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  Harris tilted his head. His eyes met hers and something passed between them. “You’ll be good for my wife,” he said with a gentle smile. “She has a knack of taking life a little too seriously.”

  Gratitude flooded over her. She curtseyed low. “Thank you, sir. Thank you. You ain’t going to regret it.”

  It wasn’t until the first night of her new position, when a plate of mutton was set in front of her, that Grace realised she’d spent the rest of her life hungry. The gnawing in her belly had been such a fixture she’d ceased to notice it. As she felt her stomach press against her bodice for the first time in her life, she vowed she’d never go wanting again.

  The Harris’s life was filled with silk dresses, red wine and Beethoven. A great three-story terrace house on Maiden Lane with pale blue walls that made Grace think of the sea. Wind chimes in the entrance hall sung when a breeze moved through the house. Though Grace was lacing the gowns instead of wearing them and carrying the wine glasses instead of drinking from them, she was besotted with the luxury of her new home.

  The lady of the house, Charlotte, was a great porcelain-doll beauty: fair and fragile, polite and sweet. She moved in willowy whispers of pink and blue silk. Next to her, Grace felt like a mess scraped off the bottom of someone’s shoe.

  But when the twins claimed their mother’s life, Grace took her place indecently quickly.

  Harris, lonely, full of brandy. Grace, love-struck at nineteen with no prospects of marriage. He called her beautiful and poured her a drink. Waited until the rest of the staff were asleep and led her upstairs by the hand. Oh, she kept the promise she’d made to Charlotte and looked after those babies like they were her own. But she was in her husband’s bed before the girls were crawling. Kept on as the twins’ nurse, her pay bumped up to thirty pounds a year. Enough to buy her silence.

  “We shan’t tell anyone about us, shall we,” Harris whispered, panting into her ear. And she smiling, nodding, unbuttoning. Pretending the secret was to protect the beauty of their love and not a gentleman’s reputation. She told herself she pitied him; this generous man, widowed at just twenty-five. But there was far more lust and greed than pity in her. She’d seen James Harris as her step out of poverty since the day he’d plucked her from the mop fair. As his mistress, she saw an even greater chance. Soon she’d be the one in silk dresses, drinking wine from crystal goblets. The shadow of herself stealing from the markets to survive began to fade away.

  He bought her silk petticoats that sighed when she walked. Sometimes she’d go without drawers to feel them slither against her skin. When there was no one around, he’d help her practice her letters, taught her to play “Home, Sweet Home” on the piano. She’d sit beside him on the bench, his shoulder pressing against hers. She’d play with the flattest hands you ever saw, so he’d lift them in his own and curl her fingers over the keys. He sang along in a syrupy voice, pausing patiently when she found the wrong chords.

  Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam

  Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

  Harris was a gambling man; a frequenter of the whist tables at White’s Gentleman’s Club. He prided himself on being a winner; on parading his overflowing pockets in front of his adoring mistress.

  A dispute, he said. Came home in morning sunlight with his shirt untucked and his top hat bent. One cheek was red and swollen. The girls, near on five, sat either side of Grace at the breakfast table, kneeling up in their chairs and chasing slivers of egg around their plates. Thank the Lord they barely noticed their father stumbling in like a vagrant.

  A dispute. Harris had accused the Earl of Wilton of cheating. Refused to pay the fifty pounds owed. Fist to the jaw.

  “Just pay the man, James,” said Grace. “Swallow your pride and pay him quick smart. Get him out of your life.” She’d never stood up to him before. Never argued, never questioned. But even she knew fifty pounds wasn’t worth another thrashing for a man as wealthy as James Harris.

  He flung his hat onto the table. He stank of sweat and cigar smoke. Violet cowered in her seat as he strode past.

  “It’s not about the money,” he said. “It’s the principle of the thing.” The goddamn principle of the thing.

  The next night they came to the house; the Earl of Wilton and his footmen. They pushed past Ann at the front door and charged into the parlour. Harris leapt from his armchair. Grace and the girls were reading by the fire. Nora leapt into Grace’s lap. Violet hovered at her shoulder, tugging at her shawl. The men shouted all at once, like they were ever going to come to any agreement like that.

