Toward the Sea of Freedom Read online

  Kathleen was not afraid of her wedding night with Ian. Though she had qualms regarding her new husband, his body did not disgust her, and her memories of making love with Michael were all good ones. She had hoped Ian might spare her for a bit; it seemed the baby in her belly would be an obstacle. Ian, however, would not be deterred. He took possession of his young wife that very first night.

  Of course he would not have phrased it so, but for Kathleen that was what it felt like. The deal was made, hands were shaken, and now the horse could be ridden. Ian performed this last act with little sense of tenderness. He dispensed with any caressing and pushed very quickly into her. When Kathleen groaned in pain and surprise, he yelled at her. “What’s this? Surely you’re not going to pretend you’re a virgin.”

  At that, Kathleen held her tongue and lay still until it was over. She hoped he had not harmed the baby, but she did not worry too much. In the tenants’ tiny cottages, children knew when their parents had sex, however much they tried to suppress every noise. Kathleen’s father had always insisted on his rights until nearly the very end of her mother’s pregnancies. Erin O’Donnell had accepted it; now, Kathleen accepted it—and she had the feeling of finally avoiding a sin.

  She would never be able to think of Michael while Ian lay with her.

  Goodness

  London, England

  Van Diemen’s Land, Australia

  Port Cooper, New Zealand

  1847–1850

  Chapter 1

  Lizzie Owens would have liked to have been a good girl. She even half knew how to go about it; the pastor in the orphanage had talked about it endlessly, after all. Good girls did not steal and did not tell lies, and they did not give themselves to men for money. That was why everyone treasured them, God was pleased by them, and they went to heaven when they died.

  Lizzie’s dilemma was that she was only just seventeen years old and did not want admission into heaven so soon. Refraining from all the forbidden things would have brought a quick death from hunger, and it would have taken her dear friend Hannah and Hannah’s children, Toby and Laura, with her. Try as she might, she simply could not avoid stealing, lying, and whoring, and so she would end up in hell.

  On this day, she woke hungry as ever. Even worse, it was cold. She removed the thin blanket and pushed the children carefully aside. Toby and Laura had liked to sleep snuggled against Lizzie ever since Hannah had brought her sweetheart, Lucius, into their wooden shed in Whitechapel. As if that drafty spot in the recess between two stone buildings, which barely protected them from the rain, was not already too small for four people.

  Lizzie hated having to duck behind a threadbare curtain with her customers when the children were nearby. Still, she managed to grit her teeth and keep quiet while the men used her. Hannah could not be quiet, however, which was why Lizzie always tried to go out with the children. Or sometimes she would sing to them, but then the men cursed and complained.

  Now it did not matter, because Hannah had Lucius and the children knew what the two of them were doing in the second bed near the door.

  “But it’s gaining them a father,” Hannah had said, quite matter-of-factly. “Lucius will make money and protect us.”

  Yet Lucius was usually too drunk by midday to stand upright. He could not have protected himself, let alone anyone else. He wasn’t in any danger, though, since there was nothing to take from him. Just yesterday, Hannah and Lucius had fought about how he did not work.

  Lizzie looked over at the dirty mattress that Hannah and Lucius shared. She had expected to find them in a close embrace, but, to her disbelief, only Hannah was there. Lizzie had not imagined all that noise early that morning. Lucius must have actually gotten up to go to work.

  It was not that hard to earn something, in truth. The ships from or bound for overseas had to be loaded and unloaded, and day laborers were hired for that. But you had to be at the harbor by daybreak—and good-for-nothings like Lucius didn’t manage that often.

  Lizzie threw on her shawl and went to the stove. She sighed with relief when she found embers still burning. Two logs were there as well; they would provide a little warmth until the children woke and the sun was higher in the sky.

  Lizzie stretched. Not a bad day at all. It was not raining; the buckets they placed under holes in the ceiling were empty. She knew a piece of bread had even been left over the night before. She’d save most of it for the children, but a bite or two would fortify her, and then she would walk down to the harbor.

