We stayed docked on the Thames for some time, though Oliver kept telling me that the day to set sail would soon come. I was in no hurry for it, and tried my hardest not to think about the miles that would soon slowly be spreading between my children and me. I also tried not to think of Isabella, who I’d cared for almost as dearly as if she’d been my own daughter. I knew there would be no point ever trying to contact her as she grew up. The Murrays would never allow it. May their son rest in peace, and may their burden of grief one day be lightened.
Those early days on the ship passed comfortably enough. For a long time, I dared not venture out of the cabin, afraid of what I might see on the other side. I’d had enough of criminals, lunatics and cruel guards. All I wanted now was a chance to forget Newgate and the circumstances that took me there, and to think about my child and the future Oliver had allowed me to hope for.
Arabella was beginning to grow used to my presence again, though it was taking longer than I’d been expecting. Often, she would hide herself behind the table legs when I tried to talk to her, or she would weep softly into her pillow when I put her to bed at night. I couldn’t help becoming suspicious of just what Aunt Emily and my mother-in-law had told her about me, and the reasons they’d given for our separation during those months after my arrest.
In those first few evenings before the ship departed, when Arabella was asleep and Oliver carrying out his duties as officer, I often sat at the small table, writing letters to Jack and Clara in the candlelight. I had no idea whether Aunt Emily would ever give them the medallions I’d sent, but I wanted them to know that this was not a life I’d chosen, and not what I’d ever dreamed of for them. It was all simply an accident of the most appalling circumstances.
I knew I would probably never be able to send the letters, but my mind was bursting through thinking about the children; there were times in those first months when I was afraid such relentless thinking would drive me crazy if I had no outlet for it. My mother-in-law already believed me to be halfway to the asylum. She’d said as much in her final letter, when she sent me the money to pay my way out of the criminal deck. She was certain my mind had been turned by the difficulties of my situation, and supposed this to have been what drove me to commit a dishonest act against my employers, whom she believed to be good, kind people, simply because they carried out occasional charity work. But it was always quite simple to me. I stole out of desperation. Nothing more or less than that. If that were madness, then so be it.
It was hard to bear. No one made any attempts to understand what it was like to lose my husband, son and home at the same time, to be forced into working for a family who treated me as nothing better than a menial servant, and who insisted I must leave my children behind me. I can still hear Constance Murray’s voice now. ‘I cannot have my home overrun, Mrs Winter,’ she said. ‘You will be employed to instruct my son – and my daughter, when she is old enough – in music, Latin, French, history, geography, religion and mathematics. It is demanding work and you must attend to their needs in detail. The costs of keeping two or three more children are prohibitive. They would need to be cared for in the nursery, and I should have to increase Nanny’s wages if she were to take on three extra charges. It is out of the question. You must find a relative to take them. You do have relatives, I presume?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said meekly, and that was that. Jack, Clara and Arabella all went to live with my mother-in-law. I spent the next ten months planning how we could all be together again, but it was not easy, on sixteen pounds a year.
*
The door to our cabin opened just before midnight. I laid my pen down on the table and looked up at Oliver.
‘Captain tells us we’ll be leaving in the morning, Rose,’ he said. ‘Once we’ve set sail, the convicts will be put to work. It’s hard work – scrubbing the decks, getting clothes clean, washing pots. They’ll be exercising, too. The governors of the colony are insistent it mustn’t be a lazy voyage. They need a strong, fit cargo, ready for work at the other end.’
I looked at him in alarm. ‘Do you mean I will have to carry out manual work, sir?’
Oliver shook his head. ‘No. I will see to it that you are excused. You are clearly not built for physical labour, and too gentle for it. Most convicts are a tough bunch, but I should think it unlikely that you’ll be set to hard work when you arrive.’
I breathed a sigh of relief. I could not bear to work alongside members of the prison class – Gypsies, street traders, vagabonds, &c. I knew what they were like. I’d spent six miserable months with them in Newgate.
Oliver undressed and got himself ready for bed, then poured us each a glass of brandy. I’d never touched liquor before, but now I found it soothing and calming on my nerves. He sat beside me. After a while, he said, ‘There’s something I’ve been wondering, Rose. Would it be all right for me to ask you a question?’
‘Of course,’ I said, because he was so gentlemanly in his request, it was very hard to refuse.
‘Why could your father not help you when your husband died?’
I hadn’t intended to tell anyone the truth of my situation, but the brandy had loosened my tongue. I was growing fond of Oliver and felt I could trust him. ‘My father is in prison, Oliver,’ I said. ‘But, please – do not think badly of him for that. His crime was against the law, of course, but not immoral, though there will always be those who think it is. He was a slave trader. He travelled to the west coast of Africa once or twice a year, and from there he bought Negroes and took them on a ship to the USA or the Caribbean islands, and sold them at auctions to farmers and plantation owners. There they received food and shelter and religious instruction, and had much better lives than those they would have lived in Africa.’
Oliver raised his eyebrows. ‘What makes you think that?’ he asked.
I said, ‘You must understand that the African is an inferior race. Negroes are notoriously idle and improvident, and nothing but the power of master over slave will confine them. If they were left in Africa, they would run savage, but in America they are tamed and cared for by good masters.’
‘Is this what your father told you?’
‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘and it is true.’
He nodded his head and said no more.
I said, ‘I believe it is my father’s crime that sent me here. The judge did not look kindly upon a woman with a father serving a long gaol sentence. I fear he thought the criminal nature was in my blood.’
Oliver looked at me for a long time. ‘But it isn’t?’ he asked.
‘Of course not,’ I told him. ‘I am a gentlewoman, a good person who has been unjustly treated.’