Jack enjoyed his role as the repository of the most knowledge about their impending home. He had an uncle – also named Jack – who had been sent to Sydney Cove almost 20 years earlier. A London builder, he had taken on too much work and would never be able to meet his obligations, but had already gambled away the advance payments he had received for the purpose of acquiring the necessary materials. He was sentenced to seven years transportation on the basis of already having been charged over an earlier indiscretion at 16, pickpocketing a kerchief as a dare, and they didn’t hear a word from him for the first five years.

When a letter finally arrived it was an appalling litany of depravations. He wrote of regular floggings and acts of random cruelty, rampant disease and widespread starvation. Yet when his next letter arrived, almost five years later again, they wondered if it was from the same man – he spoke of a burgeoning business in constructing living quarters for the ever-increasing number of new convicts and now, as a free settler, he had also taken a wife. He had fathered three young children, only one surviving past its first birthday. He could not yet afford his passage home, but Jack’s father doubted he would ever return. ‘Why would he come back? There’s nothing here for him anymore, his name would still be mud,’ he told his son.

Abigail had noticed that the days were growing slightly longer, that there was a little more light each evening. They must have passed the equator, she reasoned, for although London and the northern hemisphere would be approaching the winter equinox, the southern hemisphere would be slowly approaching its summer.

Standing on the deck, looking out over the gentle green heave of a placid ocean, she turned to Finn.

“Do you think it feels different?”

“What’s that?”

“Being upside-down.”

“Upside-down?”

“Yes. Have you noticed that the days are getting longer, that there’s more light even though we’re heading into December? It means we must be in the south, down the bottom. I think I can tell. If you close your eyes, I think you can feel it. I feel just a bit lighter, like I’m falling ever so slightly towards my head.”

Finn closed his eyes, putting a hand out to steady himself on a rail. “I see what you mean. It’s only a little bit, but I feel it too. I had been feeling like I was taller than before, maybe that’s why, my head falling away from my feet stretching me out a little.”

He opened his eyes again and joined Abigail in looking out over sea. They were both looking for any sign of land at all, the slightest shadow that may anchor them back in a physical, solid life, a momentary escape from this strange, liquid and liquefying existence. All this water around, the constant sway of the ship as it carved its way through the sea, should have made them feel much more solid in contrast, Abigail reasoned. Yet she felt the opposite, felt her own self becoming more and more subsumed by sea every day.

Abigial felt her body now even had its own tides, subtle pulls to and fro that were not just a flow-on effect of the sea on every side, below them at every moment of their lives, but rather a force that worked from within. This sensation manifested in different ways but was most apparent during the still of the night. She would feel a pull, a pulsing flow coursing through her and settling in one place, then, when it felt like it had all built up and something had to give, slowly start to flow back the other way. 

She didn’t like it; she wanted to feel centred, in control of her body and her thoughts. It was most affronting that both were rebelling at the same time, conspiring against her desire to rule her own body, mind and soul. Abigail had been having an increasingly strange litany of dreams. When back in Newgate she had been visited by variations of the same dream over and over, the mayor and his watch, the watch and the mayor. In one the watch in her pocket grew so hot it burst into flames, in another it developed teeth and ate its way right through her clothing, leaving her standing in the middle of a circle of leering onlookers dressed only in her underclothes.

Since leaving port, these dreams had begun to fade, replaced with visions of what awaited her in Van Diemen’s Land. Silent black faces would surround her, sometimes coupled with warm smiles and hands held out with pink palms upturned, gestures of kindness and friendship. At other times however they were scowling, baring big white teeth and approaching menacingly. She would try to cry out for help but only the hoarsest whisper would emerge from her raw throat.

The dreams of her mother and father’s bodies washed up on the beach had thankfully almost disappeared. Whenever she had a chance to read any of her mother’s words they would invariably find their way into her dreams in one way or another, which gave her yet more reason to try and steal some moments with the book if she could, to keep the other dreams at bay.

Siren Songs

Men of foul and swampy seas

Of salt not earth of waves not trees

May tell us wives of sudden squall

Yet we know they speak not all

The danger lies not in sharp rocks

But hidden in those golden locks

What they seek we see so clear

Not with judgment nor with fear

Is your song your siren call

The wet embrace that ends it all

to be continued…

Nevertheless his wife, although she did not love him, was alert to the subtle shifts a man undergoes in the throes of new feelings. Try as he might to obscure them, she could smell it in his clothes, could hear an almost imperceptible shift in the pitch of his voice, sense strange heat radiating from his body that had not been there for untold years.

With clinical precision, she set to finding out what had changed. First, the letter. The only locked drawer in the house – could he have been more obvious? From there, it was quite simple to narrow things down.  Their town was a small one and there had only been one new arrival of note in the past two years, only one person who could possibly be the source of her husband’s ridiculous, childish infatuation.

