3 Great Historical Novels (14 page)

In print as in person, Mr Dillon was discourteous but insightful. He took liberties with politeness that must make him enemies in the City. Rhia looked up from the paper to consider his words. Thousands of looms had become idle or completely out of employ because the free trade laws already allowed unlimited imports of silk from the Orient, and now French producers also wanted a piece of the English market. Such a treaty would mean the end of London silk production and another large community of weavers along with it. It was just the same as what had had happened in Ireland. Today’s report had a sting in its tail.

Rhia wondered if Mr Dillon had any reason to be personally affronted by the iniquities of commerce, or if he was just generally disagreeable. She finished her coffee and remembered that she had left her portfolio upstairs.

Laurence was coming down the stairs as she was going up. He might actually have slept in the same clothes he was wearing yesterday, and his hair was more or less standing on end. It was hard not to smile at his haphazard ways, and she liked to think of him as a kindred spirit, preoccupied as he was with the illusory. He was by turn full of boyish good humour or lost in another dimension entirely.

‘More walking today?’ Laurence arched an eyebrow and his eyes ran over her indigo linen before he remembered his manners. Rhia had taken extreme care over dressing and her bed was a tangle of discarded dresses. She had needed to try on everything at least once in order to know exactly what one wore to the Montgomery Emporium. She was unreasonably nervous.

‘Yes. Regent Street today.’

‘Ah.’ Laurence nodded. ‘The dragon’s lair.’

‘That doesn’t help, Laurence. Why do you say that?’

‘Full of shining things, mercer’s shops. I dare say that working for Montgomery would suit you better than being a governess though. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a governess wear a red cloak.’ He looked at her suspiciously for a moment. ‘Dillon tells me there’s a Welsh horse-goddess named Rhiannon.’

‘There is,’ she agreed, surprised that Mr Dillon had found cause to mention it.

‘Then shouldn’t you be riding through London in your red cloak!’

‘I’d be afraid to ride a horse along Cornhill. I might be knocked off by a wagon or an omnibus.’

‘I think, Miss Mahoney,’ Laurence said with mock gravity, ‘the sight of you would be more likely to cause the wagon and omnibus to collide with each other.’ The doorbell pealed down the corridor just as Rhia wanted to enquire after Mr Dillon’s interest in goddesses. Beth bustled past, grumbling about not being a housekeeper.

Laurence took out his watch. ‘Drat. That’s my ten o’clock. Good luck. I hope we can discuss the merits, or otherwise, of your new profession anon.’

As she approached Fleet Street, Rhia’s thoughts returned to Dillon. She supposed the printing presses of the
London Globe
chugged away somewhere here along with those of the city’s other newspapers. If Threadneedle Street was home to the cloth trade, then here was the heartland of the printed word; the journalist’s quarter. She wondered if Mr Dillon’s meeting with Ryan and his crusade against free trade might be connected.

Fleet Street, with its blackened stone and teeming thoroughfare, had the same vitality as the banking district but the grime of the East End. Today, Rhia felt part of it. Everyone seemed on their way to a pressing engagement, anxious to achieve something or other – or anxious that they would not achieve that something or other. She had a pressing engagement herself, and the sun was shining in December, and the fiddle player outside the printer’s shop was wearing a tea cosy as a hat.

When she reached Regent Street, she began to worry that not making an appointment revealed a lack of decorum. He had said to drop in any time, but even so … Then she began to worry about the fact that Mr Montgomery hadn’t wanted her to make an appointment. Perhaps it meant that he was not that
interested in her work at all. In the end she just put Mr Montgomery and his emporium from her mind and focused on the shopfronts.

Every imaginable commodity, from coloured ink and parchment to buttons and buckles, was on display behind panelled glass. This was the destination for all the produce of Threadneedle and Fleet Streets. There were ladies everywhere. Their bonnets matched their crinolines and reticules, and they walked arm in arm, or gazed into the windows of jewellers and confectioners, or peered at passers-by from the windows of cocoa rooms. These women, surreptitiously eyeing-up the costumes of others, were the raison d’être for Empire. It puzzled Rhia that the English liked to use French phrases, since they didn’t seem to particularly like the French. She put up the hood of her cloak and hurried along, wishing that she didn’t care that she hadn’t had a new gown all season.

