The river flows like dirty moss. The wind chops the Thames and forces the lighters to bang into each other, making an awful racket. There is no mercy on this river. The sound of the waves pushing against the wharves and wooden stilts diminishes the barking cries of the seagulls. Work is abandoned momentarily for hot cups of tea and, for many river men, something stronger at the nearest tavern. The criers are out walking the slick pavement with fresh cockles, silver mackerels and whelks.
Constance stands at the bowed parlour window peering down into the rising tide. The past swells up to a painful pinpoint in her heart, when, for a moment, she imagines her mother’s body floating by. The water rises so close, so high, that she could reach out to invade its threatening currents, grab her mother’s skirts and pull her out of the river’s clutch. This time, Averil Lawless would be saved.
Verity sits on the sofa behind her sister with their elderly father-in-law and his youngest son who will soon take the reins of Fitzgerald & Fitzgerald.
All around the room stand boxes and packages, bundles and stacks.
‘Constance, are you listening?’ she calls to her sister.
‘What? Yes.’
‘I was just saying to Percy and George that there is still no other talk from Limehouse to the Tower but that of the Fowlers,’ Verity says.
‘Astonishing.’ The old man shakes his head.
‘From gallows to transportation, it is not that unusual,’ Percy Fitzgerald suggests.
‘It is when you are pronounced dead,’ Verity counters.
‘Well, yes, that aspect of the tale is curious indeed,’ Percy says.
‘When the Fowlers return … ’ Constance begins.
‘The Fowlers will not return. Van Diemen’s Land is no New South Wales. The latter is near to being a desirable place to settle now. The convicts are happy to stay.’ George is firm. ‘Twelve years each, I believe is their sentence? No, you will not see them again.’
‘I wish we could be certain of it. I would rest easier.’
‘I too, Verity,’ Constance agrees.
‘Excuse me, Father. We mustn’t assume anything at this point. They have not yet left England,’ Percy says. ‘And I would not like to see my sisters-in-law’s hopes dashed. If they do return …’ his voice grows gentler to cushion the truth, ‘Mrs Fowler will still be the babe’s mother. And Mr Fowler his father.’
‘Quite right you are. But if I were to wager, I would say they are not made of the stuff to survive.’ George insists.
‘Sister.’ Verity peers at her around the teetering piles. ‘All right?’
Now that the day has arrived, Constance is not certain that she is all right.
‘I hope we have made the right decision,’ she says.
Bertie comes bounding in with the baby in her arms. She is stopped short by the silence in the room.
‘Thank you, Bertie. We’ll have luncheon when you can manage it.’ Constance takes the boy.
‘I’m far ahead of you. ’Tis ready now.’ Bertie makes a lively manoeuvre, skirting the baskets filled with linen and clothing. ‘It won’t be much longer now. Soon as you’ve had your lunch, it will be time. Now I’ll just make another sweep through the rooms again.’
‘Well, at least Bertie has no second thoughts,’ Constance says.
‘I am certain it’s best for the boy. Think of the fresh air, the village life. What a lucky lad!’ Percy says.
‘It is a very beautiful house,’ Verity adds.
‘Of course it is. Stunning. And you will still have a home by the water. A kinder body of water, I dare say,’ George adds.
‘It seems on the other end of the earth.’ Constance hands Rafe to Verity.
There is cheese and cold meat. Pickles, bread and cakes fill the plates in their laps and the afternoon sun glints through the sherry glasses.
The workmen arrive, are fed, and begin loading the carts.
When it is time to depart Constance looks back into the empty rooms, surprised by the feeling welling up in her. The last time they left this place they lifted the hems of their wedding gowns and stepped up into the carriage that waited at the door. They didn’t go far, only a few streets away. Fore Street will survive the thrashing the Thames gives it each day. It will go on without them.
‘Come, sister,’ Verity calls out to her.
Bertie carries Rafe, and pauses at the door of the carriage. She turns back to the house, lifting his tiny arm in a farewell wave.
Constance looks ahead at the boy and what is left of her family as she closes the door to the house on Fore Street.
Everywhere the eye roams in Regent’s Canal Dock, cargo is shifted. Salt, ice, timber, rice and coal – tons and tons of coal – are transported on the Regent’s Canal.
Here in this dock, hundreds of narrowboats wait in the lay-by. These long, wooden boats lack the majesty of the tall-masted ships that carry wild-eyed men off to sea. The narrowboat retreats from currents and tides and shifting shoal, and turns instead to the still, inland water.
It is mid-afternoon when the sisters’ carriage arrives at the edge of the crowded, noisy dock.
‘We are in luck with the weather today.’ Verity steps down from the carriage and adjusts her dark green spectacles.
The coachman hands Bertie the last of the small bags and a large hamper.
Swaddled in a soft, red blanket, Rafe struggles to be released from Constance’s firm hold.
