The Silk Thief (45 page)

‘Is Sally at home?’

‘Yes. Come in. I’ll fetch her.’

Matthew waited in the narrow hallway at the bottom of the stairs, hat in hand. Through a doorway into the parlour he could see Mr Laverty sprawled in an armchair in his shirtsleeves, his slippered feet up on a footstool, asleep. As you would be when you got up regularly at four in the morning to start work, Matthew thought. Three of the Laverty children lay on the floor, playing some sort of game, while the two older girls were clearing the supper table.

Sally appeared at the top of stairs. ‘Matthew. I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘No. I thought I’d just drop by. I’d, well, I’d like to ask you something.’

Mrs Laverty eased past Sally, descended the stairs and went into the parlour.

‘Where can we talk?’ Matthew asked. He thought, certainly not in Sally’s room — Mrs Laverty wouldn’t be happy with that. The parlour was too crowded, and the yard smelt like a privy. Hardly romantic.

‘Here,’ Sally said. She came down and sat on the bottom riser. ‘This will do, won’t it?’

Not really. ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

In the parlour the younger children shrieked; their mother told them off.

‘It’s too hot for walking,’ Sally said.

It’s bloody hot in here, too, Matthew thought, as sweat trickled down his sides beneath his best linen shirt. He sat beside Sally. This close he could see tiny beads of perspiration on her forehead and upper lip, and smell the sweat that had soaked into her clothing.

‘Busy day?’ he asked.

‘Quite. We ran out of eccles cakes before dinner.’

‘Did you?’

‘Mmm.’

Matthew’s palms suddenly got even sweatier. ‘Sally?’

She turned her head towards him.

‘We’ve been walking out for a while, haven’t we?’

‘A year,’ Sally agreed.

‘I’d like …’ Matthew stopped and cleared his throat. ‘Sally, I’d be honoured if you’d become my wife.’

Deathly silence, both from the parlour and from Sally.

Matthew grabbed her hand, opened the back door and led her outside.

Sally pinched her nose shut. ‘It really stinks out here.’

Refusing to give up, he towed her out onto Kent Street, where the air was a little fresher, and turned her to face him. She was still holding her nose; he pulled her hand away. ‘Will you, Sally? Marry me?’

She wouldn’t meet his gaze. ‘Oh, I can’t, Matthew.’

Shocked, Matthew stared at her. ‘Why not?’

‘Because, well, you’re a swell and I just roll out dough. And I’m a convict.’

‘I’m not a swell!’

‘You are. You’d soon get tired of me.’

‘I would not!’

‘You would,’ Sally insisted. ‘I’m sorry, Matthew, I can’t. I can’t marry you, and I can’t see you any more.’ And she spun around, her skirts whirling, and ran off.

‘Sally! Wait, stop!’

But she didn’t. Matthew stared after her, his heart thumping with disappointment and humiliation, feeling an absolute fool and wondering how it had gone so wrong so quickly. How utterly, in fact, he’d misjudged her feelings for him. He waited in case she came back, and the longer he stood on the street the more stupid he felt, and the less inclined he also felt to knock on her door again. After ten minutes he walked away, heading for home, confused and with his confidence severely bruised, but more or less resigned to his fiancéeless state.

At the sound of boots crunching on gravel, his heart leapt and he turned — and saw not Sally but Mrs Laverty, trotting after him through the gloom, the untied ribbons of her bonnet flapping.

‘Mr Cutler, wait, if you please.’

Matthew wondered what she could want.

‘I couldn’t let you go without telling you,’ Mrs Laverty said, puffing from exertion. ‘She’s a minx, that girl, and if you want my opinion, you’ve just had a very lucky escape.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Mrs Laverty fanned her pink face with her hand. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you said to her. No, I’ll speak the truth, I was eavesdropping. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Sally’s with child. Now, tell me if this is none —’

‘What?’

Mrs Laverty gave a knowing nod. ‘Well, that’s that question answered, isn’t it? Yes, she’s been stepping out with another. The lad who delivers the flour, to be precise. I’m assuming the babe is his?’

‘It certainly isn’t mine!’ Matthew knew damned well it wasn’t. But why some common, ignorant delivery boy, and not him?

‘If she’d said yes to you tonight, I’d have throttled her,’ Mrs Laverty said. ‘I just wanted you to know, in case you were feeling let down. You’re a nice gentleman, Mr Cutler, and you deserve someone better. Someone from your own class.’

Matthew gathered together the torn remnants of his pride. ‘Thank you for informing me, Mrs Laverty. I appreciate your concern.’

