiting, she is a fit young woman.’ Lawrence pulled at his greying beard as if deep in thought. ‘How are you getting on at home, James?’

‘At home?’

‘Yes. With your meals and housework and what have you?’

James suspected he knew where this was heading. ‘I believe I’m managing.’

‘Are you? Is that why you’ve come to work in the same coat with egg on its sleeve every day this week?’

James grasped his sleeve and twisted it; there was indeed egg on it — quite old egg.

‘I really do think it’s time you got someone in to look after you,’ Lawrence said. ‘No, don’t start on about wagging tongues. Virtually every bachelor with means in this town has a domestic servant of some sort.’

‘Yes, and they’re all gossiped about,’ James protested. On the rare occasions he attended social events it seemed that gossiping was all people damned well did.

‘Are they? I don’t listen to gossip myself. If that really is what’s troubling you, James, I think you’re probably fairly safe. There are far more interesting people than you in this town to talk about.’
Lawrence took a sip of his whisky. ‘It has also occurred to me that something else may be bothering you. I realise you’re still in mourning for a wife whom I do understand was deeply beloved to you, and forgive me for being blunt, James, but could it be that you’re allowing your memory of her to prevent you from having a female servant in your house? And, in effect, dictate that you must eat appallingly prepared meals and go about looking like some grubby alms-hunter, for that matter? You need nourishing food, and at the very least clean clothes.’

James rubbed at the dried smear of egg on his arm.

‘Am I correct in understanding your period of full mourning has come to an end? Yes? Will you be going on to half-mourning?’

James had thought about it, but had decided a year had been long enough. To be honest he felt an absolute hypocrite chasing Harrie Clarke around the streets dressed head to toe in widower’s weeds.

‘No, I think not.’

‘Good man. Then I can see no excuse for you to continue to deny yourself, and it sounds to me as though Elizabeth has just the girl you need.’

An unpleasant suspicion stole over James. ‘Elizabeth who?’

‘Elizabeth Hislop.’

‘Lawrence! I can’t have a
prostitute
in my house!’

‘James, this is a marvellous opportunity for you both.’ Lawrence leant forwards in his chair to emphasise his point. ‘The girl will be placed in decent and wholesome employment, and you’ll get a perfectly adequate servant. Where’s your Christian charity, man?’

James squirmed, recalling having employed similar tactics himself not so long ago. ‘It’s out of the question. What would my patients say?’

‘Why would they say anything? Why would they need to know of your domestic arrangements at all?’

‘Because things get around. This is a small town, Lawrence. It’s hardly London.’

‘But who’s to know where she worked before she came to you? It’s my understanding that Elizabeth Hislop operates a very discreet business.’

Thinking of Friday Woolfe, James wondered about that. He took a large gulp of his whisky, feeling very much cornered. ‘Well, can she even cook?’

‘Elizabeth says she can. She’s also lent a very competent hand in the hotel laundry.’