From there it was a very simple matter of lying in bed one night until the whole town must have been sleeping. With Stanley snoring soundly on the pillow in his room – they had not shared a bed since the first year of their marriage – she gently closed the front door behind her. She walked to the end of the street, turned the corner and made her way to the two-storey stone house where she knew the lodger had taken out the top floor. Slipping through an unlocked rear window, lifting it in its sash without a sound, she passed through the kitchen on her way up the stairs.

It was out of character for Charlotte not to be at work on the stroke of eight o’clock. John Willis waited until a quarter past nine before sending a messenger boy to enquire as to what was delaying his employee. The boy reported back that the town policeman, Sergeant McAllister, would be dropping by later in the day. It was in relation to Miss Dalfoy is all he would say.

Sergeant McAllister had never seen anything like it in his 20 years in the force.  He could not understand how nobody would have heard a thing. A bloodied kitchen knife had been sunk into the bedroom wall, a terrible name for a fallen woman scrawled across the wall in Charlotte’s own blood.

It had not escaped John Willis’ attention that Stanley had taken a shine to Miss Dalfoy. He had no designs on the young worker himself, his own affections taking on a different form, one not generally discussed in such society. This observation led to Sergeant McAllister being at the kitchen table of the Daley residence later that afternoon, quite unable to drink any of the tea Mrs Daley had just poured as she gave him a casually off-hand account of her visit to Miss Dalfoy during the early hours of the morning, guided by a waxing moon along streets she had known her entire life, streets she could have travelled with her eyes closed if she had so wished.

She appeared not to leave a single detail lacking in her account, explaining the way she had run her finger down the blade of the kitchen knife to ensure it was keen enough, the way she had taken only one continuous movement with an arm built up from years of hand washing and dough pounding to carry out her task. How she had used her finger to paint the accusation she had left behind.

“I suppose you will be wanting me to come with you?” she asked, as simply as if she had asked about the weather or offered another cup of tea. She wiped her hands on the apron, hung it on its hook behind the door, patted her hair and waited for the policeman to lead the way to the station.

The trial had been a minor sensation due to its graphic nature, but neither Abigail nor Mary Ann had been aware of Maureen until they were on the ship. Mary Ann’s ‘crime’, it appeared, was a more than passing resemblance to the unfortunate Charlotte; she was a younger, prettier version of Maureen’s victim.

Mary Ann tried her best to make her peace with Maureen but it was beyond salvation. As the days wore on, their memories of streets and lamp-posts or fields and stiles began losing their tethers, floating in and out of reach. Tempers grew fractious. Women who had been quite friendly to Abigail to begin with now barely noticed her, or even seemed irritated if she tried speaking with them. So Abigail, Mary Ann, Finn, his new friend Jack and of course Lord Byron pretty much kept to themselves, trying to stay out of the way of the others as they counted off the days. Not that they had any idea how long the voyage would take as nobody had told them. Every day still felt like they were leaving somewhere, there was no sense of a future arrival, imminent or otherwise.

to be continued. . .

This seemed to Abigail to be less so for the younger prisoners on board the ship. While they were clearly the most restless and had with more energy than they could feasibly burn in such confined and constricted circumstances, they also seemed less prone to the bouts of empty gazing and ghostly daytime sleepwalking that she saw in some of the women.

Despite knowing that she hadn’t acted criminally and that most of these women probably had, she thought of them first and foremost as people. Whatever act they had carried out to be in this situation, whether spontaneous or planned from beginning to end, she felt they had been more than punished enough already. She of course knew that transportation had likely saved many of their lives, with hundreds of crimes still punishable by death if the magistrate so saw fit, but it seemed to her an outrageous response to the minor infractions and desperate undertakings of these women, many in situations of dire need.

The women who sold themselves could hardly be to blame for so many men seeking them out. Those who stole for their family did not do so for gain or comfort but for survival – Abigail was distraught to learn just how widespread London and England’s problems were and how many people were in situations of such grim and quiet desperation.

For the most part the prisoners either got along or at least tolerated their fellow travellers. Inevitably, living in such close quarters and with such a mix of personalities, trouble did flare. This was usually a case of simmering tensions boiling over and the guards would often turn a blind eye to minor scrapes and scuffles, only stepping in if they appeared to be getting out of hand. Letting off steam in futile little skirmishes like this typically led to situations moving on with few grudges. Occasionally, however, someone would take such a dislike to another prisoner that things weren’t so easily resolved.

Abigail’s new friend Mary Ann found herself in exactly this situation, her life made miserable by the constant taunting and frequent threats at the hands of ‘Mad Maureen’ a larger-than-life prisoner who had taken an instant dislike to the pretty Mary Ann, calling her ‘Precious’ in a sarcastic, seething tone. She once called her Charlotte while in a fury, which hadn’t made sense at the time but became all too clear when she learnt more about her antagoniser from another prisoner later on.

Heavy-set, with tight, oily brown curls and mottled, waxy skin, Maureen Daley was being transported for the murder of another woman in the small southern village of Lewes. She had discovered a perfumed letter concealed in one of her husband’s locked desk drawers, which set off the unfortunate chain of events. Her husband Stanley was a reasonably respected stock agent who had married Maureen while only quite young and before making his way to his present station. While divorce was out of the question, he had certainly considered the marriage to have been free of love for the past 20 years and had assumed his wife saw things the same way.

When he met Charlotte Dalfoy, he knew nothing could happen, yet part of him also knew things could never be the same again. She was working for John Willis, another agent in the area, with whom Stanley had an amicable rivalry. He would conjure reasons for visiting Willis’ office simply to catch the merest glimpse of Charlotte, rarely being so bold as to trade more than a polite greeting. He finally found the courage to write her a note, feverishly and foolishly declaring his truest feelings for her. On his first visit to the office following its discreet delivery, she did not even look up. He knew he had made a mistake and shattered their fledgling friendship in his foolish haste.

But as he went to leave he saw a wax-sealed note was sitting on the very edge of her desk. He swept it up and into an inside pocket of his coat, where he could have sworn it was glowing for all to see. Locking himself into his home office, after a walk home that seemed like an eternity as he willed his feet not to run, he withdrew the note with trembling fingers.

As for you, for me

to be continued…

Abigail had been talking a lot with a girl of 16 named Mary Ann. Mary Ann had never been to London, but told Abigail all sorts of amazing stories about her colourful life in Liverpool. Abigail had blushed a deep crimson when first told by Mary Ann why she had been transported – she had of course heard about women and girls doing these things but never really thought about them as real people she might actually come to know.

Her sister Margaret had been sent to Van Diemen’s Land the year before and she was wondering whether she would see her there.

“Not that I even know whether she is alive or anything,” she said bluntly. “Who knows? She may have gone overboard on the way over, or been eaten by the natives. Or maybe she has married the Governor? I hear anything can happen in Van Diemen’s Land.”

Every day was the same, the endless routine becoming so second nature that Abigail hardly thought about it anymore. This did free her mind to drift, but she found it difficult out here to find places for it to settle. The constantly changing weather was the only real element of surprise. One day she may be able to see the distant horizon frozen in place, as straight as can be; glassy waters reflecting a bright blue sky, an eerie stillness that kept the crew grumbling and listless – the slack sails a personal affront.

The next day, however, could be such that everyone on board was certain they were moments from being dashed to pieces. At these times, the water no longer reflected the sky, but the sky became like the sea, a boiling, angry, frothing beast, evil black clouds and towering black waves that surged as though craning to reach one another, to touch and switch places. The ship would ride its way up one side of these monstering waves, perch precariously at the top and feel like it was about to tumble into the abyss below, skimming over the barest trace of water to sink deep into the gutter, where day instantly became night. From down here the next wave was certain to be the one that broke rather than surged, that did not pick the ship up but tumbled down upon the ship, smashing the fragile toothpicks to smithereens, obliterating all trace of the ship and its cowering cargo.

At these moments, while the religious prayed to their God, Abigail thought not of herself and strangely not even of her friends. She thought of poor Lord Byron, how he would never have a chance to terrorise a ball of twine or sun himself by a window in the golden light of a lazy autumn afternoon. She thought also of her mother’s poems, poems she felt belonged not just to herself but to life itself – certainly not to the bottom of the sea.

She knew it was irrational, but she decided nothing could happen to them because it mustn’t, because this book of which she was but a custodian must continue to exist. Thankfully storms like this were rare and most of the time conditions fell between these two extremes, a steady, salty breeze blowing, the sails swelling with purpose and the crew steadily going about their tasks.

For the bulk of the prisoners on board the ship, the day began at 5.30am. Abigail was often wide awake by this stage, revelling in a few moments of peace before the cluttered clamour of competing voices, thoughts, bickering, laughing and more began to swell. They took their hammocks up to create space for movement around the cramped confines, with half of the prisoners heading to the upper deck and washing themselves at the wash tubs at 6am. They headed back down at 7.30am so the decks and toilets could be washed down, the concentration of their bodily filth sloughed away and jettisoned over the edge of the ship. Abigail and Finn had ensured they washed on alternating days, meaning the other could look after Lord Byron in the interim.