She patted his arm. ‘Go and have a nice life. Good night.’

As Matthew traipsed miserably up the Windmill Street hill feeling cuckolded and sorry for himself, he realised that, if you left out the business of her shagging the flour boy, the reason Sally had turned him down echoed his own doubts about marrying her, but from the opposite perspective. Perhaps Mrs Laverty was right — perhaps you shouldn’t marry outside your own class.

James and Harrie, though, were very shortly about to do exactly that. It wasn’t quite the same, Matthew knew, because Harrie was different. Yes, she was a convict, and from the working classes, but James always said she should never have been condemned for stealing to support her family. Matthew agreed. Harrie wasn’t like Sally — she was virtuous and gentle and the most caring of souls.

If Harrie were my wife, Matthew thought, I’d treat her like a piece of silk.

But she wasn’t.

Chapter Fifteen

James had hand-delivered his and Harrie’s marriage application the day after she’d accepted his proposal, together with a discreet payment to the clerk to hurry the matter along. As Harrie was a convict, the new governor, Richard Bourke, had to approve the marriage, but James didn’t foresee any problems and there were none. He also raced along to Sarah and Adam’s and picked out a red-gold bethrothal ring set with an orange citrine and two small diamonds for Harrie. He would have preferred all diamonds but didn’t think he could afford them, given his future plans. Sarah and Adam were delighted when he told them his news.

As soon as approval was received, in a very speedy matter of days, the banns were published for the first time at St James’s Church on the eighth of January. After they’d been published twice more on consecutive Sundays, James and Harrie could be married.

On that same Sunday, they travelled out to Parramatta to the Female Orphan School. Mrs Duff greeted Harrie with her usual courtesy, though she was quite disconcerted when Harrie introduced James as her fiancé.

‘I’m very surprised that you didn’t mention your betrothal during your last visit, Miss Clarke,’ the matron said across her desk, looking at Harrie over the rim of her spectacles. ‘You simply stated that you were not married.’

‘I wasn’t betrothed then,’ Harrie said, twisting her lovely new ring nervously. ‘It’s a recent development. We’re to be married in a few weeks. Aren’t we, James?’

‘Yes, we are,’ James said, amused by the vaguely scandalised expression on Mrs Duff’s face. Was she shocked because he was choosing to marry a convict? He supposed he might have been once, too.

Harrie said, ‘And that means we can adopt Charlotte, doesn’t it? As Dr and Mrs Downey.’

‘I must advise you that the committee would take a very dim view of a marriage of convenience,’ the matron said, ‘just so you can adopt this child.’

James crossed his legs. ‘And I must advise you, Mrs Duff, that I take a very dim view of remarks of that nature. Miss Clarke and I have known each other for several years and I hold her in the very highest regard. I can assure you that our impending nuptials are genuine.’

Mrs Duff peered at him. ‘And you’re a doctor of … what?’

Cheeky old bat, James thought, then instantly regretted his lack of goodwill — she no doubt had a very demanding job overseeing the welfare of the orphanage’s children, and he certainly didn’t blame her caution. She could hardly hand over babies to just anyone who walked through the door.

‘I was a surgeon in the Royal Navy for some years, but I now practise medicine privately in Sydney. I operate a surgery with my business partner, Dr Lawrence Chandler. You may be aware of his charitable works?’

A flush crept up Mrs Duff’s neck. ‘Oh. Er, yes, I have heard of Dr Chandler. Fallen women, I believe? Very commendable.’

‘Yes, that’s him. And as charity begins at home, it is my wish to adopt Charlotte Winter. I understand that Harrie has explained how familiar she is with Charlotte? She knew her mother very well, you know, and the woman who fostered her.’

‘Yes, she did mention that,’ Mrs Duff said.

‘As I’ve said,’ James went on, ‘I’m a professional man, my income is very satisfactory, I own a house, and I believe Harrie and I can give Charlotte everything she needs. And, of course, at the same time save the state some expense by providing a home for her.’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Mrs Duff shuffled some papers around on her desk. ‘There is, unfortunately, the matter of Charlotte’s natural father. We can’t release her without his consent, or evidence of his demise if he has indeed passed on.’

‘I think you’ll find that isn’t a problem.’ James stood, said, ‘One moment please,’ and left the matron’s office.

Harrie smiled at Mrs Duff then looked down at her hands until James returned a minute later, with Matthew in tow.

‘Mrs Duff, allow me to introduce Lucas Carew, Charlotte’s father.’

