Morgan's Run

by Colleen McCullough

  The conversation broke up with the arrival of Stephen and Johnny Livingstone carrying a bed; Olivia squawked and hurried home, leaving the three men and Kitty to eat Sunday dinner, a makeshift affair of pooled resources—pease cooked with a little salt pork, a dish of rice and onions, corn bread and a dessert of bananas from Richard’s palms, several of which had the peculiar habit of bearing different-looking fruit early.

  Kitty sat and listened to the men talk, realizing that in all her life she had not been exposed to masculine talk or the company of men. Half an hour of it humbled her; she knew so little! Well, to listen and remember was to learn, and she was determined to learn. They did not gossip in the manner of women, though they could laugh heartily over a story Johnny—how beautiful he was!—recounted about Major Ross and Captain Hunter, who apparently had fallen out very badly. Most of the talk revolved around problems of construction, discipline, timber, stone, lime, grubs, tools, the growing of grain.

  Stephen, she noticed, was a toucher. If he passed by Richard or Johnny he would rest his hand on a shoulder or back, and once he jokingly rumpled Richard’s short hair in exactly the same way he rumpled MacTavish’s coat. But if he passed her by he was very careful to steer a wide berth around her chair, and never drew her into the conversation. Nor, for that matter, did the other two.

  I think I am forgotten. Not one of them looks at me as I would have Stephen look at me, with fond love. If they do look at me, their eyes move immediately away. Why is that?

  It was always Stephen who drove the talk, never allowing a silence to develop; Richard, she fancied, normally contributed more to the discussions than he did today. Today he spoke only when spoken to, and then sometimes absently. When they got up to move outside for an inspection of the pigsty, Kitty started clearing away the few dishes and tidying what she thought she would not get into trouble for moving. Only then did she understand that it was her presence had inhibited them, and that this was particularly true of Richard.

  The Commandant’s insistence that we be taken in by men with a house or hut has spoiled Richard’s leisure—probably Stephen’s too, since they are such good friends. I do not matter. I am a nuisance. In future I must find excuses to leave them alone.

  That night Richard had a bed to sleep in, constructed in the same way hers was, a wooden frame connecting a lattice of rope, but when he ordered her to bed shortly after dusk he took a candle to the table he used as a desk, propped a book on a lectern and started to read. Whatever crime he committed, she thought drowsily, he has been schooled and brought up as a gentleman. The master of the St. Paul Deptford manor did not own such fine manners.

  * * *

  On the morrow, Monday, she saw little of Richard, who was off shortly after dawn to his work in the sawpits, came home for a hasty lunch of something cold with a pair of shoes for her, and spent most of his break at the pigsty, growing rapidly. It was about twenty feet on each side and consisted of wooden palings atop a course of stone.

  “Pigs root,” Richard explained as he labored, “so they cannot be confined as sheep or cattle are, within a simple fence. And they must be shaded from the sun because they overheat and die. Their excrement stinks, but they are tidy creatures and always choose a corner only of the sty as their privy. That makes it easy to gather for manure—it is very rich manure.”

  “Will I have to gather the manure?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He lifted his head to give her a grin. “Ye’ll find that baths are very necessary.”

  In the evening he did not come home. Her rations were hers to do with as she pleased, he told her; he was used to caring for himself and usually ate with Stephen, who was a stern bachelor and did not care for women in his house. They played chess, he explained, so she was to go to bed upon darkness without waiting for him or expecting to see him. Naive though she was, this seemed odd to Kitty. Stephen did not behave like a stern bachelor. Though, come to think of it, she had little idea how a stern bachelor behaved. However, that Sunday dinner had taught her that men liked the company of men and were hampered by the presence of women.

  On Tuesday a marine private appeared to summon her to Sydney Town, where she was required to identify the man who had molested and robbed her. The view from Richard’s house was limited; Arthur’s Vale, opening out and out, astonished her. Green wheat and Indian corn grew up the slopes of the hills on either side, waved in the vale itself; there were occasional houses perched at the edges, several barns and sheds, a pond harboring ducks. Then all of a sudden she emerged from the vale into a large collection of wooden houses and huts arranged in proper treeless streets, an expanse of vividly green swamp separating them from bigger structures at the bottom of the hills; she passed by Stephen Donovan’s house without recognizing it.

