The Governor's House Read online

  She cried out. ‘No more, mister. Please.’

  His mouth was close to her ear. She could smell the stench of his breath.

  ‘Will you be a good girl now?’

  She nodded. Twice in one day, she thought. Arthur Dunstable and now this man. This vile man. Twice in one day. She would have killed the world, if she could.

  ‘Say it,’ Obadiah said. ‘Say I’ll be a good girl, master.’

  She spoke through clenched teeth. ‘I’ll be a good girl, master.’

  And all the time Mother, dear darling Mother, was lying in bed. Dying maybe, because of these two wicked men. Arthur Dunstable and Obadiah Gregory. I’ll pay them out, she promised herself. If I hang for it, I’ll pay them out.

  ‘That’s much better, my dear,’ Obadiah said. ‘So long as we understand each other.’

  He released her arm. The relief was such that Cat might have fainted but did not. Lying pinned to the floor she had seen something. Cautiously she flexed her fingers. Obadiah turned her on her back and stared at her, checking that the fight had gone out of her.

  ‘You’ve grown into a right ’andsome girl, my dear. Right ’andsome.’

  She did not move and he began to unbuckle the flap of his breeches.

  Adder quick, Cat seized the poker she had seen beside the fireplace and brought it around in a scything circle to strike Obadiah Gregory with full force on his left knee. He shrieked as she struck again. This time it was the right knee. He fell and lay helpless.

  Cat stood over him, talons bared, ready to destroy. He blubbered as she placed her foot on his groin.

  ‘Lay one finger on me again,’ she said, ‘I’ll kill you.’

  ‘You have crippled me,’ he whispered. ‘I may never walk again.’

  ‘I’ll cripple you ten times worse, you try anything like this again,’ Cat said. ‘You hear me?’

  She pressed down hard with her foot and he groaned.

  ‘Say I hears you, Cat,’ Cat said.

  ‘I hear you, Cat.’

  ‘Don’t never forget it,’ she said. ‘And if you say one word about this to anyone I’ll make you pay. So help me God I shall.’

  She took the pills he had prepared, unlocked the shop door and walked home through the flooding rain. She had come close to killing a man. She welcomed the downpour, washing away everything that had happened. She opened her mouth wide and the purifying rain filled her. She spat and spat again.

  Back at the cottage Mother was lying half conscious on the bed, with Mrs Wheeler sitting beside her.

  ‘How’s she been?’

  ‘Restless,’ Mrs Wheeler said. ‘Been coughing a lot of blood, too.’

  ‘Thanks for keeping an eye on her,’ Cat said.

  ‘Poor soul,’ the neighbour said. ‘Not long for this world, I reckon.’

  She spoke levelly; death was an everyday event. Cat pushed her out the door as quick as she could but Mrs Wheeler was right. Illiterate Cat could read death as clear as daylight in her mother’s wasted features. Now Obadiah’s cure was her only hope.

  ‘I got the pills,’ Cat told her. ‘We’ll soon have you out and about again.’

  Please God it would be so.

  She heated some water and gave it to Mother with the pills, forcing them one by one down her throat.

  ‘That man don’t give nothing away,’ Mother said. ‘How are we going to pay for them?’

  ‘We don’t owe him a thing,’ Cat said.

  There was still some fish. Cat heated it and tried to tempt her with it but Mother, drifting in and out of consciousness, did not have the energy to eat. From time to time she muttered a few broken words Cat could not understand but for the most part said nothing and when Cat held her hand it lay as light as leaves in her palm. Now all she could do was wait. Maybe a prayer?

  ‘Please God, please…’

  Choking, she could say no more.

  Cat sat with tears on her cheeks and anguish in her heart. If God could hear her thoughts… If he cared… Please God please God please… She held Mother’s fingers tightly, trying to keep her alive by the pressure of her hand, listening to her faint breathing. Some time during the night the breathing stopped.

