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

line. Told me something he shouldn’t have. “I think there’s a little bread,” he said, sliding back on his chair to search the shelf. “Would you like some?”

I pushed past his question. It was too late to pretend he hadn’t spoken. “And what’s to be done about it?” I asked.

Blackwell sighed. He met my eyes with a dark, pointed look. Yes, I understood. This conversation was never to go further than this table.

“Nothing,” he said tautly. “It’s the way things have to be. Or else more people will die.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

 

“Many of the Irish Convicts are well acquainted with the art of war, and all the secret intrigues that can work on the minds of the ignorant and unwary.”

 

Rev. Samuel Marsden

A Few Observations on the Toleration of the Catholic Religion in New South Wales

1806

 

And so it was; the way things had to be. Around the other women, I steered my conversations away from the rebels, from Castle Hill, from Blackwell. Away from anything that might disrupt the sense of solidarity I felt at the spinning wheels. I needed my friendship with Lottie. I would not let Owen take that from us. But at Blackwell’s supper table, I asked questions.

“Why is he untouchable?”

Sometimes the lieutenant kept his thoughts to himself. Other times, he seemed to want to speak.

“The government fears another uprising is imminent,” he told me one night, tossing a log onto the fire. “They fear that if the rebels see their leader strung up it will incite them to violence.”

I felt a flicker of self-satisfaction that things were as I had imagined. That I was beginning to develop an understanding of the world around me.

“And what of Maggie?” I asked, at the table with a cannikin of tea in my hand. “Does she not deserve for her killer to be punished?”

I was careful to keep my voice even, controlled. Though he had stood on Owen’s jury, Blackwell was being open with me now. Allow myself to let my anger loose and I would destroy this precious chance at knowledge.

“Yes. She does.” He jabbed the poker into the fire and made a log break noisily in the grate.

I thought of Jonathan and Henry Wilder. For all his faults, my husband deserved justice just like Maggie did. Deserved for his killer to face to the gallows. And yet I had kept silent out of fear. Let Henry Wilder walk free. I knew my guilt over doing so had fuelled my desire to see Owen punished.

“But it’s like I said,” Blackwell continued, taking the teacup I had nudged across the table, “if Owen is hanged and the rebels retaliate, far more people will die.”

It was the closest I’d come to hearing him acknowledge Owen’s guilt. I wasn’t sure if it felt like a victory or a defeat.

But I was acutely aware that he was sharing far more with me than he ought to. I knew as a factory lass I had no place knowing these things. But sometimes, with the fire burning and cups in our hands, Blackwell and I felt oddly like equals. Strange that we might seem to be standing on such even ground when we were at different ends of the scale of power. It was not just the information about Owen, but the small pieces of himself he would toss out into conversation.

I always dreamt of seeing this place.

My mother died when I was twelve.

I much prefer coffee to tea.

I feared the moment would come when he would realise he had let me too close. Allowed me to step onto ground on which a factory lass was forbidden to stand.

“And what of you?” I asked. “Owen is untouchable. Are you not afraid he’ll come after you again? With a pistol this time?”

Blackwell turned the cup around in his hands. “His immunity goes only so far.”

“So his immunity doesn’t stretch to killing an officer. But it does stretch to killing a factory lass.”

Blackwell took a sip of tea, meeting my eyes. A wordless response. But the words did not need to be said.

“If Owen dares come after me, the other officers will have him on the scaffold,” he told me. But I could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

*

After church that Sunday, I set out for the market. I lifted my face to the sky, letting the spring sun warm my cheeks. The rain had stopped for the first time in days, a dazzling blue emerging from within the clouds. The surrounding bush smelled clean and damp.

I filled my basket with meat and vegetables from the farmers’ stalls set up in the backs of wagons. As I passed the clothes stand, I stopped, my eyes falling on a swathe of violet fabric on the racks of gowns and cloaks.

That colour, I knew it well. I pushed aside the cloaks to reveal my worsted gown. There was the neat pleating at the waist, the single brass button, the delicate scoop of the neckline. Whoever had stolen it from the ship must have sold it for a few pennies.

I ran my finger over the skirts. They were as soft as I remembered, despite their months at sea and subsequent kidnapping by some nameless woman on the ship.

The stall owner caught me looking. “Yours for a crown,” she said. I felt for the coins in my pocket. I knew it was foolish to spend what little I had on something I would never even wear. I could hardly strut into the factory in a pleated gown. But I needed it back. It was my last piece of a life I thought had gone forever.

I handed the coins over before I could change my mind.

I was glad to find the hut empty. The fire was still crackling mutedly from the bread