  It was likely that ships had landed overnight—and those ships would be full of sailors hungry for a woman’s body. Hannah—who liked to sleep late—did not believe her, but Lizzie often found the best customers in the morning, and she rarely had to bring them home. Before the sun rose, the hourly hotels rented their rooms cheaply.

  Lizzie looked for the bread, but without luck. That damned Lucius. He’d taken the last crumb of bread away from the half-starved children.

  Her first impulse was to wake Hannah and make harsh accusations, but she could imagine how her friend would defend Lucius: “Is he supposed to go off to find work on an empty stomach?”

  There was no talking to Hannah these days. Her love for Lucius had robbed her of reason. Lizzie doubted the rat would even bring a penny home. If Hannah and Lizzie were lucky, he would share his last bottle of gin with them. He never thought of the children.

  Lizzie had to change her plans. She was plenty familiar with how to pick up men, and making her smile charming, so she would look beautiful to them, required little energy. But the men did not like it when her stomach growled while they exerted themselves on top of her. She had to eat something, even just a bit of bread.

  Lizzie went over to the washbasin and thanked the heavens when she found that Lucius hadn’t used the water she had hauled in the day before. She splashed the cold water on her face, shivered, rubbed herself dry, and brushed her hair.

  She always tried to look neat when she left the house, and during the day she refrained from the garish cosmetics of her trade. That did her no harm either. Some of the boys liked going off with a girl who looked as young and honest as she did. As she put on her dress and hat, she occasionally looked in the sliver of mirror little Toby had found in the trash somewhere and given her as a present.

  Toby had just turned five, but he already knew what was valuable. When they let him crawl around in the trash cans of the rich, he found glass and scrap metal they could sell and so contributed more to supporting the family than Lucius did. Hannah knew this and often would simply send him out alone to go looking—another thing for which Lizzie reprimanded her. The boy was still too small to fight off the other street urchins. And what was worse, he could be kidnapped by the gangs of men in London who forced small children to pickpocket and beg.

  She set in place the handsome little hat she had bought last year at the charity clothing market. Really, she had not been able to afford it, but the vendor woman had fallen for her smile and given it to her for a pittance. Lizzie practiced her smile in front of the mirror. But without breakfast or someone across from her, it did not work.

  She wished she could be as beautiful as Hannah had been before she had two children and then gave herself to gin and men like Lucius. Hannah was curvy, pale, and blessed with an abundance of red hair. Her eyes shone blue, and she had thick eyelashes—she was the kind of woman men could hardly resist.

  Lizzie, in contrast, was petite, her body scrawny like a boy’s. She had small breasts and doubted, since she was already seventeen, that these would grow any fuller. Her face was round, though her cheeks were sunken and pale. The proportions of Lizzie’s nose suited her face, at least when people saw her from the front. From the side, it seemed a little too long, mischievous but not coy. Her hair was somewhat wiry and a boring dark blonde, her eyelashes and brows were so light-colored and sparse that they were hardly noticeable if Lizzie did not emphasize them with charcoal, and her eyes were a common blue.

  Lizzie
was not a girl you noticed at first glance, but she possessed a peculiar talent that helped her survive nonetheless. She had the ability to make the sun go up with a smile. Sometimes the air around her seemed to vibrate when she smiled. A radiance emanated from her eyes that people simply had to return—whether man, woman, or child. Their hearts seemed to warm; they talked to Lizzie and joked with her. Merchants sold things to her for less or gave them to her outright.

  Lizzie’s smile could open doors otherwise closed to girls like her. Some mean, brutish customers stopped and approached her with respect and care when she offered them a smile. And misers thought twice about running out without paying Lizzie as they often did with other whores. Sometimes the men would take her to a cookshop after her work was done to buy her a pie and gin—just to see a grateful smile.

