Girl of Shadows (18 page)

‘What?’ she said. ‘I’ve to see to supper.’

‘No, supper can wait. I want to talk to you.’

‘About what?’

‘You know very well, Esther. You forged my signature, didn’t you?’

For a moment she looked as though she might lie about it, which would be pointless and they both knew it, because who else could have done it?

‘What if I did?’

‘Well, why? Why did you send her back?’

‘God have mercy, you are so stupid sometimes, Adam. Because I don’t
want
her here.’

‘But why not?’

Esther banged her hands on the table. ‘Because she brought the ghost of that girl with her! You have
no
idea what it’s been like for me! I’ve been terrorised
day and night
! It’s driving me
insane
!’

Again, Adam thought wearily. ‘Is that all?’

‘What do you mean, is that
all
? That’s enough, isn’t it?’

‘I do know you’ve been very frightened by all this … activity, and I agree, it has been rather puzzling.’

‘
Puzzling?
It’s been
horrific
!’

‘And I do understand how badly it’s affected your nerves. But Esther, you’d taken against Sarah before any of that had even started. This is all still to do with Cynthia, isn’t it?’

Esther’s face screwed up in fury and she shouted, ‘Cynthia, Cynthia,
bloody
Cynthia!
Why
is it whenever you say her name it sounds like you
really
want a fuck?’

Adam stared at her incredulously. ‘What? What the hell does that mean?’

‘You just
can’t
let her go, can you? And now there’s Sarah. I’ve seen the lewd way you look at her. Oh, you think you’re hiding it, but you’re not. I know.’

Adam felt himself go red because she was entirely accurate about his attraction to Sarah, though he would never act on his desire. He’d learnt his lesson.

‘Oh God, I’m right, aren’t I?’ Horrified that she’d proved herself correct, Esther grabbed a salt bowl and hurled it at Adam’s head, the contents scattering everywhere. He dodged and it missed. ‘She’s a whore, Adam, a common whore!
That’s
why I got rid of her!’

Brushing salt out of his hair, Adam said, ‘I’m fetching her back tomorrow.’

‘You are not! If you do, I’ll take matters into my own hands. I swear I will.’

Abruptly, Adam stood. ‘I’ll speak to you in the morning.’

As he walked past the end of the table, Esther leapt up and punched him on the arm. He ignored it. She followed him down the hall, hitting his back and slapping at his head; at the foot of the stairs he turned and in silence pushed her away.

When he reached his room he locked his door.

November 1830, Parramatta Female Factory

Sarah had only been back at the Factory a little over a week but already it felt like months. When Mrs Dick had asked her what she’d done to ruin such a good assignment, Sarah had had to walk away before she hit her.

Nothing much had changed. The food was still deeply unappetising and the servings miserable, the living conditions were awful and the hospital remained a dire place to be. There were a few old faces, perhaps the oldest being Matilda Bain’s. Janie and the children were well, however, and Sarah had to admit it was very nice to spend time with them, even if it was within the confines of the Factory.

She had been returned as a first-class inmate, which meant she could be reassigned at any time. She’d worried that as a returnee she would be relegated to second class, separated from Janie and the babies, and therefore on probation, which would mean she would have to earn her way back into first class, but perhaps Bernard had bunged someone a bribe. If he had, she’d find a way to repay him because he’d done her a very big favour; she had to make money and the best place to do that was in town, and the only way to get into town was to be assigned there.

Sarah had been thinking about the past fifteen months and realised now she’d become too comfortable working for Adam
Green; far too comfortable, lazy and really quite dangerously deluded. She’d allowed herself to believe that while he admired her skills as a jeweller he also liked her for herself, and obviously she’d been mistaken. He thought no more of her personally than he did of the cove who came every six months to dig a new hole for the crapper. She’d lost her finely honed edge, and because of that her instinct had failed and she hadn’t seen this coming. This was her own fault and she must never let it happen again.

‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Janie said.

‘Not worth that much.’ Sarah wiped Charlotte’s mouth with the hem of her apron. She’d done a particularly long dribble, stretching all the way from her plump bottom lip to her fist.

‘Bet they are.’

‘I don’t know. I’m just thinking that sometimes I need to kick my own arse.’

Janie snorted. ‘We all need to do that.’

‘How’s it been here? Really?’ Sarah asked. ‘Be honest. Wouldn’t you much rather be somewhere else?’

‘What, working for some bossy old bag running me ragged every day? No thanks. Me and the kids are fine here.’

‘You sure? Two babies are a lot to look after.’

‘Not for me.’

That was probably true, Sarah thought; Janie was a born mother.

‘I don’t mind,’ Janie went on. ‘I know I moan about it here but Pearl looks after me. I got plenty of money and supplies thanks to you lot, and most of the girls aren’t so bad. They’re my sort. Mrs Gordon’s all right. Letitia Dick’s a bitch but, well, I know how to stay out of her way.’

