Friday said, ‘No, she really has, and you’d have known it if you’d gone to see her.’

  ‘Look, I damn well tried and she refused outright. I could hardly force my way into the Barretts’ home, could I?’

  ‘Some bad things have happened, James,’ Sarah said. ‘They’ve pushed her over the edge.’

  ‘Well, of course I’ll help. But which is it? The Factory or the asylum?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘Harrie and George went missing yesterday morning. George isn’t back yet and that makes Nora think he took her out to Liverpool, not Parramatta, because Liverpool’s a longer trip. We’re waiting for him to get back.’

  James checked his watch. ‘I’ll get through my patients as quickly as possible and try to finish by two o’clock, then I’ll meet you two at the Barretts’. Can you manage that?’

  ‘Shite. I have to start work at one,’ Friday said. ‘Will you come and tell me what happens? Or send a message?’ she asked Sarah.

  ‘I’ll need to talk to Adam,’ Sarah said. Then she shook her head. ‘No, bugger it, I’ll be there, James.’

  George arrived home at half past two, tired from getting up so early and with a sore arse from sitting on the hard seat of the gig for two days straight. He was also dreading what Nora was going to say about what he’d done, but that couldn’t be helped. Once he fired Emma and got a new girl from the Factory — one who worked full time, for free, and only in the house — she’d see what a good idea it was. And he wouldn’t have to worry about Leo Dundas any more.

  As he trudged up the stairs to the parlour, he noticed the absence of noise in the house. Usually the kids were making a hell of a racket, but not today. Nora hadn’t been in her shop, either. A horrible thought occurred to him and his stomach clenched into a hard, painful ball — was she so angry at what he’d done that she’d taken the kids and gone? But she couldn’t. The kids were his — any magistrate in the colony would uphold that. He stepped onto the landing and nearly fainted with relief when he saw her sitting on the sofa.

  ‘Nora.’

  ‘Where the hell have you been? And where’s Harrie?’

  He sat down beside her. She stood up and moved away.

  ‘Where are the kids?’ he asked.

  ‘Next door. I said, where’s Harrie?’

  ‘She was sick, love. I took her to a place where they can give her the best care possible.’

  ‘Where?’

  George knew his voice sounded shaky, so he spoke louder to control it. ‘The asylum at Liverpool. The superintendent there says she has mania and melancholia. She’s really very poorly.’

  Nora’s fists clenched and her face looked drained of blood. George had never seen her so angry. ‘You fat, selfish sod,’ she hissed. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this.’

  ‘We’ll get a new girl.’

  ‘I don’t want a new girl. I want Harrie! And that’s not the point. You dumped her as though she’s a piece of rubbish, just because she’s ill!’

  ‘Everyone else does it.’

  ‘No, not everyone, George. Just mean, greedy bastards like you.’

  ‘I am not greedy. Anyway, she’s never going to get better. Anyone could see that.’

  James stepped out of the children’s bedroom. George almost shat himself.

  ‘That’s not true, Mr Barrett,’ he said. ‘With the right treatment, care and rest, Harrie could very well recover.’

  ‘Who the hell let you in here?’ George blustered, his heart pounding violently as the doctor strode across the floor and loomed over him. He’d forgotten about how keen James Downey was on Harrie.

  ‘I did,’ Nora said.

  ‘I have a proposition for you,’ James said. ‘Permit me to buy Harrie’s assignment papers from you. She will then become my responsibility.’

  George snatched with both hands at the unexpected chance to make some money. ‘Ten pounds. No, fifteen! Fifteen quid and you can have them.’

  Nora marched over to the sofa and booted him in the shin. ‘A shilling, George. We’ll transfer Harrie’s papers to Dr Downey for one shilling.’

  ‘One piddling bob! What if I refuse?’

  ‘Then I’ll leave you.’

  ‘Not with my kids, you won’t,’ George said, defiantly staring up into Nora’s face. Noting her expression, however, he immediately regretted his comment.

  ‘Then I’ll have more. With another man,’ Nora replied, her voice as cold as a snowy January day in London.

