Emily

by Valerie Wood

  Philip challenged him. ‘She’s supposed to be your wife, isn’t she?’

  Johnson’s eyes shifted away from him. ‘Aye, she is. But I wouldn’t be ’first husband to go off and leave his wife to her own devices.’

  ‘But you won’t?’

  ‘No. I won’t!’ He stared at Philip defiantly. ‘I’ll onny leave here if I’m treated unfairly, otherwise I’ll stop and serve my time. I intend to make a life out here and I don’t mean to start off on ’wrong foot by absconding. Besides, I have another reason for stopping.’

  ‘Yes?’ Philip queried. ‘And that is?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s a private matter, sir. But I’ll be here when you get back wi’ Emily.’

  Strange fellow, Philip mused as he swung himself into the saddle and then looked back as Johnson ran towards him.

  ‘Permission to look over ’land, sir, just to see what we’ve got?’

  Philip nodded and as he dug in his heels turned once more as Johnson called again, ‘Sir! Mr Linton. Can tha lend me a razor?’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  There were two occupied beds in the sick ward. One held an old woman sick with fever, the other a girl who was pregnant and lay semi-comatose with her eyes staring into space.

  ‘Her child is probably dead,’ Clavell said in a low voice to Emily. ‘And she’s not far off, her body is full of poison.’

  ‘Can you do anything for her?’ Emily whispered. ‘Will she suffer?’

  ‘Give her something you mean? Laudanum? Yes, I have already.’

  ‘You didn’t give me enough.’ The girl’s voice, low and husky, came from the bed. ‘I need more to pass from this world into the next.’

  Emily went across to her. She was young, as young as she was herself. Her hands, red and puffy, lay on top of the sheet above her swollen belly and Emily stroked them. ‘You’re not ready to go yet, surely?’ she said softly.

  ‘Why should I stay?’ she whispered. ‘There’s nothing for me in this life. Nobody who cares and nobody who I care for. Babby’s gone, I know. It’s so still I know it’s dead.’

  Emily pulled up a stool and sat by the bed. ‘I’ll stay with you if you like.’

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I’m frightened. Frightened of being alone.’

  ‘Would you like the parson to come?’ Emily asked. ‘Would he be of any comfort?’

  The girl gave a hoarse laugh, which set her coughing and wincing. ‘Last time I saw a parson he said I was wicked and would go to hell! I was wicked ’cos I went with men. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be hungry.’ Her eyes became bright with tears. ‘Mr Clavell brought me in. He found me outside the gate. He’s the onny man that’s ever shown me kindness.’ She clutched Emily’s hand. ‘Do you think I’ll go to hell?’

  ‘No.’ Emily’s voice trembled with emotion. ‘I think you’ve been there already.’ She urged her not to distress herself and to try to rest.

  The girl sighed. ‘I’ll be getting plenty o’ rest soon, more than I bargained for just yet. But I don’t mind,’ she added huskily. ‘I’m ready. I’m sick of this life. It’s given me nothing but misery.’

  She fell asleep shortly as the laudanum took effect and Emily went to look at the other patient. There was a great heat emanating from her, and as she muttered and sighed in her delirium, Emily saw that her mouth and tongue were swollen and her eyeballs were yellow. She fetched a bowl of water and a cloth to bathe her face, and then becoming more anxious went to find Mr Clavell, who had gone off somewhere.

  She found him with the governor of the prison outside in the yard. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said, ‘but could you come? The old woman is very sick.’

  ‘Don’t let her come into contact with anybody,’ the governor boomed. ‘We don’t want an epidemic.’

  ‘It’s what you’ll get, Morrison, if this place isn’t cleaned up,’ Clavell barked back. ‘And the women who are punished for offences work too hard. That woman is sixty and she’s been on the treadmill for three days! There’s no wonder she’s sick!’

  The governor shrugged. ‘She’s a troublemaker. In the old days she would have had the cat and then she would have behaved!’

  Emily shuddered as she looked at the governor. His eyes gleamed. He would have enjoyed seeing the women lashed, she was sure of it.

