Girl of Shadows (44 page)

James smiled, but not at her — at Harrie.

During the third week of June, a boy arrived at Mrs Hislop’s house with a note for Friday. She wasn’t at work, instead spending a morning sleeping off a hard night of going around the pubs, but Elizabeth slid the note beneath her bedroom door.

When Friday finally dragged herself out of bed at midday, with the usual dreadful case of the horrors, she spied the note on the floor and her heart plummeted; she knew exactly what it was.

Slowly, with shaking hands, she broke the seal and read it.

Friday screwed her eyes shut and roared, ‘
You fucking slag!!!
’

Clutching her throbbing head, she sat on the bed, the note in her lap. Bloody Bella bloody Jackson — the dog-faced, coney-catching,
mutton-hawking bloody hedgewhore had double-crossed them. She’d kill her — she’d bloody
kill
her.

She read the note again, carefully this time.
Shite
. The second Sunday in July was only a few weeks away.

Someone knocked on the door.

Oh, go away.

The door knob rattled furiously. ‘Friday!’ Elizabeth called. ‘Unlock this door.’

She trudged across the floor and turned the key. The door opened to reveal Mrs H, and Ivy from Eli Fat Toad Chattoway’s house. Ivy waggled her fingers in a little wave.

‘Was that you bellowing your head off?’ Elizabeth snapped.

‘Might have been.’

‘Well, don’t. It lowers the tone. Ivy’s starting in the laundry today. She’s replacing the girl I fired last week for pinching the soap. She wanted to come and say hello.’

And suddenly Friday grinned. ‘Nice to see you, Ivy.’

Ivy returned the smile with a gap-toothed one of her own. ‘Mrs Hislop’s taken me on. It’s all official and everything.’

‘You’re a sweetie, Mrs H,’ Friday said, giving Elizabeth a peck on the cheek. ‘Thanks.’

Elizabeth flapped a theatrical hand in front of her face. ‘Honestly, Friday, you could turn milk with that breath. Run along now, Ivy. Annie will show you what to do, all right?’

Ivy dropped a quick curtsy, mouthed ‘Thank you’ at Friday, and trotted off towards the stairs.

Elizabeth stepped into Friday’s room and closed the door. ‘What were you screaming about? I could hear you down in the kitchen.’

‘Nothing.’

‘It was a bloody loud nothing.’ Elizabeth spotted the note on Friday’s bed and made a move towards it, but Friday got there first and tucked it inside her robe under her arm.

‘Show me.’

‘No, it’s private.’

‘Look, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ Elizabeth demanded. ‘Because I know something is. And it has been for a while, hasn’t it?’

For a second Friday felt like confessing everything, but what good would it do? Nothing would change.

‘I can’t tell you. Really, I’m sorry, I just can’t.’

‘You’re being blackmailed, aren’t you?’

Friday felt her cheeks redden, and turned her face away.

‘If it’s money you need, I can help, you know,’ Elizabeth said.

‘I’ve got money. But thanks, I appreciate your offer.’ Friday hesitated, then asked, ‘Why are you being so kind?’

‘You remind me of someone,’ Elizabeth said. She examined her perfectly manicured fingernails for a long moment. ‘Someone who was very dear to me.’

Friday opened her mouth to ask who, then decided Mrs H was entitled to her secrets, too. If she wanted to tell her, then one day she would.

Elizabeth lay a plump hand on Friday’s arm. ‘Well, I’m always here if you want to talk to me about it. Believe me, there’s nothing worse than carrying the weight of a secret all by yourself.’

But Friday didn’t have to suffer the burden of this secret alone, and for that she thanked God.

‘What time will James be home?’ Friday asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m not his wife.’

‘Well, where is he?’

‘Still at the surgery, I expect.’

Friday had called an emergency meeting at Sarah’s. She’d grabbed Harrie on the way, telling Nora it was
essential
she come out for an hour, and now here they were once again sitting around Sarah’s dining table, where they seemed to have done so much of
their planning, plotting and worrying. She fished Bella’s latest note out of her pocket and passed it to Sarah.

She read it quickly. ‘Double-crossing bitch,’ she said for about the fifth time since Friday had told her. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her.’

