Chapter 26

Hannah suspected that Peter didn’t often cry. Boys who cried in his world would have been considered impossibly weak, the tears an invitation to a beating. But the prospect of freedom so abruptly denied had worn him down. After Henrietta clicked the lock behind them, he went over to the mattress on which he’d spent these past couple of nights, sat down and silently tears began to leak from his eyes. He did not embrace them, not as Hannah might have done. He did not suck down air so that he could put more force behind his sobs, let them shake his body until he couldn’t breathe. He was simply too worn out to stop the tears, so they escaped, finding their own path down his face and falling where they may.

Hannah sat down on the mattress beside him. She had once been used to the smell of confined humanity; she had barely noticed the stink of the sweat and the urine and the fouler substances the convicts emitted. Their betters produced the same substances, of course – they were simply more skilled at covering the smell, and had the resources to do so.

The comfortable cottage in Parramatta smelled of lye and wood smoke and brewing tea. Without her noticing, it had supplanted those memories of the baser odours. But the memories came back now, all the stronger for having been banished for so long. Called to the surface by the bucket in the corner, which surely hadn’t been emptied for the whole time Peter had been here, and was in danger of overflowing. And by the sweat that had soaked into the mattress, no less pungent for having come from a little boy rather than a grown man.

She did not know whether he would welcome an embrace. He might prefer her to ignore his tears. So she sat silently, within reach but not reaching. After a few minutes, however, it was more than she could bear. She was not sure whether it was for his sake or hers, but she reached for him and drew his head onto her shoulder. He allowed it, and after a minute of stillness allowed his little arms to extend like vines around her neck.

‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘That you’re back in here.’

‘I suppose I’ll go to hell now,’ he said.

‘What nonsense. You’re not going to hell. Who told you that?’

‘Miss Duchamp,’ said Peter. ‘She said if I didn’t tell her things, I would go to hell. The archdeacon told her, and he knows because he talks to God all the time.’

Hannah leaned back, taking Peter gently by the shoulders. ‘I want you to look at me.’

His head remained bowed.

‘You don’t need to hide your tears from me,’ she said.

‘Boys aren’t supposed to cry.’

‘Peter, grown men would cry in your situation, and if any of them tell you anything different then they’re lying. And they wouldn’t be sitting there quietly, either – they’d be rolling around on the floor and gibbering.’

Peter gave a small laugh.

‘You need to listen to me, because I tell the truth, and Miss Duchamp does not. Children do not go to hell.’

‘Yes, they do. The matron at the orphan school was always telling us we were bound there.’

‘Then she’s a liar as well. Sometimes people like to threaten hell to make children behave. Even priests – especially priests, actually. And matrons, and scheming little madams who would rather send others wading through the mud on their behalf than get their own skirts dirty. But I would not be surprised if many of those who threaten hell wind up there themselves one day. God does not punish children. The Blessed Virgin wouldn’t allow it, I can tell you. And He will not punish you, or I’ll deal with Him.’ She crossed herself at the blasphemy. I hope You understand, she prayed silently. I’m just trying to calm the lad down. It’s what You would want, I’m sure of it, and if I’m not mistaken there’s very little of what You want getting done these days.

She taught him his catechism to pass the time. She didn’t even know if he was Catholic but there were worse things to be learning in this situation. Then she taught him every song she remembered from her childhood, particularly the rebellious ones. She told him stories of spirits and sprites and fairies. Peter slept then, and she must have as well. No one, of course, had lit the lamp by the door, and she opened her eyes to a blackness so deep she might as well have kept them closed. She wasn’t sure what had woken her. A rustle? A rat, perhaps, scurrying across the floor. Or the quiet little voice.

‘Do you think she’ll come back soon?’ Peter whispered.

‘Perhaps. It’s not likely though. She has a fair few things to be going on with. Someone else might come.’

‘Not the man. I hope not.’

‘The one with the silly moustache that goes all the way to his ears?’

Peter nodded. ‘She left me alone with him once. I coughed and he heard. He came down and hit me.’

I hope he hangs for it.

‘Not him, at least I don’t think so,’ Hannah said. ‘No, someone you know rather better. Someone who knows where I am.’

‘I hope he hurries,’ said Peter.

‘He will, don’t worry.’

But after another half-hour had passed, she wondered if he would. Perhaps there had been a raid on the Chronicle’s offices; perhaps he had been arrested.

