The Prisoners by Vivian Stuart

Author:Vivian Stuart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jentas Ehf
Published: 2022-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

The storeship Justinian entered the harbor on the morning of June 20. She had made a fast passage from Falmouth in just under five months, and with her arrival the immediate threat of famine receded from the colony. Those in authority were well aware that the threat could return, but the Justinian’s cargo had won them time, and the meat and flour rations were restored in full the day after she had dropped anchor in Sydney Cove.

Reverend Johnson conducted prayers of thanksgiving at a service attended by the newly landed women convicts from the Lady Juliana, and in common with the rest, Jenny joined fervently in the prayers.

She had found some changes on her return to the garden. Polly had married a pleasant young convict named John Williams who—a carpenter by trade – had built a separate hut for himself and his new wife and improved those inhabited by the other women by the addition of shingled roofs and brick chimneys. Polly was happily pregnant, and she talked optimistically of taking land at Rose Hill when her new husband should have served his seven-year sentence.

“The good Lord saw fit to send us here, against all our wishes,” she told Jenny with a smile, “and supposing there must be a purpose in it, Will and I reckon we might as well make a life here. There’ll be no going back, will there, for the likes of us?”

Eliza and Charlotte, although clinging to the hope of an eventual return to England, were also contemplating matrimony – both to seamen of the Sirius.

“Seein’ as my man’s stuck on Norfolk Island for the time being’, I’m stayin’ faithful to him,” Eliza announced philosophically, “in the belief that he’ll be back here just as soon as there’s a ship ter send for the Sirius’s people. So you can count on me an’ Charlotte, Jenny m’dear, when you start puttin’ our garden ter rights again. An’ I’ll tell you straight – you’ve not come back ‘afore time, lass. The crops have bin a real disappointment this past twelvemonth. Only the ‘baccy’s done well – an’ you can’t eat bloomin’ ‘baccy, can you?” She cast a reproachful glance at Melia, who defended herself with spirit.

“All right, so the tobacco was my idea,” she admitted. “I thought we’d be able to trade it for meat and flour. But then the commissary made that an offense, if you please! The whole crop has to be sold to the government store and there’s talk that we’ll be forbidden to grow any at all in future. Yet it’s the one thing, apart from liquor, that the men crave for!”

“Hannah used to trade it for us,” Charlotte put in. “But since she died, we’ve done ourselves no good with the stuff.”

“Did you say Hannah was dead?” Jenny exclaimed, startled by this news, yet not a little relieved to hear it.

Eliza answered, without remorse, “Yes – she died two months ago, the thieving old hag! Natural causes, Doctor Arndell reckoned ... but she drank herself to death, Jenny, if you want to know the truth.

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