Beyond the Storm Page 3

  With this she turned away and hurried off with her daughter.

  Dropping down to the edge of the rock pool Alice looked at the near-naked girl and realised that only the lower half of her body was beneath the water swirling all around her, but another wave like the one that had thrown the barrels on to the beach could sweep over the rocks at any moment, taking the body with it when it retreated to the sea.

  Percy, who had been slower than Alice at scrambling over the rocks now put in an appearance and Alice said, ‘Give me a hand, Percy. While I try to pull her clear of the water see if you can untie the rope binding her to the piece of wood.’

  Percy lowered himself into the rock pool and while he was fumbling with the wet rope Alice attempted to lift the upper part of the girl’s body, using a hand to lift the girl’s head when it fell back to hang into the water. Her fingers were on the girl’s neck for a moment – and she felt a movement!

  Startled, she moved her fingers over the neck until she found what she sought. Looking up at Percy excitedly, she said, ‘She’s not dead, Percy! The girl is still alive!’

  Chapter Four

  The Central Criminal Court, London, June 1840.

  ‘ELIZA BROOKS, YOU have been found guilty of one of the most despicable of thefts, namely, stealing from your employer. Someone who not only rescued you from a useless and penurious existence in a poorhouse, but gave you work in a comfortable home and an opportunity to enjoy gainful employment which would carry you through life as a useful member of the society in which we live.’

  Peering over the top of the tall and narrow dock in the high-ceilinged court-room, thirteen-year-old Eliza listened to the bewigged Judge’s words with an impassiveness born out of a lifetime of carrying blame for something or other and being told she was less than her fellow-beings.

  She was aware that his words would be followed by punishment and that it came in many guises, most of which she had already experienced in her young life. She would take it unflinchingly, as she always did, by imagining it was happening to someone else. When it was over, her mind and body would return to the miserable existence that had been her lot for as long as she could remember.

  Her only hope was that if it was a lashing it would not be too many strokes and not administered by someone who enjoyed his work too much … but the judge had yet to deliver his sentence and he was still speaking.

  ‘You, Eliza Brooks, were offered an opportunity that comes the way of few girls in your station of life. Unfortunately, avarice and dishonesty are so ingrained in your nature that you have chosen to throw it away. Your mistress, wife of the man from whom you stole money, has pleaded for leniency on your behalf, asking that you be given another chance and suggesting you are a basically honest person. She is a woman of some standing in the community and well-known for her charitable works….’

  For a moment Eliza allowed her hopes to rise. If the judge thought so highly of Lady Calnan there was just a chance she might not be punished after all. Her optimism was short-lived.

  ‘… However, my duty is to protect the community at large and not allow a convicted thief to walk free from my court in order that she may – and undoubtedly would – steal again. Eliza Brooks, you will be transported for a period of seven years – and think yourself fortunate. Not too many years ago I would have been able to order a whipping for you too, but the law no longer offers such a deterrent to your sex … and more the pity! Take her away.’

  As Eliza was led from the dock she looked up and caught a glimpse of the wife of the man who had brought the charges against her. Lady Calnan was in tears.

  Eliza felt a moment’s remorse – but only a moment. Lady Calnan had been kind to her, but she had refused to face up to the way her husband behaved towards their servants, the young females in particular, yet she must have known. Other servants in the household had told Eliza of the succession of young maids who had left the house, many in tears, some in more serious distress. Lady Calnan would have known that Eliza’s conduct was directed at Sir Robert Calnan and not at the mistress of the house.

  But it made no difference. She had told the constable who arrested her that she had taken the three guineas from Sir Robert’s dressing-table because that was the amount owing to her in unpaid wages, and in order to escape from the house and his unwelcome attentions. The constable had been scornful, asking what else a workhouse waif could expect when she was taken into ‘service’, adding that she ought to have been grateful to be working in the house of a family of substance, with a roof over her head, good and regular food to eat and respectable clothes to wear.

  Lady Calnan had tried to dampen the whole matter down, partly, as Eliza knew, because it was not the first time a servant-girl had tried to take some action against the amorous baronet, but the law had taken its course.

  While awaiting trial Eliza had spent three weeks in the notorious Newgate prison, cast in among women whose only aims in life seemed to be to obtain alcohol and gain access to the male prisoners, neither ambition being particularly difficult to achieve. The experience was a nightmare, even to a young girl brought up to accept the rigours and corrupt practices of a London poorhouse.

  It came as a relief after her conviction and sentencing to be taken from the gaol to a prison hulk moored in the River Thames, off Woolwich – but her relief was seriously misplaced.

  The hulk was even worse than Newgate had been. Most of the women on board were awaiting transportation, although a few – some of whom should have been certified insane – were considered ‘unsuitable’ for transportation to the penal settlements of Australia and would serve out their sentences in chains on the Woolwich hulk, a danger to fellow prisoners, to their guards and to themselves. Three of their number succeeded in committing suicide during the two nightmare months Eliza spent on the hulk awaiting passage to Australia, their deaths going unreported for days in order that their rations could be claimed by the other convicts.

