by Laura Parker
“Aisleen! Ye’ll nae refer to yer father’s weakness in that tone. He was a man of spirit and ambition whom the world did not see fit to endow with its riches.”
“He was a despot and a drunkard who fell to his death beneath the hooves of a Dublin dray horse because he was too sodden with drink to rise!”
“Aisleen!” Kathleen whispered in a shocked voice. She reached for one of her daughter’s hands and held it tightly, saying quietly, “I blame meself for yer anger. I should have been better able to plead for ye when yer father sent ye away.”
“Da would not have listened. He nearly killed you in his desire to sire a son,” Aisleen returned calmly. “No, do not look away, Mother. He never cared for me, not from the first day of my life to the last day of his. I was not the son he desired, and for that we were both made to suffer.”
Kathleen stared at her daughter. “Ye were hurt more deeply than I knew. I should have expected it. We’re mother and daughter, yet we’re more nearly strangers than any two people meeting on the street. But ye’re home at last and we’ve many years to make up. So don’t scold me for hoping that ye’ll not wed too soon.”
Aisleen blinked. “I have not mentioned marriage.”
Kathleen nodded. “Ye’ve the heart of a Fitzgerald in ye. No man ye claim will ever be able to resist ye.”
Aisleen stared at her mother. “Look at me, Mother, and see me as I am, a spinster lady with nothing to offer. I may be a Fitzgerald, but I will undoubtedly be the last of our line.”
Kathleen was silent for a moment. It pained her that her daughter and only child had grown into womanhood without a proper appreciation for her unique beauty and spirit. She had known from the beginning that Quenton resented his daughter’s strength and passion. At the time, she had been too weak to stand between them. When Aisleen was sent away, she hoped and prayed that it was the answer to keep her from being destroyed. But the young woman who sat before her now was different from the passionate, life-loving child who had gone away. This lady kept her inner feelings hidden, perhaps even from herself. Was it anger or fear that had her locked inside herself? Kathleen shook her head slightly. So many years separated them. Perhaps she would never know.
“Oh, Aisleen!” Kathleen exclaimed, rising to embrace her daughter. “Ye’re young yet and the world is before ye. Many a lass has thought herself passed by just before her beau appeared.”
She brushed an errant curl back from Aisleen’s face, pretending not to see her daughter’s stubborn expression. “Ye’ve a world of love and good sense to bring a man. Someday a man will see this and value ye for it.”
“I do not wish to be valued as one values a rare jewel or a fine horse,” Aisleen replied stiffly. “Mother, with me to manage your business we would soon be able to afford a small cottage of our very own. What more could a man offer either of us?”
“Companionship,” Kathleen answered, her expression softening.
“Am I not as good company as your Mr. Kirwan?” Aisleen asked in a wounded tone.
Kathleen smiled knowingly. “Ye’re so learned in so many matters that I sometimes forget how very innocent ye are, lass. I love ye as none other in all me life. But a woman needs another kind of loving, a love which only a man can answer.”
Aisleen backed out of her mother’s embrace. “You mean to marry Mr. Kirwan?”
Kathleen shook her head. “Ye’re me daughter, and I will do nothing of which ye strongly disapprove. But ye’re wrong if ye believe that Patrick wants only me cleverness with gowns. He could purchase that with wages. And well he knows it, though he pretends I’ll not accept them. He’s a widower and as tired as I of keeping company with a stool by the fire each night. If in exchange for his name I can offer him me talent, then I’ll be thanking God for it. Me only regret is that I did nae recognize me gift in time to save yer da.”
Aisleen could find nothing with which to answer that. “If you are fixed on marriage, then I suppose it’s useless for me to protest further.”
Kathleen’s expression brightened. “Ye’re quite vexed that yer mother has desires that run contrary to yer own. I do not claim to be clever or wise, Aisleen, but I have a woman’s feelings, and they are fixed on Patrick. Do not be so very angry with me. We shall make a neat little family. Patrick’s home is quite large enough for three.”