‘Don’t you ever want to see what’s outside the wall?’

‘Yeah, one day. But right now me job’s being a ma, isn’t it? You’ll know what it’s like when your turn comes.’

‘Don’t know if it will.’ Sarah couldn’t think of much that might be worse; she’d never really fancied the idea of having children of her own.

‘Get away. You’re fond of these two, aren’t you?’

They looked down at Charlotte and Rosie sitting on the ground in their nappies and nothing else, tossing handfuls of dirt at each other’s legs and squealing with delight.

‘Very, as long as I can hand them back to you.’

A shadow fell over them. ‘Are you Sarah Morgan?’ a girl asked.

Sarah squinted up at her. ‘Who wants to know?’

‘If you are, there’s a visitor for you in the visitors’ room,’ the girl declared.

‘Harrie or Friday?’ Janie guessed.

‘Not Harrie, she’ll be at work,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s not visiting day, either. It could be Bernard Cole. He did say he’d think about getting me assigned to him.’ Which wouldn’t be so bad, she supposed. Except she’d feel a bit low stealing from him, especially if he
had
paid a bribe to get her into first class. Bloody guilt — it really was playing havoc with the way she worked.

She stood, brushed the dirt off her skirt and made her way to the visitors’ room. The door was closed so she knocked and opened it.

Adam Green sat alone in the austere little room, his hat and gloves on the table. He looked tired and exasperated.

He nodded at her tersely. ‘Sarah.’

Startled into silence and instantly alert, her thoughts racing, she stayed where she was, a hand gripping the door knob for support. Was this about the missing jewellery? Was he going to tell her he’d reported her to the police?

He half rose, then sat down again. ‘I’m so sorry about Esther.’

She remained quiet, waiting.

‘I had no idea she was going to do that,’ he said. ‘I would never have agreed to it. I’d like you to come back. Please.’

Sarah’s heart soared and she struggled mightily to squash her elation. ‘Is that what Esther wants?’ she said, not bothering with ‘Mrs Green’.

‘It doesn’t matter what Esther wants. I’ve told her I’m bringing you back. Today.’

‘She doesn’t want me in the house, does she?’

Adam sighed. ‘No.’

‘Well, then I can’t come back.’

Sounding as irritable as he looked, Adam said, ‘For God’s sake, Sarah, will you come in? And close that door.’

Sarah shut the door behind her, chose the chair farthest from Adam’s, and sat down. ‘I don’t understand why she hates me so much.’

‘She’s jealous of you, and she thinks you brought the ghost.’ Adam’s eyes narrowed, just a little. ‘It isn’t real, is it, the ghost.’ A statement, not a question.

Sarah cast about for a way to agree, without actually admitting to him that she was responsible for orchestrating all of it. ‘It’s as real as she thinks it is.’

‘You’ve expended quite a lot of effort, haven’t you?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Adam’s gaze bored into her: she could see he was angry — really
quite
angry — but she wasn’t at all sure now it was directed at her. Still, she glared back, refusing to lower her eyes.

‘I suppose I should ask you why,’ he said.

‘Why what?’

‘Why you bothered with the whole charade.’

‘It’s to do with loyalty, Adam, which is something Esther wouldn’t know the first thing about. And loyalty to friends continues even after they die. She should have let me go to the cemetery when Rachel was buried. It serves her right. And, yes, I know she’s jealous of me, but God knows why. That’s just ridiculous.’

And Adam thought, Oh God no, it isn’t, not at all. If I could only tell you, Sarah. If I could only touch you.

Instead he said, ‘Will you come back?’

‘No. I won’t. Not if she’s there.’

So Adam did something he’d been hoping to avoid, and which Sarah had clearly forgotten was within his power.

‘Well, you haven’t been physically mistreated during your assignment to me, you’re given enough food, you’re well-housed and not particularly overworked. You can lay no valid claim against me. I’ve explained to the superintendent here that my signature was forged on those papers and that you were returned without my permission. I’m your master, Sarah, and I’m telling you that you
will
come back to Sydney Town with me.’

Utterly shocked, Sarah stared at him. ‘You rotten —’

‘That’s enough! Now go and pack your things.’

It was dark by the time they arrived at George Street, neither having said a single word during the long, rain-filled journey back. The house was silent, though the lamps were burning downstairs. On the dining-room table was a basket piled with Bernard’s ubiquitous buns, a note folded between the top two, sticky with jam. Adam opened it and read:

‘Wait here, I’ll just check on Esther,’ Adam said to Sarah, a worm of dread stirring in his belly.

He climbed the stairs with legs that felt as heavy as lead and approached her closed bedroom door. She hadn’t taken that cross off it, he noted.

