An Unconventional Heiress
Paula Marshall
The Lady and the ConvictSociety heiress Sarah Langley came to Australia to get away from her stifling English home. But she didn't expect to mix with transported criminals like the duplicitous Tom Dilhorne and the infuriating, intense Alan Kerr.An unjustly disgraced doctor, Alan Kerr spent all his energy helping Sydney's poor. He had no time to waste on silly society women like Sarah Langley. But his feelings changed when he learned more about the caring beauty. And from their unlikely friendship, a forbidden passion started to grow….
Sarah stepped into the grounds, bathed in moonlight.
She walked away from the house, down a shrub-lined path, the night air cool on her hot cheeks. She saw that another person beside herself had found the company tedious. It was Dr. Alan Kerr.
He saw her at the same moment that she became aware of his presence, and said, his voice low, “Did you find the crowd unendurable, too?”
“Yes.” And then in a rush, “Oh, Alan, whatever could the governor have been thinking of? I am sure that everyone saw…”
Sarah ran out of words as the implication of what she had just said struck home.
Alan took both her hands and kissed them. “What did they see, Sarah?”
She lifted her eyes to his. “You know…”
An Unconventional Heiress
Paula Marshall
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PAULA MARSHALL,
married with three children, has had a varied life. She began her career in a large library and ended it as a university academic in charge of history. She has traveled widely, has been a swimming coach and has appeared on University Challenge and Mastermind. She has always wanted to write, and likes her novels to be full of adventure and humor.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter One
Why in the world had she travelled here to this strange continent, to a frontier town which was caught between the impassable sea and the equally impassable land? Sarah Langley, whose life seemed to have shrunk down to nothing, asked herself this question for the hundredth time since leaving England nearly six months ago.
All that she could think of, while the long blur which was the coast of New South Wales drew nearer and nearer, was how blessed it would be to stand on dry land again, away from the cramped confines of her cabin and the heaving deck. The state of misery in which she had lived since that last dreadful meeting with Charles Villiers had increased with every nautical mile that the ship had sailed.
Her brother John, who had reluctantly allowed her to come with him on this journey to the Antipodes, was also eager to land, but his was the eagerness of an artist’s ambition.
‘I can scarcely believe it, Sarah,’ he was saying, ‘but we have at last reached the promised land. I cannot wait to go ashore, to see the wonders of a new world.’
Somehow Sarah answered him without betraying how distressed she was. The fact that she had been foolish enough to accompany him on this journey at all was a constant reproach to her and had been from the moment they had left home. Never mind that she had originally joined John in anticipating the beauties of a land lyrically described by the first travellers to it. A land where even the plants and animals were strange and wonderful.
Sydney would need to be Paradise itself to make up for the discomforts of the long journey, which had been hardly alleviated by their stay in Rio and then at the Cape before the last leg of it was accomplished.
When they reached Sydney, however, it was far from being Paradise. They had docked in a place that looked like all the other dismal seaports they had visited on their travels. Crowds of ill-dressed and noisy people had turned out to greet them, together with porters pushing carts, groups of soldiers, and a few, a very few, persons who might be gentlefolk. A ship’s arrival was obviously a gala day. Nor could they leave their temporary home immediately as Sarah had hoped. There were formalities to be gone through and officials to be satisfied before they could set foot on the quay.
John, having earlier ordered his man of all work, Carter, to bring his painting materials on deck, was enthusiastically sketching the scene before them. ‘Picturesque, so picturesque,’ he kept exclaiming. Sarah wished that she, too, had had the forethought to carry her sketchbook on deck with her, but she had wrongly supposed that once the ship had docked they would instantly leave it.
After all, they had both come to draw and paint. John was already known as an amateur of some distinction, although he had been born a country gentleman of great wealth with a seat at Prior’s Langley in Hampshire.
Just as Sarah’s impatience and boredom reached boiling point—she told herself that she must really learn to control the temper that she had never known she possessed until Charles’s defection—there was a slight commotion on deck. Chalmers, the ship’s mate, came towards them, followed by a handsome young officer in scarlet regimentals.
Chalmers had been one of Sarah’s silent admirers on board ship, finding, like many men, that her chestnut-coloured hair, green eyes and creamy skin, allied to a graceful figure, were quite irresistible. Although she was socially beyond his touch, he was unhappy at having to hand her over to the company of such a military peacock.
‘Miss Sarah Langley, Mr John Langley, I must introduce you to Lieutenant Frank Wright of the 73rd Foot, the Royal Highland Regiment. He has come aboard to look after your welfare.’
They all bowed at one another. Young Lieutenant Wright swept off his black bicorne hat to reveal his handsome golden head. He was a trifle young, thought Sarah, who had a taste for more mature men, but good-looking, very. Lieutenant Wright’s eyes approved of her, too.
‘I am here,’ he announced, ‘on behalf of the Governor, Lachlan Macquarie, who, I believe, has corresponded with Mr Langley over his desire to come here to paint the native flora and fauna of New South Wales.’ He paused and bowed again.
We shall be doing this all day, thought Sarah, who was suddenly in a fever of impatience to be off the Pomona, and found all this punctiliousness wearisome, even though John seemed to be appreciating it. He always enjoyed pomp and circumstance: Sarah was beginning to think it boring.
‘The Governor thought that you would most likely be tired after your long journey, and that you might welcome a few days rest at Government House, before you take up the accommodation which he has found for you in George Street. If this is agreeable to you both, I have a carriage waiting and I will take you there as soon as you have permission to leave.’
‘With pleasure,’ and ‘Most agreeable,’ they replied and after further politenesses they made their way along the deck, Sarah on the Lieutenant’s arm while he steered her through the noisy bustle of a ship being unloaded.
‘They are preparing to bring the convicts on deck,’ he explained to her. ‘The Commissioner will inform them of the nature of their future life and direct them to where they will be inspected by those needing labourers.’
Still other workmen were coming on board to arrange for stores and supplies to be released from the hold. The Langleys’ small party was compelled to wait at the tip of the gangplank since two men were already on their way up it. The first, tall and dark, and well dressed in civilian clothes, Sarah noticed idly, was advancing on to the deck and speaking in tones of barely controlled fury.
‘So,’ he said to Chalmers, who was directing operations, ‘I am to understand that the medical supplies which I ordered, and which I badly need, have not arrived. Your excuse being that there was not enough room for them in the hold. Tom,’ he said, turning to his companion, ‘which do you think ought to come first? The needs and health of the colonists, or the comfort and convenience of a fine lady and gentleman from England?’
His companion, a sandy-haired man with a pair of striking blue eyes and a humorous, rather than handsome, face, was wearing what Sarah was later to discover were the typical clothes of a Sydney Emancipist. Easy and careless, they consisted of a white-spotted red neckcloth, a loose grey jacket, baggy trousers, scuffed boots and a grey felt hat on the back of his head. He was pulling at his friend’s arm to indicate the presence of Sarah and John.
‘What?’ snapped his friend, turning his head and giving Sarah an excellent view of his eagle’s profile and a pair of furious grey eyes that were regarding them both with a look of ill-concealed contempt. John, with his stance and air of a gentleman, and Sarah, the very model of a useless fine lady with her cream silk dress and tiny parasol, seemed to be anathema to him.
Frank Wright could almost feel the Langleys’ indignation. ‘Steady on, Dr Kerr,’ he said cheerfully. ‘There’s no need to insult Miss Langley and her brother. That won’t restore your missing supplies.’
The hard grey eyes swept over him, too. ‘Squiring the ladies again, Wright?’ he said, unbending enough to doff his straw hat in John and Sarah’s direction before he strode off along the deck without waiting to be formally introduced.
His friend, raising an eyebrow, half-bowed, his bright blue eyes hard on Sarah and her brother, assessing them coolly without Dr Kerr’s open hostility. In contrast to his friend’s taut self-control he was all ease. ‘I am Tom Dilhorne, at your service. I hope to see you in my store.’
His voice carried overtones of a rural Yorkshire origin, but he could scarcely have been more confidently sure of himself than if he had been on equal terms with them for years. Lieutenant Wright made no attempt to introduce him, or to acknowledge him in any way when he, too, pulled off his battered felt hat before following Dr Kerr’s path along the ship’s deck.
‘Good God, who in the world were they?’ asked John Langley, his voice indignant. He was not accustomed to be spoken to in such a cavalier fashion. To make matters worse, the second, ill-dressed oaf was the owner of a shop!
‘Oh, Dilhorne,’ said Frank Wright carelessly. ‘Dilhorne’s nothing. He’s an Emancipist. I wonder he had the impudence to speak to you at all. That’s not true,’ he added, with a laugh. ‘I should say that Dilhorne’s got impudence enough for anything. The brute has even made a friend of one of the aborigines.’
‘Well, his manners are better than Dr Kerr’s, even if he is an Emancipist, whatever that is,’ said Sarah, furiously. She might not like circumstance, but good manners were good manners the world over.
Frank Wright began to explain to her that an Emancipist was a man or woman who had come to New South Wales as a convicted criminal, and who had served their term or been pardoned. They had no social standing, and were cut off from the colony’s elite, the so-called Exclusives, who were those free men and women who had gone out in the service of the Crown as civil servants, the military or the Navy, or who were free traders and farmers, there by choice, not necessity.
‘You mustn’t mind Dr Kerr,’ he ended. ‘That’s his manner. He doesn’t mean anything by it—what’s more, he’s the best doctor in the colony. The Governor swears by him, although…’
What the ‘although’ meant Sarah was not immediately to find out, for Carter, who had gone ahead, now returned with the request that Lieutenant Wright should arrange for the transfer of the Langleys’ possessions from the hold to the shore as soon as possible.
The Lieutenant, John and Carter left Sarah in the waiting carriage on the quay outside, her parasol up to defend her from the hot sun that shone down brilliantly on this inappropriate November day. ‘We shan’t leave you long, I trust. Corporal Mackay, the driver, will look after you,’ Frank Wright volunteered before he left her. He was invariably cheerful, Sarah was to find.
Sarah was not destined to lack company. First of all Tom Dilhorne emerged from the ship and saw her sitting on her own. He evidently considered himself to have been introduced for he came over to the carriage, pulled off his hat, and said, ‘Abandoned already, Miss Langley?’
From anyone else this might have seemed almost impudent, but his cool, laconic manner and his impersonal blue eyes seemed to rob his words of any undesirable overtones.
‘Indeed, Mr Dilhorne. But not for long, I hope. There seem to be a large number of ships in the harbour, which I confess surprises me very much. Why is this so?’
He answered her question as gravely as she had asked it without the accents of condescension that most men whom she knew employed towards a pretty woman. ‘Why, Miss Langley, Sydney is a major staging post in the Pacific already. There are ships from Macao here and Yankee whalers, too. The nearest one, The Sprite, is my own.’
‘I understood you to say that you were a store-owner, Mr Dilhorne.’
‘I am a trader, as well, among other things. I shall be unpacking some silks from Macao tomorrow. I think that you might like to inspect them.’
‘Huckstering away, Tom?’ Dr Kerr had arrived while they were speaking. His words to his friend were jocular, but his manner to Sarah was cool if not so brusquely harsh as it had been when they were on board ship. Behind him John, Carter and Lieutenant Wright were also coming down the gangplank, making for the waiting carriage.
‘Miss Langley,’ he said, ‘I must apologise for my earlier discourtesy to you. I fear that my anger at the non-arrival of some of my stores was transferred to your brother and yourself.’ He half-turned towards John at the end of his little speech.
Before John could answer him, Sarah lowered her parasol and stared over Dr Kerr’s shoulder at Tom, who had retreated and was watching them impassively. Her reply was short.
