Chapter 10

Mrs Mulrooney’s tea was by far the finest Monsarrat had ever tasted, and was largely responsible for maintaining his sanity in its current – although sometimes he felt questionable – condition during his confinement at Port Macquarie.

‘Very odd, to be honest,’ Mrs Mulrooney was saying. Her hands were working independently, using a knife to remove the skin of a potato while she leaned forward in her seat to allow the peel to fall into a small bucket. ‘Exceptionally familiar, for one thing. I’ve never had a gentlewoman speak to me that way, with the exception of dear Mrs Shelborne, and that was only after a period of acquaintance. The woman’s met me twice and she’s treating me as a friend.’

‘Possibly she’s a good judge of character, then.’

‘Don’t you be thinking you can flatter me into failing to notice that you haven’t finished your tea, Mr Monsarrat. But while she seems delighted I’m there, she takes huge offence at the implication that we might have something in common. And she hit a woman – a madwoman too. It’s off, that’s all. It’s not right.’

‘Despite the oddness, do you think you can continue to put up with her?’ said Monsarrat.

‘Indeed, for she has my interest. She was the soul of patience until the madwoman called her Eddie, then she cracked her across the face. She claims not to know anything about the name, and possibly she doesn’t, but it certainly seemed to disconcert her. I intend to find out why.’

‘I am glad to hear you say that.’

Mrs Mulrooney was very good at taking someone’s measure, better than just about anyone Monsarrat had met – and he considered he was no slouch in that department himself. Perhaps that was why he was disturbed by her attitude towards Sophia – her reservations made it harder to ignore his own. And perhaps that was why her tea was not sliding down his throat as easily as it usually did.

He had said the other night, slightly ruefully and half-seriously, that he would miss their evening discussions after he and Sophia married.

‘Well, I would be very surprised if I miss them, Mr Monsarrat,’ she had said.

‘Oh. I see. Well, I hope my company hasn’t been too much of a burden on you.’

‘Don’t be an eejit, you ridiculous man. Of course I would miss our talks were they to end. However, I very much doubt that they will.’

‘They might have to for a time. I imagine Sophia will want my undivided attention. Of course you will always have a situation here, with us – I could not do without you and you know that very well, but when Sophia and I marry there might need to be some adjustments.’

‘And I’m well aware of that myself. What I was getting at is that I think the chances of you marrying her are small. And I consider that to be all to the good.’

Monsarrat was shocked. A small amount of tension was to be expected between them, he supposed – they had both played such crucial roles in different parts of his life that they no doubt felt they had a claim on a piece of his soul. And God save him from strong-tempered women, despite the fact he seemed to surround himself with them. But they also tended to be people of character, and Hannah and Sophia were no different. He’d had full confidence that what he saw as a minor crinkle, their antipathy, would be ironed out with the passage of time. This declaration from Hannah Mulrooney spoke of an acrimony which went beyond that.

‘Why do you think that Sophia and I will not marry?’

‘Don’t misunderstand me, Mr Monsarrat. She’d be a lucky girl, so she would. But I don’t believe you’re enough for her, you see.’

Monsarrat nearly choked on his tea.

‘For the love of God. It wasn’t a slight against your manhood, Mr Monsarrat. I’d never do that to you, knowing how delicate your pride is.’

He opened his eyes as wide as he could, aping surprise. ‘I thank you for your consideration. It is uncommonly kind of you.’

And that, of course, earned him another swipe with the cleaning cloth.

‘What I meant,’ the housekeeper said, ‘is that madam craves respectability. Marriage to a steady clerk – one who has a colonial offence against his name, as well as his original one – may not bring her to sufficient heights on the social ladder. You seem to be the best she has right now, but I would not doubt for a moment that she is searching for a better prospect, one perhaps with a greater income and less of a criminal taint.’

‘I really must ask you to stop speaking like this, Mrs Mulrooney!’ he said, sharply enough for her to take a startled step backwards.

He felt immediately guilty at alarming her, annoyance at himself for feeling guilt, and further irritation with her for introducing him to such a noxious stew of emotions. Still, he made sure to speak somewhat more gently. ‘I don’t know what Sophia has done to offend you, but you are accusing her of the most appalling, calculated marital strategy.’