‘Esther?’

No response. But was that busy flies he could hear buzzing? Or just his imagination?

His heart hammering, he turned the knob and pushed but nothing happened. Oh God, she’d locked it. He put his shoulder to the door; it resisted, grown tight in the frame with the damp warmth of the day, then burst open. Stepping in, he immediately looked up, squinting against what he might have to witness, but to his immense relief there was no purple-faced monstrosity dangling slackly from the beam. And there was no limp, staring corpse slumped across the bed, dead from laudanum or from the razor, slashed white forearms atop huge roses of blood staining the quilt. Feeling dizzy and aware his pulse was galloping, he bent over and breathed deeply in and out. His worst nightmare — his single, greatest fear — had been that she would one day actually do what she had for years been threatening.

When he felt slightly recovered he crossed to Esther’s dressing table. Her lotions and jars and her silver-backed hairbrush had gone; her drawers were empty. So was her clothes press, except for a single sheet of her personalised notepaper left conspicuously on a shelf.

The note read:

He stared at the note for several minutes, then put it back on the shelf and went downstairs.

‘She’s gone,’ he said.

‘Esther has?’ Sarah said, startled into speaking to him.

‘Yes.’

‘Gone where?’

‘I don’t know. She left a note. She says she’s left me.’

‘Oh.’ Sarah shut her mouth; it would be hypocritical of her to say she was sorry.

Adam picked up her bag and the box containing her china.

‘What are you doing?’ she said quickly.

‘Taking your things up to your old room. Or would you rather have Esther’s room now?’

Sarah suppressed a shudder. ‘No, my old one’s fine, thank you.’

She could easily have carried her belongings herself, but let him do it. Lighting a taper candle from a lamp she followed him up the stairs, the realisation sinking in that it would just be the two of them living in the house now. The prospect was both liberating and daunting. They would be free to get on with their work uninterrupted by Esther’s endless carping and tantrums, but on the other hand she had no intention of becoming Adam’s substitute wife. Even if she happened to be in love with him — which she
wasn’t
— that would require trusting him. The only people she’d ever fully trusted were Friday, Harrie and Rachel. She still had Friday and Harrie, and they were enough. Look at the way she’d felt when she’d thought Adam had sent her back to the Factory; she certainly wasn’t going to put herself in that position again. Even now, was she really certain he
hadn’t
signed those papers?

On the landing, Adam stopped. ‘Er, can you cook?’

‘Nothing fancy. Just basic meals.’

‘That sounds excellent. Would you mind taking care of that side of things?’ He looked embarrassed. ‘I don’t expect you to clean the house the way Esther made you do it.’

Good, she thought. I wasn’t going to.

He stepped aside so she could climb the narrow stairs to her attic room ahead of him.

‘I don’t know if there’s any linen on the bed,’ he said.

‘It’s all right. I know where it’s kept.’

She opened the door, crossed to the lamp and lit it; as expected Esther had stripped the bed, obliterating any trace of Sarah ever having been there. She would have to go around to Friday’s and collect her nice furnishings.

Adam put her things down. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. I think I’ll turn in.’

‘It’s been a long day,’ Sarah agreed.

‘I take it we won’t be seeing any more supernatural activity?’

‘If we do it won’t be anything to do with me.’

Adam stood in the doorway, the lamplight illuminating only half his face. He looked very tired, but some time during the last hour his anger had ebbed away. The news about Esther barely seemed to have registered with him yet.

‘Sarah?’

She waited, watching him. His eyes glittered in the honeyed light and he appeared to be collecting his thoughts.

But all he said was, ‘Sleep well.’

He’d left her alone in the shop for an hour or so while he went to the bank, which was a perfect opportunity for her to steal whatever she liked — a watch chain, a bracelet, perhaps some earrings, though she couldn’t take loose stones today as she would have to crack the safe because Adam had the key and Friday still had her tools.

However, a terrible thing was happening; she couldn’t do it. She drifted around the shop looking into all the display cabinets, her fingers almost physically itching, but unable to actually take anything. It was the most bizarre sensation. And while her head was busy assessing what Mr Skelton might give her for various items, some other part of her — some combination of her heart
and gut — was
loudly
insisting that what she was doing was wrong and to desist. This had never before happened to her, and she didn’t quite know what to do. In the end she gave up and retreated behind the counter empty-handed, wondering what on earth was going on.

She served several customers, and was still wondering, when Adam returned looking very grim-faced.

He waited until the shop was empty, then said, ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news, Sarah.’

This
time it’ll be about my thieving, she thought, only half aware that as usual she was thinking about herself. Thank God I haven’t got anything in my pockets or tucked down my front.

‘Esther’s cleaned me out,’ Adam said. ‘She’s been to the bank, forged my signature and withdrawn every penny I had.’