Great Historical Novels (48 page)

The operation ran smoothly. Mick’s basement was rigged out like a subterranean kitchen; a fire roared in the deep stone recess that had clearly been excavated for the purpose, and a crucible hung from an iron hook above the flames. The room was thick with smoke and fumes. Around the hearth stood several characters Michael recognised, including those three fools the Smith brothers. Their faces wore expressions ranging from incomprehension to alarm.

On a long bench against the wall were an array of files and other tools for removing silver, the shavings of which would be melted in the crucible. Some large brass scales sat on a spindle-legged table along with moulds and stamps. There too sat Mick the Fence. He was dressed for town, his ginger hair
and whiskers oiled and his houndstooth frock coat clean. He didn’t make a move. He knew the game was up. Several large tea chests, nailed shut, sat close to the bottom of the stairs, presumably waiting to be transported to the harbour.

‘Evening, gents,’ boomed Calvin merrily, as he and his men spoiled what looked like a well-run operation. There was a flurry of activity as the Smiths and another of the coiners tried to get past Michael, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs. He managed to detain two of them, one by the collar and another with a well-aimed fist. The other two made it almost to the top of the stairs before they met some constables descending. After an energetic scuffle, a good deal of cursing, a broken arm and two bleeding noses (one coiner, one constable), the job was done. Mick was still sitting, his houndstooth still immaculate.

One of the tea chests was prised open. It was brimful of shiny new guineas of such a grade that Michael let out a low, impressed whistle. ‘Your boss in London is going to be very unhappy. That’s fine coining all right.’

‘Thank you, gracious sir,’ said Mick, with a mock bow. He stood and took off his coat and folded it neatly. He’d been in the barracks before and he liked his threads too much to see them ruined. He had the quiet confidence of someone who knew the law as if he’d written it himself. He, like the botanist, thought his boss would get him off.

In the wee hours, Michael and Calvin sat with their boots resting on the verandah rails at the Port Authority, smoking. They’d just had a report that a small army of men from the George Street station had boarded the
Sea Witch
. Calvin poured another measure of his emergency rum into a tin mug and handed it to Michael. ‘We may as well finish the bottle now,’ he said. ‘As I was saying, I’ll be bloody sorry to see you go.’

‘I wish I could say I’ll be sorry to leave, but you know I won’t.’ Michael raised his mug and clinked it against Calvin’s. ‘But here’s to you, the finest chief constable of the Port Authority Sydney has seen.’

‘I’m the only chief constable of the Port Authority Sydney has seen.’

‘Aye. You’re the best hands down then. Well, here’s to you having as much of a lark on your night off next year.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’

The two men sat together beneath the dark, deep arc of the sky, listening to the waves crashing on the Antipodean shore; lost in their own thoughts.

Michael was thinking about Annie. Would she still want him, after all this time?

15 February 1842

It is taking an age to navigate the Thames. Michael says the captain expected us to be at the dock an hour ago. He and Eliza are on the deck, in spite of the cold, seeing the sights, but I feel easier looking through the window of the saloon. This is a different place to that which, ten months ago, I thought I was leaving for ever, because
I
am not the same. The sky is still dove grey. The river still as brown as cocoa. The tower and the bridge are monuments of civilisation, but I am less in awe.

The voyage was uneventful. I expected the seasickness, and I half expected Manannán to show me white mares in the sea and for the moonrise to bring ghosts, but the sea and the moon were only the sea and the moon. My red book is filled with patterns, which accounts for why I have not put pen to paper to write before now. There has been little to say. The passage was mercifully uneventful. No death, no pirates and no cuff fights in the orlop.

There were few women at all on board besides Mrs Green and two spinster sisters. The sisters sailed to Van Diemen’s Land some years ago in the hope of securing husbands, but finding none to fit their requirements, or so they say, they sailed on to Sydney. They are neither young nor comely as far as I can tell, though they insist that they had no shortage of admirers, either in Hobart or Sydney. Mrs Green struck up a friendship with them even before we left Circular Quay, when it was discovered that all three shared a passion for crochet. They have, between them, filled a wicker hamper with cotton doilies and collars.

