He crossed the stream, the air dank and cool beneath the overhanging trees, and came down the slope on the western side of the cove.
It was the first time he had been here. He passed one or two hovels set on the slope above the path. They looked to have been built out of bits of scrap timber, branches and pieces of bark. There was a scattering of rubbish in front of each and stagnant pools of liquid reflected the moonlight. There was nobody about. A strip of yellow light showed beneath one makeshift door. The other building was in darkness.
He passed more shacks. He saw the occasional person but, apart from a curious glance from lowered eyes, no one acknowledged his presence. He heard the distant sound of yelling, interspersed with voices raised in what might have been song. His lips tightened. Drunks. Where was the Reverend Pearse? Up at Government House, no doubt tucking into the supper that was part of the evening’s festivities.
Someone was watching him from the open doorway of one of the hovels – a black silhouette against the candlelight within.
‘Evenin’, sir.’ The voice was hoarse and somehow insinuating, the accent from somewhere in the north of England. ‘Lookin’ for summat?’
Jack hesitated. No, he thought. I am looking for nothing. Something took hold of his tongue. ‘Depends what you’ve got to show me.’
‘Well, now.’ The figure walked leisurely towards him. As he drew nearer, Jack saw that he was young with a thin face and haggard eyes. ‘We got all sorts ’ere. Depends what you’re looking for, like.’
Jack said nothing. Move, he told himself. Move. He stayed where he was.
‘What have you got?’
‘We got rum,’ the man said, and Jack heard derision in his voice.
He made an impatient gesture. ‘I already have all the rum I can drink.’
The man screwed up his eyes and watched him cunningly. ‘Don’t rightly know, then.’
Whatever had taken his tongue before now seized it a second time. Jack heard his mouth utter the words that he himself refused to speak. ‘A girl?’
The man smiled, slow and knowing. ‘Well, now. Why didn’t you say so?’
He turned and strolled back towards the light. In a voice loud enough to reach him but too quiet, he hoped, to reach anyone else, Jack called after him, ‘Do you have one?’
The man walked on as though he had heard nothing. In the entrance to the shack he turned and Jack saw the yellow light run like liquid brass over the planes of his face – the high, starved cheekbones, the haggard eyes.
‘You comin’ or what?’
Jack stood, irresolute, feeling the taste of lust and fear in his throat. Perhaps I could find Gwen, he thought, but it was too late for that. In any case Gwen would not serve, not now, even if he could find her.
He moved after the man towards the doorway of the shack.
The first step was hard, like climbing the side of a mountain. After that, it was easy.
*
‘Think I’ll circulate,’ Gough said.
Crabbe took him by the forearm. ‘A moment before you go.’
The governor led him to a window out of earshot of the other guests. There was a piece of china on a small mahogany table. The background thud, thud of the band had set it vibrating. Crabbe pushed it an inch to one side. The irritating noise ceased.
The governor was sweating in the close room, his forehead shiny and damp beneath his wig. ‘You weren’t at headquarters this morning?’
‘I went up to my farm at Parramatta. I spoke to Henry Bliss about it.’
Crabbe raised a hand. ‘I’m not complaining. It’s just that I thought you might not have heard about the orders that have come from London concerning trade.’
‘What orders are these?’ Knowing very well.
‘The Home Office in its wisdom,’ – the slightest of sneers – ‘has prohibited members of the Corps from participating in trade. How they expect the colony to prosper when the only able body of men here is prevented from assisting in its development I do not know. But there it is. The orders are absolutely specific.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear it, sir. May I ask how you’re going to respond to the Home Secretary?’
‘Well, now, Gough,’ Crabbe replied testily, ‘if you’d been available today to give me the benefit of your advice I might be in a better position to answer you, eh?’ He fiddled with his wig. ‘I understand you were on board Centaur this morning?’
Even at that hour eyes had been watching him, Tremain thought without surprise. You couldn’t sneeze in this place without someone asking about your cold. ‘That’s correct, sir.’
‘I hope the new rules won’t upset any plans you may have had?’
‘Not at all, sir. There’s no secret about the purpose of my visit. My younger son asked me to introduce him to Captain Pike. I was happy to oblige.’
‘And why was that?’
‘I understand he had some proposals to put to the captain about a joint trading venture.’
Crabbe’s eyes raked him. ‘And did they come to any such arrangement?’
‘I have no idea, sir. You’ll have to speak to Cash about it.’
‘I believe you and Cash went ashore together?’
‘I understand Cash went back on board later. While I was in Parramatta.’
‘And of course you haven’t discussed the matter with him since you got back?’
‘No, sir.’
Crabbe laughed and shook his head. A bead of sweat ran down the side of his pendulous cheek. ‘Do you enjoy sailing close to the wind, Gough?’
‘Sir?’
‘Never mind.’
*
‘Perhaps I can escort you into supper?’ Cash said.
Jane fluttered her fan. ‘If Mrs Hagwood has no objection.’
It seemed she did not.
The tables of food were laid out in an adjoining room this evening, the main reception area being reserved for dancing. They took their plates and found a table in the corner, partly hidden behind an arrangement of ferns growing in large wooden tubs.
