She had no worry over the management of Kintyre. Since the time of the flood disaster, it had been almost completely in Jeremy Hogan’s charge. His practice of riding to Kintyre to look over the stock and discuss the crops with Trigg ‒ as they had done together in the old days ‒ had begun during the months following Henriette’s birth, when Sara had remained there, still ill and too weak to make the long journey back to Sydney. But now it was an established custom ‒ and Louis had insisted that Jeremy be paid a proper commission as her agent. A letter from Jeremy, giving details of the property, reached her at Banon every few weeks; at times when she was worried about conditions at the other two farms, the letters gave her a picture of Kintyre’s acres, as prosperous and as trim as if Andrew himself had been there to attend to them.
But she found that Banon was the refuge from the troubles of the colony that Louis had meant it to be. The valleys and gorges had a haunting, faintly mysterious beauty; it was possible, within a few miles’ ride of the house itself, to go well beyond the reach of any settlement; across the river the wild government herds roamed unchecked. Great storms of rain came down from the mountains, but there were long days of sun and perfect stillness, when Sara felt herself becoming part of the silence that surrounded them. She let the peace of those uninterrupted months close over her, like a blanket that smothered all other thoughts.
Louis himself wore an air of contentment. He rode every day with the children, or with Sara alone, and as time passed she felt that his attachment to Banon became more and more a decisive factor in his life. He seemed to desire nothing more than to remain there undisturbed. Under his hands the gardens were becoming a place of exquisite and carefully informal beauty; occasionally, with two or three of the men, he made excursions into the foothills of the mountains, bringing back young flowering trees to plant among the eucalyptus and Norfolk pines surrounding the house. He added a library to store the books that arrived for him by every ship.
A governess, Miss Parry, was brought out to take charge of Elizabeth; she was a prim, softly spoken young woman, whom Louis mimicked outrageously, Elizabeth still had lessons from her father and Michael Sullivan, and went reluctantly into Miss Parry’s charge for music, needlework, and painting. Every morning from the drawing-room came the airs of Mozart and Handel, executed efficiently enough, but woodenly. Elizabeth’s greatest passion in life was still her pony, and, latterly, her small half-sister, Henriette, had begun to interest her. Henriette was very much Louis’s child ‒ with an assured charm which already she had learned would get her most of the things she wanted. To Sara, it was still something of a wonder to see the way Louis treated his little daughter ‒ he adored her, and spoiled her shamefully, delighting in her precocious baby French. Always remembering the tragedy of Sebastian’s death, Louis engaged a nursemaid solely for the care of Henriette; this woman had instructions never to let the child out of her sight for a moment. Sara wished she had the courage to step in and put an end to the dominance that Henriette exerted over the entire household at Banon, but she was never free of the thought that Henriette had to take the place of the son Louis had hoped for, and he should be left to spoil and indulge her as it pleased him.
With each month that passed, David and Duncan became more absorbed in the routine of life at Banon. David was growing into a shy and withdrawn adolescence ‒ much too prone, Sara noticed, to spend his time ranging through Louis’s library, or riding off alone along the bush tracks. He seemed content to be led by Duncan ‒ Duncan, who talked enough for them both, who had Andrew’s sense of opportunism, and a boisterous love of fun. But in their interest and knowledge of farming they were equal; they knew that Dane Farm, in the coveted Cowpastures district, was to be theirs some day, and they followed its progress with interest. Two or three times a week they rode there with Sara to inspect the clearing and fencing; they knew almost as much about the breeding of the merino as their mother; they were familiar with the prices fetched for sheep and cattle at every stock sale in Sydney and Parramatta. As Sara saw them both, week by week, shed their childhood a little more, she pondered the question of sending them to school in England … and week by week she put the decision off. Next year they would go, she promised herself … next year.
At the end of December, 1809 ‒ almost two years after the rebellion against Bligh ‒ news reached Banon that Lieutenant-Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, the newly appointed Governor of the colony, had reached Port Jackson, in the Hindostan. With him in the Hindostan, and in the accompanying store-ship, the Dromedary, were the soldiers of the 73rd Regiment, sent out to replace the rebellious Rum Corps. By placing the Commandant of the regiment in the governorship, the Colonial Office was making it abundantly clear that it would stand for no more of the quarrels that had waged incessantly between Governor and military since Hunter’s time.
