Emily (36 page)

He signed the necessary papers and as the official took his leave, Philip said to Joe, ‘These papers give your address as London, but your wife’s is different!’

‘Yes, sir. I was caught thieving in London but I’m from ’north of England, same as my wife, Margaret, here.’

‘Yes.’ Philip wondered how they had managed to meet to concoct a story. ‘I know. I can hear it in your accent.’

‘Can you, sir?’ The man seemed astonished.

‘How’s that then?’

‘Because that’s where I’m from too. But that’s not a Hull accent like your – wife’s!’

Joe put his head up and looked at him frankly. ‘No, I’m not from that town. I’m from a country
district, but I’d rather not talk about it if you don’t mind, sir. That’s a life behind me. This is a new one.’

Philip called for the irons to be unlocked from their ankles and noticed that Johnson walked with a limp, throwing his leg as if still shackled.

He sent a boy to hire him a horse and wagon. ‘The farm that I’ve bought is a few miles out of Sydney.’ He studied the map of the area that he’d been given. ‘I’ve no idea what it’s like. It’s a shot in the dark.’ He looked at each of them squarely. ‘I’ve taken it on trust, just as I have taken both of you. If you let me down then I won’t hesitate but send you to the road gang, Johnson – and you, Meg,’ there was a threat in his soft tone, ‘will go to Parramatta without the child.’

Meg hugged the child closer to her, there was fear in her eyes. ‘I won’t let you down, Mr Linton. I promise.’ Then she looked at him pleadingly. ‘When will you go for Emily, sir?’

There was a cool breeze blowing and the seagulls shrieked their shrill cries as they swooped over the cove as Emily was bundled into the cart with the other women. I seem to have spent my life getting in and out of carts and wagons, she thought wearily. Is there to be no end to it? She looked despairingly to where her brother Joe and Meg were standing next to each other and they too were staring across at her as she was driven away. She felt desolate and so alone.

The road to Parramatta was sixteen miles long, rough and laid with broken stone, and as the wagon
trundled and shook on its journey, she gazed about her at the countryside. Strange grey trees climbed the high ground and as she looked back the way they had come she saw an old, crumbling fort overlooking the bay. The town had been filled with townspeople, not only convicts in their dull grey uniforms, but women in bright cotton dresses with baskets over their arms; others in silk and muslin stepped into carriages. There was a scattering of colourful uniforms, the dark blue and white of the naval men and scarlet and grey of the military. What a strange place, she pondered. I thought it would be dark and dismal like a prison, but most people seem cheerful, although perhaps they are the free settlers. But there were shops and warehouses and green squares and a stream running through the middle of the town and a market where dark-skinned natives were selling fresh fish, and farmers, just the same as at home, were wearing thick cotton smocks and straw hats on their heads.

Parramatta too was a lively town, whereas she had expected only a prison, and the sky was filled with the sound and colour of budgerigars as they flew over their heads. But as they drove through the open gates set in the high brick walls of the female factory, she felt that her worst fears were about to come true and that here life would be as dark and dismal as she had expected.

‘Everybody line up! Come on. Jump to it, I haven’t got all day.’ The orders were barked out by a military-looking man. By his side stood a clergyman. There were women prisoners milling around the yard and as Emily watched them she
thought that some of them looked drunk. Some of them were hanging onto the arms of soldiers who were lounging in doorways, whilst others were walking out of the gate and no-one appeared to be stopping them.

‘You will find’, the official shouted, ‘that there are grave punishments here for those who misbehave. We no longer lash women, but we still have the treadmill,’ he added with a thin smile. ‘And heads are shaved and food is withdrawn for the serious miscreants. But those who obey the rules will find there are special privileges.’

Some of the younger women who had just arrived began to weep, but Emily stared straight ahead. I will cry no more, she vowed. I will not let them get to me.

They were taken to their quarters by a supervising woman convict, who ushered them into a large bare room, and Emily was glad that she had had the forethought to pick up her blanket from the ship, for on the floor were thin straw mattresses but no blankets or pillows.

‘If any of you have money,’ the woman said, ‘I’d advise you to keep it safe. You’ll get supper and breakfast, but if you want anything else you have to pay for it.’

