If she had expected to be lonely in his absence, she found instead she had no privacy. In Sin’s absence, and as the commander in chief’s wife, she was sought out by men and women alike for an audience to which they could present their problems.
Josiah and Dick acted as sergeants at arms. She could only promise supplicants who came to her tent that she would discuss their appeals with her husband, but more often than not the petitioners wanted and needed advice immediately, and she would give her best counsel.
With Dick and Josiah, she ran the operations for reform through disbursing information: newspaper editorials, flyers, placards.
In her own right, she was making a name for herself again. She was becoming a crusader once more, but writing more passionately from the perspective of experience than she ever had from idealistic youth. She was no longer looking through the window from the outside. At forty-two, she had become the beautiful woman the child never was. Sin, the twins, her writing, fulfilled her to such a point that serenity graced her sculpted face.
“A Madonna,” people remarked of her and she had to smile wistfully, thinking how paradoxically she had so often envied that same quality in her half-sister.
Sin went among the people of the territory of Victoria—down on Melbourne’s wharves to talk with the sailors, in the wool sheds, through mining camps scattered in the hills.
One day as she sat nursing the twins and wondering if the rest of her life were to be spent longing for her beloved, he pushed back the tent flap to enter unexpectedly. “Sin!” she cried out in happiness.
Careful of the infant she held, he nevertheless bent and pressed an impassioned kiss on her cheek. “I’ve missed you like hell, me luv.”
“Don’t go away, ever again.”
He pushed back a lock of hair. His mouth tightened. “I’m only here for a little while. I have to go to Sydney. Parliament’s meeting, and I mean to be there for Miles Randolph’s speech. Now that he’s been elected governor, he believes he can make his own policies. ’Tis time his policies were challenged.”
She swallowed her protest and turned away to lay a sleeping Anne in her crib before cradling a fussing Daniel to her other breast. “How long is a little while?”
“Twenty-four hours.” He sighed. “While I am gone, I have arranged for Josiah and Dick to have a cabin erected. You and the twins need something more substantial than this.”
She knew she should be pleased that he had thought of her and Anne and Daniel when there were so many other things to occupy his mind, but she felt perverse. She should have been jubilant with motherhood, but that same creative force was demanding expression in other ways.
“We need you, Sin,” she said softly and nudged her breast against Daniel’s rosy little cheek.
Sin leaned close to stroke his son’s downy hair. Such a look of tenderness passed over Sin’s countenance that she was surprised his next words were not of their son but of her. “You are more beautiful than I have ever seen you.”
She felt her face suffuse with pleasure. How could such simple words elicit such overflowing joy in her? “Hurry back,” she whispered.
“Save some for me,” he said, smiling. His finger tucked her nipple into the little mouth frantically searching for sustenance. “I’ll come back to take me turn as soon as possible.”
Sin came back—but not to her.
Irishmen tended to rebel regardless of the odds. For them, the tradition of glorious failure ran deep. It was as if they were preparing less for a fight than for an act of communion. The love of freedom and the wrongs of Ireland brought a hundred and fifty men to lie down and sleep beside guns, pistols, and pikes in the Eureka stockade. It had been erected on the night of December 2, 1854 from slabs of timber they used to line their mine shafts. No longer would they submit to brutal police searches and the license tax on gold mining—a revolt against taxation without representation.
From her cabin window, Amaris watched Sin stride up the hill to meet with the miners. He had come straight from Sydney to be met by Josiah and Dick and ushered to the stockade. Only Sin had been allowed inside.
For the past several days, Dick and Josiah had insisted neither she nor Molly leave the cabin for fear the situation would turn violent. It appeared their fears bordered on manifestation.
Sin hoped to dissuade the diggers from their folly. His point was that until they had enough political and military clout it would be suicidal to bait the queen’s soldiers.
Fires still burned late on the night of the third in the stockade when soldiers of the Twelfth Regiment, mounted police, and troopers charged it. Amaris heard the shots and sat upright in her bed. Fear prickled the hair at her nape. In the other room, the year-old babies started crying.
