The Exiles Read online

  The cell quieted as two guards came in to take the lifeless infant from its mother. They had to pry it from her arms as she stood humming a tuneless song, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Yes, Evangeline loathed this place, but she loathed more the vanity and naivete and willful ignorance that had landed her here.

  One morning, about a fortnight after she’d been brought in, the iron door at the end of the hallway clanged open and a guard shouted: “Evangeline Stokes!”

  “Here!” Struggling to be heard above the din, she pulled herself toward the cell door. She glanced down at her stained bodice, her hem weighted with filth. She smelled her own rank breath and sweat and swallowed the fear in her mouth. Still, whatever awaited her out there had to be better than what was in here.

  The matron and two guards carrying truncheons appeared at the cell door. “Move aside, let ’er through,” one of the guards said, thwacking the grate with his stick as the women surged forward. When she reached the door, Evangeline was hauled out, shackled, and escorted across the street to another gray building, the Sessions House. The guards led her down a narrow set of stairs to a windowless room filled with holding cells stacked on top of each other like chicken pens, each barely large enough for one hunched adult, with slatted iron bars on either side. Once she was locked inside, and after her eyes adjusted, she could see the shapes of prisoners in other cells and hear their groans and coughs.

  When a hunk of bread thumped on the floor, Evangeline jumped, banging her head on the top of her cell. An old woman in the cage beside her reached through the slats and snatched it, chortling at her alarm. “Goes to the street,” she said, pointing to the ceiling. Evangeline peered up: above the narrow aisle separating the cells into two sides was a hole. “Some people take pity.”

  “Strangers throw bread down here?”

  “Mostly relatives, come for a trial. Anybody here for ye?”

  “No.”

  Evangeline could hear her chewing. “I’d give ye some,” the woman said after a moment, “but I’m starvin’.”

  “Oh—it’s all right. Thank you.”

  “Your first time, I’m guessin’.”

  “My only time,” Evangeline said.

  The woman chortled again. “I said that once meself.”

  The judge licked his lips with obvious distaste. His wig was yellowed and slightly off-kilter. A fine sprinkling of powder dusted the shoulders of his robe. The guard assigned to Evangeline had told her on the way to the courtroom that the judge had already presided over a dozen cases so far today, probably a hundred this week. Sitting on a bench in the hallway, awaiting her trial, she’d watched the accused and convicted come and go: pickpockets and laudanum addicts, prostitutes and forgers, murderers and the insane.

  She stood in the dock alone. Legal counsel was for the rich. An all-male jury sat to her right, gazing at her with varying levels of indifference.

  “How will you be tried?” the judge asked wearily.

  “By God and by my country,” she said as instructed.

  “Have you any witnesses who will vouch for your character?”

  She shook her head.

  “Speak, prisoner.”

  “No. No witnesses.”

  A barrister stood and recited the charges against her: Attempted Murder. Grand Larceny. He read from a letter that he said he had received from a Mrs. Whitstone at 22 Blenheim Road, St. John’s Wood, detailing Miss Stokes’s scandalous crimes.

  The judge peered at her. “Have you anything to say for yourself, prisoner?”

  Evangeline curtsied. “Well, sir. I didn’t mean to . . .” Her voice faltered. She had meant to, after all. “The ring was a gift; I didn’t steal it. My—the man who—”

  Before she could continue the judge was waving his hand in the air. “I’ve heard enough.”

  The jury took all of ten minutes to announce a verdict: guilty on both counts.

  The judge lifted his gavel. “Sentenced,” he said, bringing it down with a bang. “Fourteen years transportation to the land beyond the seas.”

  Evangeline clutched the wooden bar in front of her so she wouldn’t sink to her knees. Had she heard him right? Fourteen years? No one returned her gaze. The judge shuffled papers on his desk. “Summon the next prisoner,” he told his page.

  “That’s it?” she asked the guard.

  “That’s it. Australia. Ye’ll be a pioneer.”

  She remembered Olive saying transport was a life sentence. “But . . . I can come back when my time is served?”