Breakfast was served at 8am, invariably bread the prisoners themselves had to bake from their rations of flour and water. From 9am they were permitted upon the top deck, the first breath of fresh air in more than 12 hours for those who had not washed. Prayers were held at 9.30am, while at 10am half the prisoners began their exercises, the other half assembled below deck in a school for ‘religious instruction’.

Dinner at noon meant a scant serving of salted beef or pork. Rice and potatoes occasionally appeared though fruit and vegetables were out of the question; occasional sips of lime juice doled out to keep scurvy at bay.

At 4pm the hammocks were restrung and half an hour later a light supper served, usually a thin soup that was barely more nutritious than dirty dish water. Prayers took place at half past six and prisoners were sent to the hammocks at 8pm, with guards conducting their rounds at nine.

There was little to tell one day from the next, until Wednesday or Thursday when prisoners were permitted to wash their clothes as well as themselves. Saturday was the one day Abigail longed for as the school wasn’t held, giving her some valuable moments with her book.  On Sunday a Divine Service was held at 11am. Prisoners who admitted to not believing in God were exempted yet still required to have one of their own lead prayers amongst them, but Abigail hadn’t dared to admit she didn’t believe so attended the ‘Worship of Almighty God’.

Abigail had once believed, but recently her faith had been dashed. She had struggled to understand how an all-seeing, all-knowing God could allow the kinds of things that had happened to her to happen in the world. The more she learnt about the lives of the other prisoners before they had come on board, the harder she found it to believe that there was someone or something watching over all this. If there was, to Abigail’s mind that was even worse.

to be continued…

So where did this leave her? Abigail wondered for a dizzying moment whether she even existed here and now – so powerfully did this thought take her, just as she was halfway up the gangplank, that she was certain she was going to evaporate in a mist that would disperse over the water and join the last of the fog now drifting away, simply cease to be evermore. But just as this despair wrapped its cold hands around her heart, ready to take her away, Abigail heard Finn whistle a little tune she knew his mother used to sing to him. Finn knew her, he at the very least was aware she existed. For now, as little as that might seem to be, it meant everything.

Abigail noticed Finn was squirming a little more as they reached the top of the gangplank. He stood, half-turned as Abigail gave the warder who waited as they stepped onto the ship their names. He grunted gruffly and waved them down the deck to the top of some steps. Abigail peered into the gloom, waiting for her eyes to adjust a little then stepping down.  All the hammocks seemed to have been taken, but she finally found two at the very furthest end of the hold. Finn followed and they each sat on a hammock, already gently swinging on the light swell that slowly rocked the ship side to side.

“So what’s going on?”

Finn looked around, saw nobody was paying any attention, and reached into his shirt. His hand came out clutching a tiny ball of streaked fur, which on closer inspection was a kitten. It was barely a few weeks old, mewing feebly.

“Finn, what were you thinking!”

“I couldn’t just leave him. He come out from behind some ropes as I crossed to the pier. He was sounding so sad, look how skinny he is.”

“But how on earth do you think you can keep him here?”

“Well he wouldn’t have lasted another day, look at him. This at least gives him a chance.”

Abigail wasn’t so sure, yet she couldn’t stay mad at Finn, she would probably have done the same thing. The practicalities would have to be worked out and it could all end quite badly, but for now all she could think about was how to ensure the kitten was looked after as best it could be.

“We’ll just have to make sure we keep a little of our food for him,” she said, cupping him in her left hand, stroking the down beneath his chin with her right. The look of pleasure on his face as he stretched his chin forward, eyes closing to a slit, passed onto her own face as a real smile, the first in such a long time, not one put there for anybody else’s benefit.

“He shall need a name, of course,” she stated matter-of-factly, superstitiously believing that with a name, as a real entity, he would have a better chance of survival. “Do you have one?”

Finn just shrugged, carefully taking the kitten back as Abigail passed him to his waiting hand, cupped as he had seen her do. Abigail looked into the kitten’s melancholic eyes, noting also a faint light of mischief. Wondering whether the ship’s rules made any reference to bringing a cat on board, she was reminded of a story she had heard about a poet who was most miffed at regulations forbidding the keeping of a dog in university lodgings at Trinity College. He thus bought and kept a bear, pointing out there was no specific rule that disallowed it.

“Hello ‘Lord Byron’,” Abigail said. “Boy do you have an adventure heading your way.”

to be continued…

She finally saw Finn at the very end of the line, his sandy scruff of hair and freckled nose and cheeks standing out even in the mist-shrouded queue. Abigail had hoped to be brought down to the docks with him, could face this more bravely if she had to look after him rather than think about herself, but they had been separated amidst the mass of prisoners being corralled and stuffed into the waiting carriages. She had only snatched a moment’s glance at him standing in the queue, but was curious to see him standing in a strange position, his arms wrapped around his front.