  Clavell looked at the young pregnant girl as he passed the bed and pressed his hand to her neck. Then he bent low and listened to her chest. ‘She’s gone.’ He pulled the sheet over her head and turned to the other bed, leaving Emily staring horrorstruck in the face of death.

  ‘Already! But I said I would stay with her,’ she whispered, ‘and I didn’t.’

  Clavell shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t have known. Be thankful for her that she went when she did. At least she has been spared the trauma of childbirth, for she would have died in agony then, without a doubt.’

  He turned his attention to the old woman. ‘Did you wash your hands after attending her?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, feeling tears gathering. ‘I did.’

  He looked down at the woman. ‘Then wash them again, up to your elbows. Scrub them until they hurt. I’ll have to warn the governor. We have gaol fever here. Typhoid!’

  Emily poured water into a bowl and took soap and a brush and started to scrub her hands. She felt so miserable. The poor girl, lying still and silent in the bed across the room, who had died unloved and unwanted. Perhaps if she had kept the baby things would have been different. At least she would have had someone to love. But in her heart Emily knew it wasn’t so. The woman on the ship who had had the child, Ralph, had known how difficult life would be with two mouths to feed. And I, how would I have coped had my child lived?

  What kind of life is this? Her shoulders heaved with sobs as she scrubbed vigorously and angrily at her hands. It’s no better here than it was in England. I don’t know if I can go on. I don’t know if I want to.

  ‘Emily!’ The voice was low and she thought that it was Clavell come back into the room. She turned and with wet, soapy hands she brushed away the tears which streamed down her cheeks.

  ‘Mr Linton!’ Relief and happiness flooded over her. So he hadn’t forgotten her after all.

  ‘Emily!’ He took hold of her hands with both of his. ‘Are you all right? Why are you crying? Have you been ill treated?’ His face was suffused with anxiety.

  ‘No, no, no! I’m crying because – because people keep dying and babies are abandoned by their mothers, or they die before they have lived.’ The tears ran unchecked down her face. ‘And the woman over there has typhoid and – oh, Mr Linton, this is such a dreadful place and Mr Clavell is going to try and close it down!’

  He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her eyes and patted her face, then gently hushed her and led her to a stool and sat her down. ‘Emily! I’ve bought a house and Meg is there with the child and the man she says is her husband. Will you come back with me? Please!’

  She stared at him and her mouth trembled and her eyes were so awash with tears that she couldn’t see and had to close them. She shook her head. ‘I can’t,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve told Mr Clavell I’ll help him here. He needs someone to help with the sick women.’

  Philip banged the heel of his hand against his forehead and swore. ‘Emily! For God’s sake! What more can I do?’ he burst out. ‘I travel half-way across the world! I buy a farm I don’t want. I employ a woman of the streets because you want her with you, and still you say you won’t come!’ His face was flushed and angry. ‘If you won’t come I shall take the next ship back to England. I’ll not stay in this God-forsaken country!’ He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room and across the prison yard.

  She sat dumbstruck and watched him through the doorway. She saw Clavell stop in his tracks and stare and then chase after Philip, where they spoke briefly before Clavell turned towards the sick bay.

  ‘What did he mean’, she said vacantly as Clavell entered, ‘about travelling half-way ac
ross the world?’

  ‘You mean that you don’t know?’ Clavell was astounded. ‘He hasn’t told you?’

  ‘What?’ She lifted her head to watch Philip going out of the gate and untethering his horse.

  ‘That he believes in your innocence. He obtained orders to sail on the Flying Swan for only that reason,’ Clavell looked down at her, ‘and you have just sent him off saying you can’t go with him because you have promised to help me.’

  ‘No,’ she breathed. ‘I didn’t know.’

  He put a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head. ‘Foolish girl,’ he said softly. ‘Go after him. He needs you more than I do.’ Then gently he patted her cheek. ‘Take happiness whilst you can; it is so fleeting. Go on.’ He suddenly became brisk. ‘I’ll make it all right here, fill in the necessary papers. Hurry, before he leaves.’

  She jumped down from the stool and with a quick glance over her shoulder at Clavell, who was now standing with his back to her staring out of the window, she raced across the prison yard towards the gate. Philip was already riding away up the hill and as she reached the gate she called his name.

