Beyond the Sunset
Authors: Anna Jacobs
Tags: #Australia, #Fiction, #Sagas, #Historical, #english, #Sisters, #Lancashire (England)
CONTENTS
BEYOND THE SUNSET
Anna Jacobs
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Anna Jacobs 2010
The right of Anna Jacobs to be identified as the Author of the
Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Epub ISBN 978 1 444 71159 2
Book ISBN 978 0 340 95407 2
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
An Hachette Livre UK Company
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London NW1 3BH
This book is dedicated to librarians everywhere for the wonderful service they provide, not only the books but the research help, which has been invaluable to me over the years I’ve been writing historical stories.
For this book, I’d particularly like to thank Tom Reynolds of the State Records Office of Western Australia, Gillian Simpson of the Australian National Maritime Museum, the Document Supply Service of the National Library of Australia, the Ask Us service of the State Library of Western Australia, the national Australian Ask A Librarian service, Sue Smith of the Albany Public Library, and the wonderful staff of my local Mandurah Library. Their input into my research was invaluable.
And finally, this time I had a new and interesting problem: how to describe a horse and cart crash. For this I had help on line from the USA – so thanks, David Yauch, Liz Goldman, Tracy Meisenbach, Ashley McConnell, Jennifer Smith and Jeane Westin, who really know about horses and carts. They were gentle and kind and informative as they corrected my mistakes. I still don’t know how to drive a horse and cart, but I do know how to crash one!
Prologue
Swan River Colony (Western Australia)
December 1863
P
andora Blake heard footsteps and tried to brush away the tears as she saw her eldest sister coming across the garden of the Migrants’ Home towards her.
‘Breakfast is ready.’ Cassandra put an arm round her shoulders. ‘Oh, dear! I don’t like to see you so upset. You know we can’t return to Lancashire. If we did, I’m quite sure our lives would be in danger.’
She nodded and tried to summon up a smile.
‘Don’t,’ Cassandra said softly.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t pretend with me. Isn’t the homesickness getting any better at all?’
Pandora could only shake her head blindly and try to swallow the lump of grief that seemed permanently lodged in her throat. ‘It was cruel of our aunt to force us to leave England. Why does she hate us so much?
‘Father always thought it was because
she
couldn’t have children.’
‘That’s not our fault.’
Cassandra gave her a quick hug. ‘I know.’
‘You should have seen her that last time she came to visit us. She was terrifying, and strange too. She had that piece of your hair that they’d cut off, still tied with your ribbon, and we were certain if we didn’t do as she asked and leave the country, she’d have you killed. We thought we’d never see you again. It was a miracle you escaped to join us on the ship.’
A bell rang from inside the building. ‘Breakfast is ready,’ Cassandra said again.
‘I’ll join you in a few minutes. I need to calm down.’
‘All right.’
Pandora sighed as she looked round the garden, relishing a few moments on her own. The ship had been crowded with other single women brought out to the Swan River Colony as maids, some of them quarrelsome and noisy. All the Lancashire lasses had been thin at first after the long months without work because of the lack of raw cotton, but no one else seemed so badly affected by homesickness as she was. What was wrong with her?
She stared round. She’d thought she’d feel differently once they got here, but she didn’t. It was so unlike the soft cool colours of her native Lancashire. Even at this early hour, the sun blazed down from a cloudless blue sky and she felt uncomfortably hot. Wiping her brow, she went to sit on a bench in the shade of a gum tree. It had pretty red flowers, but the leaves were sickle-shaped and leathery, of a dull green. Even the stray clumps of grass in the garden were more beige than green, burnt by the searing sun, while the ground was sandy, shifting beneath your feet as you walked. How anything grew in it, she couldn’t think.
A pair of galahs flew across to perch in the tree, squawking harshly at one another. She’d called them ‘parrots’ when she first arrived but Matron had laughed and told her they were cockatoos, not parrots. Their calls were ugly, but they were pretty to look at, with pink throats and chests, pale grey wings, heads and crests.
One began to nip the flowers off the gum tree with its strong beak, not eating them but simply letting each one drop to the ground while it sought another blossom to pinch out. Was it doing this for sheer devilment or was there some purpose?
