by Lena Dowling
‘I must look like a chimney sweep.’
‘You could make off with a band of Aborigines and it would be a day or two before anyone cottoned on to the difference, that’s for certain.’ Mr Biggs laid down his plate and pulled her into him and she breathed in his scent, all smoky and manly and she felt delectably safe and secure, even as her head jiggled violently up and down on his chest with all the laughing.
‘Lady Hunter has invited us on a picnic tomorrow,’ she said seizing the moment.
‘Where?’
‘Near the pond.’
Samuel’s chest stiffened beneath her and he released his hold on her arm.
‘No, nothing like that,’ she said, placing a reassuring hand on his chest, pulling away to look up at him. ‘It will be a proper picnic, respectable like, with the whole family there.’
‘With the Hunter children as well?’
‘Yes.’
Samuel’s body relaxed beneath her.
‘In that case, I think we should go.’
The next day, down at the pond James and Samuel found a spot under a stand of trees with enough shade for the whole party, laying out sufficient rugs to accommodate the adults along with a couple more several feet away where the nanny and Liza could watch the children.
Everyone was in high spirits. Even Liza was in a cheerful mood having been allowed to come along with Nanny to help watch the little ‘uns and serve the food.
But she was far too interested in Samuel for Colleen’s liking, forever making sly glances in her husband’s direction. Not that as far as Colleen could tell Samuel noticed Liza’s gawping. He was too caught up entertaining Stephen and Betsy.
The children had been sitting with Nanny, leaving Colleen and Thea free to talk while James read from a book and Samuel took out his sketchpad, but Samuel’s drawing was too interesting to the children. They sidled closer and closer until eventually, all over him like a rash, they begged for pictures.
Colleen had expected him to draw a picture of the pond but instead he drew them each a funny little sketch of the children themselves in fancy dress with hammed-up features that made the children laugh. After that Betsy and Stephen were so excited they wouldn’t leave Samuel alone, begging him to play with them.
When Samuel took a short stroll meaning to shake them off, they followed him like the Pied Piper, imitating his every move until Samuel turned it into a game making silly faces and striking amusing poses, compelling the children to copy him until exhausted they ran to him, clinging to his stocky legs.
‘I am Neptune’s horrible sea monster. What are these limpets?’ Samuel said, walking back to the party pretending to be blind with the children gripping his legs and shrieking out when they found they were able to ride on his boots like a life-size automaton.
‘Oh dear, I’m sorry, but my children have rather monopolised poor Mr Biggs,’ Thea said.
‘Don’t worry. I think he’s enjoying it.’
‘Nevertheless, I believe a rescue would be in order,’ Thea said in a low tone before she raised it again. ‘Children. Come here. Nanny and Liza have laid out your lunch. Come and have something to eat and leave poor Mr Biggs be,’ and then to Samuel she called, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Samuel, I’m sure you had meant to be sketching the scenery rather than entertaining the children.’
Samuel flopped back down beside Colleen on the rug panting for breath.
‘Not at all, m’lady. You know, ever since little Betsy had me bailed me up that first day for looking like a pirate, I’ve rather enjoyed the little tykes.’
‘Well, please say if it gets too much,’ James said, turning down the corner of the page of his book then closing it. ‘I’m as guilty of being as indulgent with my children as I’m accused of being with my wife, I’m afraid.’
James ruffled the hair of the children and Nanny put a plate of food cut into pieces that could be managed by little fingers in front of each child. Having wrestled themselves free of the servants, they were determined to remain sitting where they were with their parents.
‘There’s no shame in a gentleman displaying affection for his family,’ Samuel said. ‘Some would say it makes you a greater man for it.’
‘Thank you Samuel, and I hope you will be having a family of your own some day soon.’
Colleen hugged her arms across herself as tightly as she had been embracing her secret. There would never be a good time to tell Samuel she was pregnant, and she could afford to wait a little longer.
It wasn’t as if she was showing yet, but with the way things had been between them, and now seeing him with the children, it was like a sign. She should tell him. Tell him, tell him here, today. Things were going so well it was as if the fairies were twittering behind her, hiding out in the bush, cooking up spells to make things go her way.
Liza shoved a plate laden with cold meats and cheeses, pickles and slices of apple towards Colleen. She took it, but as had become her habit she ate only half the food then pushed the plate aside. She couldn’t afford to get fat. A bonny big baby that looked full sized arriving only eight months after she and Samuel were wed would raise questions and set tongues to wag. If she was careful the babe would be small enough that there would be no questions asked and he would love it like his own child.
She searched for Samuel from the corner of her eye. He had finished his plate of picnic food and had taken up his sketchbook. His face was creased in concentration as he made strokes on the page with the same gentle calloused hands she had come to enjoy caressing her skin as they teased their way over her body.
Her stomach swirled in the odd way she had finally gotten used to since getting in the family-way. Sickness in the morning. That was a joke. All day sickness more like.
And between the nausea and being pregnant she thought it would put her off, but being pregnant had the opposite effect, making her look forward to Samuel coming home every evening and the mixed up scents of soap, leather and lingering sweat that trailed him into the cabin after he had first stopped to take a wash at the well.
