Convict Queen

By Marina Oliver

Few convicts returned to England but Molly Morgan was one who did and became the Queen of Hunter Valley.
She lived in a Shropshire village, first as a maid to a wealthy farmer then with her husband William, who was somewhat light-fingered. After being convicted of theft, she went with the Second Fleet and survived being on the Neptune, the worst ever ship to carry convicts to New South Wales.
After a few years she persuaded an American Whaling ship captain to hide her and take her back to England, where she lived in London and was accused of more theft and again transported.
After a while, she began farming in the Hunter Valley where her luck finally changed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Belgrave House
• Release date: Sep 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781947812383

Marina Oliver

Most writers can't help themselves! It's a compulsion. Getting published, though, is something really special, and having been so fortunate myself I now try to help aspiring writers by handing on tips it took me years to work out. I've published over 60 titles, including four in the How To Books' Successful Writing Series, and Writing Historical Fiction for Studymates.I have judged short story competitions, been a final judge for the Harry Bowling Prize and was an adviser to the 3rd edition of Twentieth Century Romance and Historical Writers 1994. If you want to find out more about your favourite authors, consult this book. I once wrote an article on writing romantic fiction for the BBC's web page, for Valentine's day.I have given talks and workshops for the Arts Council and at most of the major Writing Conferences, and helped establish the Romantic Novelists' Association's annual conference. I was Chairman of the RNA 1991-3, ran their New Writers' Scheme and edited their newsletter. I am now a Vice-President.As well as writing I have edited books for Transita, featuring women 'of a certain age', and for Choc Lit where gorgeous heros are the norm.I was asked to write A Century of Achievement, a 290 page history of my old school, Queen Mary's High School, Walsall, and commissioned to write a book on Castles and Corvedale to accompany a new circular walk in the area.Most of my Regencies written under the pseudonym Sally James are now published in ebook format as well as many others of my out of print novels which my husband is putting into ebook format. Our daughter Debbie is helping with designing the covers. For details of all my books and my many pseudonyms see my website.

Book preview

Prologue

Molly stared across the ship's rail. A slight breeze brought strange scents towards her. At least they were clean ones. She wrinkled her nose as she tried to ignore the stink of death and disease in the ship. The tossing they'd endured over huge waves had made many of them sick, and the stench of vomit was pervasive.

Flocks of huge birds, the like of which she'd never seen, swirled about the ship, their cries harsh and unwelcoming. All around her men were shouting orders, and getting ready to take everyone ashore. Many would need to be carried, they were too feeble to walk unaided.

How had she come to be here? It was the other side of the world from Corvedale, that lovely valley in the hills of south Shropshire, where she'd been born and spent her first twenty-eight years. She'd never seen the sea before this voyage, never imagined it could be so vast and so lonely. And the land was so strange. They'd passed endless bays of golden sand, washed continually by foam-tipped waves, protected by mainly bare brown headlands.

The ship was anchored in what she'd been told was Botany Bay, but the ship still rolled as the waves from the ocean followed them shorewards. The land looked bare and uninviting, with a few scattered huts the only buildings that could be seen. There were few trees, and many of them were a strange greyish green colour. Further inland she could see hills and these were covered in more trees, an impenetrable barrier it seemed from where she stood.

She'd known disappointment, despair, and utter degradation in the past months, but she'd survived, unlike many of the others. She'd survive this, too, she vowed. Whatever new perils she had to face, she'd do whatever was needful to survive, and one day, maybe not soon, but one day, she'd escape and find her way back home, to her loved ones.

The thought of those she'd left behind brought tears to her eyes. How were they now? Had they cast her off, or did they believe in her innocence? Would they still be there when she returned, as return she would?

Chapter 1

(S hropshire, 1776 July)

'Silly Molly Jones, crying over bones, cry-baby Jones!'

As Molly swung round from where she was kneeling, scrubbing her arm over her eyes to wipe away the tears, she was suddenly blinded by her skirts being pulled over her head.