‘I didn’t trust her,’ Friday said. ‘Not really. Did you?’

‘What do you think? There’s no honour among thieves. I should know.’ Sarah gave the note to Harrie. ‘Do we have the money?’ she asked Friday.

‘We do. And I got Matthew the other day to withdraw Janie’s payment for the next few months, so that’s all right. But there’ll be hardly anything left.’

‘How much? By my reckoning there should be about fifty pounds, after this. Is that right?’

Friday nodded. They all knew fifty pounds would be a small fortune to many, but not to three girls regularly being blackmailed, who also had three dependants in the Parramatta Female Factory.

‘How does she know we can afford it?’ Harrie asked.

‘What?’

‘She’s underlined the word “know” as though she’s sure of how much money we have in the bank.’

‘She can’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘Apart from us, Matthew’s the only other person who knows that.’

‘The bank clerks must,’ Friday pointed out.

‘She can’t be bunging them,’ Sarah said. ‘Can she?’

Harrie frowned. ‘How would she even know we have a bank account?’

Sarah turned to Friday. ‘You haven’t told anyone, have you?’

‘Why the hell would I?’

‘More to the point, would you remember?’

‘No need to be snarky. Of course I haven’t bloody well told anyone. Oh shite.’

Sarah pounced. ‘What?’

‘Well, it was Mrs H who gave me the idea of us having a bank account. We were talking about it in her office. But I can’t remember if I said anything about how much money we have.’ And she really couldn’t.

‘And?’ Sarah prompted.

‘She might have been listening at the door.’

‘Who?’

‘Lou. I
told
you she’s been spying on me. I’m bloody
sure
she’s working for Bella.’

‘More likely Bella’s made a shrewd guess,’ Sarah said. ‘She runs a brothel, she’ll have a good idea of how much money you make. Christ, she’s probably managed to find out how much Adam and
I
earn. Though I bloody hope not. She’ll be blackmailing us for that next.’

They lapsed into silence until Harrie laid the note on the table, gave it a little push so it skated away from her and said in a deflated-sounding voice, ‘I thought this was all behind us.’

Friday gave her a genuinely sympathetic look. ‘Did you?’

‘No, I suppose not. Not really.’

‘It was worth trying,’ Sarah said. ‘It did all seem a bit easy, didn’t it? The lying cow.’

‘We’re back where we started, aren’t we?’ Harrie said.

‘Well, no.’ Friday folded the note and stuck it in her pocket. ‘We got rid of Gellar and Adam’s coming home. Have you heard anything, Sarah?’

Sarah scowled. ‘No, I bloody haven’t. Rossi said it would be a month and the month’s not quite up yet. If I could I’d be down at the wharf every day to meet the ships but I can’t leave the shop.’

‘When’s Bernard back?’

‘In a few days, I think.’

‘How are you getting on with James?’ Harrie asked.

Sarah’s face relaxed. ‘Actually, quite well. Better than I expected. He’s a lot less fussy than I thought he would be. I thought he’d have
to have his sausages all lined up on the plate half an inch apart facing in the same direction and his handkerchiefs folded into perfectly symmetrical squares and all the rest of it, but he’s not like that at all. And he does a lot of things for himself. Comes from being in the navy, I suppose. Thoughtful, too. He seems to know when I don’t feel like talking.’ She blushed and started to smirk.

In anticipation Friday giggled, too.

‘The other night he was having a bath in front of the fire in the parlour. I forgot and barged in to get my mending and there he was standing in a foot of water in all his glory. I nearly died and so did he.’

Friday shrieked with laughter.

‘You,’ Sarah said, pointing at Harrie, ‘don’t know what you’re missing.’

‘Don’t be coarse,’ Harrie said.

‘And you stop being so stubborn and stupid. The man’s really quite spectacular. Mind you, I didn’t see him for two days after that. Went out early and came home late he was that embarrassed.’

Friday was still tittering as she walked home along Harrington Street. Things
were
looking up, in spite of the fact Bella had made another blackmail demand. Harrie and James were talking again, Sarah was tolerating James living in her house surprisingly well and so far her sarcastic tongue hadn’t driven him back to his own cottage, and surely it couldn’t be much longer before Adam himself arrived home.

