Chapter 27

Monsarrat did not answer Duchamp’s gesture. His arm stayed dangling at his side. He loosened his fingers. The gun fell to the ground.

Duchamp frowned. ‘I can’t very well shoot you while you’re standing there unarmed, can I?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Monsarrat. ‘Of course, it’s not exactly honourable but perhaps your definition of honour is flexible enough to allow it.’

‘Pick up your weapon, man. Don’t die a coward.’

‘No intention of dying a coward. Or a criminal. I am a ticket-of-leave man, Colonel. Even if I were to survive, I would be quickly hanged if I injured you. So if I’m to leave this place in the back of a cart, or draped over a horse, I would rather not enter eternity with a fresh crime to my account.’

Duchamp lowered his gun slightly, shaking his head. He turned to Jardine. ‘Make him pick up the gun, Lieutenant. Tie his hand around it, if you have to.’ Duchamp turned back to Monsarrat, bending his elbow to aim at the sky. It would be the work of half a moment, of course, to straighten it again when Monsarrat was appropriately armed.

‘I will not, sir,’ said Jardine.

Duchamp stalked up to him and grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘That is a direct order, Lieutenant!’

‘I have never disobeyed a direct order in my life, sir. But this order, I cannot comply with. You are asking me to force this man to wield a weapon. I will not.’

‘Then I will shoot you as well!’ Duchamp screeched.

Bancroft stepped forward. ‘Colonel, before you do, may I suggest you wait until you know who is approaching?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, we are undisturbed – that’s why I chose this place.’

‘Yes, but listen,’ said Bancroft.

Duchamp did. So did Monsarrat. Hoof beats, getting louder.

‘They will surely pass by,’ Bancroft said. ‘But best not to alert them with the sound of a shot.’

So they waited as the hoof beats grew louder, until there was a rustling in the trees around the clearing, and the sound of whinnying.

‘Best lower the weapon for now, sir,’ said Bancroft quietly. ‘There’s no need for them to know what we are about.’

‘I’d say it’s perfectly obvious what you’re about,’ said Donnelly, stepping into the clearing. ‘You do have rather a taste for duels, Colonel.’

‘Perhaps you and I had better have one,’ Duchamp suggested, ‘after I dispatch Mr Monsarrat.’

‘I’ll thank you not to do that,’ said a voice from the trees.

To Monsarrat, the voice was jarringly out of place – he had only ever heard it within the confines of a small office.

‘Far more difficult than you’d think to find good clerks here. The government doesn’t transport nearly enough of them,’ said Ralph Eveleigh, stepping up behind Donnelly, a dusty travelling cloak around his shoulders. ‘Were it not for his copperplate hand, I’d say you can do what you like with the devil. But really, his loss would make my job much harder. Yours too, before you shoot him to spite me. Destruction of government property – something I never would have thought you capable of, until I read certain letters.’

Hannah had not reached the docks as quickly as she would have liked. Peter had made a sound that called her back, the wail of a boy who could not accept another loss.

She had gone to him, kneeled, hugged him. ‘You are the bravest boy I’ve ever met.’

‘I don’t want to be brave.’

‘Ah, but you can’t help it, you see? It’s like your big toe – you might not notice it, or think about it very often, unless you stub it, but it is always there, and you can’t separate it from yourself.’

‘You should stay here. Like Mr Cullen says.’

‘You and Mr Cullen will stay here, Peter. Look, you can practise your writing. Do me a drawing on the board – I will look forward to seeing it when I get back. And I will be back. But your captor is about to escape, and I can’t let her.’ Hannah released him then, stood up and looked at Cullen. ‘I have to do this,’ she said. ‘What they did to us – they called it justice. And if we deserve justice, so does she. I cannot continue to breathe the air of a world that would allow her to go unpunished.’

Cullen took her hand again. Looked down at it, as though trying to read a hidden message in the calluses of her palm. ‘I will not be able to stop you. Not without resorting to actions I’m not willing to take. Not without you hating me.’

Hannah smiled, shaking her head.

‘Off with you then,’ he said. ‘Give her the thrashing she deserves. And then come back. That drawing will be waiting for you.’

‘I promise.’ Without meaning to, she reached up and gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘You’re not the worst of them, Mr Cullen.’ She turned once more to him as she left. He was smiling vaguely, rubbing his cheek, while Peter looked up at him, frowning.

The sight had helped her forget her exhaustion as she ran to the docks. But now, faced with a collection of ships of various sizes, all of them being loaded and unloaded by yelling men, she faltered. A dockworker came up behind her with a cart, nearly knocking her into the water. ‘No place for women, this,’ he called over his shoulder as he passed. ‘You need to be out of the way. Work being done here.’

