When she brought it to him he said, ‘Are you worried about being here by yourself? After what happened, I mean?’
She shook her head vigorously, gulping. Her eyes were red.
‘You haven’t had any more trouble? From Thornton?’
‘Nah.’
‘Because, if you have …’
‘I’ll be oright,’ she said.
He wondered if perhaps she had hoped for more from their relationship than had happened. ‘People believe I brought you down from Parramatta to sleep with you,’ he said angrily. ‘You know that?’
Didn’t you? He waited for her to say it.
‘Who cares what they think?’
‘I mean, you do your job really well. I’m pleased.’ He was floundering.
They looked at each other.
‘The way I was before,’ she said. ‘A lot diff’rent from now.’
He was not sure he understood. ‘So?’
‘I done oright, coming ’ere.’
Now he understood – she was telling him not to worry.
‘Don’t you care what people say about you?’
She shook her head. ‘Used to it, see? That friend of yours what used to come ’ere …’
He frowned. ‘Friend?’
‘That Jane Somers … The one who thinks I lived such an interestin’ life.’ She mimicked her to perfection.
‘What about her?’ Cash said, smiling.
‘She thinks I’m a whore.’
Cash was embarrassed now, knowing she was right.
‘Since I bin ’ere,’ Cuddy said, ‘no man’s touched me but you.’
His eyes found hers. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have either.’
More tears now. ‘I wanted you to.’
The cottage creaked and sighed, shifting as the heat of the day left now that night had come.
Cash stood up, putting his glass on the table beside his chair. He remembered Carter’s hot, spiteful eyes. Ye presume to come to me, sir, a penniless adventurer, and ask permission to call on my daughter? The answer is no, sir. No.
He kissed Cuddy’s mouth, tasting her tears.
More fell as she looked up at him. ‘I’m not what you want,’ she said. ‘I knows that. But I lives only for you.’
Out in the open at last.
He remembered her as she had been, trying to see in her tear-stained face the strident harlot who had jeered at him in the tavern at Parramatta. He could not send her away.
She said, ‘I don’ want to stay just because you’re sorry for me.’
‘You’re here because you work for me. I am pleased with your work, I just told you. Why should I get rid of you?’
An errant gust of wind blew momentarily around the house. A moth that had somehow got in fluttered close to the candle flame.
‘What do we do then?’ she asked.
‘We carry on as we are. But perhaps we should stop what we’ve been doing.’
She looked at him candidly, without fear. ‘You don’ want me no more.’
God knew that was not true. But if they carried on with what should never have started, the whole basis of their relationship would change. They would become like his father and Maud Clark. Would that be such a bad thing? It would be honest, at least. Or would it? Their relationship was good, it was gentle. It was not love.
He had felt the ground shift under his feet when he first saw Virginia Carter. Her father’s prohibition notwithstanding, it was quaking still.
‘It is not a question of what I want or don’t want,’ he said eventually. ‘I am going away very soon, as you know. I shall be gone for two months at least, probably more. I want you to stay on and look after the place for me. If you feel you need protection, I’ll speak to my father and arrange it. Anything else …’ He thought and made up his mind. ‘I think we would be wiser to leave it.’
He picked up one of the candles. He gave her a quick half-smile, struggling to restore the formality that should exist between master and maid, knowing it was far too late for that.
‘I am going to bed, now. Can I leave you to put out the candles?’
She looked at him, eyes wide, face white. She nodded.
He went into his bedroom and closed the door behind him.
In the empty room, the moth continued to beat its wings in the outer limits of the candlelight. So far, somehow, it had avoided the flame. Cuddy began to blow out the candles, one by one.
Slowly, Cash undressed. It was a good thing to have finished it. It had been a foolish impulse, something that should never have started. It would have been unfair to her to let it continue.
The sooner I get away the better, he thought. At least down south I only have to worry about the weather, the crew, the seals, the natives …
He climbed into bed. He turned to blow out the candle and the door opened. Cuddy stood in the opening.
‘Yes?’
She hesitated. ‘I wanted to say I was sorry.’
‘No need to be.’
‘You should send me back.’
She had said it before.
‘Do you want to go back?’
She shook her head. ‘It would be best.’
‘It would be very bad.’
She wailed as fresh tears came. ‘But we can’t go on like this …’
What he had said to Virginia.
She was kneeling by the bed, her face buried in the blanket.
