Sara Dane

by Catherine Gaskin

The New South Wales Corps ‒ locally known as the Rum Corps ‒ was as great and as constant a source of trouble to him as his own gout. Officers and men, they incessantly harassed, disobeyed, derided and ridiculed him, until he was almost ready to die from sheer weariness and disappointment. The Colonial Office was no help ‒ it had little time, and even less money, to spare for his demands. Macarthur, whom he had sent back to England for court martial for his duel with the Lieutenant-Governor, Colonel Patterson, had somehow managed to win the ear of authority. The samples of merino wool which he had produced from his own flocks had forced even the Colonial Office to take notice. Macarthur had promised that their problem-colony, forever begging money and supplies, would soon have an export that would fill the looms of the Yorkshire wool-spinners. His schemes had met with strong support and approval, and he was returning to Sydney, not in disgrace, but triumphant, with a large grant of the most coveted land in the whole of New South Wales ‒ the Cowpastures district, where the herds of wild cattle, the property of the Government, ran. King raged when he heard the news; the troublemaker was returning with power increased ten-fold.

  The brief Peace of Amiens was over; England was now alone in facing the genius and organizing might of Napoleon. The British people were committed to a long struggle, and, on receiving the news, already seven months old, King acknowledged sadly that the heads of Government in London would now have less patience than ever for their remote and unproductive colony.

  But there was a threat of violence much nearer to hand than the future battlefields of Europe. Since Governor Hunter’s time the Irish convicts had made their presence and their grievances felt in no uncertain way. There were continual rumours of a rising, and counter-rumour. A year after King’s arrival a definite plot had been discovered; the colony panicked at the news that rough but effective pikes had been discovered in the hands of rebel convicts. King sent the ringleaders to Norfolk Island ‒ and he was criticized for not having hanged them. The passionate outcry of the rebels died down to a murderous undertone.

  Sara felt some pity for the worried, anxious Governor, whom she had learned to like ‒ even, in a sense, to respect. For herself, and for Andrew, the years of Philip Gidley King’s reign had been good ones. After she had been received at Government House, Andrew had, for the sake of the Governor’s regard, withdrawn a good deal from the rum trade. But his prosperity no longer needed the bolster of the liquor sales, except in a nominal way. He withdrew, also, because his foresightedness saw the end of the trade. The Colonial Office would some day provide a Governor with the means to smash it, and all might not go well with the credit of those who engaged in it right up to the end.

  And for Louis, too, Sara thought, the years had been good ones. King was generous in his land-grant; and generous in his friendship. Perhaps it was something of a relief to that harassed man to know that in Louis de Bourget he had found one prosperous farmer whose money, he knew for certain, did not come from illegal rum sales. Louis had never engaged in trade activity; that fact alone made him something of a rarity in that ring of businessmen. But, Sara mused, Louis had found the best of two worlds. He enjoyed an immunity from the rivalries of trade, and yet, from it, he made a direct profit. He and Andrew had joined forces to buy two more sloops for trade between the ports of the East. The sloops, Thrush and Hawk, had appeared only twice in Port Jackson during the two years of their trading, but, in that time, credits were beginning to mount up with Louis’s agent in London, and Andrew had every reason to be well satisfied with his side of the deal. Latterly there had been talk of their buying yet another vessel for whaling expeditions to the Antarctic. It was Andrew who controlled these ventures, not by the power of money, but his own initiative and driving-force. Louis was content to have it so ‒ he rarely withheld his agreement when approached by Andrew in matters of policy; he could mostly be relied upon to shrug and profess no aptitude for business. The arrangement suited Andrew exactly; any partnership in which he played a minor role would have been a brief and uneasy one.

