A Tattooed Heart (5 page)

‘Perhaps a little to start with, but I shouldn't think so after a month or so. I'm expecting plenty of business once word gets out, and I'll be charging between six and seven pounds per full session as it's a highly specialised service. The split will be the same. Forty per cent to me and sixty to you.'

‘And when do you think we'll open?'

‘A fortnight, perhaps? I'm going to knock down the wall between that room upstairs we don't use much — you know, the one that smells musty? — and the smaller one next door. That should give you plenty of space to work in. I'll put up some new drapes and get Jack to do a bit of redecorating. What's Mrs Thompson's flogging room like? I've never seen it. I saw lots in London of course but, well, Sydney isn't London, is it?'

‘It's a bit dark and dingy. She's got this black and red wallpaper, and heavy black curtains, velvet, I think, and no carpets, just shellacked floorboards. And a bed with oilcloth on it, and this stool thing that poor Violet hung over while I whacked her. And Mistress Ruby has all her tools, her whips and birches and stuff, in a glass-fronted cabinet where the cullies can see them. Oh, and there's a set of wrist irons attached to the wall.'

‘How very gothic,' Elizabeth said. ‘We might do something a little more tasteful. I'll need to have another whip or two made and a few other bits and pieces.' She pursed her lips, thinking. ‘I wonder if I can prevail upon the Principal Gaoler to sell me a few pairs of light irons. Otherwise I'll have to get a blacksmith to make those as well.'

‘Isn't the cove at the gaol the last person you should ask?' Mrs H was running an illegal business, after all.

‘No, actually. He's Vivien's best customer.'

‘Oh.' In an effort to ease her sore head Friday tilted it to the left then the right, eliciting a loud crack from her neck. Mrs H winced. ‘Do I have to keep working till the flogging room's ready?'

‘Yes, you do.'

‘Oh,
why?'

‘Don't whine. You'll need to tell your regulars why you can't see them any more, unless they choose to avail themselves of the new service, of course. And your trial starts now, Friday, not when the flogging room opens. Do you understand?'

Reluctantly, Friday nodded, not meeting Elizabeth's gaze.

‘Good. Now off you go.'

Heaving out a sigh so massive that her cheeks inflated to the size of small peaches, Friday hauled herself off her chair and plodded out of the office.

Elizabeth wrestled the urge to go after her and slap her across the head. She could be infuriatingly childish, for someone who was supposed to be nearly twenty-two years old. And the more she drank, the more immaturely she behaved.

She'd known for some time that Friday was unhappy in her work. But that was to be expected — in all her own years as a prostitute and then as a madam, she'd met few women who genuinely enjoyed the physical act of connection with their customers. In truth they were just vessels to be filled, then discarded. Few women could turn such a brutal reality into anything approaching a romantic or even erotic experience, and certainly not up to ten times a day, seven days a week. If a woman worked in the right brothel, however, the money could be very good, and she paid her girls well. This, she knew, was what kept Friday going, because she needed money. A lot of it.

Regardless of the fact that her popularity contributed so much to the brothel's coffers, if Elizabeth had a say in the matter she would retire Friday altogether and simply give her what she needed to live and to pay Bella Shand's blackmail demands. It's what she should have done with her own daughter, Amy — kept her out of harm's way and plied her with money. But Amy would only have spent it all on gin and drunk herself into the grave, much like Friday was doing now. Friday wouldn't take her money, though.
She'd offered, several times, but Friday had too much pride. Well, she used to, but that, it seemed, was steadily being eroded by the alcohol, and by her grief for this girl, Aria.

That had been a surprise, of sorts. Elizabeth had assumed there was no man in Friday's life because of her headstrong and rowdy character, which certainly wasn't to everyone's taste, and what she did for a living. But the more she thought about it, the more she could see that she wasn't a man's girl at all. She felt for Friday, she really did, but if this Aria girl had gone from her life forever, there really was nothing to be done about it.

