Conan took her at her word, walked up the drive to Derwent and got taken on as a stablehand.
Jane moved into the cottage on the banks of a creek with trout and platypus for company.
Horses became the main thing in Conan’s life but they were by no means the only thing. He was nineteen years old and his way of life meant that he’d known few girls and had played with none of them.
He decided he should do something about that.
The first time he played was with one of the maids, an older woman called Adelaide who sneaked him into the hayloft and showed him what he had to do.
‘You’re quite a stallion yourself,’ she told him.
When they got down to business the whole thing was over almost before it had started but it didn’t matter; when it came to the point he felt he’d been hit by a thunderbolt.
‘Oh my God,’ he said when it happened. He was still thinking it hours later, couldn’t wait to try it out a second time.
It wasn’t long before he got more picky. Adelaide had been a good teacher but she was too old, must be getting on for thirty, for God’s sake, and her tits were a bit daggy, like the rats had been at them, so he did her now and then to keep her sweet but mostly concentrated on instructing the younger ones. Some of whom needed instruction, some of whom did not.
He discovered something that surprised him: that where the best-looking young maids were concerned he had competition in the form of Phelan Penrose. Conan had heard that lawyer Erridge was something called a trustee, which he assumed meant he was the legal owner of Derwent, but everyone knew Phelan’s wife Bessie really ran the show and her husband with it. Bessie Penrose was known to be a hard woman; everyone quivered when she walked past and people wondered why she let her husband get away with rutting the way he did because he made no secret of it.
He was always after one girl or another. Conan received differing reports. Some of them said Phelan was no match for him; one or two said the opposite. Conan didn’t care one way or the other. In fact it was a comfort; Phelan Penrose could hardly fire him for getting up to the same games he did.
One of the girls fell pregnant. From things she’d said Conan was pretty sure the kid was his but he had no money so she went crying to Phelan Penrose instead. Conan reckoned Phelan must have sorted her out because he heard no more about it. Soon the maid went away and Derwent saw her no more.
Conan hadn’t been at Derwent long before he met David, Mrs Penrose’s son. To kick-off he wasn’t sure about him. The family called him Daddo and Conan wondered whether he might be a sook but he soon showed himself otherwise. He was in his mid-twenties and rode like a dream.
A bloke who rode like that deserved all the hero worship he could get and they became good mates. Conan’s job was in the stables and Derwent, under Bessie Penrose’s management, expected you to work for your wages, but they managed to ride out together once or twice a week.
Conan was twenty-one when he and Daddo returned from one of their rides to find Rufus Binchy, the head groom, waiting to tell him that Mrs Penrose wanted to see him as soon as he got back.
‘What have I done?’
‘Get over to the house and I daresay you’ll find out. But if I was you I’d have a scrub up before you go. Particular about that sort of thing, Mrs Penrose. And make sure you’re polite or you’ll find yourself out the door before you can turn round.’
‘It’ll be that Mary Smith,’ Conan told himself as he sloshed his face under the pump. ‘She’s gone crying to the old lady, that’s what she’s done.’
And cursed himself for being such a fool. Mary Smith was twenty-three and fresh out from Home. Thing was, with her Pommy accent and pink and white complexion she’d turned him on as soon as he’d set eyes on her, and Conan had never been the sort to let sleeping maids lie.
She had been shy and squeaky to start with, her pale skin flushing like a rose as soon as he touched her, but he’d soon taught her what was what.
They’d done it three times when she told him she loved him.
Bloody hell!
To make matters worse Mrs Bessie had taken a fancy to her too and given her a job as her personal maid.
He’d been trying to think out a way to tell the stupid girl that what they’d been doing was a game, nothing more serious than that, but now crossing the stable yard to the house his guts were in uproar because it looked very much as though he was about to lose his job. And where would he get another one that suited him anywhere near as well?
He presented himself at the kitchen door. He was let in by Bronwen, a kitchen maid with a well-filled blouse who smiled knowingly at him – for the best of reasons – and passed him on to the housekeeper, Mrs Toop, the one they called Mrs Boops behind her back.
Mrs Toop looked him over, a hangman’s look if he’d ever seen one. ‘What have you been up to, I wonder?’ But looking as though she knew all about it. ‘Show me your fingernails.’
She examined his hands for a minute but it seemed they passed muster.
‘I’ll take you to Mrs Penrose now,’ Mrs Toop said. ‘And take your hat off, for heaven’s sake.’
Luckily he’d remembered to comb his hair.
Bessie had been thinking about it ever since she had first caught sight of the new man working with the horses. She had made enquiries. Conan Hampton, they said. Son of a local farmer. She had kept her eye on him ever since and had finally come to a decision. Now she sat waiting. Waiting and thinking.
There were days when she thought she had been at war with convention all her life.
Convention decreed that only a man had the mental and physical resources to operate a successful business. That was rubbish; Bessie had been running Derwent and the rest of the Penrose empire for years.
Convention also tolerated a man distributing his sexual favours far and wide but gave no such freedom to a woman. Bessie thought that was rubbish too. A woman had physical needs just as a man did.