‘Very well. I’ll stay silent on the matter,’ she said, ‘and hope to be proved wrong.’

The problem was, he thought, Hannah Mulrooney was rarely wrong.

*  *  *

Rebecca’s husband, David Nelson, was known as hard-nosed but honest.

From what Monsarrat knew of Quakers, he assumed Nelson approved of his wife’s philanthropic activities at the Female Factory. Possibly had even suggested them. And it could do no harm for Monsarrat to be seen to be supporting these activities.

So he wrote to Mr Nelson, introducing himself and offering the services of his housekeeper for a full month to assist Mrs Nelson in her endeavours. He knew the offer would be accepted with alacrity and didn’t wait for a response. The next morning he walked Mrs Mulrooney to the Female Factory and delivered her to Rebecca Nelson.

Back, then, through the Factory gates, past the bell on its filigreed stand, around the same height as Monsarrat himself, which told the women when it was time to wash, to work, to eat, to sleep. Which had failed to tell the superintendent it was time to die.

He asked the guard whether McAllister was here. Thankfully he wasn’t. Clearly the leader of the management committee felt he had done enough managing for the present.

Just in case McAllister or some other worthy did present himself, Monsarrat checked the cuffs of his coat, flicking away a leaf which had drifted down and got caught in one of them. As no greater authority was currently present, he would assume the role himself, he had clearly decided, and pretend to be comfortable while doing so.

In this bell-regulated place, the women had not yet heard the peal which would tell them to pick up their hammers. They were gathered, instead, in tight knots around the Third Class yard. When Monsarrat had first seen them, they had seemed simply appendages of the one, rock-breaking organism. Now, at what passed for leisure here, their individual characters asserted themselves.

There were a number of quarrels taking place, the louder ones seasoned with words the women had definitely not picked up from one of Bulmer’s Sunday lectures. A few were singing, either to themselves or to the others, sea shanties or folk songs which had flown over the water behind them, trailing in the wake of the ships that brought them here. The woman with the largest audience had a high, sweet voice which would have been admired after dinner at a fine house in the home counties. A few sat on rocks or the ground smoking small clay pipes; others appeared to be sleeping, with one snoring in a manner which made Monsarrat suspect intoxication – liquor was forbidden, of course, but he knew such prohibitions counted for little.

Here and there, the women embraced one another. Monsarrat had overheard scandalous stories related behind hands outside the church about the kind of comfort the women were said to provide each other. But there was nothing lascivious about these embraces. Two girls, probably not yet in their twentieth year, had their arms slung companionably around each other’s shoulders, while nearby a woman cradled an even younger girl, stroking her hair while she silently sobbed.

A different overseer was here today, a man with the shoulders of a bull, a snub nose and a bald head reddening in the sun while his grimy neckerchief tried to spare his throat from a similar fate. Monsarrat informed him (taking care not to make it sound like a request) that he would be interviewing prisoner O’Leary.

‘Do as you wish,’ said the man, without taking his eyes off the women. ‘They’ve sent me over from the convict barracks to keep an eye on these tarts. Hopefully I’ll be back there by tomorrow – men are a lot more straightforward.’

One of the women heard him and made a rude gesture in his direction. He pretended not to notice.

Tom Felton, the turnkey, was inside the Third Class penitentiary.

‘I hope you have by now been able to procure a suitable table,’ Monsarrat said.

‘I have not. The bench is still there, though, if the bitch hasn’t destroyed it.’

Grace O’Leary was still there, too. Still on the same patch of floor, hemmed in by the marks left by Emily Gray’s spikes near the matted, greasy wool of her mattress.

‘Ah, it’s my Frenchman,’ she said as Monsarrat entered. She reclined, propped her head up on one hand and tilted over on her hip like a gentlewoman at a picnic. ‘And you’ve come to try again to get me to confess, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘I’ll not hide it from you, Miss O’Leary, that there are men who’d be delighted if you would. As to whether I’ve come to secure your confession – that very much depends on whether you’re guilty or not.’

‘Well, as I’ve already assured you, I am not. I fail to see what else you could possibly achieve here.’

‘I’ve been asking myself the same question. I must warn you, I am among the few willing to entertain the possibility that you might be innocent. But that will do you no good at all unless I am able to uncover something less tenuous than an instinct.’

