The Silk Thief (13 page)

‘Got any contraband?’ he demanded, eyeing the baskets and clinking bags hanging off them.

‘No,’ Friday replied.

‘Prove it.’

Sarah handed the man a folded one-pound note.

‘You can’t bring that in,’ he said, nodding down at Clifford. Clifford bared her teeth and growled. ‘No beasts allowed.’

Sarah gave him another half-sovereign. The porter pocketed the money and went back to his little sentry box, whistling. They trudged across the beaten, hard-packed ground to the second set of gates in the inner wall, this pair smaller but just as firmly closed.

Friday shouted, ‘Glad, it’s us! Are you there?’

A rattle, then, ‘Hold on!’ A door in the gate swung open, revealing a middle-aged woman in the Factory Sunday uniform, her greying hair tied back under a non-regulation, bright red headscarf. ‘Mornin’, girls. Haven’t seen yous for a while. Been busy?’

‘We have and we feel like right shites,’ Friday replied as she stepped through.

‘Morning, Gladys,’ Sarah said.

‘Hello, Gladys,’ Harrie echoed.

Gladys spotted Clifford and stepped smartly backwards, clamping her skirts around her skinny calves. Then she let out an amused cackle. ‘Bloody hell, I thought it were a giant rat for a minute! Whose is it?’

‘She’s mine,’ Sarah said.

‘Hope you didn’t pay for it,’ Gladys said.

‘I inherited her.’

Friday handed Gladys her usual block of tobacco for turning a blind eye to their contraband.

‘Thanks, love. You’re looking a bit peaky,’ Gladys said to Harrie. ‘Poorly, are yis?’

‘Not really. My stomach’s feeling a little delicate.’

‘Well, you’d better not come in here, then. Everyone’s got the shits.’

‘Everyone?’ Sarah said, alarmed.

Gladys sniffed her tobacco appreciatively. ‘Well, nearly. I’ll tell Janie yous are here. The visitin’ room’s empty.’

As Gladys scuffed off across the yard in too-big clogs, avoiding puddles left by recent rain, Friday warned, ‘Hang on, there’s Mrs Gordon and Dick the Bitch.’

They squeezed themselves and their bags of forbidden swag into Gladys’s cupboard-sized gatehouse as Ann Gordon, matron of Parramatta Female Factory, and her unpleasant assistant, Mrs Letitia Dick, crossed the yard and disappeared into Mrs Gordon’s quarters.

‘You’re on my foot,’ Sarah said to Friday.

‘Sorry.’

‘Have they gone?’ Harrie asked, her nose pressed into Friday’s sweaty armpit. She was feeling queasy again.

‘Yep. Let’s go.’

The visitors’ room was as bare and unappealing as it had ever been. They sat down to wait. Janie Braine arrived a few minutes later, a toddler parked on each child-bearing hip. Friday pulled out a chair for her but even before she’d eased herself onto it, Harrie had grabbed Charlotte off her and was cuddling the little girl, kissing her grubby face and smoothing her silver-blonde hair. She was walking and talking now and beginning to look noticeably like Rachel, except for the mahogany-brown eyes she’d inherited from Gabriel Keegan. Rachel’s had been a startling cornflower blue.

‘Hawwie!’ she said, which apparently was how you pronounced ‘Harrie’ when you were eighteen months old.

‘What a clever little girl you are!’ Harrie exclaimed. ‘And so pretty!’

‘And me!’ announced Rosie, now just over two years old.

‘Yes, sweetie, you’re gorgeous, too,’ Harrie agreed, leaning over to tweak Rosie’s plump cheek.

Rosie wasn’t pretty, but she was extremely sweet and she was cheerful.

‘Say hello to your aunties,’ Janie said, passing Rosie around for kisses.

‘Have they been well?’ Friday asked. ‘Glad said everyone’s had the shits.’

‘Lots have. The bloody flux, the doctor reckons. We been all right. I had a bit of a loose guts a week or so ago, but I come right. There’s some been pretty sick, but, and we’ve had a few deaths.’

‘Is Sharpe still the doctor here?’ Sarah asked.

Janie nodded.

‘Quack,’ Friday said.

Janie asked, ‘Whose dog is that outside?’

‘Mine,’ Sarah replied. ‘Why?’

‘Bad-tempered little bugger. Had a go at Pearl as we come in. Growled its bloody head off.’

Sarah went to the room’s single window. From it, she could see Janie’s minder Pearl standing in the yard smoking her pipe, but she couldn’t see Clifford. ‘Where is she? The dog, I mean?’

‘Lying just outside the door.’

‘She can be quite protective,’ Sarah said.

‘I thought it were bloody rabid. Rosie wanted to pat it and I daren’t let her.’

