Sara Dane

by Catherine Gaskin

  ‘All this is true enough, Sara,’ he said patiently. ‘But aren’t you calculating only the face value of the money?’

  ‘What other value has it?’ she demanded.

  He laughed. ‘Woman, where is your heart? No wonder they tell me you managed the business with the coolness of an iceberg while I was away!’

  ‘Andrew, stop playing with me! Tell me what you’ve done!’

  ‘I’ve bought you Alison Barwell’s friendship. I’ve bought you a past, and a well-born friend.’ He was speaking to her as gently as he would have spoken to one of his children if they needed an explanation of a difficult situation. ‘You see what this means, don’t you? It only needs Alison Barwell to call you “Sara” once in public ‒ and you’ll have every wretched female in the place fawning over you.’

  Her hands dropped down limply by her sides. He saw the flame of colour leave her cheeks, and they became pinched and ashen; he looked at her pale, still lips, and for a moment he was afraid.

  ‘Have I done wrong, my darling? Is it wrong to want to see you in a place you should have had all these years? A woman shouldn’t live as you have done ‒ shut off from other women.’

  ‘I haven’t needed other women!’ she declared miserably. ‘I don’t want them!’

  ‘That may be so. But our children will grow up, and they’ll feel the absence of the women you ought to have about you, Sara.’

  She lowered her head for a few moments, and when at last she raised it, the tears were rolling unchecked down her face.

  ‘But Alison …’ she whispered. ‘She’ll never do it. She won’t want me …’

  He brushed her protest aside. ‘Alison will do as her husband says ‒ she’ll do anything at all for the sake of pleasing him. And they need money ‒ they need it badly if they’re ever going to live at anything approaching the style to which they’re accustomed. Alison is no different to any other woman in love with a man she’s not sure of. She’d rather die than let Richard see her in a gown that didn’t dazzle him. When a woman is as much in love as all that ‒ and frightened ‒ there’s very little she won’t do.’

  ‘You saw that ‒ in Alison?’

  ‘Only a fool could have missed it,’ he answered shortly. ‘When I recognized it, I knew I had my greatest chance of success. Richard himself would have been easy enough, because for all his airs of worldly knowledge, he’s gullible ‒ and greedy. Alison was a different matter. There are some things that just can’t be bought, and I feared her co-operation might be one of them. But a woman in love is vulnerable to an extraordinary degree. She’s vain. She couldn’t bear the thought of living and dressing in any other way than as the soft, precious creature that Richard married. She needs servants around her ‒ and all her accustomed comforts. Do you imagine she’ll let the sun touch that lily-white skin? Or will she go outdoors when the hot winds come? Not Alison! Not if she can find a way to avoid it!

  ‘Believe me, Sara,’ he said, placing his finger gently under her chin, ‘Alison loves her husband desperately. And in face of that, she has no pride, no defence ‒ nothing. She’ll do as Richard says. I’m certain of that.’

  He folded his arms about her, rocking her quietly, feeling the sobs shaking her body. With his lips pressed lightly against her forehead, he murmured, ‘And I don’t give a damn who suffers if in some way you can be made happier, my darling.’

  Chapter Three

  The full light of the autumn afternoon was dying on the harbour. The wooded shores of the distant promontories seemed to glide farther back, merging into the darker green of the high ground behind. On the west side of the bay the shadows crept gradually out from the brown rocks, making the water appear thick and oily. Beyond the shelter of the Maclays’ own bay, they could see the catspaws of wind darkening the surface. Out there the colour was that particular cold, hard blue of the Pacific in autumn. Sara identified two specks a long way off as native skiffs heading in the direction of the settlement. She watched them for a long time, her fingers tightly hooked in Duncan’s belt to prevent him standing up and rocking the boat. Her dreaming gaze saw the two black figures grow larger and more distinct, until an exclamation of triumph from David brought her attention back.

  ‘Mama, look! Another one!’

  He held aloft on the end of his line a small fish, and when he was sure his mother had carefully noted and admired it, he pulled out the hook, with a gesture that was meant to appear as nonchalant as those of Ted, the boatman. He tossed it alongside his afternoon’s catch, three others, lying in the bottom of the boat.

