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chances of jumping ship in Cape Town vanished. Seventy-nine days later, the
Hotspur
dropped anchor. The survivors of the
Gloria Scott
took a last meal together, then quietly scattered: some for the gold fields, others to book passage back to England. And Jim Hudson…
    Sally, reading the letter four months later in Edinburgh, waited for him to say when he planned to return. She waited in vain. Instead, Hudson wrote, he had looked at Sydney, and wondered if it wouldn’t do as well as a place to wait for London’s heat to die down? In fact, Sydney would be a better hope for them both. He wanted her to come out. He had no money to send her, but surely she could borrow passage from her sister?
    And by the way: had his son been born yet?
    She folded the letter onto her lap, and she wept.
    —
    On Clarissa’s three-month birthday, marked by a hot spell remarkable even for August, Sally loaded a pair of hessian bags with all their worldly goods and struggled through the baking streets of Edinburgh to her sister’s house. She looked up as Alice opened the door.
    “I need you to watch Clarissa for a while.”
    Alice eyed the bulging sacks and told the housemaid to put on the kettle. She took Sally and the baby into the drawing room, where the air smelt of baking horsehair. Even when Alice flung open the window, it was still stifling. Clarissa stirred, and Sally put her to the breast.
    “I’m happy to have the bairn, ye know that, but what’s in the bags?” Alice asked.
    “It’s everything we own. And ye’ll be keeping her for more than the day. Might be weeks.”
    Alice sat down abruptly. “Why? Dearie, whatever’s wrong?”
    “Nothing’s wrong yet, but I have to commit a felony.”
    “What?”
    “Jimmy canna come back, it’s too dangerous. I don’t know when he’ll be able to send me the money for passage. Papa won’t even speak to me, Mama will nae cross Papa, you’ve nought to spare, and even if I convince the government to send me on an assisted fare, as a domestic, I don’t have two pounds. It’d take me months of scrubbing floors to save up. The only way I can get to Australia is to be transported.”
    “I…” Alice said faintly.
“Transported?”
    “I have to commit a crime. And if I act rough, they’ll want to be rid of me.”
    “But…what about Clarissa?”
    “Oh, she’ll come with me—they send bairns, too. Saves the cost of the workhouse. But it might take weeks, for the trial and all, and I’ll not have my daughter in a gaol cell.”
    It was a mad scheme, suitable only for a desperate woman. Sally had asked around about the law, and general opinion was that the chances of a fresh-faced young governess being transported—a punishment designed to rid a nation of troublemakers—was minuscule. She would need to stand in court a reprobate, shameless and without principles. There was one crime admirably suitable to her purpose.
    That afternoon, Sally knocked at the door of the house where she had been born. The maid who answered gave a scornful glance at Sally’s dress and opened her mouth to tell her the trade entrance was at the back.
    “Hello, Hazel,” Sally interrupted. The maid paused for a closer look before stepping back in astonishment. Sally gathered her skirts and pushed past into the foyer. “Would you please tell my mother I’m here?”
    After a moment of goggling, Hazel closed the door and fled up the stairs. The instant her black skirt disappeared, Sally darted down the hall to her father’s office. Inside of three minutes, she had what she needed, and crossed back into the drawing room: her mother would want a formal setting when she confronted her wayward daughter.
    Sally loosed her bonnet ties, but did not take it off. Nor did she sit, just stood with her hands clasped, listening to the silence overhead. After a time came the sound of a door opening.
    She half expected the maid with a command to leave. But the tread was heavier, and approached with an air of