She was tempted to whack him, but such an action might end with her in the water anyway. ‘I do beg pardon, sir, I’ll be more careful. I wonder, do you know which ships are bound for England?’

‘Do I look like the harbourmaster?’

‘I couldn’t tell you, as I’ve never met the man. Perhaps you could tell me where he is, though.’

‘Still home with his wife, most likely. Early, isn’t it? He doesn’t get here until the hands of his pocket watch tell him it’s seven. Leaves the rest of us to do the real work.’ He trundled on, barking at other workers to get out of his way, not slowing for anyone. Including a young servant who had just come down a gangplank and was nearly knocked off her feet by the cart.

Hannah walked slowly closer, looking around. Where the servant was, the mistress might not be far away. She nearly walked past the girl, who was still brushing down her skirts. Hannah stopped, gasped and turned. ‘Emily! How wonderful to see you! I had hoped you would be the one here.’

Emily bobbed down, her eyes darting around in case any other carts were plunging towards her. ‘Yes, missus,’ she said. She seemed ill at ease: perhaps it was the prospect – sprung on her – of leaving the familiar, or a recent dressing-down by Henrietta for some small infraction.

‘You needn’t curtsey to me,’ said Hannah. ‘I’m here as a servant today, not a mistress.’

‘Who are you serving?’ asked Emily.

Hannah paused, wondering if this was worth the risk. If Henrietta was aboard and saw her from the deck, Hannah might end up entering the water and never coming out. But Henrietta would surely not involve herself in the tedious business of stocking her cabin for a long voyage. She would likely arrive in state just before sailing.

‘The same person as you,’ Hannah said to Emily. ‘You’re making everything ready for the sailing?’

‘Yes. The mistress trusts only me with it, you see.’

‘And how exciting that you are also going! To see the country where your parents were born – very few get that opportunity.’

Another risk. But having heard Henrietta complain about the tediousness of training servants, she doubted the young lady would want to spend her time in England training another one.

‘And you know it’s a terribly long, tiring journey,’ Hannah said.

Emily nodded. Her eyes shone a little in the growing light.

‘Your mistress understands this. It’s a journey she has made herself, of course, and she knows about the importance of saying goodbye. She suggested I come and talk to you.’

‘But how could she? She is in her cabin.’

Already, thought Hannah.

‘Ah, this was a few days ago.’

Emily nodded.

‘And she knew that you’d be sad to leave your family, that you might appreciate the opportunity to bid them farewell. She’s asked me, you see, to come and finish the work of getting ready to sail.’

‘But she said I was the only one –’

‘It just shows the regard in which she holds you. She wants you to have this time. There will be precious little once you’re under way, I assure you. I’m surprised she didn’t mention it – is she a bit distracted, I wonder?’

Emily leaned in, employing the whisper of a servant gossiping about her mistress. ‘She hasn’t been herself, no.’

‘It’s disconcerting on the eve of a journey,’ said Hannah. ‘So much to prepare, and the worries about squalls and storms and God knows what else. But if you hurry, you can say goodbye to Susanna and your parents, and be back here in plenty of time.’

‘Perhaps I should ask her,’ said Emily. ‘I’d hate her to think I was deserting –’

‘You could,’ said Hannah, ‘but you said yourself, she is in a bit of a mood. She might change her mind.’

‘And you’ll thank her for me?’ said Emily, and Hannah nodded reassuringly. ‘I’ll be back soon, and she can send to me in the meantime if she needs anything.’

Hannah smiled, squeezing Emily’s shoulder. ‘Of course. I’d be happy to.’

Emily glanced up at the ship once more, as though expecting to see Henrietta on the deck. She bobbed another curtsey to Hannah, then walked up the dock as fast as her skirts would allow her. Hannah looked up at the ship, wondering how difficult it would be to find Henrietta’s cabin. Two young sailors were making their way down the gangplank, jostling each other and laughing, perhaps intending one last visit to a Sydney whorehouse.

‘You lads planning on having a good morning?’ she said as they passed.

They stopped, staring at her. The kind of men who had no place in their world for a woman of Hannah’s age, unless it was their mother.

‘You’d like a bit more money to spend, perhaps,’ she said.

‘And why would you give us some?’ said one of the sailors.

‘I’ve a message I need delivered. Before you get up to whatever you’re going to get up to, go to the schoolhouse behind the baker’s. Tell the man there that his friend is in the cabin, keeping a young lady company, and won’t leave until someone arrives to escort them safely.’

The sailor held out his hand. She extracted a shilling from the little pouch. She was about to put it on his outstretched palm when she snatched it back. ‘Now, how can I know that this is not just going to be spent, that you’ll deliver the message?’

‘Perhaps you’ll pay us more when we come back,’ the sailor said.

