The Lace Balcony (2 page)

Fanny gasped at this casual illustration of gallows humour. She was not sure she believed him about the ‘good family', but who knew the background of child convicts? Within hours of the gallows this lad was entitled to spin a fanciful version of the truth.

‘I would offer to write to your family. But I cannot lie to
you
, lad. I can only make my mark. I'm determined my little sister Daisy won't grow up like me.'

‘I'd be happy to teach you to read and write, Miss.' He glanced at his manacled hands. ‘Pity we don't have the time.'

‘Is there anything else I can do for you, Will? I have little money, but I am hopeful the prison chaplain will soon find me respectable work.'

‘May you be blessed with a decent master, Miss.' He glanced at the doorway, relieved to see his guard was now engaged in banter with another uniformed man in the corridor. ‘May I know
your
name, Miss?'

Fanny hesitated. That morning, seeing the three golden balls hanging over the door of the
Mont de Piété
she had entered on impulse and pawned the sapphire ring for a disappointing sum. She remembered when giving the pawnbroker her name, the suspicious way he'd asked how she had come by such an expensive ring.

How could I explain the truth? That I stole it after Madame Amora dismissed me and withheld my back wages. My name is in his pledge book for the police to find. Should I conceal my name from this lad? Nonsense. What on earth could he do? Tomorrow he'll be hanged.'

‘Miss Fanny Byron,' she said and made a polite curtsey from force of habit.

William Eden glanced anxiously at the clock. Time was running out. ‘There
is
something you could do for me, Miss Fanny. '

‘Name it, lad,' she said.

‘The Finisher has a bad habit. He keeps men dangling on the scaffold – a slow death. It would comfort me to know that you are somewhere in the crowd tomorrow. Then I won't be dying alone.'

Her blood ran cold at the flash of her earliest memory. As a small child, standing beside her stepmother before Newgate Prison, watching the body of the highwayman swinging from the gallows . . . shocked to realise that the dead man's face was her father's . . .

Fanny wanted to scream to Will, ‘No! I can't!' But there was such desperation in the lad's eyes that despite her horror, she gave him a quick nod of assent.

‘Miss Fanny, could I ask one other thing of you? A condemned man's last request?' He pressed on. ‘Would you give me your scarf to wear tomorrow?'

Fanny felt confused. ‘But that's an old underworld custom – in place of a ring. A couple who exchange scarves are married under common law.'

‘Aye, but I have no scarf to give you – so it's not binding. Only one of us would be married. And you'd only be my girl for a few hours.' His voice quavered and he tried to sound cheery. ‘Forgive me, Fanny. I had no right to ask such a thing.'

His girl! Oh God, he's so young.
She loosened her modesty scarf and slipped it around his neck. His eyes held hers in an unspoken bond.

‘There,' she said. ‘You look like a fine gentleman. Her voice had a catch in it. ‘How old are you, Will?'

He gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘Old enough to marry,' he said. ‘I know I'm a bit of a runt. My Mam said I could expect a late growing spurt. But it's a bit too late to hope for that.'

‘Oh God, it isn't fair!'

‘All's fair in love and war, so they say.'

There was something in his sad half-smile that turned her heart over.

He glanced at the chaplain's closed door. ‘I'm about to make my peace with God. But I have one regret no priest can solve.' He hesitated then said in a rush, ‘But you could, if you had a mind to, Fanny.'

‘
Me
?'

The guard was now alone, glancing their way from time to time.

William Eden's voice was an urgent whisper. ‘You and only you. I will die tomorrow never having known – forgive me, Fanny. I've never been kissed – except by my mother. Could you bring yourself to kiss me goodbye?'

Instant tears sprang to her eyes. On impulse she leaned across and kissed his cheek. Her lips had barely touched his skin when he turned his face and his mouth found hers. She was shocked by the softness of his lips. His eyes were half closed, soft, blue eyes, trusting yet desperate, as if he were offering her his young soul.

Startled, Fanny drew back from the kiss, confused by a rush of emotion that shook her. His eyes held hers as if his life was hanging by a thread stretched taut between them. She still felt the imprint of his mouth on hers. A lad's first kiss – and his last.

