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

have any idea? How could you have any idea what it’s like to struggle and fight and not know where your next meal is coming from?”

I sat back on the log and began to trace a stick through the dirt. I’d not spoken a word to Lottie about my privileged upbringing – I’d not spoken a word about it to anyone. But I was beginning to see it was not a thing I could easily hide.

“You think I don’t know, Nell?” Lottie pushed. “You think I can’t hear it in the way you speak? And the way you bleat on about Marsden’s register as though once you were actually worth something?”

I didn’t reply. I felt chastened; an intruder in someone else’s world.

“Why a toff like you was caught thieving I’ll never know,” said Lottie. Her tone suggested she was not interested in my answer.

I’d not been transported for thieving, as I’d told Lottie I had. I’d not needed coin, or food to fill my empty belly. But I’d craved security, nonetheless. Needed someone to show me how to live my own life. And so, when my husband had held out his hand and told me to follow him down the wrong path, I had done it without question.

I took the bottle from Lottie and gulped down a mouthful, coughing as the rum seared my throat.

Look at us!, I wanted to scream. Here we were side by side in matching slops, matching blisters on our fingers, the same rum bottle passed back and forth between our hands.

But I knew all the blisters in the world would not make me understand what it was like to grow up with nothing. I had no thought of what it was to struggle and fight because I’d never had to do it before.

Lottie stood suddenly, and made her way towards Owen and the other men. I rested my aching head against my arms, letting the drunken conversations wash over me.

I found myself longing for London; for the glittering, diamond and ruby world I had once known.

There was nothing for me to return to in England, of course. My husband and father were dead, and I would never be welcomed back into my old circles after leaving this place on a prison ship. But I ached nonetheless for the cluttered grey skyline, the constant rattle of hooves and wheels, for the twists and turns of the river. Ached for a world I would never see again. Most of all, I wished for my own ignorance, for my ability to turn a blind eye. I wished for the naïve fool I had been when I had married Jonathan Marling.

I gulped down the rum, seeking drunkenness, seeking foolishness. I wanted my thoughts to still; wanted them to stop churning over Owen’s exoneration and Maggie’s blank eyes. But for better or for worse, I didn’t know how to live in ignorance anymore.

My thoughts did not still. Instead, they crystallised. I wanted to speak to Reverend Marsden. Wanted that conversation I had been denied when he’d sent me on my way after seeing me at the courthouse in my bloodstained convict slops. At the back of my mind, I knew nothing I said would make a difference – Owen was free, Maggie was dead, and the female register was on its way across the seas. But just for a moment, I wanted to be seen. To be heard. To be more than an insignificant concubine. I would tell the reverend of the bruises on Maggie’s arms. Tell him of the way she spent her nights by the river to escape Owen’s fists. Pander to Marsden’s hatred of the croppies and make him see that Patrick Owen deserved to be hanged.

Rum churning through my blood, I stood dizzily and strode towards the vast expanse of Marsden’s land on the north-eastern edge of the settlement. I pressed my shoulders back and lifted my chin. I was a well-spoken woman from Clerkenwell who deserved to be taken seriously. Tonight I would make sure Reverend Marsden saw that.

As I approached the gates, a soldier came out of the blackness. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I lifted my chin. “I wish to speak with Reverend Marsden,” I said, trying my best to sound like an educated lady and not a lag filled up with rum. I wished I were wearing my worsted gown.

“Reverend Marsden don’t have nothing to do with your kind,” he said on a chuckle.

His dismissiveness made anger burn inside me. More than that, I hated that one look at me had told him I was a government woman. It was far too dark to see the tell-tale blue stripes on my skirts. What was it about me that told him I was not just the wife of a settler? Perhaps it was that bitterness in my words, or the fire in my eyes. Perhaps Hannah had been right when she’d claimed I couldn’t blend into a place if I tried.

“It’s very important,” I said, continuing my march towards the house. It had never felt more pressing that I be permitted that conversation.

He grabbed my arm, fingers digging in hard. “Did you not hear me? The reverend don’t have nothing to do with the factory whores.”

Sudden anger tore through me. Before I knew what I was doing, I was swinging my arm, striking his nose and making blood spurt down the front of his coat. I stared open-mouthed, unable to believe I’d done such a thing. In a second he was on top of me, pinning me to the ground and wrenching my arms behind my back. Pain lanced through my shoulders. I felt hot drops of his blood against my ear. A shout into the night and two more soldiers came running. They yanked me to my feet, delivering me to the factory and the waiting hands of the superintendent.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN