Morgan’s Run (82 page)

“Are ye able to walk?” he asked, wanting to give her his shirt but afraid of frightening her into running off.

“I think so.”

“At the next clearing I will get a torch. After that we can take our time.”

She flinched, shuddered.

“No, no, it is all right! We have three more miles to get home, and we will need to see our way.” He held her hand strongly and began to move onward. “My name is Richard Morgan, and I am a free man.” How wonderful to be able to say that! “I am the supervisor of sawyers.”

Though she did not reply, she walked with him more confidently until they reached the Sirius settlement. The sailors were living in tents until the carpenters could erect proper barracks and huts, and a few men were moving about in the distance. A big fire burned adjacent to the road, but no one sat at it. They were probably all drunk on rum. So no one saw him pick up a torch and kindle it, nor saw the waif still clinging for dear life to his hand.

“What is your name?” he asked as they set off again into the pines, more exposed to the south and beginning to roar now that the full force of the wind struck into them like a hammer into thin copper sheeting—boom, boom, boom.

“Catherine Clark.”

“Kitty,” he said instantly. “Kitty.”

She jumped. “How did you know that?”

“I did not,” he said, surprised. “It is just that when I first heard ye, I thought I heard a kitten. Ye’re off Lady Juliana?”

“Yes.”

Sensing that she was foundering but afraid to carry her for fear of frightening her—who was the cur had attacked her?—he said, “We will not waste our time or breath on talking, Kitty. The most important thing is to get ye home.”

Home.
The
most beautiful word in the world. He uttered it as if it genuinely meant something to him, as if he promised her all the things she had not known in so long. Since years before she was convicted and sent briefly to the London Newgate, then sent to Lady Juliana on the Thames to wait for months before the ship finally sailed for Botany Bay all alone. That had not been utter horror because no sailor had lusted after her; with 204 women to choose from, why should a mere 30 men select any but the strapping girls with hips, breasts, nicely rounded bellies? A few of the men were given to prowling, not satisfied with one conquest, but Mr. Nicol had made sure no girl was raped. Most of the crew had behaved like potential buyers at a horse fair and fastened upon just one “wife,” as he called her. Like a hundred others on board, Catherine Clark had never attracted male attention. In Port Jackson they had not been landed, had remained upon Lady Juliana until 157 of them were picked at random to transfer to Surprize for the voyage to Norfolk Island, a place she had never, never heard of. Nor had she heard of Port Jackson: all she had known was “Botany Bay,” a petrifying name.

Surprize had been far worse than Lady Juliana. Seasick even in the Thames, desperately ill for most of Lady Juliana’s leisurely progress, Catherine had descended into a nightmare only terrible seasickness had rendered endurable without madness. The place where they were put crawled with vermin, slopped with a noisome fluid the nature of which no one dared to guess, stank so badly that the nose never got used to it, and there was no fresh air, no deck privilege.

To be rowed ashore and flung like a doll onto the rock had terrified her, but a handsome man with a beautiful smile and the bluest eyes had caught her, reassured her, given her a gentle push and asked her if she could manage to climb that awful crevice. Wanting to please him, she had nodded and set off, her bundle and her bedding serving as props while she toiled upward. By some quirk of fate she had not set eyes upon Richard Morgan, who had come down on a more precipitous track at the moment she was crawling into the cleft. At the top she paused to catch her breath, then set off along the road, realizing that so much seasickness and so little food for the past year and more had not equipped her for this walk, however far it might be, wherever its termination might be. A group of men passed her by at a run, took no notice of her.

Not far into the forest her legs could carry her no farther; she set her bundle and her bedding on the ground and sat upon them, her head between her knees, wheezing.

“Well, what have we here?” a voice asked.

She looked up to see a corn-gold fellow clad only in a pair of tattered canvas trowsers staring at her. Then he smiled to reveal that he had two mouths: both front teeth in upper and lower jaw were missing, creating a sinister black hole. But she was very tired, so when he held out his hand to her she took it, expecting him to help her to her feet. Instead he jerked her into his arms and tried to cover her mouth with that awful aperture in his face. Struggling weakly, she resisted, felt her thin convict slops dress rip as he grabbed cruelly at her breasts.

Someone in the distance spoke. His grip relaxed immediately; she tore herself away from him and ran into the trees. For a moment he stood, clearly debating whether to follow her, then several more voices spoke. He shrugged, picked up her bundle and her bedding, and set off in the direction she had been pointed. The noises of conversation grew closer. Panicking, she ran farther into the forest until she had no idea where she was, where-abouts the road was. Something flew in her face, but she did not scream. She fainted, struck her head on a root.

When she came to, moaning and retching, darkness had fallen. Scurries, thin keeking shrieks, the mighty groans of mighty trees moving, a night so black she could see nothing—she crawled on hands and knees to the hollow in a tree so large she could not see around it, and there huddled until a wan morning light let her discover where she was. Surrounded by these gigantic trees and penned into her prison by a creeper as big around as her waist.

All that day she had heard the confused sounds of people far off but had not cried out, terrified that the man with two mouths was lurking. Why, with the light fading, she had suddenly tried to shout, she never knew. Only that she had, and had been answered: “Here, Kitty, Kitty!” Whoever it was called her name, and she thought of the wonderful man who had helped her ashore.

Her finder was very like that man, but not he; his hair was cut off, his eyes were greyer. His smile was beautiful too, teeth as white as snow and not one missing. It was too dim to see more, but when he extended his hand she took it and held on to it, associating him with the one who brought her ashore and still lived in her memory vividly. Once on the road, her eyes cleared enough to see that he was older than her hero of the rock, as brown of skin and dark of hair; they might have been brothers. This conclusion was what prompted her to trust him, to walk with him.