‘Your apology is accepted, Dr Kerr, although there was no need to make one. My brother and I are well aware that our presence is not particularly welcome in New South Wales. However, that is no matter since it is unlikely that our paths will cross again.’
Her tone and her manner to him were as cold as she could make them.
Dr Kerr clapped his hat firmly on his head and answered her in kind. ‘You are mistaken, madam. Unless your health is perfect, or you are willing to settle for some half-trained leech from The Rocks, then you and your brother are likely to encounter me on a number of occasions. I bid you good day and good health—you are likely to need both.’
With that, he was gone, leaving Sarah with her mouth open and John amused at his impudence. ‘My sympathies, sister. Yonder colonial doctor is obviously made of sterner stuff than the puppy dogs who surrounded you in London. Not that I approve of his manners, you understand: they appear to be worse than those of his Emancipist friend.’
Sarah’s face was scarlet beneath her parasol and, although her answer to Frank Wright, who advised her to ignore Dr Kerr’s incivility since he was the colony’s only decent doctor, apart from a retired surgeon called Wentworth, was a composed one, she was inwardly seething not only at his rudeness, but also at John’s amusement. Later she was to admit that it was her own less-than-polite reply which was responsible for the doctor’s subsequent insolence. She was dismally aware that it was her own folly in travelling to this barbarous shore, plus the sense of rejection that she had felt since Charles’s jilting of her, which had combined to make her less than sensitive to the feelings of others.
At first, the passing scenery which surrounded them on their journey to Government House was a vague blur in front of which she mechanically exercised her forgotten good manners. She recovered sufficiently to ask Lieutenant Wright about something which had puzzled her in Dr Kerr’s rejoinder.
‘Dr Kerr mentioned The Rocks a moment ago. Are they a street or a district?’
‘The Rocks?’ Young Lieutenant Wright’s insouciance temporarily deserted him. ‘It is a district, Miss Langley. It is where the convicts and the rascals of the colony live. No decent person goes there.’
Unspoken was his conviction that Dr Kerr should not have mentioned the place to a lady of quality such as Miss Sarah Langley. For her part, Sarah was now painfully aware that Dr Kerr had been mocking her in recommending to her a physician from such a quarter.
She tried to forget the whole unhappy incident by a closer examination of her surroundings, but her thoughts reverted again and again to the uncivil Dr Kerr. Who would have thought that such a handsome and apparently polished gentleman could have taken against her—and John—on first meeting them? His behaviour had merely served to reinforce her conviction that the whole of the male sex was unworthy of the interest of a woman of sense.
A woman of sense would try to forget Dr Kerr by concentrating instead on her journey through Sydney, which, Sarah found, was composed of a strange mixture of building styles. There were ramshackle huts, cabins and lean-tos with children and chickens running around them, next door to houses that would not have disgraced a wealthy London suburb. There were flowers everywhere.
Sarah might have felt a little happier if she had not been suffering from the inevitable consequences of spending such a long time aboard ship. Her head was swimming and the ground, when she stepped down from the carriage, seemed to be moving beneath her. Her sense of relief when she finally entered Government House was great. Here, in this attractive, if small, building, she found a haven of rest: a room of her own where she was surrounded by modest luxury, pure water and clean linen.
Surely now she could forget both Charles Villiers and Dr Kerr.
‘It’s not like you to be such a boor towards a pretty young lady before she has even set foot in the colony,’ Tom Dilhorne offered mildly to his friend on their walk back to Tom’s gig. ‘Got out of bed the wrong side this morning, did you?’
Alan Kerr could not have said—indeed, he did not understand—why the first sight of Sarah Langley had roused such anger in his breast. After all, it was scarcely her fault that his stores had been left behind, but in some odd way her imperious chestnut-haired beauty had touched a nerve in him that he had long thought deadened by the years which had passed since he had arrived in New South Wales.
Was it that she reminded him not only of the pretty girl he had lost, but also of the life that he might have lived before his own folly had brought him to the other end of the world?
‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘I can’t imagine why such a fine lady and gentleman should wish to come here at all. They are exactly the useless kind of gentry the colony could do without. They will want servants, accommodation and care that should be reserved for those who are willing to work to make Sydney a better place for all of us. We could, for instance, really do with another qualified doctor. I am almost run off my feet, as you know. What I also know is that, far from the Langleys working, they will expect others to work for them.
‘I do regret, though, that I was so short with Miss Langley. It was not the act of a gentleman, although God knows, I cannot really call myself a gentleman any more.’
‘Short,’ drawled Tom, ‘that’s a mild word for biting the poor young thing’s head off. Still, I take your point about your stores, although you might have waited to make it later—and more tactfully. You’re usually the tactful one, not me.’
Alan Kerr began to laugh.
‘Come, come, Tom, you know that you’re the devious devil, not me—you ooze tact when you think that it will pay off. Now let’s forget the Langleys. With luck, I shan’t have much to do with them in future.’
Nevertheless, when he reached his home again, he couldn’t help thinking of Sarah Langley as he had first seen her in the pride of her beauty and wondered again why he had felt such fierce resentment at a sight that should have compelled his admiration, not his anger.
Chapter Two
Sarah was soon to find that in Sydney she and John were curiosities since so few cared to make the long and difficult journey from England, unless compelled by the law, or their duty. That they should have travelled so far to see and record this new fragment of Empire was strange enough: that they should come from the highest reach of English society was even stranger.
Lachlan Macquarie received them with enthusiasm. He had originally been sent out as the Colonel of the 73rd Highland Regiment, but after the mutiny against the previous Governor, William Bligh, in 1810, he had unexpectedly found himself the new Governor on his arrival. A highly competent man of strong principle, he was determined to make his newly acquired fief a land to be proud of rather than simply exist as a kind of dustbin for the unwanted and the criminal.
He was pleased to welcome John and Sarah precisely because they had come to study the colony’s beauties, and on the third day after their arrival he gave a dinner party in their honour in order to introduce them to the social life of Sydney. He could also painlessly, through his guests, make the Langleys fully aware of the forms and difficulties of life in this outpost of Empire.
Sarah was careful to dress herself as though she were going to be the guest of honour in the presence of the Prince Regent himself since, after all, the Governor was his deputy in New South Wales. She was magnificent in pale yellow silk. Her only jewellery, a beautiful topaz brooch, which matched the colour of her dress, served to add lustre to the striking beauty that had so overset Alan Kerr.
The officers of the 73rd, both married and unmarried, to whom she and John were introduced before dinner, were impressed by the pair of them. Her looks and John’s gentlemanly bonhomie also found favour with their wives and daughters.
‘I hear you had the misfortune to meet the biggest rogue in Sydney even before you had left the Pomona,’ drawled Major Menzies on being introduced to Sarah. ‘I understand that his friend, the doctor, was with him, too. I gather that Dilhorne even had the impudence to speak to you without having been introduced.’
‘Now, Menzies,’ said another gallant gentleman, as blond and handsome as Frank Wright. ‘Parker’s the name, Madam,’ he said to Sarah. ‘Tom’s not that much of a rogue these days. He’s honest with you if you’re honest with him. He only cheats the cheaters.’
‘Oh, come, Parker,’ reproached Menzies. ‘Don’t be greener than you are. Dilhorne arrived in chains after being sentenced to death at eighteen for God knows what. Once he was released and became an Emancipist, he made himself the richest man in the colony before he reached his mid-thirties—and you call him honest!’
Parker was stubborn. ‘Agreed, but you have to admit that the Governor has made a friend of him; say what you like about Macquarie, he wouldn’t take up with a thief. At least, not one who’s practising now,’ he amended.
‘Well, whatever Parker says, Miss Langley, I advise you not to have anything to do with him, or his doctor friend, either. Why—’ He would have said more, but Parker was pulling at his arm to indicate that the Governor was coming towards them with Dr Alan Kerr at his side.
‘Oh, damnation!’ exclaimed Menzies, disgusted. ‘I see that he’s determined to force them all down our throats. Is Dilhorne here, too? No? You do surprise me. Miss Langley, it is the outside of enough for you to have to deal with such people. Tell you later about Dr Kerr,’ he finished, just before the Governor reached them.
‘Ah, Miss Langley,’ said Macquarie with his easy smile. ‘I would like you to meet Dr Kerr. He is not only my personal physician, but my friend, and one who has the colony’s health at heart.’
‘Thank you,’ responded Sarah glacially, ‘but we have already met.’ Her manner did not suggest that the meeting had been a happy one.
‘Indeed,’ replied Dr Kerr, equally coldly, ‘Miss Langley and I have already exchanged opinions on the manners and morals of colonial life.’
‘Yes,’ said Sarah. The devil inside her that had made her respond to Major Menzies’s warning about Tom Dilhorne by secretly determining to meet and speak with him again was compelling her to be as overtly rude to this particular colonial savage as she dare. ‘Doctor Kerr has given me an extremely accurate picture of the level of civility that I may expect to find here. I cannot but thank him for it.’
‘On the contrary,’ Alan Kerr replied instantly, looking more like an offended eagle than ever, ‘it is I who should thank you, Miss Langley, for making me acquainted with the intellectual baggage that great persons from England bring with them to this poor colony.’
Sarah rose to this bait magnificently. ‘Pray do not offer me thanks, Dr Kerr. I am only too willing to spread civilisation and culture in whichever part of the globe I may happen to find myself. Particularly when it is so obviously needed.’
They glared furiously at one another. Their hearers were fascinated. Sarah suddenly became aware of what a spectacle she was making of herself and also of what the Governor might think of her own lack of manner, if not to say manners, towards his friend. She also suddenly grasped that the officers of the 73rd were, by their expressions and reactions, cheering her on and she did not really wish to be part of any feud that was currently simmering. She had not only been unladylike, but also unwise—and it was all Dr Alan Kerr’s fault. His very presence seemed to provoke her into one excess after another.
She really must try to behave herself in future.
Alan Kerr was, although Sarah did not know it, also regretting his own lack of civility before his friend and patron, the Governor. Like Sarah, he decided to mend his manners.
He bowed.
Sarah curtsied.
The Governor said nothing, although he thought a lot, since saying something might prove unwise. What he was thinking might have surprised both parties and their fascinated audience. He also bowed to Sarah, before taking Alan Kerr’s arm and walking him away.
‘Oh, well done, Miss Langley,’ said Menzies appreciatively. ‘Well done, indeed. It’s all a jumped-up ex-felon deserves: a real set-down from a fine lady like yourself. It’s a great pity that all Emancipists cannot be served so.’
‘An Emancipist?’ said Sarah, surprised. ‘You mean that Dr Kerr was transported here as a convict?’
Menzies was about to refine on his answer when he saw the Governor approaching them again with a respectable Exclusive in tow this time. ‘Ahem, Miss Langley, tell you later. I think that you ought to know the truth about Kerr.’
Little though she liked him, Sarah found it difficult to believe that the man with the eagle’s profile had arrived here in chains. For what? she wondered. His crime was doomed to remain unknown for the time being since Major Menzies found no further opportunity to enlighten her and she did not wish to raise the subject with anyone else.
She was later to discover that Major Menzies was not the only person to resent Macquarie’s friendship with Alan Kerr. Few of the Exclusives shared the Governor’s tolerant attitude towards Emancipists, and many of them expressed their anger over it as plainly as they could. This did not prevent them from availing themselves of his medical skills, but it meant that he was cut off from most society in Sydney, such as it was.
Indeed, everyone whom she met that night commiserated with her on her encounter with the two men so early in her stay. Even Major Middleton’s wife and his pretty daughter, Lucy, who was near in age to Sarah, and eagerly anxious to make a new friend, were not slow to speak of them.