Friday began to empty the bags and baskets onto the table. ‘We’ve brought you loads of nice things. I’m sorry we haven’t been for ages, Janie. There’s just been so much to do with, well, with this business with Adam and everything.’

Friday, Harrie and Sarah had decided from the outset not to tell Janie they were being blackmailed by Bella Shand. There was nothing to be gained; she would only feel guilty about them having to finance that as well supporting her and the babies, including Pearl’s fee as Janie’s minder. Theft was rife in the Factory and Janie, in possession of the food, alcohol, tobacco and other tempting comforts they smuggled in to her, was a prime target. Janie was a tough girl and perfectly able to look after herself, but not while also caring for two small children. They’d also decided not to mention today that the Charlotte fund was running low. What Janie wasn’t aware of, she couldn’t worry about.

Janie waved her off. ‘Don’t worry about it. We been fine.’

‘I didn’t know if you needed more clouts but I made you some,’ Harrie said.

‘Rosie’s out of them now, but Charlotte’s still not quite got the hang of the pot,’ Janie said. ‘Not at night time, anyway.’

‘And I hemmed you a few cloths for, you know, your courses,’ Harrie added. ‘For when you start again.’

‘That’s kind of you. Thanks, love. I have had a show or two. That reminds me, next time can you be a sweetie and bring me a new shift? Just something plain. I’ve only got the one and it’s knackered. I’ve mended it till there’s more patches than anything else and that bugger Tuckwell in the store won’t give me a new one.’

Harrie nodded, thinking she’d make Janie two. With extra lace.

‘And we got you some stout, for your milk,’ Sarah said. ‘Or have you finished with all that now?’

‘No, Charlotte’s feeding fairly regular and Rosie still has the odd nurse. It’s better than the shite they get fed here.’

‘God, girl,’ Friday said, ‘your tits’ll be round your knees. Harrie, are you going to share that baby, or hog her all day?’

Harrie passed Charlotte across to Friday.

Janie laughed. ‘They were round me knees after I had me second one, never mind nursing these two.’

‘And I’ve made the girls some more little gowns, and a bonnet each,’ Harrie said, unfolding the clothing from her basket. ‘They grow so fast at this age.’

‘Oh, them’re lovely! Thanks, Harrie.’

Then out came the pots of preserved food, and dried fruit, biscuits, smoked sausage, cheese, sweets, soap, various ointments, a bottle of laudanum, trinkets for bartering, three blocks of tobacco, matches, and three bottles of gin for Janie. Also placed on the table was a cloth purse containing money to pay Pearl, and for bribes so Janie could keep her contraband.

Her eyes lit up. ‘Oooh, lovely! Look at all that food! You’re spoiling us.’

‘Well, if you’re healthy you’re less likely to get sick,’ Sarah said, distracting Rosie, whose little fingers were pulling at one of her earrings.

‘How’s Adam?’ Janie asked. ‘Settled down again all right?’

‘More or less. He was very thin when he came home and he’s had a bit of trouble putting the weight back on, but the doctor gave him some powders the other day, so that might help.’

‘What sort of powders?’

‘An anti-infestation emetic. Said he might have some sort of creatures living in his intestines.’

‘That’s romantic,’ Friday said.

‘Yes, it is,’ Sarah agreed. ‘He’s been in and out of the privy since he started taking them.’

‘What about his mood?’ Janie asked. ‘No hard feelings about being set up by that Gellar cove?’

‘Well, yes, plenty of those. But with Gellar dead there’s not much he can do about it.’

Janie nodded; she knew all about that, Harrie having written and told her. ‘So will yous be getting back into the burglary business?’

‘Not for now. We think it’s probably sensible to stay on the straight and narrow for a while. Even though Gellar confessed to framing Adam and his conviction was quashed, shite sticks, doesn’t it? Best to lie low.’

‘It must be nice to have him back,’ Janie said.

‘It is, it’s lovely.’

Janie raised her eyebrows at Harrie. ‘And what about your Dr Downey? How’s it going with him?’

‘It isn’t,’ Harrie said flatly.

Janie’s homely face fell. ‘What? You said in your last letter everything was coming right! Now what’s the matter?’

‘The matter,’ Friday said, ‘is that Rowie bloody Harris told Harrie she’s been hopping into James’s bed.’

Janie gasped. ‘No! The bitch! What a Little Miss Roundheels! How did you find out?’

‘Harrie and Rowie got in a fight on the street,’ Friday said, which was the truth, after a fashion.

‘Did you face up to him about it?’ Janie asked. ‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t deny it,’ Harrie replied, though she hadn’t exactly asked the question of him outright.