  Oh God, George thought, his heart racing now and his palms suddenly sweaty. She meant Dundas. He knew it. He dug Harrie’s assignment papers out of his satchel and handed them to her. She fetched a nib and ink and signed them, then he did, followed by the doctor; the shilling was handed over, and Harrie was in effect assigned to James Downey.

  ‘One more thing,’ James said.

  ‘What?’ George muttered.

  James punched him full in the face, knocking him backwards onto the sofa, which he slid off like a half-empty sack of spuds until he came to rest on the floor, blood trickling from his nose.

  ‘You deserved that,’ Nora said.

  Sarah, who’d been sitting on the Barretts’ stairs, her ears flapping madly, sprang to her feet when James came pounding down.

  ‘Jesus, did you hit him?’

  Wincing, James flapped a set of grazed knuckles at her. Sarah’s opinion of him rose even further.

  ‘Did you hear all that?’ he asked.

  ‘Some of it. Not the beginning.’

  James opened the back door. ‘Would she really have left him?’

  ‘Not sure but I doubt it. She’d never leave her kids. What are you doing now?’

  ‘Riding out to Liverpool.’ James looked at the sky.

  ‘Will you make it before dark?’

  ‘I can find somewhere to sleep if necessary.’

  ‘You will bring her back, won’t you?’

  ‘I won’t be leaving without her.’

  On the street they parted ways — James to fetch his horse from the stables, Sarah to tell Friday what had happened. She hurried down Gloucester Street, ducked down a lane into Harrington then turned into Argyle, almost running by the time she reached Mrs Hislop’s front door. She banged the knocker hard until Mrs Hislop answered, looking faintly irritated.

  ‘I need to talk to Friday. It’s urgent.’

  ‘Hello, Sarah. I’m afraid she’s upstairs with a customer.’

  ‘Five minutes? Please? It’s about Harrie.’

  ‘Well, come in. I’ll just check in the book to see how long she’ll be.’

  As Elizabeth disappeared into her office, Sarah darted silently past the door and up the stairs. Opening the first door she came to, she apologised and shut it again, quickly. The second room was empty, but she found who she wanted in the third.

  Completely naked and with her hair tumbling down her back, Friday was sitting astride a reclining pale, trim and equally naked man.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she said as Sarah stepped in and closed the door.

  ‘He’s back,’ Sarah said. ‘He did take her to Liverpool.’

  Friday’s lip curled. ‘God, what an arsehole.’

  ‘I know. But James bought her assignment papers off him, for a shilling. And then he punched the shit out of him.’

  ‘James did? Bloody hell.’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ the customer said.

  Friday patted his chest. ‘Sorry, Ralph. Won’t be a minute.’

  ‘He’s on his way out to Liverpool now, to bring her back.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that,’ Friday said.

  ‘Well, that’s it,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m off back to work.’

  Ralph Kidd looked up at her with bright blue eyes and asked lazily, ‘Why don’t you stay and join us?’

  Sarah glared at him. ‘You couldn’t afford me,’ she said, and opened the door and stalked out.

  Ralph grunted. ‘Which one of your fascinating friends was that?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  James rode all that afternoon and as far into the night as he could before he feared that both he and his horse might collapse with exhaustion. When he came to a tavern — particularly unwholesome, as it turned out, but choices were few on the road south-west — he overpaid for a stable for his mount and a flea-ridden mattress for himself. While scratching at large red welts all over his body the next morning, he reflected he might have done better to sleep in the hay with his horse. He declined the tavern keeper’s offer of an overpriced breakfast of ale, bread and a lump of cheese resembling an old piece of dried-out soap, and rode on until he found an establishment advertising better fare for a much lower fee. He rode for miles and miles, sometimes not seeing another soul, until he finally reached Liverpool at eleven o’clock in the morning.

  He wondered if it might be quicker to take a boat back to Sydney along the Georges River, and if so, whether any vessel could accommodate his horse. Then again, any such journey would terminate at Botany Bay, the mouth of the Georges River, which would mean a further trip overland to Sydney Town, or by sea around to Port Jackson and Sydney Cove, which may in fact be too physically and mentally demanding for Harrie.