Lucy’s major exclamations, however, were all on the subject of Sarah’s lemon silk gown.
‘Oh, Sarah, how delightful your frock is. I suppose that it is in the very latest fashion since the waist is so much lower than any you will find in Sydney.’
‘That may be so,’ said Sarah, smiling and greatly relieved to be gossiping about something as innocent as the dress she was wearing for the Governor’s dinner. ‘But since it is over six months since I left England I must suppose that it is already out of date there!’
‘Never mind that,’ was Lucy’s brisk reply. ‘It is of the highest fashion here and that is all that matters. The colour suits you so well, too. Mama and I are determined to introduce you to all the best people and the places where only the Exclusives are allowed to visit—although even there,’ she added, ‘one cannot be sure that one will not meet some of the low creatures such as Alan Kerr, even if he is a good doctor—to say nothing of Tom Dilhorne.’
It was becoming increasingly plain to Sarah that Dr Kerr and Tom Dilhorne were like a pair of sore teeth to Sydney’s elite since the conversation constantly kept returning to them and their enormities.
The only officer who seemed to have a good word for either of them was a darkly handsome Scot introduced to her as Captain Patrick Ramsey.
He and Sarah chatted together happily about nothing for a few moments before she said, somewhat provokingly, ‘I have to tell you, Captain Ramsey, that you are the first person to whom I have spoken who has not spent a great deal of time warning me about Dr Kerr, after commiserating with me for his having been the first of Sydney’s inhabitants whom I chanced to meet.’
‘Oh, Kerr,’ laughed Pat Ramsey cheerfully. ‘What the 73rd resents the most about him is his having been sent here for committing treason. To make matters worse, when he and that outsider Dilhorne visited the Chevalier Ince—the fencing master sent here for fraud—to take fencing lessons, they turned out to be better with the foils than any of our officers. They’re both crack shots, too. Don’t seem fair, does it?’
‘But you don’t feel particularly resentful about them, Captain Ramsey?’
‘No, not I. I can’t feel resentful about poor devils sent here in chains. I shall be leaving shortly, while Kerr and Dilhorne are doomed to stay in this Godforsaken hole. Kerr’s a good doctor, but one thing worth remembering about Dilhorne is that he’s dangerous.’
All this merely served to push Sarah more and more towards meeting again these strange characters who were remarkable enough to set everyone talking. The perversity that ruled her these days drove her towards the dangerous and the forbidden, the permitted and the allowed having let her down so much. Truth to tell, Dr Kerr fascinated her, particularly now that she knew that he had arrived here in chains. Never before had she met such high-nosed insolence—and from an ex-convict, too.
In future, of course, she must not let herself be tempted to lose her temper with him. No, dignified reproof must be the order of the day. He must be left in no doubt of her displeasure should he offend again, but, in future, she must not give him any opportunity to attack her verbally again. By no means.
She really must stop thinking about the wretch.
Fortunately for Sarah, her new life in Sydney was busier than she might have expected. Lucy Middleton arrived on the following afternoon to fulfil the promise which she had made on the previous night to show Sarah all of Sydney’s main sights as soon as possible.
Lucy, charming in a young girl’s straw hat and a simple muslin dress embroidered with flowers, came to the point as soon as possible.
‘I persuaded Mama to let me visit you alone—much more fun for both of us. I do hope that you are not finding Sydney too hot. I know that Mama was very overset by it when she first came here, but one soon gets used to it. She thought that you might be feeling lonely today so she told me to ask you to come to dinner this afternoon. Papa has promised to take us all out to Hyde Park for an airing afterwards. Do say yes. Mr Langley is included in the invitation, of course.’
‘I shall be delighted to come, but I fear that John will not be home in time. He has borrowed a horse from Lieutenant Wright and gone to find kangaroos to draw. Goodness knows when he will return!’
‘Then you must come on your own. I’m longing to talk to you. It’s such a bore having no one but Mama and the children to go out with. There are so few presentable young ladies in the colony, you see.’
Sarah needed no persuasion. A drive to Hyde Park—named after the one in London, presumably—might not represent the height of sophistication and excitement, but it would certainly be better than sitting around waiting for John. Particularly when it would be likely that he would end his day in the Officers’ Mess and not arrive home until the small hours.
‘One thing, Lucy. What ought I to wear? Formal dress or something more comfortable? A muslin, perhaps—it would certainly be cooler than the toilette I am wearing.’
Lucy gave a jolly laugh. ‘Goodness, Sarah, I’m sure you would look well in anything. Mama said after she met you last night that she hoped that I would take a leaf out of your book, you looked so perfectly composed. Yes, a muslin would be splendid. Papa will send the carriage round for you after nuncheon. We can spend the afternoon together before dinner.’
Later, after dinner, sitting by Lucy and opposite to Mrs Middleton, Sarah was to wonder whether her gown was appropriate after all. Alongside the simple dresses of the Sydney ladies it seemed somewhat over-elaborate. Of course, the many curious eyes that roved over her, both male and female, were, she told herself, solely the result of her being a newcomer. Soon she would no longer be a subject of uncommon interest but would be simply one of the crowd; she could hardly wait for that day to come.
The drive to the Park through streets lined with houses, whose gardens were blazing with flowers, was faintly reminiscent of home, but the stalls of fruit on each corner, and the gaily coloured parrots that hung in cages on every verandah, were not.
Hyde Park, when they reached it, proved to be set among trees and was pleasantly cool. The Regimental Band was already there, stationed beneath the pines, playing popular songs and marches. Men, mostly Army officers, walked, rode and drove about. The ladies sat in their carriages and waited to be spoken to or invited to promenade. Sarah was surprised to find that it really was a miniature version of the Hyde Park she knew in London—and it was none the less pleasing for that.
Major Middleton accompanied them on horseback, and, once their carriage was drawn up, facing the view inland, but near to the band, he left them to visit the Menzies’s carriage. The Middletons’ was immediately besieged by all those young officers who had not yet seen Sarah, but who had already heard that a rare beauty had come among them and were eager to meet her.
As Lucy and Sarah descended from the carriage, bold eyes roved over Sarah’s elegant face and figure, mustachios were twirled at her, as each young fellow jostled for her attention until Pat Ramsey, with Frank Wright in tow, arrived to disperse them all with a word and a look.
‘Have a heart,’ he exclaimed. ‘Besides, you have not been so much as introduced to Miss Langley while Frank and I have.’
‘Then you could introduce us,’ said one bold young ensign, to be quelled by Pat with:
‘Another day, perhaps. Now, Miss Langley, what do you think of our little imitation of London?’
‘That it has its own charms, Captain Ramsey.’
‘Bravely said. If you look around, you may note how democratic we are here—more so than in London, I think. There are several Emancipists present, and most of them are on good horses, too.’
For the first time since she had arrived in Sydney, Sarah engaged in light-hearted banter with a man as they strolled across the grass. ‘Pray tell me, Captain Ramsey, how I am to distinguish them if they are mounted as well as the 73rd’s officers?’
Pat laughed, showing his splendid teeth. ‘Well, in at least two cases you will find no difficulty at all in detecting them, for both Dilhorne and his friend Dr Kerr are taking the air here this evening.’
‘I see that most of the visitors are speaking to one another—will anyone speak to them?’
‘Bowing at a distance by the men is as far as most are willing to go. The ladies, of course, ignore them.’
‘Of course.’
Pat was about to continue their tête-à-tête when a harassed young ensign ran up to him and saluted. ‘Sir, Colonel O’Connell has sent me to ask you to return to Barracks immediately. The matter is urgent.’
Pat gave a great sigh. ‘The matter is always urgent. I wonder what bee buzzes in his bonnet this time. Forgive me, Miss Langley, for leaving you. I will escort you to your carriage and perhaps we may continue our conversation another time.’
‘Certainly,’ Sarah replied, sorry to lose such an easy and pleasant companion, especially since she was doomed to sit beside Mrs Middleton again. Her conversation was scarcely lively and boredom was sure to be on the menu once more.
Well, that was not quite true, Sarah thought ruefully, far from it, for no sooner had she settled herself in the Middletons’ carriage again than Dr Kerr on his large grey and Tom Dilhorne on a handsome chestnut rode up. Their daring to approach them was sure to cause even more gossip to run round Sydney.
Tom, after bowing to them all, departed to greet Will French—yet another Emancipist who had made good. Mrs Middleton glared after him, but she could not dismiss Dr Kerr so easily. He was their family physician, for there was no one else as competent as he was, and she was therefore compelled to acknowledge him.
Her manner to him was icy, to say the least, but at least she spoke to him. Doctor Kerr’s bow to them was equally cool after he had swept off his hat. Sarah thought furiously how odious it was that such a hateful man should be so attractive, much more so than most of the 73rd’s officers.
‘Mrs Middleton, Miss Middleton, Miss Langley,’ on one side and ‘Dr Kerr,’ on the other should have been sufficient acknowledgement, and ought to have ended their conversation, but the same devil that had plagued Sarah since she had landed in Sydney provoked her into further folly. She could not prevent herself from adding, ‘I am surprised to find you here, Dr Kerr. The occasion scarcely seems sufficiently serious to merit your presence.’
His eyes blazed at her. His head lifted. Alan Kerr had come to Hyde Park quite determined that, if he should find Sarah Langley there, he would do as Tom Dilhorne had suggested and try to be tactful, or at least to moderate his manner to her. Both these good resolutions flew away on his discovering that she was more than ready to take the haughtiest tone with him.
‘Oh,’ he said, as disdainful as she, ‘I came to note the absurdities of high life, or what passes for it here, Miss Langley. I am only too happy to see that you are adding to them.’
His speech was a red rag to a bull. Before she could stop herself Sarah shot her defiance back at him.
‘Is that so, Dr Kerr? You may imagine with what pleasure I shall record all the sophisticated delights of Sydney in my next letter home. My friends will be highly entertained with my accounts of the black and white aborigines of Botany Bay.’
He was not to be set down so easily, though, and he offered her yet another of his derisory bows before answering her as harshly as she had spoken to him.
‘Our good fortune, Miss Langley, in having you here, is beyond belief. Pray tell us, what exactly did bring you to New South Wales? What piece of good, or bad, fortune induced you to confer the honour of your presence on us? After all, you did have the opportunity of choice in the matter, unlike many of us, as I am sure that you are aware.’
To her horror, Sarah felt her eyes fill with tears. She could see Lucy’s delighted face, mouth half-open while she followed this exchange of politely expressed savage discourtesies.
And he…he…he had the wit, the impertinence and the acumen to put his finger with deadly accuracy on the one thing that she could endure to think of the least. The reason why, in an impulsive fit of wilfulness after Charles’s jilting of her, she had decided to visit this dreadful place where she was being subjected to insults among a crowd of ill-bred commoners.
She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye, her face ashen. Damn him for his impudence and his percipience, but she would answered him as bravely as she could. He must not know how much he had distressed her.
‘We must not keep you, Dr Kerr, from all the friends who surround you. There are surely many present only too willing to be entertained by your ready wit. We must not monopolise you.’
Alan Kerr knew at once that he had hurt her, that the bright armour, which she wore so lightly, had been badly pierced. But he could not stop himself, any more than Sarah could, from continuing the verbal guerrilla warfare that had sprung up between them.
‘You are right, as usual, Miss Langley. We are, of course, certain to meet again soon so that I may enjoy the gentle charms of your conversation. I understand that you will be at the Governor’s dinner on Saturday week, where I shall be only too happy to discourse with you further on Antipodean, as opposed to European, customs.’
His final bow to her—and the two Middleton ladies—was elaborately formal.