She sprang from her bed and ran to fling open the front door. Mounted soldiers flashed by as they charged up the hill. Cold moonlight and colder firelight gleamed on bayonets they wielded.
On bare feet, Molly descended from the loft where she slept and came up behind her. “H'it’s come, h’ain’t it?”
“Aye. As Sin expected, only too soon.”
She ran back to her babies and picked up Daniel, balancing him on her hip. Her free hand caressed Anne’s cheek. “Sssh,” she cooed to the tots. “Oh, please don’t cry. Not now.”
At the bedroom’s doorway, Molly said, “If Dick should be—”
A rapid rapping at the front door interrupted her. Dick burst in. “It’s over! Ten minutes and the police have won!”
“Sin?”
Behind him, a bleeding Josiah said, “Alive but chained. Those who lived through the massacre—a score or so—are being marched to the lockup at the government camp.”
She forced her words past the cork of fear in her throat. “What will happen to him?”
Josiah shrugged and wiped the trickle of blood from his cheek. The small gash welled with blood again. “Just what you think. A hasty trial before the miners across the country can band together in outright defiance. Governor Randolph and the colonial office don’t want another American rebellion on their hands.” She didn’t have to ask what would be the outcome of a hasty trial.
Thirteen leaders were arrested and tried for high treason. Because of the volatile feelings of the citizens of the territory of Victoria, Sin, as commander in chief, was transferred to Sydney.
“He’s to be incarcerated at Fort Dennison,” Dick told Amaris two days after the rebellion. He and Josiah had spent money and precious time trying to ascertain Sin’s fate. Both men had returned to the cabin exhausted and sat at the table trying to hold their heads up and their eyes open.
Like them, she had not eaten or slept. At the mention of Fort Dennison, she shuddered. The island just off Sydney’s shore had been known to the early settlers as Old Pinchgut.
Molly returned from the kitchen lean-to with hot hoecakes, cheese, and ale. “H’if you don’t eat, you three won’t be any good to Sin.”
Listlessly, Amaris poked at the food while plans were arranged for travel to Sydney. “We can’t do anything here,” Josiah was saying and chased a large mouthful of hoecake with a swig of ale.
“The quicker the better,” Dick said. “The guards and Sin have a twenty-four-hour start from what I can tell.”
“Could we intercept them?” she asked, pushing her filled plate away.
“Too many guards,” Josiah said. “Sin’s valuable as a scapegoat. Punish him and let the rest go free. The lesson is made without inflaming the entire countryside.”
“I’m leaving now,” she said, rising from the bench.
“Whoa,” Dick said. “You can’t get to Sydney any quicker than if you wait and catch a paddle steamer out of Echuca tomorrow morning.”
He was right, of course. With Molly and the twins, she boarded the steamer that next day. Travel by river would have been lovely, but impatience, frustration, and paralyzing fear kept her from doing little more than standing at the gingerbread-ornamental railing with her gaze focused on the eastern hori
zon.
When at last they docked at the semicircular quay in Sydney, she stared in wonder at the improvements that had taken place in her years of absence: a sparkling museum and a university instigated under the auspices of the grand dame Nan Livingston now made Sydney respectable. Woolclippers bearing New South Wales Traders registry bobbed like cork-studded nets in the cove.
Compared to the self-satisfied mediocrity of the model British colony of New Zealand, Sydney, settled by its brash, tough convicts, was a bustling, expanding nerve center.
For Amaris, it was more than returning home. A strange combination of exhilaration and terrible dread seesawed her emotions: exhilaration at being a part of a battle waged against Great Britain for Australians’ self-rule; dread that she would not win Sin’s release.
Governor Randolph let her cool her heels in the Government House’s anteroom four hours before his secretary came out. The peanut of a man fiddled with his spectacles, before saying, “Ahh, Governor Randolph has declined to see you.”