‘Come on you!' the guard's voice cut across them. ‘I can't wait all day for the chaplain to save your soul. Ye'll have time to make your confession on the scaffold.'

William Eden smiled over his shoulder as he was prodded from the room.

‘Goodbye, lad!' Fanny was angry with herself that she could find no more appropriate final words.

‘Till tomorrow, then?' he called back.

‘I give you my word, Will. I'll be there!'

•  •  •

A quarter of an hour later the door opened and Fanny was surprised to be ushered into the prison chaplain's inner sanctum not by her kindly friend from the ship but by a grey-haired man dressed in grey, his white clerical dog-collar yellowed with age.

Seated in front of his desk she gave him her name and wasted no time in stating her business, how she was here to see Father Francis Xavier, her fellow passenger on the
City of Edinburgh
, who had kindly promised to find her work due to the fact she had accidentally left her Mistress's character reference behind in England.

The chaplain looked her over then nodded sagely. ‘You say you sailed to the Colony with a babe. Your own, Miss Byron?'

He clearly suspects the worst – he keeps staring at my bosom.
Fanny hastily drew her shawl across her bodice.

‘Daisy is my stepsister – near two years old. I discovered shortly before my ship sailed that my stepmother had died of phthisis – that's consumption, isn't it? Anyway I am the child's only kin. Sir, I can see how busy you are. Could I please talk with Father Francis Xavier?
He is familiar with my circumstances and the full details of my experience in service.'

‘I regret to inform you that Father Francis Xavier is no longer with us.'

‘He's
dead?
But he was in full health not two days past.'

‘I trust he remains so. He was immediately transferred to the Moreton Bay Penal Colony. The authorities considered their need for him there was greater than mine here.'

‘Can
you
help me, Sir? I am seeking a position as a
femme de chambre.'
Noting his look of suspicion she added quickly, ‘A lady's maid. I also have wide experience as a cook, a maid of all work – in town and country houses. I can make good quality butter and cheese and –'

The chaplain shook his head with an air of finality. ‘My duties extend almost around the clock, working entirely on my own resources. I am responsible for saving the souls of hundreds of men – to prepare them to meet their Maker. I am unable to assist with employment matters – for single women with children.'

Fanny felt her face flush with heat at the clear inference. ‘How do I get to Moreton Bay? I am sure I can count on the good Father's help.'

The Chaplain sighed. ‘You have much to learn, Miss. Moreton Bay is a penal settlement hundreds of miles north of Sydney Town, to be reached by coastal convict transport. The Commandant, Captain Patrick Logan, is in charge of some five or six hundred male prisoners – of the most brutal kind. You and your babe have no place there.'

‘God help us,' Fanny muttered under her breath.

He had the grace to look discomforted. ‘You'll find the Sydney Benevolent Asylum at the far end of George Street. Mention my name to the matron and she might well be able to find a place for your – stepsister.' He ushered her to the door. ‘I shall pray for you, Miss Byron.'

Fanny gave him the barest nod of acknowledgment and made her exit with what dignity she could salvage.
That chaplain cares more about dead men's souls than the fate of living children. He doubted every word that came out of my mouth – the truth as well as my lies!

Hurrying back in the direction of The Rocks, the seedy end of town fronting the wharves, she stopped abruptly at the sign hanging over the store where she had bought the ostrich feather. On impulse she slipped inside and bought the little shoes for Daisy.
I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.

This glib thought was an uneasy reminder of her promise to William Eden. Tomorrow she had agreed to watch him die on the gallows. She consoled herself that this was no more than a hasty promise made to a stranger in the heat of the moment.

Fanny struggled with her decision – and won.
No point in my going. I'd be lost in the crowd. The lad won't even know whether I kept my promise – or not.

Until she heard the words as clearly as if her dead stepmother had whispered them in her ear.

‘No, lass, he won't. But God will know.'