Aisleen shook her head. “I intend to seek a new situation immediately. You must not allow Mr. Kirwan to believe that I shall become a burden to him.”
“He has offered ye a position,” Kathleen reminded her.
“It is too late,” Aisleen replied. “I am ready to answer an advertisement and hope for a quick reply.”
“Is it a teaching post?” Kathleen asked hopefully.
“Yes,” Aisleen answered shortly, wanting only to be left alone. “It pays quite well.”
“Well then, isn’t that wonderful?” Kathleen clapped her hands. “Things will come right for all of us, just ye wait.”
After breakfast, Aisleen went to her room and locked the door behind her. When she had set pen and parchment on the small table before her, she reached into her purse and withdrew a small ad clipped from the London Times. It had been pressed into her hand by Roberts as she climbed aboard the coach that took her from Yorkshire. At the time, she had thought it an insult. Now it was to be her salvation. She could not destroy her mother’s happiness by refusing to accept the marriage she so clearly wanted. But neither would she remain and watch the disillusionment that was certain to follow.
Aisleen spread the paper open and reread the blurred print.
SCHOLASTIC—A lady, long established in the Colony, wishes to meet with an English Protestant lady, either single or a widow without family, to join her in the management of her establishment; to a lady fully qualified to finish young ladies in a sound English education: the Harp, Piano, Drawing, Italian, French, and German. Very advantageous terms will be offered. Emigration funds available through Caroline Britten Colonization Loan Society. Address post paid to Mrs. Britten’s Stationer.
Sydney, New South Wales, December 12
Aisleen’s lips thinned. She was fully qualified by all the standards of the terms—except for her nationality and faith. She had never deliberately lied in her life. She would not lie about the first but, she decided in a spurt of anger at the world’s unfairness, she would omit reference to her religious affiliation.
Without pausing to consider the enormity of what she was doing, Aisleen picked up her pen and began to write.
When she was finished, she stared for a long time at the address: Sydney, New South Wales.
The words evoked a shiver of anticipation she had not felt in many years. Once, long ago, she had dared to dream of adventure, of faraway places, of excitement and glory. Once she believed it was possible to climb the highest mountain, to be as grand and proud as her ancient ancestors. Loneliness had been the only fear in the dreams she had dreamed.
Aisleen closed her eyes. It was so difficult to remember herself as a wild-haired lass with dirty feet and the belief that all things were possible. In her loneliness and isolation, she had made a bright world out of thin air. Could she do so again?
The answer came not as words, yet the image was clear. The shape of a valley came to mind, a place she had never before seen, a deep green valley silver-laden with mist. At its heart a river raced, the clear surface betraying green-gold depths. Pungent and sweet fragrances of grass and spring flowers vied with the exotic aromas of spice and sea.
Come with me.
For an instant, the old plea whispered wantonly in her ear. Once she had turned away from the dare that had come as a boyish taunt. She touched the browned edge of the crisping newspaper. It was as fragile as a wish, the words it contained as compelling as an ancient incantation.
Aisleen shook her head and withdrew her hand. She was too old for fairy tales and daydreaming. What she planned was daring enough for the bravest of souls, but her goals were eminently practical ones. England was
overcrowded with women like her. Ireland could not support her. Her mother did not need her. She was alone; her future was her own to decide. If it must be, then she would make a new beginning a world away.
Yet when she had affixed a stamp to the letter she sat staring at the address as excitement trembled through her. I have not forgotten, bouchal, she thought with a smile. I am seeking my adventure at last.
Ah, Exiles wandering over lands and seas,
And planning, plotting always that some morrow
May set a stone upon ancestral Sorrow!
—Dedication
W. B. Yeats
Chapter Four
Sydney, Australia: September 1857
Aisleen stood at the rail on the crowded deck of the sailing ship Black Opal, her silk parasol the only relief from the wilting heat of the Australian day. Overhead, the sun shone with an intensity that made the air vibrate. The scene before her eyes danced in wavy lines as the fishy odors of Jackson Bay and the sharp tang of baked earth made her vividly aware that she was at last going ashore.