  Sara smiled gaily at him. ‘You’ll be able to have them for breakfast, darling ‒ you and Duncan.’

  Duncan twisted his face round to look at her. He had impudent blue eyes, bolder even than Andrew’s, and, young as he was, he had a supreme sureness about life.

  ‘Won’t Sebastian have some also, Mama?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not Sebastian ‒ he’s too little yet.’

  Duncan considered that. Then he said, ‘How long will it take Sebastian to grow up?’

  ‘Oh … I suppose as long as it’s taken you,’ Sara answered cautiously.

  He ran a hand that smelled strongly of fish through his fair hair, and turned away, apparently satisfied.

  ‘Ted!’

  The boatman looked over his shoulder to his mistress.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘I think we must put in. It’s growing cold. The wind has changed ‒ it’s coming off that point now.’

  Ted touched the shapeless cap he wore, and quickly drew in his line. He drew in David’s also, keeping the child’s four fish separate from his own pile, and complimenting him, in his rough, good-natured voice, on his catch. Ted O’Malley had arrived in the colony after the 1798 rebellion in Ireland. He was a Cork fisherman, and a man of such mild serenity that Sara often wondered what attraction rebellion could possibly have had for him. He had once mentioned to her that he had two young sons of his own; sometimes it saddened her to see his gentle devotion to David and Duncan.

  With swift strokes he began to pull towards the Maclays’ small beach, lying below the sharp drop of the wood. Farther along the bay, through the trees, they could see the roof of Glenbarr. It had a solid comfort about it, that roof; it had the look of permanency which was beginning to appear in Sydney’s new buildings. The land on this side of the bay was steep and rocky, useless for farming, and, Sara thought privately, useless for the landscaped terraces Andrew talked of. It was thickly wooded, and the beach itself was merely a narrow shelf of pale sand breaking the irregular line of rocks.

  David, from his seat in the stern, suddenly pointed.

  ‘Look, Mama, there’s someone on the beach! A gentleman!’

  Still holding Duncan, Sara twisted to look towards the little beach. At first she could see nothing ‒ only the whitish trunks of the eucalyptus, and the rocks. And then, close to the path leading to the house, she picked him out, a tall, languid figure, sitting, knees drawn up to his chin, on a flat-topped boulder. As she watched, he raised his arm and waved. Slowly she put up her hand in faint-hearted response.

  ‘Who is it, Mama?’

  ‘I think … it’s Captain Barwell, David.’

  David examined the distant figure with interest. ‘The one who came to dinner last night? The one who was wounded in the war?’

  Sara nodded absently.

  ‘Will he tell us about the fighting, do you think, Mama?’

  ‘I expect so, David … some time … if you ask him politely. But not now. He’s only been in the colony a few days, and perhaps he’s rather tired of people asking him about the fighting.’

  ‘Did he fight against Napoleon, Mama?’

  ‘No ‒ at the time Captain Barwell was wounded Napoleon wasn’t in charge of the fighting. Not many people had even heard of him then.’

  ‘Oh …’ David’s interest faded. He looked at the fish at his feet, and began then to compare the size of his catch to Ted’s pile lying beside it. By the
time the boat scraped the sand, he had decided that he had done quite a good afternoon’s work.

  Richard was waiting at the water’s edge. He grinned cheerfully at Sara and the boys, as he bent his back to help Ted drag the boat clear of the tide-mark.

  ‘I came for a leisurely afternoon call,’ he said, lifting Duncan out of his seat and placing him down on the dry sand. ‘They told me you were all out fishing, so I made my way down here. I’ve been sitting over on that rock for the past hour. It reminded me of us two as children to see you in a boat again, Sara.’

  ‘I find myself in a boat frequently these days,’ she answered lamely. ‘The boys …’

  He looked at her two sons, smiling, and holding out his hand. ‘I’m indeed happy to make your acquaintance, David ‒ and yours, Duncan. I used to know your Mama a long time ago, before she came here to New South Wales.’

  Over David’s head he looked at Sara. ‘Yes … a long time ago.’

  ‘We have a baby brother,’ Duncan announced firmly. ‘He sleeps all the time. And he can’t talk yet.’

