Lady Calico: The Legend of Anne Bonny

Prologue (May 1709)

Everything was falling apart. After all of his cases in court. After all of the allies and friends he had made. After all the potential disasters he had overcome; the separation of his wife for one, and the rumours of his adultery for another. There was one obstacle that William Cormac could never surmount, despite all the other controversies. His mistress Mary Brennan had brought forth his girlchild. The girl was bastardly, detrimental, useless. Worst of all, William would never see his girl grow up, never see her married, and never see her have his grandchildren.

It was his treacherous wife Agatha who had accused Mary of being an adulteress, and had been the reason why Mary had been imprisoned for the offense while she was pregnant.

Even more scandalous was how William had "resolved" the situation. He banged his head on his desk one evening, trying to get his head around it. He had dressed the poor girl, Anne - now at the age of ten - in the clothes of a boy, and pretended she was the son of a relative who he had taken in. This meant that William could see his daughter and have her live with him without detection.

But this plan was too crude to last. Mary Brennan pined for her little Anney all the time. The mistress lived on the other side of the southern Irish port of Kinsdale and she only saw her daughter a couple times a week.

"You're confusing the child!" she said on one of their rare meetings with her husband, in a dim, noisy tavern. "She's a transvestite!"

"It's for my reputation, dearest," replied William, trying to calm her down. "It's my reputation that feeds us. I'm an attorney. I must keep a clean image, or risk looking like a hypocrite and loosing work."

"Then find work that doesn't stop you from loving your family!" screamed Mary. She wailed and tears spilled from her blue eyes. William tried desperately to comfort her, but the sobs wouldn't subside.

"You're right," he sighed finally. "I can't keep this up any longer. We must treat Anne as the beautiful daughter she is. I'll come up with something. Don't worry. It'll all be fine."

Mary kissed his mouth, shrouded by his red beard. "God save us," she sniffed.

That night, William stopped hitting himself on the desk and thought clearly for the first time in ten years. He realised what fair Mary Brennan had been trying to say all this time. He didn't need his reputation. He didn't need his job. He didn't need this house, this furniture and these clothes. All he needed was his family. His true family.

The whole of Kinsdale was astonished as Mister Cormac, the righteous, God-fearing Mister Cormac, came out of his lavish townhouse with a blonde mistress and a daughter, with fiery hair like his. Both wore beautiful dresses of bright green; the colour of fortune. Ironically, all of William's fortune would be gone from this day onward. He would have to rely on himself, and not the clover of luck.

As the ecstatic family all walked hand-in-hand down through the wet, smelly streets in their finest clothes, every man, woman and child stopped and stared. The women's washboards fell into their buckets. The bakers' bread went black in their ovens. The butchers' meat rolled on the ground for the dogs to snatch.

It was truly a spectacle to behold, like some kind of parade. All anyone could think was "How dare he?" and "What a fool that man is." How could anyone show off such a shameful truth - that he had a mistress and a bastard daughter - as if the child was Baby Jesus?

But William's moment of greatest shame was certainly also his moment of greatest triumph. He knew he had lost almost everything but the two people he loved. There was no turning back. Yet he loved it. He wanted to savour this moment all his life.

When he came out of the town hall he was no longer an attorney. He had resigned, and furthermore he had declared that he would no longer be a man of Kinsdale. He would be off to a faraway place to make his fortune.

"What is this place we are headed to?" asked Anne that night as he tucked her into bed.

"A wondrous land of beauty, where we can begin our lives anew," said William, brushing a strand of red hair from his daughter's face before kissing her forehead softly.

"Will we go by ship?" asked Anne, jittering with excitement, her mother's blue eyes flashing with anticipation. "I've always wanted to sail across the sea."

"Then indeed you shall," laughed William. "One has no choice if their destination is the New World. We'll make a fresh start there, and live happily ever after."

If only that were true.