Perspiration trickled down her spine and between her breasts, dampening her corset. The petticoats she wore weighed her down more than usual. Beneath her silk bonnet, her scalp itched with the heat. She hoped that her face did not reflect the discomfort she felt, for she expected to be met at the dock by her new employer.
For twelve weeks, she had lived in the belly of this ship.
During the first miserable days, prostrating seasickness had confined her to the damp quarters she shared with a dozen young girls of the servant class. There she had spent hour after hour recalling her mother’s arguments against the journey and her own cavalier replies that she was equal to the task. How puny those assurances had seemed then.
She had reached an uneasy truce with her stomach when the cold, austere face of the North Atlantic had given way to the balmy weather of the equatorial regions. If it had not been for the harrowing passage around the Cape she might have forgotten her fear of sailing. Now all that was behind her. Before her stretched out her goal: the colony of New South Wales.
“Have you seen them, then, Miss Fitzgerald?”
Aisleen turned to the bewhiskered middle-aged man who wore the red military uniform of a British officer. “Good day, Major Scott. To whom do you refer?”
“Why, the aborigines, of course!” he boomed. “Dock’s usually crawling with them.” He moved forward against the rail, surveying the deck with a practiced squint, and then shook his head. “Nary a one. Must have scared them away, knowing you had arrived to teach them the curtsy and waltz,” he finished with a chuckle.
Aisleen smiled slightly at the joke, which had grown very stale. At the beginning of the voyage, the major had misunderstood when she had informed him that she sailed to Sydney to teach English manners to the native Australians. He had taken the statement to mean the aborigines. Since then, whenever they met he had never failed to mention the joke.
From the first, she had summed him up as a self-important but harmless man. If not for the fact that she had been one of the first to recover from the seasickness, while the major’s wife had scarcely left her cabin during the journey, they would never have struck up an acquaintance. “How is Mrs. Scott this morning?”
Major Scott pursed his lips, which made his mustache bristle. “Right enough to prepare herself for the occasion of disembarking. She’s no sailor, I give you that.”
“One must make allowances for her,” Aisleen answered.
“Right!” he replied. “Still, will never understand why the missus chose to begin an addition to the detail before we reached our destination. Never leave a woman to plan a campaign, I say.”
Aisleen ignored the comment. Gentlemen did not speak of pregnancy with unmarried ladies. It was indelicate at best, bordering on the objectionable. “Will we be allowed to leave the ship soon?”
“Certainly. But I’d watch my step if I were you, Miss Fitzgerald. ’Tis the shearing season. The city will be full of jackeroos and drovers, as well as the usual riffraff.”
Aisleen looked toward the teeming dock, where drays stacked with fine, smooth, honey-colored lumber jostled carts loaded with grain sacks and barrels. Her gaze moved to the steady stream of ox-drawn wagons piled a story high with sorted and baled wool. Like a huge canvas-backed snake, the line of wagons wound a sinuous path along the dock front to the ships waiting to carry the wool back over the thousands of miles of ocean she had just traveled to the northern industrialized milling centers of England’s Midlands.
She gave a fleeting thought to her mother and her new stepfather. They would soon be selling cloth made from the merino wool loaded here in Sydney. The thought vanished as her attention was caught by another sight on the waterfront.
Dressed in gray canvas jackets and checked trousers, with caps partially covering their shaved heads, a group of men walked in clumsy unison. As the path cleared before them, she saw sunlight glinting on metal links and collars and realized with a shock that these men were prisoners.
“A rare sight, that.” Major Scott frowned as the men were herded up the gangplank of a nearby ship. “Must be bound for the salt mines, the poor beggars.”
“What are they?” Aisleen asked, unable to turn her gaze from the sight of the miserable men.
“It’s where the law sends the hard cases.”