  * * *

  The next morning she went down to the beach and watched the sun rise out of the eastern sea. The sky was clear, a peerless silver darkening by degrees to azure, and Mother was dead. The seas in the Channel rumbled; the waves came in disciplined ranks to break one by one upon the land. And Mother was dead. Mother was dead and she had come close to murdering Obadiah Gregory and was glad she had not because she now knew that to lose a life was to lose something of oneself. Therefore she must live now, and in the future. With regret for what had gone but without despair, because despair, too, was a form of dying.

  She didn’t have the words to say it but in every fibre of her being she knew it was so.

  Obadiah Gregory and Arthur Dunstable. Between them they had caused Mother’s death. If they had not held her up she would have got the pills to Mother in time. Then maybe she might still be alive, but now it was too late. Obadiah was likely crippled for life but Squire’s nephew would have got away with it once he’d recovered from the kick she’d given him. God willing, she would take her revenge on Arthur Dunstable one of these days. She turned to walk back to the cottage, to deal with all the things that must now be done, and suddenly the clean line of beach and path, the wind-warped green of the trees, were blurred as she groped until she found a rock and sat down and wept until she thought there could be no more tears in the world. She quietened eventually and wiped her face with the hem of her dress and then cried again, more gently, and at last stood and made her way step by step up the path to what had been home.

  Two days after the funeral there was a violent hammering on the cottage door. When Cat opened it she found Mort Ridgeway the constable glaring down at her, his mean-eyed assistant Sam Stick standing behind him.

  ‘What you want?’

  ‘Stolen property is what we want.’

  ‘Nothing like that here.’

  ‘We’ll be the judge of that.’

  They elbowed her out of the way and came into the cottage. Within minutes they had turned the place upside down.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ Cat said. ‘There’s no stolen property here.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ Mort said, without pausing in his search.

  ‘You better hope we don’t find nothing,’ said Sam. ‘We do, it’ll be the rope.’

  There was precious little to search: only the bed, a few sticks of furniture, two kitchen pots, one or two rags of clothing. They found nothing.

  Sam kicked the earth floor with his heel. ‘Maybe we should dig this up?’ he said.

  ‘Why don’t you pull the whole house down while you’re about it?’ Cat said. ‘Dig up the floor that’s been down fifty year? Whatever next?’

  But Mort’s eyes had settled on the thatched roof. It was old and tattered, with odd wisps of straw sticking out like a jackdaw’s nest.

  ‘Maybe we should look somewhere else,’ he said. ‘Give me a hand to scoot through the thatch, my son.’

  It took them less than five minutes to find what they were looking for.

  TEN

  The Wells assize was held in the building known as the Town Chamber.

  Cat stood in the dock and looked about her: the judge in wig and ermine, hard eyes, hard mouth, a bunch of aromatic herbs on the desk in front of him; another man, fat and rosy-faced, was the barrister who would be setting out the case against her. To one side was the jury. There were constables and turnkeys and behind her, in the public area, those who had come to enjoy the show.

  The dock was a lonely place. Cat had been unable to wash or change her clothes since Mort Ridgway had arrested her. She was filthy, her hair tangled, and she knew she smelt foul. In the midst of all these swells her bedraggled appearance shouted guilt.

  The barrister outlined the case against her.

  The accused had bee
n found in possession of a gold watch and chain, the property of Arthur Dunstable Esquire, gentleman, which had been removed without his permission on the occasion of a visit by the accused to Dunkery Hall, residence of Robert Dunstable, squire of Porlock and uncle of the said Arthur Dunstable, whose deposition concerning the theft was before the court…

  ‘I’ve never been to Dunkery Hall,’ Cat said.

  The judge glared. ‘Be quiet!’

  ‘But –’

  ‘If you persist in interrupting the proceedings of the court,’ the judge said, ‘I shall order you gagged.’ He turned to the prosecuting barrister. ‘What is the watch’s value?’

  ‘Martin Martyns, a reputable jeweller of Taunton, has valued the item in excess of fifty pounds.’