‘Stop it,’ he said. ‘Stop it at once.’
The high, wet keening continued.
‘If you are not quiet,’ he told her, ‘I shall take you out the back and lock you in.’
Slowly her tears quietened to a series of sniffs and hiccups. He looked down at her. His resistance was crumbling. Consideration of what was sensible, what was right failed before the treacherous emotions of sympathy and affection. Gently, knowing exactly what he was doing, he laid his hand on her hair.
She lifted her head and looked at him through eyes swimming with tears. She sniffed. He gave her a handkerchief and she blew her nose.
‘Let me stay with you,’ she said.
It was madness, for her and for him. It could lead only to heartache and betrayal.
The answer is no, sir. No.
He pulled back the bedclothes.
‘Come,’ he said.
*
The next morning Cash walked down the hill to the wharf to check the supplies being loaded on board Nantucket. He could have left it to Hank – the mate was more than capable of handling it – but he wanted to be there. There was so much to learn. He was conscious all the time of how little he knew, of his lack of practical experience.
He watched the sacks and drums come inboard, the flour, the biscuit, the dried meat. His attention wandered. He thought of what had happened last night.
All his good intentions had melted, like ice in summer. No excuses. He had known exactly what he was doing. He had told himself he would not do it, told her he would not do it. Just the same, he had done it. It had not even been lust, or not only lust. It had happened because he liked her and was sorry for her. A more fatal reason for his conduct would be hard to imagine.
She had cried out at one point, her head thrown back as she knelt above him, his hands on her breasts.
‘I love you, Cash. I love you.’
God forgive me, he thought.
The stores on board, he walked forward with Hank to check they had all the equipment they needed – the clubs, flensing knives, blubber pots and boilers. When they were finished the mate accompanied him to the rail.
‘Ebb starts at four bells, forenoon watch,’ Hank said. Ten o’clock in the morning, shore time.
‘We’ll leave then. It’ll give us a good run down harbour with the tide under us. Make sure all the crew’s on board tonight.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Hank said, ‘they’ll be here, if I have to carry the bastards on board myself.’
Cash nodded. ‘I’ll come aboard at two bells.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Orion deliv
ered her cargo of timber to Batavia and three weeks after Nantucket’s departure for the Southern Ocean the American vessel returned with her holds bulging with liquor – rum from Calcutta, from Bombay, even from Jamaica. The cargo was unloaded and stored in Thornton’s warehouse for shipment to the taverns and grog shops about the colony.
Two days after her arrival Ira Thornton travelled up-river in his private cutter and moored alongside the landing that Jonathan Hagwood had had constructed on the riverbank below Elizabeth Knoll.
Jonathan met him at the landing and they walked up to the house together along the covered walkway that now connected the two.
‘It will keep our visitors dry in wet weather,’ Jonathan explained.
Thornton looked across the paddock at an enclosure newly fenced with white-painted palings. ‘That where tha’s got thy new sheep?’ He was watching Jonathan out of the corner of his eye and saw his lips tighten fractionally. Inwardly, he smiled. The new shipment of animals from Spain was supposed to have been a secret but nothing in the colony could live or breathe without Ira Thornton knowing about it. ‘All right, are they? After the voyage?’
‘They’re doing very well.’
‘What do they call ’em? Merinos, is it?’
‘Yes. They are the best wool-producing sheep in Europe. I arranged with the commodore of that Spanish squadron that visited here last February to have some sent out to me.’
Thornton looked dubious. ‘Long way from ’ome. Think they’ll do all right?’
He spoke with less than his usual authority. Sheep, he thought. What do I know about sheep? Or land, come to that? But land was money – everybody knew that – and he had made it his business to learn as much about it as he could. It was one of his great strengths: he was never slow to learn, or to admit lack of knowledge, where there was the possibility of profit.
‘Reckon there’s money to be made in wool?’
‘I am confident it will be the basis of a whole new industry,’ Jonathan said. ‘There’s no shortage of grazing land here. For all we know, there may be more on the other side of those damn mountains that no one seems able to cross. I believe there’s a fortune to be made out of sheep and I intend to be in on it from the start.’
They crossed the terrace and walked side by side up the sweeping staircase to the first floor where Jonathan had his study. Halfway up, they met Elizabeth coming down. She was wearing a flowing white dress in a simple style that Thornton had not seen before. He thought it made her look little more than a child.
