Chapter 17

Hannah didn’t know what she was going to say to Lizzie when they met. But she didn’t anticipate any problems getting into the same room as the poor woman.

In this, she was mistaken.

It had now been two days since she’d first asked Rebecca if she could visit Lizzie again. Each time she repeated her request, though, Rebecca had another task in mind.

There was the reading and writing, of course. Then the sewing, helping with the leather-working so that the poor wretches could have shoes for a change, checking in on the mothers and babies in the lying-in hospital – Rebecca had made no attempt to take young Eve or any of the other babies again, at least not in Hannah’s presence.

Then Rebecca said she simply didn’t know whether Lizzie was up to another visit from someone who spoke in the cadence of people Lizzie saw as killers.

‘I must confess, I’ve never seen her react like that,’ Rebecca said. ‘The way you speak – yes, I know it’s not your fault – but it seems to call forward something quite dark in her. A little frightening. She was calling me some nonsense name, as you recall, and accusing you of all sorts of terrible deeds for which you couldn’t possibly have been responsible. Maybe best to let her regain her equilibrium before we try again.’

If Lizzie had not regained her equilibrium at this point, Hannah thought, she never would, and she was doubtful about the benefits of leaving the girl sitting in a room by herself, staring at the walls and chewing over the unfortunate fate of her husband, whoever he was.

‘The rebels were dreadful, you know,’ said Rebecca. ‘They dragged some of the captured yeomen onto a bridge once, and shot them where they stood – terrible barbarity. She talks about that sort of thing from time to time. One of the yeomen could’ve been her husband.’

Hannah’s grief at her own losses at the hands of those yeomen was dull, crusted over, but it was still there, and had heard an answer in the anguish of the madwoman, in whose mind those events had occurred yesterday. Hannah wanted to spare Lizzie, if she could, some of the worst of the pain. Today, however, was another day she would not get the chance. Rebecca had drawn her aside yesterday, conspiratorially, in the corner of the drying ground. Robert Church no longer occupied the dead house, she told Hannah. He had been buried in St John’s, the Protestant cemetery.

‘I wonder if anyone went?’ Hannah asked.

‘Oh, a few,’ said Rebecca. ‘Those on the Female Factory management committee attended – obliged to do so, of course. Henrietta wasn’t there. God knows where she was, but I doubt she shed a single tear for him. Apart from the official mourners, no, there were very few.’

But one of them, thought Hannah, had been Rebecca. At least, she spoke as though she had been there, although Hannah couldn’t begin to imagine why.

‘I have a very special task for you tomorrow, my dear,’ Rebecca said now. ‘You are to help Mrs Church pack.’

‘She’s going away, so?’

‘Yes, permanently. A new superintendent has been appointed, you see. A steady man, by all accounts. And a matron, too, but she will take some time to arrive – she’s been at the Female Factory in Van Diemen’s Land. It’s to be hoped their kindness matches their efficiency.’

Hannah had been wondering how long Henrietta Church would confine herself to the half-light of the superintendent’s quarters, pretending when she had visitors to be lost in grief, while in reality lost in rum.

‘Of course, I’ll be delighted to help her.’

‘Excellent. Do be careful, though. She has an awful temper when sober. One hears stories … Oh, and mind she doesn’t take any of the crockery or cutlery, or furniture. That belongs to the government. It’s her personal effects only she’s allowed to take with her.’

‘Where is she to go?’

‘Hannah, I worry about a great many things in regard to a great many women, but on that point, I must tell you, I am completely indifferent.’

It wasn’t the first time Hannah had noted a lack of sympathy from the usually tender-hearted Rebecca towards the superintendent’s wife. ‘I don’t know why you persist in getting her to give up the drink, trying to get her to eat,’ she’d said to Hannah a few days previously. ‘If she wants to drink herself to death, why not let her?’

So this morning Hannah knocked gently on the door of the superintendent’s quarters, heard a mumbled invocation and entered. Henrietta was sitting at the table, a cup in front of her which Hannah knew did not contain water.

Brusqueness, efficiency, activity – they’d helped her through a great many situations in the past. As long as you kept moving, it meant you weren’t dead. ‘Right, so,’ she said to Henrietta, clapping her hands and pretending not to notice the smell. ‘I’ll make a pot of tea for us to get us through the packing. You’ll let me know, of course, whether you’ve a trunk or some other means of conveying your possessions, and what you’d like placed in there.’

She didn’t wait for a reply, which was just as well as there was none. Henrietta watched closely as Hannah darted around tidying the kitchen, but the woman was mute.

Hannah put a cup of tea in front of Henrietta and deftly removed that other one at the same time. Empty, of course. She washed it, put it away.

‘Get that down your throat,’ she said, ‘and we’ll get to work.’

‘Not much work to do, really,’ said Henrietta. ‘I have few possessions.’

‘Ah, but a woman still has to wear clothes, missus. How are you to get another position without them? Where are they to be found?’

‘If you insist on packing, you may find some clothing underneath the couch,’ said Henrietta, with a weariness that indicated she didn’t particularly care whether Hannah found anything or not.

In the dusty recesses under the couch Hannah did indeed come upon an apron, balled-up and stiff, and a grey skirt which had been treated likewise. Again, there were those marks, those striations. Gorges cut in the floor’s geography. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, Hannah thought. Last chance, anyway. She extracted the abused garments and threw a question over her shoulder, as casually as she could. ‘Mrs Church, what made these marks in the floor? Is there some sort of insect infestation? I know some of them can play havoc with wood.’

‘No, it wasn’t an insect,’ said Henrietta. ‘It was me.’

‘You? I see.’

‘No, actually, you don’t. I know it’s not common practice to carve lines into the floor of your residence with an awl.’

‘Well, that’s true enough,’ said Hannah. ‘So why did you?’

‘Better than carving in flesh.’

‘Your flesh? I’m sorry, Mrs Church, but I couldn’t help notice … When I was tending to you the other day, when you were sleeping … The scars on your arms.’

‘None of your business, and how dare you examine me when I am not conscious nor in any fit state to object.’

Hannah sat down opposite Mrs Church, reached out and tried to take her hand, but it was snatched back as though Hannah’s own fingers were burning.

‘Of course,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s your concern and none of mine, so I’ll not mention it again. Unless you feel it might do you good to discuss it? With someone who will give you an assurance they won’t speak of it outside this room?’

‘It would do me no good at all. Nor do I trust you to keep silent. If there was anything to keep silent on. The Irish are dreadful indiscreet, it’s well known. Now, make sure you find the key to the tea caddy as you’re packing. I’d hate for some of those leaves to be filched.’

*  *  *

Hannah felt oddly sad that afternoon when the trap arrived for Henrietta and her baggage. The woman was rude and a drunk, and Hannah’s attempts to pour tea down her had been rebuffed. There was still the slim possibility that she was a murderer – Hannah had not ruled it out. True, it would make more sense for her to have avenged herself in the privacy of the superintendent’s residence. But Henrietta could have slain Church in the yard to draw suspicion away from herself – or rum might have carried her there and made her heedless of consequences. Still, Hannah thought it unlikely. And when the trap pulled away, she felt a rush of torpor, as though she herself had been at the rum.

Henrietta’s departure left Hannah without a focus – a situation she never enjoyed. Looking after people, whether they wanted you to or not, was an excellent means of fending off memories of ruin, and worries about a boy who was now a man somewhere in the expanse behind the mountains.