Alley Urchin
Alley Urchin
JOSEPHINE COX
headline
Copyright © 1991 Josephine Cox
The right of Josephine Cox to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
eISBN : 978 0 7553 8436 5
This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations
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Table of Contents
The story of Josephine Cox is as extraordinary as anything in her novels. Born in a cotton-mill house in Blackburn, she was one of ten children. Her parents, she says, brought out the worst in each other, and life was full of tragedy and hardship – but not without love and laughter. At the age of sixteen, Josephine met and married ‘a caring and wonderful man’, and had two sons. When the boys started school, she decided to go to college and eventually gained a place at Cambridge University, though was unable to take this up as it would have meant living away from home. However, she did go into teaching, while at the same time helping to renovate the derelict council house that was their home, coping with the problems caused by her mother’s unhappy home life – and writing her first full-length novel. Not surprisingly, she then won the ‘Superwoman of Great Britain’ Award, for which her family had secretly entered her, and this coincided with the acceptance of her novel for publication.
Josephine gave up teaching in order to write full time. She says ‘I love writing, both recreating scenes and characters from my past, together with new storylines which mingle naturally with the old. I could never imagine a single day without writing, and it’s been that way since as far back as I can remember.’
Also by Josephine Cox
QUEENIE’S STORY
Her Father’s Sins
Let Loose the Tigers
THE EMMA GRADY TRILOGY
Outcast
Alley Urchin
Vagabonds
Angels Cry Sometimes
Take This Woman
Whistledown Woman
A Little Badness
Don’t Cry Alone
Jessica’s Girl
Nobody’s Darling
Born To Serve
More Than Riches
Living A Lie
The Devil You Know
A Time For Us
Cradle of Thorns
Miss You Forever
Love Me Or Leave Me
Tomorrow The World
The Gilded Cage
Somewhere, Someday
Rainbow Days
Looking Back
Let It Shine
The Woman Who Left
Jinnie
Bad Boy Jack
Dedication
For all their steadfast love and support, my thoughts go out to my two lovely sisters, Winifred and Anita.
Life hasn’t been easy for them, but they can always find a smile, bless their hearts.
Not forgetting my seven brothers, Sonny, Joseph, Bernard, Richard, Billy, Harry and Alec.
They could never be described as angels, but our late lovely Mam would have been as proud of them all as I am. (Keep the meat an’ tater pies hot, lads!)
Foreword
The research for this book took me to Australia and Singapore, where I travelled many miles and talked to countless numbers of people. As a result, not only did my research prove to be fruitful, but became a labour of great joy. Everyone went out of their way to help, advise, and ‘dig up’ relevant documentation and information which have proved invaluable.
My husband, Ken, and I spent many long hours browsing through material under the artificial lights of libraries, and in museums and archives. We also traipsed many miles on foot in the tiring heat of Australia, a magnificent land. We saw wonderful buildings which were built by the convicts themselves in the Port of Fremantle, the most striking (and ironic) in my opinion being the prison which was to house them. One particular building which will live forever in my nightmares is the formidable Victorian-style lunatic asylum. This has, fortunately, been preserved as an arts centre and museum. But a one-time padded cell is kept almost exactly as it was, when the inmate might be dragged, screaming, into its dark and grim interior.
To stand inside that cell, to see the narrow iron bed and the high beamed walls, with the only light coming in through a tiny barred window, is to feel real terror. it was the most unnerving experience of my life. The atmosphere seems to have been absorbed into the very fibre of the walls – to touch those walls is to feel the presence of those wretched souls.
When, quite shaken, I emerged from that dank and dismal place, it was to be told by the curator, ‘If the poor convicts weren’t insane when they locked them in . . . they certainly were when they let them out!’ (I, for one, was not about to argue with that.)
Below are mentioned a few of the many people who went out of their way to help in my search for the human story of what might have taken place there so many years ago. Australia is a vast and beautiful land, whose people rightly feel a great sense of pride in it. But picture the unfortunates who are wrenched from home and family, then taken on a long harrowing journey across the oceans to the other side of the world, not knowing whether they might ever again find freedom, or be returned to the bosom of their family. What paradise for them?
Lorraine Stevenson (Archives)
, Town Hall, Freemantle WA
Sunita A. Thillainath (Librarian)
, Fremantle WA
Mary Faith Holloway (Custodian),
Prison Museum, Fremantle WA
Ralph
of Ralph’s Cafe, Fremantle WA
Gloria McLeod,
Daglish WA
The Port Authority Officials
, Fremantle WA
Chamber of Commerce Officials,
Fremantle WA
The old Darwin fella
in the Cafe
–
Good on yer, mate!
My love and thanks to Ken who, as ever, gave me constant support and was a wonderful companion.
