3 Great Historical Novels Read online

  It was after he’d spent a few days in Colaba, the thriving colonial port of Bombay, that Michael began to reflect upon the dark underbelly of profit. It was the stinking slums behind the stately offices of the East India Company in Bombay that did it. He could not fathom how, when the merchants of Dublin and London were investing so much capital in Indian produce, the children of Bombay had rags for clothing, no food, no books nor schools and slept in the street.

  In the port taverns where the British traders took their drink, Michael learnt that the very gentlemen whose sherry and tobacco he had accompanied across the Indian Ocean, were forcing Indian farmers to grow poppies. The arable land remaining for food crops was negligible. Five thousand chests, containing one hundred and thirty pounds of resin each, left India annually for China on the ships of British merchants. This single commodity provided the commerce upon which the empire prevailed. Michael could barely fathom how many poppies were grown, how many farmers and farmers’ children it took, to accomplish this feat. All in the name of commercial expansion.

  He’d only realised the full extent of the crime when he happened upon an opium den in St Giles. That was the first time he’d seen a hollowed out man; a living carcass emptied of spirit. He’d seen many more since putting to sea with a ship load of condemned men. He’d seen truer crimes committed by wealthy industrialists than by any of the petty criminals who populated this town. The tea merchant who had sent him down was running opium from Calcutta to Canton, then collecting his China tea and shipping it to London and Dublin. It was the dogs in doublets Michael was after bringing down; that much hadn’t changed.

  The toil of a sailor had mettled his body and his nerve, but it was nothing to how the last seven years had sharpened his wits. He might be more than fifty now, but he was as able as he had ever been. His skin was browned like leather, and on the rare occasion that he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a glass, he was always a little startled by the way his face seemed etched with those years.

  In the sandy, darkening street, children played skittles with pebbles and seashells, and built fortresses from driftwood. Contrary to the mutterings he’d heard about the offspring of felons, these children weren’t as lawless as those in the slums of Dublin and London. Michael reckoned it was because their playground stretched from the golden sands to the silver-green scrub forest, where they could chase small marsupials and brilliant parakeets, and hunt for insects too large to keep in a jar.

  At its western rim, the settlement was skirted by a large saltwater lagoon which provided the natural boundary between the land that had been claimed by the city and that which was still occupied by the Altjeringa. Only children dared to cross to the other side of the lagoon and to fish for turtles with the Originals, who were magnificent hunters.

  Jarrah occasionally agreed to be a tracker for the constabulary, though an escaped convict was more often found dead than alive. His tribe, the Eora, had inhabited the coastal hunting grounds until Phillip saw fit to tenant them. Michael was not entirely alone in his empathy for the Originals; there was many an Irishman in Sydney who knew what it was like to be turfed off his land by an Englishman. He was in awe of them. Jarrah could find a trail after a sandstorm, a deluge or a brush fire. But if he himself didn’t want to be troubled by white men, he simply became invisible.

  The convicts assigned to cattle stations and who tilled the barely arable land, told stories of old men standing on one leg, still and naked as statues, for over an hour, spears poised, waiting for some creature to emerge from its hole. They shook their heads as they described young hunters, little more than babes, creeping through the dry underbrush in pursuit of a possum or reptile, moving as silently as their own shadows. Michael had not come to this land to claim it as his own, so it was clear to him that these uncanny people honoured the red earth and belonged to it in a way no Christian ever would.

  Dan, the wool draper (who had served his sentence and opted to stay), was on the footpath outside his shop. ‘Lovely evenin’, Mr Kelly.’

  ‘’Tis so, Dan. How’s the trade?’

  ‘Can’t complain. Though if I did, I’d say it’s not exactly the temperature for wool.’

  ‘Aye. You shipping it yet?’

  ‘We’ll be sending our first home-spun to Bristol come end of the month. There’s a yarn dyer up near the barracks now.’

  ‘Thought about Dublin, have you?’

  ‘Can’t say as I have, Mr Kelly, why’s that?’

  ‘Well, there’d be many a Dublin merchant happy to buy yarn or spun cloth and not give his silver to the Crown, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘I do. Well, I’ll give it some thought.’

  ‘You do that, Dan. Regards to your wife.’

  The wool draper tipped his cap and finished bolting his shutters, and Michael continued on his way to the Harp and Shamrock.

  The hot, dry breath of the day lingered, and Michael was thirsty. The seasons were topsy-turvy here, so November was a month already expectant of the scorching summer. George Street was neat and new, the sandstone, quarried from the nearby cliffs, still pale and unweathered. Here were all of the commodities of any city in the western world, yet it was so far east as to not be thought a part of that world. Few would believe that each day he passed by more banks and churches than one would find along a carriageway of equal distance in London; that he lived in an attic above a professor of the pianoforte and harp, and next door to livery stables; that there were French baskets and fancy biscuits to buy. He had not expected this of the colony. He had heard only of lawlessness and scurvy, both conditions that he had encountered before and had little regard for. To be sure, there was crime and illness here, and worse, but then, there was an underbelly to the veneer of civility and respectability of any prospering place.