With this new governor came the hope of peace within the colony, yet Sara packed for the journey to Sydney with a strange reluctance. These past two years had given to her life a tranquillity she had never known, and previously had hardly looked for. Almost she dreaded the return.
Chapter Seven
A haze of dust rose into the hot air above the Parade Ground, on New Year’s Day, 1810. The population of Sydney had put on its best clothes, and in a holiday spirit had turned out to hear the reading of the Governor’s commission. Beside the splendid new uniforms of the 73rd, those of the New South Wales Corps were faded and rather sad-looking; but the Corps presented arms as smartly as their fellows. The guns of the Battery on the point roared, the echo sounding back off the hills on the North Shore. A freely perspiring military band played the National Anthem.
Sara, sitting in the carriage with Elizabeth and Henriette, noted, with a smile she kept carefully hidden, the respectful fashion in which the crowd uncovered its heads as the Great Seal was displayed on the Patent, by the Judge-Advocate. Tall hats and cloth caps were removed with equal alacrity; there was nothing here to indicate that this was the same crowd who had greeted the overthrow of the King’s authority so enthusiastically only two years ago.
‘George the Third: To our Trusty and Well-Beloved Lachlan Macquarie …’
In the closeness of the carriage, Elizabeth fidgeted with her bonnet, trying, Sara guessed, to keep her face shaded so that freckles wouldn’t appear on her nose. But Henriette, almost four now, was unnaturally still, her eyes fixed in a long stare of concentration. She was fascinated by the spectacle before her. Never, in her short life, had she seen anything to equal the red and gold splendour of the uniforms; to her, the roll of the drums and the royal salute from the Battery were awe-inspiring. She seemed to have forgotten the irksomeness of her many petticoats under the India muslin dress. It amused Sara that Elizabeth, while paying no attention to the ceremony, thoroughly enjoyed looking pretty in a gown that was having only its second wearing.
Louis, standing beside the carriage, wore a slightly bored expression on his face ‒ an expression which, whether intentional or not, plainly said that this little display of vice-regal pomp impressed him not at all. He shifted his hat to the other hand while the Judge-Advocate’s voice droned on. The midday heat was intense; the crowd swished irritably at the flies that settled on faces and arms. Beside Louis, Duncan nudged his brother frequently, and, stretching on tip-toe, made many whispered remarks. Sara managed to lean down quietly and touch his shoulder with her parasol. He turned around, grinning impishly up at her, and then cocking a quizzical eyebrow at Elizabeth’s discontented face.
The Governor finished his address, and again the guns roared from the Battery, and from the ships in the harbour. The drums started, and once more the band struck up the National Anthem. The tension in the crowd relaxed.
Louis opened the carriage door with an air of impatience. ‘Mon Dieu, how they love their little ceremonies!’
He didn’t make it clear whether he referred to Governor Macquarie’s party, or to the eager, gaping population.
As he was about to step into the carriag
e he halted, his head turned sideways, staring into the crowd which had broken its lines and begun to drift.
‘Here’s Jeremy Hogan!’ he said.
Sara leaned forward. Jeremy came towards them, smiling, his hat still in his hand.
‘Jeremy!’ she cried, delightedly. ‘What brings you here? I thought an occasion like this wouldn’t bring you down from the Hawkesbury ‒ not even if the King himself …’
Her words were lost in the enthusiastic greeting of the two boys. Even Elizabeth stopped looking bored and smiled charmingly.
‘Sometimes an Irish fit of sociability falls on me,’ Jeremy said, shaking hands with Louis. ‘I suddenly see myself growing dull and rusty in my wilderness, and then I think I must go and drink in some of the cultivated talk and habits of our great metropolis. They tell me there’s even to be fireworks tonight ‒ now, fireworks are something I never could resist …’
Louis was urging him towards the carriage. ‘Then you’ll not be able to resist coming back to Glenbarr. Eat dinner with us, and we’ll see if we can’t persuade you to stay on. This evening we’re having a bonfire and fireworks of our own to celebrate the coming of the Lord’s annointed.’