‘He’s restless today. Seems to know he is in unfamiliar territory,’ she says.
George Fitzgerald pokes his head out of the carriage door and pleads with the sisters to be sensible.
‘Why must you take one of these … well, I can scarcely call it a boat? Percy is perfectly capable of protecting your goods on his own. You will not be comfortable and the journey will take hours longer. You must take a carriage. The water, Constance, such a long time on the water. And the boy.’
‘George, do not worry about us. We will be safe. We are not as feeble as you may think.’
Perhaps this change in the sisters’ lives unsettles George Fitzgerald, or perhaps he is feeling sentimental in his old age, for his eyes turn glassy and he places his aged and quivering hands upon the their faces.
‘Of course you are not. My sons always took pride in how utterly fearless you both are. Ah! There is Percy.’ He dabs his nose with his handkerchief.
‘Farewell, George. You must promise to visit us when we are settled,’ Constance says.
‘Father, Camden Town is not on the continent. Actually, Constance and Verity will be nearer to us now. Off you go. I will meet with you tomorrow.’ He sees to his father’s comfort before he nods to the coachman and the carriage claims the roads to Holborn.
Normally, the captain’s boat would be loaded with tons of cargo, but today, makeshift seating is arranged near the bow and along the hull.
Captain Emil Unger is in charge of this commission. When Verity and Constance offer their handshakes he looks at them as if they have just slapped his face. Unsettled, he wipes his hands on his trousers, but doesn’t quite know what to do with them.
The captain cannot understand why these women would have any desire to passenger a hauling boat on the canal. He doesn’t normally carry passengers, and certainly not the likes of these wealthy women, who are past the middle of their lives. It will be a tight fit, and they are sure to get in the way.
‘Good afternoon, sir … We place ourselves in your capable hands.’ Constance’s hand remains outstretched.
Surprised that he is addressed in such a friendly way, he relaxes and shakes her hand. What sort of woman offers a handshake? He glances from the child to the sisters and back again, and another question forms on his face.
‘He is our ward,’ Verity explains. ‘His parents have met with difficulty. This is Rafe, our godson. Say hello to Captain Emil, Rafe.’
The baby gurgles and blinks. He stares at the Captain’s weathered face and then throws his head back, opens his mouth wide and erupts with the most enormous peel of laughter. His tiny belly shakes, his laugh grows, as if he has just discovered the thing itself.
Completely won over, the captain’s face softens further when Rafe reaches out to clasp the boatman’s plump, rough finger.
‘There now, hearty lad, catch your breath,’ he says.
‘I have the toll money here,’ Constance says to the captain. ‘And half the agreed wages.’
‘That’s fine then, madam. We’ll be off soon. We normally start out much earlier than this, but we shouldn’t have too much traffic later. Hard to know.’
Percy steps from the second boat over to the third and after more vigorous greeting and handshaking, the bargees demonstrate how securely the furniture is tied and protected under the sheeting.
The boats are well stocked with food and the water cans are full.
‘All aboard!’ Captain Emil calls.
The bargees pole off and enter the queue at the entrance to the yawning jaw of the Regent’s Canal.
It is only now after all the checking and double-checking, after all the securing and preparing, that an elaborate bonnet first appears, peeking out from the panelled door of the cabin of the lead boat. In a moment, the bonnet’s owner steps out of the cabin. Weathered, crinkled hands tuck her bibless apron under her thick leather belt; her arms, beneath leg-of-mutton sleeves, are as muscular as any man’s. In her fortieth year, she looks ten years older. She keeps her eyes down in a wasted effort to conceal how incredibly shy she is at this particular moment.
When she dares to look up, her eyes fall on the baby. In her smile there is a black square where one of her front teeth should be.
‘Ah! Look at the little one. He’s a right beautiful boy. What a fine babe, a fine babe. I’ll just be putting on a boil for coffee.’ Finally, she raises her eyes. ‘Coffee? I spice my own.’
‘Yes, thank you Mrs Unger.’
‘Angela. Feel free to call me Angela.’
‘Angela then. I am Constance and this is my sister, Verity. This is Rafe.’
‘Now that’s a strange name, ain’t it? If you don’t mind me sayin’.’
‘Yes, but it suits him, I think.’
Angela steps back into her nestled domain with the strings of her bonnet streaming down her back, heavy boots clomping the linoleum. Each time she moves, a swish of her striped, cotton skirts fall upon all the surfaces in the space she dwarfs. The outside of the cabin, and the sides and doors, are decorated with colourful motifs of castles and roses. Brass hoops are on the chimney and the portholes shine from tender polishing.
‘Look ahead!’ Captain Emil calls out to the other boatmen.
Emil and Angela’s three sons give the horses a tug and they begin to tow along the path of one of the premier freight arteries of the country. The horses lean steadily into their collars, until the stretchy cotton towline is taut. With a minute or two’s effort of sustained heavy pulling, the first load is on the way. The captain’s narrowboat leads the other two, and as it rises up, meeting the first of twelve locks, the aroma of Angela’s special spiced coffee greets the passengers.