Rockingham Hall, November 1827

Felix L'Estrange watched the sunrise from the cast-iron balcony of his bedchamber overlooking the deep tropical garden at the rear of the family mansion. The gaudy colours that stained the expanse of blue sky suggested a painting by some drunken convict artist – the morning sky of far less interest to him than his nightly travels in the star-filled heavens into which he escaped each night via his most treasured possession, his telescope.

Daylight brought unwanted reality – the bleak cloud that had shadowed the whole L'Estrange family in the days since the ordeal of the Supreme Court trial for the offence of Major Fraud – at which the military jury delivered the shock verdict of death sentences for William Eden and his young partner in crime, who had assumed the alias, ‘Sean O'Connor'.

That false name was an extraordinary act of chivalry. If they had linked us to the charge of fraud, our family name would have been dragged through the mud.

Felix, guilty by association if not by law, had offered to be a character witness for the defence – an offer both prisoners had declined. The case, concerning a fraudulent company in which the young entrepreneurs had sold shares in an unseen South Pacific Island that was later discovered to have been destroyed by a volcano, was not entirely unknown to him. Felix fervently hoped God would forgive his silence in court. Or was it in fact cowardice?

Meanwhile I must help Father do everything in his power to gain them both a stay of execution. How ironic that I'm fighting to save the life of the boy who was my hated rival in childhood. I wished him dead many times. If he dies tomorrow I will remain legally a free man – but never again be free from guilt.

Mindful of the punctuality his mother considered a prime virtue, Felix withdrew from his vest pocket the gold watch his father had recently given him for his eighteenth birthday. It felt as if time was racing headlong towards the hour of the men's public execution – four and twenty hours from now.

He checked his appearance in the mirror, aware that his tall, blond Anglo-Saxon looks bore a strong resemblance to his father in youth, but as always he felt like a pallid replica. His dark frockcoat and trousers made up one of several new suits just delivered by Nathan Bloom, the Hebrew emancipist tailor who had established his reputation in upper class circles, thanks to Kentigern L'Estrange's patronage. His father would expect him to look his best at Government House this morning when they delivered their urgent petition to the new Governor, Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling. Their previous memorials had been delivered to his predecessor, Governor Thomas Brisbane, until the very day of his departure from the Colony.

Felix knew what his father refused to accept, that the hiatus of sixteen days between governors in residence might well prove fatal, given there was no one in office willing to take action over the fate of two prisoners already proven guilty.

The new Governor, Darling, an unknown quantity, was their last hope.

Felix spoke the words aloud to his reflection in the mirror – a prayer rather than a promise to ‘Sean O'Connor'.

‘When I was a child I sometimes hated you and wished you dead. But I'll do everything possible to save your life.'

As if in response, his memory flashed back to their contrasting images as seven year olds, reflected in this same mirror – he, the Master's son, the other boy the son of the family's assigned servant.

Mungo peered over his shoulder, his cheeky, lopsided grin breaking into a mocking whistle of admiration at Felix's appearance. The perfectly tailored suit was his father's suit in miniature, the Hessian boots polished to military precision, his fair hair flattened with pomade.

Mungo was clearly amused by the immaculate contrast with his own worn slop clothing, bare feet and shaggy, tow-coloured hair.

Mungo pulled a mock-serious face. ‘Look at us! We make a pretty flash pair, eh, Felix?'

The light-hearted memory died. The black cloud of guilt returned. Mungo, the wild, laughing, urchin who could always be relied upon to lead him into trouble, was now eighteen and, under the alias of Sean O'Connor, was facing his public execution with the same cavalier manner he had always shown in the face of danger.

And as always, I am the one who is sick with fear.

The sound of the breakfast bell recalled Felix to the task at hand. There was no evading what was to come. His father's word was law.

He crossed the covered walkway that linked the first-floor levels of the twin mansions. His father had long ago ordered his convict carpenters to build it to connect the two buildings like a bridge across a canal in Venice. In the eyes of the outside world, the two mansions, exact replicas of each other, comprised a united front as Rockingham Hall. In truth one was the residence of his father, the other of his mother. It had always been thus, from Felix's earliest memories.