The wooden ship now loomed large from the fog as it finally began to lift. The three masts soared high towards the sky, five enormous grey-white square sails rigged to two of them, with triangular fore-and-aft sails hitched to the aft mast. The cloth gently rippled in a light breeze, Abigail surprised to see just how complicated a web was formed by the control and running rigging.

Her childhood drawings of ships had been much simpler, a long boat with a couple of masts and huge sails, yet here she was for the first time seeing just what a complex conglomeration of curves and lines and weight and counterweight it all must be. Which was all fine here tied up safely at port, but how would all this stand up against the elements ‘out there’, in seas she suddenly envisioned looming as giant green mountains?

The only thing keeping her from absolute panic was her knowledge that Finn was nearby, and knowing she still had her mother’s book. They had taken her coat and clothes when she first got to Newgate and she was sure they would have taken the book as well, but the jailer who stripped her of her clothes rifled through the pockets and simply threw it down on the floor. It was obviously easier than having to dispose of it. Abigail quickly dressed in the long-sleeved blouse-like top and drew the baggy striped dress over it, slipping the book inside her blouse until she got to her cell.

One day the girls had been receiving lessons in sewing to ensure they would be productive contributors once they arrived in Van Diemen’s Land. Abigail had secreted away a needle and enough thread to sew a pocket to the inside of her dress, where she was able to keep the book close.

Her cell afforded little light even during the day, but enough leaked in that she was able to work her way through the notebook from the very front cover to the back. A lot of it was difficult to follow, but it didn’t matter at all to Abigail. All that mattered was that not only was this her mother’s book but it was actually her mother – her voice, her words, her feelings.

One short piece came to her as she stood on the dock, trying not to be as terrified about what was happening as she felt she might any moment become.

Ice

When nobody knows and ne’er a soul sees

Not a creature bestirs, no breath hint nor breeze

Those icy-tipped fingers will dance in the dark

Find lily-white skin leave bloody rose mark

Abigail deliberately dawdled, allowing others to pass her in the queue, until Finn caught up. She put on a smile for him, hoping to cheer herself up in the process of working on his mood. She was concerned by the way his arms seemed pressed across his belly as though he had some kind of ache.

“What’s wrong Finn?”

“Must have been something I ate. I’ll be okay,” he said, glancing around to see who else was in earshot. “I’ll tell you later,” he whispered out of the side of his mouth, hoping nobody else could overhear. “But when we reach the ship, make sure you have any attention that comes our way.”

Puzzled, Abigail wanted to ask more but they had already reached the gangplank. This is it, Abigail thought, my last step on English soil for 10 years. It was an unfathomable length of time – her haziest childhood memory only stretched back to about the age of four, so in effect it was a whole lifetime before she had any hope of return.

to be continued…

Her initial fear as to what may await in Van Diemen’s Land – she, a girl who had never set a foot outside London – diminished in proportion to her growing desperation to escape Newgate.

September 17, 1846 was an unseasonably cold day. The summer months had been unbearable in the closeness of the prison, but it was as though such stifling days had never been. Fog rolled in off the gently lapping water and shrouded the port, bearing the sickly sweet smell of rotting garbage and seaweed. Its ghostly whiteness enveloped  the milling humanity and obscured all but the bulkiest shapes – the warehouses behind them and the hulking ship towering above. Abigail overheard somebody murmur that it didn’t appear at all fit to sail, but another voice answered that this floating wooden prison, the Elizabeth & Henry, had already journeyed to their far-flung destination once before.

What had it seen, Abigail wondered. This mysterious place about which she still knew so little. She had only ever heard mention of Van Diemen’s Land once or twice back at Horlicks, when Mrs Broadstock had been at her angriest and threatening girls with banishment there – the worst fate she could conjure. But in her long wait at Newgate, Abigail heard all sorts of terrifying tales about this strange land.

She learnt of the sun that could cook your skin and flesh right off you in a day and the snakes that grabbed their tales in their mouths and rolled around like hoops, stopping only to bite people along the way. She heard of ‘kangaroos’; twice the height of the tallest man alive and wielding claws as long and sharp as cooking knives. Then – perhaps most terrifying of all – the black savages who painted themselves in the blood of young children they put into giant pots and ate for dinner.

A maudlin snaking of prisoners had begun boarding the long gangplank to the creaking barque tied to the dock, pushed along by a surly handful of guards bearing heavy sticks. Abigail was near the end of the line, having been one of the last to arrive at the port. She was experiencing a strange admixture of relief at being free from Newgate and trepidation at what was to eventuate. Since the morning she had left on her errand she had never again seen anybody from Horlicks, nor – to her gut-wrenching despair – her kindly aunt.