‘Mmmmm.’
The sound slipped out before she even knew she had done it and Samuel raised an eyebrow in her direction. ‘Is everything alright, Mrs Biggs?’
As he turned to look at her he dropped his hand to reveal what he had been drawing. Her heart skipped a beat. The picture was of her. But not like the children’s pictures with their most prominent features all exaggerated. In the sketch he had made her look far prettier. There was something different about her from what she had seen of herself in Samuel’s shaving mirror — something that was in her eyes.
They looked lighter somehow, less burdened.
‘I was just thinking what a lovely day this is,’ she said.
He laid down his pencil and smiled at her, his eyes shimmering like the afternoon light dancing across the pond, then he reached for her keeping their hand-fasting hidden between the folds in the rug.
‘Yes, indeed. A sterling day for a picnic.’
Thea thrust her plate to one side with a flourish.
‘Who wants to have a paddle in the pond, children?’ Thea said, opening her parasol.
‘Me. Me!’ the children jumped up and down.
‘Nanny, Liza, do please come down with me in case either gets out of their depth and I need you to fish them out.’
Nanny and Liza looked at each making no attempt to conceal their horror but Thea ignored them, clipping her parasol in place and taking Stephen by the hand, setting out for the pond.
A book snapped shut on the far side of the rug.
‘There goes my wife initiating our young into the dark art of swimming while they are but naïve innocents.’
Colleen laughed but Samuel glowered, folding his arms across his chest.
‘It’s alright, Samuel, I know you don’t approve. There aren’t many who would, so it’s probably best that I go down and supervise, as I have a feeling that if either of my children get into trouble Liza and Nanny are going to be no help a
t all.’
Samuel grunted and picked up his sketchbook while James disappeared after the others down through the reeds to the pond.
Colleen plucked a dandelion that was growing just beyond the edge of the rug and blew on the fairy-like seeds. She didn’t dare look at Samuel. She concentrated on watching the seeds float away on the breeze as she said a little prayer. Without turning around she said, ‘How would you feel about us having children?’
‘Of course, in time I should like that very much,’ Samuel said without looking up from his sketching.
‘Oh,’ Colleen sucked in a breath, forgot she was holding it, and then had to release it before she could speak again. ‘What if it were sooner rather than later?’
Samuel laid down the sketchbook and reached for her hand again.
‘But what are you saying, Colleen?’
He sounded pleased.
Cautiously she turned to look at him. ‘I’m expectin.’
‘How far along are you?’
He eyed her with a serious expression that sent her heart plunging to meet her stomach.
The question she had feared was coming next was written all over his face.
‘Not long but it’s hard to tell exactly.’
Samuel said nothing for a few moments as if he was weighing something up, then jumped to his feet.
‘Well that is wonderful news. Stupendous in fact. I am delighted.’ Samuel grasped both her hands and towed her up. ‘Come here. Let me hold you.’
Samuel pulled her into his arms and she stood on her tiptoes so she could rest her chin over his shoulder.
‘Oh, Samuel.’
She was giddy, she was dizzy, no; she was truly happy. That’s what it was. She had thought that’s what the little warm smiley feeling that had been bubbling up inside her was these last weeks, but she had been too frightened to properly admit it.
For the first time since she was a little ‘un herself she was actually happy, and since her happiness was for her baby she wasn’t going to ruin it this time by torturing herself with thoughts of Nellie.
If Nellie had been here she would have been twirling her around and whooping and hollering every bit as much as Samuel was, and she wasn’t going to take any notice of the little voice warning no good ever came from keeping secrets or that the truth always had a habit of coming out neither.
Everything was just perfect.
As soon as the others returned from the pond Samuel told them their news.
James slapped Samuel on the back while Thea hugged her excitedly.
‘This calls for a celebration, man. We’ll ride over to the tavern. No, on second thoughts what they serve is far too rough for an occasion like this. I have a passable cognac back at the house.’
The men went to untether their horses and Liza carried the picnic basket while Nanny led the children back to the hay wagon that the women and children had travelled in, but Thea was too excited, hopping up and down.
‘Oh, Colleen this is wonderful. I’ll practically be an aunt.’
Colleen tried to look pleased but it was as if a chill will-o’-the-wisp had whipped up across the pond, cutting through the warm happy feeling that had been there before.
If anyone would ‘practically be an aunt’ when the baby came then it was Nellie. When the labour pains cut up real bad, it was Nellie who she wanted to have at her side; and when her child was old enough to know people, she wanted the little mite to know its only kin living on this side of the world.
She slumped down on a nearby tree stump.
‘Colleen, what is it. Do you feel faint? Are you ill?’
Thea sat down beside her, forcing Colleen to shuffle over.
‘It’s me cousin Nell. I miss her something terrible.’
‘We all have people back home. And its times like this…’
Colleen turned around to face Thea.
‘No, you don’t understand. Nellie’s not back home.’ Colleen paused and swallowed hard against the tears that were starting to back up, ‘She’s here in Sydney Town at O’Shane’s.’
Thea touched her fingers to her lips, her eyes wide.
‘Dear God. Colleen, I’m so sorry.’
