Great Historical Novels (38 page)

‘I did not say so,’ Jane retorted.

‘But,’ Agnes continued, ‘if there
was
a purse full of silver just sitting there because the man whose silver it was had got it in the neck, then I would have had it, and so would you.’

Nora threw her sewing down in disgust. ‘Don’t be a bloody fool, Agnes. He’s not got into the man’s cabin and killed him
then
seen the silver. It makes no sense.’

Rhia pricked her finger with a needle and bit her lip to keep from crying out. Margaret shot her a look. If Laurence’s killer
was
on the boat, and if they wanted the portrait enough to kill for it, then surely they might come for her. Maybe they still would. At present the cook still seemed the most likely culprit. Perhaps he was a paid killer? It was difficult to imagine what personal motives he might have. Money, probably.

The dispute continued all morning whilst they stitched as carefully as if they were mending their dreams. This undertaking had brought them together like nothing else, in spite of the bickering, and today Rhia felt included.

Later, she found Mr Reeve gloating over some cartridge paper and brown ink he’d bought in Rio. ‘A superior colour, don’t you think, Mahoney?’ He was looking at her over the rims of his spectacles, showing her how he had wasted his new ink on another poor rendering. The illustration was of some plant he had seen ashore, but it looked more like a broom head. ‘I must say I’m rather taken with the colour of this ink. I wonder what plant it is derived from.’

‘Sepia is made from the secretions of cuttlefish,’ Rhia said,
enjoying his raised eyebrows. ‘When they are afraid,’ she added for good measure. If humans secreted ink when they were frightened, the ship would be awash in it by now.

‘How knowledgeable, Mahoney. It is no wonder you are unmarried.’ He laughed as though this were wit of the highest order. She turned back to the specimens spread on the floor and they worked in silence. After a while the botanist threw down his pencil in disgust.

‘I cannot draw this blasted foliage,’ he complained. His frustration with his own lack of skill usually manifested as heavy sighing and the occasional crumpling of paper, but he wanted his records completed before they reached Sydney and he was starting to lag behind. He was as slow an illustrator as he was a poor one.

Rhia tried not to smile. ‘Perhaps I could help?’

He looked suspicious. ‘You can
draw
as well, Mahoney?’

‘I am told that I can.’

He sighed. ‘Very well. Show me what you can do.’

She took a sheet of his new cartridge paper, running her hand over its smooth surface before she marked it. It was of more use for wrapping up gunpowder than it was to Mr Reeve. She dipped the steel nib of his antiquated fountain pen into the inkbottle slowly, savouring the feeling of its weight between her fingers. She traced the outline of the glossy leaf that lay on the table, then the veins, almost effortlessly. It looked like a camellia leaf but was four times the size. When she looked up, Mr Reeve was watching with undisguised envy.

‘You have a steady hand, given the circumstances.’

‘The circumstances?’

‘Well, given the situation, you know, the news of our friend Mr Blake.’ He was looking at her suspiciously. He probably
thought she had something to do with it. After all, she had visited Laurence just before his murder. And in Mr Reeve’s eyes, she was a convicted criminal. She wanted to shout at him that Laurence Blake was not
his
friend, but her friend. He was on the boat because of
her
and now he was dead. But she must not shout and she must not confide, even though a grudging camaraderie seemed to be developing between them. ‘It is a shame the ship’s officers have not bothered to inform us of the progress of their enquiry,’ was all she said, hoping that she sounded unconcerned.

‘But they have. There was a passenger meeting in the saloon on the evening before we sailed from São Sebastião.’

Rhia grimaced. ‘Of course. It would not be considered necessary to inform those of us who have not paid for our passage,’ she said sardonically. Just as they had not been invited to Laurence’s burial. Albert had told her about it. As usual, irony was lost on Mr Reeve. He only blinked at her and looked a little confused.

‘It has been discovered that Mr Blake was fleeing London after a business enterprise collapsed,’ he said, ‘and that he was in debt to such an amount that his creditors hunted him down and killed him. I hear that he booked his passage in haste.’

Rhia felt like slapping him. ‘And how did these creditors know of his whereabouts?’

The botanist shrugged as though it should not be considered important. He was looking at what she had been drawing on his precious cartridge paper. Inside the leaf, where there should have been a lattice of veins, was a triple knot. She was as surprised as Mr Reeve, but she rather liked the way it filled the leaf.