Sarah sat in silence, her face scarlet, and so near to breaking down that she could scarcely breathe. It was fortunate that Mrs Middleton was so angry at Dr Kerr’s effrontery that she could not see Sarah’s patent distress. She said, her face working, ‘The impudence of them. They’re sent here as punishment, and when they are here they are bare-faced enough to address His Majesty’s loyal subjects as though they’re no better than themselves, no better than transported felons.’
Lucy laid her hand lightly on Sarah’s to comfort her. ‘You are not to trouble yourself about what such a creature thinks,’ she murmured softly. ‘If he were not such a good doctor, he would still be in chains.’
Sarah was too busy musing unhappily about the recent distressing scene to hear what Lucy said. The impudence of him, she thought, echoing Mrs Middleton. He needed taking down a peg or two, that was for sure. Then her common sense, sadly missing since she had arrived in Sydney, took over, and told her that a criminal who had been brought from England in irons had already been brought down by far more than two pegs.
For all that, she thought, he behaves like a Spanish Grandee, which really is the most provoking thing! The next time that we meet I shall try to keep to my early resolution and not speak like an intemperate shrew. After all, it was Charles Villiers who did me the greater injury and not this nobody of an Emancipist doctor! I must try to forget them both.
She looked around. The bright day had been dimmed for her, but just when she had begun to think that everyone was in a conspiracy to distress her, a most unlikely saviour in the person of Tom Dilhorne arrived to take her mind off herself and her troubles. Afterwards, she was to ask herself whether that had been his real intention, rather than the obvious one of his using an opportunity to persuade her to patronise his Emporium. At the time, though, it was not a question that occurred to her.
He swept off his hat in greeting. This time it was an elegant straw one, not the battered felt he had worn on the ship. His dress was rather better, too. He made nothing of Mrs Middleton’s open annoyance at his daring to approach them at all, merely saying, ‘Your servant, ladies,’ before turning his attention towards Sarah.
‘Miss Langley, the silks from Macao, of which I spoke when you first arrived here, are now unpacked and in the shop. Not only that, when I inspected the goods, which came from England, there were some fine cottons that might be to your liking.’
‘Then you must expect a visit from me—and possibly from Miss Middleton.’ Sarah smiled, determined to show both him and the Middleton ladies that she had not been overset by Dr Kerr. ‘There are some grand occasions to be attended soon, I hear, and I shall need a positive trousseau.’
Excellent. Whatever that ass, his good friend, had said and done to distress her, it had not succeeded in dampening her spirits completely. Tom thought that he knew why Sarah Langley was having such a powerful effect on Alan Kerr, but it would not do to tell either him or the lady why they were at such odds.
Instead he remarked gravely, ‘Happen I can find some new trimmings for you, too.’ In front of Mrs Middleton his Yorkshire accent had deepened and coarsened. Whenever he had been alone with Sarah, it had always been slight.
Sarah would have detained him further, but, with the dry remark that ‘I am sure that you are finding Sydney of great interest, Miss Langley, particularly since some of our natives are not exactly as civilised as those you have encountered at home,’ he took himself off, pausing to inform her that, if she found any problems in hiring servants when she finally set up house, he would be only too willing to help her.
His departure left Sarah appreciative of both his obliquity and his consideration. Oblique, because his comments on her view of Sydney and its inhabitants could only have been taken as an amused reference to her encounters with Alan Kerr. Considerate because he had seen Mrs Middleton turn as red as a turkey cock because he was speaking to Sarah at all, and had left swiftly enough to spare her reproach from the old harridan.
Mrs Middleton did snort at her, ‘I wonder, Miss Langley, at you allowing such a creature to speak to you.’
‘The Governor told me that his Emporium is well worth a visit. He seems to think highly of him,’ was Sarah’s only reply to that. Tom’s visit had cheered her up no end—a saying of her old nurse’s. All the way back to Government House she told herself that now she was in the Antipodes she must try to forget the past for, if she persisted in refusing to tame her own stormy heart, she might as well have stayed in England. She must not repine, but accept the past and try to welcome the future.
Easy to think, but harder to do.
Sarah kept her promise to visit Tom’s Emporium on the very next day. She walked there from Government House. The Emporium was quite unlike any shop that she had ever patronised before. It was crammed with a variety of goods as well as a small gathering of Sydney’s more respectable matrons, side by side with some whom Mrs Middleton would have dismissed as low. There was no sign of Tom himself: a young man was serving behind a long counter on which even more goods were displayed, when a door at the back opened and he came in, dressed rather like a superior clerk.
He walked the length of the shop, gave her a half-bow, and said, ‘Good morning, Miss Langley, have you come to see the silks—or the cottons?’
Sarah was aware that every woman’s eye was on her, and that Tom was equally aware of it. She was not to know that these days Tom rarely served in the shop himself, leaving that to the young man and a middle-aged woman who was busy looking after one of the matrons.
He walked her over to a small trestle table on which bales of fabric lay and began to display them to her. There were not only rolls of silk, but of muslin, calico, cotton and the finest lawn. He spoke briefly, but knowledgeably, of them all, even recommending certain threads and trimmings as suitable. He was the complete man milliner, she thought with amusement, as far removed as possible from the dangerous brute that Pat Ramsey and the other officers had reported him to be.
She noticed that his hands, like Alan Kerr’s, were beautifully cared for, the nails smoothly cut. This was surprising; even more so was his apparent ability to read her mind, for he said to her, apparently idly, ‘Must keep the hands trim, Miss Langley, might damage the goods, else.’
She began to question him further about the silks and he fetched even more bales from the back to show her, together with ribbons, laces and other frippery, which she might wish to choose from. After running out of questions concerning haberdashery, she said, ‘I understand that you have many other interests besides this store, Mr Dilhorne.’
Her comment was really a question and he took it as such.
‘Indeed, Miss Langley. I run a money-lending business, have connections with stone quarrying and the brick-fields, and own several ships. I occasionally do a little auctioneering and am at the present moment engaged in talks with the Yankee sealers about joining in business with them.’
‘You must be a very busy man. I was surprised to see that both you and Dr Kerr had time to visit Hyde Park yesterday.’
‘Oh, there’s more to life, Miss Langley, than work—as Dr Kerr and I both know.’
How odd it was that she should be enjoying her conversation with a man whom most of Sydney’s Exclusives dismissed as a coarse brute. Would Dr Kerr be as interesting to talk to? she wondered. Perhaps even more so, although most people in Sydney would doubtless tell her that she should not be thinking of, or talking to, either of them.
As though he had been reading her mind again, Tom picked up one of the bales of silk and murmured softly, aware that their lengthy tête-à-tête was drawing curious stares, if not to say glares. ‘If I may advise you, Miss Langley, it may not be altogether wise to speak overlong with me, or my friend the Doctor. Every tabby-cat in Sydney will be at your throat if you do.’
‘Why, Mr Dilhorne,’ she said, with a smile as dangerous as his own, ‘I know of no one who has the right to instruct me on whom to speak with and how long I may speak to them. I choose my partners in conversation, and my friends, for myself.’
It was not quite simple defiance that she was expressing. She found that she liked talking to him. He spoke to her as though she were another man, with no airs either of approval or of condescension. His obliquity pleased her, too, for he half-bowed to her again and continued their conversation as though he had not spoken and she had not answered.
Alan Kerr was wrong about her, Tom thought. She was not your usual fine lady and it was a pleasure to speak with her about his many interests since she had a good mind and was not afraid to use it. His intuition told him that there was something wrong with her, though, that in some strange fashion her world was awry. It was as if she were accompanied by a shadow. A shadow that prevented her from being as easy as she must have once been, a shadow that set her sparking at his friend every time she met him.
‘There is one question which I should like to ask you, Mr Dilhorne, if you would not find it offensive.’
‘Oh, I rarely take offence at anything, Miss Langley. Mostly it’s a pure waste of time. But should I do so, then the offender is sure to be told of it in no uncertain terms.’
His bright blue eyes twinkled at her, but she could suddenly see in him the danger of which she had been warned. Nevertheless she ploughed on.
‘Why is it that Governor Macquarie appears to favour the Emancipists when all the respectable folk in the colony think that he is wrong to do so?’
‘That is an easy question, Miss Langley. It is because he believes that the future lies with the people who stay here, like Dr Kerr and myself, and not with those who come and go, many of whom are idle.’
‘Like myself,’ she commented wryly. ‘And I am keeping you from your work, I fear.’
He made her no smooth, complimentary answer, merely said, ‘Yes, I am a busy man and time is money, you know. There is another thing that I ought to say—and with no offence taken on your part, I hope.’
‘I will answer you with your own words—if you remember them,’ she laughed at him, her face soft, quite unlike the virago who had repeatedly berated Alan Kerr.
‘Indeed, I do. It is this. There are some of us who have suffered grievously, who lost everything when they were brought here against their will—unlike me, for I had nothing to lose—and who now have an opportunity to gain everything. Do not judge too harshly those who see you as a bright reminder of everything that they have lost and who resent you accordingly. Not all of them will be Emancipists, for there will also be those free men and women who will dislike you for possessing the beauty and intellect that they lack. Be patient with them, Miss Langley, if I may so advise you, for you are one of the fortunate in this world—and there are many in New South Wales who are not.’
Emancipist though he was, Sarah could not take offence at his frankness, since what he had said to her struck home. For the first time she began to grasp that her suffering at the hands of Charles Villiers was as nothing to that which many of those around her, including some in the charmed ranks of the Exclusives, were enduring.
‘I will try to remember what you have said,’ she offered him at last. She thought that he was obviously talking of Alan Kerr, and for the first time she wondered what it was that the doctor had lost—and why.
‘I’ve been impertinent, I know,’ Tom told her with his cheerful smile, ‘to speak to you after this fashion, but remember this, I shall always be only too happy to be of service to you, Miss Langley.’
‘Miss Sarah to you, Mr Dilhorne.’
‘Miss Sarah,’ he repeated, before calling over the young man to pick up the silks and trimmings that she had chosen. He made his farewell, not with a bow, but with a hand tipped to his head as though still he wore the battered felt hat in which she had first seen him.
She had made a friend, a strange friend, a man who would never be her lover, but who would treat her as fairly as though no difference of sex existed between them. And if some odd things had begun to happen to Sarah in New South Wales, this was, perhaps, the oddest of them all.
John was predictably annoyed when gossip finally reached him of Sarah’s long conversation with the Emancipist to whom he had forbidden her to speak.
‘Really, Sarah,’ he said, anger plain in his voice, ‘he cannot but think that you are encouraging him. It is neither wise nor sensible of you to consort with such as Dilhorne. Who knows how he may behave towards you if he thinks you…light?’
‘What I do know,’ she flung back at him, ‘is that he warned me himself against talking to him, and his manner to me when we did converse was more proper than that of many gentlemen or military officers whom I have met here, or back in England.’
‘And that statement merely confirms me in my opinion of your lack of judgement, Sarah. The man is an ex-felon, a thief, a ruffian—you cannot know what you are saying.’
‘I know that he is the Governor’s friend, as is Dr Kerr—’ and why should she mention him? ‘—and that Lachlan Macquarie is not a fool, whatever you may think of me.’
‘I only know that every person of consequence in New South Wales disagrees with him over his attitude to Dilhorne and his friend Dr Kerr—and those like them. You would do well not to offend the people among whom you have chosen to live. No gentleman will respect you if he becomes aware that you are hobnobbing with such a ruffian as Dilhorne—to say nothing of what judgement on you our military friends will pass.’
Sarah felt suffocated. It was a feeling from which she had frequently suffered since Charles’s betrayal of her. To overcome it she turned angrily on her brother.