Abigail had no idea if anybody even knew where she was, whether she was still alive, was aware that she hadn’t simply run away of her own accord. She could not believe the severity of her sentence, but there were many girls and women she had met in Newgate who were off to Van Diemen’s Land having committed little more offence than that for which she was being sent, be it the theft of a handkerchief, a teaspoon or some bread cooling on a sill. Many of them did, it was true, proclaim their innocence, just as Carringford had mentioned. Abigail knew this couldn’t be the case in absolutely every situation and therefore had no idea who to believe.

This didn’t mean she felt they deserved such a heavy form of punishment for their indiscretions. She was shocked to find that many of them were mothers who were being taken away from their families.  She knew all too well the pain of the child who was unable to be with their parents.

Abigail had formed only one relationship she could really call a friendship in Newgate, with a young boy name Finn. Finn had only just turned 10 and was awaiting transport for having stolen some bread. He had at first told her a story about picking up a loaf just as a loud bang went off nearby and been so scared that he had started running without thinking about it, only realising when it was too late that he had absconded with the bread.

But after they had spent more time together, Abigail telling Finn about what had happened with her and the boy – a face she would never forgot until the end of time – who had framed her.  Finn had eventually admitted that he had known he was taking the bread, but remained unapologetic.

“My sister, she was so sick,” he said. “None of us had any food, which was all right for me, but I couldn’t see her like that. Just a baby, crying her poor little soul out. She was so hungry she wouldn’t have lasted the night. As it was, she never made it, but I know I at least tried.” At that stage Finn had six younger siblings, all sisters. There had been two older brothers before he was born, but both had been taken, one with cholera the other tuberculosis. The last he heard, passed on to him from another prisoner who had been visited in Newgate by a man who lived in the same tenement as his family, there were only two sisters left. Neither was given any real chance of being in this world much longer.

Abigail was surprised, however, to feel a certain floating sensation above it all, a sense that although it was clearly out of her hands, this somehow made it less terrible than it may otherwise have seemed. The words of Carringford had stayed with her and she saw that perhaps he was right, perhaps this was somehow meant to happen. She could not for the life of her see how it was fair, or how any good could come of such a terrible situation, but she remained calm and composed and submitted to what fate had in store.

Abigail assumed there would be some form of punishment, that she may have to spend more time in a cell, but as long as she had her book and as long as she would be able to explain everything to her aunt and uncle when the time came for her to finally be with them, then everything would eventually be all right.

It was while she was reassuring herself with these thoughts, the guilty verdict having already been pronounced, that Abigail was startled out of her calm state by a jolt that hit her like a lightning bolt. The judge had been in earnest conversation with the mayor who, having given his evidence earlier, had returned to his place on the bench, sitting smugly, stretching his stubby fat fingers and even yawning a few times as though troubled by nary a care in the world. But now he sat to attention, a broad smile with too many teeth splitting his face as the judge upon called Abigail to rise.

“For the dastardly crime of larceny, compounded by the vile contempt of this court with your obvious perjury – both terrible offences that besmirch our upstanding society and all the values for which this fine court stands – I sentence you, Abigail Annesley of no fixed address, to ten years transportation to Van Diemen’s Land!”

A triumphant cheer broke out throughout the court as the gathered onlookers celebrated this clear win for justice and decency. Abigail felt the room start to spin around her and if not for Carringford catching her as she tottered she would have crashed to the floor. He helped her into her seat, squeezing her hand gently then stepping away, standing once more to attention.

***

ABIGAIL ANNESLEY was indicted  for stealing one watch, value 6l.; and 1 watch-chain, 6d.; the goods of one John Johnson, from his person.

JOHN JOHNSON, LORD MAYOR OF LONDON. I am the Lord Mayor of London—between nine and half past nine in the morning, on Wednesday, March 18, 1846, I was walking through Shoreditch—the prisoner was there—I gave her a half look, and in a moment my watch was taken out of my pocket—she tried to run off, but I followed her and had her accosted—I never lost sight of her—I saw her caught by an onlooker—when she was taken, she brought the watch from a coat pocket—this was my watch.

Prisoner. This is not so. I had never seen Mr Johnson nor is it that I designed upon his watch. On an errand I was taken for another and deemed guilty despite innocence—another in my place performed the deed for which I have been accosted, summonsed and ill-framed.

Witness. I will speak the truth, and nothing but the truth—I did not like your appearance—you had about you a look that spoke of trouble-born. Your hand I did see enter his pocket—from it you did take this watch and attempt to make it your own.

JOHN VALLER . I live in Farnham-place, Ratcliffe—on the morning in question I was in Shoreditch on matters business. I heard a cry of “Stop thief!”—I stopped the prisoner—she pulled the watch from her pocket.