For myself, I could barely finish a design quickly enough before another hurried from my pencil. I still have the same little pencil that Mr Dillon gave me that day, but I use it sparingly. I can’t say why I have kept it. My new designs have a different essence. Even I can see it. The patterns are sharper and, when I open my paintbox, the colours I mix are strong and full of light. I’ve designed repeat patterns of jacaranda, wattle and waratah as well as orange blossom and winter rose. I think they will look very fine in wool.

I’ve seen little of Michael for the entire thirteen weeks at sea. He was kept busy on repairs. He told me that the ship’s hull had not been properly dried out in some years. The shipping line between London and Sydney has become so busy that the hold was in urgent need of new timbers to replace old rotting ones. We have talked, though. Michael has told me what happened in Sydney before we left and what he knows and what he suspects. As for the counterfeiting, I am stunned by the boldness of it. Opium
and
counterfeit! I still cannot believe that Ryan was involved in such a swindle, though perhaps that is because I don’t want to believe that I have known so little about my own uncle. And Isaac, in spite of his moods, did not seem a man who would take advantage of another’s weakness. But now that the seed of doubt has been planted, I keep remembering things. For instance, Isaac overheard my conversation with Mr Montgomery at Isabella’s birthday tea; he also came to the emporium on the morning of the day that I was arrested, and was alone in the storeroom for a time. He could have put the cloth there, and then told the constabulary. Of course, almost everyone I know has, at some time, been under suspicion in my mind – Grace and Isabella and Mr Montgomery. And Mr Dillon of course. It is hard to trust anyone when you have been betrayed.

We have progressed a little further now, past paddle steamboats and wherries and into one of the congested canals that lead to the docks of the London Pool. This, I am informed, is the oldest port along the river. It seems impossible that any craft in the queue of river traffic will find a place to unload goods and passengers. There are three-masted barques and cargo vessels and barges in a queue in front of us. There is such a donnybrook of shouting and activity on the docks that Circular Quay in Sydney seems like a millpond. I’d best put away my pen now, since we’ll soon be docking. My heart is clattering like a tin drum. 

Crochet

By the time she came up on deck, Rhia had realised that she no longer desired anything of London. She would pay her respects to Mrs Blake and call on Mr Montgomery to resolve the matter of the stolen cloth, and then arrange her passage to Dublin.

Michael was leaning on the rails staring upriver. He had his scant belongings in a small canvas sack and the broad brim of his rabbit-felt hat pulled down low over his eyes. He was travelling as light as a sailor. It didn’t look as if there was much that he’d wanted to salvage from his former life. Eliza Green was sitting on her trunk watching the acrobatics above. The riggers shimmied up the masts and pulled ropes and hoists to and fro, collapsing each section of sailcloth into a scalloped fold and tying it to a yardarm or mast.

They had decided that they would, all three, call unannounced at Cloak Lane. Eliza had done little but loop yarn around a hooked needle and talk about Juliette for weeks. But now, facing a reunion that she had never believed could happen, she was silent and nervous. Rhia couldn’t begin to imagine how she must feel,

It took another two hours before they were in a carriage amidst the noonday crowds of Cheapside and Cornhill. It didn’t seem real. Michael was studiously ignoring the ballyhoo and reading a broadsheet he’d bought from a paperboy at the docks. Eliza was in a frenzy of crocheting. It still intrigued
Rhia that she could weave such a delicate a web with her little wooden hook without even looking at her hands. The congestion along Cornhill was worse than usual. They’d come to a halt between a coal cart and a fishmonger. The latter was closest, and the funk of the catch outranked the oily smell of coal and the stink of manure.

They set off again, Michael’s gaze now fixed on the street. His expression might have been aloofness or indifference. There were many means of hiding emotion, though, and this was his. Rhia wondered if he too was thinking of Greystones. They were so close to home now. She cast a sidelong look at Eliza, who had put her crochet away and was fidgeting with the ends of her new plaid shawl. Eliza had admired it in a clothier’s window on George Street. She had pranced about like a young girl when Rhia bought it for her.

When the carriage stopped again, it was outside the Blake terrace on Cloak Lane.

‘We’re here,’ Rhia said. No one moved. Rhia looked from Michael to Eliza. ‘I wonder if I should speak with Mrs Blake first?’ Michael nodded in agreement and Eliza managed a squeak, her hands to her cheeks.

