Dream Time (historical): Book I

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Fort Phillip had been constructed of limestone quarried from nearby and built solely for defense against the savage aborigines. Cannons thrust outward from stone ramparts. Thatched barracks encircling a parade ground housed bachelor soldiers. Little thought had been spared for the few wives who had to live in a land on the other side of the world.

  As she regained her strength, Nan began to realize just how bereft of intellectual stimulus Sydney Cove was. She longed to attend social outings like boating parties up and down the various inlets of the harbor or the gatherings for conversation, reading, and music at the colonel’s house.

  The elite of the officers and their wives clung to the refinements of Europe. Because Nan was an ex-convict, an Emancipist, she was held in disdain, as were the majority of the colony’s population, still in chains and living in squalid conditions.

  She and Tom were not on invitation lists issued by the Exclusionists, those handful of free settlers and army officers who saw themselves as Sydney’s aristocracy.

  This superior attitude galled Nan. Most of the officers’ wives could barely decipher to the rule of three!

  “Tis not that important,” Tom said as he poured a mug of ale brewed by a soldier’s wife. “I couldn’t care less about the opinion of Major Hannaby’s wife—whether she approves or disapproves of what you were.”

  To better apply her rouge of rose-petal paste, Nan leaned closer to the mottled glass. Tom had purchased it from the shipment of goods off the brig that had put into port last week. At last, she and Tom were going somewhere—to the reception for the penal colony’s new governor.

  “You may not care, but I burn each time I am snubbed.”

  “They can’t hold a candle to you, Nan. Your intelligence is far superior to that of the civil servants and common soldiers, not even mentioning the convicts and Emancipists.”

  She knew he didn’t realize that her education most likely exceeded even that of the officers and their families. They were in control and clinging desperately to a modicum of civilized British living on the edge of an empty continent.

  She turned and flashed him a dry smile. “You forget I am an Emancipist, a convict who has served my time—thanks to your taking me in marriage.” Her tone softened. “Tom, you know I also appreciate your letting Pulykara leave of her own free will.”

  He wouldn’t be sidetracked. “So why must you force others to acknowledge your worthiness? Isn’t it enough that you know?”

  Her fingertip dipped once more into the cosmetic pot. She was careful always to look her best. She took special pains with clothing and hair, so she would never be associated with the slatternly looking wretch who had arrived in Sydney Cove.

  “Because we’re stymied by that foul social order. Tom, this is a new world. I may have come here without beauty or birth, but I can create my own aristocracy here.”

  The one quality Nan prided herself on—her intellect—was of no use in the colony.

  But her strong spirit would not be suppressed. Never again would she be a pariah. Somehow she had to achieve legitimacy and a sense of place there in Sydney, because she knew she could never return to England.

  That need for recognition and acceptance became an obsession. That and her hatred for Miles Randolph.

  The means to achieve recognition and acceptance came about quite accidentally. She had been trying to get a tea stain out of one of her few dresses. Ruminating over the lack of clothing, her mind tracked onward to the prohibitive price of purchasing anything imported.

  If one had one’s own vessel . . . An image of taking a single vessel and expanding it into a fleet took root. She knew that to become firmly entrenched with the Exclusionists it would take more than plying a single vessel for trading.

  With that in mind, though, she began a campaign, a campaign that she acknowledged would take years even to implement. First, she and Tom needed land. At the present, the only land being granted to officers, other than those of age to retire, was to those members of the New South Wales Corps, known as the Rum Corps.

  With money, land, and cheap labor at their disposal, the Rum Corps was making huge profits at the expense of the small businessmen. The officers were paying for labor and local products in rum and were buying whole shiploads of goods. Then they sold them at two and three times their original values. And all the while, the officers of the Rum Corps were getting richer and more arrogant.

  For months, Nan pondered the situation. She could either wait for Tom to come of retirement age to begin her project—or she could finagle him a transfer into the New South Wales Corps.

  Her decision against either was tipped by Miles Randolph.

  The reception for the penal colony’s new governor was being held at the Government House. Overlooking Sydney Cove, it was the largest and best built building in New South Wales. However, few windows ventilated the cavernous building, and in the summer crowded receptions could make the heat unbearable. The chandelier’s hundred little flames heated the room even more.

  Nan dressed carefully for that most propitious evening. Tom complimented her on the ostrich feather tucked into her hair, puffed with the aid of hair balls.

  Little did her husband realize how discreetly she scavenged the settlement for clothing and food items to be had at bargained prices.

  With a critical eye, she viewed her image in the looking glass. A slow smile eased the firm line of her lips. Somehow she was subtly changed from the spinster who had been shipped from England a convict. She was almost attractive.

  The torrid tropical sun had given her face a healthy color. Her imaginative cooking, necessitated by the lack of staples, had filled out her sunken cheeks. Tom’s amiable attention had made her feel feminine.

  Lastly, she supposed, Miles had made his own contribution to her alteration, howbeit indirectly. The effects of childbearing had resulted in her wider hips and more pronounced bosom.

  Strange that she should think of him when his image rarely crossed her mind these days.