Prisoner. I never took the watch out of his pocket; I had never seen it before in my life; I was going away, and he called, “Stop thief!” Another boy, a boy who escaped in the confusion, placed the watch in my pocket unbeknownst.

THOMAS JOHN BLAKE (police-sergeant K 137.) I came across a scene much in uproar. There was a great deal of expostulation and high-drama conjecture. I investigated and, drawing on my experience and skill, instinct and wherewithal, made my finding. I witnessed the production of our most respected Lord Mayor’s watch from the pocket of the young girl—she is the prisoner.

GUILTY . Aged 13.— Transported for Ten Years.

to be continued…

“Oh, did nobody tell you? You’re off to court today, Abigail, they have decided to send you to trial. You will be represented, of course, there will be a lawyer arguing your case. Obviously you haven’t met him yet, but it little matters, it’s all just for show anyway.

“Unless, of course, you can produce names. You will still be in a lot of trouble, I cannot say what example they will make out of you, but if they have names then they can spread that example around, show that they’re getting on top of all this petty theft the good people of London fear has spiralled out of control.”

He paused, picking a small piece of lint off his trousers and holding it up for a closer look, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger.  Abigail saw that he looked quite snug despite the chill, almost lost inside a heavy coat with two sets of tarnished buttons running its whole length, a wide belt hitching it to his waist and a broad collar that went right up to his jowls. He held his tall stiff hat in his lap, running a finger around the top of it absent-mindedly. Dark eyebrows dipped towards each other over a sharp nose, making him look as though he was perennially questioning the world around him.

“Now this is no different to anywhere else, Abigail, not some particularly idiosyncratic London way of doing things. This is the way of the world, people like you, people like me, we’re just faceless cogs in a far larger machine, a colourful backdrop to the fabulous lives of the great. We’re not part of history, no book will ever tell of our lives, or laughs, our loves. The closest we will come is if we drift too closely to the lives of those who matter, our waxen wings melting in their glow.”

Abigail watched his hands flutter like detached wings then crumple into his lap.

“As I see it, there are three things that can happen here. Do you believe in fate, Abigail?”

Abigail had actually been thinking about this exact question over the last few days. She felt it had been fate that her aunt had found her, fate that brought her mother’s book into her life. But how could she explain this latest disaster? How could these events unfolding out of her control be her fate? She had done no wrong by anybody, so surely fate should not do wrong by her?

“I, I guess I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Sometimes I do, but other times I really don’t know why things are happening. Until this week not much happened to me at all, now it seems everything is happening.”

Abigail was surprised to have been so open, but there was something about this young policeman’s honesty that seemed to have drawn her out.

“Well I do,” he said, “and that’s why I’m giving you these three possibilities. I honestly believe that whichever you take, the outcome will end up being what it is bound to be. We may think we can trick it, escape it, put it off or avoid it all together, but my feeling is that simply sends you all the more quickly to where you were inevitably and always going to find yourself.

“People speak of choice, but we are here right now, having this conversation, because we were always going to be. If we weren’t, then we wouldn’t, would we? But because we were, we are. That’s not choice, that’s just that. Dodge one way, dodge the other, fate will always tell.”

Abigail thought about what he said, but really did not know. If this was true, then all this was really out of her hands, as she had always felt.

“So here is how it is. You may or may not have noticed, but when we got into the carriage I didn’t latch the door. When we stop at the next corner, you open the carriage door, jump out, run and run and don’t turn back. That’s your first option, and I won’t raise a hue and cry until you’ve cleared off.

“Alternatively, I can give you some names of people we know are caught up in just this kind of racket. They’re bad people, Abigail, they take advantage of young people just like you. You wouldn’t be telling us anything we didn’t already know about them, and their time is up either way.

“Your third option, otherwise, is to stick to your story, refuse to admit you were involved, and have the system do what it intends to do with you. They won’t believe you, they can’t believe you. But you will know you stayed true to yourself.”

Abigail felt the carriage rolling to a stop. She looked out the window and saw they had by now travelled some way across town. They had just passed St Pauls Cathedral and were approaching St Martin within Ludgate, just around the corner from the Old Bailey. If this was indeed the court that had been chosen for her trial, she knew it was serious.

As the carriage waited at the corner for a chance to turn north, Abigail saw that it would, indeed, be quite simple to launch herself out into the busy streets, weaving between passersby and shooting into a side alley. But where could she go? What could she do? She wouldn’t know how to find her aunt and uncle, so she would have to return to Horlicks, and surely the authorities would send someone there.