When she heard movement outside the door, she braced herself. Once it opened, it might reveal the last person she would ever see before a shot from a pretty little gun sent her to be punished for her earlier blasphemy. Henrietta, though, would surely not need to bang so loudly at the door, with such force. She would just use the key.

Whatever was making all that noise, the door didn’t seem as though it could stand up to it for long. After several more blows it splintered and buckled, the latch slipping out.

Cullen, holding a mallet, stood behind it. ‘What’s the point of spending all that money on a few little locks,’ he said, ‘when a couple of decent blows with a hammer does the job?’

Peter ran to him, and Cullen bent over and picked the boy up, wheeling him around and setting him on his feet outside the door.

Cullen turned to Hannah. ‘Are you coming, missus? Only it seems we’ve a bit to do, and not much time to do it in. And, it turns out, we’re expecting a visitor.’

There was no coach for Monsarrat this time, but he did get his own horse, hemmed in by Jardine on one side and a soldier on the other, with a third riding in front through the pre-dawn gloom.

In the boarding house parlour it had felt almost as though he and Jardine were closed in a box around which the world was moving without the slightest regard for them. But Jardine’s easy manner, enhanced by hours together with Monsarrat in the room, nothing to do but talk and play chess, disappeared as soon as they stepped through the door. Now, he was the martinet again, the guardian of efficiency, the barker of orders. Now, he referred to Monsarrat as ‘the prisoner’.

On the road they were passed by a comfortable coach that did not slow for them. It did not need to – Jardine and the others clearly recognised it, and scrambled to the sides of the road to allow it to pass. As it did, Monsarrat saw Duchamp’s sharp profile in the back, with Albert Bancroft, probably reprising the role of second, beside him.

‘I do not have a second,’ Monsarrat said quietly to Jardine once they were back on the road.

‘You won’t need one.’

The vegetation was scrubby; stunted, gnarled bushes with the occasional eucalypt sentinel. None of it provided cover from the rising sun, by now just high enough to be blinding for anyone who faced east. Monsarrat kept his eyes trained on the shadows, blinking and trying to resist the urge to rub them, blocking out the voice which told him his exhaustion might fatally slow him. On the deep green of the waxed, stubby leaves being slowly revealed by the lightening sky. A grey-furred creature returning from its night-time forage. And beyond, the sloshing water that glinted in the low rays of the sun. Above him, flying foxes returned to their trees; when the sky darkened again and they flew back, it was likely Monsarrat’s eyes would be permanently closed.

Duchamp was already there, in full uniform and with his ceremonial sword at his waist. He had already taken up his position to the east, and was laughing with Bancroft. The men stopped talking as Monsarrat passed them to assume his sun-seared position to the west. Duchamp nodded to Bancroft, who went to the coach and returned with a polished wooden box. Duchamp said, ‘I have chosen the positions, as you see.’

‘Yes,’ said Monsarrat. ‘I’m surprised, actually. Given your reputation, I would have thought firing into the rising sun wouldn’t present a problem.’

‘If we weren’t already here, I would challenge you. I am an honourable man, Mr Monsarrat. That is why I will allow you first choice of weapons.’

Bancroft stepped forward and opened the box. Inside blue velvet lining, two ornately engraved duelling pistols glinted at Monsarrat.

I suspected it would be a rope, he thought. A knife at night. Maybe a fall from a horse. I never for a moment thought it would be a pistol with flowers scratched into it.

He reached over and took the furthest gun, hefting it. Perhaps Duchamp thought Monsarrat was getting a feel for the balance of the weapon, its shape, the way its grip fitted his hand. In truth, he had rarely held a gun. He had no idea what to feel for. He was using the charade to buy a few extra breaths. Pretending to play Duchamp’s game.

What if he refused? If he simply declined to follow the expected rules, the accepted procedure?

Duchamp cleared his throat. ‘I know you don’t have anywhere to be, Monsarrat, but I have a colony to run, so if you wouldn’t mind getting on with it?’

Monsarrat looked up at him and nodded. ‘Yes, getting on with it is a good idea.’

They turned their backs on each other, then walked in opposite directions while Bancroft counted to ten. All of the steps, Monsarrat thought, that I took without a thought. The ones that led me to Exeter, into the courtroom, onto the boat. And they end with a stroll through a swamp. He waited, his back turned, for the command to fire.