On the first night of her marriage she had discovered that she and her husband didn’t hit it off in bed, so from that day onwards her sexual life had played second fiddle to running the family and its businesses. Phelan had given her the son she wanted but they had slept apart ever since.
She knew their acquaintances wondered how she could tolerate a husband who pursued every maid who stepped under Derwent’s roof but in truth she welcomed it. It freed her from obligations she would otherwise have found tiresome.
It did not mean she had no feelings; desire remained but the opportunities to satisfy it were few; it was five years since she’d had a man in her bed.
It irritated her that a woman was denied the freedom men had in such matters yet she was well aware how dangerous it would be to challenge public opinion too blatantly. She was rich, she was powerful and people were scared of her. If they caught her out behaving in a way convention said was unacceptable they would –
She rang the bell with an imperious hand.
A maid came. She ordered coffee.
‘And quickly, girl!’
What would they do? They could do nothing.
The coffee came in a silver pot and a scurry of rapid feet. The maid poured.
‘Thank you.’
Bessie took the cup and sipped, walking to the window. Below the house the long valley was hazed with summer heat. Derwent land. The family’s land. Her land.
If she broke with convention – if, for instance, she took a lover – they would talk, of course, but she was sure they did that already. How well Bessie knew the temptation to do something outrageous because she could. To spit in the eye of those who would condemn her. Yet to take a lover, or lovers, would be like stepping into another room. Do that and there would be no way back, no more invitations from the governor’s house.
How she resented the way the world looked down on women! Society women were the worst; when it came to their own sex they were more judgemental than men.
Why should she not satisfy her body’s needs? It did no ha
rm to anyone yet it was not something you could talk about, even to a friend; no respectable woman would discuss such matters. Think about them perhaps, but talk about them? Never!
But she was not a respectable woman, Bessie thought. She was the daughter of a murdering slut, a convict. Even she, the lowest of the low, had abandoned her. Paid for her trouble, Papa’s wife had said.
The day Cynthia had told her that Bessie was not her child would be branded in her memory forever.
‘Not your child? But Papa –’
‘Was your true father. Oh yes. Your mother was someone he got to know in Ballarat. I could never have a child, you see, and like most men he wanted an heir. So there was this… arrangement.’
‘You agreed to it?’
‘I did not know about it until you were already expected but I agreed to the deception, yes. I thought it would do no harm. I never expected to feel as I did.’
‘What did you feel?’
‘Resentment. I had wanted a child of my own, you see. Wanted one very much. I had been expecting one but there was an accident and the doctor said I could never have another. When I agreed to your father’s plan I thought I would come to love you as my own. But I never did. Instead I resented you. I saw in you everything I had missed in my own life. It was wrong of me but there was nothing I could do about it.’
Being able to do nothing had been the story of Cynthia’s life.
‘What happened to my real mother? What was her name? What do you know about her?’
Questions to fill the void that had opened in Bessie’s life.
‘Her name was Maria Hack. I understand she had been a convict.’
‘Was Papa fond of her?’
It was a cruel question to ask Papa’s widow but Bessie felt violated by what this woman had told her and cared nothing for being cruel in return.
‘I believe he may have been. A little.’
‘I suppose that’s something. Where is she now?’
‘I don’t know. My understanding is that Papa paid her for her trouble and she left.’
‘Her trouble? Is that how you saw me? Her trouble?’ Bessie’s bitterness overflowed. ‘Why did you have to tell me?’
She stormed out of the room but knew she would never outpace the revelation Mama had thrown at her. She was convinced it was true but at another level of her mind found it too painful to accept or even comprehend. She found herself walking, going nowhere, with each step grinding her heel into the face of the woman who had deceived her all these years; into her own face for no longer being the person she had thought herself to be; most of all into the face of the mother who had abandoned her.
Papa paid her for her trouble…
Dear God! How she despised her. It was ridiculous to seek advice from such a woman, someone whom she could not even remember, yet in her spirit she knew her. In their shared blood they were one.
What would Maria Hack have done?
She knew the answer without needing to think about it. Her birth mother would have ignored convention, followed her own road and damned the eyes of those who said no.
She had more freedom than I, Bessie thought. So what use was money? Freedom existed in the heart, if it existed at all.
She could feel the hunger, the ungratified heat.
I am Bessie, harlot’s daughter. I shall do as she would. I shall follow my own road.
She settled in her chair, set like a throne at one end of the withdrawing room. She sent for her maid Mary.
Mary Smith was twenty-three years old and frightened of Bessie, eager to please. She was a pretty girl too. Bessie had allowed Mary to believe she had made friends with her, encouraging her to confide.
The maid was pink and white, newly out from England, and shy in a dun-coloured land that hid its beauty from strangers, where all was new. Her parents were dead and she and her sister were alone. In her loneliness she was happy to share her secrets with her kind employer.
Yes, she had a boyfriend. He was wonderful, a strong man, with a good job, well regarded by the people he worked for. A man she loved; who she dared hope loved her.
‘Will you marry him?’
Smiling kindly, seeing the hunger in Mary’s eyes.
Perhaps she would. In time. If asked.
