by Jean Plaidy
A lady … like an angel. She walked into that den of savages and she picked up one of the babies, naked, with his face half eaten away with some disease. Surely an angel… “Audrey!”
Audrey came over and stood before her.
“Who told you this story of a lady who was an angel?”
“I see it… I see it myself, M’am. He says to her: “Lady, you go in at your own risk,” he says, and she walks in. And her skirt rustled like an angel’s wings, and we was all afraid of her and somehow glad. And she picks up one of the babies…” Did anyone else see this… vision?”
“But M’am, they all see. They was all there … She wasn’t no vision, M’am. She was Mrs. Fry!”
“I have never heard of Mrs. Fry,” said Carolan.
“You will. Ma’am! The lady … another what come … said you will. She come and read to us sometimes … and then there was the needlework, and she said: “One day everybody will know about Mrs. Fry, know what she’s done for you poor souls.” Why should one waste one’s time talking to a crazy maid! She slipped the torn pieces of paper into her pocket. I shall not go. Of course I shall not go.”
Katharine was missing all day. She was with her lover of course. Carolan was tired and weary. She retired early and gave instructions that Miss Katharine was to come to her when she returned.
Katharine was sullen, already defiant, ready to forget the care of years for the sake of Marcus’s son.
“I wonder you’re not ashamed, chasing all over the countryside after that young man!”
“I am not ashamed, and do not chase after him. We met.”
“What do you think Sir Anthony will say if he hears?”
“I do not know, and I do not care!”
“You are a stupid girl, Katharine. Have you thought of what Sir Anthony is offering you?”
“Oh, Mamma. As if I wanted to be offered anything! Do not be so dreadfully behind the times. I suppose, before you married Papa, you decided it was right and proper that you should, and everything was just as it should be. People aren’t like that… so much … nowadays, thank heaven.”
Carolan’s face was hot with shame. It was almost as though Lucille Masterman was in the room, laughing at her. All right and proper! That was funny. If Katharine knew it. And it was all for her I did it! Oh no. Carolan, for yourself as well. No, for my child; I could not have my child born without a name. I did all that for her, and see how she repays me? She deceives me, she flouts my authority! She is threatening to run away with a boy who will never be any good to her, because he is his father’s son.
And Marcus and I will be related in some ridiculous way, and I shall have to see him, and… and… It was for her I did it this ungrateful girl, this wayward daughter. If she marries Henry Jedborough, it is the end of peace. It is Marcus coming back into my life. She must not marry Henry!
“You cannot marry without our consent,” said Carolan coldly, ‘and I assure you you will never have it.”
“Do you imagine you can keep us apart?” How like me she is! How her eyes flash! This is Carolan again, with her first love. Everard.
“We shall refuse our consent, your father and I.”
“My father, would give it if, you would. He would help us, I know.”
“Your father is all in favour of your marriage to Sir Anthony.”
“But you could make him in favour of my marriage with Henry.”
“As if I would! You are a stupid child. You know nothing of the world.”
“Does one need to know the world in order to know whom one wants to marry? You will be telling me next that unless one has been in England one cannot pick one’s mate!”
“Don’t be so stupid, Katharine!”
“It is you who are stupid, Mamma.”
“My head aches. You are grieving me very much. When I think of all I have done for you …!” The old plaint of the defeated mother, she thought, fighting for that place in her child’s affection which is lost to a lover.
“Oh, Mamma, please! I did not ask to come into the world, did I?”
No, she did not. It was I who wanted_her; it was I who used about No, she did not. It was I who wanted, .. ..-her before she was born, to get what I wanted.
“Katharine, you know how deeply your father and I feel; this. Cannot you realize that we know better than you do?”
“No, Mamma, you do not know better. It is for each person to manage his own life, surely. Because you made a good job of yours, it doesn’t follow that you can make a good job of mine. Mamma, I do not want to go on deceiving you.”
“Oh no? You did that very successfully, for how many years?”
“Only because it was necessary. Please give your consent to our marriage, Mamma … darling Mamma! We have loved each other so much, you and Papa and all of us. I am going to marry Henry; let us be happy about it.”
“My dear child, you talk romantic nonsense. It is your happiness we think of. You know how that boy has been brought up. You know what his father is a convict!”
“Mamma!”
“I was different, I tell you. It was a mistake. Good gracious, child, do you believe your own mother to be a felon?”
“No, no. Mammal Dearest Mamma…”
“It is very different with him. He was a thief. He was here before. He escaped and was sent back again. I know his record.”
“His record, Mamma, is his affair. It is Henry I propose to marry.”
“But he is Henry’s father!”
“Mamma, if you had done something terrible, you would not expect people to blame me!”
What did she mean? What did she know? It was that wicked old Margery. Did she feel ghosts in this house?
“Oh, Mamma, I know you will be reasonable. You won’t blame Henry because of what his father did?”
“I will never give my consent to your marriage with that boy.”
“You must know that we shall never give each other up.”
“I should advise you not to do anything rash. You are our daughter; you are seventeen years old; your father could have him sent to prison for abducting you.”
