Girl of Shadows (13 page)

Taking pity on him, Harrie explained, ‘After my father died my ma took another husband, my brother and sisters’ father.’ Though they’d never been legally married. Neither had her mother and father.

‘And what line of work is your stepfather in?’

Why on earth did it matter? Harrie wondered. ‘I don’t know, now. He left us before Anna was born.’

‘Oh.’ Matthew’s ears went pink. ‘Well, are you enjoying being with the Barretts?’

‘Most of the time. The children are very sweet, and so is Mrs Barrett. Mr Barrett has his moments.’

‘And did you have much trouble finding somewhere suitable to work?’

Harrie stared at him, speechless. He gazed back, blood suffusing his face, his mouth slack with embarrassment. ‘I am
so
sorry, Harrie. Truly. I … for a second I forgot.’

And she realised then that he very possibly felt just as nervous as she did. How odd. She’d assumed that because of his superior background he would be practised at all sorts of social situations.

Feeling his discomfort acutely, and prattling to cover the awkward moment, she said, ‘Actually I have another job as well, now. I’ve just been commissioned by a tattooist called Leo Dundas to draw some designs. Flash, they’re called.’

Matthew didn’t respond. Oh dear, she thought, perhaps that had been the wrong thing to tell him.

She ploughed ahead anyway. ‘Usually Mr Dundas draws the designs himself but he’s too busy these days, there’s that many sailors wanting tattooing. So I’ll be drawing them. He’s done some lovely work, really quite beautiful. I was surprised. He’s a friend
of George Barrett’s, well, an acquaintance really, or should I say Mr Barrett is an acquaintance of
his
. I suspect that’s more likely. And you’ll —’

‘A
tattooist
!?’ Matthew interrupted.

‘Yes. You know. They draw pictures on the skin with needles and ink.’

‘Yes, I do know what a tattoo is. It’s just that …’ He trailed off, looking extremely uncomfortable.

‘You didn’t think I was that rough?’ Harrie said bluntly. It was written all over his face.

He shifted slightly on his chair, refusing to meet her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Harrie, really I am. You must think I’ve the most awful airs.’

‘Stop saying sorry all the time, Matthew.’ Harrie smiled to herself; it was such a novelty for her to be saying that to someone else. ‘It was Mr Barrett’s doing. He arranged it. And obviously I don’t know the first thing about tattooing — I’m a sempstress and I design and sew embroidery patterns. But Mr Dundas considers my design skills to be just what he’s looking for. And he’s going to pay me, Matthew! At last, after nearly two years, I’m going to be earning my own money again. Imagine that!’

Matthew blinked; he hadn’t realised assigned convicts weren’t paid a wage of any sort. He’d always assumed that Dolly, the Vincents’ girl, was getting
something
. ‘Well, that part’s good news. But will you have to actually go to where this Dundas fellow works, to deliver these … what did you call them?’

‘Flash. I’ve already been. And it’s only ten minutes’ walk from your lodgings, Matthew, not in some den of vice somewhere.’

‘Not by yourself, I hope!’

Matthew was actually quite scandalised, but told himself he really shouldn’t be, given who Harrie was — he couldn’t afford to be if he didn’t want to offend her. The way she must have lived her life in England, and certainly the way she was living it now, were markedly inconsistent with the manner in which he lived his,
and he was just going to have to accept that, if he hoped to win her. Sydney was not London and, while some rules of society were actually exaggerated in the colony, others, of necessity, were quite different. He was reasonably confident he could use the latter to his advantage if he wanted to court her, which he most certainly did. A number of men with social standing far superior to his own had married convict girls; he’d seen that already.

However, there was also James, whom he liked and admired very much, and to whom he’d listened for hours over recent months plotting to win her back. He felt deeply disloyal being here today, but considered it would have been the height of bad manners to decline Harrie’s invitation … and, frankly, he hadn’t wanted to. If things progressed in the direction in which he hoped they might, he’d worry about James’s reaction, and his own guilty conscience, later.

‘No, I went with Mr Barrett,’ Harrie said. ‘He’s a very nice man, Mr Dundas. His shop is on George Street near the Stores, down the side of the Sailors’ Grave Hotel.’

‘Will you have to go back there? They can be pretty unsavoury characters, sailors.’