‘The dirty lustyguts! Typical, but,’ Janie said. ‘Will you fight for him?’

‘No!’ Harrie’s eyes filled with tears. She took Charlotte back off Friday and settled her on her knee, cuddling her as though to ward off her unhappiness. ‘She can have him. I don’t care.’

‘You bloody do so,’ Janie said. ‘Look at you. You’re all pale and puffy and your eyes look funny. You look sick as a dog. I were wondering what were wrong.’

‘She whipped the cat on the way here,’ Friday said.

‘You spewed? You poor thing. Did you eat something bad?’

Harrie shrugged and even more tightly cuddled Charlotte, who wriggled and whined and held her arms out for Janie. ‘Tittie, Ma.’

Janie took her and, in one practised movement, uncovered a breast and popped Charlotte onto it. ‘Is this Rowie still at the doctor’s house?’ she asked Friday. ‘You could go round and give her a bloody good dewskitch and tell her to pack her bags. That’d see her off.’

Friday and Sarah exchanged a glance. Surely she wouldn’t be, not now she knew they were aware she was working for Bella. She’d be worried they’d tell James. Or was she gambling on the likelihood they wouldn’t want him to know they were being blackmailed?

‘Is she?’ Friday asked Harrie.

‘I don’t know,’ Harrie said, and she didn’t. She’d been too frightened and angry and dismayed to find out. If Rowie was still there, surely that must mean James
was
sleeping with her? She hadn’t accused him outright when she’d seen him, but he had to have known why she’d been so upset. He’d pretended he hadn’t, but he’d certainly looked guilty. To her, anyway.

Janie said, ‘Well, bloody well go round and find out! Ah-ah, don’t bite.’ She tapped Charlotte sharply on the head, making her blink and screw up her face.

‘No,’ Harrie said. ‘I told you, I don’t care.’

‘So you’re just giving up, just ’cos he’s been humping some tart?’ Janie demanded. ‘When you didn’t want him? When you’ve been making him wait and wait and wait? He’s a man, Harrie. They all have needs, you know, even boring ones like your doctor.’

Harrie’s hands crept up to cover her ears.

Sarah reached out and pulled one away. ‘Don’t do that. Pretending you can’t hear isn’t going to get you anywhere.’

Harrie lashed out and hit her, striking her full across the side of the head. Sarah’s head snapped sideways.

A terrible, ringing silence filled the little room. Rosie started to cry.

‘Bloody hell, Harrie,’ Friday said, ‘what’s got into you? Are you all right, Sarah?’

Sarah nodded, though her face had gone as white as mistletoe berries.

Harrie slowly crumpled until her head and arms were on the table and her shoulders started to shake with great, almost silent sobs.

Appalled, her eyes wide with shock, Janie took Charlotte off her breast and covered herself. Glancing at Friday and Sarah, she mouthed, ‘What’s wrong with her?’

Friday moved around the table and bent over Harrie, her hands on her heaving shoulders. Unfortunately Harrie chose that moment to rear up, and smacked Friday in the face with the back of her head.

‘Shit!’ Friday clapped her hands over her nose, her eyes watering fiercely.

Sarah barked out a laugh.

‘It’s not funny,’ Friday said, dabbing at the blood now trickling from her battered nose. ‘Christ!’

Harrie turned to peer up at her. ‘Oh God. I’m sorry.’ She faced Sarah. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.’

Again Sarah nodded, the single, terse movement of her head conveying forgiveness, tolerance and acceptance of Harrie’s fraught condition.

‘Christ, girl, you are in a state, aren’t you?’ Janie said.

Harrie nodded miserably.

‘But why?’ Friday asked nasally, sitting down again, a handkerchief clamped over her nose. ‘James
has
been a shit.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, Rowie said he’s been a shit. But so what? It’s like Janie says. You can’t expect him to be as pure as new bloody snow. You didn’t expect that, did you? No one’s that gulpy, not even you. It’s something else, isn’t it?’

Shame at her predicament — her foolishness — flooded Harrie. Her face burnt at just the thought of telling them. She shook her head. ‘It’s just … everything. And I’d rather not talk about it any more, if you don’t mind.’

When it was time to leave, Friday looked out for brain-addled Matilda Bain in the yard; as had become her habit she had a gift for her. But the wizened old woman was nowhere to be seen.

‘No Matilda today,’ she remarked.

Janie looked upset. ‘I meant to tell you before, but then there was the business with Harrie.’

‘Tell me what?’

‘When I said a few folk had died from the flux? Poor old Matilda were one of them.’

‘Oh,’ Friday said, her face falling. ‘Bugger.’

‘She were old, but,’ Janie said. ‘And sick and weak. It’s mostly the old ones and the babies what’s going.’