I provided. My fingers were what kept the food on our table. As the years passed, I became more like a shadow that brushed against people without their knowing, as I skimmed from whatever pocket I found. My father’s faith in me was well founded. Money was my chief desire, for it was the thing in itself, it didn’t need to be filtered through a pawnbroker or melted down. I’d not risk myself like my father, I’d not be reckless. I only took what we needed and never too much. If I found a chain or match case, I’d barter it directly with someone at the market for food. My fingers may have had their skill from my father, but I kept my own conscience. I did not want to find my fate at the end of a rope or with a sentence for life. With each theft, my birthmark began to itch. But no matter what I stole, it never seemed enough. The house seemed to long to return to the river.
After the roof was fixed, the floors in the kitchen began to rot, the damp soaking and swelling the boards, the cost to replace more than possible to gather. It was then that Makepeace proposed her plan to accept lodgers for a fee. As reluctant as I was, I saw the sense in Makepeace’s plan. Together we cleaned the house from hearth to hearth – my father’s room, Ada’s room – all were transformed to plain bedrooms for lodgers. The thought of strangers in our home turned my stomach, the staircase and halls would become as ill trod as the open streets, but we both knew without a word passing between us that we had no choice, unless I took the same risks my father had.
Makepeace put an advertisement in the newspaper and waited for our potential house guests to come and fill the rooms, but hardly any did. Those that did come took one look at the damp creeping through the whitewash and pleaded rheumatism, dropsy and the gout, and I was secretly pleased for their rejection of the house and the damp river-laden air the rooms contained. Only one enquirer was undeterred.
I watched him come up the stairs and hesitate at the front door, checking the print of the newspaper, held close to his nose. He stepped back down the stairs and looked up at the house and I stepped back from the window, not wanting to be seen. He was not much older than myself, dressed neatly in the clothes of a countryman, his brown hair curled beneath his cap, and beneath his arm he held a leather case close to his chest, the most valuable of his possessions; across his back was slung a calico bag. I watched him step back into the road to get a better view of the building and felt a sick twist in my stomach as he almost clipped a carriage belting down the street. But he was as nimble on his feet as a pugilist, sidestepped out of the way and looked up at the house once again. The rain began to fall then, silver strands running down over him. When he leapt across the first puddle barring his way, I was already waiting for him as he bounded up the stairs, so that he almost toppled inside as his hand met the knocker.
He brought the rain in with him as he stepped over the threshold, so close I saw it dripping off his eyelashes, running down the flush of his face.
“Morning, miss, it’s a gypsy’s wedding all right.” He looked up at me with smiling eyes and I felt the raw skin around my neck prickle.
“Gypsy wedding?” I repeated, feeling exposed and mocked before I realised he meant the rain.
His boots squeaked as he took another step inside so that I had to stand back, the rain from his clothes dripping onto the floor, dripping onto my skirts and joining us together with a ring of water, the blessing of a puddle like an island.
“I’ve come about the lodgings.” He held the damp newspaper out to me with Makepeace’s advertisement and the words affordable and comfortable before the print had turned to black tears. He clutched his leather case close to his chest.
“What’s in your bag?” I asked, unable to resist speaking my thoughts, realising how rude I was, not letting him further into the house nor exchanging names.
The young man patted the bag affectionately and brushed the remaining raindrops from it so that they turned the leather a darker shade. “This here is my fortune, Miss …” he said and extended his hand towards mine so that I was obliged to take it.
“Stark,” I said. “And yours?”
“Fookes, Francis Fookes,” he said and smiled, his teeth revealed in a broad grin.
Makepeace came up from the kitchen, pulling the apron from around her waist and adjusting her lace cap, her chatelaine all a-jingle at the thought of a lodger, the natural order of the house returning.
“Let the poor fellow in, Eglantine, and close the door, for goodness sake, look at the floor,” she said and I did as I was instructed. I hadn’t noticed while standing with Fookes how much water we’d let in. “Would you care for some tea, Mr Fookes?”
“I’d be much obliged, if it is not too much trouble. I’ve walked a long way.”
“No problem at all, show him to the drawing room, Eglantine,” Makepeace said and disappeared down to the kitchen. I showed Mr Fookes to the drawing room, a somewhat closer resemblance to a Quaker’s meeting room than a cosy sitting room; only the damask on the walls and sofa lent it any warmth. The grate was cold. I left Mr Fookes and attended to the water on the floor in the entrance way, soaking the puddle up with a rag before I returned to the sitting room, where Mr Fookes still stood, shivering in his wet clothes.
I pulled out the tinderbox and tried to coax a flame from the damp flint, but it wouldn’t kindle to my touch.
