The Silk Thief (35 page)

Adam gave her a sympathetic squeeze. ‘Poor little thing.’

‘Well, the matron there, some do-good reverend’s wife called Mrs Duff, implied that it might be possible for Charlotte to be adopted. She didn’t say it outright, but she did imply it.’

‘After you asked her, you mean?’

Sarah winced inwardly — she might have known he’d see right through her. ‘Well, I might have mentioned it, yes.’

Adam propped himself up on an elbow so he could see her face. ‘Adopted by you?’

‘Maybe.’

‘But, love, you’re an assigned convict. Would that be allowed?’

‘I’m married to you, and you have a conditional pardon. So, yes, apparently it might be allowed.’

‘Do you want to adopt her?’ Adam asked gently. ‘According to you, you don’t even like children.’ He smoothed her hair. ‘Though Friday tells me they like you.’

Sarah kept silent, waiting.

‘I know she’s Rachel’s daughter, and how much Rachel meant to you,’ he went on. ‘To all of you. But it’s a responsibility, a child. It’s not like bringing Clifford home. You know, a few mutton bones and a kick up the bum when she pees on the rug.’

Sarah sat up, her back against the headboard. Right now she needed not to be distracted by the closeness of Adam’s inviting body. ‘I want to know, what do you think? Do you want to adopt her?’

Adam sat up beside her, rearranged the sheet over their laps, fussed about, sighed, and said, ‘No, I don’t, Sarah. I’m sorry. It’s got nothing to do with whose child she is. I just don’t want to share you with anyone. Not for a while, anyway. It’s bad enough with that bloody dog.’

Sarah lifted his hand and kissed it, so relieved she couldn’t speak.

James installed Harrie in Rowie Harris’s old room at his cottage, and rallied everyone he could think of to help. He asked his business partner, Dr Lawrence Chandler, to thoroughly examine her, not because James believed he himself wasn’t up to the task, but because he was worried about accusations of impropriety. Not being an expert on nervous disorders, Lawrence couldn’t confidently confirm Dr Ashton’s specific diagnosis, but he did consider that as well as being mentally disturbed, Harrie was very undernourished, likely somewhat anaemic, and mentally and physically exhausted. He advised plenty of good food, nourishing tonic, sleep and rest. Which, James told him, was pretty much what Dr Ashton had said.

Sarah and Friday arrived to thoroughly clean Harrie’s new room — and James’s cottage, which had gone somewhat to the dogs since Rowie had disappeared — bringing with them new linen, and all of Harrie’s things from her old room at the Barretts’, including Angus. Friday had a word with Elizabeth Hislop, who had a word with James, and on the third day, Elizabeth’s girl Ivy moved in with Harrie to keep her company day and night, sleeping on a mattress on the floor of her room, which allowed James to return to work. As Ivy wasn’t a particularly inspired cook, Elizabeth arranged to have nourishing meals sent over from the hotel kitchen four days a week, and, after Sarah talked to Adam’s friend Bernard Cole, Bernard’s lovely wife, Ruthie, happily agreed to provide her famously girth-increasing meals and homemade baking the other three. This left Ivy time to spend with Harrie during the day, and when she was busy with housework, Sarah and Friday sat with her whenever they could get away from work. James, of course, dedicated every evening to her, except when he was called out. Matthew also came around, to read to Harrie, to hold her hand while she slept, and to listen patiently for hours to James blaming himself for the terrible state into which she had slipped.

Nora and her children were also frequent visitors, the kids desperate to see her and bringing her little gifts — a cotton handkerchief embroidered with Harrie’s initials from Abigail, biscuits ‘made’ by Samuel and Lewis, and a paper twist of lemon drops from Hannah with one lemon drop left in it. Leo Dundas called, too, on the fourth evening, with an enormous bunch of flowers from the market that must have cost the earth, and a message from Serafina Fortune saying she was very confident that Harrie would get better. Friday, who was there at the time, didn’t bother to ask Leo how Serafina had known about what had happened.

James stopped Leo as he went to leave. ‘Mr Dundas, may I have a word?’

Leo almost said, ‘It’s a free country,’ but, actually, New South Wales wasn’t. He didn’t feel like talking to James Downey. Any cove who’d behaved as pompously and arrogantly towards Harrie as Downey had in the past didn’t deserve respect, even if he had just dragged her out of a lunatic asylum. But he probably did deserve a hearing. ‘If you like.’