Sara saw the broad smile that immediately crossed Duncan’s face as he listened. ‘You’re hardly respectful, Louis …’
‘Nonsense, my dear!’ he laughed. ‘I hear the text of the sermon the Reverend Cowper will preach is, Arise, anoint him; for this is he!’
As he spoke he climbed into the carriage behind Jeremy, taking no notice of the wail of protest Elizabeth set up when she realized what the extra crowding would do to her muslin frills. Before he closed the door, Louis turned to the two boys.
‘David, you’ll make your own way back, won’t you? There isn’t any room in here now.’
David nodded eagerly, ‘Yes, of course …’
Duncan, as soon as he heard Louis’s words, waved his hand gaily, and charged off through the crowd towards the place where the band was still playing. David swung round to follow him.
Louis watched them with a smile. ‘That, I imagine, is the last we’ll see of the pair of them until they’re hungry and tired enough to want to come home.’
He sat down and leaned back, and the carriage rolled forward. Its progress was slowed by the line of chaises and carriages ahead. Sara swished her fan to keep off the flies, staring at the throngs of people on foot, listening to them shouting and calling to each other. The soldiers on the Parade Ground had been dismissed, and they were now mingling with the crowd, their red uniforms notes of solid colour among the light cottons and muslins of the women. A pretty girl, hanging on the arm of a corporal of the 73rd, stared, with mildly envious eyes, into the de Bourgets’ carriage; then her escort bent and said something in a low voice, and she looked up at him laughingly, forgetting the silk and velvet upholstery that had caused her envy a few seconds ago. It was a Sunday afternoon, and yet the place had none of the decorum of a Sunday about it. The dust rose under the feet of the crowd; the heat and the noise made Sara’s head ache, and set her thinking wistfully of the cool of Glenbarr.
Jeremy was doing a wickedly malicious little paraphrase of the sermon he imagined the earnest Mr. Cowper shortly afterwards delivering in St. Philip’s, greeting the new Governor as the saviour of the colony. Louis, shaken out of his boredom, was highly amused, and lay back chuckling quietly. He had, true to his character, refused to join the small throng of people who had pressed forward immediately to be presented to Macquarie. He and Sara were invited to attend a reception at Government House later in the week, and it did not suit him to be one of the line waiting in the hot sun to be presented before the eyes of Sydney’s interested population.
As the two men talked together Sara had time to examine Jeremy carefully, and to note the changes which the last years had brought to him. He was accustomed to his freedom now; his ease sat upon him naturally, his speech and humour no longer constrained, as when he had been Andrew Maclay’s convict overseer. His coat was smartly cut, and his linen impeccable; he was stamped with the prosperity of the Hawkesbury farm. She saw, with some alarm, the streaks of grey in his black hair, and she realized then that he was, after all, forty-two, or perhaps forty-three, and his years in the colony, save the latter ones, had been hard and wearing. His face had a deep tan, and his skin was hardened by the weather. But he had the assurance of a man who is at peace with his world; she doubted if he often turned his thoughts backwards to Ireland. Fourteen years’ penal servitude separated him from the man he had been there ‒ a young man with a taste for women and good horses. He was confident of his future, and could shrug his shoulders at the memory of a sentence imposed for sedition. It had left no mark against his character; here, in the colony, he was free to rise as high as he wished. While Sara stared at him, she found herself thinking of the convict woman who was his mistress, and wondering if he would ever marry her.
That evening the entire de Bourget household, guests, children, and servants, stood around the huge bonfire that Edwards and Ted O’Malley were tending. At a smaller fire, Bess and Kate took turns at slowly turning a pig on a spit. The smell of roasting meat was heavy on the air.