  But no such harmony existed in the business relations between Andrew and Richard. Richard had determined, from the very beginning, that he would be absolute master of Hyde Farm, and no suggestions or advice from Andrew, no matter how tactfully given, were received kindly. He was still very much in debt, and, though the farm was beginning to improve and pay its own way, the debt to Andrew increased year by year. The improvement continued, almost in spite of Richard’s ignorance of farming ‒ his duties in the Corps kept him in Sydney most of the time, and his overseer had a knack of rectifying his employer’s mistakes without seeming to disobey his orders. But the mild prosperity of Hyde Farm only urged Richard and Alison on to fresh extravagances. Their house in Sydney was the hub of whatever gaiety was to be found there. Alison dressed and entertained far beyond her own small income and the salary of an army captain, and when money ran short with them, Richard applied once more to Andrew. But, in spite of the front she showed to the world, each time Sara saw Alison, she fancied that the delicately-shaped face had become a trifle paler, a shade more finely drawn. During the short winters Alison seemed never to be free from a disturbing cough, and the fierce heat of the summers sapped still more of her little strength. However, Sara reflected, for all that, Alison Barwell’s vivacious charm never deserted her. If she were ill, her couch was always the place to hear the best stories and the tastiest gossip circulating within the town. Her wit was clever and sharp, and her house was the gathering-place for the unmarried officers of the Corps.

  Of Richard himself, Sara knew very little these days. He attended to his duties with as much care as any other man of his rank, and when time allowed, he made the long trip up to his Hawkesbury farm. But there were tales always circulating of his incessant drinking, and he seemed to lack the will to stand out against Alison’s expenditure. It surprised Sara that he could continue to ask Andrew for money; and that Andrew had not, long ago, wearied of watching good money go after bad. But it seemed that Andrew’s contempt for the Barwells’ extravagance was not greater than his desire to see his wife graciously received in their house. Formal calls were frequently exchanged between the two women. So long as Sydney continued to see and note these exchanges, Andrew turned a blind eye to Richard’s growing debt.

  It grieved Sara to realize how little knowledge she possessed of Richard’s feelings and thoughts towards herself. Since the day they had quarrelled on the Hawkesbury Road, she had never spoken to him alone. When his temper had cooled, he had taken her invitation, and called at Kintyre; he found her indisposed. At Glenbarr it was the same; unless Andrew was there when Richard called, Sara sent Annie to him with her excuses. Finally, he stopped coming alone; only on business with Andrew, or accompanied by Alison, did he ever put in an appearance.

  Nothing ‒ not loyalty to her husband, nor disgust over Richard’s treatment of Jeremy ‒ had ever quite stifled the feeling of dismay in her heart over his absence. She was forced to admit to herself that she missed him acutely, longing to write him the letter that would bring him back; pride, and a strong sense of prudence, always restrained her. He was constantly in her thoughts; she worried over him, wishing that Lady Linton’s death might take them both back to London ‒ and yet, with the arrival of each ship, she dreaded to hear the news. She had no peace or tranquillity from her decision not to see him alone again; he could still possess her like a guilty dream, reproach her with one quick glance in the midst of company, and drive her almost frantic by talking wildly of plans he had no intention of carrying out, knowing quite well that the tales would be taken back to her. In such small ways as these, Richard had his revenge on her.

  It seemed that since the days that they had shared the schoolroom at Bramfield, Richard had possessed an unfair power over her ‒ and he would never let it go. The thought oppressed her, and she turned from it wearily. Outside, the wind had risen, flinging itself against the walls of the house. She listened, and felt that the sound which, until now, had been remote and
shut out, was suddenly mournful and close at hand. Despite the heat of the fire, she drew her shoulders together as if she were cold.

  Always alert, Louis noticed her movement. He leaned forward in his chair.

  ‘Sara, my dear! I have kept you overlong. It is selfish of me! You would like to go to your room now?’

  She smiled faintly, and nodded, rising at the same time. Andrew also rose, and both men came to the door with her.

  At a word from Louis to a manservant in the hall, the woman who had waited for them on the portico that morning reappeared, holding a candle to light Sara to her room. She was a Frenchwoman, Madame Balvet, about thirty-five and handsome, in a thin, rather sharp fashion. She had arrived from England three months previously, and acting under Louis’s instructions, had come to Banon as housekeeper. She spoke very good English, and gossip knew no more of her than that she had been in service to a great French family before the Revolution. Sara eyed her with curiosity. Who was this woman whom Louis had brought over from France? Someone trusted? … Someone loved? A mistress, perhaps, before his marriage? Sara watched her warily as she strode along the passage; she seemed to have a look of pride and possessiveness in the house, but Sara was prepared to acknowledge that in this she might be mistaken.

