by Lena Dowling
‘So, now you’re telling me James was making eyes at you.’
‘That’s not what I said, and you know it.’ She looked at him. It wasn’t just that he was angry, it was like he was broken; his shoulders hunched, holding one hand across his gut as if he was in pain.
‘You’re all bitter and twisted up about this, but I don’t believe you’re a bitter man, Samuel Biggs. The Samuel I know is a practical man who puts things behind him, who gets on with things, who plays the hand he’s dealt no matter what.’
Samuel clasped his hands together, resting them on the table.
‘It’s just…’ Samuel’s voice trailed off as he cradled his forehead in his hand, rubbing at his temples.
‘I know, I’m so sorry, Samuel.’
She reached across the table for him, brushing his gnarled hand. He let her hold it for a moment then pulled away.
‘None of this is your fault, but it just isn’t enough. Whatever we might have had is over.’
‘But you have to run the farm. What will you do? Will you come back to the barn?’
‘I’m building something.’
‘Where?’
‘Out by the billabong.’
She had hoped it wasn’t true.
Liza had taken great delight in telling her the rumours that Samuel was building a new hut out by the billabong, one that looked like it was meant to be permanent but she hadn’t wanted to believe it.
They sat silent for a few moments before Samuel picked up his hat and left. When he was gone she went over to the dresser and took out some sewing, but her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t get the thread to come off the reel.
A couple of days after visiting the farm to pick up his wages, James finally came cautiously over the rise and down to the billabong.
Samuel had been expecting the visit, ever since his pay had come due. James had no doubt assumed that he would eventually have to pick up his wages and when he did it would provide an opportunity to talk, but he had skirted that by sending Tom in to the main house to pick up the envelope.
James stopped a short distance away, remaining mounted as if he were ready to gallop away at a moment’s notice. His expression was grave, and a slight tremor at the reins gave away his nerves.
‘Can we talk, man?’
Samuel reached for a stick, then he stoked the embers of the fire and threw some more wood on.
James pulled back on the reins, preventing his horse from moving any closer.
‘May I dismount?’
Samuel lifted a billy full of tea and water into position over the fire. ‘You can do what you like. It’s your land,’ he said looking up.
James’ eyes contracted with suspicion.
‘Are you going to hit me?’
His friend’s face was pale and gaunt and Samuel tried to ignore the toll that all of this appeared to have taken on him as well.
‘I should damn well call you out for what you’ve done. But no, I’m not going to hit you.’
James dismounted but wisely kept hold of the reins, remaining a safe distance away.
‘What would you have done in my position?’
Samuel raised his hands, palms up and shrugged his shoulders.
‘I wouldn’t know because I’m not one for the bawdy house.’
‘Touché,’ James said, swearing softly. ‘Be that as it may, it wasn’t much of a choice. I could do what I did that day at The Factory, saying nothing and letting the wedding go ahead, or I could have told you, hurting Thea and destroying Colleen’s chances of freedom into the bargain.’
Samuel studied the flames licking up, catching hold of the fresh wood he had added to the fire.
‘I had counted you as a friend.’
James’ horse whinnied, taking a sudden a step forward, sending him off balance with a nose to his shoulder.
‘I am,’ James said giving the horse a pat on the nose which settled it, ‘But I know better than anyone what that convict life really is. To rip freedom from Colleen’s grasp when she was that close… I couldn’t do it. There’s a brotherhood that exists among the convicts that I promise you is bigger than all of this. Mark my words, it’s an esprit de corps on which this country that they’re calling Australia is going to be built.’
Samuel gave one of the logs at the base of the fire a fierce poke, sending a shower of crackling sparks spewing out of the fire.
‘You’re going to use politics to justify not telling me you’d fornicated with my wife before I married her?’
His employer took off his hat, tucked it under his arm running his fingers through his hair.
‘Damn it, Samuel. Yes, it’s politics but you should know how deeply I feel about it.’
‘Is that all? Useless rhetoric, after what you’ve done?’ Samuel sneered.
‘No, it’s not all.’ James’ hat was back in his right hand now, emphasising the animated gesticulations he was making as he spoke. ‘For God’s sake, man. You knew what she was. Finding out that she had been with me just brought it home, giving it a reality you didn’t want to acknowledge. She’s the same woman today as she was before you found out what happened. You can stay out here in your melancholy camp with the flies and the mosquitoes or you can be a man and face up to what you took on, whether you appreciated the full magnitude of that undertaking at the time or not.’
Samuel stood up. He had heard enough.
‘Have you finished?’
‘No damn it I’m not. You love her. Anyone can see that, and having watched you with my own children you’re going to love that child you’ve got on the way too, if you’re not too bullheaded to give your marriage a chance, that is.
James put his hat on and flipped the reins back over his horse’s head, turning as if to leave.
‘That’s it? All you’ve got to say?’
‘Yes, that’s what I came to say,’ he said with his head back over his shoulder. ‘It’s up to you Samuel. You can go on punishing everyone, yourself most of all, or you can be a man and take back what’s yours.’
