Behind the Sun (25 page)

‘You can come back about this, you know.’

She nodded and slid off the table, wincing as her feet hit the floor. He gave her lint with which to pack her nose should it bleed again and a small bottle of laudanum — telling her not to share it with anyone else — and let her back into the prison.

Rachel stayed below for four days. Everyone was told she’d walked into something on the way back from the water closet, but rumours flew and some of them were almost the truth. The bruises on her face went from purple to green and her battered nether regions were tender for several days and stung when she peed, but the abrasions on her knees soon scabbed over.

Her physical wounds were healing, but she feared that her feelings of shame and humiliation, and her
anger
, might never go away. She could not stop thinking about what he had done to her, going over and over in her head what she might have done to stop him, what she
should
have done.

The others had interrogated her about what had happened, particularly Friday and Sarah, and she’d told them everything, except for the part that Bella Jackson had played. God, what a gulpy little child she had been, mistaking manipulation and nastiness and greed for kindness. But if she told them what Bella had done, Friday would be so angry and have a go at Bella and probably start a war and they had such a long way to go yet to New South Wales.

She couldn’t settle. She knew she was driving the others to distraction with her bad temper and her questions about Keegan. Had they seen him? Was he on the foredeck? What was he doing? The thought of him was driving her insane. Then Harrie noticed she
hadn’t taken any of her laudanum, the taste of which she loathed, and made her, which she had to admit did help her to feel better — calmer and sort of removed from everything that was going on. But then the laudanum ran out, her bad temper returned, and at breakfast on the fifth day she announced that she wanted to go up on deck again.

‘Why?’ Sarah asked, wary of the belligerent tone in Rachel’s voice.

‘Why shouldn’t I? I’ve just as much right to go up on deck as anyone else.’

‘Not sure I like the sound of this,’ Sarah said out of the side of her mouth to Friday, sitting beside her at the long table.

‘Well, too bad,’ Rachel said, overhearing. ‘I feel like a bloody mole stuck down here.’

Harrie said cautiously, ‘Sweetheart, do you remember you wanted to stay below for a little while? And you do seem to be, well, thinking about that man a lot.’ She couldn’t bring herself to say Keegan’s name. She’d been so horribly,
horribly
wrong about him. ‘I’m not sure it’s good for you.’

Rachel banged her spoon into her gruel and pushed her bowl away. ‘No, none of it’s been very good for me, Harrie.’

The others stared at her, startled by the vitriol in her voice.

‘I want to see him. You said you’d make him pay, Friday, and you
haven’t
!’

Friday leant across the table. ‘Be quiet, Rachel. Do you want everyone to know? The reason we haven’t done anything is because we haven’t seen hide nor hair of the prick. He’s hiding. We haven’t been lying to you, you know.
No
one’s seen him.’ She swivelled sharply to face Matilda Bain on her right. ‘Having a good listen, are you?’

The old woman’s whiskery mouth trembled with affront. ‘Not my fault I’ve got ears.’

‘Well, bugger off and dribble your food somewhere else.’

Matilda Bain whined, ‘I’m entitled to sit and eat where —’

Friday gave Matilda a good shove: she went backwards off the bench, dirty, claw-toed feet in the air and her bowl of gruel all down her front.

Twenty feet farther down the table Liz Parker stood up and yelled, ‘Oi! Don’t you push that defenceless old woman!’

‘
And you can fuck off as well!
’ Friday bellowed and hurled a rock-hard ship’s biscuit, delighted to have an excuse to let out some of the tension that had been building since she’d found Rachel on the deck five nights earlier. A lusty cheer arose from the breakfasting women.

What Keegan had done to Rachel had enraged her to the point that she literally had not known what to do with herself. At home, on the streets of London, she might have dealt with someone like Keegan by getting him drunk and beating him senseless, or perhaps have paid someone else to do it. What she wanted to do was kill him. If she did, she would without doubt be found out, thrown in the brig until they reached New South Wales, then tried and hanged. She’d never committed murder in her life, but Keegan’s offence against Rachel was enough to make her start, and it would almost be worth it. By tricking her into visiting his cabin — and Friday wasn’t convinced Rachel was telling the whole truth about how that had happened — he had separated her from those who cared and looked out for her, and that was just such an utterly deliberate, cruel and low thing to do.