  Occasionally, the children playing on George Street scattered to one side of the road to avoid a bullock dray piled high with shafts of wheat or merino fleece, or a landau containing one of the Hebrew bankers from Pitt Street.

  Or that rarity, a lady.

  Such creatures always stopped a game of skittles. The picture of white muslin and a pale straw bonnet caused most eyes to swivel, Michael’s included. The sight of a lady, even the wife of a merchant, was like a cool balm in this overheated land. She might be regarded with envy or curiosity; resentment or lechery; or simply because she was clean as new linen – a welcome tonic for eyes that, like his, looked upon men, masonry and wood shavings all day, and at night upon an inky letterpress.

  Michael walked wide of the footpath to avoid a game. Some days everything reminded him that wealthy men caused the suffering of children. The opium traders would never see the gallows nor the stinking belly of a convict transport. Michael never thought he’d clap eyes on the breed in Sydney, but there was more land here than an Irishman could dream of, and that meant merino, cedar and wheat, and trade with India and China.

  It meant silver.

  Everyone wanted silver. It was the only currency the emperor of China would take for his tea. Had it escaped the attention of the few good men in Whitehall that the West thrived on a stimulating brew that financed the East to dull its wits on opium? Perhaps Britain intended to colonise China by making its population oblivious.

  Michael sighed at his own unhappy preoccupations. Annie would have told him to find something to be pleased about and to keep his mind where his boots were. Well, right now they were on the way to the Harp and Shamrock, and that was something to be pleased about.

  Jacquard

  The upstairs parlour had the best view of St Stephen’s Green which was, this morning, clad in diaphanous fog. Serious-looking gentlemen with black coat-tails and walking canes appeared and disappeared like apparitions. They were not (not as far as Rhia could tell). These were men with earthly concerns in offices and chambers. It was the time of day when the light could be fleetingly incandescent. If she narrowed her eyes and focused her mind, a shape might just emerge from the shifting patterns amongst the trees
and the mist. She had not opened her paintbox since the fire; had not looked upon the world with an eye to light and shade; colour and shape. Her mind would not be coaxed away from its troubles.

  Ryan’s letter lay where she had dropped it on the window seat. Rhia picked it up and read it again, pacing in front of the window.

  China Wharf

  London

  7 November 1840

  My dear Brigit,

  I was grieved beyond measure by your news, and deeply regret that I cannot leave London this month. How like you to look immediately to your blessings: my brother’s life, your mother’s cottage, yours and Rhia’s skill and experience.

  I have taken the liberty of discussing your situation with a recently widowed friend. Antonia Blake is a woman of good character with considerable knowledge of the trade. She is of the abstemious Quaker faith, but you will never meet a more generous soul. Her husband Josiah, my friend and associate, died tragically early in the summer whilst in India on business.

  Mrs Blake has invited Rhia to reside with her in the City of London, a vibrant and exciting quarter of the capital. She says she would enjoy the company of another woman. It is plain that she is missing Josiah terribly. I would offer lodgings myself, but have recently given up the City address and moved into my offices at China Wharf.

  Antonia assures me that there are an abundance of positions for young ladies of good character advertised daily in the London papers. Would you consider allowing Rhia to come? A young woman as bright as she would easily find a post as a governess or companion, and I know Connor is anxious that she marry. In a modern city such as London it is still possible for a spirited twenty-eight-year-old to find an eligible husband! It is something you might consider, at any rate.

  I must continually remind myself that I will receive no shipment of linen from Dublin this autumn, but the trade is changing rapidly. The import price of American cotton has recently plummeted due to London clothiers and drapers stocking the new blended fibres. This is an exciting time and an ever-expanding enterprise. Of course, I have been trying to convince my brother for years that there is no future in hand-woven cloth.

  Connor confided the state of Mahoney Linen to me in the summer, and I had by now hoped to provide some means of rescue, but it is complicated. It is not only because I am not convinced traditional methods have any future, but because my finances are temporarily inaccessible.

  Do let me know what you decide with regard to Mrs Blake’s offer. I would love to have Rhia in London, but the decision must be made by you both.

  God bless you and may His grace be with you in your troubles.

  Ryan Mahoney

  Rhia bit her lip and glanced back to the Green. There was still no sign of her mother. What exactly was ‘the state of Mahoney Linen’ that her father had confided to his brother? It sounded ominous. Was this why her mother was being so sparing of the tallow and the gaslight, and had instructed Tilly to boil a leg of mutton clean to make another meal of it? As usual, no one had told Rhia anything.

  She folded the letter. She should not have read it. Her mother had left it on top of the dresser knowing full well that Rhia used that mirror to braid her hair, so she could hardly be blamed for her curiosity – her blessed interestedness as Hannah called it. Her father called it unbecoming. She didn’t miss his opinions on what the female mind was and was not suited to, but she missed not having his quiet proprieties running the business. Without him, nothing felt right.

  She squinted at the Green, searching for a distraction, trying not to think about Ryan’s letter. How did this house appear to those who passed by? An elegant house, built in the time of the first King George, painted white in the London fashion; the house of a successful merchant.