  ‘Mr Linton! Mr Linton!’ Philip, she echoed in her thoughts. Please turn around. Don’t leave me!

  Some of the other women gathered against the railing as Philip stopped and turned in the saddle, some of them whistled and called, but Emily hardly heard them, concentrating only on him. He wheeled around and trotted back and sat regarding her.

  ‘Hey!’ a woman shouted and her voice had a desperate ring. ‘Can I come with you, mister? You won’t regret it!’

  If I go with him, thought Emily, I will be regarded as his mistress, his ‘wife’ in everything but law. Regarded by whom? A small voice echoed in her head. Is there anyone here whose estimation you care about? No, she debated, there isn’t, but I care about my own. What value do I set upon myself ? Am I being proud in spite of all that has happened to me?

  She looked up at him and felt a deep emotion welling up inside. I care so much for him and I need his good opinion of me.

  He dismounted and put out his hand and she walked slowly towards him. ‘Trust me, Emily,’ he said gently. ‘I would never hurt you.’

  She put her hand into his, affirming to the watching crowd that she was leaving to become a ‘housekeeper’, a ‘wife’. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I would trust you with my life.’

  She rode behind him on the road back to the farmstead, her arms about his waist, feeling the nearness of his body and crying in her heart because of the gulf between them. He too was silent for most of the journey, then he started to tell her about the house and the land.

  ‘The house is in a mess,’ he began, ‘and I’m not sure if Meg knows how to go about things. But the fellow Johnson, I think he’ll be all right.’ He turned his head sideways towards her and smiled. ‘I know that they are not married, of course, and that the child isn’t theirs. But it seems to me that out here in this country it’s everyone for himself. There are opportunities waiting for those who can see them and I think Johnson saw his when he realized that he and Meg had the same name.’

  Emily didn’t know whether to tell him that Johnson wasn’t Joe’s real name, and that he was her brother, but Philip continued, ‘He could be gone when we get back, of course, though he said he wouldn’t abscond. Strangely enough, he said he had a reason for staying, though he didn’t say what it was. Some scheme he has in mind, perhaps.’

  They rounded a bend and he pointed upwards to the house on top of the hill. A line of washing blew in the breeze. A shirt and trousers, a skirt and a blanket and some small things belonging to the baby. ‘I take it back,’ he laughed. ‘About Meg, I mean. She’s been busy already.’

  A man was standing in the doorway watching them approach. He was clean shaven and his hair was trimmed neatly. He was also bare chested and had a sheet tied around him. ‘Who’s this? A squatter?’ Philip muttered. ‘And where the devil is Johnson?’

  He reined in and Emily slipped down from behind him. She hesitated for only a moment. ‘Joe,’ she murmured. Gone was the bearded, wild haired man she had met on the ship who had borne no resemblance to her brother, even though she had known that it was he. But here was the brother she recalled from her childhood; the same fair hair and complexion, the same cheerful, winning grin on his face as he stood there to greet her. ‘Joe,’ she called and ran towards him with her arms held wide.

  * * *

  ‘I was going to tell you, Mr Linton,’ Emily said later as she served him supper. ‘I was only waiting for the right opportunity.’

  Thank God he is only her brother, Philip thought, for when I saw her run towards him I thought for a moment I had been duped and that it was Emily that Johnson wanted to be with and not Meg. He had been totally surprised by Joe’s appearance. He had changed from the ragged, wild man of the convict ship to a young man near his own age, shorter, sturdier than him, a countryman with iron muscles formed from the hard labour of the road gangs and not from the plough. Meg had trimmed his hair and he had shaved his beard and bathed in the creek, where he had also washed his clothes. He had apparently persuaded Meg to take off her skirt so that he could wash it, and she too wore a blanket to cover her, showing a prudishness which was surprising considering her former trade. The child, Ralph, gurgled in a wooden box filled with straw and moss which Joe had gathered from the land, and he had washed his clothes too and fixed up a line between two trees where they would dry.

  ‘Joe won’t let you down,’ Emily said nervously, ‘and nor will I. We’ll both work hard for you, Mr Linton, to make your farm a success and to thank you for your kindness.’