  The woman opened the door, standing aside silently for Sara to enter. Sara’s eyes followed her as she carefully lit several candles in brackets and on tables. In their flare she examined in detail what she had noticed only superficially earlier. The room she was to occupy was furnished with a taste and sensitivity that betrayed ‒ or was meant to reveal ‒ Louis’s intimate knowledge of women.

  Sara woke when the first streak of light was grey at the window. It was a period of utter stillness ‒ the wind had dropped, and it was too early even for the birds. Within the house there was no sound at all. It would be an hour yet before the dairy-hands stirred ‒ longer before the faint bustle of the kitchen began.

  Beside her, Andrew breathed quietly in his sleep. The gentle movement close to her own body was comforting and peaceful. In the darkness her hand went out slowly and touched his arm; she held it there for a few moments, then drew back. The rhythm of his breathing had not altered. As she lay there in the stillness, she was suddenly reminded of her conversation with Louis on the veranda at Kintyre almost three years ago ‒ the only time he had ever talked to her of his wife. With a feeling of dismay she recalled his words … ‘She was as cold as a splinter of ice.’ The words contained the crux of the reason why his marriage had failed.

  Probably, in his whole life, Louis had never woken, as she did now, to experience this feeling of tenderness and familiarity, the sense of protectiveness, and of being protected. Louis did not know the security of love in his marriage. The woman who should have lain beside him at this moment slept alone in her father’s house, and his own daughter was a stranger to him.

  Because of this, Banon must remain without its mistress. It was white and beautiful ‒ and sadly empty. The woman who ruled it was not Louis’s wife. With a sense of pity, Sara remembered Madame Balvet’s thin, passionate face, her eyes that were not greedy or malicious, but watched over the running of the house with a look of brooding possessiveness.

  IV

  Louis’s terraced garden was still unfinished, but a certain order had been brought into it, and even in its rough state it had a free sort of beauty, which Sara hoped it might retain even when smooth, English lawn replaced the tough grass, growing about in spiky clumps. A seat had been placed for her on the highest of the levels, and she took her needlework there on the fifth day after their arrival at Banon. Andrew and the three boys came out with her, stayed by her some time to talk, and then wandered farther down the slope. Now and again she caught a glimpse of them as they broke from the cover of trees or shrubs, and their voices reached her, the children’s high and shrill, Andrew’s deeper. She smiled down at them, waiting to see them turn and make for the aviary; so far, they had ended each morning by a visit to the aviary, Andrew no less fascinated than his sons.

  But Andrew, she knew, would not remain much longer at Banon. Louis pressed them to stay on ‒ a month, six weeks. But idleness sat uneasily upon Andrew. He enjoyed Banon, he enjoyed Louis’s company, and the card games that kept them from their beds until the small hours of the morning; but Sara observed signs of restlessness in him already. Louis’s leisured world of elegance and peace was not his; he missed the bustle of the store, the constant journeyings between Sydney and Parramatta, the bargaining for livestock and corn, the gossip that was part of every business transaction. He had been away from it only a few days, and yet at dinner last night he talked rather wistfully of the possibility of mail arriving from his agents in London, and of the fact that there might be a cargo for sale, and he, at Banon, would be out of the bidding. Louis said nothing in reply to this, but he knew as well as Sara that the wilderness of the Nepean would not hold Andrew much longer.

  There was a sense of remoteness here that the Hawkesbury, even in the early days, did not possess. Here the soil would grow wheat finer and heavier than anywhere else in the colony, but the land was infinitely difficult to clear. Wherever the settlers had pushed forward to farm their claims by the river-banks, they had done so in loneliness, and with a steadfast will to ignore the silence and the immense tracts of bush about them. Here the natives still roamed in a half-wild state, scarcely touched by the white man’s approach; the roads were no more than rough tracks, and civilization had hardly begun its fight against the bush.