‘Gentlemen!’ she exclaimed. ‘The military! The proper thing to do! I sometimes wonder if we know what we are talking about. Do all these fine words mean that the men who utter them treat women with respect? If I had married Charles, how long would it have been before he took a mistress? As for the military, even innocent little Lucy Middleton knows that the officers, as well as the men, take their pleasure at the houses in The Rocks. Do not look at me like that, John. You know that I am telling the truth. I shall say no more, but I do reserve the right to choose my own friends, now and in the future.’
‘My only relief so far,’ he returned stiffly, ‘is that I am at least fortunate enough not to number Dr Kerr and Dilhorne among them. I can only hope that you will come to see the wisdom of what I have been saying.’
‘Oh, let us leave it at that.’ Sarah thought that she would begin to scream if this unseemly wrangle continued much longer. ‘I cannot say that confining myself to proper gentlemen has been very successful in the past. At least Tom Dilhorne spares me empty compliments and fine, meaningless manners. He talks more sense than all of the beaux I have ever met. Yes, yes,’ she added hastily when John began to reproach her again, ‘I will not speak of him in future, but I will not promise not to speak to him. And that is enough. Do not ask me for more.’
‘Quite so, you are determined to go your own way, I see, but do not be surprised if you find yourself left out of Sydney’s social life in consequence. I wish that I had never consented to bring you with me.’
Sarah bit back yet another riposte and simply swept out of the room, wishing for the thousandth time that she had never left England. Damn Sydney, damn its social life, damn Charles Villiers and Dr Alan Kerr, too—and damn John for being such a pompous ass. Conversation with him had become impossible.
What in the world was happening to her that she should use such dreadful language even to herself? If she weren’t careful, she would find herself saying these unladylike things aloud!
Chapter Three
‘So the Langleys have left Government House, I hear,’ said Alan Kerr, who was eating a bachelor dinner with Tom Dilhorne in Tom’s home off Bridge Street.
‘Yes. The Governor not only found them a house, not far from yours, through his aides, of course, but he also had it furnished and managed to conjure up a housekeeper for them into the bargain.’
‘A housekeeper? However did he manage that? There’s a desperate shortage of such useful creatures in the colony.’
‘Indeed.’ Tom drank up his port before giving a short laugh. ‘Well, if I tell you that he supplied them with Corporal Hackett’s widow, you’ll gather that he did them no favour. On the other hand, she was probably the only woman available.’
‘Mrs Hackett!’ Alan nearly choked over his lamb. ‘Now that I should like to see. The thought of that high-nosed fine lady, trying to keep in order a woman who has created chaos in every kitchen and drawing room of those foolish enough to employ her, has quite made my day. You know that Major Menzies threw her out of his home after she had reduced the whole household to tears? Yes, any woman who can reduce Mrs Menzies to tears is well worth knowing.’
‘Now what should make you think that she’ll subdue Miss Langley?’
‘Come, come, Tom, you know that in the great houses in which Miss Langley lived all the real business of running a home was done behind the scenes so far as she was concerned. Here, she’s living in a little two-storey villa, on top of the kitchen, the cooking and the cleaning. Yes, I can only imagine how hard she’ll find it to cope with such a come-down in the world. I am still wondering what odd whim brought her here, so far from the comforts of her English life.’
It was useless to argue with him. He had taken against Sarah Langley from the first moment they had met, and God only knew if he would ever be able to change his mind about her. Tom was sure that his friend was misjudging her badly, that he was unaware of the dark shadow in which the poor creature was living. He also knew that the misjudgement arose from the circumstances of Alan’s own sad past, and he could do nothing about that.
Best to say nothing, then. After all, it was likely that the Langleys’ stay in the colony would be short, and then there would be nothing to provoke Alan Kerr into forgetting his better self, the self that had rescued Tom Dilhorne from the gutter, and was also fiercely maintaining the good health of Sydney by his tireless hard work.
When Sarah heard that not only had the Governor found and furnished a house for them, but had also appointed a housekeeper to look after it for her, she was overjoyed.
Her joy did not last long. Mrs Hackett was a woman with the build of a pugilist and an expression that was so sour that Sarah felt she probably only had to look at milk to make it turn. If her manner to Sarah was surly, her behaviour towards the servants, also provided by Government House, was downright cruel. Sarah remembered her introduction to them and to Mrs Hackett’s malevolence…
She had been seated at her portable writing desk, trying to finish a letter to her best friend and John’s sweetheart, Emily Hazeldean, when Mrs Hackett had come in to say that the servants had just arrived in a gig driven by one of the corporals with whom her late husband had served.
‘The servants has come, Mam, and most unsatisfactory they are.’
Sarah put down her pen. ‘Why, what is wrong with them, Mrs Hackett?’
‘Sluts,’ she said, balefully, ‘and trollops.’
‘You are speaking of the servants?’
‘Who else, Mam? They’re a convict and a convict’s daughter, and no better than they should be. They’re waiting in the kitchen for you to look at them. You said as how you would.’
She spoke as though Sarah had expressed a wish so outlandish that it scarcely needed to be discussed. Sarah was half-annoyed, half-amused by her insolence, reflecting that from her manner of speaking one might think that Mrs Hackett was the mistress and Sarah the servant!
Settling into her new home had, as Alan Kerr had supposed, taken up a great deal of her time and energy. John, of course, had left everything to her. Not only that, he had departed earlier that morning on yet another sketching expedition and had announced that he would not be back until late since he proposed to dine in the Officers’ Mess again. To make matters worse, she was unable to mend her quill pen since he had inconsiderately made off, without permission, with her only sharp knife, having been unable to find his own.
The letter to Miss Emily Hazeldean would have to wait. Sarah set off for the tiny, stiflingly hot kitchen, sighing gently. What appeared to be two bundles of clothing stood waiting for her. The older and larger of the shapeless pair was introduced to her as Nellie Riley; the younger and smaller as Sukie Thwaites. They were both, it seems, untrained and their final roles as assistant cook and maid-of-all-work were to be decided in the future.
Sarah thought that she had never before seen such an unlikely pair. The Governor’s aide who had done all the hiring for them had explained that, due to the shortage of women in the colony, it would be difficult to find anyone who wished to be a servant at all, let alone anyone who was trained.
Both women were wearing coarse black-and-red print frocks, gaudy shawls and heavy, clog-like shoes. Their hair was pinned up inside large sun-bonnets, which they apparently wore indoors as well as out. At Mrs Hackett’s prompting they both curtsied and addressed Sarah as Mum. She was compelled to admit that Mrs Hackett had not misrepresented their unattractiveness.
She was also eager to inform Sarah of Nellie’s disreputable past.
‘This here girl was transported because she was a thief, and her brother with her. Best to keep an eye on the silver, Mam.’
What she did not say was that Nellie had supplemented her meagre income at the Female Factory, where convict women were sent on arrival, by selling herself to any man who had a penny or some little luxury to offer her.
‘If she don’t please, Mam, why, you’ve only to say so and we can send her back where she came from and ask for another gal to take her place.’
Sarah had sometimes been responsible for the hiring and firing of servants back in England, but she had never felt the kind of revulsion that she experienced when she contemplated returning this miserable piece of humanity to the Factory and its cruel discipline. Sukie, however, was a free agent, but as she was an Emancipist’s daughter Mrs Hackett made it plain that her feelings were not to be considered, either.
‘I hope that you will be happy here,’ Sarah said inadequately, aware of both the young women’s sullen resentment of her for her pampered appearance, as well as Mrs Hackett’s open contempt for what she thought of as Sarah’s softness. She suddenly remembered what Tom Dilhorne had warned her of in his shop and thought that it was the most sensible piece of advice she had been given since the Pomona had docked.
At least, back in England her life had been spent at some distance from that of her many servants, but here, in this tiny house, their presence would be close and confining. Never mind, she thought, I have my painting and drawing to occupy me, and when the weather is fine I shall be able to ride once John has found me a suitable horse—and perhaps a carriage.
One thing, at least, was to the good. Since setting up house she had been so busy that she had not had time to think about Dr Kerr, the Governor or Tom Dilhorne, or whether or not she ought to speak to Emancipists. Their luggage had to be unpacked, their meals overseen, and John’s comfort to be satisfied. He had no intention of looking after himself since in England he had never needed to; a highly trained staff had ministered to his every want. By contrast, in Sydney, all that they had in the way of servants were Mrs Hackett, two unwilling, untrained females and John’s man, Carter.
She returned to her writing desk and tried to continue her letter to Emily.
‘You would scarcely believe,’ she wrote, ‘how primitive we are here. All that distinguishes us from the Pomona is that the deck no longer heaves beneath our feet…’
She sneezed and looked around the tiny room. Dust was everywhere. Nellie Riley suddenly burst in, waving a feather mop and began to use it with great vigour—which only served to waft it around the room in a red cloud. This started Sarah sneezing again.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Nellie, looking anything but sorry. ‘Mrs Hackett was telling me to begin me duties by cleaning the room since it hadn’t been done for days.’
Her expression told Sarah, better than words, that the whole business of keeping clean was a complete waste of time so far as Nellie was concerned.
Sarah waved her pen at her. It was no longer fit to write with, but waving it somehow expressed her feelings.
‘Good God! Is it always like this? And where does the dust come from—and why is it red?’
‘Well, it’s allus hot, if that’s what you mean, but it’s not allus as dusty as this. It’s them bricks.’
‘Them bricks?’ asked Sarah faintly.
‘And the wind. Why, Mum, when the winds’ southerly the dust from the brick-fields blows across the town. It’s the Governor’s fault.’
This remarkable demonstration of the Governor’s climatic powers intrigued Sarah. ‘The Governor’s fault?’
‘Aye, Mum, cos he’s a-building of the barracks and the hospital and they need bricks from the fields. Are ye comfortable, Mum? Can I get you anything?’
Convict she might be, but there was a frankness about Nellie’s speech that interested Sarah, who was used to the servility of home. There was almost a contempt in the manner in which convicts and Emancipists alike spoke to the respectable. She knew now why Mrs Middleton had fumed to her about the speech and behaviour of the servants and shopkeepers in Sydney.
She sighed. The letter to Emily must wait. She walked to the window and looked out at the swirling red dust and the brazen sun. On the verandah opposite, not one, but two cockatoos, restless in their cages, squawked their displeasure at the world. She sympathised with them.
It was a relief when there was a knock at the door and Mrs Hackett came in with a letter for her. It was from Mrs Menzies, inviting her to a soirée at the weekend.
Later, looking back on this time, Sarah thought that her first weeks in Sydney passed like a dream. There was so much to arrange, so much to do that in the past had always been done for her. Fortunately for her peace of mind she had not encountered Dr Kerr again. He had been called, Tom Dilhorne told her, to treat a fever which was raging in Paramatta. His absence brought on such an access of high spirits that John feared that the fever had reached Sydney, or so he chose to quiz her, not knowing the true cause.
Sarah had been so busy herself that she scarcely found time to paint, although this had been the excuse she had given for undertaking this journey with John. Her father had encouraged her to develop her talent, but unlike John she had many duties that took up her time. First she had been her father’s hostess, her mother having died at her birth, and then, after her father’s death, she had performed the same function for her brother.
Coming to Sydney had seemed an opportunity to develop her skills since she thought that she would surely have more time to spend on herself. What she had not foreseen was that the primitive nature of life in New South Wales would create even more demands on her.