  Two military officers—she did not know a marine from a land soldier—waited for her outside a big, two-storeyed building she found out later was the marine barracks. A motley group of male convicts had been lined up nearby, and the officers were correctly dressed down to wigs, swords and cocked hats. The convicts all wore shirts.

  “Mistress Clark?” asked the older officer, piercing her to the soul with a pair of pale grey eyes.

  “Yes, sir,” she whispered.

  “A man accosted ye on the road from Cascade on the day of the thirteenth of August?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He tried to force himself upon ye and tore your dress?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ye ran into the woods to escape?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did the man do then?”

  Cheeks burning, striking eyes wide, she said, “He seemed at first to think of chasing me, then came voices. He picked up my bundle and bedding and walked in this direction.”

  “Ye spent the night in the woods, is that so?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Major Ross turned to Lieutenant Ralph Clark, who, having heard the story from Stephen Donovan and verified it from Richard Morgan, was curious to discover what his namesake looked like. Not a whore, he was relieved to see; as gentle and refined as Mistress Mary Branham, taken advantage of by a Lady Penrhyn seaman and delivered of a son in Port Jackson. She and the infant had been sent to Norfolk Island aboard Sirius; Clark had become interested in her after she was put to work in the officers’ mess. Adorably pretty, much in the mold of his beloved Betsy. Now that he knew Betsy and little Ralphie were safe and well in England—and especially now that he had his own comfortable house—it might be easier for Mary to look after just one officer and one house; her little boy was walking now and making rather a nuisance of himself. Yes, to take Mary Branham in would be doing her a good turn. Of course he would not mention this arrangement in his journal, which was written for darling Betsy’s eyes and could contain nothing might shock or perturb her. Slighting references upon damned whores were permissible, but approval of any convict woman was definitely not permissible.

  Good, good! His mind made up on the future of Mary Branham and himself, he looked at the Major enquiringly.

  “Lieutenant Clark, pray conduct Mistress Clark down the line to see if the villain is among this lot,” said Ross, who had rounded up every convict ever punished.

  Talking to her kindly as they went, the Lieutenant led Kitty along the row of sullen men, then took her back to his superior.

  “Is he there?” barked Ross.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where?”

  She pointed to the man with two mouths. Both officers nodded.

  “Thank ye, Mistress Clark. The private will escort ye home.”

  And that was that. Kitty fled.

  “Tom Jones Two,” said the private.

  “That is who Mr. Donovan said it would be.”

  “Ain’t none of them Mr. Donovan don’t know.”

  “He is a very nice man,” she said sadly.

  “Aye, he ain’t bad for a Miss Molly. Not one of your pretty field flowers. I watched him take a man apart with his fists—a b
igger man than him too. Nasty when he are annoyed, Mr. Donovan.”

  “Quite,” she agreed placidly.

  And so went home with the private, Tom Jones Two forgotten.

  Richard continued to absent himself in the evenings—not always, she learned, to play chess with Stephen. He was friends with the Lucases, someone called George Guest, a marine private Daniel Stanfield, others. What hurt Kitty most was that none of these friends ever asked her to accompany him, a reinforcement of his statement that she was his servant. It would be nice to have a friend or two, but of Betty and Mary she knew nothing, and Annie had indeed gone to the Lucases. Meeting Richard’s other helper, John Lawrell, had been an ordeal; he had glared at her and told her not to fiddle with his poultry or the grain patch.

  So when she noticed a female figure tittuping up the path between the vegetables, Kitty was ready to greet the visitor with her best smile and curtsey. On Lady Juliana the woman would have been apostrophized as a quiz, for she was very grand in a vulgar sort of way—red-and-black striped dress, a red shawl with a long fringe proclaiming its silkness, shoes with high heels and glittering buckles, and a monstrous black velvet hat on her head nodding red ostrich plumes.