But if she did kill him the whole sordid story would come out — that Matthew Cutler cove knew, after all — and quite aside from her own neck, she’d be risking Rachel’s chances of making even a half-decent life for herself in New South Wales before she even arrived. She was already a convict girl: being tainted by a rape, never mind a murder, would ruin her beyond redemption. No, far better to keep the whole thing quiet.

Which was why they weren’t going to report the attack to the captain. There was another reason, too: there wouldn’t be any
point. Because Rachel was a convict, Holland would assume she’d been whoring, and everyone knew it was impossible to rape a whore. Rachel would be punished and Keegan would simply get away with it. As well, it would put an end to any future business transactions after dark: Holland would have them well and truly locked in from sundown to sun-up, and the little enterprise Amos Furniss and Bella Jackson had going would be closed down. Bella, being the bitch she was, would no doubt take this out on Rachel, who would suffer even further for something that hadn’t been of her making.

So, regardless of Friday’s promises, big talk and threats, there wasn’t a bloody thing she could do about Keegan, and it was enough to make her spit nails.

Bella Jackson’s curtain whipped open, her painted face appeared, and she roared, ‘
Shut
.
Up!
’

Everyone fell silent, or as quiet as they could be. Liz Parker sat down.

Bella retreated. Friday gave the twitching curtain the finger, hating the way Bella had insidiously managed to assume control of the prison deck while hardly ever coming out of her little rat hole, but she was right. If they played up, Holland would order the hatch locked for the day.

‘Shut up yourself, you bitch,’ Rachel whispered, her eyes fixed on the table top.

Friday stared at her, every sense suddenly alert. ‘What did you say?’ What had happened to Rachel’s high opinion of Bella?

Rachel wouldn’t look at her.

‘Rachel?’ Friday prompted.

Matilda scrambled back onto the bench, grumbling to herself and scraping lumps of gruel off her blouse. ‘This were clean on yesterday.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Friday snapped. She felt uneasy and a bit sick. ‘Rachel, why did you call Bella a bitch just then?’

But Rachel just shook her head and hid behind her hair.

Had Bella Jackson called in her debt?

Harrie pushed Rachel’s bowl back at her. ‘Finish your gruel. You need to keep up your strength.’ She waited until Rachel half-heartedly began picking out the raisins and eating them. ‘What will you do if we go up and you do see him?’

Rachel paused, a raisin halfway to her mouth. ‘Nothing. What
can
I do?’

‘You won’t get upset?’

‘No. I want to see him.’

Harrie exchanged a glance with Friday and Sarah.

‘But
why
?’ Sarah asked again.

Rachel sighed. ‘I just want to show him I can look him in the face. I’m not afeared. That’s all.’

And Friday, Sarah and Harrie, whose long roads to Newgate had all been very different, believed her.

The morning was grey, cold and blustery, though the swell only moderate. The
Isla
had just crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and in a week would be passing Cape Town, then sailing into the Southern Ocean and the strong southern westerlies of the latitudes known as the Roaring Forties, at their most aggressive from July to September.

About a third of the
Isla
’s complement of prisoners were on deck, washing dishes, hanging bedding to air and swabbing the boards, and perhaps half the crew. Mrs Seaton and her daughters were on the foredeck taking a brisk morning constitutional, as was Matthew Cutler, who was chatting to James Downey on the port side near the bow. For the first time in five days Gabriel Keegan was also on the foredeck, though Matthew was making a reasonably overt show of ignoring him.

When Keegan had failed to appear the morning after the incident with the girl Rachel, Matthew had fretted for hours, chastising
himself for such uncharitable thoughts but wondering if she — and her friend Friday — had lied to him and in fact Keegan was lying in his cabin hurt or even dead. At midday he’d finally knocked on the door and hadn’t known what to think when Keegan had called out, ‘Who is it?’

He’d announced himself and gone in, his concerns turning quickly to anger then a deep repugnance as he’d observed Keegan lounging at his writing desk, stockinged feet on the bed, happily eating cheese and pickles from his private stock and drinking wine. There had been a long, angry scratch on his face.

He’d intended to leave immediately, but instead he’d blurted, ‘There was trouble last night. I found a girl in the corridor, just outside — one of the prisoners. She said you’d attacked her.’

And Keegan had smirked and said, ‘Absolutely
no
idea what you’re talking about, old fellow,’ and cut himself another wedge of cheese.