  Was it all a lie?

  Her mother should be back from the infirmary by now. Rhia was impatient to know how long it would be before they opened the front room for trade again. She was restless and bored and tired of not being told things. She suspected that this was no different to being a wife.

  She’d only been out on Epona to escape Hannah’s long face. She’d given up on trying to make Hannah smile after being chided for her blessed cheerfulness. The entire household was in a mood. The mare was no better. She sensed Rhia’s restlessness, which made her frisky if they left the cobbles for the fields. Rhia wasn’t in the mood for jumping stiles.

  She couldn’t decide if Ryan’s proposal made her feel anxious or excited.

  It would mean crossing the sea.

  It was all very well standing at its shore with her feet on the land. The idea that a boat was safe at sea was laughable.

  Rhia looked around the room for something to occupy her. Only the coal fire here in the parlour was lit, now that the downstairs rooms were closed to customers. The ivory-papered walls and pale rose furnishings were restful, but she had spent too much time here lately and it was beginning to feel like a cage. She had scoured her father’s bookshelves for something she hadn’t read, and had found Tilly’s secret hiding place for her penny journals. This proved to be a waste of time, since Tilly had ripped out all the most interesting pages for fear someone would find them.

  On the upside, since the fire Rhia had read the Irish Times daily without having to defend her ‘blessed interestedness’. The shipping news was still dominated by the events unfolding in the Port of Canton between the British Navy and the Chinese war junks. It was enthralling reading, though she supposed she shouldn’t feel this way about another war. She wondered what opium was like. She’d taken laudanum for a week once and it had rendered her practically senseless. Yesterday, there had been an essay on a new fad called photogenic drawing. It required the use of a light box, parchment, silver nitrate and salt. She could not imagine how on earth a portrait might be effected from such an unlikely recipe.

  Brigit Mahoney was easy to spot from a distance in her pea-green cloak. As she drew closer, a triangle of colour flashed beneath it. She was wearing purple. This was not a good sign.

  Purple was not an everyday colour for Rhia’s mother. She wore it when she needed courage, such as on the days when she took tea at the linen hall with the other Catholic merchants’ wives. Brigit was hurrying along the path that meandered through the Green. As she passed, one or two gentlemen turned to catch a second glimpse of her small, swift figure. She did not have the look of a Dublin lady. She wore plain dresses in solid colours, and although she always delighted in the season’s prints, she rarely took more than a passing interest in a fashionable sleeve or corsage. Rhia, on the other hand, took note of every new conceit.

  She still had the letter in her hand. That was foolish. By the time she had run up the stairs and replaced it on the dresser, Brigit was in the front hall. Usually, Rhia could judge immediately how the invalid fared by the depth of the creases etched between her eyebrows.

  ‘He is not improved, then?’

  Her mother brushed a loose strand of hair from Rhia’s eyes. ‘A little.’

  It wasn’t true.

  ‘The physician says he might recover more quickly were he cheerful. He frets ceaselessly that he has let us down, that he has,’ she hesitated, ‘caused the ruin of the company.’

  ‘Is the company ruined?’ Rhia could not take her eyes from her mother’s face as Brigit hung her cloak and smoothed her hair. The air turned cold, as if all the shadows in the house had gathered in the front hall to hear her answer. ‘You’re wearing purple.’ Rhia’s voice sounded accusing, even to her ears.

  ‘There are things that need doing in the front room. Will you help me?’

  The room was bathed in darkness. Brigit pulled the curtains open and let in the morning light. The long cutting table in the centre looked forlorn and the Chesterfield only reminded Rhia of the night of the fire. This room was where all of the public business of Mahoney Linen was conducted.

  She wandered to the wall opposite the door, which was lined with deep shelves, bowed under the weight of rolls and rolls of damask, jacquard, c
hintz and cambric. She ran her hands over plain and patterned linens of different ply and quality; some woven, others printed. Prints were the Mahoney mainstay and Rhia loved them all; tea party florals, Indian paisleys, modern abstracts, this riot of pattern and colour had always delighted her. She’d gazed at prints for years without realising that she was learning composition. Later, for detail, she went to Culpeper’s Herbal. She became preoccupied with the way that quality of light changed the natural world, from the silvery Greystones shale to Dublin’s flaxen autumns. She had a portmanteau full of designs for repeat patterns. It was an amusement, though. Designing textiles was not a woman’s occupation.

  Brigit was standing in the middle of the room looking at the shelves with her hands on her hips. Rhia made herself sit on the Chesterfield and fidgeted with her sleeve. She took in the lay of the room as though she had never before noticed it. Memories paraded before her. The entire front of the house always smelt of flax, and she had spent her days here for as long as she could remember. As a child she had sewn pretty scraps of cloth into miniature quilts for her dolls while her parents ran the business. Sometimes she’d sat quietly in the corner with her paintbox and tiny easel, listening to the clip of Brigit’s shears and the scratch of her father’s fountain pen. Thomas had made the paintbox and easel for her, only then he became annoyed when she started to copy from Culpeper instead of walk with him. Still, it was years before any of her botanicals were recognisable.