When the constable who witnessed the alleged assault upon Mrs Fowler is called for the defence he does not appear. The court is told he is feeling too poorly to raise his head from his bed.
Their trials last less than nine minutes and the verdicts and sentences are announced.
JONESY LING – indicted for stealing. GUILTY. Aged nineteen years. Transported for twelve years.
WILLA ROBINSON – indicted for stealing. GUILTY. Aged nineteen years. Transported for twelve years.
FINN FOWLER – indicted for stealing. GUILTY. Aged thirty-three years. DEATH.
CLOVIS FOWLER – indicted for assault, stealing. GUILTY. Aged twenty-nine years. DEATH.
Finn Fowler holds no hope, no belief in the possibility of a pardon. He cannot grasp the dream of a reprieve or a lighter sentence. He sits on a rotten bench, shackled in the men’s Condemned Hold, sick with something entirely unfamiliar. Sprouting in his gut, remorse takes hold of him like a weed. He is resigned to death, but did not expect regret.
The Ordinary is quick to notice when a man turns.
‘You must repent, prisoner. You may tell me your confession. It is my duty as your chaplain to hear it.’
Foul of breath, stick-thin and scowling, the Ordinary would like to record Finn’s confession, for the accused did not give it at his trial. But the formerly unrepentant Finn is aware of those who will turn a profit from his death and turns away from the Ordinary without a word.
On Sunday, the small prison chapel at the top of the gaol is filled to capacity. The Ordinary makes opening remarks of his Condemned Sermon and moves on to punishment, sorrow, childless parents, broken hearts and death tomorrow morning.
Allowed to sit beside his wife on the pew for the condemned, Finn detects a sliver of amusement in her face.
‘I have received a message from Benedikt.’ Clovis keeps her gaze forward. ‘He works towards a reprieve.’
‘For you, perhaps.’
‘No, for us both.’
‘It will not happen.’
‘It will.’
‘How are you?’
She turns to look at him.
‘What?’
‘I … I am sorry.’
‘For what?’
Clovis regards him through narrowed eyes. ‘If you are truly sorry, then answer this honestly.’ She pauses, overcome by a wave of unexpected emotion. ‘Does your heart still beat for her?’
‘What?’ He looks at her astonished. ‘No. And I did not think you gave two fucks one way or the other.’
Clovis holds his gaze for a second longer before looking away silently.
The Ordinary drones on from the pulpit, bellowing out a reading from Scripture, supplemented with a constant chant calling for the prisoners to repent and confess.
‘Do not give the Ordinary your confession. I have paid him well. He will allow you a longer speech on the gallows if we need more time.’ Clovis now instructs Finn.
‘Yours will be a crueller death if you do not forget this hope for a pardon. Prepare yourself.’
‘No. I will not. You underestimate me, Finn. You always have.’
‘We will not meet again, Clovis Fowler. You are still the most beautiful woman.’
‘Oh, but we will meet again. I do not know when, there are difficult years ahead, but I will see you again, Finn Fowler.’
They turn from each other and face the Ordinary for his final words of the service.
‘May the Lord have mercy upon your souls.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
In four separate corners of Newgate the members of the Fowler household are for the first time separately housed.
Jonesy sits on his portion of the floor with a straight back, his crossed legs form a lap upon which lays his sandal, and this he opens, removing the packet. He closes his eyes and conjures the image of the flaxen-headed sailor, who did not come to his trial. Jonesy wonders if the favour he performed for the under-sheriff in exchange for the delivery of a letter was for nothing. He feels hopelessly stained by all he had learned in his father’s house of whores.
The powdery poison tastes bitter and feels like dust in his dry mouth. He has had no food or drink today; the emptier his stomach, the quicker and more violent the reaction. All over soon.
The female holding cell for transports is overcrowded tonight. They swarm around Willa seeking stories of Mistress Fowler. She begins to rock and her fingers count on both hands. The candles sputter to darkness one by one until she can no longer make out the women but for their figures walking past her like ghosts. Her hands search along her hem until they fall upon the packet.
She thinks of her former home and Matron’s haunting words arrive now. What was a little groping compared to a life? Could she have born the violations more readily than the pit of despair and submission she was sure to suffer from her gaolers in New South Wales? The women speak of it for hours on end inside these walls.
Willa holds the packet as if it is precious gold. She must not spill a grain. Her fingers find her mouth in the dark and she opens wide.
Clovis stands in her cell alone and waiting, anticipating the arrival of a notice. The hard melody of metal announces the gaoler’s path to the female Condemned Hold. He grows fatter with midnight messages. She hears the heavy footsteps near the ward’s passage, and yes, they stop at her cell. He turns the key in the gate.
Now in the last hours, a certain constable has made a remarkable recovery and has gone to great lengths to swear an oath that on the evening of the arrest, Clovis Fowler did indeed strike out in selfdefence. A reprieve. What is to be done with her will be made known in the morning.
‘You have friends in high places.’ The gaoler shakes his head as he removes her shackles.
After the gaoler secures the gate and makes his way back to his warm bed, Clovis reaches for the wall for support. Once steady,