  Or maybe it wasn’t so strange if she considered that her intuition, when she heeded it, was often close to presentiment. Especially, this evening, when upon entering the Government House, the first face she sighted was that of Miles.

  There must have been more than fifty or sixty people mingling in the large, austere room. Yet her gaze locked instantly with his. It was as if two years had never passed. She experienced that same explosive excitement that made her weak.

  Miles had proven to be a man who used people. For her, he could only mean heartache. He was dangerous and all wrong for her. That didn’t stop her from wanting him. Inside, a reflexive wall of defense that insured emotional survival went up immediately.

  With Tom at her side, she picked her way among the guests with a deliberate pace, drawing ever closer to Miles.

  He wore a purple velvet dress coat, a white satin waistcoat, and silk gaiter pantaloons. At the moment, he was deep in conversation with the new governor. That a man who had been accused of treason should appear to be on the best of terms with an English representative of the Crown should have been amazing; but then Miles had popped up in a land on the opposite side of the world, a colony that often was forgotten and neglected by its English parent.

  Few of the guests even noticed Nan and Tom, although the young and buxom Elizabeth Hannaby, the major’s wife, offered a polite nod. She was as round as a wine vat and almost as large. The major, with his military carriage, had a strutting outthrust of the chest.

  Nan had to slow her pace. To delay her progress, she paused often to comment to a bemused Tom. “Dear, isn’t that a Romney above the sideboard?”

  His gaze followed hers. “A what?”

  She smiled indulgently. “Never mind, dearest.” Rum flowed freely, and the laughter and talk were loud, as if to drive away the massive silence that surrounded the tiny cluster of people clinging to the edge of the continent. Drinking was one of the few pleasures available and blotted out the terrible isolation lurking on the
perimeters of each person’s mind.

  Ahead of her, one young couple appeared as ill at ease and out of place as she. While the female guests wore court dresses, though outdated in the hooped style, this woman had on a dingy, dull-brown dress, the folds of which her hands arranged and rearranged. Only her red hair saved her from fading into the wall.

  Experience prompted Nan to classify the woman as a former convict. In the woman’s countenance, Nan recognized the fear and anguish that awe of her surroundings did not conceal.

  The husband appeared much older, and though not as uncomfortable with their surroundings as his diminutive wife, a faint compression of his lips suggested mild disapproval.

  “Impressive gathering, isn’t it?” she said to the couple.

  They looked as startled as Tom, because these were people neither he nor she knew and certainly not Exclusionist aristocrats. “Oh, yes,” the elfish-looking woman said, obvious pleasure brightening her freckled face. “H’it’s ever so splendid.”

  Nan wasn’t misled by the young woman’s speech, which identified her as being from the Billingsgate fish market area. The lively intelligence in the woman’s brown eyes elicited Nan’s respect.

  “The new governor should be suitably impressed,” Tom commented.

  “If only he can do something to remedy the mistreatment of the convicts,” the man said. His guileless eyes scanned the assembled guests. “Prohibiting the devilish trading of rum would help the colonists, also. Their addiction to liquor promises trouble of the greatest magnitude.”

  “Prohibiting the sale of female convicts would make a difference,” his wife added. “What we ’ave now is little more than outright prostitution.”

  Recalling the ignominy of standing before would-be purchasers, Nan might have agreed. She also remembered that had it not been for Tom’s purchase of her, she would by now be slaving in the fields.

  “My name is Rose Wilmot,” the young woman said, her smile shy. “And this ’ere is my husband, William. The Reverend William Wilmot.”

  Nan thought she should have guessed the man’s occupation. Yet the way his eyes crinkled suggested at least a modicum of compassion and humor that set him apart from her father.

  She performed the introduction for her and Tom but was cut short when the colony’s judge advocate rose. He was to administer the oath of office to the man who would become the captain-general and governor in chief of the colony of New South Wales.

  Captain William Bligh was a short, stocky man. In his face could be read determination and courage. His florid complexion, however, betrayed either a drinker, Nan decided, or a rash man subject to fits of rage.

  In a firm, unwavering voice, he repeated the oath, as all his predecessors had done before him. “I swear to preserve the Protestant succession, prevent dangers from popish recusants, and observe the laws relating to trade and plantations. I swear to display amity and kindness toward the aborigines, grant land, encourage religion, preserve subordination in society, and endeavor to educate the children of the convicts in religious as well as industrious habits.”

  Even as the governor spoke, Nan drew closer to the dais that had been erected. It was as if an undercurrent pulled her against her will. She left Tom in amiable conversation with the provincial couple.

  With each step, Nan’s heartbeat accelerated, because she was also drawing just that much closer to Miles. He appeared to be observing the swearing-in ceremony, but she knew he was very much aware of her. His gaze occasionally slid over the heads of the other guests to arrow in on her, then as abruptly to desert her.

  She paused within a cloth bolt’s length of him and stared at him with concentrated will. He had no recourse but to acknowledge her. Above those hollowed cheeks, his deep-black eyes locked with hers and held. In that prolonged gaze, she searched for fear of her, because certainly she was a threat due to what she knew about him. She saw no fear, no wariness, and was suddenly furious.

  “You are bold to show up on English soil again, sir.”

