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

Flynn climbed awkwardly onto a stool at the bar. “Are you a free settler, Miss Marling?” he asked suddenly.

“No, sir,” I said, cheeks colouring with shame. “I have my ticket of leave.”

His gaze didn’t falter. “I see.” He slipped a tobacco box from his pocket and filled his pipe.

“I’m seeking a wife,” he said matter-of-factly.

Short of a more astute response, I said, “Is that so?”

He used his little finger to tamp the tobacco into the pipe. “Perhaps you might consider it?”

That night, I found myself considering it.

I lay on my back, staring up at the crooked beams of the ceiling. The room was near lightless but I could hear laughter and the clop of horse hooves rising up from the street.

What would it mean for me, this elevation from concubine to wife? As I’d stood dazedly behind the bar, caught off guard by Flynn’s proposal, he had outlined his credentials while puffing on his pipe. A house overlooking the sea. Fifty acres of farmland. A small household staff and eight convict workers.

I didn’t love Arthur Flynn, of course. I barely knew the man. But who married for love in this place? Who married for love anywhere? Flynn was kind and studious, with a large property and a successful business. As a husband, he would be far more than I could ever have dared hope for when I’d been sent to the factory as one of the left-behind women.

As proud as I had been of finding work, I knew without a man beside me I had no security. No way of getting ahead in the world. Marrying was the only hope I had of a stable, protected life. It had been true in London and it was even more true here. Without a husband I had no way of getting ahead in the world, or of doing anything to help people like Lottie and Kate. Without a husband, I saw with grim certainty, I was nothing but a candle trying to outlast a gale.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

When Flynn returned to the Whaler’s Arms two days later, I pulled my hands from the wash trough, wiped them on my apron and told him I would be most happy to become his wife. He took my water-creased hand in his, planting a small kiss on my knuckles.

“I’m very glad of it, my dear. I’m certain we will have a happy life together.”

The following morning I met him outside the Whaler’s, to begin a backwards courtship. Despite the heat, Flynn was dressed in a neat black frock coat, a pale blue scarf at his throat. Beneath his top hat, his grey hair was combed neatly.

Waiting beside him was an older woman in a dark dress and mobcap. She stood with her eyes down, hands folded in front of her. I smiled to myself that Flynn had thought to bring a chaperone. I had come to believe such traditions outdated after I’d been reduced to dressing under a blanket while lying on Blackwell’s floor.

Though the woman’s face was half hidden by her cap, I recognised her at once. Ann and I had made the journey to New South Wales together, crammed into the convict’s quarters of the Norfolk. She’d been taken from the ship the day we arrived. Taken, I saw now, by Arthur Flynn.

Ann’s eyes flickered with recognition. And resentment. She bobbed her head in greeting, but didn’t say a word. I wondered if my husband-to-be knew he had walked right past me on the deck of the Norfolk and not looked twice.

Flynn smiled, broad and genuine, the creases beside his eyes deepening. “I’m very pleased to see you,” he told me. “I thought perhaps a walk this morning? There are fine views to be had from Point Maskelyne.” And off along the waterfront we went, my hand folded into my betrothed’s arm, and Ann clomping along sulkily behind us.

We followed the curve of the sea up to a small stone structure on the headland. It looked out across the glistening puzzle of coves to where the Parramatta River spilled into the open ocean.

“Here now,” said Flynn. “Dawes’ observatory.”

I peeked out from beneath my bonnet. “An observatory? How wonderful.”

I thought of the astronomy lessons I’d had as a child, in which my tutor had painted a faraway world of comets and stars and planets that circled the sun. Against the limitlessness of the universe, England didn’t feel quite so far away. I was surprised to find myself thinking such things. When I’d first climbed onto the Norfolk, New South Wales had felt more distant than the moon.

Flynn smiled as I shared my thoughts. “Well of course it feels that way,” he said, as he squinted out over the ocean. “After all, one can see the moon from the streets of London. But they cannot see New South Wales.”

I felt comfortable with the man, I realised. Certainly more comfortable than I had when I’d first been betrothed to Jonathan as a mindless scrap of twenty. Back then, I’d been terrified of putting a foot wrong. I’d answered questions the way I thought he wanted them answered, and kept the less agreeable parts of my personality well hidden. But Arthur Flynn knew I had put enough feet wrong to be thrown onto a prison ship and he still wanted me as his wife.

“Where is home?” he asked me. And, “Have you ever been betrothed before?”

I told him then, in vague, broad strokes, about my marriage to Jonathan. About my inability to provide him with an heir.

Instead of the displeasure I was expecting, Flynn ventured a small smile. “Well,” he said, with a shyness that was almost endearing, “perhaps you and I will have more luck.”

I felt emboldened enough then to ask that that had been rolling around in the back of my mind since I’d agreed to become this