  His laugh was devoid of pity, but not exactly unkind. “It’s the other side of the world, miss. Ye might as well be sailin’ to the sun.”

  As she made her way, flanked by the guards, back to Newgate and down the dark corridor to the cells, Evangeline forced herself to square her shoulders (as best she could, chained hand and foot) and took a breath. Years ago, she’d climbed to the top of the church spire in Tunbridge Wells, where the bells were rung. As she ascended the circular stone staircase in the windowless tower, the walls narrowed and the steps became steeper; she could see a shaft of light above her head but had no idea how much farther it was to the top. Trudging upward in smaller and smaller circles, she’d feared that she might end up penned in on all sides, unable to move.

  That was how this felt.

  Passing the cells filled with prisoners, she noticed the ragged, dark-rimmed nails of a woman clutching an iron grate, the large eyes of a baby too weak or too hungry to cry. She heard the thudding flap of the guards’ boots, the dull clang of her leg irons. Under the pungent odor of human waste and sickness was the sour salty smell of vinegar, used every other week or so by the lowliest guards to scrub the walls and floors. A stream of liquid snaked toward a grate beneath her feet. She felt as if she were watching a play that she herself was in—The Tempest, perhaps, with its topsy-turvy world, its chaotic and menacing landscape. A line floated into her head: Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

  “Including you,” the guard said, shoving her along.

  She’d said the words aloud, she realized, as if reciting them to her father during a lesson.

  Every few days, regardless of weather, a group of prisoners was led out of the cell, shackled, and marched to a desolate exercise pen, separated from other pens by high iron-spike-tipped walls, to plod in a circle for the better part of an hour.

  “How long do you think until we leave?” Evangeline asked Olive as they tramped around the pen one gray afternoon.

  “Dunno. I heard they fill a ship twice or three times a year. One left just before I was nabbed. Midsummer, if I had to guess.”

  It was the beginning of April.

  “I don’t understand why they’re sending us halfway around the world,” Evangeline said. “It’d be a lot less money and bother if we served our sentences here.”

  “You’re missing the point,” Olive said. “It’s a government scheme. A racket.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “England used to send its dregs to America, but after the rebellion they had to find a new rubbish dump. Australia it was. Before they knew it there was nine men for every woman. Nine! Ye can’t found a settlement with only men, can ye? Nobody thought that through. So they came up with arse-backward excuses to send us over there.”

  “Surely you don’t mean . . . ,” Evangeline said.

  “Surely I do. By their reckoning we’re already sinners.” Slapping her belly, Olive said, “Look at us, Leenie! No question we’re fertile, is there? Plus we’re bringing new citizens inside us. Bonus if they happen to be female. And it doesn’t cost ’em much. Fix up a few slaving ships and they’re good to go.”

  “Slaving ships?”

  Olive laughed. Evangeline’s naivete was one of her greatest amusements. “Makes perfect sense, if ye think about it. Dozens of seaworthy vessels just sitting there, rotting in the harbor, and all because a few do-gooders in Parliament got cold feet about owning human beings. Mind ye, nobody has any su
ch qualms about breeding convicts.”

  A guard came over and grabbed Olive’s arm. “Stop spreading gossip, you.”

  She yanked away from his grasp. “It’s the truth, though, in’it?”

  He spit on the ground at her feet.

  “How do you know all this?” Evangeline asked after a few more turns around the pen.

  “Hang around the pubs in this town after midnight. No telling what a fella will reveal when he’s had a few drinks.”

  “They must be lying. Or exaggerating, at least.”

  Olive gave her a pitying smile. “Your problem, Leenie, is ye don’t want to believe what’s in front of your nose. That’s what got ye here in the first place, in’it?”

  On Sunday mornings the female inmates were herded into the prison chapel, where they were seated in the back, in a section of pews behind tall, slanted boards that allowed them to see the preacher but not the male inmates. A coal stove glowed below the pulpit, but its heat did not reach them. For more than an hour the women huddled in their flimsy dresses and heavy chains as the preacher rebuked, admonished, and berated them for their vices.