‘Well I’m afraid it’s been a wasted ride for you — “You can’t judge a horse properly until her cover is removed,”’ Samuel shouted. ‘You said that, James, knowing full well what Colleen looked like naked. Every time I think of that I…I…’ Samuel pummelled his fist into his opposite hand. ‘It makes me sick.’
James hoisted his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up into the saddle.
‘Yes I did,’ he said, giving Samuel an appraising look before pulling on the reins to turn his mount back in the direction from which he had come. ‘And I’ll risk saying this as well: nor can you judge a horse until it actually performs, and I warrant it’s a performance you’ve been sorely missing. You’re a lucky man, Samuel if only you’d realise it.’ He shouted the words back over his shoulder as he wisely tore away at a gallop through the scrub.
Samuel exhaled, dropping his shoulders, then couldn’t help but laugh at the truth of what James had said, or the sight of James tearing away like a wench.
As had become her habit, after the cottage was swept and cleaned for the morning, Colleen sat on the porch and tried to sew a gown for the baby. It was better light for sewing than in the cabin but it also meant she could keep a lookout across the farm.
Colleen set down the calico she had been hemming and scanned the fields. She saw something — a man on a horse. Her heart skipped a beat. She stood up, fanning her hand over her eyes against the sun, then making out the rider, slumped back down in a heap. The figure was too tall and slim to be Samuel.
James’ horse trotted into the yard, but rather than stabling the horse in its stall in the barn or letting it loose in the paddock, he rode directly towards her, staying mounted, stopping a few feet from the cabin.
‘I thought you might like to know that I have been out to see Mr Biggs in the hope sufficient time had elapsed that I might risk a conversation.’
She grasped her hands together bringing them up to her chest.
/> ‘How is he?’
James grimaced, shifting in his saddle.
‘Physically I should say he is somewhat gaunt, the result of subsisting only on game and damper, no doubt, but mentally I don’t believe there has been any change. He remains deeply aggrieved.’
‘And Thea, has she come around at all?’ Colleen asked.
He sighed deeply, shaking his head.
‘I regret to say that there has been little change there either. My wife remains camped in the nursery with the children. Although she has begun to breakfast with me again, so there is hope. I believe she will eventually make peace with it because it was years ago, and I’ve been faithful for as long as we’ve been married, but it’s going to take time. Possibly a long time.’
Colleen folded her arms across her breast and rocked forward on her lap.
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘It’s a torrid mess for all of us. I tried to reason with Samuel but I’m not sure I did any good.’
‘Thank you anyway. You’re a decent man.’ She had started to say ‘good’ but she couldn’t quite bring herself to it. James might have rescued her from O’Shane’s and tried to do what he could to patch things up between her and Samuel, but he had still paid to lay his hands on her against her will.
He wrenched his face up as if he was in as much pain as she was.
‘That may be, but not a perfect one. I’m sorry for everything. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Colleen.’
‘I understand. Good day to you, sir.’
And that was the only ‘good’ he was ever going to get.
‘Liza,’ he called, surprised as Lady Hunter’s servant approached.
After camping out at the billabong with only the occasional group of blacks passing by, it felt strange to be receiving another visitor so soon after James’ visit.
The maid dismounted one of the Hunter’s mares and unlatched a saddlebag.
Samuel looked up from the log he had improved his makeshift starlit lodgings with by dragging over to his fire pit for a seat. Liza extracted several packages tied with string and placed them down on a stump.
‘Cook sent me out with some supplies. She said you’d be running low.’
‘How did you know where I was?’
Liza strolled around his camp lifting the lid on his billy, peering inside, inspecting his swag and pacing the circumference of his partially completed bivouac, as if she was recording every detail.
‘One of the convict gangs told Tom that you were out this way licking your wounds.’
Samuel stiffened. It was unavoidable, but nevertheless he hated the thought of being the subject of the servants’ gossip.
‘And what would you know about my wounds?’
She stepped over to the foundations for the hut and swivelled around, scowling as if the dimensions somehow didn’t meet her expectations.
‘I know enough. I know Nanny is bunking in with Cook and me because her ladyship has taken Nanny’s bed in the nursery, and I reckon it’s because Mr Hunter was once no stranger to O’Shane’s. With you out here, it doesn’t take a brainbox to work out who he might have been seeing when he was visiting the bawdy house.’
He closed his eyes and massaged his forehead.
‘That’s about the size of it, Liza.’
‘So why don’t you do something about it.’
He dropped his hand, his eyes flying back open as her voice travelled closer. She was standing right in front of him.
‘Like what? I’m married to Colleen. Her ladyship is married to Mr Hunter and it all happened a long time ago, before any of us were married or even knew each other. There is nothing to be done.’
‘Send her back to The Factory to see out her sentence,’ Liza said, pointing a bony finger back in the general direction of Parramatta. ‘I hear there’s plenty left on it. Marriage don’t mean much out here. Plenty of men have got a common law wife in their bed with their real wife somewhere else. You deserve better than that slut you’ve been saddled with.’