  He rode in through the gates of the Liverpool lunatic asylum, and around to the rear of the building to find someone to take care of his horse. That achieved, he returned to the front door, knocked and was greeted by a porter in civilian clothing — a convict, he assumed. He was aware that almost all the staff at the asylum were unpaid bonded convicts with no training relevant to their positions, except for the superintendent, Thomas Plunkett, who had previously superintended the men’s convict barracks at Parramatta, and the doctor, Edwin Ashton, and one other official whose name he didn’t know.

  As Harrie was a convict herself, the New South Wales government was obliged to pay for her care in the asylum — if she was staying, but she would not be staying. The government also paid the fees of free paupers. Any free settlers with means unfortunate enough to find themselves in the asylum paid seven shillings per day, or their guarantors did. The asylum had moved from Castle Hill north of Parramatta several years earlier, as the premises there had apparently been entirely unsuitable — decaying, overcrowded, and too far from Sydney for regular inspection. Of course, Liverpool was even more distant from Sydney, and James had been told that the old, abandoned courthouse was hardly in better condition than the farm buildings had been at Castle Hill.

  While he waited for Dr Ashton, he inspected the ceiling of the foyer, which appeared to have been given a rudimentary sweep with a brush followed by a quick coat of white paint, entombing flies or some other insect in the emulsion. Someone in the building was shouting, and someone else was weeping rather manically. He knew that the treatment of the insane had improved markedly over the past forty years, particularly in the context of the asylum, thanks to the implementation of an enlightened theory of ethical and humane management. But the success of most public health treatment regimes depended on the money spent to support them, and the welfare of mental patients, in his admittedly limited experience, had never been at the top of any government’s priority list. He’d been to Bethlem at Southwark in London several times to visit a mentally deranged aunt of his deceased wife, Emily, and had been appalled at the conditions in which the poor woman had been living — and Bethlem was supposed then to have been operating according to a philosophy of moral treatment. He couldn’t see that this asylum would be any better, and had, in fact, heard that it most definitely wasn’t.

  He stood as a man strode towards him. ‘Dr Downey? Good morning. I’m Dr Edwin Ashton. How do you do?’

  James shook his hand. ‘James Downey. I’m here concerning a patient admitted the day before yesterday, a Miss Harriet Clarke?’

  ‘Yes. Property of …’ Dr Ashton consulted a sheet of paper. ‘A Mr George Barrett. He brought her in.’

  ‘Actually, no. She’s assigned to me now.’

  Dr Ashton’s scruffy eyebrows went up. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Do you have the papers with you? One must apply a certain level of rigor to these things.’

  ‘Yes. One must.’ James handed over Harrie’s assignment papers. It was obvious that Edwin Ashton was bursting to ask why he’d taken on responsibility for a mentally ill convict girl, but was far too polite.

  ‘Well, that all seems to be in order.’ Dr Ashton returned the documents. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I take it you’ve made a diagnosis regarding Miss Clarke’s condition?’

  ‘Saw her yesterday.’

  ‘And what conclusions have you drawn?’

  ‘Unfortunately, Mr Barrett provided little information regarding the patient. In fact, he was rather keen to leave the premises as quickly as possible. But I gather there was quite an unpleasant scene at the time. I had, therefore, to make the diagnosis without much of a history. I take it you know Miss Clarke?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘How long has she been unwell?’

  ‘I’d say probably up to a year,’ James said. ‘Initially not as unwell as she is now, of course. I believe the illness has progressed exponentially over a matter of five or six months.’

  Though Harrie must be in a dreadful state for Barrett to have dumped her here, he thought. Sarah had filled him in on the events concerning the death of Harrie’s mother, and Janie and Rosie Braine, and the transfer of Charlotte to the orphanage. Any one of those would have upset Harrie dreadfully, but all together, no wonder she’d lost her mind.

  ‘Are you familiar with nervous disorders and maladies of the mind, Dr Downey?’