By the time she reached the emporium, Rhia had remembered her nervousness. The House of Montgomery had by far the most chic premises on Regent Street, with its curved, faceted front window and gold lettering. The sophisticated Mr Montgomery would think her too inexperienced, or too young, or too old or too female. Or he would think her just another fool with a dream. She thought of Nell the Fryer. Rhia was, at very least, not as limp as a trout. She clutched her portfolio closer and stepped into the lair.

The emporium shimmered as though the walls were woven of light. They were shelf-lined and stacked with roll upon roll of silk. Linen and wool had a simple, earthy beauty, but silk, with its ineffable mystique, filled her with desire all over again. No wonder the Byzantine queens and noblewomen had coveted the miracle fibre, apparently strong enough to wear as armour.

A gaunt assistant stood behind a counter at the far end of the shop, her head bent as though she were reading something out of sight. She looked up as Rhia approached and said, ‘Can I help you?’ with pointed disinterest. She was thinner even than Juliette.

According to Beth, Juliette ate more cake than Rhia, but this spindle of a girl had the transparent skin of the fashionably starved. Her sleeves were so narrow it was a wonder she could move at all. The girl inspected Rhia’s cloak as though she had every right to, given that she had arms like pipe cleaners. Rhia felt frumpy and old-fashioned.

‘I’m here to see Mr Montgomery,’ she said, hoping fervently that he wasn’t in. The girl dropped her head, like a flower drooping on a thin stem, and tinkled a brass bell. A moment later, Mr Montgomery appeared, looking as handsome and immaculate as ever.

‘Ah, Miss Mahoney. A pleasure to see you again.’ If he was surprised to see her he did not show it. ‘Would you like refreshment? Miss Elliot can brew us some tea on the spirit stove.’ He looked at Miss Elliot, who did not appear pleased to be making Rhia tea but obediently disappeared through the doorway from which he had emerged. ‘I see you’ve brought your drawings. Shall we sit over here?’ He gestured towards a corner where there was a divan area for weary shoppers.

Rhia perched rather than sat, and put her binder on the table. She felt mildly nauseous. Mr Montgomery sat opposite, looking at her expectantly. ‘Well,’ she said. She could think of nothing else to say. She untied the ribbons that fastened the binder and laid out as many sheets of patterned cartridge paper as would fit on the table top.

Mr Montgomery said nothing as he picked up a design at a time, examining the harmonies of colour and motif closely
before picking up another. Miss Elliot arrived and put a cup and saucer on an occasional table for Rhia, and then hovered for a moment before she returned to the counter.

Mr Montgomery continued to appraise each design silently. He nodded occasionally and made small grunting noises that she could not interpret, so she simply laid out more, until he had seen everything in the binder. When she had tied the ribbons again, she dared to look at him. Her heart sank. He was looking at his fob watch. She had tried. At least she was not a trout.

‘Miss Mahoney.’ He hesitated and Rhia braced herself. Why on earth
would
he employ her, when he had all of the designers of Paris to choose from? She looked him in the eye and dragged her lips into a smile.

‘Miss Mahoney, these designs are unexpectedly … accomplished. I had not anticipated … I did not expect such a talent from a woman. I must think this through.’ He rose. ‘It has been exceptionally quiet on Regent Street since this wretched business in Canton, but I will certainly think this through. Now, I am late for an engagement. Thank you again for calling.’

He nodded to Grace as he crossed the floor and then took his top coat and walking cane from the stand by the door and strode away.

Rhia stayed where she was for a moment and took a sip of tea. The girl, Miss Elliot, was eyeing her with slightly more interest and a measure of suspicion. But then something caught her attention in the doorway and her face was transformed. A young man in shirtsleeves and a flat cap had come through the door grinning like a lunatic. When he reached the counter he leaned over and gave Miss Elliot a kiss on the lips. Rhia stood up to leave. When the man noticed her he took a step back from the counter quickly, looking at Rhia sheepishly.

‘You needn’t worry on my account,’ she said. I’m not a customer and I’m just leaving anyway.’

