Girl of Shadows (8 page)

‘Then why can’t she stay on in Mrs Hislop’s employ?’

Lawrence frowned, his wiry brows meeting in the middle. ‘Elizabeth doesn’t require another cook or laundress. I’m sad to say she needs a girl with a different set of skills.’

James felt himself blush. ‘Oh God, Lawrence, I don’t know. Is she a convict?’

‘I understand she has a ticket of leave. And a family she supports in England. So she desperately needs employment.’

James sighed deeply. ‘What exactly is ailing her?’

Lawrence finished his whisky. ‘I have examined her and my diagnosis is excessive menstrual bleeding caused possibly by a tumour, though I found no evidence of one. No metritis, either, or lues venerea. Elizabeth has always been very meticulous about that.’

‘Is there mania associated with the episodes of bleeding?’ James asked, envisioning a lunatic servant running riot through his cottage.

‘No, just pain requiring rest, and an inability to perform her, er, intimate duties, according to Elizabeth.’

James thought he could possibly tolerate that. ‘What treatment have you prescribed?’

‘Tonic for blood loss, laudanum for discomfort and light domestic duties during heavy bleeding. I’ve asked her to come back and see me in two months’ time. I’m not convinced she isn’t harbouring a tumour of some sort, though as I said I saw no evidence.’

‘Well, I suppose I could at least interview her,’ James said reluctantly. If the poor girl was suffering women’s problems she’d hardly be likely to hurl herself at him. ‘What’s her name?’

Lawrence looked delighted. ‘Good man, James! Her name is Rowena Harris.’

‘Sit down, Rowie,’ Elizabeth Hislop said.

Reluctantly, Rowie perched on the edge of the chair beside Mrs H’s desk, knees together, spine bent, rocking slightly. She’d cut herself peeling potatoes in the hotel kitchen; a rose of blood was slowly blossoming through the strip of muslin she’d wrapped around her finger. But Elizabeth knew that wasn’t the reason for her despondency; she was expecting to be told she would shortly be without employment altogether.

‘Do you need another bandage for that?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘It looks nasty.’

‘I’ll be all right.’

Elizabeth sat down herself. ‘I have some good news, though I do regret having to let you go. You do know that, don’t you?’

Rowie nodded, refusing to meet Elizabeth’s eyes, her own gaze darting about the room. In fact she looked more than despondent, she looked desperate, and Elizabeth wondered why. ‘I like it here. I’m very good at what I do.’

‘I know you are, but I just can’t afford to pay someone who isn’t pulling her weight. And I realise it’s not your fault, but I do have the business to consider. Now, I understand you have family in England who rely on you for financial support? Is that right?’

Rowie nodded again, and looked as though she might burst into tears. ‘I don’t know
what
they’ll do without the money. Can’t I
please
stay?’

‘It wouldn’t work, dear. It
isn’t
working.’

‘The kitchen, then? Can’t I work there? Or even the laundry?’ Rowie was sounding panicked now.

‘No, Rowie. I don’t need anyone in the kitchen or the laundry.’

‘But —’

‘I said
no
,’ Elizabeth replied sharply. ‘But I’ve spoken to Dr Chandler, who you saw about your troubles the other day, and he’s very kindly arranged alternative employment for you. The position is with Dr Downey, the other doctor at the surgery, as his live-in domestic servant.’ She paused, relieved to see a smile transforming Rowie’s features. ‘It will be the usual, cooking, cleaning and what have you. Dr Downey is fairly new to Sydney, and recently widowed. Are you interested?’

‘Would that be Dr James Downey?’

‘It would.’

‘The surgeon who was on Friday’s transport?’

‘Do you know him?’ Elizabeth was surprised.

‘No, but she’s mentioned him. He’s her friend Harrie’s beau, isn’t he?’

‘I gather that’s a touchy subject. And don’t you go getting any ideas in that direction, miss.’

‘I won’t! Thank you
so
much, Mrs H. I’m that grateful!’

Elizabeth waved away the thanks. ‘Yes, well, mind you do a good job. You’re there on my recommendation, remember.’

‘I’ll do a
wonderful
job, I promise,’ Rowie said. ‘It’s perfect.’

Harrie gaped at Friday in appalled disbelief.

‘You’ll swallow a fly if you’re not careful,’ Friday remarked.

‘And he’s taken her on? A
prostitute
?’