  Unfortunately, she had not possessed this talent for bewitching people when she was a child. Lizzie often dreamed of how differently her life could have gone if she had been an adorable, irresistible little thing. If she could have beguiled the people in the orphanage with a smile, perhaps parents could have been found for her.

  Little Lizzie—found on a street in the East End where she clung, howling, sniffling, and crying, to the legs of passersby—was a scrawny, recalcitrant child no one wanted. She did not discover her smile until later, at thirteen or fourteen, once she was already back on the street.

  She used to dig discarded clothing out of the trash in order to sell it, and she remembered how once she had gone into a sweetshop with her hard-earned pence. She should have bought bread, but she couldn’t resist sugary treats. In sheer happiness at the sight of all the wonders in the glass cases and dishes, she had smiled at the seller—and had promptly gone out with a whole bag of sweets. They were broken candy canes and stuck-together bonbons—nothing the man could sell. But he did not have to give them to Lizzie.

  “Here,” he had said, with a smile to match hers. “Sweets for a sweetheart.”

  Lizzie lowered the mirror and went on her way. Now, where could she scrounge something to eat? She considered first going to the pier and trying to pick someone up, but just the thought turned her stomach. What was more, the scents from the bakery a few streets over had her spellbound.

  She could do nothing else; she had to follow the scent of fresh bread. It would have been much smarter to go begging at the back door. The baker’s wife might have had some leftover bread, and perhaps she had woken up on the right side of the bed. It happened; now and again, she had given Hannah some leftovers when Toby and Laura had looked too hungry. But something had gotten into Lizzie. She entered the shop through the front door.

  The baker was standing there, which was good. Men often fell for Lizzie’s charms, whether her smile worked or not. In front of her, another customer was buying two rolls. Lizzie waited until the baker had helped him. Then she smiled, greeting him politely. However, she noticed that her magic was not working that morning. She could manage a pleasant smile, but nothing more.

  Nevertheless, the baker responded amicably. “Well, my lovely girl, what can I do for you?”

  What could he do for her? Lizzie let her starving gaze pass over all the baked goods on the shelf. “A loaf of bread,” she said longingly, “and two sweet rolls for the children, and some croissants.”

  Lizzie was not serious; she simply whispered the objects of her longing. It was so warm in there, so wonderful. She was surprised when the baker handed a bag across the counter.

  “There, that’ll be three pence.”

  Lizzie took the bag. “I,” she whispered, “I don’t have any money right now. Is it possible for me to come by later with it?”

  “You don’t have any money?” The baker’s previously friendly demeanor darkened. “Dear, you don’t have any money, and I don’t have anything to give away. So what are you doing here? Give me back that bag and get out of here. Pay later? I can just mark that down as a loss.”

  The bag in her hand was real. And the counter was high. The man could not leap over it. What madness was this?

  Lizzie pressed the bread and pastries to her chest. “I’m, I’m sorry,” she stammered. “But I’ll come back with the money.” Then she ran out of the store.

  The baker yelled “Thief!” after her.

  She ran down the street as fast as her feet would carry her. Not toward her shed, since they could find her there, but to the market. Surely it was already bustling; she could disappear in the crowd and then return home the long way to give the children something to eat.

  Lizzie was afraid, but she also felt a prickling of power. She would never have thought herself capable of such a brazen theft. Yet it seemed to be going well. The baker would not catch up to her quickly, and the few passersby at that early hour seemed too tired to chase her.

  Then suddenly, a hugely fat police officer stood in front of her like a wall. She had never before seen the police in this quarter of London. An unlucky coincidence.

  “Well, aren’t we in a hurry, lovely.” The officer held her with one hand. “I’ll bet your husband’s waiting for his breakfast?”

  Lizzie tried to smile. “My children, sir, I, I, they should have something in their stomachs before they go to school.”

  “I see, I see. You’ve already got children who go to school. Good, very good. And your husband makes plenty of money—and the call from over there is for a whole different thief.” The officer pointed toward the bakery, where the baker was still yelling.