He grinned at her, relieved that he hadn’t got his sweetheart into any trouble. His teeth were in lamentable condition. He nodded as though he’d figured something out. ‘I expect you’ve come about the position, have you?’

‘I have.’

He nodded. ‘Once me and Grace are wedded, she won’t be needing the shop work.’

Rhia frowned. ‘Mr Montgomery is looking for an assistant?’

Miss Elliot was looking at her ever more suspiciously. ‘I thought you said that’s why you were here?’

‘No, I heard he was looking for a textile designer.’

She snorted. ‘So that’s what all those pictures were. I’ve never heard such a thing. A lady who designs! Anyhow, the next two seasons are already ordered from Monsieur Bertrand.’ She gave a derisive shrug, busying herself beneath the counter with some phantom task. Perhaps she was just naturally unfriendly. Hunger, probably.

‘You’re Irish,’ Sid said, as though he thought himself some kind of genius.

Rhia nodded and, not knowing what else to do, extended her hand. ‘Rhia Mahoney.’

‘I’m Sid. You’re new to London, Miss Mahoney?’

‘I am.’

‘I hear there’s some fine taverns in Dublin.’

‘I’ve seen one or two.’

His face lit up with an idea. ‘I know what, Gracey!’

‘What?’ She looked suspicious.

‘Miss Mahoney here should come for a negus at the Red Lion Saturday night.’ Miss Elliot shrugged again. It was clear
she didn’t like the idea, but perhaps she would pull in her horns if she understood that Rhia wasn’t after her job.

‘I’d be happy to, though I’ve no idea what a negus is.’

‘Really?’ Sid looked astonished and Miss Elliot released a long-suffering sigh.

‘You’re forgetting that she’s foreign.’ She turned to Rhia. ‘It is mulled wine, of course.’

‘It’s better than it sounds then.’

Sid laughed and Miss Elliot frowned and returned to her rummaging.

He tilted his cap back and leaned over the counter and kissed Miss Elliot, making her blush. ‘I’ll see you both Saturday, then. Cheerio!’ He departed with a comical swagger and Miss Elliot watched him until he was out of sight, love struck.

Rhia searched for something to say. ‘Where is the Red Lion?’

‘Covent Garden,’ she said sulkily. She looked down, and traced a thin white finger along the brass ruler on the edge of the counter. Rhia felt corn-fed beside her, but she wouldn’t think of giving up Beth’s ginger loaf. She bade Miss Elliot farewell.

When she was out on the street, she allowed herself to smile. Mr Montgomery had liked her designs. It was a start. A
shoeshine
boy caught her eye and tipped his cap at her with a wink. ‘Lovely day, miss.’

She winked back at him. ‘It is a lovely day.’

On a whim, Michael took the pathway between the shipyard and a huddle of poorly built bungalows that housed the Port Authority. The entire area was deserted, but he knew someone who would be working Sunday just as if it were any other day of the week.

As Michael expected, Calvin Hughes was sitting on the verandah of the last bungalow before the stretch of sand that led down to the bottle-green water. He was smoking a whalebone pipe and had his boots up on the rail and his chair tilted back at a precarious angle. His official, navy serge tunic was unbuttoned and his black policeman’s cap sat on the floor near the chair.

‘Evening, Cal.’ The chair shuddered for a moment as the policeman, startled, brought his boots to the floorboards with a thud. ‘Christ, Michael! Frightened the bejesus out of me.’

‘Mind if I join you?’

‘Certainly bloody not. Fancy a brew?’

‘No thanks, mate. I seem to be making a habit of consecrating the sabbath on Maggie’s imported. Be a shame to sober up too soon.’

Calvin chuckled and puffed on his pipe. He looked at the deserted beach with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Not a bloody soul abroad. Had a couple of blackfellas roasting a goanna in a sand pit earlier. Don’t see them much on the shore these days. Gave me a piece too. Tastes like a fish one minute and poultry the
next. Bloody decent of ’em, I thought, considering what bastards we are.’

‘They know who you are.’

