‘This is ridiculous,’ Emma said.
The dressmaker ignored the comment. ‘I shall ask Miss Fawcett to join us now.’
Miss Fawcett came and her hands were everywhere, pushing and probing. Emma endured, cheeks like fire.
‘A little tighter I think,’ Miss Fawcett said.
‘Tighter?’ Emma said. ‘A little tighter?’
Miss Fawcett hauled on the laces and refastened them.
‘Better,’ she said.
‘They’ll be up to my chin at this rate,’ Emma said.
No one was listening.
Next came a shift, long and straight, in some diaphanous material, followed by – count them! – five starched petticoats.
‘Why so many?’
‘To shape the skirt of the dress.’
Whose moment, at last, had come.
A heavy brocade, peacock blue with puffed elbow-length sleeves, an excruciatingly tight waist above bell-like skirts and a bust line dipping low over her pushed-up breasts.
‘There…’ Miss Jillibel said with the heartfelt pride of a true artist.
Emma stared at her reflection in the mirror. ‘I had expected something simpler.’
‘The empire line?’ Miss Jillibel permitted herself a scornful smile. ‘That is quite out of fashion, I assure you.’
‘I don’t know why I was embarrassed over the corset,’ Emma said. ‘With this dress I shall be naked even when I am dressed.’
‘And delightful you will look,’ said composed Miss Jillibel. Who Emma saw had no intention of changing one stitch of her masterpiece.
There remained only the shoe specialist, who recommended satin slippers in peacock blue to match the dress, and the hairdresser, who examined Emma thoughtfully and said she would return that evening to carry out her magic.
‘When does the dinner start?’
‘I have no idea,’ Emma said. I have not been consulted about the dinner or the time it is to commence. This she did not say, but the resentment remained.
‘Seven of the clock would be the usual time for the guests to assemble,’ said Miss Jillibel, who knew these things.
‘Then I shall come at five,’ the hairdresser said.
‘We need two hours?’ Emma said.
‘To fashion the hair in the current style needs time. One and a half hours to dress the hair, half an hour for contingencies.’
The hairdresser spoke kindly, as to a child. Emma could have screamed but saw there was no point arguing. She was in their hands and at least for that day would remain so. What happened afterwards would be another story.
The hairdresser came; the hair was done. With Miss Jillibel once again in attendance the corset was fitted, the dress with its attendant petticoats followed, the satin slippers. Emma stared at the reflection of someone as unlike her real self as it was possible to be, with her hair in tight corkscrews over each ear and braided with ribbons, her breasts exposed almost but mercifully not quite to the nipples.
‘I look like a trollop,’ she said.
‘You look as a young lady of fashion should look,’ Miss Jillibel said. ‘Not only fashionable but beautiful.’
‘Quite beautiful,’ the hairdresser agreed.
‘The ankle-length skirts show the slippers to advantage,’ said the shoe specialist.
Everyone was delighted with the results of their labours. Only Emma had doubts but her opinion, it seemed, was unimportant.
‘Now the gloves,’ Miss Jillibel said. ‘And the belt to accentuate the slender waist.’
‘So charming!’ the slipper lady said.
There were moments when Emma felt that as a living person she was not there at all.
She was ready, a peacock stuffed and displayed on a platter for the delectation of the guests. Or of one guest in particular, whom Uncle Barnsley had clearly selected to dance attendance on her.
Philip Snipe had a chubby body and a receding chin but did not allow his physical failings to detract from his high opinion of himself. Over dinner he told her he had recently returned from Oxford, where he had gone through the motions of studying law.
‘Too deuced tedious to do more,’ he told her with what he obviously thought was a disarming frankness. ‘Wouldn’t have done that, given the choice, but the old boy made an issue of it and there you are. He’s the one with the shekels, don’t you know.’
‘So you don’t intend to practise law?’ Emma could not have been less interested but it was something to say.
‘Heaven forbid,’ he said, looking at her exposed bosom and not at all abashed that she should see him doing so. ‘For the moment I have no choice, don’t you see, but not for a minute longer than I must.’
He explained he was now working (or perhaps not working, she thought) in his father’s chambers, for Sir Henry Snipe was chief justice of the colony and widely regarded as the terror of the bench. Late of Chipping Norton in the county of Oxfordshire, Sir Henry and therefore his son were connected by blood or marriage to half the coronets in England, which was no doubt why he was seated next to her tonight.
‘I’m cut out for the life of a gentleman,’ he said. ‘Not a down at heels attorney.’
Although it seemed that being a gentleman did not necessarily mean acting like one. She’d disliked Arthur Naismith but in comparison with Mr Snipe, Arthur had been the epitome of gentility.
‘So what do you plan to do with yourself now you are here?’ he asked. As though he took it for granted he had a right to know.
Her father’s daughter, Emma had learnt from childhood how an appearance of arrogance could repel those who wished to intrude into her life. She stared at him down her upward-tilted nose.
‘I have no idea,’ she said. Nor would I tell you if I had.
His affronted expression showed he understood very well what she had not said.
‘Planning on getting married as soon as you can, I suppose,’ he said. ‘That seems what you ladies want most in life: a husband.’