  The gist of the sermon was always the same: they were wretched sinners paying an earthly penance; the Devil was waiting to see how much lower they could descend before they became irredeemable. Their only chance was to throw themselves on the stern mercy of God the Father and pay the price for their wickedness.

  Sometimes Evangeline looked down at her hands and thought: these same fingers plucked flowers and arranged them in a vase. Drew Latin letters in chalk on a piece of slate. Traced Cecil’s face from his forehead to his Adam’s apple. Hovered over her father’s still features and closed his eyes for the last time. And now look at them—dirty, grasping, defiled.

  Never again would she describe something as unbearable. Almost anything, she now knew, could be borne. Small white vermin infested her hair, lingering sores developed from small scrapes, a cough burrowed into her chest. She was exhausted and sick to her stomach much of the time, but she wasn’t dying. In this place that meant she was doing all right.

  Newgate Prison, London, 1840

  In the eternal gloom of the cell it was hard to tell how much time had passed, or even what time of day it was. Outside the small grated window, though, and in the shadow of the spiked wall of the exercise yard, the light from the sun grew warmer and lingered longer. Evangeline’s morning sickness subsided and her belly began to swell. Her breasts, too, grew larger and more tender to the touch. She tried not to think too much about the child she carried inside her—visual proof of her degradation, a mark of sin as unambiguous as the Devil’s red claw tracks on flesh.

  Some time after breakfast one temperate morning, the gate at the end of the hall clanged open and a guard shouted, “Quakers here. Make yourselves presentable.”

  Evangeline looked around for Olive and, seeing her a few feet away, caught her eye. Olive pointed toward the cell door: Get there.

  Three women in long gray cloaks and white bonnets materialized in front of the cell, each carrying a large sack. The one in the middle, wearing a plain black dress with a white shawl under her cloak, stood taller and straighter than the other two. Her eyes were a milky blue, her skin unrouged, her gray hair parted neatly under her bonnet. She smiled at the women inside with an air of benign self-possession. “Hello, friends,” she said in a quiet voice.

  Remarkably, except for a fussing baby, the cell had gone silent.

  “I am Mrs. Fry. The ladies accompanying me today are Mrs. Warren”—she nodded to her left—“and Mrs. Fitzpatrick. We are here on behalf of the Society for the Reformation of Female Prisoners.”

  Evangeline leaned forward, straining to hear.

  “Each of you is worthy of redemption. You need not always be stained by your sins. You may choose to live your lives from this day forward with dignity and honor.” Reaching through the iron grate with two fingers, Mrs. Fry touched the arm of a young girl staring at her wide-eyed. “What doest thou need?”

  The girl shrank back, unaccustomed to being spoken to directly.

  “Would you like a new dress?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Is there any poor soul here this day,” asked Mrs. Fry, tilting her chin toward the larger group, “who wants to be saved from sin, so that you may be saved from woe, saved from misery? Friends, hold fast your hope. Remember the words of Christ: ‘Open the door of thy heart, and I will overcome that by which thou hast been overcome.’ If thou dost trust in the Lord, all will be forgiven.”

  When she finished speaking, a guard unlocked the door and the prisoners jostled to make room. Entering the cell, the Quakers handed out oat biscuits from a cotton sack. Evangeline took one and bit into it. Though hard and dry, it tasted better than anything she’d eaten in weeks.

  With the help of the guards, Mrs. Fry identified the new prisoners and gave each one a parcel tied with twine. Pressing a bundle into Evangeline’s arms, she asked, “How long have you been here?”

  Evangeline half curtsied. “Nearly three months, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Fry cocked her head. “You are—educated. And from . . . the South?”

  “Tunbridge Wells. My father was a vicar there.”

  “I see. So . . . have you been sentenced to transport?”

  “Yes.”

  “Seven years?”

  Evangeline winced. “Fourteen.”