Harrie smiled. ‘Yes, I did spend four months on a ship, you know.’ Which reminded her. ‘You’ll never guess who else I saw at Mr Dundas’s. From the
Isla
?’

Matthew couldn’t imagine who it might be. Of the people they both might recall from the ship, Gabriel Keegan was of course dead, and he hadn’t exactly been a friend of Harrie’s — or, in the end, Matthew’s — and the Church Missionary Society family, the rather irritating Seatons, would hardly go to an establishment like this Leo Dundas’s. Similarly James, Matthew was sure, wouldn’t be seen dead in a tattoo shop. Or would he? He
had
been in the navy, after all. And Matthew hadn’t known most of the other convict women, except for Friday and poor Rachel Winter.

‘I expect you’re right. You’ll have to tell me.’

‘Walter Cobley, the ship’s boy.’

‘The poor lad who had his head shaved when we crossed the line?’

‘Yes. He jumped ship before Captain Holland set sail again for England. Mr Dundas found him and took him in. Poor love. He was terrified of that evil, rotten Amos Furniss,’ Harrie explained, deciding to keep the rest of Walter’s story to herself.

‘But Amos Furniss is here, in Sydney. James told me he saw him.’

‘So has Friday. Apparently he’s working for Bella Jackson.’

‘Is he? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,’ Matthew remarked. ‘If what I heard some of the crew saying about her is true, they’ll be well suited as partners in crime.’ He frowned. ‘What do you mean, working for her? Hasn’t she been assigned?’

‘She made arrangements to marry a man barely three weeks after we arrived. A very wealthy, older man. She’s more or less free to do as she pleases.’

‘Good God,’ Matthew said. ‘The fellow must have been desperate!’ He turned his teacup around so the handle lined up exactly with the pattern on the saucer. ‘Harrie, what do you think happened to Gabriel Keegan?’

She froze, but only for the shortest of seconds. ‘I thought he was murdered. Wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, but why? And by whom?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not the police.’

‘I read in the papers it was a very vicious beating.’

Harrie suddenly felt too hot. She asked cautiously, ‘What do
you
think happened to him?’

After a moment, Matthew said, ‘I think he was up to his old tricks again but this time he picked the wrong victim. I think this time he went after a girl who had brothers, or perhaps a father with a couple of staunch friends. Who else could beat a big man like that to death?’

Harrie felt at least some of the tension ease out of her. ‘Yes. Yes, that could have been it, couldn’t it?’

‘I don’t particularly
care
,’ Matthew said harshly, ‘because I think he deserved it. But I do wonder.’

‘I don’t. I really don’t. I think it’s best forgotten.’

‘I expect you’re right.’ Matthew sat back in his chair and relaxed into a smile. ‘I’ve enjoyed myself this afternoon. Well, apart from the most recent topic of conversation. To tell you the truth I was quite nervous to begin with. And I did make an awful gaff earlier, didn’t I? I do apologise for that.’ Ignoring another pang of guilt as he thought again of James, he asked, ‘Do you think we might do it again? Have afternoon tea, I mean?’

To her surprise Harrie realised that, eventually, she’d quite enjoyed
her
self. ‘Yes, please, Matthew. That would be very nice.’ Take that, James Downey.

‘And Harrie, promise me that if you ever need to go to this Dundas fellow’s shop, do send word to me first. I’d be delighted to escort you. Truly, you can’t go there on your own, especially at night. Also, I’d rather like to say hello to young Walter Cobley myself.’

That’s kind of you, Harrie thought. Really impractical, especially if you’re at work, but kind.

Friday strode along the gravelled street, barely noticing the buffeting wind that was already fat with heat. By midday it would be uncomfortably hot and all abroad would long for shelter from the baking antipodean sun. She glanced at the wisps of cloud scudding overhead; later on there may even be one of the violent spring storms she usually enjoyed so much. But not today — she was still too angry. Bloody a hundred and fifty pounds! That was close to half of everything they’d saved.

She’d almost marched straight up here to confront Bella as soon as she’d received the note, but her gut had told her to leave it a day or so until her temper cooled a little. Instead, she’d gone to see Leo Dundas and made a start on covering her ugly old tattoos. The new
one was an improvement already, though it wasn’t even finished, but it was sore, and not helping her mood.

She slowed as she approached Bella’s brothel, an inoffensive-looking two-storey house between the smaller cottages on south Princes Street, and the more expensive residences to the north. In fact, it looked a lot like Elizabeth’s premises, with heavy curtains at the windows and, from the street, an air of desertion about it, only this house was built from wood, not stone, and had a tidy verandah at the front.