And if she couldn't retire Friday and force her to accept money, she could do the next best thing, which was to create a job for her that might make her happier. Friday would still be paid well, the business would obviously benefit, and she, Elizabeth, could control Friday's behaviour by threatening her with the Factory if she didn't curb her drinking. Yes, it was underhanded, but she hadn't amassed a fortune over the decades without being devious. And it was in Friday's best interests.

Losing Amy all those years back had been dreadful. She couldn't bear to lose Friday as well.

July 1832, Indian Ocean

Lucy Christian sat in the cabin's single chair, attempting without much success to embroider by the weak light of the lantern swinging ceaselessly back and forth from the ceiling. She supposed, though, that she should be grateful for any light at all; beneath her feet the poor folk in steerage would be bumping around in the dark, the captain of the
Florentia
having banned lanterns below deck altogether. How inconvenient, not to mention chaotic, that must be, though she could certainly see his point. After all, she'd forsaken her friends and family to sail halfway around the world to seek a better life, not to choose between burning alive and drowning in the icy waters of the southern Indian Ocean.

She was twenty-three and a trained school teacher, and had been assisting the master at the small church-run school in her hometown of Clapham for three years before she'd realised she would likely have to wait for him to die before she could have his job, which she'd dearly wanted. Unfortunately, he was only thirty-six. It had been quite a depressing revelation, and she'd decided that if she had to move away from home to find a position as a schoolmistress, she might as well go somewhere properly different and challenging. Somewhere, perhaps, she might even start her own school. So she'd looked into the emigration, or bounty, scheme, found that Australia was the only colony on offer, paid her carefully saved eight pounds to equal the subsidy put up by the English government, and become a bounty emigrant.

Her mother had been horrified, convinced that every unmarried girl taking advantage of the scheme was deliberately being sent to Australia as fodder for the marriage market, and that she'd end up with a convict, or a grocer's son, for a husband. Everyone knew there weren't enough women in the colony to go around and that the men there were all mad for it. The fact that single women could only go if they were aged between eighteen and thirty proved it. Lucy had laughed at that, especially as her mother had been blathering on for ages about wasn't it time Lucy found herself a husband?

But that couldn't be true, because every bounty girl she'd met had to have some sort of useful trade; for example, they were trained dressmakers, needleworkers, cooks, shop workers or superior servants. There were even one or two other teachers. What would be the use of that if you were going to get married five minutes after you arrived? And even if it
were
true, Lucy had no intention of doing any such thing. Well, not for some time, at least. Her immediate future didn't include cooking and cleaning for a husband, and she'd already turned down two moderately suitable offers of marriage in Clapham.

She had almost made a terrible mistake, however. She'd signed her bounty contract assuming that her ship, the
Princess Royal
, would be sailing to Sydney, her preferred destination by far, but when she'd read the contract properly at home, she'd realised that the
Princess Royal
was bound for Hobart in Van Diemen's Land. That had put her in a dreadful funk. Van Diemen's Land! She'd heard the weather there could be almost as inclement as England. So she'd spent more of her dwindling savings on another trip to London to see Mr Quincy, the emigration agent, and told him she'd changed her mind. But he'd insisted it was too late because she'd already paid her money and signed the contract.

Just when she'd resigned herself to miserable winters at the bottom of the world, she was rescued by serendipity. She'd received two very well-heeled visitors — a Mrs Beatrice Penfold and a Mr Victor Handley — who'd come all the way from London to make her a proposition. Mrs Penfold, it transpired, had three children temporarily in her care, the younger siblings of her brother-in-law's new wife (which had sounded rather complicated), and was seeking a guardian to chaperone them on their voyage to Sydney. During her search she'd been directed to several emigration agents and had encountered Mr Quincy, who had recommended Lucy.

She had said, ‘Thank you very much for considering me, Mrs Penfold, but I think Mr Quincy might have become confused. I'm signed on to the
Princess Royal
. That's a women-only ship and we're going to Van Diemen's Land. Unfortunately.'

Mrs Penfold had smiled prettily and said, ‘Oh, don't worry about that, dear. Mr Quincy said everything can be sorted out. There's another ship leaving for Sydney at about the same time, the
Florentia
. I'm sure berths for you and the children can be secured aboard. That is, of course, if you decide you
would
like to take up my offer.'

