‘No, I don’t deny it, Richard,’ she said steadily. ‘It would be useless. But I want you to understand that what Andrew and I have made together is going to stand as it is. You aren’t going to be the one to destroy it.’ She threw her head back. ‘I am telling you now, and I don’t mean it lightly. You must not come here again unless Alison is with you.’
She held herself rigidly, afraid of softening to him.
‘One kiss, Richard,’ she said. ‘There wasn’t anything else ‒ and don’t try to make it so.’
He put his hands into his pockets, and looked at her half-sneeringly. ‘Is it too much to ask that I should merely come to visit you? I don’t expect anything so precious as your kisses, as you’re so chary of giving them. Like a well-behaved spaniel, all I ask is permission for a space in your drawing-room. I should also like sometimes to talk with you alone. But no ‒ you prefer to take the word of a low-minded convict that there is gossip about us, and then to turn me out with the high-handedness of a duchess.’
Sara whitened, but she was no longer afraid of softening. She drew herself up fully, her eyes almost level with his when she spoke.
‘I must ask you to remember two things, Richard. Firstly, in my presence, no one may call Jeremy Hogan a low-minded convict. And secondly, that although I am not a duchess, I still am mistress of this house. And now I want you to leave it immediately. And I’ll have your promise that you will not come here to see me alone again.’
Richard stiffened, but in his face anger fought with dismay. His eyes held the appeal of a child’s.
After staring at her for a few moments, he said quietly, ‘I am not Andrew, Sara ‒ and never could be anything like him. I couldn’t make a fortune for you, or conquer a world to lay at your feet. But I have need of you ‒ more need, I think, than even he has.’ He paused, his voice rising again. ‘And what’s more, I believe you need me too! However, you’ve made your very noble choice, my dear. May you be well content with it!’
He turned slowly and walked to one of the long windows. He opened it wide, and the damp air stirred in the room. For a few moments he stood staring out into the garden, his hand thrust upwards against a heavy fold of the curtain. The rain came down ceaselessly; it was driven by a light wind across the width of the veranda, and splattered against the windows. The view of the harbour was lost in fine mist. Richard took a step forward, and then stood still, with the slanting rain hitting him. Sara shivered ‒ the misty air and Richard’s unmoving figure seemed almost to cast a spell on the room. It was as if they were locked together in a brief enchantment. He possessed a strange power, just by standing there, to make her feel despair and pain.
‘Richard! Richard!’ she whispered to herself. No sound came from her lips, and he did not stir.
The wind rustled in the tops of the trees; the garden was desolate and lonely. At last he turned to her again.
‘This isn’t the finish, Sara. We will see much more of each other ‒ Andrew has ensured that by his generous offer. And I hope that you will suffer as I have done in the past. I hope that you will know even a small part of my torment.’ He gave her a slight bow. ‘We have much time before us ‒ you and I.’
Then he strode across the veranda, and vaulted over the rail.
A few minutes later, at the sound of a horse cantering down the drive, Jeremy Hogan rose from his seat in the dining-room, where he was finishing the meal Annie Stokes had brought him. He opened the long windows, and stepped out on to the veranda. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Sara moving back quickly into the drawing-room.
He leaned over the veranda rail to catch the last sight of the rider, the flash of the bright uniform against the sombre trees. His horse was black, of thoroughbred stock, and shining in the rain.
‘Well …’ Jeremy muttered aloud. ‘Well, you might ride as if you and the horse were born together ‒ but I wouldn’t weep, Captain Barwell, if I heard you’d fallen and broken your bloody neck!’
III
On an evening three weeks after the Barwells’ arrival, Andrew stood by one of the long windows in Major Foveaux’s drawing-room, critically surveying the crowd about him.
As yet, only eight or so couples had made their appearance, but outside he could distinctly hear the rumble of carriages, and the bad-tempered tones of their drivers, forced to hold restless horses in line, waiting for their turn to draw up before the open doorway. They would all come, he thought ‒ every one of them; even from as far as Parramatta they would come, because the pull of curiosity was strong. There was not a woman in the colony who, given the opportunity, would excuse herself from meeting Alison Barwell. And not a few of them knew that King, the Governor-elect, had promised to attend this reception in Foveaux’s house.