  Mr Justice Tench looked grave and there was an apprehensive murmur from the back of the court. Fifty pounds was a great deal of money. The law had been changed in recent years but the judge still had the power to impose the death penalty where he considered the crime warranted it.

  The barrister turned to the jury. ‘The accused claims she has never seen the watch yet the fact is it was found concealed in the thatch of her cottage. You will no doubt ask yourself why, if her story is true, the constables found the watch and chain hidden where it was. Hiding the watch in an attempt to prevent its discovery: was that the action of an innocent person? I believe, gentlemen of the jury, that you will agree it was not.’

  He gave Cat a long and piercing look. She stared back at him, determined not to be intimidated.

  ‘You still claim you know nothing about the watch?’

  ‘I never set eyes on it,’ Cat said.

  ‘Then how do you account for its being concealed in the thatch of the cottage of which you were the sole occupant?’

  ‘That Mort Ridgeway must have put it there.’

  A murmur swept through the court. The usher rapped his gavel, the judge frowned and the sound died.

  ‘You are saying the constable set out deliberately to incriminate you? Why would he do such a thing?’

  ‘Because he would do anything for the squire’s nephew.’

  ‘You are telling us that Mr Arthur Dunstable is responsible for the constable finding his own watch hidden in the thatch of your cottage? You expect the jury to believe that?’

  Cat spoke defiantly, chin up. ‘I don’t know what they may believe. All I know is I didn’t steal it.’

  ‘No doubt the jury will make up their own minds about that,’ the barrister said.

  It took them less than five minutes. They found the accused guilty of the larceny of a gold watch and chain, the property of Arthur Dunstable Esquire of Porlock, in the county of Somerset.

  Mr Justice Tench informed the court that he had never come across a more blatant example of wrongdoing. Haggard had lied to the court and shown no remorse. She might be young in years but was old in crime. He was of the opinion that the death penalty was not only justified but the only sentence that could be deemed appropriate to the present case.

  His face was devoid of emotion as he donned the black cap.

  ‘Catherine Haggard, you have been found guilty…’

  While Cat stared at him, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, aware only that she had been condemned for a crime she had not committed, that life and those about her were intent on her destruction, and that both now and forevermore she would be alone.

  The holding cell was below ground level. There was straw to lie on. The straw was dirty and there wasn’t much of it but she supposed it was better than nothing. At night the walls closed around her, crushing her until she could barely breathe.

  Mr Justice Tench’s face hovered, eyes like coals, voice whispering in the darkness. Catherine Haggard… Catherine Haggard…

  Cat crouched in the corner of the cell, pressing with all her strength against the stone walls running with moisture, hands over her ears to shut out the sound of the judge’s voice, but it did no good.

  Catherine Haggard, you have been found guilty… Guilty… Guilty… Hanged by the neck… By the neck…

  The days were less bad. Cat could look up through the barred grating and see the sky. It rained much of the time – she’d heard one of the gaolers complaining it was the wettest autumn he could remember – but to be able to see the clouds and taste the raindrops that made their way through the grating was a treasure beyond price.

  She could see part of a tree too, its autumn leaves red and gold against the clouds. There were birds among the branches. The birds were free. They could come and go as they pleased. She imagined the beating of their wings. Free… All her life she had looked for freedom but never found it.

  Never had no luck, she thought. Not in that or anything. The time I leave here will be the last time. I won’t be coming back. Well, she thought with sudden defiance, I can live with that. Or die with it, more likely.

  She’d heard they sent a parson when the time came. Give you a chance to confess your sins. They can keep that, for a start. I never done nuthun, reverend. What you say to that, eh?

  Every hour she listened to the sound of boots approaching down the stone corridor beyond the door. Maybe this time? But always the boots passed by.

  It was six days since she’d been sentenced and she couldn’t think what was keeping them. The leaves were blowing away now; soon the branches would be bare.

  Shall I live to see it?

  Boots again. This time they stopped. Cat, standing, heard the key grate in the lock.

  Oh my good Lord.