Liza had just spoken the exact same thought he had been torturing himself with for weeks now. But hearing it articulated out loud, it sounded like a bell clanging in the wrong key. Colleen wasn’t a slut. She was a victim of circumstance. They all were.
Shocked by the force of Liza’s words, he hadn’t noticed her drop down to sit on the log beside him.
He turned but before he could reply she was on him, dry lips grazing against his, a rough invading tongue insisting on further admittance.
He gripped her arm and pushed. ‘Get away, damn you.’ In his shock he was much rougher than he intended, sending her tumbling off the log and onto her rump.
Liza glared at him then leapt to her feet with such ferocity that she sent herself off stumbling backwards again.
‘What is it about her?’ She spat, her eyes ablaze. ‘What has that piece of Irish rubbish got that I haven’t?’
‘She’s my wife and there’s the end of it, now get yourself back to the house.’
Wisely, Liza made no reply, stomping over to her horse and riding away, but long after Liza had gone her question lingered.
What the hell was it about Colleen? How was it possible for her to make him feel this way and yet at the same time for him to miss her so damn much?
For the first time he realised that the answer lay in the question. It wasn’t just one thing about her. If it was he could have put her out of his mind — it was so many things. Her laugh, her way with children, her unique way with words and the mischievous quirk of her lips before she said something outrageous, her beautiful chocolate brown eyes. It was all those things and so much more.
He sorted through the stones he had collected looking for one that would slot into the next gap. Nothing looked right. Picking up the largest one he hurled it, knocking a hole in the wall.
Chapter 17
Colleen counted off the weeks since she had come to Hunter Downs — one for each of her fingers plus another three, which together made thirteen.
Since that first time when Samuel had given her the money, he had been back to the farm. How else could Samuel manage the farm without coming to give Tom his instructions, check on the animals, and make sure they weren’t going to run out of grain or hay? But he had been careful never to cross paths with her. She only knew he had been because money had appeared, left on the table when she was over in the cookhouse or helping with the washing. With most of it she’d had some larger dresses made up now that she was starting to show, and with the rest she had been able to slip Tom some coin to make her a cradle out of spare wood from the farm.
She tugged at her sleeve of her new dress trying not to think about what Nell had said about her loving Samuel. She knew as soon as the words left her cousin’s mouth that it was true; it had just it had sneaked up on her, and not having been in love ever before she hadn’t had anything to compare it too. But there was no good thinking on it all the time now. Samuel would never look at her the same again, let alone love her.
She took a pinch of flesh on her arm between her thumb and forefinger and pressed until she wanted to yelp out loud. That’s what she did now every time she thought of him in the hope that her brain would get the message and stop needling her with thoughts of him a hundred times a day. Not that it had worked so far. Her arm was black and blue but her stupid brain wasn’t getting the message.
Samuel was pain.
For feck’s sake — stop thinking about Samuel.
She should have counted herself lucky that her husband cared enough to put a roof over her head, food in her belly and that she hadn’t been packed off back to The Factory, but she didn’t feel lucky at all. Nellie was only a few miles away in Sydney Town but she may as well have been on the other side of the world.
Thea never visited now, not that she had expected her to, and nor had she invited her over to the big house again since the day she had given her the parcel of calico for the baby. Sensing that Colleen was on the outer with he
r ladyship, the servants had sent Colleen to Coventry as well, speaking to her only when it was impossible to avoid it.
She might have been able to soldier through all of that, but worst of all by far was the gaping hole made in her life with Samuel not being there, a hole she had only gone and dug for herself.
If it wasn’t for the baby she might have given up — slung herself from a rope over one of the beams in the barn. That was what got her up in the morning, made her turn the material that Thea had all but thrown at her into some little gowns and caps, and what stopped her from giving up completely.
‘Colleen.’
Just being spoken to by name would have been cause enough to make Colleen jump, but hearing Samuel’s voice caused her to stab her finger with the needle.
‘Feck it.’
‘I can go if you’d prefer it?’
Colleen stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked the blood quickly so she could take it back out again to speak.
‘No, no I didn’t mean that. You gave me a fright and I stuck meself in the finger, that’s all.’
Samuel made his way halfway up the steps, and even though her heart was almost bursting out of her chest at the sight of him, Colleen forced herself to take a deep breath and to calmly secure her needle in the calico.
She had rehearsed the moment of what she would say to Samuel if he ever came back again a hundred times over, so she wasn’t caught out if he finally appeared one day. Each time what Samuel had to say had been different. In her worst nightmares he had reconsidered keeping her on as his wife and deposited her back at The Factory. In her most hopeful moments he would come to her in her bed, the matter all but forgotten. But the truth was that even if that’s what he was here for, even if he did come back, it would be just as James had said it would be — painful, uncomfortable and awkward.
‘I might not have had the advantage of fornicating with James’ wife in the same way that he has had occasion to fornicate with mine, but you may recall that I have had occasion to see Thea practically naked.’
In all her imaginings of what Samuel might say to her, Colleen had never thought of him opening the conversation like this. What was he talking about? Surely he hadn’t snuck about like a peeping Tom to get a gander at Thea as some sort of childish revenge?