The Convict's Daughter by Kiera Lindsey

Author:Kiera Lindsey [Lindsey, Kiera]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2016-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

On a crisp morning on the first day of 1849, the air was full of magpie warble as James Butler Kinchela stepped through the front gate of Parramatta Gaol and into the waiting world. He was dressed in the fine winter suit he had been wearing when he attended the trial, although it now hung loose about him thanks to months of prison slops. He had hardly adjusted to the bright morning light when he noticed Somerville’s coach sitting squat and familiar on the dusty track, right in front of him. The old driver was up in the top seat, swatting flies with his crop and looking as portly as ever. Kinchela greeted him with such genuine heartiness that the old man could not stop nodding with the awkward pleasure of it. ‘Come now, sir,’ Somerville eventually insisted, ‘or we’ll never get you to the Adelphi.’ And with that, Prisoner 486 opened the door of the carriage and hauled himself into the familiar cabin where he began to reacquaint himself with his snuffbox.

A few hours later he was comfortably ensconced in his old room at the Adelphi, looking out the window and getting a feeling for the mood in the town. Kinchela was keen for a bit of life. He had missed a drink, there was no doubt about it, but he also saw the sense in keeping a bit of a lid on it for a while. He knew that John was up in the Orange district and that this would allow him a few days before he had to head out to his mother’s in Liverpool, where John resided when he was in town. Before then, however, Kinchela would have a few days to ease himself back into the world and see what was what.

The town was thrumming with New Year festivities and Kinchela had a feeling there was fun to be had. The races, he thought. There would be a few good horses out at Shaw’s and there was no reason why he couldn’t clean himself up and make a day of it. He thought of sending a note to Mary Ann informing her of the governor’s benevolence and asking if there might be some way for them to meet in the next week or so, but then he recalled his conversations with John. He was, in truth, a little torn. What could he say to her?, he wondered, particularly now he could no longer ignore his brother’s strident opposition. He would think on it a while longer, he decided, before dashing off a quick note to Somerville requesting that he call by his mother’s Liverpool property and collect a summer jacket as well as a few clean shirts for the races.

Next Kinchela busied himself with a number of man-about-town errands. He couldn’t believe a shave at the barbers could yield so much satisfaction, he told the man at the Market Street store as he flipped him an extra coin in thanks. Everyday liberties, he thought happily, as he made his way back to the hotel.

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