Mary did not mention her friend’s name. Bessie did not pursue it but later spoke to Mrs Toop, who told her the boy’s name was Conan.
‘Conan? Isn’t he the stablehand who is friendly with Master David?’
He was the one.
‘What’s he like?’
Mrs Toop was unwilling to commit. He was outside staff and she barely knew him but had heard no ill of him. If Mrs Toop wondered why Mrs Penrose should have asked she kept it to herself.
The next day Bessie sent for Mary Smith.
‘I want you to do something for me. Get hold of a member of the outside staff and ask him to take a message to the stables. There is a stable boy whose name I understand is Conan. Say I wish to see him at the house. Now.’
She saw that Mary was alarmed, staring at Bessie with frightened eyes.
‘Well, girl, what are you waiting for?’
Young and pleasant looking, no wonder she had a lover. Such a foolish girl, to risk a good job at Derwent. Yet when Bessie said run, she ran.
It was a thought to brighten the day.
When Conan arrived she examined him.
He had a look about him. Also a smell of horse but that troubled her less than she had expected.
She thought: if I do this I shall be stupid. It would also be dangerous. But danger meant excitement. And oh, how she needed excitement in her life.
She did not know she had made her decision but it seemed, somehow, to have taken command of her.
‘I don’t want to see you now,’ she said. ‘You have work to do.’ The words took shape before she would allow herself to think too much about them. ‘When do you finish work?’
‘At eight, Mrs Penrose.’
At eight it would be dark.
‘I have something I wish to discuss with you. Come back then.’
‘Very well, madam.’
She saw him thinking and her mind shouted caution. But her mind was not the motivating factor.
‘Conan will be coming back this evening,’ she told Mary. ‘At eight of the clock. Please bring him up to my private sitting room.’
The two women looked at each other. Bessie saw the shadow in Mary’s eyes and lifted her chin a little. Mary could not be sure but could always wonder.
‘That will be all, Mary.’
She watched the retreating maid’s back. Lust and cruelty, she thought. Is that really the woman I am?
No, she thought. She was neither her father nor her mother; nor was she her wretched husband. She would not cheapen herself. She would not make herself a target for those who would be glad to damage her.
At eight o’clock that evening, as directed, Mary brought Conan to Bessie’s private sitting room.
‘Thank you, Mary. That will be all.’
And waited until the door closed behind the maid.
She turned her head and looked at Conan who looked back at her. Yes, she thought, she had been right. He was an oaf with a conceited look. Bessie knew what he was thinking as surely as though he’d spoken his thoughts aloud.
He thinks I want him in my bed.
A stable boy reeking of horse. The lover of her maid. And no doubt other maids.
How dare he?
Never mind her fleeting fantasies. She was not Catherine the Great, ordering guardsmen into her bed. Even the idea of it now seemed absurd. Yet he was here because she had ordered him to be here. She had to think of a reason for having summoned him; if she simply packed him off again who could say what lies he might tell?
‘I asked you here tonight because I have a proposal I wish to discuss with you.’
He blinked; that wasn’t what he had been expecting.
‘I am informed you have an understanding with my maid Mary
Smith.’
‘I know her.’
‘I am very fond of Mary.’ Such a warm smile Bessie gave him then. ‘I am sure you intend to do the right thing by her.’
He looked as though she had lighted a fuse under him.
‘You have a good situation here,’ Bessie said. ‘So does Mary. I would be willing to keep you both on in your present positions after the wedding. If that was what you wished.’
Conan was drowning in deep waters. ‘Well, I –’
‘Good. That’s settled then. I would be happy for you to have the reception here. At my expense, of course. Perhaps you’ll discuss it with Mary and let me know how you feel.’
Sitting in her empty sitting room Bessie smiled at the expensive ornaments it contained: the picture in an ornate frame of her with Papa when she was small; a cloisonné vase; an ostrich feather someone had brought from Africa; a candle in a gilt candlestick; a watercolour of cherubs. Managing people was the key to success and she was pleased with the way she had handled Conan and herself.
To think she had almost been tempted… No, she thought, that was nonsense. She had been playing a private game, no more than that. On that subject her mind was resolute.
Conan couldn’t believe it. He’d been in no doubt what he could expect when he’d turned up at the house. Handle things well and he could be looking at a rosy future with this wealthy, older woman whom he would bind to him, eager for his kisses.
Now this.
He’d had no intention of getting himself tied down at this stage of his life but could see no way out of it. He would have to marry Mary – that was all there was to it. Of course it wouldn’t stop him taking advantage of any other opportunities that might present themselves from time to time but it was a bit of a let down, all the same.
Very well. He would talk to Mary, as Bessie had instructed. The stupid cow would be over the moon; even the thought of her delight was enough to drive a bloke to drink. It was certainly enough to stop him telling her tonight. Fifteen-year-old Katie had been sending him signals; he thought he might visit her first.
Time enough to pay his respects to his fiancée in the morning.
Conan had been married three months when Daddo Penrose came to him, said he was off to fight in the South African war with the Tasmanian Mounted Rifles and asked if he’d like to go with him.
Land of Golden Wattle Page 33