  The baker’s wife ran down the street to Lizzie and the officer. “That’s her! I’m sure of it; that’s her!” she yelled. “Bring the little thief back so my husband can look at her. Everything should be done proper. But I know her. Walks around here haughty as can be. How could my husband have ever been fooled? You’d think her a proper girl, but really she whores herself. Everybody knows that. A pretty face, and the fellows get weak. Don’t let the beastie go, officer. She’ll just run away.”

  Lizzie made no move to run. It would have been senseless anyway. The officer was much stronger. If anything could help her in this unfortunate moment, it was begging and pleading.

  “Sir, hear me out, please!” The baker seemed inclined to listen to her. “I was in a daze; I did not mean to order anything I can’t pay for. I meant to ask from the start if you would put it on a bill. But the children, sir, if you let them lock me up, then they’ll get nothing to eat. And I would have brought you the money, without fail. I’m not, not some . . . I’m honest, I . . .”

  The baker’s wife answered Lizzie’s words with a mocking laugh.

  The baker breathed out sharply. “So, hungry children, is it? And a loaf of bread wouldn’t have been enough? You had to take some pastries?”

  Lizzie bit her lip. “I didn’t want . . .”

  “Do you want to report the theft or not?” the officer asked.

  The baker’s wife ripped the bag from Lizzie’s hand. “Of course we do. It just gets better and better! Look at these rolls and croissants. All smashed; we can’t even sell them now. And more than that, she’s a whore; I’m telling you, officer. Just ask around.”

  Lizzie turned one last time to the baker. “Please.”

  But he knew no mercy either. He shook his head. “Take her away,” he said to the officer.

  “Get that dumb thing out of his sight before he gets weak again,” his wife said.

  Lizzie closed her eyes. Now all she could hope for was a merciful judge. And for Hannah. She would at least confirm Lizzie’s story about the children.

  Newgate Prison was filthy and crowded. Lizzie felt she could hardly breathe when they pushed her into a long room lit only by a small barred window high up on the wall. At least fifteen other women were in the room, and for all of them together there was only one toilet in the corner, which stank abominably. For furniture there was only a bench, and two powerful women occupied it. Some women leaned against the walls; others sat on the dirty straw-covered ground. Lizzie stood at the door and lowered her gaze. In the
straw were fleas; she was sure of it. She hated fleas.

  A nagging voice suddenly called out: “I must be mad. Lizzie Owens, who always thought ’erself better.”

  Lizzie looked up.

  Candy Williams, a prostitute from her neighborhood, smirked at her. “What did you do?”

  “Got caught stealing bread,” Lizzie said. Why deny it? Besides, Candy was not mean. She was simply teasing Lizzie.

  A few women laughed.

  “What a dumb little girl,” one of the women on the bench said. “If you’re going to steal, it ’as to be worth it. Look, that girl there.” She nodded her head toward a beautiful dark-haired girl staring, unresponsive, at nothing. “She pinched a gold watch. Would ’ave gone fine, but the fence snitched.”

  “My man will come get me,” whispered the girl.

  More of the women snickered.

  “That fine knight of yours probably got you into this mess,” said the fat woman on the bench. “Didn’t ’e make a deal with the fence? Couldn’t ’e have taken the blame? Nah, girl, ’e’s washed his ’ands of you.”

  “What happens to someone who steals bread?” Lizzie asked quietly.

  The fat woman grinned. “The same thing that ’appens when you steal a watch. Theft is theft. Depends on your lawyer too. If ’e lets your kids in the court, and they ’owl a bit—”

  “She doesn’t ’ave any children,” Candy said.

  The fat woman furrowed her brow. “No? Didn’t I see you on the street with two brats? I’d wanted to talk to you about my cathouse. You’ve got something about you. But I don’t take anyone with brats; that’s only trouble.”