Hands braced primly on her parasol knob, she glared at the little man. “I’ll be back again tomorrow. And every day until he will see me.”
But time was running out. She summoned Josiah and Dick to a counsel in the tiny room they were renting above a butcher shop. “No amount of appeal is going to sway Randolph. Not with my notoriety as a reformer. Is there any possibility we can break Sin out of Fort Dennison?”
Dick rubbed his chin. “With enough men behind us, a good plan laid out, aye. But we’d have to have an element of surprise.”
Josiah shook his shaggy head. “You don’t know your husband very well, Amaris, if you think he’d trade off the lives of any of his supporters for his own. That’s what he’s fighting for, isn’t it? Equality?”
Her head bowed. “Yes,” she said so softly they almost didn’t hear her. If Sin were executed, a vital part of herself would be destroyed.
“There is one possible source of help,” Josiah said, his voice heavy. “New South Wales Traders.”
Dick shifted his wad of tobacco to the other cheek. “Why would Tom Livingston help him? Sin has actively campaigned against some of the Livingstons’ business dealings.”
“Tom Livingston is noted for being a fair business-man.”
“Fair is one thing,” Dick said. “Foolish is another. Tom Livingston wouldn’t be that foolish.”
“He’s Sin’s former father-in-law.”
Dick gaped.
Tom Livingston’s office was elegant with dark mahogany furniture imported in New South Wales Traders ships from Africa. A gold clipper served as an inkwell, its sails a concealed pen. The enormous desk was practically bare of paperwork.
Tom had put on a great deal of weight and wore spectacles, but altogether he appeared a man whom life had treated well—Amaris supposed because he had treated life well. From all that she knew of him and heard about him, he had done his best, hurting no one in the process. Nan would have undoubtedly pronounced her husband a man of mediocrity, but staring into those mild eyes, Amaris would have to say he was a success. Undoubtedly, he went to bed at night and slept easily.
More than she could do these days. She was so damned tired. Tired of hoping. Tired of losing at every turn. If she lost Sin . . . well, only the twins were left her. In a way, they were everything to her because they were the best of her and Sin combined.
“I need your help, Mr. Livingston. I was your daughter’s best friend. Sin loved Celeste and she loved him. I know that you thought highly of Sin. Even though your wife was against their marriage, for Celeste’s memory, will you help him?”
Tom’s head drooped. “Randolph is after a sacrificial lamb. New South Wales Traders doesn’t have that much influence.”
Heart beating like a death knell, Amaris knocked on the same door she had knocked on at the age of twelve. Not that much had changed about the Georgian mansion. A patina of charm had come with its age. The rural surroundings were gone, and shops and businesses jostled for room along the cobble-stoned street that now fronted it.
Another Irish maid, as homely as Molly had been, greeted her. She closed her parasol. “Would you tell Mrs. Livingston that Amaris Tremayne is calling on her.”
Once again Amaris waited in the parlor, her gaze traveling over different paintings, different statues and objets d’art.
And Amaris was different. She was a grown woman now, fighting for the man she loved. Her fingers rose to touch the brooch on her morning coat. She was converting the brooch to a talisman against her most formidable opponent.
The maid returned and led her down the hallway to Nan’s office.
Behind a desk littered with papers sat the commanding old woman. Her mouth was seamed and heavily rouged, as were her cheeks. Yet the power of a young person emanated from her eyes. She nodded toward the wing chair opposite her desk. For a moment, the women stared at each other.
Nan and Amaris dominated their respective elements of society: the commercial and the pastoral. Mother and daughter—each unable to forgive the other. Nan peered over her tented fingertips. “So, at last you come begging.”
Amaris’s stomach was a twisting, wreathing knot. “For someone who dislikes me so, you appear pleased by my presence.”
“I’ve waited a long time for this.” Her smile grew wider, thinning even more her thin mouth. “I know, of course, why you’re here.”
Amaris leaned forward. Her throat was full to choking. “In all of Australia, only you have the power to get Sin released.”