‘I have to see her.’
‘No, Colleen.’
Colleen ignored Thea, gritting her teeth, turning to look out over the pond and into the distance, as if making Nellie a silent promise.
Thea swivelled around and grasped her arm. ‘Colleen you can’t. No respectable woman could afford to cross that threshold with so much as her own shadow. Perhaps you could meet her somewhere?’
Thea’s face was so deathly serious, believing that Nellie could somehow come and go as she pleased, that Colleen wanted to laugh. But she didn’t dare start because she knew it would come out all hysterical until she finished up crying.
‘She’s as good as a prisoner. Danny hardly ever lets any of the women out and if he does they never leave his sight.’
‘Oh dear.’
Thea released her arm and turned, joining her to look out across the watering hole.
‘I know,’ Thea said, swivelling her head around as if she had just hit on a great plan. ‘Maybe I could arrange for her Ticket of Leave to be withdrawn and for her to be brought back to The Factory. Then we could find someone to marry her, the way we did with you.’
Colleen wrenched a loose piece of bark sticking out of the stump and flung it out into the pond. On the surface of the water a light breeze caught it, blowing it away out into the centre of the watering hole where Colleen remembered that the bottom sloped away until the water went deep enough to cover their heads.
‘Nellie will never marry. She’s already made her promise to someone else. She would sooner die than break her word.’
‘Colleen, I am sorry, but you can’t go there to see her. You have to promise me.’
Colleen didn’t answer, ripping off another piece of bark and throwing it into the pond.
‘Colleen, I mean it. You lead with your heart over your head and sometimes that’s not such a bad thing. If it weren’t for you latching on to Samuel that day at The Factory, you wouldn’t be here now, but this time you can’t afford to be impulsive. You have to promise me.’
Thea had her by the arm again now, but Colleen said nothing, not wanting to tell more lies. Even though they were good friends now, and James acted as if the past had never happened, it still felt like in saying nothing she had lied to her friend.
Thea stood up. Standing over her like she wouldn’t be moving until Colleen gave her the answer she wanted to hear.
‘Alright, alright, I promise.’
But as Thea turned to walk towards the wagon, Colleen released the fingers, now sticky with tree gum, she’d had crossed behind her back.
Colleen was quiet on the journey home and not just because even though it was filled up with hay, the old cart made for an uncomfortable ride back to the farm. She had too much on her mind. She hadn’t wanted to fib to Thea, but if she didn’t get away to see Nellie before her ankles swelled and she started waddling around like a fat duck she might not see her cousin again for the seven years Nellie had left on her sentence. She could hardly ride to Sydney with a caterwauling babe.
To have any chance at all of seeing Nell she would have to sneak out of the cabin once Samuel was asleep, take his horse and ride through the night, reaching Sydney Town when everyone at O’Shane’s would be settling into bed for the day. If Samuel and James were going to be wetting the babe’s head into the evening, then tonight could be her only chance.
Chapter 15
‘To fatherhood and the continuation of the Biggs line,’ James said, raising his glass after they had returned to the main house and James had poured them both a brandy.
Samuel met the toast with a salute of his own, glass punched up in the air, but he hardly needed the drink. He was sufficiently intoxicated already — drunk on Colleen’s news.
Was he the baby’s natural father? Immediately he had formed the query
the very next thought that followed was the memory of Colleen’s luminosity the day of their marriage. With that in mind his first instinct had been to determine precisely how far along Colleen was.
But then he had asked himself, what would be the point? He was Colleen’s husband, which made the child his in law, if not in fact, and as he knew only too well, a blood relationship was no prerequisite to achieving a father-son bond. After the vicar married his mother the minister had become his stepfather, showing him that a man’s claim on fatherhood rested primarily on the relationship he fostered with the child, and not from paternity.
He would be this baby’s father because he would do everything necessary to create the respect and love that was a prerequisite to that happy state between father and son, and that was the only paternal certainty he needed.
‘To fatherhood,’ Samuel replied, savouring the smooth cognac as it glided down the back of his throat. ‘Ahhh. The best brandy I’ve had the pleasure to imbibe since leaving England’s shores.’
James lounged back in his chair crossing one lanky leg over the other. ‘Yes, one of the benefits of having a wife who is the beneficiary of such a generous allowance is the ability to import some of life’s little luxuries, and I must say I’m glad to be sharing it with you on this auspicious occasion. I was a little worried…’
‘About what?’ Biggs said anxiously, surprised in the circumstances by the descent into gravity of James’ tone.
‘About whether you could ever fully resign yourself to Mrs Biggs’ sad past, but it’s a relief and a wonderful day to have been presented with indisputable proof to the contrary.’
Samuel bristled. It wasn’t the first time, he remembered now, that James’ had exposed an undue interest in the quality of the relationship between him and his wife and he found it more than a little irritating.
‘I really think what’s gone on in the past should stay in the past, don’t you?’
‘Never a truer word spoken,’ James said quietly. ‘Never a truer word.’
‘Nell, Nell, it’s me, Coll,’ Colleen whispered as she slipped into the bed beside her cousin.
‘Coll, is that really you?’