Elizabeth, standing close to her father, gave a shrill squeak as a rocket shot into space, exploding in a shower of pink stars. The whole of the township was dotted over with the lights of the bonfires that burned to welcome Governor Macquarie. From a dozen different points that Sara could pick out and name, a series of fireworks coloured the night sky ‒ from Captain Piper’s garden, from the South Head, from the Parade Ground, from the ships in the harbour, from Dawes Point. Sydney had never looked so beautiful ‒ the darkness hiding its ramshackle buildings, and a new moon over the water. Twenty bonfires glowed in the warm summer night.
Sara, lost in all the beauty about her, started a little at a light touch on her arm. Jeremy was beside her. He spoke in a low voice, which she could scarcely hear above the crackle of the flames.
‘I’ve been trying to talk with you alone all evening, Sara.’
She smiled, glancing at him. ‘Was it important, Jeremy?’ Then her eyes went quickly back to Duncan, who had jumped away from a cracker which Edwards had let off almost under his feet.
‘Important, I think, to you,’ Jeremy said quietly.
She turned to him, her smile fading. ‘What is it?’
‘I wondered if you’d yet heard the news about Richard Barwell?’
‘What news?’ she said sharply. ‘What do you mean?’
‘A letter arrived on the Hindostan. Lady Linton is dead. She has left Alison her fortune, of course. I heard this morning that Richard has been making inquiries about a passage back to England.’
‘For them both?’ She struggled to keep the note of panic out of her voice.
‘Yes, Sara ‒ both.’
‘Well … thank you for telling me, Jeremy. I’m glad you were able to tell me before anyone else did.’
Her lips quivered as she spoke, and the sudden tears blinded her. The bonfires, and the children’s excited cries, belonged to another world. Sydney’s hills, dotted with lights, swam before her gaze. Touching Jeremy’s arm, she stepped back a few paces from the fire, grateful for the darkness which hid her face.
II
Glenbarr wore a drowsy air as Sara looked at it from across the lawn. It was mid-afternoon, and in most of the rooms the shades had been drawn against the direct sun. A fierce light came off the harbour, and Sara, turning occasionally to glance towards the bay, had to shield her eyes against the glare. Nothing stirred about the house; David, Duncan and Elizabeth were at their lessons with Michael Sullivan; Louis had ridden down to the township to supervise the unloading from a ship of some pictures which had been sent from England for Banon. Beside her, Henriette was sitting in the swing, which the nursemaid, Fanny, was pushing in a dreamy fashion. The rhythmic creak of the ropes was a gentle, lazy sound on the warm air. The child’s blue dress floated softly as she swung to and fro. From the direction of
the stable came the distant sound of buckets clanking together; not even a suggestion of a breeze blew up off the water to stir the branches of the group of Norfolk pines under which they sat.
Now and then Henriette spoke, and Sara answered her absently; but the heat made them both lethargic. Sara’s sewing lay on the ground beside her in a basket, but she had made no attempt to take it up. It was six days now since the reading of Macquarie’s Commission, and, although the settlement was still carrying on its round of celebration, the heat, increasing day by day, was taking the energies and tempers of Sydney’s inhabitants. Sara rested her back against the trunk of a tree, listening to the buzz of the insects about her; she stared across the lawn, which was turning brown after weeks without rain, to the drive, and she strained to catch the first sound of the horseman she expected.
But it was Henriette who saw Richard first. For the moment Sara’s attention was distracted by the appearance of a fishing boat in the bay below the garden; Henriette’s voice recalled her sharply.
‘Here’s someone coming, Mama!’
Sara turned quickly. She recognized the scarlet uniform of the Corps, but Richard had come on foot. He walked up the drive slowly, and, even at a distance, there was a dejected look about him that touched her strangely. A little nearer he halted, staring across at the group under the dark pines, and raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun. The quivering heat-haze rose between them like a curtain.
Sara got to her feet.
‘May I come too, Mama?’
Sara shook her head. ‘No, Henriette. It’s time you went upstairs for your rest. Just ten minutes longer, Fanny, and then you can take her in.’
‘Very well, Ma’am,’ Fanny said thankfully.
Sara stepped out from the shade of the trees, and began to walk across the dry lawn towards Richard.
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