When it came, he turned to see Duchamp whirling around, his arm outstretched. Monsarrat had no doubt the gun would be aimed at his forehead.

The baker’s shop was closed and shuttered. Baking was an early-morning business, so it was odd to find the shop completely abandoned at this hour, Hannah thought. Not that the shop was where they were heading. Cullen led Hannah and Peter around to the back, unlocking the door to Donnelly’s schoolroom and bustling them in.

‘The Chronicle offices aren’t safe,’ Cullen said. ‘Your boarding house neither. And probably not here, not for long. Best I could think of at short notice. Now, I want you to sit, both of you.’

‘I’m not much for sitting,’ said Hannah. ‘More of a pacer.’

‘Missus, you can pace to your heart’s content when this is over. But now I need you to sit.’ He bowed. ‘If you would do me the honour.’ He pulled a chair from behind Donnelly’s desk and gestured her to it.

‘I can’t promise I’ll stay still,’ she said as she sat. ‘The letters, the ones going to London – did they find them?’

‘No. Mr Donnelly paid a sailor to conceal them on his person. Miss Duchamp won’t stop looking, though. She’ll have plenty of time on the way to England.’

‘She’s never going to England!’

‘Oh, she is. She booked herself a passage, leaving tomorrow. Probably wants to be in London when the letters arrive, see if there’s any hope of intercepting them.’

I was transported for stealing butter, Hannah thought. But if you have a pretty dress and the right accent, kidnap and conspiracy get you a first-class cabin.

Peter climbed onto her lap with all the assumed ownership that Padraig had displayed at the same age. She put her arms around him, and he rested his head on her shoulder. She could see dark specks moving in his fair hair, but stroked it anyway; if there ever came a day when lice were the worst she had to contend with, she’d be delighted.

It occurred to her, suddenly, that she might be a grandmother. She knew what drovers did when they got to town. Padraig might not even know. She imagined a child with red-gold hair, trailing after its mother as she hung washing or peeled potatoes. Growing up without knowing about blood and bravery on the other side of the world, the pride and the pain that it brought.

Hannah only realised she was crying when a teardrop landed on Peter’s hair.

Cullen dragged a chair over from one of the children’s desks and placed it next to her. Sitting on it, he only came up to her waist, and could easily rest his chin on his knees if he wanted to. She smiled at him, but his look of concern did not flicker.

He took her hand in his. An intimate gesture, one she knew he would not have chanced unless he thought there was a need for it. ‘You’ve heard, then. About Mr Monsarrat.’

Hannah swayed in her chair, enough to make Cullen brace himself against her to stop her toppling to the ground with Peter in her arms.

She should never have let Monsarrat go alone. For such an intelligent man, he was awful at navigating the world, avoiding the rutted parts of the road. Sometimes she suspected he enjoyed the occasional bump. Some bumps, though, were lethal. Had they shot him? Was he now awaiting trial on some obscure charge that came with a death sentence?

Monsarrat had rescued her from the shapeless days as a servant, the ones that slid into each other, melded together in their uniformity so you didn’t notice them sneaking past two or three at a time, until so many had escaped that your son was suddenly a grown man.

‘Is he …?’ she whispered.

‘Not yet,’ said Cullen. ‘At least, well, I don’t think so. But Donnelly’s been flitting about these past few hours, and he told me the colonel has challenged Mr Monsarrat to a duel. One he has no hope of surviving.’

‘Do we have time to try to save him?’

Cullen was shaking his head. ‘The duel is at dawn. An hour or so from now.’

‘But, but then …’ She lifted Peter from her lap, gently put him on the floor and started for the door. ‘We must go now, Mr Cullen. If there is to be any hope at all.’

Cullen strode to the door and stood in front of it. ‘I can’t let you, missus. It’s too dangerous. And anyway, things are already in hand.’

‘Not in mine!’

‘But in the hands of others. Mr Donnelly and our visitor will follow Mr Monsarrat.’

‘Oh yes – the visitor. Who is it?’

‘Not sure, but Donnelly was watching the road to your boarding house in case someone came looking – and someone did. Donnelly didn’t tell me who. But he said he was confident this person could save Mr Monsarrat’s life.’

Hannah was still for a moment, then jinked around Cullen and made for the door.

‘I beg you, don’t follow them!’ Cullen called.

‘I’ve no intention of doing that. Just as I’ve no intention of allowing that minx to sail away to England without cleaning up her mess.’