The Governor's House Read online

  THE

  GOVERNOR’S

  HOUSE

  J.H. FLETCHER

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  ALSO BY J.H. FLETCHER

  Dust of the Land

  To Tristan, Ieva and Harvey

  Being deeply loved gives strength,

  while loving deeply gives courage.

  Lao Tzu

  They couldn’t tie Cat Haggard down!

  She robbed the rich, she stole a crown

  She was a woman of renown

  Oh yes she was, she was.

  The judge declared that she must swing

  The passing bell began to ring

  Us convicts wept like anything

  Oh yes we did, we did.

  Cat swore they’d never see her dead

  She watched the gaoler turn his head

  Then swiftly climbed the wall and fled.

  Oh yes she did, she did.

  They couldn’t tie Cat Haggard down!

  She robbed the rich, she stole a crown

  She was a woman of renown

  Oh yes she was, she was.

  Convict ballad

  To love and be loved – there is no greater gift

  Catherine Mortimer

  CONTENTS

  Also by J.H. Fletcher

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-One

  Seventy-Two

  Seventy-Three

  Seventy-Four

  Seventy-Five

  Seventy-Six

  Seventy-Seven

  Author’s Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  ONE

  Cat

  Cat Haggard boarded the St Vincent transport at the beginning of December 1849, a day of bitter wind and snow falling in flurries. It was dark and stinking in the hold. Damp oozed incessantly from the wooden walls of the ship and she could hear and sense the water gurgling against the other side of the timbers.

  The convict women were chained in pairs, each fastened at intervals to a coffle chain by which the guards dragged them stumbling and cursing through the hold. Cat, groping in near darkness, heard only the clanking of the chain, the gruffness of the guards, the shrill blasphemies of the women. One by one each couple was released and allocated a sleeping place on the bare boards that would be theirs for the duration of the journey.

  Cat couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘You be saying that’s all the space we got? Three feet across for the pair of us?’

  ‘So sorry, Your Majesty.’ The guard grinned: black teeth in a crooked mouth. ‘If I’d known you was coming I’d have brought a feather bed, just for you.’

  He spat derisively and moved away along the hold. Some of you bitches think you own the earth, he thought. They’ll learn you something different when you get over the other side.

  Cat turned to look at the woman with whom she would be sharing the narrow space. It was difficult to see much in the semi darkness but she looked no older than Cat, with a pale skin and blonde hair cropped very short. They must have shaved her in the hulks, Cat thought. It might have happened to her too but had not. She could thank Ensign Noakes for that. She remembered the night of her arrival aboard the prison hulk in Plymouth Sound when the ensign had approached her in the squalor of the hold and suggested she might be more comfortable sharing his quarters. In his red-andgold coat and dark trousers, sheathed dirk at his waist, the upright young officer was like a creature from another world. In many ways he was a creature from another world, a world to which he was now offering her the key. Cat Haggard in her tattered and filthy dress, body unwashed these many weeks, lank hair crawling with lice, marvelled that he could bear even to speak to her, never mind suggest any greater intimacies.

  That was her next thought: that if she said yes she would have the chance to be clean. All the rest – the food, drink and fresh clothes – were of less consequence than the prospect of no longer being an animal mired in filth. She would have rejoined the human race.

  She looked up at him through the fringe of dirty hair that half obscured her eyes. She said yes.

  Now in the St Vincent’s hold she looked again at the woman who would be her companion during the voyage. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

  ‘Martha,’ the woman said. ‘Martha Brimble.’

  ‘What you down for?’

  ‘Seven for thieving,’ Martha said. ‘Taunton market. I told Zed tweren’t no good, them traders got eyes everywhere. But he weren’t never a listener.’

  ‘Did they catch him too?’

  ‘Not likely. Zed be too smart for that.’

  Yes, Cat thought. Zed was free and squire’s nephew Arthur bloody Dunstable was free after all his lies that he had hoped would see her hanged, and now Martha Brimble and Cat Haggard were heading over stormy seas into the unknown. Call that justice? For the hundredth time she promised herself that if she ever saw Arthur Dunstable again she would murder him. She knew there was no chance of it but saying it made her feel good all the same.

  ‘Are you afraid?’ Martha Brimble asked.

  ‘No,’ Cat said. ‘What’s going to happen will happen anyway. Being afraid only makes us die before our time.’

  ‘I am afraid,’ Martha said.

  Martha lived in a state of terror. She was terrified of the sea which she had never seen before and of the monsters that the grannies had told her lay just beneath its surface. She was terrified of the other women and of the fate that awaited them on the other side of the world. She was terrified of dying and of life.

  Cat held the trembling woman close. ‘Don’t you worry none,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after you.’ Every night she cradled her in her arms until they both fell asleep. They became friends.