  Sara had no pretence of interest in her needlework as she sat with the gentle spring sunshine full on her face. The paradox of Banon fascinated her ‒ the creation of this, the loveliest and most unusual house in the whole of the colony, merely as a landmark in the wilderness. It faced the unknown, promising mountains like a grand, rather foolhardy gesture to the future of the country. Filled with wonder at the achievement, she turned back to gaze unbelievingly at the house; the long windows caught the sun with a dazzle strong enough to hurt her eyes.

  It was the sound of a horseman on the drive that attracted her attention. Craning forward, she could see that it was one of Louis’s overseers who had been sent to Sydney three days previously with orders for supplies. The sound of the hoof-beats carried to her on the air; but they were not clear, the birds were noisy, and the air was full of the sound of insects. A heat-haze was already rising above the mountains; by noon it would be too hot to sit out any longer. She watched the horseman idly; he took the path that led to the stables, and was lost from sight. Then her gaze returned to the mountains, and the river plains below.

  She picked up her needlework again, and worked at it until, about half an hour later, she heard Louis’s voice on the portico above her. He was walking slowly down its length in conversation with Madame Balvet; their tones were quiet and serious. Sara imagined, from his gestures, that he was giving his housekeeper instruction; she nodded several times, and then, with a final nod, accompanied by a decisive wave of her hand, she turned and went indoors again. Louis paced the portico a few times, his hands clasped behind his back. On the last turn he caught sight of Sara. He waved his arm, and then hurried down the steps and came towards her.

  Something was wrong ‒ his expression told her so instantly. At once her mind went back to the arrival of the overseer, probably carrying mail from Sydney. Louis’s walk was brisk; he brought an air of excitement and haste that usually was totally lacking in him. He moved Sara’s needlework basket and sat down beside her, beginning to talk without preamble.

  ‘There’s news, Sara! Burke has brought mail from Sydney. By the by, there are several letters for Andrew ‒ I must send someone to find him.’

  She shook her head. ‘Wait ‒ not yet, Louis! Tell me first what your own news is.’

  ‘Something I had not expected to hear for many years yet.’ His voice was slower now, its crispness had faded. He was silent for a few moments, looking past her to the mountains. When his gaze came back to her, h
e was frowning a little.

  ‘My wife, Sara, is dead. I have had a letter from my esteemed father-in-law, telling me in bald sentences that she died from a chill she caught out hunting.’

  Sara grasped at the sense of what he said, but she saw immediately that Louis’s expression did not invite sympathy. She felt it would be hypocritical to offer it; there could be nothing but relief for him in the news of his wife’s death. Relief, certainly ‒ but, perhaps, also a trace of regret? There were so many things Louis might regret about this. He may have cherished an unexpressed hope that she would come, some day, to the colony; he may often have grieved over the beauty he had loved unwisely. Surely Banon hadn’t been built without the hope of a son to inherit? But if these were Louis’s thoughts, he kept them to himself, and his face told her very little. He had told her his news within an hour of receiving it, but it was clear that he did not expect her to probe his own feelings on the matter. Whether he was relieved, indifferent, or sorry, would obviously remain his own affair. She said nothing, fearful that any words of hers might intrude clumsily among his thoughts.

  At last he said to her, ‘I’m angry, Sara!’

  ‘Angry?’

  ‘Yes ‒ angry! My wife is dead, but Elizabeth, my daughter, remains very much alive. That blundering fool, her grandfather, thinks he can keep her from me.’

  He reached into his coat pocket, and brought out a letter. He unfolded it and laid it across his knees; Sara saw that the handwriting was thick, bold enough, but shaky, as if the writer could no longer control his pen with any certainty.

  ‘Here …!’ Louis pointed to the lines close to the end of the letter:

  ‘ … Your daughter, Elizabeth, now eight years old, will, I presume, remain here with her grandmother and myself. From the reports I have of the colony, I must conclude that it is a wild and savage place, totally unsuitable for such a child as my granddaughter. Moreover, your roving life leads me to believe that you have no permanent home in which she may be properly received and brought up. Nor is there, I imagine, in New South Wales, any woman capable of instructing her in her lessons, needlework, music and painting.