‘I shall try to find the time for you, so,’ she said, the last word transforming into a wet cough.

‘Have they sent a doctor to you?’ asked Monsarrat. ‘How long have you been coughing?’

‘Oh, since I’ve been up here. No doctors for the likes of me, or for Emily Gray. At least while she lived – in their wisdom they brought one in after she’d died. I will die or survive without help or hindrance from a surgeon.’

She coughed again, but this time seemed to be trying to constrain it, covering her mouth.

‘And you might as well call me Grace. It’s been years since somebody referred to me as anything other than my first name or a curse, so when you address me by my surname, for a moment I don’t know who you’re talking about.’

She spoke quickly, trying to get her statement in before the next cough rose. When it did, she kept her mouth closed, so the rumbling violence was trapped in her lungs and throat. I’ll ask Homer to examine her, Monsarrat thought.

‘Very well then, Grace,’ he said. ‘I have read some of the letters you sent to the governor. I’ve also read your transportation records. You claim you’re innocent of the crime which sent you here. Now you claim innocence of another. You can see how it looks.’

‘I don’t care how it looks. I am innocent of both.’

‘An interesting position. I believe my own crime had certain … mitigating factors. But I would never disavow it. Many people are here for crimes which shouldn’t have required commission, but under the strictures of the law they are crimes nonetheless. Is that your situation?’

‘No. When I say I am innocent, I am.’

‘You didn’t take any cloth, then?’

‘Oh, I did. But with my mistress’s permission. I was maid to the wife of a cloth merchant – employed for my skills with a needle and thread. This lady’s husband would give her his finest wares, which I made into gowns for her, and she would sell the designs if other ladies admired them. Any leftover material was mine to keep, she said. Sometimes I had enough for a handkerchief, sometimes enough for a skirt. Her husband noticed one skirt made of a fine cotton, and he asked his wife what I was doing wearing it.’

Monsarrat wanted to believe Grace, with her dangerous kindness. ‘She denied giving it to you?’ he asked.

Grace stood and moved to her small window, which afforded her the sight of a small patch of the yard she was no longer allowed in.

‘Yes. She was meek, you see. Feared her husband would be angry if he knew she’d given me the cloth. So she accused me of theft without a second thought, and my protestations counted for nothing. At the time, I thought I was lucky not to hang.’

Grace’s expression at rest was generally a half-smile, half-sneer. Ready to encourage or mock, laugh or scowl, but ready to react. Not the dead look of many convicts he’d seen, their expressions permanently washed away by the brutality of their penal experience. Now, though, this was what settled itself on Grace’s face.

‘I wouldn’t mind hanging, I sometimes think,’ she said, turning from the window. ‘Whoever dispatched that man did the world a service, and I was thinking, actually, last night, that I would be happy to do them a similar service by taking their place.’

A bubble of half-formed alarm rose in Monsarrat’s throat. The colony, he thought, would kill someone like Grace, and people such as Daly would be too stupid to realise they were poorer for it.

‘But then where is the justice?’ he asked.

‘A very good question, Mr Monsarrat. One which I have been asking myself since I arrived here, as I’ve seen precious little evidence of it. And you, a convict yourself. Why should you put such a high value on justice? You must’ve seen through it, seen that it’s just a word those in power use to justify their actions.’

‘It can be, yes. I’ve certainly seen that happen. But there’s a finer, clearer version of it as well. Doesn’t always manifest itself, of course. Isn’t always given the chance to. But where I can help it do so, I will.’

To do less, he thought, would be to sink into the pool of human refuse until he was indistinguishable from the rest of them. ‘And you seem to be making a decent fist of it yourself, or trying to. It is you, is it not, who protects the weaker ones here?’

Grace scowled and turned away.

‘I try,’ she said after a while. ‘You see them arrive with some brightness, a fragment of soul. He could never stand that. Those were the ones he went for, you see. He didn’t base his choice on beauty. He based it on spirit. Anyone who had it needed to be brought into line. And they were, for the most part. And I couldn’t bear it, Mr Monsarrat. I couldn’t bear to see the soul drain out of these girls, one after the other, until they became slack-faced shades. My life is of no use to me, but it might still benefit someone else.’