Across the room Andrew bowed to John Macarthur’s wife, standing before the fireplace, but his attention wandered to the group just inside the door. Alison was there, fabulously gowned, and beside her, Richard. A handsome devil, Andrew reflected ‒ a good match for Alison’s air of distinction. Foveaux hovered about them, occasionally signalling to the servants, who moved with their trays among the sprinkling of early guests. On Alison’s right hand, just a little behind her, stood Sara. Andrew watched his wife with pride ‒ tall, in her gown of rose silk, and only the heightened colour of her cheeks and the slightly restless movement of the fan in her gloved hand betrayed, even to his familiar eyes, that she was nervous.
There was a buzz of conversation in the hall. Foveaux moved forward to greet his guests. They came, a group of about six people, through the door. Alison was introduced, then Richard. As each guest was about to move away, Alison turned, and with her charming smile, presented Sara.
Earlier, with the first arrivals, Andrew had caught Alison’s gentle words.
‘Of course, you know my friend, Mrs. Maclay …’
From some of the women there had been a marked reaction of hostility, a raising of eyebrows, a stiff bow. The more uncertain among them gave shy, rather frightened smiles, and then noticeably drifted off to discuss this unexpected development with friends in far corners of the room. On the faces of the men, almost without exception, Andrew could read admiration, and in some cases, pleasure in the knowledge that at last they were meeting and talking to Sara Maclay elsewhere than across the desk in the store.
James and Julia Ryder came in. The room filled rapidly then, and soon it was too crowded for Andrew to see clearly the little ceremony which was being repeated over and over again by the doorway. He moved among the guests, bowing here and there to acquaintances, but not pausing to become involved in conversation, lest he should lose anything of the general trend of talk. The voice of a woman, whose reputation for gossip he knew well, reached him.
‘… and I’d like to know how that creature, Sara Maclay happens to be Mrs. Barwell’s friend. It’s a perfect scandal that she’s invited here to meet decent people …’
Then a man’s voice, gently. ‘But both the Barwells say they knew her when they were children.’
With a faint smile, Andrew moved off again.
He stopped to catch the words of a young bride, a recent arrival from England.
‘Do you think Mrs. Maclay will be received after this?’ She gave a slightly nervous laugh. ‘I think … I should like to know her, though she rather frightens me. Well, we’ll see first how Mr. King receives her …’
And a young lieutenant said admiringly to a fellow-officer, ‘They tell me she killed an escaping convict. Jove!’
Andrew made his way towards the group by the door, but he still did not join them. Alison was a consummate actress, he thought; or else she had been rigorously schooled by Richard. Every other minute she turned to consult Sara, tapping her arm lightly with her fan, laughing, leaning forward to listen to the other’s replies. It was the perfect picture of old friends, familiar and at ease with one another. She kept Sara close, forcing any guest who approached to include her in the conversation. It was all managed with loving attention to the niceties
of social behaviour; never once did Alison’s manner imply her awareness that the women who spoke now with such tightened lips had never before acknowledged Andrew Maclay’s ex-convict wife. To Andrew, Alison Barwell made an unforgettable picture that evening ‒ her charming vivacity never slackened, never faltered. Her poise was equal to every demand made upon it. He smiled to himself. She was a lady, and a lady could always be trusted to behave as her breeding dictated ‒ even if the world turned upside down, as Alison must now be feeling hers had done.
An abrupt, intuitive hush fell upon the crowd. No one had announced the arrival of the new Governor and his lady, but the whisper of it had run through the company like a wave. Heads turned and craned; any talk that continued was abstracted while the owner’s eyes were fixed on the doorway.
Philip Gidley King and Josepha Ann, his dark-haired wife, swept in. It was not yet proper to give them the welcome reserved for the true Governor. Nevertheless, they commanded the attention of the whole room. Behind them were Captain Abbott, and his wife, at whose house they were staying.