‘Oh yes, happy to provide another shilling if you can come back with proof you’ve delivered the message. But I should also let you know, I’m here on behalf of the government.’ Not actually a lie – the government had paid her passage to Sydney – but she was getting a little concerned by how easily these half-truths slid off her tongue. ‘I’m taking care of a woman who is very close to the governor. It is imperative for her safety that this message gets through. If it doesn’t, there will be consequences for those charged with delivering it.’

‘Well, you can rely on us,’ said the sailor. ‘We best go do it now. We might be a bit more forgetful later.’

Hannah nodded. ‘A fine idea. Bright lads the both of you, I can tell. Off with you now. Don’t get into any fights.’

The sailor chuckled and clapped his friend on the back, and they walked up a dock that had seen its share of staggering sailors returning to their ships.

The last time Hannah had been on a ship this size, she had been in its hold. She breathed in and steadied herself, not knowing how she would feel if she saw redcoats on the deck. This was a merchant ship, though – no military. Just gruff and often toothless men tightening this and checking that.

The third one she asked jerked his thumb towards the rear of the boat. Expecting the cabin door to be locked, she was not quite prepared for the creak as it swung open. She closed it behind her and stood in front of it.

Henrietta was sitting with her back to the door, writing at a tiny desk under the cabin’s open hatch. ‘You have the ink, I hope,’ she said without looking up. ‘I must have enough for the voyage. God knows what the quality is of the stuff they have on board, if they even have it. Oh, and my quilt needs mending. There’s a tiny tear, it’ll drive me mad if it’s not fixed.’

‘Yes, you do like things just so, don’t you?’ Hannah said. ‘Whether it’s a quilt or a colony.’

Henrietta spun around. ‘Where’s Emily?’

‘Gone.’

‘You wouldn’t! You don’t have it in you. Don’t have the courage.’

‘Courage enough to escape from that little room. Why would you assume I’d done something to her? No, she is gone to see her family.’

‘She would never desert her post.’

‘She would if I told her that you’d offered her the opportunity to say goodbye.’

‘Why on earth would she believe something so ridiculous?’

‘Perhaps because she is under the mistaken impression that you view her as something more than a tool.’

Henrietta stood. ‘Kindly get out of my way.’

‘I’m quite comfortable here, thank you.’

Henrietta grabbed Hannah’s shoulders, trying to drag her from the door. Hannah calmly ground her heel into Henrietta’s foot.

‘Guards!’ Henrietta yelled. ‘Guards, I’m being attacked!’

Hannah laughed. ‘No guards here. Everyone’s getting the ship ready. And when they burst in and see me? Do you know what I will say?’ She deliberately thickened her Irish accent, pruning away the flat r’s and the clipped words and the tone that contained no music. ‘We’re sorry to have disturbed you, sir,’ Hannah said, talking to an imaginary guard over Henrietta’s shoulder. ‘My mistress – she has a nervous complaint, you see. Few people know of it, and I’d appreciate it if you could keep it that way. It’s just that sometimes she, well,’ Hannah leaned forward and whispered, ‘sees things that aren’t there.’

‘They would never believe you. I am known for my efficiency, my organisation.’

‘Not a bit of it. Very few on the lower rungs of society have cause to think much of either you or your brother. I will be believed, because they’ll want to believe me. By all means, let’s test it out.’ Hannah lifted a fist to rap on the door behind her shoulder. ‘Guards!’ she yelled.

Both women were still and silent for a moment.

‘No one coming,’ said Hannah. ‘No thundering feet dashing down to rescue you. And in truth, you don’t need rescuing. I’m not here to harm you – I’m here to talk.’

‘I find myself not in the mood for conversation,’ said Henrietta.

‘Yes, well, I found myself not in the mood to be locked in a cellar and threatened with a gun, but none of us have what we want all the time, do we?’

Henrietta opened the small drawer in her desk – it had been too much to hope that she’d left her mother-of-pearl pistol behind. She pointed it at Hannah. Suddenly the licking fear was back; it tried to crawl up from Hannah’s stomach and squeeze her mind until she could no longer think. She rammed it down, hoping it would stay there, and took a shuddering breath. ‘Probably not even loaded,’ she said, managing to keep her voice from shaking. ‘Your brother is widely acknowledged to be one of the best marksmen in Australia, and I know you’ve done your share of shooting too – enough to understand the folly of keeping a loaded gun in a desk drawer where seas can get rough. But while an accidental shot would be hard to explain, it would be even harder to account for a dead woman bleeding all over your nice cabin. And I told you, I mean no harm.’

‘You break into my cabin yet mean no harm?’