Rhia stood for a moment, looking at the cast iron beast with a ring through its nose, before she lifted it to knock. She remembered how nervous she’d felt, standing here with Ryan, little more than a year ago. Would she encounter the ghost of her former self within? She knocked.

Antonia opened the door. She didn’t recognise Rhia immediately, and then she looked astonished and embraced her fiercely.

‘Sweet lord! Is it you?’ She stood back and looked at Rhia, and Rhia looked at her. Antonia was wearing worsted, and it was blue. A dark, sensible blue, but blue all the same.

‘Welcome home,’ Antonia said, but Rhia didn’t say that she was not home yet.

‘I am not alone,’ she said, instead. She explained, as quickly and concisely as she could, how Juliette’s mother came to be waiting in the carriage at the bottom of the steps to see her daughter, and who Michael Kelly was.

Neither Rhia, Michael nor Mrs Blake witnessed the reunion between mother and daughter. It was agreed that Eliza should make herself comfortable in the drawing room whilst Antonia did her best to prepare Juliette for the event.

When Antonia joined Rhia and Michael in the kitchen, where Beth was fussing about worrying over how to make the lunch stretch to feed so many, they all looked at her expectantly. Antonia smiled.

‘I couldn’t help stopping for a moment outside the door to make sure that all was well,’ she began.

Rhia nodded impatiently. ‘Did you hear anything?’

‘I heard Juliette laugh. I don’t believe I’ve heard her laugh before.’ Antonia wiped away a tear, although she was smiling. ‘They both began talking at once and continued talking over each other.’ She looked at Rhia and then at Michael. ‘Well,’ she said, clearly lost for words. The kettle on the range was hissing insistently, so she busied herself preparing a pot of tea. ‘I hope you will agree to be my guest, Mr Kelly,’ she said. ‘The house has been empty too long.’ She put the teapot and cups on the table. ‘I shall send word to Mr Dillon and Mr Montgomery. They must know immediately of your safe return, Rhia. Mr Dillon petitioned ceaselessly for your pardon.’

Rhia felt her heart lurch at the mention of Dillon. She would have to look him in the eye, even though he must hate her. She wondered if Antonia, too, blamed her for Laurence’s death. Nothing in her expression or manner suggested it. She was
forgiving by nature though. Dillon was not. He would have no interest in her company without Laurence to mediate. He would think her ugly, with her hair only just long enough for pins and her thin, brown limbs. But why should she care what he thought of her?

Antonia and Michael had spent little time on formalities; Michael wanted to know where Isaac was, and Antonia didn’t even seem surprised.

‘Your return to London has coincided with that of the
Mathilda
,’ she said. ‘It docked only days ago. Isaac has been in India since the summer.’

‘That’s a long time,’ Michael remarked casually, though Rhia knew what he was thinking.

‘Yes,’ Antonia agreed. ‘It is a long time.’ She smoothed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. ‘Mr Dillon seems to think …’ She hesitated.

‘That your friend Isaac Fisher has been dabbling in the China trade?’ Michael’s voice was, characteristically, lacking emotion. If you didn’t know him, you might think that he didn’t care.

‘Then you know.’ Antonia seemed relieved.

Rhia wondered what manner of cloth this day would weave.

‘Rhia and I put our heads together and figured a few things out,’ said Michael, ‘and I’ll warrant you know a thing or two as well, by now. Your Mr Dillon also, by the sounds of it. So why don’t we wait until we’re all met, share what we know, and see where it leads. It’s something of a puzzle, at present.’

‘It’s more a quilt,’ Rhia said, thinking aloud. Today was not just one cloth alone. Its pieces now needed putting together.

‘The quilt!’ said Antonia. ‘I had almost forgotten. I took delivery of the
Rajah
quilt last month, and when I saw the appliqué I knew that the chintz was yours, Rhia. It very nearly
brought me to tears. I was sorry that your beautiful chintz had been cut up but, and this is most strange, when I saw it I knew that you were all right … that everything would be all right. I received a letter from the governor’s wife, on behalf of all the needlewomen, saying it was made as a gift for the Quakers of the British Ladies Society.’