There had been no sign of Jared Gellar. His trunk still sat on Sarah’s porch, the ends of the leather straps beginning to curl. If he had any sense he
would
be on a ship halfway to England, though she had no idea if he was or not. She’d only said that to Harrie so she wouldn’t feel guilty about dobbing him in to Bella.

Two days later Sarah received another letter, from, according to the script on the outside of the folded and sealed sheet of paper, the
Office of Captain Francis Rossi, Superintendent of Police and Police Magistrate.

She tore open the seal and read:

Feeling light-headed and sick with relief, she crouched on the floor in the centre of the shop, her palms pressed against the tiles for balance, the rest of the post forgotten.

‘Sarah? Are you all right?’

She glanced up, her head swimming, to see James standing over her.

‘He’s coming home, James. I just … I couldn’t be better.’ And she burst into tears — this was happening to her a lot these days.

James took her elbow and helped her to the stool behind the counter. She sat blindly, wiped at her eyes with her sleeve and thrust the letter at him.

He read it, and nodded. ‘I’m very pleased for you both, Sarah, I really am. Decent of them to ship him back.’

‘They shouldn’t have sent him there in the first place!’

‘No, quite. But you should try not to think about that now. He’s coming home, that’s the main thing.’

‘God, are you ever anything
but
sensible?’ Sarah said.

‘I volunteered to cohabit with you, didn’t I?’

Sarah gave a crooked little smile. ‘That’s true.’

James glanced at the letter again. ‘He could be home in four days. Perhaps even three.’

‘How do you know that?’ Sarah’s eyes shone with hope.

‘The letter is dated twenty-first of June — four days ago. If Rossi sent the letter of release by sea the same day, it will have arrived by now as I believe it takes, under fair conditions, three days and two nights to make the voyage from Sydney to Port Macquarie. Providing Adam is able to leave Port Macquarie straight away, he should arrive here on … Wednesday, perhaps?’

‘Really?’ Sarah was delighted. ‘Then I’ll go down to the wharf tomorrow. He could be early.’

‘Not that early, Sarah,’ James said gently.

‘Which wharf?’ she asked suddenly. ‘King’s? Campbell’s? Pitman’s? Bloody Market Wharf? I can’t be waiting at them all!’

‘I’ll make enquiries with the harbourmaster. But he really won’t be back tomorrow. Monday at the very earliest, and more likely Tuesday.’

‘Monday, then,’ Sarah agreed grudgingly. James knew what he was talking about. But she knew the wait would be utter torture.

Monday’s weather was atrocious. From the harbourmaster James had discovered that a ship could be arriving from Port Macquarie some time that day or evening — possibly earlier than expected due to the heavy winds tearing down from the north — carrying a cargo of cedar to be unloaded at Campbell’s Wharf. At eight o’clock in the morning, a drenched Sarah appeared at the Siren’s Arms to collect Friday, who had offered to spend her day off waiting with her.

Not accustomed to hauling herself out of bed so early, Friday nevertheless made a supreme effort for her friend, and together they staggered down to George Street into a vicious wind laced with rain as sharp as needles, hats clamped to their heads and skirts whipping around their legs. Friday was soon as soaked as Sarah.

They found themselves a pair of stools near a low window in a gloomy little pub on George Street, just past the Naval Offices, with a view of Campbell’s Wharf and the wildly seething cove. Everything was grey — the sea, the sky, the buildings, the muddy streets.

Friday sipped at her gin.

‘A bit early for that, isn’t it?’ Sarah said.

‘I’m cold.’

So was Sarah, though the temperature wasn’t anywhere near as freezing as that of London’s. She wondered if they’d got used to the warmer weather in Australia, and grown a bit soft.

‘You’ll be mashed by the time he gets here,’ she said.

‘No I won’t.’

They watched as the wind battered indignant, squawking gulls, raised waves against watermen straining mightily to reach the shore, and hurled rain into the faces of folk dashing past the window in shapeless, dripping hats, coats and cloaks.