‘On the contrary, I come with a gift.’ Hannah inhaled, hoping Monsarrat would forgive her. It just did not seem as crucial for the letters to reach London as it had yesterday. Either things would be resolved to the point where nobody would need the endorsement of The Times of London to believe it, or the Duchamps would prevail, in which case Hannah would likely end up dead. ‘I will give you the location of that packet of letters you and your brother are so desperately seeking.’

‘They were never on a ship,’ said Henrietta. ‘We would have found them.’

‘Did you search every sailor and make them turn out their pockets?’

Henrietta slowly put down the gun. ‘Very well, then, where are they?’

‘First, we talk. Let’s start with why you did what you did. Why you felt you had the right.’

Henrietta laughed. ‘That’s it? You’ve gone to all this trouble because you want to explore my motivations? I’m happy to enlighten you on that score, Mrs Mulrooney – you need only have asked.’

‘I am asking now.’

‘The last two governors were good men, so everyone says. I disagree. They exercised lax discipline in the hope of redeeming those who are beyond redemption. Is it any wonder soldiers were committing crimes because they believed they were better off as convicts?’

‘Until the current governor sent one of them to the grave,’ Hannah said.

‘Exactly! An example had to be made. Many examples before people learn.’

‘And if a young man dies after being forced to work in the blazing sun in impossibly heavy chains – a young man who voluntarily left his country to serve its people out here – that’s a price worth paying?’

‘Regrettably, sacrifices must be made.’

‘So the value of a life is determined by social status, the ability to contribute?’

Henrietta sighed. ‘India was a gold mine for people like us,’ she said. ‘The daughters of officers who had been stationed there would swan around at home, exotic silks and the money to pay for a seamstress. Me, well, let’s just say blue muslin can get tiresome. Especially when it draws sneers from idiot girls who can have a different dress every day.’

‘Well, I think I’ve yet to see you in the same outfit.’

‘Oh yes, we are on our way. If I’d left it to Eddie, he would have increased our fortunes by finding a rich man for me to marry. But I will not be sold off, especially not to a man who has far less wit than I do. Those ones who simper after me at garden parties.’

‘So you have made your own way,’ Hannah said.

‘Shipping, sealing, skins, tea. Farming, of course. If we capture this ground, people will be paying me court, bringing me petitions.’

Henrietta lifted her chin, lengthened her neck, as though she was already considering the request of a petitioner.

‘At the cost of a life,’ said Hannah.

‘It’s easy to go a bit soft in your later years, I know. Nothing to be ashamed of – you’re not the first woman I’ve met who has no appetite for the task of building a colony and claiming one’s place among its leaders. But someone needs to, Mrs Mulrooney. Someone needs to recognise that the world runs more smoothly when the right people are in charge. If you are in a coach, would you want a skilled coachman or someone who’s just having a turn in the name of fairness? Some people are simply superior to others, and they should have the reins. It’s better for everyone, otherwise the whole thing goes off the road and we end up in a ditch.’

‘Ah. So it’s better for the convicts, and the underclass, to have you sitting in Government House and ordering your dresses from London.’

‘It is. And enough insolence about the dresses, thank you. You wouldn’t begrudge a soldier his uniform. As for the convicts, have you read Dr Merrick’s papers? I have. He says they are born deficient. That they need their betters to guide them, to feed them, and to make sure buildings are built and farms are farmed.’

And who’s building the buildings and farming the farms?

‘So you never associate with convicts or former convicts,’ Hannah said.

‘Not if I can avoid it. Your Monsarrat, I had to make an exception for him. Would have been rude not to. Politeness, Mrs Mulrooney, sets us apart from them. He seems to have more wit than most.’

‘Oh, he does.’ Hannah silently prayed that the present tense was correct. ‘He’s a highly intelligent man. No one is born deficient, Miss Duchamp.’

‘Leading such a sheltered life, you wouldn’t have had much experience with convicts, so how could you know? For all that you insist on dressing up as a servant from time to time.’ Henrietta ran her eyes up and down Hannah’s working clothes.

Here we go, thought Hannah. For better or worse.

‘How could I know about convicts?’ she said. ‘I used to be one. I committed my crime to prevent the death of my child, and I would do it again tomorrow.’

Henrietta gaped at her. ‘I should have suspected. I knew there was something dreadfully common about you.’

‘And yet, I am not less than human. I was not born with a lust for theft – I’ve taken nothing that is not mine since I arrived here twenty years ago. I have committed fewer crimes than you have, and less serious ones.’

Henrietta smiled, shook her head and reached for the pistol.

‘None of this changes anything, Miss Duchamp,’ said Hannah. ‘The presence of a hole in me would be very difficult to explain away.’

‘Not if the ball is at the bottom of the harbour, along with the rest of you,’ Henrietta said. ‘We are on a boat, yes? You couldn’t have planned it better for me, so I thank you.’ She smiled, raised the pistol and fired.