‘They know that this strip of shore is safe, at least, and that while I’m still breathing there won’t be any shooting of blacks. So what brings you down to my beat, Michael?’ Calvin’s ‘beat’ was the port area, including Customs and Convicts – the greater proportion of newcomers to the colony. He had half a dozen or so hand-picked constables working for him, who were mostly as decent as he was himself. Calvin’s port authority was an oasis of humanity in a desert of misery. For all of its modern enterprise, Sydney was still a prison to most of its inhabitants. The undercurrent of resentment was ever-present.

Calvin was around the same age as Michael and had been in Sydney for almost thirty years. His posting to the colony was intended to be temporary and he had agreed to it reluctantly. But then he’d fallen for the raw beauty of the place and, having neither family nor a sweetheart in London, had chosen to stay. He’d seen it all, the massacres and the starvation and the absconders to ‘China’. In the early days, a series of escapes were inspired by a peculiar notion that to the north-west of the settlement, a river separated Australia from China. In the imaginations of the desperate Irish, the great land across the river contained everything they desired: freedom, kindness, tea and civilisation. Primarily, though, it was women they were after. Amongst the several hundred who undertook the journey to China, few survived, and a trail of human bones still littered the route they had taken – a reminder to others that the Australian interior was more hostile even than British law.

‘It’s curiosity that brings me, as usual,’ Michael replied.

‘Oh?’ Calvin took his pipe from between his teeth and cocked his head. ‘You got something for me?’

The two men had an arrangement. Calvin ‘failed to notice’ the harmless lawbreaking which Michael turned his hand to, and in return the Irishman kept the Port Authority informed of any serious criminal activity he came across.

‘Not sure. It’s been awful quiet down the Rocks.’ Michael had decided to hold back on what Maggie had told him for now, since there was a fine line between what Calvin could and couldn’t ignore. Mick the Fence was well known to the Sydney constabulary, but he was also notoriously professional and unerringly careful. If he was running an operation, you could be certain it was clever and imaginative and that he’d keep his own hands clean. It would be more productive to watch the harbour and find out exactly what was going to be shipped out, if this was, as Michael suspected, what the enterprise involved.

Calvin nodded thoughtfully. ‘I don’t much like quiet – it just doesn’t seem natural in these parts.’

Michael felt the same way. ‘It’s just a feeling I’ve got at present, nothing more.’ He paused for as long as seemed prudent before he introduced his motive. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve come by anything that might interest
me
?’

‘Can’t say as I have. Got a little project on myself, but he’s not local.’

‘Is that right?’

‘A Manx sailor I took in for smuggling some black gold a few years back. Told him that if I ever saw his filthy breeches on my patch again, I’d see him dance upon nothing.’

‘Then he’s come back for his own hanging?’

‘I think he’s on the run. I’ve got nothing on him, so I just locked him up for a night when he was senseless on rum. One of my men had a friendly chat with him and tells me he was frightened and swore he had nothing to do with the death of the Quaker, off Bombay.’

‘That right? Would that be a Quaker who didn’t die a natural death?’

‘Correct. A Quaker who didn’t die a natural death and who clearly knew something he shouldn’t have.’

‘A trader?’

‘Cotton.’

‘Got a name?’

‘I’m working on it.’

‘You got any men keeping an eye on the inlets to the south, Cal?’

‘I don’t have enough men just to watch the harbour, Michael. Why?’

‘Could be your man’s hiding out in one of them.’

‘Is that the only reason?’

‘I don’t know. But when I do, I’ll be sure to tell you.’

‘I expect no less. Now, since Maggie Long has seen fit to squander her good liquor on you, and in the spirit of the approaching season, I suppose I should keep you in your cups?’

‘I’d appreciate it, Calvin.’

The blazing sun sank mercifully low, and the two men sat on the verandah watching the sea turn from clear green to inky blue, and the ghostly white ruffs of tide glimmer as they cascaded to the sand. The cliffs to the southern reach of the harbour paled in the twilight and the spiky silhouettes of shrubs along the shore rang with cicadas. A sweep of fruit bats descended on an outcrop of papaya, squabbling and rustling the fronds of the palms as if they were being blown about by a strong wind.

On the days when Michael was at his best, he felt privileged, as well as punished, to have seen a land so wild and so untouched by the polluting industries of men. He wondered if he would miss it, when he went home.