Friday nodded. ‘Well, she’s not now. She’s a maid of all work.’

‘But
why
?’ Harrie demanded. ‘Why would he employ a servant now, when he’s been perfectly happy by himself for a whole year?’

‘How should I know? Maybe he’s sick of eating in the pub and sleeping in filthy linen.’

Harrie continued to stare at Friday; in a single minute, disbelief had progressed to dismay, then jealousy and now anger. ‘Was this
your
idea?’

‘’Course not. It was Mrs H’s.’

‘But why
James
?’ He’d done this on purpose, Harrie knew he had, just to spite her for refusing to speak to him.

‘I suppose because he works with Chandler and Chandler is Mrs H’s doctor, and Mrs H has been keeping an eye out for another job for Rowie, seeing as she can’t work in the brothel any more. And James didn’t have a servant and needed one.’

‘Sounds a likely story,’ Harrie said, her lip curling.

Friday laughed. ‘That’s because it is.’

Harrie switched back to feeling jealous. ‘What does she look like?’

Friday hesitated, then sighed. Even though Harrie’s reaction was quite funny because she’d been swearing black and blue for months she wanted nothing to do with James Downey, she knew the news had upset her, and this was only going to make it worse. ‘She’s pretty. Black hair, grey eyes. Quite a nice figure, I suppose.’

Harrie immediately compared that to her own mouse-brown hair, ordinary brown eyes and rounded shape, and felt a surge of resentment so sour she could taste it. And she hadn’t even met this Rowie Harris.

‘And she’s been there a week?’

‘Give or take.’

‘Have you been to visit her?’ Harrie demanded. ‘What does James think of her? How does he behave around her?’

A long moment passed during which Friday and Harrie stared at each other. Slowly, Harrie’s hands came up to cover her ears, something that only happened when she was under considerable duress. She forced herself to lower them again.

Friday said, ‘Harrie, stop it. Will you listen to yourself? No, I haven’t been to see her. It’s just a job she’s got. Christ, he probably
barely says good morning to her. You know how boring and proper he is.’

Actually, Harrie didn’t. What she knew was that he was kind and clever, amusing, courteous and generous. And she had
thought
he was considerate, until he’d done what he had to Rachel. If it hadn’t been for that, it might have been
her
cooking James’s meals and laundering his linen and sweeping his floors — and yes, perhaps even sharing his bed. But now, it seemed, it was some tuppenny-uprighter called Rowie.

She sat very still, aware Friday was watching her, and all the worry and anger and guilt and fear she’d felt since Rachel had died converged into a cold ball of dread just below her breastbone. Everything around her became very bright and she thought for a moment she was falling, though she knew she wasn’t. Her hands felt suddenly icy, her lips numb, and her heart thumped furiously. The sensation was terrifying and she understood with dreadful clarity that if she didn’t move, if she didn’t haul herself out of the pit of despair and confusion into which she knew herself to be sliding she would be lost.

She had to do something, and she knew what it was. James could have his other woman; it didn’t matter, because she had an admirer, too.

She touched Friday’s knee. ‘Thanks for coming to tell me.’

Friday nodded. ‘Will you be all right? You don’t look very happy.’

‘It was just a shock. As you say, he probably doesn’t even notice her.’

‘Probably,’ Friday agreed. ‘But it might be time to stop ignoring him, eh?’

Harrie slept badly that night. At four o’clock, well before the sun had even begun to rise, she got up, lit the lamp and sat on her bed to compose a note. After three attempts, finally happy with what
she’d written, she folded the single sheet of paper and sealed it with wax, then hid it in her drawer.

She washed, dressed and went downstairs early to tackle a pile of ironing before she started breakfast, her nerves jangling and her determination to carry out her plan coursing through her veins so vigorously she almost tore one of Abigail’s shifts with the point of the iron. As the early morning sun crept across the parlour floor, the Barretts appeared one by one, George first, attired for work, then the older children still in their nightclothes.

Having finished the ironing and folded it into neat piles, Harrie prepared and served breakfast, waited until George had dawdled frustratingly over his cup of tea and pipe and gone downstairs, shooed the children off to get dressed, then carried the dirty breakfast things down to the kitchen and washed them.

Finally, she knocked on Nora’s open bedroom door and popped her head around: Nora was reclining on the bed nursing Lewis.

‘Do you mind if I go out for half an hour, Mrs Barrett?’