‘I would never have believed it,’ she told Lucy Middleton when they were upstairs in the Menzies’s bedroom, inspecting themselves in a long mirror before going downstairs to enjoy the pleasures of a typical Sydney soirée. ‘I spent this morning supervising the wash while Mrs Hackett went to the market to buy provisions. She had left Nellie in charge of it, but as you might guess her attitude to cleanliness is best expressed in the old adage, “what the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve over.” She actually said to me, “I don’t know why we bother, Mum, it will only have to be done again next week. All this dusting and scrubbing don’t seem natural to me.”’
Lucy adjusted a curl. ‘I really can’t understand why you bother with her, Sarah. Why don’t you just send her back to the Female Factory?’
Sarah gave a sigh. She knew very well that Mrs Hackett would have preferred to send Nellie back to the factory soon after she had arrived in the hope that she might receive someone more suitable in return. She, on the other hand, found that although she could endure the idea of women whom she did not know being cooped up in prison, it was unthinkable that Nellie, whom she now knew, should be sent back there.
It was her free spirit, which Mrs Hackett could not crush, that Sarah found admirable, with the result that she had ended up being the laundress herself in order to ensure that Mrs Hackett’s complaints could not be seen to be justified and Nellie’s removal determined on. She found it impossible to try to explain this to Lucy, particularly since she found herself out of sympathy with the rest of the colonial ladies whom she had met. Their preoccupation with precedence, which she had thought to be peculiar to Mrs Middleton, turned out to be common to them all. Being a member of the highest society in England, she found little to choose between all those beneath her in rank.
So she changed the subject of Nellie and Mrs Hackett and commented on Sydney’s fixation with precedence and propriety instead.
‘You see, Sarah,’ said Lucy while she was rearranging the flowers in Sarah’s hair, ‘you’re so grand yourself that you don’t understand the differences that lie between a clerk in the Government offices and one of the shopkeepers. What’s worse, you’re so sure of yourself that you can afford to talk to Tom Dilhorne and Will French, even though they’re Emancipists—and do the wash, as well. You don’t fear that you’re lowering yourself, as Mama does. And it’s no good saying Pish and Tush to me, either, that’s the truth.’
‘I like it when you scold me,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s like being scolded by a kitten. No one else, apart from John, ever reprimands me.’ Which wasn’t strictly true, because Tom Dilhorne had said something similar to her the other day.
‘Oh, you may laugh,’ replied Lucy, ‘but you know that you wouldn’t marry any of them. Only one of your own kind.’
She stopped and looked thoughtfully at Sarah. ‘I don’t know, though. There’s a wildness about you sometimes. Look at the way you spoke to Dr Kerr in Hyde Park.’
‘Oh, Dr Kerr.’ Sarah shrugged. ‘Let us not speak of Dr Kerr. Forgive me, Lucy, for saying this, but you amaze me sometimes—you look as though you haven’t an idea in your head—and then…’ and she shrugged again.
‘I know—that’s what Mama and the men think, that I’m stupid. It’s better that way, Sarah. You don’t annoy them—and you can always get what you want if they believe that you’re just a dear little kitten.’
Sarah nodded. ‘I know who is going to make a good marriage, thinking like that, Lucy. That is, if you don’t meet someone devastatingly handsome, and quite worthless, and fall head over heels in love with him. I don’t advise you to do that.’
Her tone was so bitter that Lucy looked at her curiously—but said nothing.
‘Come on, my love,’ Sarah said at last, slipping her hand round Lucy’s waist. ‘Downstairs with you so that we can try to find these paragons whom we ought to marry.’
They met Pat Ramsey in the little hall. Lucy moved away, probably to try to find Frank Wright, leaving Sarah to entertain Pat again.
‘Your servant, Miss Langley. No Emancipists here to amuse you tonight, hey?’
Sarah was annoyed to discover that her friendship with Tom was the subject of gossip, but she refused to betray her feelings.
‘I’m sure, Captain Ramsey, that Mrs Menzies’s guest list is composed of only the best in Sydney society.’
He roasted her gently. ‘Ah, but what is the best, Miss Langley? The latest on dit, from Colonel O’Connell, no less, is that the Governor is thinking of making magistrates of some of the Emancipists. Imagine Dilhorne and Kerr as magistrates, what could be more respectable than that? O’Connell is nearly having apoplexy at the very thought. Now you, I suppose, would approve of at least one of my two names, if not the other.’
Sarah refused to be drawn. ‘Tedious stuff, Captain Ramsey—and why should you suppose any such thing? For all you know, I might be willing to support one of the aborigines as a magistrate. It might be what the colony deserves.’
Pat gave a shout of laughter that penetrated into the Menzies’s drawing room and turned heads there. ‘Oh, Miss Langley, you quiz me cruelly. You make me realise that Sydney’s gain is London’s loss. Come, take my arm—my stay tonight will be longer than usual for your sake alone, I promise you.’
She took his arm, but her smile for him was cold. ‘For my sake, Captain Ramsey? Pray do not put yourself out for my sake.’
He bowed to her again before they entered to make their salutations to the Major and his wife. ‘If not for you, Miss Langley, then for no one.’
Sarah forbore to tell him how much such idle badinage bored her. She had heard sufficient of it from Charles to sicken her of it forever, but she supposed that it was the usual way in which men spoke to women, and she must endure it or earn the title of a shrew.
The assembled guests chattered and gossiped for a short time before the main event of the evening—which was a short concert—began, and Sarah found herself being compelled to listen to a great deal of the kind of fustian which Pat had been serving up to her. Not only that, much of the gossip was again about the Emancipists and their goings-on. It seemed that one of Sydney’s select gentlemen’s clubs—if not the most select—had actually asked Tom Dilhorne to become a member. Worse than that, he had actually accepted their invitation. It became the evening’s major topic of conversation.
‘I don’t believe it’, ‘It can’t be true’ and ‘Whatever next!’ were only a few of the comments that flew round the room. ‘They’ve only invited him because they want to get a finger in his financial pies,’ said one knowledgeable old fellow who worked at Government House.
‘Ah, but you haven’t heard the best part of the story—which also happens to be true,’ said Frank Wright. ‘You remember Fred Waring?’
Heads nodded. Yes, everyone remembered Fred Waring, the drunken remittance man of good family who had been sacked from his poor post as a Government clerk for drunkenness and incompetence.
‘It seems that when Fred turned up and found Dilhorne present by invitation of the committee he made a great scene and said that if Dilhorne, who was nothing but a rascally Emancipist, had been admitted as a member, he would resign and leave immediately. The chairman told him that it was his choice since Dilhorne was staying, so Waring walked out.’
‘There’s not a decent house in Sydney that will receive him,’ Sarah heard one stout matron say. ‘And now he’s not even got the club to attend. Is his daughter here tonight?’
Frank Wright looked around. ‘I don’t think so. Only the Middletons receive her these days and not very often, I believe.’
‘Do you know his daughter?’ Sarah whispered to Lucy who was, as usual, being squired by Frank.
‘Who? Oh, you mean little Hester Waring. Not that she’s so very little, but she’s a poor shy creature, about my age, quite plain. They say that Fred ill treats her. Mama and Papa came across them, by chance, the other night when they were returning home after visiting Colonel O’Connell. He was quite drunk. Hester was trying to help him along and he was cursing her. Now Mama says that she won’t have her in the house, either. She could be setting a bad example for me to follow. Oh, look, Mama is signalling to me that the concert is about to begin and I am the first performer.’
Poor Hester Waring, indeed, thought Sarah, and then forgot her. Lucy was opening the evening’s bill of fare by singing two old Scots ballads, after which Captain Parker was to delight the audience with some folk songs.
‘He has a pleasant baritone voice,’ Lucy had told Sarah. The next turn was to be Sarah’s: she was to play a short piano piece and then sing some of the songs that had been all the fashion when she had left London.
All in all, once the gossip about the Emancipists had been disposed of, it had been one of the more pleasant evenings that Sarah had spent since setting foot in Sydney. She was flattered by the young officers, and deferred to by most of the matrons and their husbands, even if they did deplore her taste for talking to such undesirables as Tom Dilhorne and Will French. Besides, her brother was a fine figure of a man, and filthy rich, too. Who knows, given a bit of luck he might even decide to take one of their daughters for a wife before he returned home again.
Of course, Sarah soon found that this sense of well-being was too good to last long. Two days after the party she was sitting in the drawing room, readying herself to do some painting, when she heard violent screaming coming from the kitchen.
She put down her unopened portfolio and ran to discover what in the world could be the matter. Before she reached the door, Nellie flung it open.
‘Oh, Mum, it’s poor Sukie, that old bitch Hackett was downright careless with the kettle and managed to pour boiling water all down Sukie’s arm. It’s in a right mess.’
Sarah pushed past the distraught girl into the kitchen to find that she was speaking no less than the truth. Sukie, now sobbing gently, was seated in a Windsor chair while Mrs Hackett, ignoring the scarlet ruin of her forearm, and making no attempt to care for it, was berating her at the top of her voice.
‘You careless fool,’ she was roaring, ‘do you never look where you’re going? Now you won’t be fit to work for a least a week. I’ve a good mind to turn you off immediately.’
Sukie’s sobs redoubled and Nellie shrieked, ‘It weren’t her fault. ’Twas yours, you old cow.’
Sarah banged a fist on the table.
‘Be quiet, all of you. Whose fault it was is of no account, Mrs Hackett. May I also remind you that it is I who turn off servants in this house, not you. At the moment Sukie’s welfare is all that matters. Allow me to look at your arm, Sukie. No, don’t wince, I shan’t touch it.’
Mrs Hackett opened her mouth to defend herself, but Sarah banged the table again, raising her own voice this time. ‘Be silent, Mrs Hackett, while I examine Sukie’s arm.’
This served to quell the housekeeper, but her malevolent glare was now for the mistress and not the maid. Sarah took no notice of her, particularly when she discovered that Sukie’s arm was so badly scalded that she needed the assistance of a doctor.
She looked up at Nellie. ‘Is Carter at home—or did he go out with Mr John?’
‘At home, Mum—doing some carpentry in the shed at the back.’
‘Good, go and tell him what has happened and ask him to run round to Dr Kerr and see if he is able to visit us immediately. I understand that he has returned from Paramatta.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ and Nellie lumbered off to find Carter, who, she told herself fiercely, wouldn’t be best pleased to hear that the old bitch had hurt the girl he had been sparking at recently. Divested of her weird clothing and attired in one of Sarah’s old cotton dresses, Sukie had begun to blossom—until this latest mishap had occurred.
‘Make yourself useful, Mrs Hackett,’ Sarah said sharply, ‘and brew us some tea. Drinking it might help poor Sukie to feel a little better.’
She had never felt herself to be so helpless before. She had not the slightest notion of how to treat the dreadful burn, which was beginning to weep gently, so that when the kitchen door opened and Alan Kerr, followed by Carter, came in, carrying his bag, she sprang to her feet to greet him.
‘Oh, I am so happy to learn that Carter found you so quickly. Poor Sukie really does need some instant attention. There has been an accident in the kitchen, and as a result boiling water was poured over her forearm.’
Alan Kerr stared at the little scene. At Sarah, who had now seated herself at the kitchen table, her cup of tea before her, at Nellie, holding a cup for Sukie to drink from, and at Mrs Hackett, standing belligerent, arms akimbo, before the kitchen range, glaring her dislike at everyone, including him.
He put his bag down and pulled up a kitchen chair so that he was able to sit by poor Sukie and inspect her arm most carefully before deciding how to treat it. Even so, he still found time to notice that Miss Sarah Langley seemed to be in much finer fettle than usual. She finished drinking her tea before rising and coming over to watch him treat Sukie.