  One of the earl’s men threw a wild punch. Harris ducked, cursed and swung at the man. He called for his valet and footmen. Grace tried to stand. Nora’s arms were clamped around her neck, Violet dangling from her back.

  “Get the girls out, for God’s sake,” hissed Harris. “Now!”

  The men stumbled towards them, all curses and wild arms. A stray fist flew into the crystal vase on the mantle above their heads. Nora shrieked and down the thing came, crashing onto her sister’s head. Grace felt the shards explode against her cheek. Blood poured from a gash on Violet’s forehead and ran into her fluttering eyes.

  Harris pulled off his cravat and pressed it to Violet’s head. “Why didn’t you get them out?” he demanded.

  Grace felt rage bubble inside her. She left the door open as the doctor stitched closed Violet’s tiny forehead. Let Harris hear his daughter scream. She flung the bloodied cravat onto his bed sheets.

  See what you have done. You and your goddamn pride.

  She saw regret behind his eyes.

  Harris was an intensely private man. He kept his emotions walled-up behind polished manners and a deep honeyed voice. After the incident with Violet, he said little, but vanished to White’s more often than before. To ease the guilt, he said, when Grace finally pried an explanation from him. To help him forget how he had failed his daughter.

  He came home at midnight and climbed up to Grace’s attic room; slid into her bed and pressed himself against her.

  He was jittery and restless. He pulled his arms around her tightly. “I don’t blame you for what happened to Violet,” he breathed. And then, for the first and only time, said: “I love you, Grace.”

  She held her breath. James Harris had been her path to security. She’d not meant to fall in love with him. And yet love had found her, with an intensity that made her ache. She’d never spoken of it, sure it would never be reciprocated. She was a product of the Stepney slums, he a handsome lawyer of the gentry. She had no right to love him, or expect love in return.

  His declaration hung in the dark. Grace was afraid to speak, as though any words from her might scare his away. Instead she pressed her lips hard against his and breathed in his heady scent of rosewater and brandy.

  She woke to an empty bed. Harris stood up from the breakfast table when she arrived downstairs clutching Nora’s hand. He looked at her with distant eyes. Eyes that knew he’d made a terrible mistake. Eyes that said: you are not their mother. You are not my wife.

  He cleared his throat. “The nursery wash-bin needs emptying, Miss Ashwell.”

  They slid back into their roles as employer and employee with alarming speed. Grace was sure she’d be out of a job soon. She starting asking around. Signed herself up for the next mop fair. Glanced at the job pages of Harris’s newspapers.

  But then he came home early one day, all serious and glowing about the eyes. He called Grace down from the nursery. She was sure he was about to let her go. Instead, he sat beside her on the sofa and took her hand. In spite of herself, she felt a fluttering in her chest.

  And how his eyes lit up when he talked about that place. His Majesty’s Australian Colonies. The land and the wheat and the opportunities, all those damn opportunities.

  “A prison colony,” Grace said, for her cousin had been sent out there for stealing a pair of shoes.

  “Not just a prison colony. Not anymore. We’ve b
een there forty years or more now. Made a real civilisation of it.” Harris filled a glass and brought it to his lips. “New land has come up for sale on the southern island. Van Diemen’s Land. They say it’s the best farming land in the colony.”

  “You don’t know nothing about farming.”

  He smiled. “My friend Richard in Sydney Town has told me all about it. He’s got himself a fine wheat crop. Thinks I could do the same. Get myself a few convicted men to do the toughest jobs. They say they’re good workers. Happy to do anything after they’ve been spared the rope. I’m sure I’ve it in me to do this. And the change will do us the world of good.”

  Grace saw he had his mind made up. Couldn’t say a thing to change it. She felt something in her throat clamp up. “I’ll miss you then,” she said.

  Harris gave a gentle laugh. He squeezed her hand. “Gracie,” he said. “I want you to come with us.”

  She lifted the glass from his hand and took a long gulp. “Bloody hell.”