  He put his chin in his hands. For heaven’s sake, Emily, he wanted to say. I’m only here for you. I don’t want this damned farm. If I’d wanted a farm I could have stayed at home in England! But he didn’t say it, only nodded as he ate his soup.

  ‘I – I need to know my duties, sir, and so does Meg, though Meg knows nothing about running a house. But I can teach her what I know, what I’ve been taught, and I think she might make a good cook. She made the soup,’ she added.

  ‘Emily,’ he sighed, ‘do what you think best; run the house as you wish. I didn’t bring you here as my servant.’

  So why did you bring her? he meditated. To bed her? No. To make her your proper wife? No, not that either, not yet. To rescue her then, from the terrible fate which was undoubtedly hers had she remained in Parramatta? He shuddered as he thought of the women who had clung to the railings at the gaol. Those women with dirty hair and scabby faces in their drab prison garments who had made obscene suggestions as he had come in through the gates. Have they always been so low or has life made them like that?

  No, I can only ask her to be my wife when I have obtained her pardon. Only then can she once more hold up her head and know, as I do, that she is a modest and respectable woman. One who can choose independently whether or not she wishes to become a man’s wife and not be beholden to him. And I can only do that by returning to England.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The creek ran fast and strong and Philip and Joe stood side by side looking at it. ‘You’ve done well to get this land, sir. If you’ve got water for stock you’ve fewer problems. I reckon’, Joe said, looking about him, ‘that nobody wanted this property because it’s small. Everybody is going for a vast acreage and they don’t seem to realize that just because the land is large it’s not necessarily all good.’

  ‘I agree entirely, Johnson. Some of the properties I was offered had acres of scrub which would need to be cleared before you could put a sheep or a cow on it.’

  Joe rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. ‘’Course, come high summer this creek might dry up. They get terrible droughts I do believe. I wonder if –?’ He looked up the creek and then down to where it flowed towards the outskirts of Sydney. ‘Just suppose we dug a pond, sir. We could divert the water to it while it’s in full flow and we’d have water during ’drought.’

  ‘Yes.’
Philip was interested. ‘That’s a good idea. I could get some of the government men to do the digging and we could be ready before the spring.’

  So it was agreed and Joe accompanied Philip into Sydney to arrange for labour and buy stock. ‘I don’t know owt about buying sheep, sir,’ Joe admitted. ‘Pigs, yes, and wheat and barley, but I don’t know one sheep from another.’ He grinned. ‘Unless they’re black sheep!’

  ‘Well, I know a little, even though I’m a sailor. My family have kept sheep up on the Yorkshire Wolds for decades and I remember my father talking about the sheep going to Australia and saying that Merino were the best. So that’s what we’ll buy.’ Though what Father will think of his son buying and tending sheep when he ought to be sailing the high seas, I can’t imagine, he mused.

  Joe remarked that the Sydney market reminded him of the markets in England. There were ducks, geese, chickens, cabbages, potatoes and hot mutton pies for sale. There were also melons and other exotic fruit which he hadn’t seen before. There were fine carriages with liveried servants, and gigs and phaetons trundled along the wide streets; but beyond the fashionable part of town was the area known as the ‘Rocks’, where the first convicts had built their shacks and living accommodation, and which now was a brokendown, dissolute place filled with cheap lodging houses and brothels.

  Whilst in town Philip went to a gun shop and bought a rifle and a lady’s pistol, for he intended to teach Emily to shoot. There were dingoes about, the wild dogs of Australia which caused considerable damage to flocks, and he had been warned that there were occasional attacks on farmsteads by bushrangers and squatters. The settlers too complained that the Aborigines were wild and dangerous and camped on their land and wouldn’t move unless by force.

  A dozen men arrived a few days later with an armed soldier and digging began. Philip put Joe in charge of the men and told him to unlock their anklets. ‘I can’t expect men to work when they’re hampered by chains,’ he said, even though the guard protested, and he gave Joe the new rifle. ‘I don’t expect you to use this.’ Philip looked at him keenly. ‘It’s only a precaution.’