Nan settled back in her chair, her veined hands resting on its padded arms. “You know what I want in exchange?”
“I can guess. You want us to leave Australia. Sin would never agree to being exiled. Not as long as there is a breath left in him.”
“He won’t have that choice. He's to be transported to Norfolk Island.”
“Norfolk Island?” She knew she sounded like a parrot, but her heart froze like a heavy block of ice. Norfolk Island was a thousand miles away and infamous for cruelty. Two thousand prisoners were crowded onto the island in despicable conditions. The administering regime promoted torture that filled the mind with horror.
Nan’s eyes were crystal orbs of satisfaction. “I see you understand the grave situation facing Sin. ’Tis my opinion he’d rather swing from the gallows than endure a life sentence on Norfolk Island.”
Her words were a bare whisper. “What is your price?”
“Think of the ultimate price.” She paused. “That you give up what was your sister’s: Sin.”
Her breath turned to stone. Tears stung her eyes. She should have known it would come to this. Nan Livingston never lost. Nan Livingston was as strong and indomitable as legend made her out to be. “Well?”
She bowed her head. “Aye.” The choked sob escaped her.
“That brooch,” Nan whispered. “It was my mother’s, you know.”
Amaris steeled herself. “It was my mother’s, also.”
For a long moment, the silence filled the office like a heartbeat does the ear. Then Nan sighed and rubbed her temple. “I find no pleasure in my victory. There must be an end to this bitterness between us. I can promise nothing. But I shall see what I can do.”
Amaris stared at Nan Livingston. She refused to let the joy of relief fill her heart. After all these years, she did not know if she could trust the old woman, could trust her mother.
The two faced each other across the dining table. The two most powerful and influential people in Australia. The man, Miles Randolph, openly acknowledged for his political power; the woman, Nan Livingston, heralded for the clout she wielded behind the scenes.
“Release Sin Tremayne from Fort Dennison?” A silver brow climbed the wrinkles laddering Miles Randolph’s forehead. He found it difficult to believe that he had ever been the lover of the old woman across from him, spry and well preserved though she was. “Why should I?”
“I won’t insult your intelligence by saying ‘for old times’ sake.’ I meant noth
ing to you, did I?”
He took a pinch of snuff from the back of his hand and inhaled it up one nostril. “You revolted me with those eyes that were always begging, ‘Love me, love me, love me.”’
She appeared not in the least affected by his cruel words. “Did I? Well, life is a trade-off. Send your butler away. What I have to say requires the utmost privacy, as you will soon agree, I am sure.”
He snapped his fingers, nodded toward the door, and the hovering butler vanished as if by magic. Then Miles turned back to her. “Your statement is highly intriguing. Do proceed.”
“I want Sin Tremayne freed. I could ask you to do it out of fatherly interest.”
“Fatherly interest? I find it hardly plausible that the Irish blackguard could be an offspring of mine.”
“Amaris Tremayne is our daughter, Miles.”
Mild curiosity rippled through him. “So that’s what is behind this appeal.”
“Not exactly. She and I have been at cross-purposes since the moment of her birth. Nevertheless, I want her husband freed of all charges.”
“What you want is vastly different from what I may choose to—”
“What I want is what I get . . . sooner or later. Free him. Or else I shall use this with relish.” She fished a piece of time-yellowed parchment from her reticule and tossed it on the table.
He unfolded the scrap and read the scribble. He could feel the color draining from his face. His heart muscles squeezed painfully. “No one will believe this piece of fodder. A man who claims I raped him nearly forty years ago when he was only a boy—a man who can barely sign his name.”
The old woman shrugged. “You are doubtless correct. Most people will not only disbelieve the evidence but most likely not even care, to judge by Sydney’s morals. But your wife will certainly be influenced by my witness. He’s still alive, you know. Living safely in England at my expense. I knew one day I would have need of his testimony. Tell me, Miles, do you think your wife would continue to support you as I have Morton Freely all these years?”
Dream Time (historical): Book I Page 29