'Thrash 'er bare bum!' another voice, one she recognised, screamed, wavering with excitement.

Swearing, struggling to free herself, hampered by her skirts, Molly felt a push on her shoulder, and toppled over, falling onto the raised earth of the grave just as a stick, wielded with considerable force, landed on the back of her bare thighs.

It was a hot July day, but Molly had been cold inside, shivering with misery. Now she felt heat surge through her body as she managed to push the fabric away from her face.

'Johnny Cound, you miserable bufflehead, you'll pay for this!' she yelled. Molly scrambled to her feet, took a step towards them. She'd knock their heads together, even though they were as big as she was.

They danced away, jeering at her. However much she tried to dodge the flailing stick, a willow branch by the look of it, it was always in between her and the boys. Once she caught it as Johnny poked it towards her, but he yanked it back and the trailing thin twigs ripped the flesh of her hand.

She gasped with the pain, but Johnny's attention was distracted by a cart rumbling past the churchyard, and she flung herself towards him, wrestling with him for possession of the stick. Then Billy came up behind her and grasped her round the waist, pulling her backwards. They collapsed together onto a gravestone, Molly heard a crack, and then Billy let out a howl of anguish.

'Me 'ed's broke!' he whimpered. 'Yer'll pay fer that!'

Molly struggled to her feet, expecting to be attacked by Johnny, but another voice intervened.

'You boys should be ashamed of yourselves! You'll be the ones to be thrashed when I tell your fathers! Give me that stick. Now, be off with you, and keep away from this graveyard, and from Molly!'

Dinah Green grasped her arm and held her back. Molly's fists were clenched as she tried to reach her tormentor. 'No, Molly, don't be as bad as they are.'

After a moment's struggle with herself Molly shrugged. She respected and liked Dinah, and restrained her urge to run after the boys. She stood watching as Johnny Cound helped his young cousin and he and Billy slunk down the path to the lych gate, past the tiny schoolroom where they'd all had lessons from John Green. Safely outside, they turned and made a rude gesture before, laughing, they forded the stream and ran across the field towards Corfton. A pity, she thought. Billy clearly hadn't been badly hurt. Not as badly as she'd have wished for him.

'Thanks, Mrs Green. I didn't hear them,' she muttered. Fury was being replaced with embarrassment that she'd been forced into such an undignified situation by two lads younger than herself.

Dinah put an arm round Molly's shoulders and hugged her. 'Try to forget it. They're ignorant young devils. I'll make sure they get the thrashing they deserve, though.'

Molly nodded, and stooped to pick up the bunch of marigolds lying on the mound of the grave. 'I squashed 'em,' she murmured, and the tears began to flow again. 'Edward put them there. He loved Ann. I'd better find some more.'

'Come home with me, and we'll have a cup of tea. Then you can pick some flowers from our garden to replace them. It's your day off?'

She tucked Molly's arm into hers and led the way to the cottage which lay just outside the churchyard.

'I mustn't stay long. If I'm not back in Ludlow by eight I lose some of me wages.'

Dinah put the stick down beside the door. 'You've time for a cup of tea. Look, while I brew it, go and get some flowers for your sister. We've marigolds aplenty, and get some roses from yourself.'

Molly nodded, and turned away. In her misery she hadn't thought to pick some flowers from her mother's garden. Dinah was kind, always had been since she married the schoolmaster five years earlier. She'd encouraged Molly to do fine needlework, to add to the ordinary sewing Molly's mother had taught her since she was a little child. And she'd insisted she must practise her reading and writing, also learn to speak better softening the local accent, saying that with these skills she could improve herself and, when she was older, use them to find a better job.

Almost any job would be preferable to the one she had, she thought, as she scrubbed at the tears on her cheeks with the end of her kerchief. But Ma wanted her to better herself, and she loved her Ma, and would do anything to please her, so when Ma insisted she had to make the most of the opportunity she didn't complain.