Even if she wanted to take the risk, how could she return to Lancashire? She didn’t have the money for the fare and she didn’t want to leave her sisters. No, somehow she’d have to come to terms with this terrible longing for home. She stood up, took a deep breath and went inside.
As usual the twins were sitting with their heads close together, talking animatedly. Pandora got herself a plate of food and didn’t comment on the way Cassandra was staring at her plate, eating very little. Her eldest sister had her own problems, was now carrying the child of a man who’d raped her just before she left England.
Afterwards Pandora helped with the clearing up, trying to speak cheerfully to the other women.
She
would
get over this homesickness, she told herself firmly – or learn to hide it better. She’d never been a whiner, wasn’t going to start now.
1
Lancashire: 1st January, 1864
M
r Featherworth leaned back in his chair and studied the young man sitting on the other side of his desk. Not good-looking, Zachary Carr, too tall and bony for that, but still, he had a reputation for honesty and common sense, and a steady gaze. The late Mr Blake had thought a lot of him, had said several times that you’d go a long way to find a more decent fellow. That was much more important to the lawyer than how a man looked.
The more he talked to the young man, the more he warmed to him. Carr had been the breadwinner for his mother and sister for several years, so was clearly a responsible person, and he seemed intelligent too. He might never have travelled overseas before, but he was young and strong, and at twenty-five, he’d grown beyond a young man’s rashness. He even knew how to ride a horse, because his uncle had a farm. That was a big advantage, because Mr Featherworth had been told there were no railways in the Swan River Colony.
Most important of all, though: Zachary knew the four Blake sisters by sight.
Yes, Mr Featherworth was sure he’d chosen the right person to send on this mission.
‘It’s not taken as long as I expected to find a ship going to the Swan River Colony – or Western Australia as some call it now. I’ve booked you a passage on the
Clara,
which is due to leave London on January the 11th.’
Zachary’s face lit up, then the date sank in and he looked startled. ‘But that’s only just over a week away! How will I ever get ready in time?’
Mr Featherworth held up one hand. ‘Please let me finish.’
The younger man gave him an embarrassed smile. ‘Sorry. I’m a bit excited about it all.’
The lawyer smiled back at him. ‘It’s not surprising. Few young men of your station in life are given an opportunity to travel to the other side of the world. But as you know, the Blake sisters had already left England when their uncle’s will was read, so someone has to tell them they’re the new owners of his grocery emporium, and escort them back from Australia.’
Zachary nodded. ‘It was a sad business, that. I thought a lot of Mr Blake. He was a good employer and a kind man.’
‘Yes indeed.’
They were both silent for a few minutes. Who would have thought the late Mrs Blake would go insane, murder her husband and force her nieces to leave the country in fear of their lives? The idea of all that still gave the lawyer nightmares.
‘Now, as to the details of your voyage, I had at first intended to send you steerage, because one has to be careful when spending a client’s money. But this is a vessel taking convicts to Western Australia, not a normal passenger vessel, and I’ve decided you’ll be far safer as a cabin passenger. Not that the steerage passengers mingle with the convicts, certainly not, but still . . . I was fortunate enough to secure the last vacant bunk for you – though you’ll have to share the cabin with another gentleman.’
‘What exactly does “cabin passenger” mean?’
‘It means you’ll be travelling with the gentry, away from the convicts and in more comfort than the steerage passengers, both going out to Australia and when you bring the young women back. However, you’ll not be in the first-class cabins, whose occupants eat at the Captain’s table, but rather in the deck cabins, which have their own dining area and less generous accommodation. Your travelling companions will still be a better class of person than you would find in steerage, though.’ He studied Zachary. ‘You look worried.’
‘I shan’t know how to behave in such company. I’ve served the gentry in the store, but they live differently from us. I don’t want to let you down – or embarrass myself.’
‘I’m sure you’ll do nothing to upset people, but if you’re doubtful how to behave, watch others whom you respect and imitate them. You can also ask advice of the ship’s doctor or one of the ship’s officers, if need be. The main thing is not to pretend to know something you don’t or be something you aren’t. It’d not look good to be caught out in a lie.’