  There was a period of terrible storms. One day after they had subsided, a woman called Maria Hack made her move. Maria was a twenty-year-old savage whose generous curves concealed a vicious nature honed in the slums of London’s Whitechapel. She had a fearsome reputation and why she
hadn’t been strung up was a mystery. Now, with most of the voyage before them, she and her two hangers-on decided to make yellow-haired Martha Brimble their joint property. The fact that Martha wanted nothing to do with them made no difference; Maria was used to getting her own way.

  Martha would have been helpless against them but back in Porlock Maud Rout, a retired bare-knuckle fighter, had taught Cat how to handle herself. She had warned Cat never to give way to terror. ‘Do that,’ she’d said, ‘and you’ll never know peace again.’ So now Cat told Maria Hack to shove off.

  ‘Planning to make me, are you?’

  ‘If I got to.’

  Maria bared her teeth in what might have been a grin. A homemade knife appeared in her hand. There was too much at stake for either of them to back down.

  Maria had been in more fights than she could count and won most of them. Now she leapt forward, knife raised. Open her up with one slash of that blade and Cat would be food for the fishes but the slum-girl never got close. With Maud Rout’s remembered voice urging her on, Cat swayed backwards, resting her shoulders against the timbers of the hold, and lashed out with both feet. Her heels struck Maria’s breasts with such force that she was stopped in mid-air. The knife dropped to the deck. Her face curdled in agony and Cat was on her, striking repeatedly with her clenched fists, the blows so fast they were barely visible. Nose, jaw, again the breasts, and with each blow Maria seemed to wither as the strength drained out of her. Cat watched, fists raised, as Maria swayed. She took one groping step, fell on her face and lay still.

  Cat whirled, glaring at the hangers-on. ‘Want to make something of it?’

  They backed away. No, they did not want to make something of it. Cat picked up the knife and gestured at Maria’s sprawled body. ‘Take your rubbish with you. And tell her she tries anything like this again, I’ll kill her.’

  For a few days Cat kept a watchful eye on Maria Hack but she tried nothing. The pecking order had been established and it seemed the Whitechapel Terror was in no mind to challenge it.

  A week later Cat woke to find Martha’s hands caressing her breasts through her dress. Her first instinct was to thrust Martha violently away but at the last moment she did not. In their situation all of them needed consolation and aboard the St Vincent, with over two hundred women and no men outside the crew, where else but in another woman’s arms was consolation to be found? She therefore lay still, assessing her body’s response, and a minute or two later began cautiously to return Martha’s caresses. The shape of another woman’s breasts beneath her hands gave her a strange feeling as did the extraordinary fierceness of Martha’s response.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ Martha said.

  ‘I won’t.’

  Where could she go, in any case?

  The slow weeks passed. The venturesome hands grew bolder. As to how things would work out in Van Diemen’s Land, Cat kept her own counsel. She would not be tied to Martha Brimble or anyone; she would stand straight and alone.

  Journey’s end. Heavy rain had been falling when the St Vincent entered the river but it had stopped now. Cat stood beneath the open hatch, breathing air that for the first time in months smelt of the land and not the sea. A half moon appeared at intervals and in its light she saw, far overhead, the black shape of a mountain sailing massively against the thinning clouds. There was a light breeze and she could hear the drunken voices of men singing somewhere in the distance. The sound was discordant, wavering up and down the scale, but after a long voyage with only women for company even that raucous sound thrilled her.

  She tried to pick out the words. For a minute she could distinguish nothing, then a shift in the wind brought a line of the song to her.

  ‘They yoked us to the plough, my boys, to plough Van Diemen’s Land.’

  Men yoked to the plough in place of oxen… The mountain, the darkness, the drunken voices. Van Diemen’s Land. A strange, new land, full of challenge and excitement.

  Cat shivered, not only from the cold. She could see little of the place she had come to but that didn’t matter. It was the idea that was important, the certainty that here, beyond the open hatch and the shadowy rigging soaring skywards, lay her destiny.

  I shall make something of myself here, she vowed. I shall build a new life and no one will stop me. Brimming with determination, she returned to her place in the foetid hold and lay down, eyes wide and spirits alert, waiting for the dawn.

  First thing the next morning they were brought ashore. The skies had cleared. The light breeze had strengthened and the summit of the mountain gleamed with fresh snow. Black hair blowing, lively eyes bright as sapphires, Cat stood with the others on the cobblestoned wharf that after four months at sea she could feel swaying and dipping beneath her feet. She breathed deeply, taking in not only everything she could see but the living essence of this new and mysterious land.