  “Good day, madam,” said Kitty.

  “And good day in return, Mistress Clark, for so I believe you are called,” said the visitor, sweeping inside. There she looked about with some awe. “He does do good work, don’t he?” she asked. “And more books than ever. Read, read, read! That is Richard.”

  “Do sit down,” said Kitty, indicating a handsome chair.

  “As fine as the Major’s,” said the red-and-black person. “I am always amazed at Richard’s run of good luck. He is like a cat, falls on his feet every time.” Her little black eyes looked Kitty up and down, straight, thick black brows frowning across her nose. “I never thought I was anything to look at,” she said, inspection finished, “but at least I can dress. You are as plain as a pikestaff, my girl.”

  Jaw dropped, Kitty stared. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. Plain as a pikestaff.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Mrs. Richard Morgan, what do you think about that?”

  “Nothing very much,” said Kitty when she got her breath back. “I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Morgan.”

  “Christ!” Mrs. Morgan said. “Jeeesus! What is Richard up to?”

  As Kitty did not know what he was up to, she said nothing.

  “You ain’t his mistress?”

  “Oh! Oh, of course!” Kitty shook her head in vexation. “I am so silly—I never thought—”

  “Aye, silly is right enough. You ain’t his mistress?”

  Kitty put her chin in the air. “I am his servant.”

  “Hoo hoo! Hoity-toity!”

  “If you are Mrs. Richard Morgan,” said Kitty, growing braver in the face of her visitor’s derision, “why are you not living in this house? If you were, he would have no need for a servant girl.”

  “I am not living here because I do not want to live here,” Mrs. Richard Morgan said loftily. “I am Major Ross’s housekeeper.”

  “Then I need not detain you. I am sure you are very busy.”

  The visitor got up immediately. “Plain as a pikestaff!” she said, mincing to the door.

  “I may be plain, Mrs. Morgan, but at least I am not beyond my last prayers! Unless you are also the Major’s mistress?”

  “Fucken bitch!”

  And off down the path she went, feathers bouncing.

  Once the shock wore off—at her own temerity rather than at Mrs. Morgan’s conduct and language—Kitty reviewed this encounter more dispassionately. Well on the wrong side of thirty, and, under the outrageous apparel, quite as plain as she had professed to know herself. And not, if she had read Major Ross aright at her only meeting with him, his mistress. That was a very fastidious man. So why had Mrs. Richard Morgan come—and, more importantly, why had Mrs. Richard Morgan gone in the first place? Closing her eyes, Kitty conjured up a picture of her, saw things that sheer amazement had veiled in the flesh. Much pain, sadness, anger. Knowing herself a pathetic figure, Mrs. Richard Morgan had presented herself to her supplanter with a great show of haughty aggression that overlay grief and abandonment. How do I know that? But I do, I do. . . . It was not her left him. He left her! Nothing else answers. Oh, poor woman!

  Pleased with her deductive powers, she sat up in her bed in her convict-issue slops shift and waited by the dying light of the fire for Richard to come home. Where does he go?

  His torch came flickering up the path two hours after night had fallen; he had, as on most evenings, eaten quickly at the pit and hied himself off to the distillery to make sure all was well and personally measure the amount of rum, enter it in his book. Time shortly to close it down. Casks and sugar were running low. All told, the installation would have produced about 5,000 gallons.

  “Why are you awake?” he demanded, closing the door and tossing logs on the fire. “And what was the door doing open?”

  “I had a visitor today,” she said in meaningful tones.

  “Did ye now?”

  He was not going to ask who, which rather spoiled things.

  “Mrs. Richard Morgan,” she said, looking like a naughty child.

  “I was wondering when she would appear” was all he said.

  “Do you not want to know what happened?”

  “No. Now lie down and go to sleep.”

  She subsided in the bed, quenched, and tired enough that lying flat out induced immediate torpor. “You left her, I know it,” she said drowsily. “Poor woman, poor woman.”