'You'm a clever lass, too good for field work,' she told Molly when she first took her to see Mrs Lewis some months before. 'One day you could be a fine lady's maid.'

Molly wasn't so sure. She'd enjoyed working on the local farms, looking after the poultry, collecting eggs, learning to milk the cows, and helping with the haymaking and the harvest, even if the payment had been irregular. She could swing a flail or scythe better than most lads her age. She'd give anything to be back here now with her brothers, but knew she'd disappoint her mother if she threw up the chance she'd been given.

She picked a few roses, adding some sprigs of lavender – Ann had always liked it, and made lavender water for them both. The tears threatened again, and angrily she brushed them away. Ann was gone, and the sooner she accepted it the better. She hurried to put the flowers on the grave, said a quick prayer, and then whispered farewell to her sister.

In Dinah's kitchen the kettle was boiling on the trivet, and Dinah had set out two delicate china cups and saucers on the big table. She had some lovely things, the like of which Molly had only seen before in the bigger farmhouses, when she'd gone with her mother to take back the sewing Mrs Jones did.

She looked enviously at Dinah's gown. It was of fine white muslin embroidered with sprigs of violets. The skirt was wider than her own, but not so wide as the ones ladies in Ludlow wore, with wire cages beneath and side panniers. Her own skirt was far skimpier, made by her mother from coarse grey linen she had bought cheaply in Ludlow market, because it had been stained. Though Ma had cut the gown cleverly, some of the stain was still visible near the hem.

Why couldn't she be as neat as Dinah? Her blonde hair was smoothly drawn back beneath her cap, edged with fine lace she made herself, while Molly's mop of curly brown hair never stayed in the plaits. Strands were always escaping across her face, and even when she tied on her cap with ribbons it always seemed to slide sideways.

Dinah poured water onto the tea leaves, and brought the pot to the table. Molly's mouth watered. Tea was a rare luxury, which she tasted very occasionally in the kitchen of the house in Broad Street. There it was made with tea leaves first used by the family. Cook then reused them several times for herself, and when the tea was so weak as to be almost tasteless, she graciously permitted the maids to have a cup, before the leaves were put aside to use when cleaning the carpets.

'You didn't come to the burial,' Dinah said gently, offering Molly a slice of shearing cake.

'I wasn't let. Mrs Lewis needed me to take down the hems of the children's best frocks,' Molly said, nibbling at the cake and finding a piece of lemon peel which she savoured between her lips. 'I wasn't even let come to see Ann when she was ill!'

'It was very sudden, just a few days,' Dinah said gently, pouring out the tea. 'And no one realised how ill she was at first.'

'But Dad sent a message. I could have said goodbye!'

'She'll know. Now, what about your legs. That was a vicious thrashing Johnny gave you. Are you badly bruised? I have a good salve.'

Molly took a deep breath. 'I'm none so bad. It caught in my petticoat.'

'And your hand, that's badly cut.'

Molly submitted to having the salve, smelling of elder leaves, smoothed on her hand, but she denied that her thighs were cut, and Dinah accepted this. Molly was still thinking about her sister.

'Ann and me, we parted bad friends, last month. I never made it up with her.'

It had been such a silly quarrel. Ann had teased her about all the young men she must be meeting in Ludlow, and Molly had retaliated, asking if she was yet walking out with anyone. Then they had argued about Martha Wellings, who was between them in age, and had once vowed to be Molly's best friend. Since Molly had left Corfham she suspected that Martha had become Ann's best friend instead. Molly had been feeling lonely, away from her family, and resented the loss of anyone close to her. But now she had lost Ann, who was far more precious to her than Martha could ever be.

'She didn't hold a grudge. When I went to see her, two days before she died, she said she wanted you to have her kerchief. She said she loved you, and knew you'd do well.'

Molly blinked back the tears. 'I know. Ma washed it and gave it me earlier.'

'Something to remember her by.'

'I'll never wear it!'

'Oh, Molly, my dear, don't punish yourself like that. You must wear it, to remember Ann. Just occasionally. For best. Ann would have wanted that, not to have it laid by in a chest, and never seen.'