‘I must confess I hadn’t realised until recently that Harrie had been working for you,’ James said. ‘I was under the impression she’d been solely assigned to the Barretts. But Friday tells me she draws designs for you, and has lately done some tattooing. Some arrangement you had with George Barrett?’

‘Actually, it was an arrangement I had with Harrie. George Barrett only thought he was profiting from the deal.’

‘Yes, well, Harrie is now assigned to me, so I’m afraid that will all have to stop.’

Leo stared James in the eye. They were the same height, so it wasn’t difficult. ‘You think you own her now, do you? Just because your name’s on her papers?’

‘Of course not. It has nothing to do with ownership. Bonded convicts aren’t slaves.’ James’s voice was frosty. ‘I have taken over responsibility for Harrie’s welfare and I mean to see that she receives the best care possible. I don’t feel that tattooing sailors in some little shop down on the waterfront is in her best interests.’

‘Have you talked to her about this?’

‘Not yet. The time isn’t right.’

‘Well, when it is, I suggest you do,’ Leo said. ‘She enjoys her work, she’s good at it, and she very much appreciates the money. Which, I gather, she uses to support her friend’s daughter in the Factory, and her brother and sisters at home. She won’t want to forfeit that.’

‘Perhaps not, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

‘No, you won’t. But she’ll have to.’ Leo’s bearded chin went up. ‘Do I take this to mean I’m not welcome here?’

James hesitated, but only for a second. ‘Friday tells me Harrie is very fond of you, Mr Dundas. My aim is to surround her with all those who care for her, and from whom she might draw love and support. So yes, you are welcome.’

Perhaps not such a shit after all, Leo thought grudgingly. Still a stuffy bugger, though. ‘Thank you.’

James gestured at the tattoo on Leo’s forearm. ‘Royal Navy?’

‘Slightly long story. Started off merchant, got pressed, sailed the world for a few years, saw the Battles of Cape St Vincent and the Nile, then eventually got out. My choice.’ He’d deserted, in Japan, but what did it matter if he admitted it to James Downey now? Downey wasn’t in the Andrew any more, either.

‘It’s a hard life,’ James said. ‘I’m glad I’m out.’

‘It is, and so am I,’ Leo agreed.

‘Though I do miss the sea,’ James admitted.

‘Aye, she gets in your blood.’

Loitering unobtrusively by the hearth, fetching hot water from the kettle for another pot of tea, Friday smiled to herself, pleased that it seemed James and Leo were no longer circling each other like a pair of feral dogs. Silly buggers.

And what of Harrie herself? After about a week, she slowly started to improve. She began to talk again — and to real people, not just to those only she could hear — she ate a little of everything that was put in front of her, she ventured out of her room to the parlour and helped Ivy to peel late apples to stew for breakfast and plums for preserves, and she walked in the garden, pulling weeds when she had the energy. But she was never, ever left alone. She desperately wanted to go to Parramatta to visit Charlotte, but James — and Friday and Sarah — said no. James insisted that she drink tonic three times a day, rest whenever she felt even vaguely tired, which was much of the time, and gave her laudanum at night so that she slept without dreaming.

To her enormous relief, the endless chattering of voices in her head faded, giving her a sort of peace for the first time in months. But Rachel abandoned her, too, during the day at least, and she couldn’t swim hard enough against the velvet tide of laudanum that lulled her to sleep at night to know whether she came to her then. Harrie missed her. She started to put on a little weight, colour came back into her face and the sores on her mouth and her body began to heal. By the end of November she was starting to look like the old Harrie.

But she wasn’t the old Harrie, even though she’d improved vastly, and everyone knew it, not least James.

Part Three

And Drown the Wakeful Anguish of the Soul

Chapter Twelve

December 1831, Sydney Town

On the first day of December, in the evening, while Harrie, James, Ivy and Friday sat in the parlour with the front door open to let in the last of the day’s breeze, Harrie told James she wanted to go back to work.

‘But you don’t have any work,’ James said. ‘You’re assigned to me now, and I don’t expect you to do anything. I don’t want you to do anything.’

Harrie looked at him beseechingly. How was she going to say this? She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but sitting around doing nothing was fraying her nerves. That awful sensation of dread was worming its way back into her belly. She desperately needed something to keep her mind occupied and all the bad things … out.