  Richard waited until he was sure she was asleep, then changed into his makeshift nightshirt. The timber for her room was piling up, and he would begin to pull stones for its piers home on his sled this coming Saturday. A month from now he would be rid of her, at least from the room where he slept. She could have her own door to the outside as well, and he would cozen a bolt out of Freeman for his side of the communicating door. Then he could return to the freedom of sleeping naked and feeling as if he owned some part of himself. Kitty. Born in 1770, the same year as little Mary. I am an old fool, and she a young one. Even admitting this, the last thing he saw before weariness turned into sleep was the lump she made in his bed, silent and unmoving. Kitty did not snore.

  “What,” she asked the next day when he came home for a hot midday dinner, “is a Miss Molly?”

  The bolus of bread in his mouth was in the act of sliding down his throat; he choked, coughed, had to be banged on the back and given water. “Sorry,” he gasped, eyes tearing. “Ask again.”

  “What is a Miss Molly?”

  “I have absolutely no idea. Why d’ye ask? Was it something Lizzie Lock said? Was it?” His expression boded ill.

  “Lizzie Lock?”

  “Mrs. Richard Morgan.”

  “Is that her name? What an odd combination. Lizzie Lock. It was you left her, is that not so?”

  “I was never with her in the first place,” he said, deflecting her attention from Miss Mollies.

  The eyes were bright and sparkling, fascinated. “But you did marry her.”

  “Aye, in Port Jackson. ’Twas a chivalrous impulse I have since regretted bitterly.”

  “I understand,” she said, sounding as if she actually did. “I think you suffer from chivalrous impulses you later regret. Like me.”

  “Why should ye think I regret you, Kitty?”

  “I have cramped your style,” she said candidly. “I do not truly believe that you wanted a maidservant, but Major Ross said you must take one of us in. I happened by, so you took me.” Something in his eyes gave her pause; she put her head on one side and regarded him speculatively. “Your house was complete without me,” she said then, voice wobbly. “Your life was complete without me.”

  In answer he got up to put his bowl and spoon on the bench beside the fireplace. “No,” he said, turning with a smile that tugged at her heart, “life is never
complete until it is over. Nor do I refuse gifts when God offers them to me.”

  “What time will you be home?” she called to his retreating back.

  “Early, and with Stephen,” he shouted, “so dig potatoes.”

  And that was life: digging potatoes.

  In fact she loved the garden and was busy in it whenever the wretched sow gave her a spare moment. Augusta had arrived already pregnant by the Government boar, and had the most voracious appetite. If Kitty had preserved sufficient sense to wonder what serving out her sentence might entail before Richard had enlightened her—but she had not preserved sufficient sense—she would never have guessed that it would be spent waiting upon a four-trottered, mean-spirited glutton like Augusta. Since Richard was always absent, she had to learn the hard way how to take an axe and chop down cabbage palms and tree ferns, chip their skins off and feed the pith to Augusta, guzzling away; she carted baskets of Indian corn from the granary; she recited Kentish farmer’s spells over their own Indian corn, coming on nicely. If Augusta was bottomless now, what would she be like when she was nursing a dozen piglets?

  Those three months attending Cook in the kitchen of the manor at St. Paul Deptford had proven invaluable, for though she had not been allowed to cook anything, Kitty had watched with interest, and found now that she was quite capable of preparing the simple fare Norfolk Island provided. With no cows and only enough goats for babies and children, of milk there was none; fresh meat was rare now that the Mt. Pitt bird had gone (though Kitty had merely heard of it, came too late to taste it); vegetables varied from green beans to, in winter, cabbages and cauliflowers; Richard had harvested a fine crop of calavances—chickpeas; and, with the arrival of Justinian, there was bread of some kind every day. What she missed most was a cup of tea. Lady Juliana had provided both tea and sugar for its women convicts; though some of them preferred wheedling rum out of the seamen, most enjoyed sweetened tea more than anything else. It had been almost the only thing the seasick Kitty had been able to keep down, and now she missed it badly.

  So when Richard and Stephen arrived she had a meal of boiled potatoes and boiled salt beef ready to put upon the table together with a loaf of wheaten bread.