‘Afternoon, ma’am,’ Matthew said, coming to a shuffling halt just inside the door and removing his cabbage-tree hat.

His beige duck trousers didn’t quite meet the tops of his battered boots, revealing several inches of pale shin — more each time he scratched his backside — and his dark blue fustian jacket had seen far, far better days. Beneath the coat he wore a collarless cotton shirt, worn thin from multiple launderings. His hair was unbrushed and he’d let his beard grow for two days. He looked a yokel, and James reflected anew on the truth of the aphorism,
Clothes maketh the man
.

‘Oh,’ Mrs Duff said. ‘You found him?’

‘He left the sea last year, apparently,’ James said. ‘Didn’t you?’

Matthew nodded, and said in an accent distinctly unlike his own, ‘I got a wife and kiddies on shore. Well, common-law, like. It were too hard not seeing them, so I threw it in.’

‘You were a sailor?’ the matron asked.

‘Not in the Andrew, like. I just signed on and off, mostly convict ships.’

‘And is that how you, er, met Rachel Winter?’

Matthew lowered his head and mumbled, ‘Aye, it were. On the
Isla
.’

Mrs Duff gave a satisfied little nod. ‘Can you prove you were a crewman on the
Isla
at the time that Rachel Winter was transported?’

‘You’d have to ask Josiah Holland,’ Matthew said. ‘He were captain. I’m a tar, all right, but.’ He shrugged out of his jacket, undid the top three buttons of his shirt — to Mrs Duff’s alarm — and bared his upper right arm, revealing the lion and peony tattoo.

Astonished, James stared. What hidden depths Matthew had!

Mrs Duff seemed not quite able to look, focusing intently on the wall several feet from Matthew’s arm. ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Carew, that’s enough. Do you have some means of identification?’

Matthew put his jacket back on, dug in a pocket and handed her some papers, a forgery obtained via Leo’s contacts and paid for by James, after considerable soul-searching. It was the sort of shady endeavour in which he’d never imagined himself becoming involved, but he’d decided he was willing to do it if it secured Charlotte’s adoption and made Harrie happy.

Mrs Duff glanced at the papers, and gave them back. ‘And you’re not in a position to take the child into your own family?’

‘I didn’t even know I had another kiddie, till the doctor here come along and told me.’

‘That doesn’t answer my question, Mr Carew.’

‘’Course I’m not,’ Matthew said. ‘The wife’d have me guts for garters. Anyway, we can hardly afford the ones we got.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

Mrs Duff pushed her spectacles up her nose. ‘So you’re prepared to relinquish all your paternal rights to your daughter?’

‘Where’s the blonde girl? Her mother?’ Matthew asked, which James thought was an inspired touch.

‘Unfortunately, she died when Charlotte was born,’ Mrs Duff said.

‘Oh? Shame. Well, I do relinquish me rights then. She’ll have a better life with the doctor and his good wife than she ever would with me.’

‘And has Dr Downey offered you compensation for making such a sacrifice, Mr Carew?’

‘No, missus, he hasn’t.’

Mrs Duff fixed Matthew with a long, hard look; Matthew’s return gaze never wavered. At last she stood, opened a drawer, withdrew a sheet of paper and asked him to sign it.

‘Thank you, Mr Carew. Your business here is now concluded.’

Matthew nodded, jammed his cabbage-tree hat back on his head and left the office. James sat down again in the chair next to Harrie, whose hands, he noted, were shaking.

‘I take it this means we may begin the adoption process?’ he asked.

‘The matter will have to go before the committee, of course,’ the matron said. ‘But I see no impediments. All we really need now is to see your marriage certificate.’

James breathed a silent sigh of relief. Harrie beamed at him, her face transformed.

‘There is one other matter,’ he said. ‘It has been brought to our attention that approximately two and a half weeks ago, someone came here and managed to obtain information relating to Charlotte.’

Mrs Duff frowned. ‘Who?’ Then, ‘You were here two and a half weeks ago, weren’t you, Miss Clarke?’

‘Not me,’ Harrie said. ‘It was a man. We’re obviously worried now she could be in danger.’

‘Danger? What are you talking about? No one enters this institution without the knowledge of either myself or Reverend Duff.’

‘But someone did, Mrs Duff,’ James said. ‘Evidently, a stranger wandered in here and ascertained from your staff that my fiancée was visiting one of your charges, a baby girl by the name of Charlotte Winter, and you’re saying you don’t know anything about it. That wouldn’t look very good on page two of the
Gazette
or the
Herald
, would it?’