  During the voyage they had been told that savages would spear them the instant they set foot outside Hobart Town, that the dense forests contained tigers and devil beasts the size of dogs and the rivers were home to creatures with duck-shaped bills and feet. She had scoffed at such nonsense yet at the same time wanted the stories to be true because fabulous creatures were a part of the challenge and she welcomed that with all her heart.

  They were marshalled into line. Guards held the leashes of savage dogs. Orders were shouted and the column set out.

  ‘Where you taking us?’ Cat asked one of the guards.

  ‘Cascades Women’s Factory.’

  ‘What be that?’

  ‘You’ll find out.’

  ‘Sounds bad.’

  ‘Count your blessings, I was you. It might’ve bin the old Anson if she hadn’t been full to bursting.’

  Cat, shivering in her ragged dress, trudged on past trees whose spear-shaped leaves hung motionless in muted shades of grey and dun. All around them the land, indescribably old and silent, watched.

  Some strange place, she thought.

  The Cascades Women’s Factory, a cluster of stone buildings surrounded by a high wall and positioned underneath the mountain in a place where the rain seemed never to stop, opened its jaws to devour them.

  ‘What is this place?’ said one of the women, her frightened eyes jerking this way and that.

  ‘A gaol, that’s what it is,’ Cat said.

  It seemed barmy to have sent them so far just to lock them up in another prison but that was how it looked.

  ‘At least the savages won’t be able to get at us here,’ the woman said.

  Which might be true but a gaol was still a gaol.

  The guards herded them into a group in an open courtyard. The women stared around them, some defiant, some frightened, all helpless. This new world was grey. The wall that surrounded them was grey; above them grey clouds wept rain that fell silently, unceasingly, on them. The rain was grey; the muddy ground on which they stood was grey.

  Cat thought: I shall go mad here.

  The guards were barking like dogs; the dogs straining on their leashes bared their teeth like savage men waiting to devour them.

  ‘No talking! Stand still! Be quiet!’

  A middle-aged woman, mean eyes and man-trap mouth, addressed them, her voice as sharp as knives. ‘I am Mrs Conroy. I am the matron in charge here. You will be here for six months on probation. At the end of that time you will be hired out to households in Hobart Town. While here you will learn how to behave. You will be clean. You will perform the duties assigned to you. You will be obedient. You will attend daily prayers. Talking is not permitted when you are at work. Swearing is prohibited. Drinking alcohol is prohibited. Breaches of the rules will be severely punished…’

  The cells of the Wells gaolhouse had been preferable to this. Mrs Conroy’s voice echoed off the buildings and the rain continued to fall. Beyond the perimeter wall Cat could see the upper slopes of the mountain rising like a symbol of hope against the clouds. She closed her ears to the hectoring voice. She thought: I’ve got to get out of here. />
  After Mrs Conroy had finished they were stripped and forced to wash. Every inch of their bodies was searched by Mrs Conroy’s convict assistants. Cat thought of nothing but escape, knowing it was hopeless. It would be easy to climb the wall at night but then what? She had to eat, live, be free. Was any of that possible? No, she would be killed by savages, devoured by wild beasts or recaptured. Her head would be shaved, she would be locked in a tiny cell and fed a diet of bread and water.

  Or she could co-operate with the system, defying it, hating it in every part of her being, but on the surface remaining compliant. One day she would be free. It was that belief that kept her sane.

  Weeks passed. The rain continued to fall, mixed at times with sleet. The snow on the upper slopes of the mountain crept steadily lower. The cold grew worse. Sickness was widespread. Colds. Pneumonia. Rheumatism. Some of the women died; even the healthiest suffered. Cat had seen little of Martha, who had become the matron’s pet. Just as well, she thought. Shipboard romances had no place on dry land.

  The factory was responsible for much of the colony’s laundry: it was back-breaking work. Like the rest of them Cat spent hours bent over boilers of steaming clothes; she suffered the inevitable scalds on hands and arms; on the rare fine days she struggled with the weight of the waterlogged sheets as they pegged them out to dry in the sun and air. One day Cat found herself sharing a load with Maria Hack. She’d heard how Maria had become a member of what was called the Flash Mob. Other prisoners were frightened of them. Aided by some of the factory staff they smuggled in tobacco and rum. They terrorised the weak. Cat and Maria eyed each other.

  ‘One of these days,’ Maria said. She nodded significantly. ‘You just wait. I’ll be getting you. My oath I will.’

  Cat’s hair prickled against her neck. ‘Like you did on the St Vincent?’

  A guard bawled. ‘Stop your yapping!’

  The moment passed.

  They were taught what would be expected of them when they were hired out as servants to families in Hobart Town. Long-time convict Emma Larkin had been assigned and returned to the factory more times than she could remember. She told Cat about it.

  ‘This new system. Probation they calls it. Supposed to pay you wages and all. That’s a laugh.’