The sisters stand like figureheads, their lavender and blue cloaks rippling against a faint breeze. All they see and hear embraces their senses. It is during the unexpected excitement of seeing a great balloon blowing across the strawberry fields of Hackney that Constance first notices two men on the towpath, both dressed in unusual black jackets, their silver buttons gleaming in the mid-afternoon sun. They pull their caps down, place their hands in their pockets and walk along close to the edge. Her palms go sweaty and she is astonished to feel fear grab her throat.
‘Verity, look. Are those two men following us?’
‘Captain Emil, do you know those men?’ Verity asks.
‘No, never seen them before.’ One hand on the rudder, he waves to them.
When his greeting is not returned, the captain calls out.
‘Hallo! You must have permission to walk the towpath.’
Still there is no acknowledgement from the two strangers, except a further tug on their caps.
‘The Inspector will grab them soon, I’d imagine. We’ll keep an eye on ’em.’
Onward they drift, as the eastern landscape of London diminishes with each clip of the horses’ studded shoes. Coffee is welcome just at this moment. Soothing, warm and thick, it coats their throats and lifts their spirits.
Angela’s dark head appears through the cabin hatch, and from down below the mouth-watering aroma of frying onions travels the length of the boat. She whistles a long, low sound that signals their early teatime. The men are famished; their last meal was taken at past ten this morning and it is now five o’clock. Before the gaunt wharves of east London disappear and the highway of water takes them further north into the City Road Basin, they eat.
Bertie has been itching to enter Angela’s domain and takes this opportunity to haul her hamper to the galley door. At the heart of it all stands Angela at the black-leaded range, the centre of their home.
‘To share.’ Bertie opens the hamper.
Angela glances down at the densely-packed food.
‘The wages. They include your meals,’ she says. ‘You are our guests.’
Angela removes the top of the bargee pail: a large cauldron filled with two earthenware pots that rests on the flat top of the range. Simmering in a rich broth in one of the pots is a substantial knuckle of ham, the other is filled with vegetables. Tucked in beside the pots are three linen-wrapped parcels of suet pudding, one filled with beef and ale, another with lamb and kidney, and the last is a sweet pudding of cinnamon and raisin. Angela has removed the lid of the well-stoked coalhole on top of the corner of the range and placed a spider pan over the fire; the potatoes and onions it contains continue to sizzle in animal fat.
‘I’m afraid I have poor offerings to share compared to this feast,’ Bertie says.
Angela turns her face away to hide her blush. She is at once proud and embarrassed.
Constance sits near the bow without a plate of food. Another sighting of the two men who followed them earlier has diminished her appetite.
‘You are quiet, sister,’ Verity steadies herself. ‘Have you not eaten? Bertie is beside herself. She is rattling on about the best suet pudding ever to reach her lips. I must say that Angela has … Constance, what is it?’
Constance looks straight ahead at the low-hanging trees. She remains perfectly still.
‘There. Under the weeping willow. One of the men.’
Verity tries to move further starboard.
‘No. Stop.’ Constance grabs her sister’s skirts and pulls her back. ‘Do not let them see you searching for them. The other man … No, Verity, do not remove your spectacles. The other is a few feet north, near the timber yard.’
Both men weave in and out of stacks of planks until their short, square-shaped, black jackets fade from view.
‘I will alert Captain Emil. If they are thieves, may they melt off the earth like snow off the ditch. What else could they possibly want?’ She turns towards the cabin. ‘And I’ll return with a plate of food. You must eat, Constance.’
Rafe has been fed and lies beside Constance in the hamper, which is now empty of food and cushioned with bedding and linens. She reaches over to straighten the blanket that he has kicked off and which lies in a messy pile at his feet. His hair is turning just a tinge darker, less fiery than when he first came into their care. She smoothes it with a gentle hand.
Then a thought intrudes and she feels as if her stomach drops deeper into her body. Surely not! Why? What would two men want with a baby? She tries to shake the idea from her mind when the captain appears by her side.
‘Here, madam.’ He places one of Angela’s china plates in her hands.
She looks up at him; the fear of the unthinkable written on her face.
‘Madam.’ He cannot call her by her given name as she asked. ‘Whatever those men want, they’ll only find at the end of my fist. All of us, and my Angela, too, we fight if we have to.’
She does not tell him her strange and dreadful notion. He will think her mad.
‘Soon we stop to change the horses. Then we enter the long tunnel. You must eat now. It ain’t for the faint-hearted.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you.’
She picks up her fork and pokes at the food before taking a bite of the shredded ham. Her eye is trained on the towpath. The pudding is meaty and moist, the carrots sweet. She feels a murderous boil in her blood. She will do whatever necessary to protect the child. The fried potatoes are glorious.