Andrew watched with keen interest the little ceremony of greetings and curtsies. Alison was known to be a favourite with Josepha Ann, and King himself smiled upon her warmly. She acknowledged her introductions to the Abbots, and then she gracefully stretched her hand towards Sara.
The silence deepened in the room. One woman among the crowd, who could not see above the heads of the men, stood on tip-toe, and almost overbalanced. Her stifled gasp was plainly audible. Alison’s clear tones reached them all.
‘Sir, may I present my dear friend, Mrs. Maclay? We have known each other a very long time ‒ almost since we were small children.’
King bowed. ‘I am indeed happy to make your acquaintance, madam. Any friend of our charming Mrs. Barwell is, of course …’
Andrew’s eyes were half-closed as he watched the shimmer of Sara’s rose silk as she sank in a low curtsy. He knew beyond doubt that King would have been fully informed of Sara’s history. The colony was too small to allow a new Governor to live here four full weeks without pressing on him the domestic and financial details of all his prominent citizens. Andrew was aware that King would know, equally well, that this ex-convict’s husband was not without power of his own, the power of his reputed wealth, and the weight he carried in the trading-ring. King’s main purpose was to smash the monopoly of this ring, either by peaceful persuasion or open warfare. Whichever way events turned, it would do him no harm to win friends among the men he sought to subjugate. So the Governor-elect of New South Wales smiled upon Andrew Maclay’s tall young wife, now being presented to him by a woman of impeachable reputation. Always loyal, Josepha Ann hastened to follow his example.
IV
For more than two months after the reception at Foveaux’s house, Richard did not appear at Glenbarr alone. He came formally with Alison, and sometimes he and Andrew sat late discussing details of the Hyde farm ‒ which by then had passed into Richard’s hands. During these visits he was distant to Sara; his detachment lay coldly in his eyes, and she believed that he would never again come alone ‒ until the afternoon Annie came bustling into the nursery to announce that Captain Barwell was waiting in the drawing-room.
Sara went downstairs immediately, to find him leaning nonchalantly against the mantelpiece, his fingers idly toying with the fringe of the bell-cord. He smiled at her, and when his smile met with no response, he frowned and tossed the cord aside.
‘It’s no use looking like that, Sara,’ he said. ‘I intend to come whenever I feel like it. No ‒ not whenever I feel like it ‒ whenever I know that I must see you for a few minutes, or do something crazy.’
He tapped the heel of his polished boot against the fender. ‘But don’t worry, my dear. It won’t be often enough to ruin your honour or your reputation.’
She was standing at the back of a big tapestry-covered chair. Her fingers gripped the scroll-work of the frame.
‘I could refuse to see you,’ she said quietly.
He looked at her, shaking his head. ‘No, you won’t do that. It would look bad, wouldn’t it, if you refused to see me? After all, how could Alison continue to visit here, if her husband is not received? Think of it, Sara.’
She thought of it, and saw what he meant her to see ‒ Andrew’s attitude if there was an open break between herself and Richard, Alison’s suspicions, and the gossip of the Glenbarr servants sweeping through the town.
Richard, with no small show of triumph, won his point, and throughout the winter appeared in Sara’s drawing-room for an afternoon’s call, once in every two or three weeks. At first they were uneasy visits ‒ Sara, furious and sullen that he had forced his way in on her, Richard, because he knew he was not welcomed. They talked together in clipped, isolated sentences. But familiarity wore down their sense of strain. Sara soon learnt that it was impossible to quarrel politely in a drawn-out fashion. She gave in, and then they ceased throwing words about like a pair of petulant children. Richard relaxed enough to tell her his plans for the Hyde farm ‒ he spent a part of each week there, returning eagerly to report the progress. The house was now in order; he was building hog-pens, and bringing up some oxen from Sydney. Sara shook her head doubtfully over the accounts. Richard was no farmer. He threw himself into the project with the recklessness of inexperience. There was no advice she could give him that he would heed. The farm was his, he pointed out, whenever she tried to dissuade him from some scheme or other ‒ his alone. Andrew might have lent him the money to buy it, but that fact gave no one the right to tell him how to work it. Sara found, when this sort of mood took him, that she kept peace between them by shrugging her shoulders and having nothing further to say.