  Her world went as far as the marshes in Cheshunt. A day’s walk. That day, the Earth had seemed to go on forever. Harris’s friend in Sydney Town and her thieving cousin, they’d just been shipped around the river bend, hadn’t they? It was impossible to imagine the world going further than the snaking brown mire of the Thames.

  Harris slid across the sofa so his knee pressed against hers. “It will be a great adventure. In a new world.”

  Grace managed a brandy-warmed smile.

  Harris squeezed her knee. “You know, Gracie, in Hobart Town no one will think to bat an eyelid at you and I. We’ll not have to hide any longer. Who we are, where we are from, it won’t matter. We can live as husband and wife. Be a real family.”

  That was the clincher, of course. She saw herself in silks and lacey bonnets, walking on Harris’s arm through his forest of wheat. No longer just the nurse. No longer just the mistress. The allure of it was intense. That great open land with all its opportunity.

  He leaned in and kissed her, his tongue hot with brandy. “Think on it,” he said.

  But she didn’t need to think.

  Until they left London, it was all make-believe. They’d packed up the house, said their farewells, but they’d be back soon, wouldn’t they? London was all Grace knew. How could it not be a part of her life?

  But then, there they were in the cab to the docks; all their worldly goods packed into wooden trunks. The dome of Saint Paul’s grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared into the bank of cloud. Out of the soupy sky, three skeletal masts appeared.

  Duckenfield.

  The weight of it swung at her suddenly. They weren’t just going around the river bend. Her neck prickled. She tried to gulp down more air, her lungs straining against her corset.

  Harris put a hand over hers. “A great adventure, Gracie. What we need.”

  Her heart banged against her ribs.

  Turn around. Please. I can’t do this.

  She couldn’t get the words out. What would he think of her? A coward, that’s what. No sense of adventure. No seizing the bloody opportunity. He’d probably throw open the carriage and kick her out without even bothering to slow down. And then she’d be forced to crawl back to Stepney with her tail between her legs while the loves of her life sailed off the edge of the earth. She couldn’t bear to lose them. Couldn’t bear to lose her life of pianos and red wine. Without Harris she’d be back at Leadenhall Market, pawning her petticoats and sliding stolen eggs beneath her shawl.

  And so she got on that ship. Watched everything she knew fade into a white haze. Harris stood behind her at the gunwale and said: “I’m going to marry you in Hobart Town.”

  Grace concentrated on counting her breaths to stop herself from collapsing.

  On and on Harris bleated about his great adventure between those hideous bouts of seasickness. When the ocean grew so big Grace thought it would swallow them whole.

  Harris had unrolled the world map ceremoniously across the dining table and traced a finger along their route. A stop in the Canaries, rounding the Cape, across that vast stretch of unbroken sea. Atlantic Ocean. Indian Ocean. Southern Ocean.

  Well, all those bloody oceans looked the same when you had your head between your knees coughing your kidneys into a bucket. She never imagined the world could go on so long. Never imagined they could travel so many days and nights and still have nothing around them but sea.

  For four months they lived in a cabin smaller than Grace’s attic room. Slept in bunks with raised edges that kept the sea from spitting them out in the night. They ate cabbage and pickled fish. Salted meat and suet. At night, Grace lay awake listening to the ship groan. She could hear the coughs and snores of fifty other migrants through the paper-thin bulkheads.

  She longed to walk down the Strand and hear the chimes of Saint Mary’s. Longed to sit in their parlour in Covent Garden with the girls squeezed onto her lap, books in hand. But with each watery mile, that life grew further away. The blue house drifted to the furthest edge of the world.

  A great adventure.

  She ought to have known how easy it would be for him to be rid of her. Even in an upside-down world where the land baked at Christmas, a man still wielded the power. A woman could only argue her point so many times before she found herself imprisoned.

  Grace and Violet returned tentatively to the hut. Alexander was crouched by the fire, holding two skewered slabs of meat over the coals. The rest of the carcass sat in pieces on the chopping block.