“You are
cold,” he said now. “I beg ye, let me give ye my shirt. I mean no insult, but I must touch ye to put it on, Kitty.”

Even had he meant to insult her she was too exhausted to resist, so she stood docilely while he peeled his shirt off and slid her arms into its sleeves, then left her to tie its ends together in a knot about her waist.

“Warmer?”

“Yes.”

Somehow she managed to force her legs to keep moving until they reached the last section of road, which plunged steeply down a hill to a different darkness, lit with pinpoints of flame and, far out, a white flurry. She tripped and fell heavily.

“That settles it,” said Richard, abandoning the torch. He plucked her up, draped her around his shoulders with her wrists pinioned by one hand, her legs by the other, and set off, as sure-footed as if he walked by day. Near the bottom stood a house. He marched up to it and thumped on its door.

“Stephen!” he called.

“Christ, Richard, abducting females?” asked the man from the rock, eyes dancing with unmalicious mockery.

“The poor child spent last night in the Cascade woods. Some bastard attacked her and stole her things. Light me home, please.”

“Let me carry her,” said Stephen. “Ye must be worn out.”

Yes, oh yes, please carry me! she cried silently. But Richard Morgan shook his head.

“Nay, I’ve carried her down the hill, no more. She has lice. Just see me home.”

“What do lice matter? Bring her in,” Stephen commanded, holding the door wide. “Ye have no fire lit, and since ye planned to eat with me, ye have no food prepared. Bring her in, man! I have seen my share of vermin these past two days.” His heart twisted at the look on Richard’s face. Who knows why a man loves, or whom he will love? He has crossed the deck to his fate, just as I did on Alexander. “I have fish-chowder. She will be able to tolerate the broth.”

“Lice first, else she’ll sicken. What she needs most is a bath and clean clothes. Have ye ample hot water on the hob? D’ye need cold? I am off to Olivia Lucas to borrow.”

“I have water enough, but no bath and no louse comb. See if Olivia can oblige.”

Off went Richard, leaving Stephen alone with the scrap, who had recovered sufficiently to stare at him with worshipful eyes—the most extraordinary eyes he had ever seen, an ale color speckled with dark brown dots, and fringed by thick lashes so fair that only their crystal gleam in the candlelight betrayed their presence. Thinner by far than probably God had intended her to be, owning an oval face and no beauty save for those eyes; she had a typically large English nose and prominent English chin.

He put a chair in the middle of the floor and sat her on it. “I am Stephen Donovan,” he said, ladling liquid off the top of the chowder and setting it aside in a bowl to cool. “Who are you?”

“Catherine Clark. Kitty,” she answered, smiling to reveal a trace of dimple in her left cheek and regular, discolored teeth. A sign, thought the experienced sailor, of perpetual seasickness and lack of nourishment.

“You helped me onto the rock,” she said.

“Along with half a hundred others, so indeed I did. Now tell me about the man and your night in the woods, Kitty.”

She explained, composure growing with every passing minute, taking in the neat parlor-cum-kitchen with its table, several nice chairs, kitchen bench, another table which apparently served him as a desk, the sanded walls adorned with three sets of enormous fanged jaws; a chessboard and men sat on the desk together with an inkwell, quills and papers, and the table was set for two.

“A man with yellow hair and four missing front teeth.”

“Yes.”

“Tom Jones Two, for sure.” He gave her the bowl. “Drink.”

When she sipped gingerly at the broth an expression of bliss came over her face; she drank it down greedily and held out the empty bowl. “Please may I have some more, Mr. Donovan?”

“Stephen. Ye may have more in a little while, Kitty. Let that lot settle first. Have ye been seasick often?”

“Forever,” she said simply.

“Well, starting tomorrow, scrub your teeth every day with some ashes from the fire. If ye do not, ye’ll lose them. Bringing up bile for months on end eats them away to nothing.”

“I am sorry for bringing lice into your house,” she said.

“Pish and tush, child! Richard will fetch ye new clothes and we will burn these. But I think ye should cut off your hair, if ye can bear to. Not to the scalp, just short.”

She flinched, but nodded obediently.

Richard returned bearing a small tin bathtub with clothes in it. “Olivia Lucas is a treasure,” he said, dumping the bath down and removing its contents. “Has Kitty told ye what happened?”

“Aye. Her attacker was Tom Jones Two. Unmistakable.”

The two men half-filled the baby’s bath with a mixture of hot and cold water, working, thought the dazed Kitty, as if they truly were brothers.

“Are ye accustomed to bathing, Kitty?” Richard asked. It was the most delicate way he could think to put the question; she may never have washed in her life, judging from her appearance.

“Oh, yes. I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Morgan. I have not been able to wash properly since I left Lady Juliana. Aboard her, we managed to keep clean and free of lice. If you give me a pair of scissors I will cut off my hair,” she said, her speech polite but faintly Londonish—Surrey or Kent, perhaps.

Richard looked horrified. “Let us not cut off the hair yet! I have a fine-toothed comb and we will keep using it until your hair is free, even of nits. My name is Richard, not Mr. Morgan. Where are ye from, Kitty?”

“Faversham in Kent. Then the girls’ workhouse in Canterbury, then the manor at St. Paul Deptford as a kitchen servant. I was tried at Maidstone and sentenced to seven years’ transportation,” she recited humbly. “I stole some muslin from a shop. I think.”

“How old are ye?” Stephen asked.