‘I’m so grateful to you for bringing me back from Liverpool, I really am, and I’m feeling so much better, but I can’t just sit here idly. I need to keep busy. I don’t want to think all the time, and I do, when I’m idle. And I do have work, James. I have a job at Leo’s.’

‘I’d really rather you didn’t go back to that,’ James said firmly.

Friday nudged Ivy. ‘Why don’t we go and tidy Harrie’s room?’

They left, but once outside, huddled just beyond the back door, listening avidly.

James said, ‘There’s no need for you to work, Harrie. I can give you everything you need.’

‘No, you don’t understand,’ Harrie insisted. ‘I have to make money to send home to Robbie and Sophie and Anna, and Leo paid me very well. And we might need money for Charlotte until we can get her out of that awful place.’

As she said this, she was engulfed by a wave of grief and need so savage she literally saw stars. Poor little Charlotte had been in the orphanage for nearly a month, all by herself, and it was heartbreaking. They had to rescue her. But Friday and Sarah didn’t seem to be doing much to help her at all, apparently content to let her languish there, frightened and alone. Oh, Friday said they had a plan, but no matter how many times Harrie asked, Friday wouldn’t say what it was. She was to concentrate on getting better, according to Friday, not worry about Charlotte. They were excluding her, and Harrie didn’t know why. Couldn’t they see what was so obvious, that she would be the best mother for Charlotte? She was feeling vastly better now, and she loved Charlotte as dearly as she loved Rachel. And even though sometimes her yearning for Charlotte felt like a fever, growing ever more consuming by the day, and a little tiny part of her did wonder now and then just how truly recovered she really was, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Charlotte.

‘I can give you money,’ James said. ‘God knows I’m not short of funds.’

‘I don’t want you to give me money. I’m not your wife. I can earn my own!’ Harrie’s heart pounded alarmingly. Would he also give her money so she could contribute to Bella Shand’s next blackmail demand?

James slipped off the mourning ring he’d worn for the past two years and dropped it into his pocket. ‘Then be my wife, Harrie. Marry me. Please.’

Outside, Friday and Ivy gawped at each other, eyes huge with delight.

‘No. I can’t,’ Harrie said flatly. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t.’ She couldn’t look at him, unable to bear the disappointment on his face. She wanted to weep. She wanted to die. He’d finally asked her, and she couldn’t say yes because of what she was and what she’d done.

‘Shit,’ Friday cursed.

‘I want to go back to work for Leo,’ Harrie said again, desperate to get away from the subject of marriage, desperate to stifle her own bitter disappointment.

‘I’d really prefer that you didn’t,’ James said, his voice stiff with dejection.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not an appropriate thing for someone like you to do.’

‘Someone like me? A mad convict girl?’

‘You’re not mad. You’re recovering from a nervous disorder.’

‘If I did it anyway, would you send me back to the Factory?’

‘No.’

‘Would you throw me out of your house?’

‘No.’

‘Would you stop being so nice to me?’

‘Of course not.’

‘What would you do?’

James sighed. ‘I’d worry, Harrie. I always do.’

Harrie went back to work for Leo on the fifth day of December. They agreed that she should work three mornings a week, drawing designs onto customers and tattooing some of the easier outlines. If she coped with that, Harrie hoped after a month or so to also work part time for Nora, who had asked her if she could assist her some afternoons with her sewing. Paid, of course, out of Nora’s own purse, and to hell with George. Emma, Nora had told Harrie, had left, afraid of what might happen to her if she, too, fell foul of George, and a new girl had arrived from the Factory. Her name was Tilly, she was pleasant and a moderately competent domestic, and Hannah had bitten her twice. Ivy was to stay on with Harrie and James for another six weeks, but when Harrie was feeling fully fit she would take over the domestic duties at James’s cottage and Ivy would return to the Siren’s Arms.

Everything, Friday said to Sarah one day, looked as though it was getting back to normal, and now that Harrie was living in James’s house, surely she would give in eventually and agree to marry him?

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Sarah said. ‘She might not be a raving lunatic any more, but I don’t know if she’ll ever make peace with her guilt over what we did to Keegan.’

Friday got out her pipe and tamped tobacco into it. ‘You know, if I’d known it was going to turn out like this, I wouldn’t have let her come with us.’