I refuse to stand here helpless, thought Sarah firmly. Mrs Hackett is apparently useless in an emergency, and Nellie would doubtless be little better. I’m sure that he would welcome some assistance, even from me.
‘Doctor Kerr,’ she ventured, ‘if there is anything I may do to help you, pray tell me.’
‘Indeed, I will,’ he said, without looking up. ‘I usually have a young assistant with me, but he is out tending a poor old lady who does not need medical care but whom a little nursing will benefit. If you will pick up my bag, put it on the table and open it, you will find inside it a large blue bottle, some scraps of cotton wadding, bandages, and a pair of scissors. Hand me the bottle and the cotton, and have the bandages and the scissors ready to pass to me when I ask for them.’
Sukie gave a groan on hearing the word scissors. Doctor Kerr said kindly to her while he poured something from the bottle on to the cotton. ‘Don’t be frightened, Sukie, I don’t propose to cut you with the scissors, only some of the wadding and the right length of bandage.’
He worked patiently on in silence, Sukie occasionally moaning a little. After a moment Mrs Hackett snorted. Sarah looked across at her and said, as pleasantly as she could, ‘I would be grateful, Mrs Hackett, if you would put a kettle on to boil again. I don’t think that Dr Kerr will need any hot water in his treatment of Sukie, but I’m sure that he would be grateful for a cup of tea when he has finished.’
The woman tossed her head, but did as she was bid. Alan Kerr, on hearing this little interchange, smiled to himself, remembering his conversation with Tom Dilhorne. Well, he was seeing Miss Sarah Langley in action against Mrs Hackett and it was quite plain who was the victor. Miss Langley was not going to be driven to tears by the old battle-axe. Not only that, when he said, somewhat peremptorily, ‘Bandages!’, she was prompt to hand them over, and then the scissors, after another brusque command.
Finally he had finished. Sukie’s poor arm had been carefully dressed and her pain relieved a little in consequence. Mrs Hackett needed yet another order from Sarah: this time to make the tea, and offer Dr Kerr some biscuits, which she did with an ill grace. While he waited he held Sukie’s hand and tried to comfort her.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ he said, ‘but it is a very nasty scald and you are not to use that arm until I have seen you again in a few days’ time. I am leaving Miss Langley a small bottle of laudanum for you to take a few drops at night so that the pain does not prevent you from sleeping. I’m sure she will see the necessity for you to rest until the arm is healed.’
‘Indeed,’ said Sarah, and then sternly to her housekeeper, ‘You heard that, Mrs Hackett—Sukie is to rest until Dr Kerr says that she is fit to work again.’
‘Doubtless you’ll send her back home for them to look after her,’ Mrs Hackett bit back.
‘No.’ Sarah’s voice was as cold as it was firm. ‘She sustained her injury here, and here she will be looked after—be in no doubt of that.’
Alan Kerr nearly choked over his cup of tea at the sight and sound of Miss Sarah Langley treating the town dragon to the same dismissive manner that she had employed with him. His feelings for her were growing into a strange blend of admiration and dislike—mixed with something else which he tried to thrust to the back of his mind. It would never do for him to begin to feel anything like lust—yes, that was what it must be, lust—for a woman so far above him in station.
Sarah was also seeing a new side to him. His care and consideration for Sukie had been exemplary. He had insisted that she be given another cup of tea—‘with plenty of sugar, mind’—and before he left had given Sarah and Mrs Hackett instructions about what to do if the pain increased, or a fever developed.
‘You are to send for me at once, at any hour of the day or night, if you are worried about her condition,’ he ended, immediately before leaving them.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Hackett when the door shut behind him, ‘I’m glad to see the back of him. It’s a great pity that decent people have to depend for their doctoring on an Emancipist.’
‘That will be quite enough,’ said Sarah, tired of the woman’s unpleasantness. ‘He dealt with poor Sukie’s scald most efficiently and that is all that matters, not what label he has been given. Nellie, you must look after Sukie while I make arrangements for a temporary servant to take her place. If she feels faint, help her up to bed. If she can’t walk, then Carter will be able to carry her.’
She was surprising even herself, she thought. If she had been at home, back in England, she would never even have known that a servant had been scalded, let alone have helped with her treatment and then been responsible for replacing her!
Not only that, but she was daily performing tasks that other people had done for her. She was beginning to find pleasure in doing them and also that she had an unsuspected talent for organising the work of the house. One drawback, however, was that all these new duties were preventing her from having the time to paint the strange scenery that lay all around her.
After Sukie’s replacement has arrived, she promised herself, she would try to remedy that by persuading Lucy to go with her on some afternoon excursions to the more picturesque parts of Sydney. It would be pleasant to spend an afternoon without having Mrs Hackett constantly troubling her with some problem which she should have been able to solve herself.
Suddenly life in Sydney seemed more bearable to her—and why should that be? Who would have thought that handing the surly Dr Kerr bandages and scissors, and looking after Sukie and Nellie’s welfare in the face of Mrs Hackett’s unspoken antagonism, would make her feel so fulfilled?
Stranger still, who would have thought that she would find herself defending Dr Kerr from Mrs Hackett’s unpleasant attempts to demean him?
Chapter Four
It was not the week-end, but the following week before Sarah could make one of the expeditions which she had promised herself. Sukie’s arm was healing nicely, but she was not yet ready to work again. Unfortunately their new girl justified Mrs Hackett’s daily complaints about her, but Sarah refused to send her back since there was no reason to believe that her replacement would be any better. Sarah, indeed, was beginning to think that they had been lucky to have Nellie and Sukie assigned to them, after she had listened to many of the other Sydney ladies moan about their own servants.
She had decided to walk towards the point, overlooking Cockle Bay, where she could draw the sea, the pines and the everlasting sky. She had hoped to have Carter with her, but John had taken him off into the bush early that morning to finish a picture which he had been painting for some time. Since she was not going very far from the edge of the town and was impatient to be off, she decided that she would be safe enough—and would be happier—on her own. Only Sukie could have gone with her and the heat of the day would have been too much for her in her weakened state.
She walked briskly down the unmade road outside their home, passing on the way a convict gang who were busy paving it. They were dressed in coarse canvas marked with a variety of arrows showing that it was drawn from Government stores. They stared boldly at her when she walked by them without an escort. One nudged another and their laughter followed her until she turned the corner.
The first time she had seen them she had been shocked, but familiarity bred contempt, and now she scarcely noted their presence. What did distress her were the aborigines she saw. They bore little resemblance either to the noble savage of Rousseau, or to the drawings in the folios that had so entranced John and herself. They sat about, half-naked, in the streets, occasionally clowning to entertain those few who might throw them money to buy the drink that degraded them further.
John had told her that they had met some in the bush who looked and behaved like the drawings they had seen back in England, and he could only conclude that it was living alongside their new European masters which had damaged them. What troubled her most was their apparent indifference to the life going on around them.
Nevertheless she walked merrily along, whistling quietly to herself, a low habit that she had learned from one of the grooms back home and had earned her reprimands from her father when she had indulged in it as a child. She wondered why she was doing it, and concluded that it was the result of a kind of mindless happiness brought on by the freedom of the trip that she was taking, the balmy weather and the chores which she had left behind.
She found a natural seat among the rocks on the cliff’s edge overlooking the sea, where the trees and bushes behind her offered her a little shade. She loosened the fichu around her neck, and since she was alone, she lifted her skirts to calf length in order to enjoy the breeze which came off the sea.
The scene before her came to life on the paper, and Sarah entered the almost trance-like state that accompanied her practice of the art she loved best in the world. So it was, she later understood, that she did not see or hear the arrival on this idyllic scene of what was to spoil it for her forever, so that she could never again pass it without a shudder.
Her first intimation of danger came with a foul smell accompanied by a low laugh. Startled, she half-turned to see that behind her had crept up a Caliban-like figure, half-naked, half-dressed like a scarecrow in a parody of a gentleman of fashion. He held a black bottle in his hand from which he drank as he staggered towards her. A final grotesque touch was a battered beaver hat which he wore on his filthy curls.
His pleasure on seeing her was unfeigned, but when he spoke his accent was so broad that it was almost impossible for Sarah to understand him. Of his intention, however, there was no doubt. He advanced on her, stopping once to call behind him, when, to her further dismay, another half-drunken, scantily clad figure emerged from the trees to leer at her.
Sarah rose and smoothed down her skirts, which seemed to be revealingly tight and scanty before these nightmare apparitions. So far the only sinister characters whom she had seen had been safely confined in irons, or under the escort of soldiers. She looked around her for help, but could see none.
‘I must go,’ she said, shakily, ‘I am expected back.’ Even to her own ears this sounded like a thin and unreal response, and so it seemed to Caliban who continued to stagger towards her.
‘Stay a while, my pretty. Jem and me can entertain you.’ His grin was wide and cruel.
‘No, no, I really must go.’
This parody of drawing-room conversation sounded ridiculous, even to Sarah, and, not surprisingly, had no effect on her tormentor who continued his steady advance on her, throwing away his bottle when he drew nearer. She could not back away from him since the cliff edge was behind her, and his companion had cut off her only other line of escape.
Finally he reached Sarah and caught her by the shoulders, swinging her round and throwing her towards Jem. ‘Let’s play, my pretty dear. Here, you have her, but you’re not to keep her, mind.’
She landed in Jem’s arms and when he caught her he kissed her full on the lips. The smell of gin on his foul breath was strong and his whiskered face scraped her soft cheek. Lost between fear and revulsion, choking, Sarah tore her face away. Her lips were already bleeding.
‘You’ll pay dearly for this,’ she cried, abandoning all pretence that she had any control over the dreadful situation in which she found herself.
‘Not us, missy.’ Jem grinned. ‘What makes you think that you will tell anyone, dearie?’
He loosened his grip, pushing her a little away from him so that he might pull at her hair which had fallen, loose, about her shoulders.
‘A right pretty doxy for us, eh, Charlie?’
He ran his eyes over her while she struggled to free herself after he had caught her again, secure in the knowledge that she could not escape him. Nevertheless, lost in a torment of fear and shame, she kicked his shins, broke away from him, and tried to run towards Sydney. Was it really possible that she was going to be attacked, ravished and killed on this barbarous coast so far from home and friends?
‘Oh, God,’ she cried. ‘Help me! Help me!’
Jem, laughing, allowed her to run a few steps towards the town before he caught her again, around the waist. He gripped her by her streaming hair and kissed her brutally, one hand roving over her body. ‘Stay still, my dearie. Old Jem’ll pleasure you right enough, after Charlie has had a go at you first. Here, Charlie, you have her again, but not for good, mind,’ and he threw her back to his mate with such force that Sarah lost her balance and landed in the dirt.
Charlie pulled her to her feet. She pushed him back, panting, ‘My brother is rich. He’ll reward you well if you take me home.’
‘Take you home? Now, why should we do that? Your filthy money’s no use to us in the bush. No, me duck. You can pleasure us here and now, and then the fish can have you.’
He pulled her to him: his intention was unmistakable. Sarah tried to fight him off, but in vain, and with Jem cheering him on, he began to bear her to the ground, shouting, ‘Oh, I likes a lass of spirit!’
It was hopeless: death and dishonour now seemed inevitable and a great sob burst from Sarah’s throat…
Doctor Alan Kerr had been visiting a shanty in The Rocks where a ragged Emancipist, who had been dividing his time between honest work and thieving, needed treatment for a leg broken in an attempt to burgle one of the poorer grog shops that existed only to serve such outcasts from society as he was. He had been part of a gang that had dragged him home rather than leave him for the watch to find lest he inform on them.