  ‘Not intimately. It isn’t my field. I’m a general physician, although I was a naval surgeon.’

  ‘But you have some knowledge?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Are you aware of any tragedies that may have befallen Miss Clarke?’

  God, James thought, where do I start? ‘She has lately suffered several bereavements, including that of her mother. Also, a small child she adores has recently been sent to the Female Orphan School, and she is constantly worried about her younger siblings left alone in London.’

  ‘And was she perfectly healthy before the onset of the disorder? She didn’t suffer any accidents involving the head? Illnesses?’

  James thought back to the way Harrie had once been — capable, calm, loyal, cheerful, and soft and rounded like a little robin — and almost burst into tears. ‘No, no accidents, no illnesses. She was a normal happy young woman. Well, as happy as possible, given she’d recently been transported.’

  ‘So no evidence of organic cause. Good. Thank you. The history complements my diagnosis admirably.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘At first I assumed hysteria, which is, as I’m sure you know, the nervous disorder to which females are most prone. However, after examination I decided on severe melancholia, likely to be the result of prolonged exposure to calamitous or mournful circumstances, interspersed with episodes of periodical but acute mania. Though I was also considering, possibly, romantic disappointment as a cause for the melancholia. Has she been disappointed in love?’

  ‘Er, I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘You should read Dr Alexander Morison’s Outlines of Lectures on Mental Diseases. Consultant at Bethlem, talks about hysteria, melancholia and romantic disappointment. Very informative. Miss Clarke hears voices, did you know that?’

  ‘Multiple voices? Not just one?’ James was thinking of Harrie’s belief that she could talk to Rachel’s ‘ghost’.

  ‘Well, it’s difficult to get much out of her at the moment, as she’s barely communicative —’

  ‘Is she not talking at all?’ Oh, bloody hell, James thought. Why had he not insisted on seeing her? How could he have let her down so badly?

  ‘The odd word, perhaps. But from observation I gather she hears endless chattering in her head. Sometimes, however, it appears to be just one person. On occasion she says the name Rachel out loud, as if in conversation.’

  So she hadn’t gone away. ‘And your prognosis?’

  ‘On admittance she lapsed into an episode of really rather violent mania and had to be fitted with a restraint.’

  ‘Good God, a straitjacket?’ James was horrified.

  ‘Only until she settled, which she did after a liberal measure of laudanum. She spent the night comfortably, though she refused food this morning.’

  ‘Your prognosis, man,’ James said more tersely than he’d meant to. ‘Will she recover or not?’

  ‘Oh, I think so. In time, though possibly quite some considerable time. Patients with reactive nervous disorders, as opposed to organic, often do recover. We have a very comprehensive and moral treatment plan here. We follow, more or less, the regime of Philippe Pinel. Have you read his book, Treatise on Insanity? Most enlightening. We provide nourishing food and good, sound laudanum-assisted sleep at night, we insist our patients partake in chores, crafts and daily walks — those who are capable, of course — and we take considerable care to separate our less acute patients from our idiots, syphilitics and those with criminal tendencies.’

  ‘Are you saying, then, that what Miss Clarke needs is good food, plenty of sleep, rest and something to occupy her?’

  ‘Essentially, yes.’

  ‘I can provide that,’ James said. ‘Please arrange for her release. I’ll be taking Miss Clarke home today. Now, in fact.’

  ‘Oh. Well. Do you not even want to see her first? You might be inclined to change your mind.’

  ‘I won’t,’ James replied quickly, suddenly alarmed that for some reason he might be prevented from taking Harrie home. That wouldn’t be the case, of course — Dr Ashton worked for the New South Wales government, which surely would rather not pay for Harrie’s care — but still, the idea filled him with a panicky terror. Ashton seemed competent enough, but he’d put Harrie in a damned straitjacket!

  ‘That’s entirely your prerogative, of course, as her master,’ Dr Ashton said. ‘Mr Plunkett, the superintendent, will have to sign her release papers, but I’m willing to transfer her medical care to you.’