The malnourished, slack-faced shades here may be beyond your help, Monsarrat thought. But to say it would be a cruelty.

‘And was that why you convinced the other women to rise up?’ he asked.

‘I never said I did, now.’

Monsarrat stood up, walked to the window and stood by Grace. He still wondered why she had glanced at the window the last time he was here while she was claiming to have stayed away from its counterpart in the cell she’d been in at the time of the murder.

She couldn’t have seen the murder, though. That much he knew. Even from the room’s position at the narrow end of the Third Class penitentiary, the First Class yard where Church had died wasn’t visible. The best she’d have had was a view of one of the stores.

‘Grace,’ he said, ‘as I’ve said before, if we are to have any hope of saving you – whether you wish to be saved or no – you must be honest with me.’

She sighed. ‘Very well. The abuse and short rations were one thing,’ she said. ‘But it was the head shaving – the way it was done.’

‘The way yours was done certainly seems more than a little brutal.’

‘Ah, well, you see I had the personal attention of the superintendent himself. But he couldn’t have shaved two hundred heads at once, much as he may have liked to.’

‘This event – I should have asked last time – when did it occur?’

‘It did not, it couldn’t be allowed,’ Grace said, pounding her fist against the wall as Mrs Mulrooney did on the kitchen table when he became too irritating. ‘We didn’t let it get that far. That was where the riot happened, in the drying yard where we were mustered to do the terrible thing.’

‘I see. And you organised it.’

‘Organised – that’s an interesting word, now, and not one I’d necessarily use. I suggested. I passed messages, I put forward possible signals, possible ways in which the thing might be done. I even had an objective – once we had escaped, we were going to march up the river to Government House and demand justice. But when we got outside everyone scattered, seemed to run out of will, didn’t quite know what to do with themselves.’

‘At any rate, they pointed the finger at you, as the one who organised it?’

Grace went back to her matted wool, lay down as though the memory of the betrayal was too much to remain standing. Another cough escaped, propelling itself out of her before she had time to block it with her hand.

‘Some of them did, yes. There was chatter, you see, not all that discreet. Grace said this, Grace said that. So I was demoted from First Class to Third, had my head shaved – the hair had only just grown back before Church had another go at it last week – and I’ve been worried about the First Class women ever since.’

‘Worried?’

‘The superintendent had a special interest in them. I did what I could to protect them. Not always successfully. Now they have no one.’

Monsarrat wasn’t sure about that. It must – must – have taken more than one woman to organise the riot. Grace could not have spoken to everyone. There might be others, probably were. Grace could well, he realised, be the leader of a sort of resistance.

But resistance leaders didn’t have a habit of admitting it.

‘They’ll have even less if you hang,’ he said.

‘Which is the one thing that makes me want to avoid it. Who’s to say the next superintendent won’t be worse?’

‘No one, at the moment. But before you can assess him and mount a campaign against him, we need to clear you.’

‘You are making assumptions now, Mr Monsarrat.’

‘I am doing no such thing. Simply starting with a premise, which I’m going to test to see if it holds up. Now – you were asleep, you say, when Church was killed?’

Grace was silent.

‘Were you really?’ asked Monsarrat.

‘Continue with your premise, Mr Monsarrat.’

‘Very well. No one from this part of the Factory can see the First Class yard. But those on the upper floors of the other buildings can. So who lives there?’

‘The First Class women. A few others – the pregnant, the infirm, the mad.’

‘So I suppose there is slim hope one of them might have been awake, might have been looking out the window at the exact moment it was done.’

‘You are right, next to no hope at all. Unless …’

‘Unless?’

‘Unless Lizzie Ball was awake. Poor thing, it’s been a long time since she and her wits knew each other well. And she has a terrible time sleeping, you see. Has nightmares. You can sometimes hear her at night. There are some who like to tell the new arrivals she’s a ghost, standing at her window in her nightdress.’

‘But she’s insane, you say. Wouldn’t make a very good witness, then.’

‘I didn’t think you were interested in identifying suitable witnesses, Mr Monsarrat. I thought you were interested in divining the truth.’

‘And so I am. Very well. Let’s see if this woman’s insomnia is able to illuminate the situation.’