  The door creaked open. Cat felt the blood fall like stone into her feet. I aren’t gunna faint. But could not move.

  There was no parson after all. Maybe that had been an old wives’ tale. Or more likely they thought she was too wicked for a holy man to bother with.

  The gaoler, stocky, leather jacketed, had a jovial voice. ‘Got good news for you, my girl…’

  She couldn’t take in what he was saying. Her brain was whirling, her mind filled with the screaming of birds. ‘What you say?’

  ‘They ain’t gunna string you up after all. It’s you for the colonies, my girl. Transportation. Fourteen years, they give you.’

  Fourteen years. By the time she was free she’d be thirty, an old woman. Fourteen years.

  But alive. She would be alive.

  The cell was spinning around her. Tears she could not stop. Alive…

  Thank you, God.

  ELEVEN

  Joanne

  ‘Remind me what we know,’ the vice-chancellor said.

  It was a fair request. I’d been digging ever since the matter had come up six months before; now I probably knew more about it than anyone else on earth.

  The crown had gone walkabout in 1858. A hundred years before that the Spice Island of Muar had grown rich from pepper, nutmeg and cloves and the sultan of the day had commissioned the making of a crown to enhance the dignity of his throne. According to the description we had it consisted of a gold circlet encrusted with diamonds, rubies and emeralds and enhanced by a spray of the finest gems rising, as the state chronicler excitedly put it, as a peacock’s plumes about the wearer’s head. The scribe went on to describe not only the crown’s beauty but its power, which he claimed was of greater significance than the jewels and gold from which it had been made. According to him it endowed whoever wore it not only with authority but with wisdom beyond that of normal men.

  ‘The crown featured in the coronation of several of the sultan’s successors,’ I said. ‘Then, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it vanished.’

  We thought it might have been badly damaged in one of the dynastic feuds that were characteristic of Muar in those days and the theory was that it had been sent for repair not to Batavia, which, because of the Dutch influence, might reasonably have been expected, but to Hobart.

  ‘They couldn’t repair it themselves?’ Dick said.

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘But why Hobart, of all places?’

  ‘Because N
athaniel Griggs was here and he was one of the top jewellers of his day.’

  ‘He was also a convict.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have cared about that. If it did come here it would have been under escort.’

  ‘But you’re saying it may not have come at all?’

  ‘Right. There are records confirming the repair of a valuable artefact from the islands, per Griggs’s rather cute description. It probably was the crown but we don’t know for sure.’

  ‘But the crown was never seen again?’

  ‘Apparently not. All we know for certain is that something valuable arrived in Nathaniel Griggs’s workshop. We can’t even be sure it came from Muar. Maybe it wasn’t the crown at all and got back safely to wherever it came from, but we’ve no proof about any of it.’

  ‘The balance of probability…’

  ‘Sure. But probability ain’t facts, me old darling.’

  Dick hated it when I talked to him like that but for the moment he needed me so had to put up with it.

  ‘In public legend it disappeared on a treasure ship that was in Hobart at the time,’ I said. ‘But legend is all it was. There was never any proof.’

  There were stacks of theories, though. The crown of Muar had disappeared, that much seemed certain, but no one really knew what had happened to it. Maybe it had come to Hobart, maybe not. Maybe the escort had pinched it: it must have been worth a packet. Maybe it had been looted by pirates: no shortage of them in those days. Maybe it had been melted down and the gems sold, or got lost in an earthquake – no shortage of them, either. Or maybe, as Dick was suggesting, Cat Haggard really had walked off with it. But there was not one iota of proof about any of it.

  ‘Which theory do you favour?’ he asked.

  ‘Some facts might be a good place to start.’ I could be a stuck-up geek, too, when I wanted. ‘Until a year ago we had only unsubstantiated theories and legends. No real evidence at all.’

  ‘I doubt we are interested in legends,’ Dick said.

  ‘Perhaps we should be. One of them could be why we’ve stirred up such a hornet’s nest.’