Matthew had had to stifle an overwhelming urge to strike him. ‘She’d been…compromised.’

‘
Compromised?
A convict drap? Well, she’s lying if she says it was me. Close the door on the way out, will you?’

Matthew hadn’t spoken to him since. He had anguished over whether to report the matter to the captain, or even James Downey, but in the end he’d said nothing because he couldn’t see that it would achieve anything positive: Rachel’s friend Friday had been right.

But it was a small ship and James Downey had commented yesterday on a certain frostiness he’d noted between Matthew and Keegan: had they had some sort of falling out? Matthew, while not wishing to be rude, had said yes and left it at that, grateful that the surgeon had, too.

He hadn’t seen Rachel up on deck since that night and he wondered if she was all right. Actually, he was fairly sure she probably wasn’t. She’d looked in a terrible state. He’d thought about approaching Harriet Clarke, or even Friday, both of whom
he had seen, but his nerve had failed him. Harriet didn’t even know him; and Friday, well, he suspected he hadn’t made a particularly favourable impression on her the last time they’d spoken.

He glanced over his shoulder at Keegan and saw that he’d crossed the foredeck to speak to Mrs Seaton, standing near the companion ladder that led down to the waistdeck. He hoped she had her daughters well and truly locked up at night.

‘I’m sorry?’ Matthew realised James Downey had said something.

‘The weather. I think we’ve seen the last of the sunshine for a while. At this time of year and at these latitudes it can get really quite miserable and the seas rather rough,’ James said. ‘Still, almost everyone seems to have found their sea legs.’

‘You’d expect so, though, wouldn’t you?’ Matthew remarked. ‘We’ve been at sea for some time now.’

‘Some people never do, you know. Sick the whole voyage.’ James saw that something on the waistdeck had caught Matthew’s eye and turned to follow his gaze. ‘Ah. Excuse me, will you?’

Matthew took hold of his sleeve and pointed. ‘Wait. That girl down there, the small one with fair hair?’

‘Rachel Winter? Yes, I must have a quick word with her. Excuse me, Mr Cutler.’

Feeling horribly uneasy at the notion that whichever crewman had assaulted Rachel Winter might now be on deck watching her, James took a step forwards.

Beside him, Matthew impulsively decided he couldn’t keep his awful secret any longer, not with Keegan leering and carrying on at Hester Seaton and her two young daughters less than fifteen feet away, and grabbed James’s arm again.

‘Mr Downey —’

But they were both too late.

Rachel was looking out for him even before she stepped off the ladder and onto the waistdeck. She saw him immediately, standing
up on the foredeck, talking to the reverend’s wife, his tall, top-hatted figure silhouetted against the sharp, white sky.

Deliberately, knowing that Friday, Sarah and Harrie were right behind her, she looked the other way and walked casually across the deck to a spot between the foredeck and the main mast. She was amazed that regardless of her furiously pounding heart and the hot, red rage boiling up in her, she could still appreciate the feel of the salty wind on her face after the days below, though it was stinging her poor nose a bit.

Should she do it?

She had nothing to lose. Keegan had taken everything. If Lucas had come for her a week ago, he would have been fetching a girl with a convict record, no money, some not very clever domestic skills, and a pretty face. It wasn’t much, but the real gifts she’d been saving for him were her fidelity and her honour.

But they were gone now, thieved in a matter of minutes, nothing left of them but a dirty stain on Keegan’s bed linen.

She raised her eyes to the foredeck just as Keegan gave a hearty laugh and settled his hand comfortably on Eudora Seaton’s upper arm.

Yes. She would do it.

She turned and felt Sarah’s hand on her wrist.

‘What are you up to?’ Sarah said suspiciously.

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, keep it that way.’ Sarah, too, had spied Keegan, haw-hawing away with Mrs Seaton and her daughters. ‘Really, Rachel, ignore him.’

‘I will,’ Rachel said. ‘I promise.’

‘Good girl.’ Sarah let go of Rachel’s wrist.

Rachel snatched up her skirts and made a break for it, sprinting for the ladder up to the foredeck. She was halfway up it before Sarah, her mouth open, started after her.

But Friday, ever watchful, was already there, only a few feet behind Rachel, until Amos Furniss appeared, hauled on her skirt and dragged her off the bottom rungs of the ladder.