‘How?’ Emily dared to ask. ‘How can we pay if we have no money?’

The woman stared at her. ‘Work for it,’ she said harshly. ‘Or sell that blanket you’re hanging on to,’ she grinned, ‘or anything else you have to offer.’

Emily sank on to a mattress away from the door. The door was open on to the yard and she didn’t
want everyone staring in at her, for this appeared to be an open house with other convict women coming and going to inspect the new arrivals.

A group of these came and stood in the doorway and made jeering remarks at the newcomers. Some of them retaliated and abuse and foul language were hurled from one to another. One woman leaning on the door jamb spotted Emily and shouted across to her. ‘Hey, you. I know you!’

Emily looked up. She saw a bedraggled old hag with scanty grey hair and dressed in rags. She turned away and ignored her, but the woman came across the room towards her.

‘I remember you.’ She dropped down onto the mattress and Emily shuffled away. ‘We drove from York gaol together. Don’t you remember?’

Emily cringed and shook her head. She would surely remember such a miserable creature with her sore face and misshapen black teeth.

‘Yes!’ The woman poked at her with a dirty finger. ‘In the coach going to London! You remember me – Molly?’

Molly! Yes, now she did remember. The vile woman who had offered –. Emily shuddered. To meet again with such a woman on the other side of the world!

Molly leaned forward and Emily pressed against the wall in order to get away from her sickening stench. ‘Listen,’ she poked Emily again and whispered, ‘do you remember I said I’d get you fixed up with an officer or somebody, so’s we could eat? Well, the offer still holds. I’ve been here a few weeks now and I’ve seen what goes on. Soldiers and
farmers come and go as they please, but they’re getting a bit particular. I can’t do business with ’em, they won’t look at me.’ She appraised Emily. ‘But you, now, you’ve still got bloom o’ youth on you. I could get a good price for you! We could have a regular little business going. What do you say?’

Emily jumped to her feet and grabbing the end of the mattress she tipped the woman off it so that she sprawled onto the floor. ‘I say get out of my way with your filthy mouth,’ she screamed. ‘I want nothing to do with you!’

Molly looked up at her from the floor and wiped her dirty hand across her mouth. ‘Think you’re too good for ’likes of us, do you? Well, you’ll soon find out you’re not. I’ve onny to put the word about and you’ll wish you’d never been born! You’ve not seen likes of some of these women in here, they’re worse than men some of ’em, and they’re not averse to using leather or a knife on a pretty face.’

Emily started to tremble, but she would not be intimidated. ‘I said – get out of my way,’ she hissed, her eyes wild. ‘Get out!’

There was a sudden silence in the room as two men appeared in the doorway. One was the clergyman, who stood nervously twisting his hands together. The other was a tall, thin man in naval uniform whom Emily recognized. Mr Clavell, the surgeon from the
Flying Swan
.

He came into the middle of the room and slowly turned around so that he looked at each of the women in turn. There were about thirty of them. ‘Good afternoon, ladies.’ His voice was authoritative, but not unkind. He looked down at Molly
and pointed with his finger to the door. ‘I wish to speak to the new arrivals.’

Molly shuffled off, casting a look of loathing at Emily. The surgeon waited until she had gone and then spoke again. ‘My name is Clavell. You may not know it, unless you were sick, but I travelled on the same ship as you, the
Flying Swan
, though I have to admit to having had a trifle amount more comfort than you did.’

The women glanced at each other, here was a man speaking to them as if they were human beings. ‘I am here on a permanent basis, much as you are,’ he explained. ‘This is my prison as much as it is yours. The difference is that I chose to come here.’

He waited for this to sink in. ‘I have been here before and I didn’t like it. Nor did the women who were here, but some of them made it worse for themselves than it needed to have been. There have been improvements since then, but you wouldn’t notice. Now what I aim to do, with your help,’ his words were chosen carefully and precisely, ‘is close this prison down!’

First of all Clavell made them take all the mattresses outside and shake them. Then he appointed groups of women from the newcomers to brush down the walls and windows of their dormitory and wash the floor with antiseptic. He then turned his attention to the old hands, those who had been in Parramatta for some time and who looked at him suspiciously as he went to speak to them.