Don’t forget me, I am Cerridwen, guardian of the cauldron of inspiration
.

How could she forget the muse who had so cruelly deserted her, and who persisted in reminding her of all that she had lost?

Threads

Today, every wharf at Circular Quay had a foreign vessel cabled to it. The paved esplanade at the sand’s reach was, as usual, rowdy with fishmongers and foreigners. Everyone in Sydney was a foreigner, of course, but an order of ascendancy prevailed – a result of the farcical notion of British superiority. The quay excited Michael more than any other part of the city. The strip of beach reminded him of his seafaring youth, and now it contained the promise of home. It was his past and his future. It was also where the postmaster’s office was situated.

There was a letter from Thomas in two parts. The page on top was dated later than the second page. It was brief and, judging by the scrawl, had been written in haste.

18 March 1841

We’ve just had word. Rhia Mahoney is in prison. They say she is a thief, but no one here believes it and I know you will not either. She is to be sent to New South Wales. This may not reach you in time. Perhaps you will already be on your way home.

Michael reread the postscript in disbelief: he was not mistaken, yet it did not seem possible. Rhia Mahoney a thief? She’d always been a mischief, and he had not seen her in more
than seven years, but still. He rolled up a smoke, lost in thought, before he read the letter proper. It was about wool, mostly. Thomas said he’d asked Brigit Mahoney, and yes, she was interested in merino from Sydney. Other news though, was sobering.

Sean O’Leary fell by a landlord’s firearm last Sunday, leaving his Mary a widow and two wee lads.

Mam sends her love and wishes every day that she had learnt to read and write.

Freedom,

Thomas

Michael folded the thick, coarse paper slowly and deliberately and threw his fag end into the sand, grinding it in with the heel of his boot. Calvin would know which transports were due in.

The Port Authority office was awash with towers of black-spined books and scrolls. It seemed unfeasible that a mind as sharp as Calvin’s could function in such a messy place. A young sergeant was sitting at a table with his back to the door scribbling away strenuously. Calvin was at his desk, frowning over a pile of paper. He looked up.

‘Afternoon, Michael.’ His tone said he didn’t like Michael’s chances of getting his attention.

‘Cal.’ Michael nodded. ‘Mind if I use your yard to smoke?’ Michael shot him a look and Calvin nodded.

‘Give me a minute.’

Michael left the bungalow via the verandah at the back. Beyond, there was a log and a patch of sand. All around, the spiky grass trees rustled with life; with birds big enough to make a shrub move, and reptiles the size of dogs.

He sat on the log and rolled two. It helped him to think. In Thomas’s previous letter, he’d said Rhia was lodging with a widowed Quaker in London who was in the cloth trade. A Quaker
widow
. He shook his head. He was being foolish.

Calvin appeared and Michael handed him a roll-up. The policeman took a deep draw and closed his eyes for a minute, then looked sidelong at Michael. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I had a tip about a robbery at Government bloody House. You know anything about that?’

‘Nope. When?’

‘Not too recent.’ Michael frowned. ‘So they’ve kept the constabulary out of it. That makes it more interesting.’

Calvin shrugged. ‘Cagey lot. Some guv’s obviously got a personal interest. What got flogged?’

‘Silver. Foreign coin.’

‘Well, well. Things might be starting to make some sense.’

‘Are they?’ It didn’t make sense to Michael. He remembered Thomas’s letter. ‘By the way, did you say the dead Quaker in Bombay was a cloth trader?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Heard any more about him?’

Calvin shook his head. ‘Sodding sailor’s disappeared. He’s probably gone bush. Might need to get Jarrah after him. You think there’s a connection?’

‘No. Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘Well that’s concise.’

Michael shrugged. ‘Just a feeling. But if there’s a coining racket on, then I might have something else for you. I’d sooner make my own enquiries. It’s not the small-fry forgers that interest me, it’s their master. By the way, have you seen any Cape and Orient ships in the harbour?
Medusa, Raven, Empress
… can’t think of any others just now.’

‘Any reason?’

‘The shipping company is owned by the Crown bankers.’

‘So?’

‘They take delivery of all the silver from the opium trade – once it’s laundered through the Calcutta exchange.’