  Eliza was beginning to wonder whether her sentence too would be served on a prison hulk when, without any prior warning, early one morning she and twenty-nine other women were taken from the hold of the hulk and shepherded up various ladders to the upper deck. Here, with total disregard for a heavy summer downpour, the thirty women were shackled at wrists and ankles, then linked to each other by another chain.

  None had been told anything and they were ordered not to talk among themselves. However, when it was Eliza’s turn to be shackled she whispered to the sailor securing her, ‘Where are we being taken?’

  The sailor was about to tell her to ‘Be quiet!’ but when he looked up and saw how young she was, he took pity on her. ‘You’re lucky, my girl, there’s a small ship going to Australia with supplies for the marines stationed there. The captain has said he can take thirty convicts, but has said they must be female and not likely to cause trouble because it’s only a small ship and he doesn’t carry enough crew to deal with it.’

  Giving Eliza an appreciative wink, the sailor added, ‘I think he might enjoy having you on board, I doubt you’ll stay in irons for very long. Given a bath and some clean clothes you’ll catch the eye of some young sailor. Who knows, by the time you get to Australia you could have someone looking after you and, if you’re clever enough, it might even last!’

  Eliza was about to retort that it was having someone wanting to ‘look after her’ that was responsible for the situation in which she now found herself, but she checked herself in time. The seaman had spoken the first kind words to her she had heard for a very long time, but even if he believed her – and there was no reason why he should, nobody else had – it would not matter to him. By the time he had secured a couple more shackles to convicts he would have forgotten he had ever spoken to her, yet his words made her think about the journey that lay ahead, and what it was likely to entail.

  The sailor finished his task but before moving on, he said, ‘Remember what I’ve said to you, girl. Take my advice and you could look back on this day as being the
first in your new life.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Eliza said scornfully, ‘I don’t even know what day it is.’

  The sailor smiled, ‘It’s a Wednesday and it’s the 14th June. Now you’ll remember it.’

  Eliza thought wryly that she was not likely to forget. Today was her fourteenth birthday.

  Chapter Five

  THE WOMEN FROM the Woolwich prison hulk were taken upriver to Blackwall Reach where a four-masted barque, the Cormorant was moored. An almost new vessel, Cormorant was making its first journey to Australia under the command of Captain Arnold Leyland, a part owner of the vessel.

  The hold where temporary accommodation had been prepared for the thirty women should have been filled with mining equipment for the copper mines of South Australia but the machinery was now lying in a sunken barge beneath the waters of the Thames estuary, lost in a collision between the barge and a man-o’-war.

  The idea of converting the empty hold to accommodate women convicts had been the brainchild of Captain Leyland’s wife, Agnes, who would be accompanying her husband on the voyage. She calculated that not only would it make up for the income lost from the sunken cargo, but could also provide her with an unpaid maid for the journey.

  When the convicts clanked their awkward way up the gangway of the Cormorant the members of the ship’s crew stopped work to eye them speculatively. Some of the sailors had served on convict ships before, while others had heard lurid stories of what was considered acceptable behaviour between crew and prisoners on a women’s transport ship.

  Captain Leyland’s wife had heard similar tales and was determined there would be no such behaviour on board Cormorant, but the crew had not yet been made aware of her views and commented excitedly on the attributes, imagined or otherwise, of each woman convict as they made their ponderous way onboard.

  The youngest of the convicts, Eliza created a particular stir but Agnes Leyland had seen her too – and she had her own plans for this particular convict.

  When the women had been lodged in the hold that had been fitted out for them, the chains linking one to another were removed. However, the fetters on wrists and ankles were left in place despite the voluble protests of the women that the restricted movement afforded them made it almost impossible to carry out even the most basic hygiene.

  ‘They’ll come off only when the ship’s underway and clear of land,’ declared the Cormorant’s mate, who was one of two men removing the convicts’ chains.

  He was unfastening the chain from Eliza when he made his statement and now she asked him, ‘When will that be?’

  ‘We’ll be leaving on tonight’s tide,’ came the reply and he added, ‘Mind you, it’ll be a slow journey downriver, there are a great many ships on the move at the moment but by the time you wake in the morning you’ll know by way the ship’s behaving that you’re at sea. Sometime the day after that you’ll have left England behind – and I don’t suppose any of you will ever see it again.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Eliza demanded indignantly, ‘I’m only being sent away for seven years. I’ll be back by the time I’ve come of age.’

  There was a chorus of derisory remarks from the other women and as Eliza looked about her defiantly, the mate said, ‘They’re right, young ’un. I’ve been on more than one ship transporting women to Australia, but I’ve never been on one that’s brought any back again. From now on make the most of whatever comes your way and don’t waste your time pining for whatever it is you’ve left behind, you need to accept that it’s gone forever – talking of which, are you the youngest one here?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Eliza made the reply abstractedly, thinking of what the sailor had said. There had been nothing in her life so far that she would think of with any degree of fondness, but there was apprehension for what the future might hold. Despite the unhappy life which was all she had ever known, she felt uneasy at the thought of never again seeing the streets of East London – but the ship’s mate was talking to her again.