Nora frowned and adjusted Lewis’s position on her breast. ‘Must you, Harrie? Samuel needs his bath and Hannah could do with a good wash as well. I don’t know what she was doing yesterday but she’s rather whiffy. And we’ve that cloak to finish for Mrs Cowley, don’t forget.’

‘I won’t be long, I promise. Perhaps not even half an hour.’

Nora checked the clock on the mantel. ‘Oh, well, all right, then. But please don’t be long.’

‘I won’t, I really won’t.’

Now Harrie felt guilty on top of everything else. She ran up the stairs to her room, ripped off her apron, jammed her bonnet on her head and snatched the note from the drawer.

Minutes later she was hurrying north along Gloucester Street, walking so quickly she almost turned her ankle in a pothole. It wasn’t until she passed the delicious smell of fresh bread drifting from the open door of a bakehouse that she realised she hadn’t
eaten any breakfast herself, and farther along the stink from a slaughter yard behind a butcher’s, combined with the lack of food and the state of her nerves, nearly made her vomit.

She turned left at Argyle and toiled up the hill to Princes Street where she stopped, patted her pocket to make sure the letter was still there, and thought for a moment. Friday had passed on the address last year and she’d never forgotten it, but would he still be living here?

The houses at the northern end of Princes Street were elegant and very comfortable. Not grand, not by London standards, and not small mansions like the residences at the Bunker’s Hill end of Cumberland Street, but very nice all the same. They were detached or semi-detached, and one- or two-storey with several chimneys each, plenty of windows, verandahs and low picket fences, and some had lovely, luscious gardens. This far up the hill they escaped the worst of the smells emanating from the jammed-together little houses, lanes, closed-in yards, privies, cesspits and open drains down nearer the water.

These homes were owned mainly by artisans, well-to-do merchants and slightly lesser professionals such as solicitors and surveyors, many of whom insisted they resided in Millers Point, not the Rocks. And possibly they did as from the tallest of the Princes Street residences a view could be had of not only Sydney Cove and South Head, but also glimpses of Darling Harbour to the west and the rolling, scrub-cloaked hills beyond.

Nice people would live here, Harrie decided. Husbands who worked hard and honestly for their money, of which they would have a comfortable amount, but not in a job where they got sweaty or their hands dirty, and they would have nice, kind wives who donated their time to worthy causes and their children would be polite and wipe their bottoms properly and not pick their noses. She knew if she looked closely there would be cats sunning themselves in the gardens, and probably even a well-trained dog or two on chains
in backyards — beloved family pets, not the feral sort that terrorised people as they went about their business in town. There might be a goat, too, for milk, and chickens for fresh breakfast eggs.

She sighed without even realising it; she would love to live in a house like one of these. Determination driving her forwards, she followed the line of smartly painted fences along the street in the direction of Dawes Battery, looking for the right address. It was embarrassing enough handing a note to a servant; it would be
awful
if she delivered it to the wrong house.

The creak and jingle of a carriage rattling along the road made her turn, and when she did her heart leapt so violently that for a second her breath snagged painfully in her chest. Bella Jackson! The midnight-blue curricle and those black horses were unmistakable. Then the air burst out of Harrie’s lungs accompanied by a terrified squeak and she looked around wildly for somewhere to hide. She snatched up her skirts, darted through the nearest gate, kicked it shut behind her and ducked behind an oleander bush.

The driver of the curricle, which Harrie now saw was empty, executed a turn and came to a halt before the very front yard in which she was hiding, the horses snorting and stamping impatiently. Heart racing madly, she pushed herself further into the bush, praying her feet weren’t visible below the foliage.

The front door of the house opened and out came Bella Jackson and another woman.

Bella looked subtly different and it took a moment for Harrie to realise why: her style of dress had changed. Gone were the expensive and well-made but rather garish skirts and bodices she’d worn on the
Isla
. Today her outfit consisted of an elegant, summery day dress with a pattern of — Harrie had to squint to make this out — purple irises and red lilies against a lemon background, with a bodice perfectly fitted to Bella’s thin torso and modest bust, puffed sleeves and a gathered skirt with a frilled hem. Her wide-brimmed straw hat was trimmed with artificial irises and lilies
exactly
the
same shades as those on her dress, and she wore a yellow silk scarf at her throat, the ends of which trailed down her back. Her strong, striking face looked, as usual, heavily made up and the dark curls beneath the hat gleamed.