Part One
Australia 1870
Ambitious Dreams
| When night moves in To hide the sun, When enemies rally And your strength is done, When your weary heart Longs to be free Think of me, beloved, Think of me. |
| J.C. |
Chapter One
‘If it takes a lifetime and if I am driven to follow you to every dark corner of the earth, I mean to have you. And I
will
. Mark my words, Emma . . . for you’ll find no escape!’ Though delivered in barely a whisper, the words struck deep into Emma’s heart. The half-smiling, taunting mouth was so close to her face that she could feel the warm breath fanning her skin. ‘You
will
learn to love me, Emma, I promise you.’ The voice was trembling with passion and, as before, it was charged with a deal of arrogance. There was something else besides. Some deep, dark obsession, something akin to desperation. Or insanity.
‘Love
you!’ Emma’s stout heart was fearful, yet her grey eyes glinted like hardened steel as they bore defiantly into the leering face above her. Even though she would have denied it to the world, Emma could not deny to herself that she
was
afraid. Ever since that fateful day some seven years before when, along with other like wretches she had stumbled from the convict ship, Emma’s every instinct had been disturbed by the covetous manner in which Foster Thomas had brought his gaze to rest on her.
As always, Emma put on a brave front. Drawing her trim form upright and squaring her small, straight shoulders, she told him, ‘I could
never
love you, Foster Thomas. Never! The only emotion you raise in me is one of disgust.’ Yes, of repugnance and loathing too, thought Emma, being painfully aware of his close proximity as he stood his ground, determined that she should not pass. She saw him as everything vile in a man. Oh, it was true that he had about him the compelling quality that might easily turn a woman’s head. He was a fine figure of a man – tall and lean, with wayward sun-bleached hair atop a bronzed handsome face. There was a certain attraction in the coarseness of his manner, yet when the occasion suited him, he carried an air of elegance and devastating charm. But those eyes: only the eyes betrayed the truth of his nature. Small they were, and calculating; murky-blue in colour as the ocean, yet more deep and dangerous, and ever watchful, like the quick, darting glance of a lizard.
For what seemed an age, he made no move. Instead, his smile grew more devious, then, raising his hand, he made as if to stroke Emma’s long chestnut hair. But, being somewhat startled by a sudden intrusion, he angrily lowered his arm and swung round to face the intruder. ‘You!’ he snapped, glowering hard at the homely young woman silhouetted in the barn doorway. ‘Haven’t you got work to do?’
‘Course I ’ave!’ came the chirpy reply, as the irrepressible Nelly strode into the barn, quickly dropping the wooden bucket from her arm to the floor. ‘Yer surely don’t think I’ve been sitting on me arse all morning, d’yer?’ Then, before he could lay the yardbroom across her shoulders, as she knew he would, she added quickly, ‘Old Mr Thomas sent me ter fetch yer. He said yer was ter come straight away, on account of it being most urgent.’ She manipulated her plain, kindly features into an expression of alarm. ‘The poor old thing were having a real fit about some’at,’ she said, nodding her head so frantically that her frilly cap tumbled into the dust at her feet. By the time she bent to retrieve it, Foster Thomas was gone, after first asking, ‘You say my father wants me right now . . . this very minute?’ To which she replied with suitable anxiety, ‘Ooh yes, Mr Thomas, sir. This
very
minute!’
‘You little wretch,’ laughed Emma, as she and Nelly watched him stride away, both knowing full well that he was being sent on a fool’s errand. That rascal Nelly, thought Emma, as she lovingly put an arm about her friend’s shoulders; she knew every trick in the book. Brought up in the East End of London, she was a Cockney through and through. Since an early age, Nelly had been forced by circumstances to fend for herself, and she was a past master at it. It wasn’t the first time she had made a timely intervention on Emma’s behalf. Though Emma knew only too well that Nelly could take care of herself, she was constantly afraid that, one of these days, Foster Thomas might take it into his head to get rid of Nelly once and for all.
Emma knew it would be an easy thing, because all that was necessary was for the Governor to receive a formal complaint against the prisoner Nelly, and she would be punished, assigned elsewhere, or both. So far, Emma had stalled such a move by appealing to
old
Mr Thomas, Foster’s father, who was after all the employer to whom both she and Nelly had been entrusted since being brought to these shores. With his wife in ailing health, Mr Thomas senior had been thankful for the labour supplied by the two female convicts, and was never too mean to say so – both to them, and in his regular reports to the Governor.
Emma respected and liked him. He was a hard-working and shrewd man of business, having built up his trading post from selling the few items he brought with him when he first arrived in Western Australia as an early settler many years before. He was a good man, and his wife a good woman. Emma thought they deserved a better son than Foster Thomas.
‘Oh, Nelly . . . I wish you’d be more careful.’ Emma hoped this little episode wouldn’t bring trouble down on their heads. ‘You know what a vicious temper he has, yet you will keep going out of your way to infuriate him.’ Much as she understood Nelly’s unselfish motive and her first instinct was to thank her, Emma thought that better purpose would be served by showing her disapproval: ‘I’m quite capable of looking after myself, you know.’