She considered the second option, using the name of someone who was known to be a criminal already. But the obvious drawback with this was admitting she had done wrong, something she still could not bring herself to do. Abigail looked up at Carringford, who seemed to be observing her lazily, as though just another passenger on an ordinary ride across town. That this was the most momentous decision of her life to date could not be told by anything other than her own awareness of the matter, so casually did Carringford sit and wait to hear her speak.

“I will have my trial,” Abigail said, pleased to hear her voice did not waver for a moment. “I will tell them things exactly as they are.”

“Abigail Annesley, step out here.”

Lifting herself off the cot, Abigail passed out through the doorway. A different policeman this time, younger, with a knit of tight curls close to his head, flashed her a smile.

“Constable Carringford is the name,” he announced. “Big day today Abigail. There’s likely to be quite a bit more attention than usual on this one, given the Mayor’s involved.”

Unsure as to what was happening, but relieved to be out of the dark, dank cell, Abigail walked stiffly up the steep steps, aching with pins and needles in her legs from not having moved around. At the top of the stairs the policeman pointed her to a chair against the wall and told her to take a seat. Abigail sat waiting silently, avoiding the gaze of the man at the desk who was busy stroking his moustache to a fine point, watching her.

“Abigail Annesley, the famous watch thief,” he sneered, looking down in his ledger. “Looks like the last we will see of you for quite awhile, at this end of town.” He laughed grimly and continued twisting his moustache, Abigail studiously keeping her eyes down.

She heard the sound of a carriage stop at the door, shuddering at the terrible reminder of her aunt and her recent visit. So long ago that now seemed, another life away. But it was at least something, which had to be an improvement over the terrible nothingness she had been facing for the last few days.

The curly-haired policeman appeared again, popping his head out the door, then back inside.

“Well Abigail, let’s not keep them waiting. Come along.”

Carringford stepped aside, holding the door open while Abigail stepped through, not holding onto her as she would have expected. He must have known she was little risk of running away, that she had nowhere she could run to. She stepped up to the carriage, pulling herself up into the open door before anyone tried to help. Sliding across to the far side, she stared out the window so nobody could see her glassy eyes. But the young policeman slid across on front of her, taking a seat on the opposite side, where she knew he could see quite well enough that her lip was quivering and her eyes were now moist.

“So Abigail, you know this will be your last chance, don’t you?” Carringford had a bright, clear voice, speaking in almost a sing-song, as though they were discussing the weather or what to take on a picnic by the seaside.

“Last chance? For what?”

“To tell them who put you up to this.”

“I’ve told you, I’ve told you all already, that nobody put me up to anything, I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh yes, that’s right. Our prisons are simply bursting at the moment – and bursting with the innocent of course.”

Abigail went back to staring out the window, feeling a strange detachment from things. It seemed as though a part of her had been cut off with a knife, a large slab of herself walking away into a life of its own. And not just any part, but the part that felt things.

“You know,” the policeman said, “you don’t strike me as the usual sort.”

Abigail watched the world streak by, listening to the irregular clip and clop by the hooves of the horses drawing her towards who knew where. Her misty eyes made out only a dull tonal mess,  the browns and greys of the homes and shops and public houses of London, shrouded in the damp fog of a late autumn morning.

“Oh I don’t mean because you say you did nothing, because they all say that,” he continued. “But I know these streets, I grew up here and I ran about with enough of those I now must run after. It wasn’t so long ago and it wasn’t so easy. I make no claims to have always been a perfect angel myself-” at this Abigail cast a quick glance across and saw a bright twinkle in his strange green eyes “-but I do believe there is a right and a wrong, there are ways we should live and ways we should grow out of, that the time comes where we can choose good or we can choose bad. And I don’t believe you have chosen to be bad.”

The policeman now had Abigail’s attention, though she would still not look directly across at him. This didn’t seem to fuss him at all, however. He seemed to be one of those people who simply loved to talk, sharing whatever was on his mind whether anyone seemed to be listening or not.

“All of this is, of course, entirely irrelevant. Whether you did it or didn’t, whether you were working for someone or you were not, nobody could care in the slightest. A powerful man, regardless of what people actually think about him personally, has been crossed. Powerful men do not let themselves be crossed. They make sure everybody realises this and it matters little to them what happens to those unfortunate enough to be caught up in the wake of their fury.” At this he gave a little shrug, as though that was the most natural thing in the world.

“The Mayor was quite put out by this, and he has let it be known that he will be taking a very close personal interest in the outcome of proceedings. He has friends in all the places one might expect and I’m afraid, Abigail, you do not. These men are not friends of people who cannot help them acquire more of what they desire most – more power, more prestige – and you cannot help them in the slightest. Nobody there today will be on your side. Nobody is even vaguely interested in finding out what happened in the square that day, that’s no longer what it is about. The mayor has made demands, those demands must be met.”

to be continued…