Friday knew the servants’ door was more likely to be answered than the front, so she opened the gate in the tall fence surrounding the property, marched around the house to the back verandah and knocked.

A girl wearing a lace robe and pink silk slippers came to the door.

‘Yes?’ she said, looking Friday up and down.

‘Bella Jackson, please. I want to talk to her.’

‘Do you mean Mrs Shand?’

‘Yes,’ Friday said impatiently.

‘Why? Who are you?’

‘Never mind that,’ Friday snapped. ‘Just go and get her.’

‘Can’t. She’s not here.’

‘What do you mean?’ What sort of madam would let her girls work unsupervised?

‘I mean, she’s somewhere else,’ the girl said.

Cheeky cow. ‘Well, where?’

‘I’m not allowed to tell. She can’t be here
all
the time. She’s got other businesses, you know. She’s a very busy woman.’

‘You can tell me. I’m her cousin. I’ve just emigrated and she wrote and told me to contact her when I arrived. She said she’d have work for me.’

‘Her cousin?’

‘On my mother’s side.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s all right. She’s at home this morning.’ The girl moved to close the door.

Thick as well. Friday put her boot in the way. ‘Hang on. How do I get to her house?’

The girl frowned. ‘Don’t you have her address? I thought you said she wrote to you?’

‘She did but I just got here. I don’t know my way around.’

‘Oh. Well, just keep going that way until you get to Argyle Street, go down the hill to Cumberland, then turn left and follow the road until you come to a big house facing out over the harbour. It’s actually the back of the house you’ll see, but there’s a fancy garden with a pond and a statue.’

‘Much obliged,’ Friday said, and took her foot out of the door, which closed smartly in her face.

She traipsed down to Bunker’s Hill, and knew Bella’s house — or rather Clarence Shand’s house — immediately she saw it as the midnight-blue curricle was parked in the carriageway on the far side of a gated, wrought-iron fence. The pond and statue were also in evidence, the statue a fat little boy with no clothes on playing a trumpet, his tiny willy sticking out. No doubt Clarence thought that was lovely. The gardens were manicured to within an inch of their lives, though there was hardly any grass — just shrubs, flowers and a few shady trees.

Being mucked about had made Friday even angrier and she thought she might just surprise Bella — to hell with knocking on the door. The elegance of the house also irritated her. What had Bella done to deserve to live in a grand place like this, except for being in the right place at the right time and having enough dosh to pay a marriage broker? Who cared that her husband was a molly who preferred men not women and that the whole marriage was a sham? Bella obviously didn’t.

Keeping close to the side of the house she walked along the carriageway, leaving open a tall hand gate, until she arrived at
the front, which afforded a truly breathtaking view of the blue, diamond-scattered harbour.

She crept along the verandah, hugging the sandstone wall, and stole a look through the first French door she came to, her heart leaping when she saw that Bella was in the room, alone. This was going to be easier than she’d expected.

She was sitting at a desk, writing in a ledger. Friday could see her profile; the strong, slightly hooked nose and well-defined, not quite sharp chin. Even now, when there was no one else to see, she wore her trademark heavy white face powder, kohl and lip rouge. Her glossy crow’s wing hair was arranged in ringlets and caught at the back of her head with a comb, and she wore a beautifully cut dress of deep purple, black slippers, and dangling jet earrings. Friday wondered who had died. No one probably, the witch just knew the dark colours suited her.

She was undeniably attractive, in her own skinny way, but her beauty was hard and artificial. Friday suspected she was a lot older than she looked, and went to great lengths to hide the fact.

Suddenly, with a horrible sinking sensation, Friday became aware she wasn’t alone on the verandah. Slowly, she turned; behind her crouched a pair of enormous brindle dogs, open maws drooling long strings of spit. As she made to sidle off, they emitted twin, bowel-churning growls.

Amos Furniss appeared behind them. ‘Tsk, tsk, tsk. Always sticking your nose in where it ent wanted, that’s you.’

‘Call them off, Furniss,’ Friday ordered, barely moving her lips. Loathing for him reared up inside her and her skin crawled. He was just as revolting as he’d been on the
Isla
, sneery smirk and broken, tobacco-stained teeth and everything.