Alan had a good idea of how the fellow’s injury had come about, but he set his leg, left him some laudanum and took as payment a bottle of the grog, which the gang had liberated after the accident. After that he decided to ride home, having been on duty since sun-up when he had been called out to assist in a difficult birth.
He was travelling along the cliff path towards Sydney when, on nearing Cockle Bay, he heard the sound of shouting voices and laughter. He turned a corner to see before him two men and a struggling woman whom they were undoubtedly attacking. He had no doubt about what was happening—or was about to happen.
He swore to himself, spurred his horse, and charged at the men.
Jem and Charlie were so intent on their pleasure that they were not aware that a man on horseback was arriving until it was too late for them to take any evasive action.
Sarah suddenly found herself sprawled on her back, abandoned involuntarily when the oncoming rider’s whip descended on Charlie’s head to the cry of, ‘Let go of her, damn you!’
For a moment the watching Jem was stunned into immobility, and then, with an incomprehensible shout, he fled back down the path by which he had come. Charlie, however, although half-stunned, sprang forward and, shouting abuse, tried to pull the rider from his horse, but was prevented by another blow from Alan’s whip which sent him, unconscious, to the ground on the very spot where Sarah had lain a moment earlier.
She had scrambled away, pulling her dress down, and vainly trying to pin up her fallen hair. She turned to her rescuer, panting at him, ‘Thank God, thank God that you arrived in time. They meant…they meant…’ She ran out of breath.
‘I know what they meant,’ said Alan Kerr grimly, shocked that it was Sarah Langley whom he had rescued in this outlandish spot. What the devil did she think that she was doing here, and alone?
For the first time Sarah grasped that it was Dr Kerr, of all people, who was her saviour; trembling and fearing to fall, she stretched out her hands to him, only to hear him say brusquely after he had dismounted from his horse, ‘Pull yourself together, Miss Langley. You are quite safe now.’
The knowledge that it was Dr Kerr who had found her in this condition and had rescued her from dishonour and death increased her misery, rather than lessen it. Whatever would he think of her now?
Mute and still shaking, she picked up her fichu and tried to fasten it around her neck, something which her trembling hands found difficult. Alan walked over to where the half-conscious Charlie lay and, pulling him to his feet, began slapping him into awareness.
Numbly, she watched while Alan, shaken himself by what he had seen when he had come upon her desperate struggle, finally brought Charlie to his senses and methodically began to beat him with his whip, punctuating the blows with the statement that this would have to serve as punishment since he had no intention of exposing Miss Langley to the shame of a trial in which her ordeal at his hands would have been revealed.
Sarah, now huddled on a rock, her portfolio in her hands, said faintly, ‘Pray stop, Dr Kerr, I cannot bear this. After all, you did prevent the worst.’
On hearing this, Alan gave her attacker one last blow before he threw down his whip, and turned his attention to Sarah. Charlie, relieved that he was not to be hauled before the beak and then summarily hanged, ran off towards the bush, lest worse befall him.
The anger and fear that he might have been too late, which Alan Kerr had experienced when he found her being assaulted, now spilled out over Sarah herself.
‘Oh, you may say stop now, Miss Langley, now that you have been rescued, but what, in God’s name, prevailed on you to go running around the wilderness exposing yourself to the riff-raff of The Rocks?’ His angry gaze swept over her. ‘And in the most provocative clothing, too. Have you no common sense? Where is your brother—or his man—who ought to be here guarding you?’
Whatever happened she must not cry! She would not, must not, give him that satisfaction. She might owe him everything, but she did not need to be so addressed. In her misery and distress she forgot that while she might have thanked God for her delivery she had not properly thanked Alan. More than that, she had no idea that relief at her narrow escape was fuelling his anger.
‘I forgot,’ she said, lifting her head proudly, ‘I forgot that I was not at home in England, but was in this barbarous country. I shall not forget again.’
She turned away, to pick up her scattered painting materials: it was almost as though she were dismissing him.
Alan barked at her back, ‘Good God, madam, you surely don’t expect me to leave you here to find your own way home after this? Come, let me help you up on to my horse immediately. You must overcome your dislike for me long enough to allow me to see you safely back home. The two whom I have driven away are not the only ones around here who prey on helpless women.’
Sarah felt as though she were living in a dream—or rather in a nightmare. In an almost trance-like state she allowed him to help her up into the big grey’s saddle so that he could lead his horse to the Langleys’ home. Slowly, she began to recover from the mental paralysis caused by the attack, becoming sadly aware of her dirt-streaked face and torn and grimy clothing.
Luckily they met few people on the way back but, to her horror, when they neared her home she saw that John was outside, remonstrating with Mrs Hackett who stood, stiff with righteous anger, at the front door.
He ran to meet them, saying, ‘Thank God that you are safe. I have just learned from Mrs Hackett that you went out on your own, without any attendant. Whatever could have possessed you to do such a thing?’
He took a harder look at her. ‘Good God, Sarah, is it possible that you have been attacked?’
Before Sarah could speak Alan answered him. ‘Yes. I am happy to inform you she has come to no harm, but her common sense ought to have told her that she should not have gone wandering around the cliffs above Cockle Bay. She appears to be stupidly unaware that she now no longer lives among the tame peasantry of the Hampshire countryside. Fortunately I came upon them before the rogues who were attacking her had done more than give her a severe fright.’
His voice was dryer and harsher than Sarah had ever heard it before. He speaks as though I were asking to be attacked, she thought resentfully. The tears, which never seemed to be far away in Dr Kerr’s presence, were threatening to fall—but she would not let them, never.
John Langley was reassured by Alan’s calm authority. ‘You are not hurt then, my dear.’ It was more of a statement than a question. He turned to Alan again. ‘Do I understand that I have to thank you for saving Sarah from physical assault—or worse?’
This time Sarah forestalled Alan. ‘You are correct, John. I owe him my life—and my honour—and I have not even thanked him properly yet. If you will let me down, I will do so.’
What an absurd figure I must cut, she thought when she finally stood on firm ground again. She turned her dirty face towards Dr Kerr.
‘I know that you think me an idiotish creature who goes cavorting idly around the countryside, a fine lady who should not even visit New South Wales, and deserves to be attacked for her folly. But I owe you more than I can ever thank you for.’ To her horror she was so near to tears that her voice faltered.
‘No more of that,’ she said, regaining her self-control. ‘Perhaps, one day, we might meet and speak without quarrelling. And now, I must go in and try to mend my ruined self.’
She bowed to Dr Kerr and walked slowly into the house, bedraggled but gallant, with her head high and her gait steady.
Alan, listening to John Langley’s thanks, looked after her. He did not insult Sarah’s brother by saying that he had done nothing, nor did he seek to exaggerate his rescue of her.
He heard John out in silence and then said gravely, ‘I must inform you that I think that your sister may feel that, because of the antagonism which lies between us, I was overly harsh in my treatment of her after the attack. I was harsh at first out of the shock of discovering that it was she who was being attacked.
‘I must also inform you that I have treated many women who have been assaulted thus and I have invariably found that to be too sympathetic may drive them into hysteria and later into despair. It may seem cruel, but it is the right—and the only—thing to do in these cases since there is no medicine which might help them. It pains me to have to be so hard but needs must, I fear. Fortunately your sister possesses a resilient character which responds to firm treatment. I hope that I did not come on too strong with her, but she rallied rapidly and showed no signs of falling into the vapours.’
He added, a little wryly, ‘On the contrary, she was so busy being angry with me that she had less time to refine on what had so nearly happened to her—which, all things considered was, medically, a good thing.’
John grasped him by the hand. ‘Yes, she is a strong-willed creature, that I will allow. And you, you took no hurt yourself, I trust?’
‘None, but I must warn you that your sister may show some adverse reactions to her unfortunate experience. You must watch her carefully and send for me if her spirits seem unduly low.’
He refused John’s offer of a glass of sherry. ‘No, I will not come in, thank you, Langley. Make sure that your sister has a proper escort in future. Send your man Carter round to my surgery and I will give him a cordial that will help her to sleep.’
He brushed aside any further thanks. John watched him ride away and could only think that it was a pity that the man was an Emancipist—he deserved better—and that Sarah had taken him in such dislike. He understood why Governor Macquarie respected Kerr, not only as a doctor, but as a man. There were many worse back in England who had not suffered transportation and he resolved to find out what misfortune had brought him to Sydney.
Sarah lay in bed, covered only by a thin sheet, her brain and body both burning. John had come in a moment ago with a glass containing a cordial that Dr Kerr had sent to soothe her. There had not yet been time for it to work, only for the sickly taste to add further to her bodily discomfort. But this was as nothing to her mental agony.
Mixed up with her memories of the afternoon, and her encounters with Alan Kerr, were those of her last six months before she had left England. It was as though they had been a prologue to all that had happened to her since she had set foot in New South Wales. Prominent among them were her recollections of Charles Villiers, of whom she had resolutely refused to think ever since she had left England. The attack, however, had broken down the barriers she had erected and she sank into a reverie in which the dreadful present gave way to the hurtful past.
She had met Charles at a dinner given by their neighbours in Hampshire. Their daughter, Emily, her best friend, had arranged for her to sit by him. ‘I’m sure that you are going to like him,’ she had said earlier. He turned out to be charming as well as handsome. From the crown of his neat fair head to the heels of his well-polished shoes he was all that a gentleman should be, turned out à point, but not overdone: Brummell himself would have approved of him. He was well read. His conversation was just the right mixture of chaff and sense, and his attention to Sarah was flattering without being fulsome. What was better than best was that he seemed to be as taken by Sarah as she was by him.
Although he was old Lord Amborough’s nephew and heir he made no secret of his relative poverty. Amborough had little beside his shabby mansion and some bare acres to leave him, but Charles had a minor sinecure in the Foreign Office, and an income from his late mother’s estate which, while not large, was sufficient to keep him in reasonable comfort. None of this added up to wealth. His modesty about himself and his prospects was not the least of his charms. John liked him, too, which completed Sarah’s pleasure.
For several months Sarah and Charles contrived to be together as much as possible, so no one was surprised when, one bright spring day, he proposed to her and was eagerly accepted. The only fly in the ointment was an overheard comment about Charles having hooked his heiress at last, but Sarah put that down to the jealousy of a disappointed suitor.
All that happy summer they enjoyed themselves while the lawyers began their legal dance over the marriage settlement, but bit by bit, as time went on, the pleasure in his company that Sarah had originally felt slowly diminished. Charles, she found, did not entirely approve of her painting. He hinted that when she became Lady Amborough there would be more important things for her to do. Exactly what they would be, he never said.
Her high spirits, which had seemed so charming to Charles before they were betrothed, did not seem quite so attractive when they conflicted with his somewhat conventional view of life. He expected her to agree with all he said, without any discussion—which he called argument and disliked.
Perhaps none of this would have mattered had not John and Sarah’s lawyers insisted on protecting Sarah’s rights quite so energetically when drawing up the marriage settlement. Charles’s financial situation turned out to be rather poorer than he had claimed: he had not been entirely frank with either his own, or Sarah’s, advisers and Sarah’s own wealth was such that her lawyers felt bound to protect her. Charles made his resentment plain, casting a further cloud over her happiness.
Matters might yet have been mended, but at this juncture they found themselves staying with a distant cousin of Charles at a house party in Norfolk. Sarah was never to forget that week. She found Charles’s cousin inimical, the other guests boring, the house cold and draughty and the food deplorable. To make matters worse, she contracted a heavy cold and was confined to her bed with a high temperature, leaving Charles to his own devices.
One of the guests was a rather plain young woman named Caroline Wharton. She had attached herself to Sarah and was fond of making comments, which Sarah realised afterwards were unpleasantly barbed.
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