‘I’m not following you, Michael. What’s opium got to do with a counterfeiting operation?’

‘I’m not sure yet, but the bank’s filthy. Always has been. Their last mercantile was the slave trade. Their Cape and Orient fleet are for hire to any pirate who’ll pay. I’ll wager that there’s Cape and Orient clippers coming through Sydney with silver bound directly to Barings, no questions asked.’

‘I think you’re getting in a bit deep, mate.’

Michael shrugged. ‘Is there a transport due?’

Calvin nodded. ‘The
Rajah
. Any time now.’

‘Would you let me know if there’s a Rhia Mahoney on board?’

‘Passenger or prisoner?’

‘Prisoner.’

‘A friend?’

‘Of my boy. I’m starting to get an itch … there’s a connection, but I can’t for the bloody life of me figure it out.’

Calvin threw his fag end into a rusting bucket and got to his feet. ‘If there’s one thing you’ve a knack for, it’s pulling the threads together.’

‘I’m a weaver.’

‘Weaver, publisher, sailor, zealot. What else?’

‘A bloody genius, if I’m right about this.’

The Rocks had been quiet such a long time now that Michael was starting to wonder if he’d missed the action. There was always some kind of caper going on at the Rocks, always someone on the make, so why was his gut telling him this was any different?

He stared at the back of the bungalow. The timbers were bleached grey and the roofing iron was rusting up. There was a parakeet sitting on the guttering, like a jewel in the dirt. Maybe he wasn’t going home just yet. He wasn’t going anywhere until the
Rajah
docked. 

Sailcloth

Antonia scanned the columns of June’s ledger, concentrating as best as she could on figures. Hundreds of yards of balzarine had been despatched to New York, Milan, Amsterdam and Berlin. There was no French buyer yet, but Mr Montgomery had assured her that by the spring, a walking dress cut from their new cloth would be Paris fashion. The perfect blend of wool and cotton would be in every mercer’s catalogue, in
Pears
and in
Sylvia’s Home Journal
: ‘Warm enough for March, light enough for July.’ Antonia took a deep breath. She had done it. She had talked about it, and studied Josiah’s methodology, and she had thought about little else, and finally she had put her self-doubt and her grief aside. And now death again, sidling up to her, taking her heart piece by piece. Josiah had not lived to suffer the loss of Ryan Mahoney, for which she had been grateful. But it was a blessing he had not lived to suffer the loss of his beloved Laurence, too. She thanked the Lord. Rhia’s letter had arrived three days ago, and it had taken Antonia this long to merely believe it true. No one else knew yet.

Mr Dillon was to call at eleven. Antonia looked at the old ship’s clock above the wainscoting. Soon. Could she tell him? What would they talk about if she couldn’t? She could engage him in conversation about his column and defend the industrialists, the
capitalists
, he was so bent on maligning. The very
word was an insult to anyone who strived to protect tradition in industry, to make work for idle hands. She could point out that there was nothing to be gained from nostalgia over the days when fibres had been spun and woven by hand. Did Mr Dillon even understand that most machine-made cloth was of superior quality? Surely he, a commerce writer, knew that a mechanised loom produced a more uniform weave. Linen alone benefited from being hand-spun. Of course, Mahoney Linen had not survived the revolution of the machine, which was – indirectly – why Rhia was aboard that maligned ship. And why Laurence was dead. But who was she to try to unravel the spindle of the fates?

Antonia forced her attention back to the ledger. It was a small comfort that all was in order with the business, and that her colleagues were experienced and principled men. Josiah would never have associated with them otherwise. The old Isaac was struggling back. He had simply ceased to care after his wife’s death, and now Antonia had an intimate understanding of how it felt to have little left to live for. Isaac kept his troubles quiet, but she and Josiah had known. The Quaker congregation did not take kindly to a Friend who could not manage his finances. What was bad for the business of one, reflected on the reputation of all. Isaac arranged the hire of clippers and the shipping of cotton to India. He was a master of the logistics and mechanics of shipping. With Mr Beckwith’s talent for money, Mr Montgomery’s flare for retail and Ryan and Josiah’s trading expertise, the joint enterprise must have seemed the perfect company. The company in her portrait. Rhia had
seen
the portrait.