“Don’t worry on account of me, Miss Stark,” he said, a suppressed chatter through his teeth. I ignored him and continued with a persistent strike, but no flame would play my servant.
“May I?” Fookes offered, and I reluctantly passed him the tinder. He struck the flint decisively and fed the spark a curl of sawdust before he surrendered it to the waiting wood. The flue sucked at the fire like a baby at the breast.
Makepeace came in, looked from me to Fookes and said nothing, settling the tray down on the table between the sofa and the chairs.
“I’ve come about the room, Mrs Stark?”
“Makepeace,” she said, her lace cap neatly arranged around her face.
“Mrs Makepeace, I’ve come about the room. I plan to stay in London for a time before my ship is due to leave and take me with it,” he said proudly, “for I’m going to try my luck in New South Wales.”
Makepeace’s face went grey. I picked up the teapot, poured the tea then handed her a cup; she barely kept the saucer from striking the base, all nerves.
“But why have you need of New South Wales if you are a man that has a fortune?” I asked, gesturing to the leather case that he’d placed closer to the fire to dry, the steam a small fog in the room.
He bent down over the case and opened it, unfolding the sides filled with small tools – pincer, awl, hammers large and small, a pair of compasses, rasps, kit files, nippers, shoe nails, leather laces sitting in a cloth pocket – to reveal a compartment beneath. Carefully he pulled out handfuls of tiny shoes, each finer than the next, and laid them in our hands.
“A doll’s shoemaker,” I said, marvelling at them, the tiny stitches, the softness of the leather.
Mr Fookes stood up and laughed. “No, they are samples of my craft is all.”
“They are very fine, Mr Fookes,” Makepeace said. “Too fine for the likes of those in the Colony.”
Fookes collected his precious samples from our hands and placed them back in the confines of his case. “There you are wrong, Mrs Makepeace. Why, a shoemaker is exactly what is needed, all those feet coming off the boats, shoes ruined by sea water. Then there is the need for workmen to have sturdier shoes and boots in the clearing of the land. The need for someone who can also make a saddle if need be, or nail in the iron to the hoof, if he’s comfortable with horses. Why, there’s work for the taking.” Mr Fookes looked from Makepeace to me and I was impressed by his confidence. How did Makepeace and I look to him? All we both thought of when he spoke of New South Wales was my father, his absence coloured everything. Mr Fookes swilled his tea down and resumed his seat.
“Believe me, what I tell you is true, there are more opportunities for those willing to work than here.”
Makepeace nodded, a slight shake to her hand as she stood and smoothed her skirts. “Eglantine will show you the rooms available. Breakfast is at seven in the kitchen. Rent needs to be paid a month in advance. Good day, Mr Fookes,” she said and hurried out of the sitting room, leaving Mr Fookes and myself standing opposite each other in her wake.
“Did I offend?” he said, looking at me, his face earnest. “I didn’t mean to offend.” He waited for me to answer and I looked back at him, the colour flooded into my face; I’d never spoken to a young man before by myself, a young man with ambition.
“We lost someone close to us to the Colony is all,” I said. “Come, gather your treasure and I’ll show you the rooms.” I watched as he picked up his case and his calico sack, noticing the strength of his arms press at his jacket sleeve. Could he really be a shoemaker? I’d learned to trust no one.
Mr Fookes followed me up the stairs and I showed him the newly transformed rooms, Ada’s room, my father’s – and he stopped at each and looked out each of their windows, though the view was swirling in rain. I watched from the thresholds as he looked at the old pitcher and jug on each chest of drawers, the linen newly washed and darned and hidden beneath the best of the counterpanes. Mr Fookes ran a hand along the barley twists of my father’s chest of drawers, admiring their craftsmanship. I held my breath, hoping he’d not ask me who had last slept in this room, concerned my father’s taint would reach us still. I buried my hands in my pockets, banishing the thought that my hands were just my father’s creatures.
“How long have yourself and Mrs Makepeace run your establishment?” he asked, placing his leather case on the bed.
“You’ll be our first guest,” I said. “Do you need any more assistance? If not, I’ll leave you to get yourself settled.” My fingers in my pocket toyed with an errant string, curling it and uncurling it with one finger. I missed the comfort of my doll, but I’d not retrieve her, my stolen goods, my first theft as my father said.
“Thank you, Miss Stark, or shall I call you Eglantine?”
“Makes no difference to me, sir,” I said, sweeping up the stairs to my own room. Beneath me I listened to the sound of the drawers open and close as he filled them with his possessions, his footsteps shuffling along the floor, the sigh and release of the springs of the bed. I tiptoed over to the window, not wanting him to hear my own footsteps, and looked out the window at the river, a dark line beneath the incoming fog.