  “I heard about your arrest, Nan. A calamity.”

  “A calamity?” He termed nearly a year out of her life in imprisonment and transportation to some God-forgotten land merely a calamity! She could hardly breathe, she was so filled with rage.

  His mustache twitched. “But then, you seem to have landed on your feet like the proverbial cat.”

  How could he be so indifferent to what they had shared? He was a man of ice! While her fury battled with her desire, she managed a cool smile. “As you, too, seemed to have done.”

  He shrugged those broad shoulders. “I managed to avoid trial on a technical point raised by friends in high places. By the time a bailiff caught up with me here in Sydney, there was a question regarding whether London or Sydney was the correct location.”

  “Lucky you.” She wanted to slap the indifferent smile from his lips. At the same time, she yearned to feel their kisses again. She numbed herself to his sexual power. “And pray tell what nefarious schemes are you currently undertaking?”

  “Nefarious?” As if bored, he glanced around the room indolently then let his gaze return to hers. “I’ve only been here a month, but I am unaware of any import business that could be conducted nefariously.”

  “Of course not,” she shot back, “because there are no laws regulating trade.”

  Almost insolently, he eyed her bosom. If he expected to disconcert her, she thwarted him. She stared back at him unwaveringly. “I take it you are a part of that most profitable business, the Rum Corps, Miles?”

  “I have had dealings with them since my arrival last month.” His lids narrowed to half mast, and his voice lowered to that intimate octave she remembered so well. “You know, bluestocking, I don’t think you have forgotten any more than I those nights we spent together. The fact that you’re married doesn’t have to prohibit renewing the pleasure we once shared.”

  Even during her imprisonment, she had romantically fantasized about Miles. Only now could she admit that all the while she had wanted to believe there had been a logical reason behind his actions. She had wanted to believe that he would somehow return and rescue her. And even now a part of her was tempted to acquiesce to that addictive passion.

  Foolish woman! She was a blind, foolish woman! That weakness of sentimental and romantic daydreams had cost her dearly. All the painful feelings of the past engulfed her. For so long, she had suffered in her sorrow and cried at the injustice. Now anger blazed through her.

  Her smile was brilliant, like cut diamonds. “Miles, the only pleasure I'll experience regarding you will be to watch you labor in chains on a convict farm or something worse. And before God I’ll see that happen!”

  “As I recall, you don’t believe in God.”

  Before she could react, he took her gloved hand and bent low over it, as if to kiss its back. Instead, he squeezed her fingers, stopping just short of inflicting real pain. His smile when he straightened was dazzling. “Don’t cross swords with me, Nan. You’re not smart enough. Now, be a good little woman and go take care of that plodding husband of yours.”

  At that precise moment, she knew how the remainder of her life would be dedicated, and it wasn’t to serving her father’s god.

  § CHAPTER SIX §

  Occasionally, Nan was surprised by the realization she was coming to love Tom. Not with the wild abandon that she had felt for Miles but with a quiet, steadily growing affection that was as unbreakable a bond as fairy-tale love.

  In that respect, Miles had shattered her dream. She meant to shatter his.

  She shifted her focus from social climbing to shipping. A perplexed Tom listened as she explained her strategy. “I’ve even thought of the name of our enterprise—New South Wales Traders, Limited. What do you think?”

  “Nan, we can’t go up against the Rum Corps. There is no way we can break their monopoly. They control what boats are allowed to dock. They control the dockhands. The Rum Corps would never permit another boat to be loaded. And if you don
’t mind me asking, how the hell are we going to finance such a venture? We’re living in a hovel, Nan. My lieutenant’s salary barely stretches as it is.”

  “The Rum Corps won’t last. The new governor will break them.”

  “They’ve outlasted several governors, so I don’t—”

  “This governor’s different. Trust me. I’ve heard he faced a mutiny aboard his former ship, was put adrift in a dinghy, and sailed four-thousand miles across the Pacific to resume his career. He’s tenacious. He won’t fail.”

  “I won’t even ask how you know this.”

  Listening, asking the right questions came naturally to her, something Tom couldn’t comprehend. “The Rum Corps and Bligh will lock horns, Tom. Already, they’re calling him Caligula. The day they rebel against him, I want you to resign your commission.”

  “What?”

  He came halfway out of his chair, and she put a calming hand on his shoulder. “Listen to me. Not only will your bold act impress the colonists and the governor, but by that time—six months to a year at most—we’ll be ready to begin our own trading venture.”

  “Nan, you’re a female, you’ve never had experience in business. For that matter, neither have I. The only security we have is my commission, woman!”

  She smiled serenely. “Trust me.”

  Food had never been bountiful in any of the Sydney Cove households. Even Tom, who rarely took an interest in what Nan prepared, noted that dinnertimes had become skimpy affairs.

  “The johnnycakes taste like they’ve been baked on a shovel. And yesterday’s lamb stew was little more than broth.”

  Nan shrugged. “You know yourself the Rum Corps is controlling the price of what they import. We are paying dearly. With what you give me, I barely am able to buy food to last an entire pay period.”

  In actuality, most of the food was coming from what Nan bargained for when she visited the docks, outings of which Tom was unaware.