‘No doubt some do,’ she said. ‘Others do not. Speaking personally, I have not so far met anyone who might entice me into changing my present status.’
That for you.
After that Mr Snipe’s interest in his dinner companion’s life and prospects cooled considerably; Emma saw he was not a man to waste time pretending an interest in ladies who had no interest in him. He was also not a man to waste time on courtesies that promised no advantage; he turned his shoulder and began to talk to the lady seated on his other side.
Uncle Barnsley, watching from the head of the table, seethed inwardly behind his banker’s smile. It was plain that Philip Snipe was out of the running. A pity, given his impressive connections, but Barnsley was a long way from giving up; Emma was an investment he was determined would pay handsome dividends if he could put her in contact with the right man. Emma needed to be careful, though; his acute hearing had picked up the tone of her remarks and he had not been pleased. He would have to caution her about that. A reputation for arrogance would do her prospects no good at all.
1827–30
The first week of November had been a time of constant rain.
Even at midday it was dark, the London streets shining in the wet, the gutters torrents of water beneath a grey and unrelenting sky. Lights shone from the buildings on both sides of Cheap Lane and in the offices of Adkins and Partners the air was as dank as a funeral.
Ephraim Dark stared out of the rain-splattered window. Behind him the quills of the clerks squeaked as they bent over the ledgers.
‘If this keeps up the Thames will be coming to join us,’ Ephraim said to no one in particular.
At least that might inject some excitement into the day. He felt suffocated by the rain, the monotony of a daily life in which every hour had become a day, every day a week.
He had never imagined the making of money could be so tedious, or so difficult.
His brother-in-law’s assurances had proved wrong. The effects of the stock exchange crash of 1825 had not wo
rn off when Ephraim joined Peterfield’s firm. People said the number of street beggars had doubled over the last twelve months. Many banks had collapsed; money was tight, investment opportunities few. The firm got by, thanks to the contacts Peterfield and his father had established over the years, but as the most junior member of the firm Ephraim received the smallest share: cheese parings in comparison with what he had been led to expect.
It irked him. Being bored out of his mind while making a fortune was one thing; being bored while making a pittance was a different matter altogether.
‘A fine kettle of fish,’ he told his wife.
But there was no point taking his troubles home; Veronica, so sharp-edged that even in her wedding gown she had looked like a torment of vipers, had bricked up her mind against the dangers of the world and the wickedness of the men who inhabited it. She liked the financial security of marriage but resented the obligations that came with it; she had never resisted her husband’s advances but a poker would have been more animated. Now six months pregnant Veronica was more unsympathetic than ever to troubles other than her own.
Ephraim, the soldier home from the wars and regretting the opportunities for adventure that now seemed lost for ever, found no refuge at work; not much at home, either. They hadn’t been married a year; how was it possible that every evening he should return to his narrow wife in his narrow house and a domesticity as dull as the London weather?
If every hour was a day and every day a week, Ephraim was coming rapidly to believe that a lifetime with Veronica would be a century at least. I am in a coffin, he thought. The lid is closing and I cannot breathe.
Walter Cartwright came to see him. Walter’s grandfather had pioneered one of the first steam mills but Walter himself had a military background. Peterfield had thought this would give him something in common with Ephraim so put the two men together in a private room in front of a blazing fire and left them to get on with it.
Walter Cartwright was unusual. At a time when most people were trying to raise cash by liquidating their investments, Walter was keen to invest more, preferably outside rainy England, and wanted Ephraim to tell him where to do it.
‘Somewhere the sun shines. The sun makes people optimistic and where there’s optimism there is wealth. Not Spanish-America though.’ Foolish investment in Spanish-America had been what had started the crash of ’25. ‘Maybe in the colonies?’
Ephraim stared at him thoughtfully. It was the first chink of light he had seen since joining the firm. ‘Have you considered Van Diemen’s Land?’
That was the start of it. He found others who were interested; others who might be interested; still others whom he judged might be persuaded to be interested.
Like all investors, they wanted maximum returns for minimal risk. At first many were dubious; they had heard Van Diemen’s Land was an island of demon-infested forests, with one foot in the darkness of the unknown and inhabited by criminals, savages and other undesirables.
Using his knowledge of the colony to his advantage, Ephraim was able to convince them that Van Diemen’s Land offered huge opportunities.
‘Partly because of its bad reputation,’ he said. ‘Timing is all-important in these cases. The men who reap the greatest rewards are always those who get in ahead of the mob.’
He had been in the City long enough to know the key phrases needed to fire the imagination of those with itchy fingers and money to burn: phrases like twenty per cent returns and minimal risk.
Ephraim believed his own stories, convinced that he, too, was destined to make his fortune in the distant colony.
I will make it my kingdom, he told himself, mine!
It was an intoxicating thought; perhaps the days of adventure were not past, after all.
He used his aunt’s name to engineer a meeting with William Huskisson, secretary of state for war and the colonies in Viscount Goderich’s government.
He spoke to him at length about the unparalleled opportunities that Van Diemen’s Land offered to men of spirit. Men like himself, familiar with the island and its challenges. He pointed out that development of the island’s economy would relieve the colonial office of the burden of paying for the colony’s administration; the secretary liked the sound of that but was sceptical because scepticism was expected of him.