‘Since your hat is hanging up in the colony, which you say makes it your home, how do you plan to occupy yourself while you’re here?’ Jane asked him.
Cash smiled and addressed the plate of beef he had before him. He was feeling ravenous and alive, alive, in the company of this vivacious girl in the red dress, with smooth, inviting shoulders.
‘This and that.’
‘Perhaps you don’t know yourself?’
‘Perhaps that’s it.’
‘Do you intend to live on your father’s charity?’ Now her smile had the suspicion of a dagger behind it.
He returned the smile. ‘As you do, you mean?’
A flush mantled her high cheekbones. ‘If you can tell me what else a girl may do, I shall be grateful.’
‘She can marry, I suppose, and devote herself to making her husband happy. Isn’t that what most women do?’ He said it lightly, enjoying teasing her.
The flush darkened. ‘It is what most women do. I would prefer to look for something a little more … demanding than that.’
‘Some husbands can be very demanding,’ he assured her, eating more beef.
‘Why should it always be assumed that a woman must be the servant of a man?’
‘I would have said it was a very convenient arrangement.’ His blue eyes laughed at her. ‘For a man.’
‘I would like to be Mrs Hagwood,’ Jane said.
‘You think she does not make her husband happy?’
‘I think nothing of the sort. But why should husbands assume their wives have nothing to offer a marriage?’
‘I doubt they do.’ Cash sipped his wine and looked at her shoulders admiringly.
She did not respond to his glance and he remembered what she had said about Thomas Birkett. His hands and eyes are never in the right place. Of course she had also said something else. One would not object so much, of course. Depending on the man …
He wondered if he might be such
a man. The idea, particularly now he was close to her and could smell the clean freshness of her body, so different from the rancid smell overlaid with perfume that most men and women carried upon them like a plague, excited him.
‘There are other things than the comfort of home and bed,’ she said. She looked at him demurely. ‘I hope I do not shock you when I talk like this?’
‘Not at all.’ Although in truth she did.
‘I have no doubt Mrs Hagwood comforts her husband in all the … conventional ways,’ Jane said, fluttering her fan. ‘But I am sure there is more to their relationship than that.’
Her eyes were fixed on the food in front of her. Cash thought she was probably a little less matter-of-fact than she pretended.
‘Shall we ask her?’ he said.
She blushed at him. ‘You take nothing seriously.’
‘I assure you I do.’ Eyes laughing.
‘So what do you plan to do with yourself in the colony?’
Now he laughed out loud. ‘I told you. This and that.’
Her eyes were intent on his face. ‘Such as?’
He raised his hands in surrender at her persistence. ‘Make money, I suppose. If I can.’
‘How?’
He wasn’t prepared to answer that. ‘I don’t know yet. I’ve one or two ideas but I’m not sure how practical they are.’
‘Tell me.’
He shook his head. ‘When I know a bit more myself, perhaps.’
‘And your brother?’ she asked. ‘Will he also make money, do you think?’
‘If he does it’ll be by farming. He’s mad keen on that. Always has been.’
‘And you’re not?’
Cash shook his head. ‘I would never be able to stay in one place long enough to be a farmer. Always wanting to see what’s over the next line of hills, that’s me.’
‘In which case I’m sorry for whoever you marry.’
‘So am I,’ he said truthfully.
‘There’s a range of hills forty miles inland from here,’ she said. ‘No one’s found a way over them yet. Perhaps you’ll be the first.’
‘Perhaps I shall.’
She sniffed. ‘No woman, of course, would be allowed on such an expedition.’
‘No woman could keep up,’ he said.
Her eyes met his. ‘I think you may underestimate us.’
‘I shall be sure never to do that with you.’
‘Good,’ she said.
Cautiously, feeling his heart beating in his ears, Cash permitted his fingers to brush against hers. ‘If I may be permitted to say so, I believe I … admire you a good deal, Miss Somers.’ And felt the blood drench his face. What a fool.
Now she, who had seemed embarrassed earlier, was cool. ‘I think I feel something of the same for you, Mr Tremain,’ she smiled.
Her smile lit up the room for him. Instead of feeling a fool, he wanted to shout out loud.
‘I believe I heard the orchestra starting again,’ she said.
Cash stood. ‘Would you care to join them?’
‘But that would make it our third dance, would it not?’
‘What of it?’
‘Convention says …’
‘This is a new country. It is up to us to develop new conventions to suit us and not the other way round.’
‘I am not sure some of our elders will approve.’
‘So let them disapprove.’
They went on to the dance floor together.
EIGHT
Next morning, just before dawn, Cash came out of the cottage and walked down the hill.
Lamps shed pools of light along the jetties. The black water slopped beneath the piles, its polished surface shot with streaks and sparks of gold. Further out, the riding lights of the anchored vessels cast shimmering reflections across the cove.
Halfway down the hill he left the path and struck across the slope to a small headland overlooking the harbour. He sat on the damp grass, watching the light coming up behind the eastern rim of hills and thinking about where he was and where he was going.
My third day in the colony, he thought.
Since his arrival, things had been happening with a speed that half-excited, half-appalled him.