  Mrs. Fry nodded, seemingly unsurprised. “Well. You appear healthy. The journey is about four months—it’s not easy, but most survive. You’ll arrive at the end of the summer, which is the end of their winter. Much preferable to the reverse.” She pursed her lips. “In all honesty, I am not convinced that transport is the answer. There are too many opportunities for abuse—too many ways, I believe, for the system to corrupt. But it is the system we have, and as such . . .” She looked at Evangeline intently. “Let me ask you something. Would your father have approved of”—she gestured vaguely toward Evangeline’s belly—“this?”

  Evangeline flushed.

  “Perhaps it reveals a certain lack of . . . judgment. You allowed yourself to be taken advantage of. I urge you to be careful. And alert. Men don’t have to live with the consequences of their actions. You do.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Mrs. Fry and her helpers turned their backs to hand out more parcels, Evangeline rifled through hers, pulling out and inspecting the items: a plain white cap, a green cotton dress, a burlap apron to wear over the dress. After the parcels were distributed, the Quakers came around to help the prisoners into their new clothes.

  Mrs. Warren unbuttoned the back of Evangeline’s soiled dress and helped her extract each arm from its sleeve. Evangeline was acutely aware of the stink under her arms, the sour tang in her mouth, her sludgy hem. Mrs. Warren smelled like . . . nothing; like skin. But if she was repulsed, she gave no hint of it.

  Once the prisoners were clothed, Mrs. Fry asked if any of them were interested in needlework or quilting or knitting stockings. Evangeline raised her hand. Though she had little interest in stitchery, a break from the cell would be nice, and she missed being productive. Three dozen prisoners were divided into groups and led across the open courtyard to a large, drafty room filled with tables and rough benches, with tiny open windows cut high in the wall facing the courtyard. Evangeline’s group was assigned knitting, which she’d never learned to do. Mrs. Warren settled on the bench beside her, gently guiding the long wooden needles in her hand through the coarse wool. Feeling this woman’s soft, warm hands on hers, the touch of a person who was neither scornful nor contemptuous . . . Evangeline blinked back tears.

  “Oh, my dear. Let me find a handkerchief,” Mrs. Warren said, rising from the bench.

  As Evangeline watched her cross the room, she ran her fingers down the slight bump of her midsection and over to her hipbone, tracing the faint outline of Cecil’s handkerchief under her new green dress. After a moment she felt a flutter, like a tiny fish swimming at the bottom
of her stomach.

  It must be the baby. She felt suddenly protective of it and absentmindedly cradled her lower belly, as if holding the child itself.

  This child would be birthed in captivity, in disgrace and uncertainty; it faced a future of strife and toil. But what had at first seemed like a cruel joke now felt like a reason to live. She was responsible not only for herself, but for another human being. How fiercely she hoped it would have a chance to overcome its unhappy beginnings.

  The rattle and click of locks at the end of the long, dark hallway. The glow of lanterns splashing across stone. The clanking cart filled with chains and irons. The harsh voices of jailors: “Let’s go now! Make it quick!”

  “It’s time,” Olive said, poking Evangeline’s shoulder. “They’ve come for us.”

  In front of the cell door stood three guards. One held a piece of parchment; another raised a lantern above it. The third ran his stick back and forth across the iron grate. “You lot listen up,” he said. “If I call your name, step forward.” He squinted at the paper. “Ann Darter!”

  A rustle, a murmuring, and then the girl whose baby died crept to the front. It was the first time Evangeline had heard her name. “It’ll be a miracle if that one makes it,” Olive muttered.

  “Maura Frindle!”

  A woman Evangeline didn’t know crept out of the shadows.

  “Olive Rivers.”

  “I’m ’ere, hold your horses,” she said, her hands on the grate.

  The guard with the stick ran it across the grate again, rat-tat-tat-tat, forcing Olive to let go. “Last one. Evangeline Stokes.”

  Evangeline smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear. She ran a hand under her belly and stepped up.

  The guard with the lantern held it up to get a better look. “This one’s a jammy bit o’ jam.”