During those months there were unmistakable signs that the women of the colony were beginning to take Alison Barwell’s lead. They did not immediately call at Glenbarr, but in the streets Sara was greeted with a discreet bow, and in the store their former attitude of ignoring her was abandoned. But as the winter passed, she was more and more certain that Alison had a suspicion of some relationship between her husband and the woman he told her she must call her friend. She came often enough to Glenbarr; she invited Sara back to the house on the Parramatta road, which they had bought from an officer returning to England. But she acted as if she obeyed an order; as if Sara herself mattered less than nothing in comparison with the fact that Richard must be pleased. They never advanced towards intimacy ‒ but then, Alison was the sort to be intimate with no one. Richard was her entire world, and other people existed only in relation to him. She seemed to see Sara Maclay’s husband as the provider of the luxuries of life that Richard demanded, the horses, the good wine, the gowns which were essential if she was still to have him look at her with admiration. Andrew Maclay had also provided the money for the farm, which, one day, she believed, was going to allow them to live on luxuries which were not borrowed. She had implicit faith in Richard’s ability to both farm his land, with the help of an overseer, and carry out his duties at the barracks. New South Wales had many men now who were doing the same thing ‒ and were succeeding in building up small fortunes. What neither saw was that Richard was no farmer, and that his chances were slight of ever catching up with the shrewdness, ruthlessness and frank ambition of the others. He and his wife lived in a dream of the future, when the Hyde farm had made them at least moderately prosperous ‒ and to Alison, prosperity also carried the idea that she would not have to visit so regularly at Glenbarr, since they would no longer be in debt to Glenbarr’s owners. In the meantime, it was convenient ‒ more than that, it was a God-send ‒ to draw money as it was needed from the steady stream that Andrew Maclay showed no signs of checking. Luxuries were costly, Alison noted with regret, and they owed a shocking debt already to the Maclays. But, she told herself, if they were ever to succeed, they must make their start now ‒ and in the only way open to them.
So, throughout the winter months, Sara and Alison clung determinedly to their façade of friendship; the
wives of the colony’s officials began to bow and nod to Mrs. Maclay when their carriages chanced to pass in Sydney’s muddy streets. Gradually a phrase passed among them ‒ ‘Of course, Sara Maclay’s case is rather different from that of the other convicts.’ One or two of the husbands suggested that their wives might try inviting Sara Maclay to their tea-parties. It was well known that she possessed a great deal of influence with her husband ‒ and there were many people in the colony who, for one reason or another, wished to retain Andrew Maclay’s goodwill.
And while this went on, while winter gave place to a pale, warm spring, Richard continued to visit occasionally at Glenbarr, to tell Sara his plans, to listen to her encouragement, to disregard her advice. If Andrew were there, he stayed only a short time; if they were alone, he sat on before the drawing-room fire, talking on and on, until the intimacy of the walks on the Romney Marsh was once again established. And always he rode away from Glenbarr at a mad pace, with a look on his face of a man who has had a great weight lifted from him. Sometimes he didn’t go directly home, or to the barracks, but turned aside to the road heading to the South Head.
Once Ted O’Malley, the Maclays’ boatman, had reported meeting him on this road, after a visit to Glenbarr. He told Annie ‒ who promptly repeated it to Sara ‒ that Captain Barwell had cantered along, singing a soldier’s song at the top of his voice, and with a strange, wild look on his face.
Chapter Four
Sara gave an audible sigh of relief as the straggling hamlet of Castle Hill appeared at the end of the stretch of road. There was not much farther to go now, she consoled herself. Three miles on the other side of the rough little settlement ahead, a track led off to the left, curving for a couple of hundred yards to a ragged farm-building, known locally as Priest’s. Joseph Priest had died four months ago, and for the past six weeks the Maclays had been the owners of the worked-out, neglected property. Sara reflected happily enough on the prospect. Within two years, if Andrew was right, this piece of land would wear the same prosperous, fertile look that characterized their Toongabbie and Hawkesbury farms. Andrew’s ambition was a restless, growing thing.
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