'Perhaps. Later on, when – when – ' She swallowed her tears. Would the pain of Ann's death ever grow less? She stood up. 'Thanks for the tea, and the shearing cake. I've always liked that.'

'It's the last I'll make this year. Most of the sheep have already been shorn. The fulling mills are busy at this time of year.'

'I saw. Dad's been helping. I'd best be going. I promised Ma I'd have a bite with them before I go back.'

Molly hesitated as she left the cottage, looking down at the stick Dinah had put beside the door. She picked it up and flexed it. It was whippy, and her thighs were sore. It could easily have broken her flesh. She hoisted it onto one shoulder, and thus armed, cut across the fields to Corfham. She kept a wary eye out for her two tormentors, but they were nowhere in sight. They probably had jobs to do at home.

Just before she reached Lower Corfton she met Martha, the cause of her quarrel with Ann. Martha looked at her and sniffed.

'You didn't come to Ann's burying,' she accused. 'You didn't even come to see her. Right hurt, she was, that you couldn't spare the time from your posh job to visit.'

'I wasn't let come! And if you think skivvying all the time, emptying slops, and carrying jugs of water upstairs all day's a posh job, you're welcome to it!'

'That's not what your Ma says. Sewing maid, lady's maid soon, that's what she says.'

Molly turned away. She was too angry to bother arguing, and knew that if she allowed herself to exchange insults with Martha she'd probably use the stick she still carried on her.

She was just passing Lower House Farm, a big house and one of the most important in Corfham, when she saw Elizabeth Gough in the garden with her little son. Molly considered her closely. Six years older than Molly, they had never had much to do with one another. Elizabeth was remarkably pretty, which must have been why William Gough, renting a deal of land in the area, and some eight years older, had married her two years before, when he could have had the pick of all the unmarried girls and women from several parishes around.

Molly stopped to ask how the baby did. Elizabeth wasn't like her cousin Martha, she was gentle and friendly to everyone where Martha was always ready for a row.

'He's walking now,' Elizabeth said, and set the child on his feet to demonstrate. Little Will, his skirts tucked up to free his legs, gurgled happily, staggered towards her and collapsed into her arms. Elizabeth laughed. 'Say hello to Molly, Will!'

'He's got your husband's colour,' Molly commented, ruffling the child's hair. He had bright blue eyes, too.

'It's getting redder. And William spoils him, is already making plans to send him to the grammar school.' She paused, then went on with a rush. 'I'm so sorry about Ann. Martha said your employer wouldn't allow you to come and see her, or come for the funeral.'

'No,' Molly said. 'But she still blames me! Only five minutes ago she was getting at me! Not that it's any of her business.' Martha hadn't told her she knew permission had been withheld. Nasty, sneaky wench! Well, Molly knew now what her friendship was worth. Then she conquered her resentment. 'Did Martha tell you much about her illness? Ma won't tell me.'

'She said it was very sudden. Ann was all right one day, the next she could barely move, and took to her bed. Martha spent quite some time with her, and Ann was asking for you.'

'I know. I should have come! Why didn't I just walk away from Mrs Lewis?'

'You weren't to know it was so serious. None of us thought it. But she knew you were thinking of her.'

Molly nodded, unable to say more. She turned away and went on. At the small mud-built cottage behind the Sun tavern she found her mother stirring a pottage of potatoes and herbs over the fire. Mrs Jones gave her a weak smile.

'Come and sit ye down, lass. Yer Dad'll be in before you go, I 'ope, but you'd better eat now. You needs to set off soon or you'll be late back.'

'Where is Dad?'

'He went after a fox over Bache Mill way. It's been killing Mr Pinches' chickens.'

Molly nodded and began to eat the food her mother set in front of her. Her father supplemented the wages he earned doing odd jobs at the Sun or the farms round about with the odd shillings for every fox he caught. And foxes were wily, it could take him some time to track and kill it.

