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“Try not to think of it,” said Esther.
“It is past now.”
The child looked at her with wide eyes.
“He made me. I was too big. Me brother had done it when he was four. He wasn’t too big. But I was bigger. It used to hurt. Once I couldn’t get out, and I screamed and screamed. Then they got me out… and… I wouldn’t go in again. Me father beat me. Me mother beat me. I didn’t mind beatings. I couldn’t … I’ll never go up again. It’s black up there … it’s so dark you can’t see. Me father said he’d kill me if I didn’t go up. Then …” Her voice broke on a sob.
“I… run away…”
The dark chimneys would always haunt her dreams. When she screamed in the night it was because of those dark chimneys. If only they had known before, perhaps they could have comforted her.
Flash Jane put her face close to the child and said, not unkindly: “What was you took for?”
“For taking.”
“Nicking, you mean?”
“Taking. I didn’t mind. It’s better than the chimley.”
“Chimley sweeps has a terrible time of it,” said Flash Jane.
“I remember a man named Tom what was one. He was a rare one, Tom was. River thief and a regular swell. Done well for himself. Nice big man. He begun as a sweep though. He was smart. Said there wasn’t much you couldn’t hide in a bag of soot. He started on his own. Done well for himself. I wonder what become of Tom?”
The child said: “There ain’t nothing so bad as a black chimley with the fire down below. There ain’t nothing so bad as that.”
Esther stroked her hair, and she looked with wondering eyes up at the girl.
Esther thought: “I’ll teach her to pray.”
Carolan thought: “If anyone torments her again, they’ll wish they hadn’t.”
Change came as suddenly as before. There was something so hideous about the picture that child had conjured up that they could not look at it. Softness was folly. Flash Jane went on to talk of her friend Tom, the big man, the river thief. Her reminiscences were as highly coloured as she could make them, the details as intimate. They listened awhile. Someone began to sing a bawdy song. The woman who had gone to Mother Maybury’s wriggled off her berth and slowly began to take off her clothes.
It was January, and the summer evening was calm and warm. Esther and Carolan lay side by side looking across the sea, for it was the women’s hour of freedom. It seemed to Carolan that years had elapsed since they left England, and here they were, almost on the other side of the world.
“Esther,” she said, ‘how lucky we have been … so far!”
Esther said: “I ca
“Esther, do you believe in will power?” I believe in prayer.”
“But I ca
“Perhaps God did not mean him to come.”
“Perhaps He does not mean us to be together. It would be cruel to separate us now, Esther. We must do everything we can. Who knows, there may be some opportunity. Esther, Esther, what will become of us on the other side ?”
“That we ca
“A leader! I should have liked to be a leader, Esther, I should like to lead people against cruelty and wickedness. Oh … not what you call wickedness. Not Flash Jane and her kind, but those who made Flash Jane what she is. I would be a crusader against those who made our laws, against your church perhaps which allows these things to happen … and more, applauds them. There, I have hurt you, Esther, I blunder. I am always hurting you. Wasn’t there a parable about a man who was set upon by robbers. The passed by on the other side of the road, like our churchmen, Esther, our politicians; those people know what is happening, yet pass by on the other side of the road. I like to think that I am the Samaritan of a different faith … the Samaritan who did not pass by. But what can I do… a prisoner? Besides, I know myself. I am not good enough. I am wicked, more wicked than you could understand, Esther. But that is what I would like to be, were it possible … the good Samaritan.”
“You would be, Carolan. You would be!”
“No! I should be thinking of myself as I walked along. I should not see the poor man calling for help… Not until I myself was set upon should I see him. and then it would be too late.”
here was a short silence, then Carolan said: “How good it is to breathe fresh air! I never thought of that in the old days at home. Fancy being grateful because you can breathe fresh air for one hour each day. We must be very strong. Esther, to have survived.”
“We are not very old,” said Esther.
“You are but a child. I wonder how Marcus is. Is he in as good spirits as he was, I wonder?”
“I should like to see him. He is a good man.”
“He is a thief!” said Carolan roughly.
“We are here through no criminal acts, Esther; do not forget that such is not the case with Marcus.”
“Life was very cruel to him.”
“Very cruel. But it will never conquer Marcus.” Unconsciously she spoke his name softly, thinking of the glitter of his blue eyes, and the desire in them.
“Tell me.” said Esther, ‘of how you went to Vauxhall Gardens, and how he was there, dressed as a fine gentleman.”
“I have told you many times.”
“Nevertheless I like to hear it again. I love to hear the stories of your life.”
“I have told you so much, have I not? You must know it almost as well as I do myself.”
“I lie in the berth and think of it all. Sometimes it helps me to sleep, and I forget I am there. I can smell the horses in the stables, and the mutton cooking before your Aunt Harriet’s fire; and I can smell the perfume Therese is putting on your mother’s gown. When you came, you made me alive. Carolan. I wish there was something I could do for you.”
“What should I have done without your friendship?”
“You talk as though this is farewell,” said Esther with terror in her voice.
“Who knows, it may be! Look!”
Carolan stood up, excited. She pointed.
“I saw something. I am sure I saw something. It has gone now … but look, Esther, can you see?”
Their eyes were fixed on the horizon. For ten minutes they did not move, and then clearly and definitely they saw the dim outline of white cliffs.
There was bustle on board now. All convicts were ordered below; gratings were made fast over hatches. The air was more stifling than ever.
Carolan and Esther lay very close. They held hands in the darkness. Esther prayed: “Please God, having given her, do not take her from me.”
Carolan murmured: “I will not lose her. I must keep her with me. She does not know it, but I need her as much as she needs me.”
The ship lay at anchor, while the new land smiled under the morning summer sun. Forests of eucalyptus trees like an army of giants, had marched to the edge of the land and halted there. On the grassy hills stood out clearly the silver-barked gum trees freely mingled with cedar. The leaves of the great eucalyptus trees cast their shadows where in spring golden wattles and the white flowers of the dogwood bushes bloomed. It seemed a smiling, fertile country that welcomed the newcomers, but it aroused in them nothing but nostalgia for their native land. The warmth of the sun, the brilliance of the sea, the green foliage, the white-crested cockatoos and the gaudy parakeets which gave to the scene that picture quality, could only by their very contrast remind them of the crooked streets of St. Giles’s, grey-White buildings looming up in fog, the clop-clop of horses’ hooves on cobbles, the Thames enveloped in mysterious gloom London, which had been home to them, and which always would be home.