“Oh, Mamma, you could not be so cruel, so… so wicked!”
“There are many things I would do if I were driven to them …”
“Mamma, you frighten me.”
“Ridiculous child! Why should I frighten you?”
“You must not be cruel to Henry, Mamma!”
“I hope you will be sensible, darling. You have no notion of how exciting life in London can be, if you have money and position. Suppose your father insisted on your marriage to Sir Anthony! You would be grateful to him to the end of your days.”
“If Papa knew how unhappy I should be, married to Sit Anthony, he would never force me to it… unless you insisted.”
“My dear child, do not stare at me like that.”
‘you look different…”
“Stupid! Well, leave me now. It is for your father to decide.”
“No. Mamma, it is you who decide. You could persuade him, and I know he would want me to be happy. You could tell him how there is one way of making me happy.”
You ate stubborn, Katharine. Go to your room. My head aches. Think of what I have said to you. Think of what will be best for us all.”
Katharine went to the door. She looked dazed, as though she were seeing Henry dragged from her. Van Diemen’s Land! It’s hell on earth, and hell on earth is surely as bad as hell in belli “Audrey!” Carolan called, when Katharine had gone.
“My head aches. Sprinkle a little perfume on a handkerchief, and lay it across my forehead.” Audrey gently did so. Thank you, Audrey.”
Sleepily she smiled, and thought of Gunnar, the cold man whom it was so easy to rouse to sudden passion, even now. Queer faithful Gunnar. She had chosen him and the house with its comforts. She had turned away from the station, back of beyond, and quick hates and quicker love. And she did not know now whether she had chosen the right way. No way is right -perhaps that is the answer
. Here she was, a beauty at thirty-six; she did not eat recklessly of the sweets of life, as poor Kitty had done; she was plump, bat not over-fat. How would she have grown in the station? A slattern? That wild life would make demands on a woman, take toll of her beauty. And Marcus ever had a roving eye. He would never have been true, and she would have hated him for that, and perhaps she would not have been true either, for she was hot-tempered and impulsive, and would have wanted to pay him back in his own coin.
How should you know which was the right road for you and no road was sunshine all the way I But she wanted so desperately to have done something fine with her life. She was full of memories tonight. There was something Esther once said about her being a pioneer; and she had answered that she would have liked to have been the Good Samaritan, but she greatly feared that she would have passed by on the other side of the road. It was only when she fell among thieves that she cared about other victims. And yet a woman had walked into that den of savages, and she had smiled, and her smile was the smile of an angel, and her dress rustled like the wings of an angel, and she picked up a naked child, suffering from some hideous disease. Without feat she had done these things, and only a saint could go among those caged beasts and be without fear. What power had she?
“Audrey! Audrey! Come here.”
Audrey came and stood by the bed.
“Bring a chair, Audrey, and sit down. I would hear more of this Mrs. Fry.”
Audrey kept telling the story of her coming. It was like a miracle. Dead silence, and her standing there. An angel. And she picked up the little child. And he was naked and his face was half eaten away … Only those who had lived in Newgate could understand that that was a miracle. Carolan, her face pressed against her pillow, saw it clearly, as though she had been there when it happened.
Audrey stumbled over her words, but she gave a picture of a changing Newgate. People who were taken in now did not suffer quite so intensely, as Carolan had suffered. Change had been worked by an angel in a Quaker gown. Audrey talked of the readings, of the sewing; how it was possible to earn money while you were in Newgate. There had been the visitation of this angel, and she had spread her wings over the prison and given her loving care to those sad people.
Tell me about her! Tell me about her! What does she look like?”
“I couldn’t say … She’s different … M’am. That’s all you know…”
“Different? Different from me? Different from you?”
“She makes you feel you ain’t all bad, M’am. She makes you feel you might have a chance.” A chance? A chance?
that’s how she makes you feel.
“What sort of chance?”
“I dunno. Just a chance She’s different.”
“Is she beautiful?”
“Not like you, M’am. Not that sort of beautiful. She’s different … I dunno. She makes you feel you’ve got a chance.”
“Why did you not tell me about her before?”
“I dunno, M’am. You didn’t ask. She come to us, Ma’m, when we was waiting on the ship, to sail, and she talked to us … she talked lovely.”
“What did she say?”
“I dunno. She made you feel you wasn’t all bad. She made you feel you’d got a chance … And it was ‘cos of her we’d come down closed, they said. She wanted us closed in. She said it ought to be …” Carolan said: “Leave me now, Audrey. I want to sleep. I have a headache.” And Audrey went.
It was all coming back vividly. The arrival in Newgate, the fight, the talk, the smell, the ride to Portsmouth. Mamma, Millie, Esther so young and pure, praying in that foul place and the whale-oil lamp flickering in the opening high in the wall. The ship. The deck. Hot morning, and coloured birds of brilliant plumage, and the horrible man with the eyeglass, and Gunnar… What was the good of having lived I wanted to be a saint. I wanted to be like Mrs. Fry. I would have gone there; I would have been unafraid. I would have picked up the little child. I… I… I could have made them feel there was still a chance. But what have I done with my life? What indeed!