A whip cracked, slicing through the sounds of the quay, and Major Scott felt the young woman beside him flinch. “It’s a shame, I agree. ’Twas hoped when the government of New South Wales put an end to transportation that we’d see no more convicts. Here’s me advice to you. Give those men less thought than you would a stray dog, Miss Fitzgerald.”
“Less—?” Aisleen caught herself and forced her gaze away. It was none of her business. She had chosen to come to New South Wales knowing full well that it had once been a penal colony. The major was right. She would have to become accustomed to strange sights and give them no thought. But she could not still the indignant feeling that had risen within her. Surely, there were better ways of dealing with such men.
“Your bags have been lowered into the dinghy, Miss Fitzgerald.” The steward doffed his hat as Aisleen turned to him. “If you’re ready to disembark, I’m to show you the way.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Major Scott cut in and offered Aisleen his arm.
The offer surprised Aisleen. She had not thought him the gallant sort. Yet, in her dealings with men, she had found they needed little or no encouragement to preen. Doubt dimmed her countenance. “Will you not need to see to your wife, Major?”
“When the rush for the quay has ebbed, I’ll collect her,” he answered, still holding out his crooked elbow.
Aisleen looked down at the bobbing boat into which she was expected to climb and decided that perhaps she might benefit from a stout arm to help her on shore. “Thank you, Major,” she said, accepting his arm.
“You’ve every reason to be cautious.” The major took up his thought once they were safely ensconced in the boat that carried them the short distance to the quay. “Don’t accept the first proposal that comes your way, that’s my advice to you. Look the lot over before choosing a husband.”
Aisleen stiffened as she sat by his side. “I have not come to Sydney to wed; I’ve come to teach.”
Giving her a skeptical look, he said, “See that lot yonder?” He nodded toward the group of men standing to one side of the pier at dockside. “Bushmen mostly. Whenever they’re in town, they meet the incoming ships in hopes of finding themselves a bride. You’ll be lucky to get past them without receiving at least one marriage proposal.”
Aisleen stared at the throng of bushy-bearded men in floppy-brimmed hats as the boat docked at the pier, and her gaze was greeted by a cheer that made her blush even as she looked away. “Preposterous!” she murmured.
“I see a prime ’un! Get the clergyman!” one of the group called out, and his cry was answered by more raucous male laughter as Aisleen was handed up ont
o the wharf by two seamen. A moment later the major appeared by her side, and she did not hesitate to take the arm he extended.
“Bring her on, Major!” another jeered. “She deserves better than an old sod the likes of ye!”
“Do not quail before them, Miss Fitzgerald,” Major Scott said under his breath. “They’ll not lay a hand on you. Just talk, that’s all they know.”
Aisleen looked down her nose at the crowd of scruffy men as they started toward the dock. “Is that the fisheries of Port Jackson I smell, Major, or is it the population?”
The men accepted the comment with good-natured hoots of laughter.
“That’s the spirit, lass!” a drayman called from his perch. “Dinna let them jackeroos scare ye!”
She ignored the other sallies coming her way, glad that she had the major as her escort. To her surprise, once they reached dockside the boisterousness subsided. Several of the men who had teased her snatched their hats from their heads as she passed, their grins less leering and their gazes almost shy. Even so, she pretended not to notice, lifting her chin to stare over their heads.
Once on the dock, she quickly became aware of other things, like the costermongers holding up food and liquid libation as their cries of “Two a ha’penny!” and “Shilling a toss!” split the air.
The major led the way through the lines of traffic until he found a patch of shade under the overhang of a warehouse. “Here we are, Miss Fitzgerald. A bit of respite from the heat.”
Aisleen touched a gloved hand to her forehead beneath her corded bonnet, where a fine beading of moisture had formed. “I trust I shall learn to deal with the clime after a few days. The summer’s heat certainly lingers in this latitude.”
Major Scott looked at her with amusement. “September is the beginning of spring by Australian reckoning.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Aisleen sighed inwardly. How, she wondered with misgiving as she lowered her umbrella, was she to survive the climate if the springs were warmer than summers in Ireland?