  ‘Sebastian,’ Sara muttered, in explanation. ‘He is so dark in contrast to these two. My father’s kind of darkness. It seemed right, somehow, that I should call him Sebastian.’

  ‘Your father would be very happy about that, Sara. Especially if he grows up as these two have. Do you remember how your father …’ Richard broke off there, shrugging. ‘Oh, well, that’s all in the past.’

  He glanced down at the two children, and then at Sara. ‘I expect you’ll want to go back to the house now.’

  She hesitated. Richard was offering her an escape from him, but she knew he didn’t want her to accept it.

  She touched David’s shoulder. ‘Take Duncan, and go with Ted. Ask him to clean the fish for your breakfast. You can stay and watch how he does it.’

  David smiled his farewell to her, and less certainly to Richard. He took his brother by the hand, and they walked to where Ted stood waiting, loaded with the sack of fish, his coiled lines, and a tin of bait. He motioned them to precede him; he touched his cap to Sara and Richard, and turned towards the path.

  They watched him go, Ted’s stocky, bent figure hovering protectively above the children.

  ‘Well now, Master David,’ they heard him say, ‘the very next foine mornin’ …’

  As the three made their way along the winding, sloping path between the trees, the children’s clear voices echoed back sharply, Duncan’s shrill and dominating his brother’s. Ted’s deep, soft brogue was lost beneath it.

  They vanished from sight among the trees, and finally went beyond earshot. The little bay was abruptly silent; it was a sombre place now that all sound had left it. The sun was almost gone; there were long shadows on the water. The wind that touched Sara’s cheek was cool.

  Richard turned to her slowly.

  ‘Perhaps I was wrong to come to you like this. But I couldn’t stay away any longer.’

  She looked, not at him, but across the bay, to the dark colours of the opposite rocky shore. ‘You were wrong to come. It was … unwise.’ She faced him reluctantly. ‘You have a great deal to learn of our life here. The town is like a village ‒ and gossip is scarce and eagerly sought. Ted will say nothing, because he is devoted to me … but the servants in the house …’

  He checked her with a touch on the arm. ‘Can this be Sara I hear talking? How much you’ve changed! All this caution and prudence! Ah, my dear, the way you used to mock my mother’s primness, and shame me into some defiance of it myself! Your father would be astonished to hear you now.’

  ‘Defiance of convention is only for those who can afford it!’ she answered shortly. ‘I can’t!’

  He shrugged. ‘That may be ‒ but even gossip can’t make anything much of the meeting between two old friends.’

  He took her arm, edging her towards the rock where he had been sitting.

  ‘You’ll sit awhile, surely? I’ll only keep you a few minutes. And then we’ll go back to the house ‒ and cheat Sydney gossip of a tit-bit!’

  He was smiling slightly as he spoke, and Sara was disarmed. She sat down on the rock beside him, spreading the skirt of the plain, salt-water stained gown which she wore, and patting into some order her wind-tossed hair.

  The silence in the bay was so deep that almost unconsciously they had lowered their voices; they were aware of the slap of the small waves against the wet sand, and the occasional rustle of the trees behind them. Yet they were engulfed in a silence of waiting and expectancy.

  Quietly, without fuss, Richard placed his hand over hers, lying still on the rock. ‘I had to see you, Sara,’ he said simply.

  When she didn’t answer, he went on.

  ‘Last night was unbearable. You were so close, and yet I couldn’t talk with you. You wouldn’t look at me either. You sat at the head of a table ‒ as beautiful as any woman I’ve ever seen ‒ but cold.’

  His hand tightened on hers. ‘And now you look like a girl again ‒ the Sara Dane I remember!’

  Suddenly his hands were on her shoulders, and he swung her round to face him. ‘I nearly went crazy with joy to see you in that boat.’ His eyes went to her untidy curls. ‘I longed to rush to you and do as Sebastian always did … Do you remember how he used to pull your hair free? It blew in the wind, and then you pretended to be angry. That was what I wanted to see. I wanted the Sara who was dead to come back to life again.’

  He was searching her face in a bewildered way.

