One of Us Buried by Johanna Craven (year 2 reading books TXT) 📕

The verdict of Owen’s trial had filtered through the factory that day. His version of events, which we had for days believed nothing but a garbled lie, had become the truth; Maggie had left his hut after supper the night of her death, with too much liquor under her skin. Wandered into the bush to be set upon by natives.

And perhaps that was all the Rum Corps believed she deserved.

“You don’t know it a lie, Nell,” said Lottie.

We were out in the prison yard, eating the slivers of bread we’d brought for mealtime. Clouds hung low, threatening rain.

“Her feet were bare when I found her,” I said sharply. “Why would she have gone wandering into the bush without her boots?”

“She were a drinker,” said Lottie. “You know that. She probably weren’t thinking clearly.”

“And what about the bruises on her arms?” I asked. “She didn’t do that to herself.” I wrapped my hand around my teacup, craving its warmth. I never felt Maggie’s absence more acutely than when I was out in the jail yard with Lottie and Hannah. Without her brassy interjections, our conversations felt painfully incomplete.

“The bruises,” said Lottie with a sigh. “I told you before, they don’t prove anything.”

“I know you and Maggie weren’t the best of friends,” I said. “But—”

“That doesn’t mean I’m happy about what happened to her,” Lottie said pointedly. “It sickens me as much as it does you. But Patrick has been found innocent.”

I whacked the arm of Hannah, who was sitting on the bench beside me. “Would you make her see sense?”

Hannah jabbed the remains of her bread in Lottie’s direction. “Ain’t no making this one see sense.”

I pulled my eyes away from Lottie’s glare. I could feel our friendship beginning to strain under the weight of our disagreement. For the sake of our relationship, I knew I ought to keep my mouth shut. I had already lost one friend that month. I couldn’t bear to lose another. But nor could I not just sit back in acceptance while Patrick Owen walked free.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter who killed her, does it,” I said bitterly. “Because Maggie Abbott was nothing but a concubine.”

 “You still on about that damn muster?” Lottie asked. “It’s just Marsden’s blathering.”

“It’s not just Marsden’s blathering. Lieutenant Blackwell says the register is to be sent back to England. Imagine what they’ll think of us there.”

Hannah gave a short laugh. “Sorry to say it, Nell, but whatever it is, I’m sure they’re already thinking it.”

Two days earlier, the women in the colony had been corralled outside the church before the service. We had presented ourselves to Reverend Marsden’s secretary, and become nothing more than entries scrawled on a page. Name, age, marital status.

Widow, I’d said. But I knew when that register made its way back to England I would be listed upon it as concubine. I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. What difference did it make what men ten thousand miles away thought of us out here? But it mattered more than I wanted to admit. There was every chance the muster would be read by men who had known my father, known my husband. Men I had walked among at soirees and Christmas parties. The shame of being transported had been crushing enough. And now beside my label of convict, I would also be marked as a concubine.

I looked between Hannah and Lottie. “Doesn’t this bother you?”

“Are you truly surprised by it?” asked Lottie, her mouth still half full of bread. “People like us, we’re nothing. When are you going to realise that?”

Her words stung.

As a girl, I’d been led to believe I was a prize. Something to be awarded to the gentleman with the biggest income or the best family connections. I was preened and polished like a jewel, my dowry added to, my skills and etiquette polished until they shone.

But as we were herded back upstairs by a pimply soldier who looked half my age, I realised Lottie was right. We were nothing. Our names, our stories, our pasts; none of that was important. We were just marks on Marsden’s register.

Concubine one.

Concubine two.

Three, four, five.

We could disappear, die at the hands of another, and who was there to care? We were just hands to weave the cloth. Wombs to carry the next generation. And there would always be more of us where we had come from.

“The blacks?” I demanded when I got back to the hut that night. Blackwell was dressed in full uniform, sitting on a chair and polishing his boots. I couldn’t fathom why. They’d be caked in mud again the second he stepped outside. “You truly believe she was killed by the blacks?”

Blackwell didn’t rise to my anger. It made me even more furious. I slammed my hand hard against the table, forcing him to look up. “Blame the blacks. Because it’s easy. Isn’t that right?”

“There was not enough evidence to charge Patrick Owen,” Blackwell said, pressing the lid onto the pot of polish and setting it back on the shelf.

“Maggie was lodging with him.”

“That’s not evidence.”

I paced back and forth, hot with anger. Anger at Owen’s freedom, at Marsden’s labelling of us. At Blackwell’s calmness and his stupid need to polish his boots.

“Do you think him guilty?” I demanded.

Blackwell sighed as he stood up.

I planted my hands on my hips and glared as I waited for an answer. Somewhere inside, I suppose I knew this wasn’t his fault. At least, not entirely. But seeing him there in his lobster coat, all I could think of was the officers on the jury who had let Owen walk free. The skewed authority, the injustices. Everything that was wrong with this place. Besides, I had to take my anger out on him, because who else would listen?