  “I’m sorry for my outburst. It’s just that… well, I’m afraid.”

  He looked up.

  “I thought it would be easier. Find the northern settlements and earn some money. Make enough to get me and the twins back to London.”

  Creases appeared in the corners of his eyes. A smile?

  “What?” she snapped. “You think I’m mad for trying to protect my girls?”

  He turned the meat.

  “Well I don’t care what you think.” She clenched her jaw. She did care. Greatly. She knew what happened when people thought you mad. “I know now it won’t be easy. I’m sure there are people looking for us. And I know what the forest is like. But somehow, I’ll get us back to England. I swear it. Just you watch.” She tilted her head and watched Alexander curiously. “You can speak, can’t you? You’s just choosing not to. Why? You afraid of what will come out if you open your mouth?”

  He lowered his eyes.

  Violet was snuffling around in the ferns beside the hut. Grace watched her pull the narrow leaves from the fern fronds and carry them in her pinny. The rag doll was stuffed beneath her arm; eye gazing at the clouds.

  “I’m making a bed for Rosie,” Violet announced. “A bed of leaves, like ours. Nice and warm cos she don’t got no coat.”

  Grace smiled.

  ‘She does not have a coat, Violet,’ she imagined Harris sighing. She liked it when a little of the east rolled off the girls’ polished West End tongues.

  She stood, feeling useless. An intruder. “Perhaps I can do something to help, Alexander? Perhaps I can cook that for you?” She leaned towards him, but he held up a dirt-streaked palm, blocking her way. “Water,” she said. “I can collect us some more water. Shall I fill the pot, then? From the river?” She snatched the heavy iron pot from beside the woodpile. Violet looked up from the ferns.

  “I’m going to the river to fetch more water, angel,” said Grace. “Do you want to come with me?” Violet’s forehead crinkled. She crammed her pinny in her mouth, the leaves scattering at her feet.

  “She’s afraid of the river,” Grace told Alexander. “She don’t like how fast the water moves. Will you watch her? Just for a moment?”

  He paused. Gave a slight nod. Violet’s eyes widened.

  “I’ll not be long, angel. I promise. You stay here.”

  Violet stared at the swarthy figure hunched over the fire. She picked up her doll and hugged it to her chest.

  When Grace returned, lugging the pot up the path, Violet was s
till watching Alexander like a hawk. She ran up the path and flung her arms around Grace’s waist, Rosie tossed face down in the dirt.

  Alexander lifted the meat off the fire and held it out to Grace.

  “You don’t got no plates?”

  He scratched his beard, his forehead creasing in thought. He laid the meat back against the coals and wandered into the bush, returning with two small sheets of bark. Grace smiled slightly.

  “There’s three of us.”

  He marched back into the forest and returned with a third, smaller piece of bark. Grace laid the meat on the three wooden plates. The largest serving for Alexander. Smallest for Violet.

  She looked up and he was watching; eyes right on her. For a second she saw behind them. Saw pity, compassion, the soul of a man. He turned away hurriedly.

  V

  Conduct Record of Convicts Arriving in Van Diemen’s Land 1804-1830

  Alexander Dalton, Caledonia 1820

  May 22nd 1821: Assault and beating his overseer in Oxley. Fifty lashes and gaol gang labour for three months and to be confined at nights.

  He followed her to the river. Several yards behind so he might stay hidden. She bent to unlace her boots, slide off her stockings. White knees, stick-thin calves.

  She began to unbutton her dress. Dalton realised he was holding his breath. There was something about the way her fingers pulled at that row of buttons down her chest that made him need to watch.

  Curiosity, that was all. Just curiosity.

  A woman’s dress was such a novelty to him. A woman’s fingers. A woman’s skin. He’d forgotten these things.

  He felt a sudden urge to touch. He tensed his fingers against the tree he was leaning on. Bark crumbled into his palm.

  She’d been here a week. No, closer to two. Had built herself a bed where he could hear her breathe in the night. She had him eating off plates and writing his name. Had left his fingers tingling where their skin had touched. Fingers he thought too hardened to feel any sensation again.