  ‘But your children made it all unreal,’ he said quietly. ‘They spoiled my fantasy ‒ they reminded me too much that you have gone far beyond the girl I remember.’

  She twisted her body abruptly, jerking free of his hold, and covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Richard … I beg you! Please don’t talk of this any more. You shouldn’t have come! And I haven’t the strength to send you away.’

  ‘Send me away? Why should you send me away? Surely after all these years we have the right to talk with each other ‒ to talk as freely as we please, not as convention dictates.’

  She stiffened, and when she spoke there was an edge to her voice. ‘Don’t talk of “all these years” as if they really meant something to you, Richard. You can’t pretend that you’ve spared me much thought since I left Bramfield.’

  ‘Sara! I deny that ‒ completely! You couldn’t know how much you’ve been in my thoughts. All these years, believe me, you have meant a very great deal to me.’

  There was a silence between them, and then he said, ‘You’re thinking I didn’t care about your conviction. But, damn you, I did! I wrote you immediately I had news of the trial, and months later a letter came back from Newgate, from a woman called Charlotte Barker. She said you had already sailed for Botany Bay. Well … what could I do? You were lost to me then. I was young and ignorant, and I married Alison in the firm belief that I would forget you.’ His voice changed, hardening. ‘But I didn’t forget you. You rose like a ghost between me and every single thing in life that could have given me joy and satisfaction. I couldn’t cast you off … you were a torment to me! If I had been free I would have gone willingly to search for you; but it was too late for that. I went to fight in Holland with the thought that if I were killed I should be gladly released from the torture of self-accusation. I believed that I had no soul above the material things in life that attracted me ‒ but I found that you were my soul.’

  In the fading light he leaned nearer to her, until their faces were close together.

  ‘I wrote you letters that I never sent,’ he said. ‘I sought news of you wherever I could find it. When ships, returning from New South Wales, berthed in the Thames, I used to hang about the docks, in the hopes of picking up scraps of information about you. And finally I had the good fortune to meet Admiral Phillip ‒ he told me that you were to be married to an East India Company officer, and that he himself had given an order for your pardon. After that I insinuated myself with Sir Joseph Banks. I couldn’t count the number of
Royal Society dinners I sat through so that later I might talk with any of the guests who had recently come back from the colony. It didn’t always bring results … but gradually I was building up the picture of your life. I knew about your farm on the Hawkesbury, and your two eldest sons. I knew what sort of man your husband was. And then, when he visited London, I almost made myself known to him. He came to a reception in Sir Joseph Banks’s house ‒ all the colonists eventually found their way there. Andrew Maclay was pointed out as a man reputed to have made a fortune from salvage, and who was, at the moment, fitting out a new vessel for trading. I was about to ask to be presented … I wanted to meet him, and to ask about you. But I couldn’t … I couldn’t make myself go forward. I was jealous, Sara … jealous of everything that man possessed. It was a relief when the Thistle finally sailed from Greenwich, and took him out of my reach.

  ‘My married life, all this time, was going to pieces. I had begun it in the belief that I would forget you ‒ but I was wrong. I was not happy with Alison ‒ although I knew she loved me and I was fond of her. You, Sara, had spoiled every other woman for me. But Alison and I had enough distractions to cover whatever dissatisfaction we felt with one another. It changed, though, when Sir Geoffrey lost his money. He was broken after that ‒ he didn’t live long. The estate was entailed; it went to Alison’s brother. Lady Linton knew the state of our finances ‒ she offered us a home, and we accepted gladly. She adored Alison, and she tried to make a son out of me ‒ although she used always to laugh and say I was not promising material. She spent money lavishly on us, and we both knew that Alison would inherit her fortune. But, with all that, she was nobody’s fool. No, by God, she wasn’t! I found that she was watching me. She knew every move I made, and practically every thought in my head. It didn’t take her long to sense that something was wrong ‒ something that drove me to gamble much more than I could afford, and to ride a horse as if I cared less than nothing for my own neck. I often stayed out the whole night ‒ and it wasn’t always with women. I would sometimes find myself at dawn, stupid with drink, babbling about Botany Bay, in some sailors’ tavern around the docks.