  ‘Captain Leyland’s wife must have seen you coming on board. She wants me to take you to her, up in the captain’s cabin.’

  ‘Me? What for?’

  ‘I don’t know, but when the chains are off everybody else I’ll take you up top and you can ask her yourself.’

  Thirty minutes later Eliza climbed awkwardly up the ladder from the convicts’ hold, helped through the hatchway by an eager sailor whose exploring hands went farther than gallantry decreed and earned him a sharp blow from the heavy fetter about her wrists.

  The action was seen by a sharp-faced woman in her late forties who immediately snapped at her, ‘I had you brought up here because I thought you might make a suitable maid-servant but if that’s the way you behave…!’

  ‘If you want a maid who’s going to let every sailor on board do what he wants with her then you’ve chosen the wrong one,’ Eliza said heatedly. Then, aware that she might have thrown away the only chance she had of escaping Cormorant’s prison hold and all that would mean on the long journey to Australia, she added more meekly, ‘It’s because I wasn’t willing to be treated like that while I’m on here.’

  ‘You injured a man who attacked you?’ The woman seemed shocked and Eliza realised that the reply she made now would be crucial for her. ‘No, I never touched him, because he was master of the household, but I knew he’d try again when he’d had a few drinks, so I took three guineas from the top of his locker so I could get away from him.’

  The woman looked speculatively at her for so long that Eliza was beginning to believe her honesty had been a mistake, when the woman said, ‘What was your employment with the man?’

  ‘It was his wife who took me on. I started work as a kitchen-maid, but Lady Calnan said I’d done so well that she made me a housemaid.’

  There was another long pause while the captain’s wife studied her thoughtfully before saying, ‘If you maintain the same attitude towards Cormorant’s crew and are able to keep your hands off things that aren’t yours, you can have a far more pleasant voyage to Australia as my personal maid than any of your fellow convicts. But you so much as put a foot out of line and you’ll find yourself back in the hold. What’s more, I’ll see to it that you have a worse voyage than you could ever imagine. Is that understood?’

  Eliza was so elated she attempted to curtsy but was unable to manage it because of her shackled ankles.

  Aware of her problem, Agnes Leyland said, ‘I’ll have you unshackled first thing tomorrow morning when we’ve left the river behind. Until then you can go back to the hold, just to remind you of what you can expect if you don’t suit me.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, thank you ma’am, but …’

  Agnes Leyland had turned away, now she turned back, an irritable frown on her face, ‘What is it, girl?’

  ‘As your personal maid I’ll need to look the part, ma’am. You wouldn’t be happy to have me serving you dressed the way I am now. Then there’s my sleeping quarters, ma’am. If I go back down to the hold to sleep with the other women they’d have my clothes off my back before the hatch cover was back on and I’d come back up top as lousy as they are. Once I get clean enough to suit you I’d need to stay that way … ma’am.’

  Eliza had made a shrewd summing-up of the wife of Cormorant’s captain. She doubted whether Agnes Leyland had ever employed a personal maid before but wanted to exploit the opportunity that had come her way in order to make an impression upon the ship’s officers and crew.

  For a few moments Eliza thought she might have gone too far in setting out her needs. After all, she was a convict and possessed no rights whatsoever.

  She breathed a silent sigh of relief when Agnes Leyland said, ‘I see you are able to think for yourself, girl – but don’t take it too far. I’ll have one of the sailors go ashore and buy some maid’s clothes before we sail and my husband has a small chart room attached to our cabin, you can sleep in there. Once we’re at sea and you come up from the hold you can have a salt water bath and rinse your hair in vi
negar to kill the lice. Then you can wash your convict clothes and keep them by you to remind you of what you are, in case you get any ideas above your station.’

  ‘You’ll have no cause to ever remind me of that – and thank you again, ma’am.’

  Eliza had already taken a dislike to Agnes Leyland, but she was determined that her new ‘mistress’ would never know.

  Chapter Six

  CORMORANT SET SAIL that evening with a pilot on board to guide the vessel on its way to the open sea and by the following morning the women convicts in the forward hold were made aware that the ship had left the shelter of the river banks behind when it heeled over and its movement increased significantly.

  The vessel’s unpredictable motion provoked a certain amount of feigned hilarity, and not a few bruises, before the novelty of the experience wore off.

  When food was handed down to the women one of the sailors chatted to them but he left them with a warning. ‘It won’t be long before you have your irons removed. They’ll be off for all the time we’re at sea and you’ll find Cap’n Leyland is a good skipper, but if you start misbehaving yourselves you’ll have them put back on again and they’ll be kept on until we reach Australia.’

  ‘Now, what do you think this captain will consider to be “misbehaving”? I hope he’s not against women who like to make men happy – particular sailors – like most of us here do.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear that,’ grinned the sailor, ‘and I don’t doubt my mates will be too….’

  The man’s conversation was cut short by the ship’s mate. A large, burly man he carried a great deal of authority on Cormorant and was treated with respect by the members of the crew.