She began to shiver.
“You should have been a pioneer. You could have been, Carolan!” No, Esther, no! I should have passed by on the other side of the road.
But I wasn’t all bad. I should have been a good wife to Everard. I should have cared for the poor and I should have understood their troubles and helped them. Perhaps if I had married Everard I should have been different. I might have been good -not wicked. I might even have been like you, Mrs. Fry.
“Marcus!” she cried.
He leaped from his saddle and tied his horse to the tree. She noticed his hands; they were brown with the weather.
He said: “I knew you would come!” with all the old confidence, and as though years had not passed since their last meeting.
“Carolan! Carolan! Why, you have scarcely changed at all!”
“Rubbish!” she said.
“I am years older. I am the mother of six children.”
“Well, Carolan, Carolan!”
She remembered his old habit of repeating her name; it still had power to move her.
This is a great day in my life!”
The old flattery that meant nothing. He would flatter old Margery just because he could not help flattering women.
“Are you glad to see me, Carolan? Do you find me changed?” He had come forward; he had taken her hands; his eyes were older, with experience, with weather; but the charm persisted.
“Naturally! Since I have come a fair ride to see you. But we did not come to talk of ourselves.”
“Did we not?” He was still holding her hands.
“Not such an uninteresting subject! Carolan, how has life been treating you, Carolan?”
“Very well, thanks. You too, I think.”
Very badly, Carolan, since I lost you.”
“Oh, Marcus, you are too old for that sort of talk, and I am too wise to listen to it. It is of our children that we must talk.”
“My Henry,” he said, ‘and your Katharine. What a sly old joker life is, Carolan! Would you have believed eighteen years ago, when we looked forward to our happiness, that one day we should meet in this wild spot to discuss the marriage of my son to your daughter?”
She was determined not to fall into that reckless mood which he was trying to draw round her like a web. She felt strong in her pride and her dignity and her knowledge that she was Mrs. Masterman of Sydney.
“It certainly does seem ironical, but as it happens to be a fact, shall we say what we came to say? Why did you want to see me?”
To beg you to put no obstacles in our children’s way, Carolan. They are so young, and the young are so lovely, so helpless. It would be unbearable if they too were to lose their happiness. Could history repeat itself so cruelly? We must prevent that happening.”
“You are still the same,” she said, angry without quite knowing why.
“You talk, and your words must not be taken seriously. You are suggesting, of course, that we lost our happiness; we did not. We are both well pleased with ourselves.”
“You found perfect happiness, Carolan?”
“Oh, let us stop this absurd, sentimental talk! Who ever found perfect happiness yet?”
“But if you cannot find it, Carolan, it is something to think you see it in your future. I thought that, Carolan, eighteen years ago in old Margery’s kitchen.”
“When you decided to marry Esther? How is Esther?”
Real pain seemed to come into his eyes, but of course he was an adept at endowing each mood with a semblance of truth.
“No,” he said, ‘not then! It was when I thought I should marry you. Oh, Carolan, Carolan, what a witch you were. You bewitched me. I had to obey you. I dreamed of you all day and all night. I believe I never stopped dreaming of you.”
She looked beyond him to the mountains. She thought of them as Katharine’s mountains, because Katharine had loved to talk of them when she was a little girl.
“Listen, Marc
us,” she said.
“I love my daughter, more than anyone in the world, I love her, and I am very unhappy because she is angry with me. She is going away from me. If she were your daughter, would you not want the best possible for her?”
“Indeed I would, Carolan.”
“Well, understand this. There is a man who would marry her. He has everything money, position. He is kind and tolerant, and, I think, very much in love with her. He can take her to England; he can make her happy. But she is obsessed, and it is your son who has obsessed her. She sees no happiness but with him, and I will not have my daughter spoil her life!”
“Spoil her life, Carolan!” he said earnestly.
“Why should she spoil her life?”
“You know the life as well as I do. What is it, for a woman? She would have to live in the wilds; she would meet scarcely anyone. I can see her in London, sparkling for she is only budding and will bloom gloriously. London is her proper setting. Money… Position… that is what I want for my daughter. How do we know what will happen here? This is a new country, heard stories of the terrible things that can happen on lonely stations. Men are more desperate here; laws are less rigid. No no! She would very soon forget your son. Oh, I imagine he is very like you were once; I imagine he knows how to charm a young girl. He will hurt her, I know he will… as you hurt me, as you must have hurt Esther and your Lucy and Clementine Smith and God knows who else. I want her to have security. Who knows better than I what can happen to a woman who is unprotected and …”
“Carolan, Carolan, where is your good sense? She will be secure enough with Henry. He will love her, I promise you. He will look after her.”
She was emotional: it was not so much of Katharine that she was thinking, but of herself and Marcus, and tears of self-pity welled into her eyes, for his charm was potent as ever. And she thought of the years immediately behind her, and the ghost that had haunted her for eighteen years and of what wild, free happiness might have been hers for the taking.