She'd been a little annoyed at that. ‘Actually, when I last spoke to Mr Quincy, he implied that the arrangements were set in stone.'

Mr Handley had laughed and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. ‘Nothing's ever set in stone, Miss Christian.'

He'd been more than a little dashing, Mr Handley. Tall, handsome and rather wicked looking, despite having to rely quite heavily on a cane.

‘Well, I don't
have
any of this,' she'd said, repeating his gesture. ‘So I'm stuck with going to Van Diemen's Land.'

Mrs Penfold had replied, ‘Fortunately, I do, so not necessarily. If you are amenable to my offer, Miss Christian, I'm sure Mr Quincy will see his way to releasing you from your current contract and issuing another more commensurate with your goals. Of course, you'll also be paid for your services, and quite generously. It seems my brother-in-law has a deep purse regarding this matter.'

That had made her stop and think. The next thing she'd asked had been, ‘Why me?'

‘Because Mr Quincy recommended you very highly. He told me that you have several years' formal teaching experience, and also that you're from a respectable family rather than, er, an institution, which seems to be the case regarding quite a few bounty girls.'

‘That doesn't mean they're not respectable.'

‘Oh, I'm sure they are,' Mrs Penfold said. ‘But you're a trained teacher. I'd like the children to have lessons.'

‘How old are they?'

‘The girls are ten and eleven, and the boy is twelve.'

‘May I ask, where are the parents?'

‘The mother died last year and, er, I gather there hasn't been any contact with the father for quite some time.'

Lucy had thought that sounded odd for a well-to-do family, and she'd soon discovered that there was more to the situation than Mrs Penfold had initially implied.

Mr Handley had said, ‘We'll be blunt here, Miss Christian.' He'd looked at Mrs Penfold. ‘Shall we, Beatrice? Be blunt?'

She'd said, ‘Yes, I think that might be for the best.'

‘The children's elder sister,' Mr Handley had gone on, ‘the one in Australia, married to James — James Downey, that is, Beatrice's brother-in-law and my good friend — is a convict. She was transported three years ago —'

‘Nearly four, I believe,' Mrs Penfold had interrupted.

‘Four then. And obviously she had to leave her brother and sisters behind here in England. When she and James married, James asked us to find the children and send them out.'

‘Where were they? The children?'

‘In London, more or less fending for themselves,' Mrs Penfold had said.

‘Oh dear. So are they . . . ?' Lucy had trailed off, not quite knowing what to say.

Mr Handley had nodded. ‘They're pretty much feral, I'm afraid.'

‘Oh, they are not,' Mrs Penfold had said crossly. ‘They can all read and write to a limited extent, which I must admit was a bit of a surprise. Perhaps their mother taught them, or their sister. Harrie, her name is. A diminutive of Harriet. But as I said, I'd like them to have further lessons on the ship. The children, though . . . Yes, well, perhaps they are a
little
unruly. The boy especially. But you have to remember they've been extremely disadvantaged in life, and especially since losing their mother. One has to make allowances.'

Lucy had thought that sounded ominous, but she really had wanted to go to Sydney, not Hobart, and the offer of a handsome reward just for child minding and teaching a few lessons was tempting. She'd asked for a night to think about Mrs Penfold's offer, and the next day had accepted.

She'd gone to London three days after that, after saying a final, tearful goodbye to her family, and met the children, Robert, Sophia and Anna Clarke, which evidently was their mother's
surname, not their father's. Mr Handley had been right — they
were
feral, though Mrs Penfold had assured her she'd finally rid them of the ringworm and head and body lice with which they'd been infested. But Lucy had dealt with, in her opinion, far more obnoxious children at the school in Clapham — a handful of unfortunate individuals already so stewed in the juices of religious dogma that they were nasty, bitter and unforgivingly judgmental. What were a few nits, curse words and possibly light fingers compared to that? In her view there was nothing worse than a closed mind. In comparison the Clarke children, while certainly rough, relatively uneducated and possessed of considerable street cunning, were infinitely preferable. She thought they'd probably get on all right.