‘And how, pray, will it do that?’
‘Sheep and land. A fleet of schooners for trade with the mainland and the islands, provided land for suitable ports can be made available. And timber, of course.’
‘Timber?’
‘The island is thickly forested.’
‘I have heard that whales may also supply a useful source of revenue,’ the minister said.
Ephraim pounced on the word. ‘Whales indeed,’ he said. ‘It would be a grave mistake to ignore them. But I put it to you, sir, that land and sheep are key. Vast acreages of well-watered grazing.’ It might have been a poem, the way he spoke. ‘A million sheep! More! No limit to the number the land can sustain!’
‘I understand there may be problems with the natives,’ the secretary said. But Ephraim saw he would welcome the idea, if it could be made to work.
Ephraim swept aside the problem. ‘Former convicts as shepherds. Worthwhile work that will restore them to an honest way of life. Armed guards to protect them, if necessary. If there aren’t enough of them we’ll bring in South Seas islanders. We can always pack them off home later.’
Simplicity in the universe of Ephraim Dark.
The minister had been too wary to commit himself but by the end of the meeting had agreed to send a dispatch to Sir George Arthur, lieutenant governor of Van Diemen’s Land, recommending he assess Ephraim’s proposals.
Ephraim was halfway to the door when the minister pointed his fastidious nostrils in his direction. ‘And who is to administer this project?’
‘I shall, sir.’
‘From afar?’
‘No, sir. On the ground.’
‘I see you have a limp. Will that inhibit you?’
‘Not in the least.’
Ephraim made his way to Bennett’s Coffee House to consider what he had just said.
Before the meeting he had not considered going back to Van Diemen’s Land but now the logic of his words struck him at once. Of course on the ground. And who but himself?
The almost forgotten taste of freedom.
Veronica wouldn’t like it but in a different environment she might become a different person. Someone whom he might come, however improbably, to love. Or perhaps she would refuse to go with him at all? Ephraim found himself considering that possibility with something close to equanimity.
Ephraim had another concern that had to be resolved before he could set sail into what he was confident would be an illustrious future. He needed money; without adequate funds none of his dreams could come to pass.
He formed a limited company with himself the only shareholder. With the help of a lawyer friend and a brochure packed with largely fictional information, he sold two hundred thousand pounds’ worth of debentures to investors who thought they knew a good thing when they saw one.
The lawyer was uneasy but Ephraim was unapologetic, convinced the debenture holders would reap a rich reward. What did it matter if the brochure was a trifle romantic? He was doing them all a favour! He brushed aside his friend’s doubts as easily as he had dismissed the minister’s question about marauding Aborigines.
‘They’ll thank me for it,’ he said. ‘I shall make them rich.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ the lawyer said.
‘I am right.’
Ephraim Dark, man of faith.
The government moved slowly, as governments do, and it was the end of 1829 before the concept was approved and Ephraim was in a position to finalise his plans.
These differed substantially from how he had originally envisaged them. On 14 February 1828 Veronica Dark had given birth to a son, a healthy boy whom they named Richard. Two days later, affronted by the agonies an
d indignities of giving birth, Veronica Dark had died.
On 17 February 1830, accompanied by his two-year-old son and a consignment of boots, which he had been told were in short supply in the colony, Ephraim Dark departed from London aboard the barque Dunblane.
His limp made getting about the boat tricky, especially in a seaway, but determination and a good sense of balance saw him through.
On 29 June 1830, 133 days after leaving London, Ephraim Dark and his son stepped ashore in Hobart Town.
‘I declare I am not prepared to put up with my niece’s nonsense any longer,’ snarled Barnsley Tregellas.
It was early morning. The sky was clear with the morning star hanging in the eastern sky but the ground was white and he knew that beyond the warmth of the house the air would be sharp with frost.
‘Three years I’ve put up with her fads and fancies and a pretty penny it’s cost me. I’ll take no more of it, by God! Yesterday evening was the last straw.’
Mullett stood at his shoulder. He said nothing; with the pepper-tempered Tregellas that was often the wisest course.
Like his master, he stared down at the cove below the house, the small boats crossing and criss-crossing the harbour, others clustering around Dunblane, the barque that had come upriver on the flood tide two hours before. As he watched a wherry put out from the barque’s side, bringing the first of the passengers ashore.
‘More immigrants,’ Barnsley Dark said. ‘Just what a new colony needs, Mullett. Men to build, women to breed. Ain’t that right?’
‘So it is, sir,’ Mullett said.
Poor sods, he thought. Most of them won’t have a bean. Those that have won’t have it for long with the likes of Barnsley Tregellas waiting to fleece them.
Barnsley’s thoughts had returned to his niece.
‘You can’t say I haven’t done my best for her. I’ve taken her to functions; I’ve hosted dinner parties so she could meet eligible bachelors. Quite a few seemed keen enough but she turned up her nose at the lot of them. You’d think she was an heiress, the way she’s carried on! Well, she’s had her last chance. I’ll take no more of it, by God!’
Land of Golden Wattle Page 8