‘Some of you are set in your ways,’ he said. ‘You have established a routine for yourselves which you may find difficult to break. But I am telling you that from where I am standing, you are a disreputable lot! You are dirty and lousy and you have forgotten what it is like to be a woman. Except,’ he added, as some of the whores of the prison grinned and nudged each other, ‘except for those who sell their bodies in a vile trade and have given this prison its name of whorehouse! It may be too late to do anything about any of you, but I aim to stop you staining the reputation of those who have not yet sunk so low.’ His voice was firm and they were left in no doubt that he was determined to do exactly what he had stated.

‘For those who are diseased,’ he went on, ‘you can come and see me in the sick bay. But first of all,’ he said forcibly, ‘you will take out your mattresses and pile them in the centre of the yard, where they will be burnt. You will scrub and clean your cells and dormitories. Then you will be given water to wash yourselves and your clothes. If your minds are dirty then you may cleanse them through the parson here, who will hear your confessions.’

Emily heard some of this as she came outside to empty a bucket of dirty water and felt a glimmer of hope. Some of the other newcomers felt it too and spoke in whispers that perhaps it wouldn’t be long before they would be allowed to leave.

But the soldiers, settlers and farmers appeared at the gate to ogle the new women and offer them their freedom and other inducements if they would go with them. Some of the women were tempted, for they had no money to buy extra food or blankets and the nights were cold, and they had no reason to know that when their services were no longer required they would be turned out on to the streets. Emily pulled her blanket over her as she lay down that night on her mattress; it was scratchy and tore at her skin, but the floor looked and smelt cleaner than previously, though she could hear the scurrying of mice beneath the floorboards. Then she heard one of the women scream. Everyone sat up. ‘A snake,’ she shouted. ‘There’s a snake by my bed.’

The women started to scream and shout and run to the corners of the room. Emily got up, and picking up a broom that was leaning against the
wall, she brushed the creature towards the door. The door was locked, but there was a gap beneath it and she propelled it through it. ‘Was it poisonous, do you think?’ someone asked. ‘I’ve heard say that snakes in this country are deadly, and that there are spiders and beetles as big as your hand!’

Emily shook her head. ‘It wasn’t a snake. It was a lizard, I think, and it was probably more frightened of us than we were of it!’

The next morning she smoothed her hair with her fingers, for she had no hairbrush, and plaited it into a thick braid. She left the dormitory and approached the sick bay, which was nothing more than a wooden hut. The door stood open to reveal a row of beds, which unlike the mattresses the prisoners slept on were raised from the floor on wooden legs. Mr Clavell was standing by a sink washing his hands. She knocked on the door and entered and as he turned, she dipped her knee.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, sir,’ she said quietly, for she saw that two of the beds were occupied, ‘but could I speak to you?’

There was a flicker of interest in his eyes which lasted for only a second, and he nodded.

‘I wondered if you needed any help in the sick bay? I need something to occupy my time whilst I’m serving my sentence. I’m clean – as a rule, though I have head lice at the moment – and I’m a hard worker. But’, she finished in a rush, ‘I don’t want to stay in the dormitory with the other women.’

‘Too good for them, are you?’ He echoed Molly’s words, a trifle cynically she thought. ‘A touch above them?’

She hung her head. ‘No, sir. I’m here to be punished for a crime just as they are.’ Then she raised her head and looked at him honestly. ‘But there is no point in wasting my life if I could be doing something useful with it.’

He came towards her and stood with his arms folded, surveying her. ‘Why did you not go with Philip Linton, Emily?’ he asked softly. ‘I know that he asked you.’

She put her hand to her mouth in surprise. ‘How –?’

‘He confided in me,’ he answered. ‘And he said that you had some loyalty towards another prisoner, that you were going to come to Parramatta together. That was very foolish, surely?’

She nodded miserably. ‘I realize now that it was and now Meg has gone off somewhere else with the baby.’

‘Ah, yes! The infant. You helped to deliver it, I believe?’

Emily bit her lip. It didn’t seem right to tell a downright lie but she didn’t want to get Meg into trouble, and what if Meg had to give up the child because of her honesty?