Three days, and already I’m in the export business. What do I know about it? Nothing, yet here I am, having to match wits with a man like Silas Pike who has forgotten more about it than I shall ever know.
Three days, and I’m committed to finding a replacement cargo for when he returns from the Cape in – what? – five months time. It means collecting thousands of sealskins, thousands, and dozens of barrels of oil, without any idea how I am supposed to get them. What if Pike comes back with his holds packed with farm goods and rum and I can’t pay for them? What happens then?
Dad will help out, he told himself. He’ll tell you what to do.
But he put me in charge. If I go to him with my problems, he’ll know I’m not capable of running things myself. I don’t want that. I want him to be proud of me. I want to be proud of myself. He can’t take too active a part, anyway, not now the Home Office has banned the Corps from trading. I’ll have to sort things out for myself.
A new day, a new challenge. The thought stirred his blood.
It was almost light now. He looked down at the tops of the trees that blanketed the ground below the headland. The wet grass was cold beneath him. A footstep crunched on a patch of gravel. Cash looked up. It was Jack.
‘I saw you down here.’
He came and sat on the grass at Cash’s side. He walked heavily and sighed as he sat down. He said no more but sat staring moodily at the cove below them. Yesterday, when he had come back from inspecting the land, he had been unable to stop talking about it – how wonderful the countryside was up-river, how rich the soil, how plentiful the water. It had been the first animation he had shown since he arrived in the colony.
Something must have happened last night, Cash thought. He slipped away early from the reception yet I was asleep before he got back to the cottage.
‘Got back all right then?’
Jack’s hand jerked. His eyes challenged him. ‘Back?’
‘Last night.’
‘Why shouldn’t I have got back all right?’
Cash wished he had kept his mouth shut. ‘No reason.’
‘Why say it then? If there’s no reason?’ A bite in his voice.
‘Centaur’s still got trouble with her rudder,’ Cash said, changing the subject.
On the barque’s deck a group of sailors was clustered in the stern. More were in a skiff moored in the water alongside. The head of the mate loomed over the others and Cash caught the faint sound of the Irishman’s voice bawling instructions. The distant figure raised its arms in furious gesticulation as the men struggled to lower the heavy rudder over the side.
Jack was not interested in Centaur or her rudder. His eyes, hot and accusing, remained fixed on Cash’s face. ‘I said why ask? If there’s no reason?’
Cash looked at his brother. ‘I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.’
‘I’m glad you realise that.’
Whatever he had been doing had certainly brought him no joy. Surely he hadn’t had another go at helping Gwen escape? If he had, it must have ended badly.
‘I wish they would hurry up and sort that rudder out. I want to see Pike on his way.’
The real test would come when they tried to load the cargo. What if Centaur couldn’t find the inlet? What if she went aground on the way in? What if someone had stolen the cargo? What if …? What if …?
If he asked Jack about the farm, perhaps it would take both their minds off their problems.
‘Does wheat grow well there?’
Jack was still on guard but at least he answered the question. ‘Reckon that slope down to the river will be grand for wheat.’ He had forgotten that Cash had never seen the farm. ‘I shall need you to give me a hand.’
Cash smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m no farmer.’
> ‘To help build a house. Nothing fancy. Bit of wood’ll do it. Just so’s I can sleep out of the rain.’
‘When do you want to do it?’
‘Soon as possible.’
Cash watched the gang of men working on the rudder. It didn’t look as though Centaur would be ready for a day or two yet.
‘What’s wrong with today?’
Jack glanced at him, tension gone from his face for the first time since he sat down. ‘Today will be fine,’ he said smiling.
*
Before they started on the building, Jack insisted they walk over the land together. He told Cash how he was going to plant this here, that there. To Jack the vision of the future was more real than the actuality – the fields already rich with wheat, with maize, with potatoes, cattle and sheep already dotting the slopes where the virgin grass grew.
The brothers cleared and levelled a patch of ground halfway up the slope, cut timber from the woodland that ran along the borders of their property, trimmed and shaped branches.
The hours passed quickly, the two of them stripped to the waist and sweating freely under the hot sun. Brilliantly coloured parrots came and looked inquisitively at them from the branches of the trees and over everything was the sweet smell of pollen and crushed grass. By the time the sun had set behind the western mountains, the framework of the hut was in place.
Cash wiped sweat from his face. ‘What are you going to use for a roof?’
‘Strips of bark should do it,’ Jack said. ‘With brushwood to keep it in place. They say that’s how the pioneers in America manage.’
‘Won’t you be cold in the winter?’
Jack grinned. ‘Reckon you’re the one’s going to be cold, not me.’
‘Why?’
‘Seal hunting …’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t the seals live far south of here? Icebergs and all? Isn’t that what they say?’
‘So they tell me.’ Cash looked at the horizon. Behind the distant mountains the evening sky flamed crimson. Soon it would be dark. ‘Best be getting back to Sydney,’ he said.
They packed up and strolled to Parramatta where they found they had to wait an hour for the tide to turn to let them get back down-river. Close by the landing, a little shack supplied hot pies and drinks to passers-by.
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