Elizabeth was setting bread and cheese on the kitchen table for supper. She'd grown used to providing for the lads who slept in the room over the stables. Then the scrape of a boot on the step made her look up. William was standing in the doorway, smiling at her. Elizabeth swallowed. Any unexpected sight of her husband caused her heart to flutter as madly as it had when he'd first begun paying court to her.

'William, you're early. Nothing wrong, is there?'

William, tall and sunburnt, shook his head and crossed the room in a couple of strides. 'The lads can manage without me for an hour. I needed a sight of you and little Will.'

He pulled her to him, pushed the cap she wore back on her head and stroked her hair, then bent to kiss her. Elizabeth clung to him, revelling in the strength of his arms. She could feel his muscles tighten, but it wouldn't do for them to disappear up to their bedroom so early in the evening.

'Will's abed, asleep,' she said gently. 'He's been practising his walking all day. Don't wake him.'

'I'll just take a look.'

How could she have been so lucky as to attract such a man, Elizabeth wondered as she finished laying the table, putting a jug of ale and a jar of her own pickles beside the cheese, then going to stir the thick stew of vegetables from the garden and some of the bacon from the pig they'd killed earlier in the year. Ever since William had come to Corfton and leased Lower Home Farm the unmarried girls in the village had dreamed about him. Some of the married women had too, if she'd read the glances they gave him aright. He could have had any of them, but he'd chosen her, and only weeks after they'd first danced together at a Christmas party in Mr Pearce's big barn they'd been wed, and she was mistress of one of the largest farmhouses in Corvedale.

Martha had been wildly jealous, even though she was barely thirteen at the time. For weeks she had refused to speak to Elizabeth. It was odd she'd been such friends with Molly Jones, but from what Molly had said earlier it seemed as if that friendship was finished.

She shrugged. She wasn't responsible for Martha, but she liked Molly and it was unsettling to see her so unhappy. She stood by the open doorway, remembering, and turned as William came up behind her and kissed her ear.

'Why so pensive, love?'

'I was thinking of Molly Jones. She came past earlier. Ann's death has been hard on her. And I think she had words with Martha.'

'I don't know why she wanted to go and work in Ludlow. She could find plenty of jobs at the farms hereabout, and she was a good worker, strong and reliable. Why does being a maid for a fancy family seem a better job?'

'I think it was her mother's ambition, not Molly's.'

'It's fine to have ambition for a boy, like our Will, but all a girl's going to do is get wed. Especially the pretty ones like you. Come here, I've missed you.'

Elizabeth forgot Molly as William pulled her to him, and they only broke apart as there was a discreet knock on the open door behind them.

'Mrs Pearce!' Elizabeth was flustered at being found kissing her husband, especially by one of the women she'd suspected of having an eye on him when he first came to Corfton. 'Can I help you?'

Mary Pearce laughed. 'I'm sorry to interrupt you lovebirds, but Mr Pearce wondered if you could give him a hand tomorrow, William? He's wanting to mend roof on the big barn, and you're the handiest man with a saw around here.'

Molly set off on the seven-mile walk to Ludlow. It was later than she'd meant to start, the sun was already dipping behind the crest of Wenlock Edge, and she'd have to hurry. But the earlier walk home, the renewed anguish she'd felt on seeing her sister's grave, and the bruises on her legs which were worse than she'd let Dinah know, all made her tired, and she could only run for short distances.

Aware that Johnny Cound and Billy might be lying in wait for her, wanting revenge, she carried the stick, swishing it at the tall grasses and the hedge parsley which was just coming into flower. Prudently she kept to the turnpike road rather than using the old paths across the fields. The boys were younger than she was by a year or so, but Johnny was already taller, burly like his father. Now her temper had cooled she accepted she'd stand no chance against the two of them, who had probably found other sticks by now, and she dared not risk being late.

She turned off by the old marketplace to take the road through Stanton Lacy. They wouldn't be waiting for her so far from home. She looked longingly at