Secretly, Ira Thornton was a little in awe of her. She was the only woman he admired; not for her looks, which did not interest him, but because of the acute business brain he sensed behind the large brown eyes.
‘Good morning, Mr Thornton.’ She did not pause.
He inclined his head to her. ‘Morning, ma’am.’
He knew she did not return his own high opinion of her. He regretted it but did not let it trouble him. He could not remember when last he had been worried by what other people thought of him.
They sat in Jonathan’s study. Through long bay windows behind the mahogany desk there were views over Jonathan’s land towards the bridge.
‘So Orion is back,’ Jonathan said.
‘Back and unloaded,’ Ira confirmed. ‘Should do right well out of ’er cargo, too. Even the taverns that aren’t ours buys their stocks from us. An’ we got twenty-five of our own now,’ he gloated. ‘Twenty-five! Way colony’s growin’, we’ll ’ave a ’undred ’fore we’re through.’
‘Excellent.’ Jonathan leant back in his chair. ‘I’ve got some news too.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Minerva. Cargo of farm goods. We don’t bid for it.’
Thornton’s expression sharpened. ‘How come?’
‘The governor’s authorised the government store to buy the lot.’
Thornton rubbed his chin. ‘That right?’
Jonathan smiled smugly. ‘Big market for farm supplies. The store will sell to us as we need them, of course.’
‘’ow much?’
‘What would you say to one per cent over cost?’
Thornton whistled under his breath. ‘Reckon ’is Excellency will be happy with so little?’
Jonathan dismissed His Excellency with a wave of his hand. ‘He doesn’t care, so long as the store makes a profit.’
‘We buys at that price, we’ll make a huge profit on everything. Huge. And no need to lay out our own brass neither.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Allus knew we was right to go into business together, you ’n’ me,’ Thornton said generously.
‘All the same,’ Jonathan said, ‘we need to review our operations. Especially now Carter’s arrived. We can expect some tough competition from him, I fancy. I think we should diversify.’
Thornton walked to the window and looked out at the quiet river at the bottom of the hill. He did not know how Hagwood could stand being buried out here in the country. Personally, he always felt lost away from the bustle of the Sydney waterfront. He could never get enough of the movement, the smell, of commerce. He turned to look towards the bridge and Jonathan saw his profile. He was as thin as ever. Prosperity had not thickened the knife-thin figure, the lean and avaricious jaw. He never seemed to eat; he did nothing but plot and scheme and make money.
With his back to the room, Thornton said, ‘Diversify into what?’
‘Sealing looks profitable. Perhaps we should try that.’
Thornton turned. ‘It’s allus bin profitable, ’appen tha wasn’t too keen, last time I mentioned it.’
Jonathan glared, heat in his face. ‘I had no objection to sealing. You were talking about settling scores. That was what I disliked. I still do.’
Thornton stalked back to his chair. ‘Tha was t’ one wanted to settle with Silas Pike, as I recall. But tha’s right,’ he added hastily as Jonathan opened his mouth. ‘Mebbe it is time we had a look at sealin’ again. I see that Tremain brat’s gone south again. There’s got to be money in it, sure enough.’
‘We should have bid for Nantucket when she was on the market,’ Jonathan said.
‘If we’d started biddin’ ’gainst one another, likely we’d ’ave ended up payin’ too much. And this way Tremain will mebbe think we’re not interested.’
‘What good does that do us?’
Light glowed at the back of the pale eyes. ‘’appen we’ll surprise ’im.’
It was about time, Thornton thought. More than time, by God. He had thought to settle matters with the Tremains when he’d set Owen on Centaur but the damned fool had made a mess of it and the vessel had escaped. Now, with Jones back, perhaps the time had come.
‘How do you propose to do that?’ Jonathan asked.
‘Orville Jones.’
Jonathan frowned. ‘Orion’s not a sealer. Nor is Jones.’
‘Can be right useful to us, all the same. Got skills, Jones ’as.’
Jones? Jonathan thought. He’s a pirate – for all his fancy clothes. What skills has he got that would be of any use to us?
Troubled, he looked at Thornton across the desk. Saw the steely glint in his eyes.
Jones was a pirate.
‘’appen we’ll surprise ’im …’
‘Now wait a minute …’
Thornton raised his hand, smiling broadly. ‘Best hold on, lad, afore tha says summat tha might regret.’
‘How do you intend to use Orville Jones?’
The pale eyes were inflexible. ‘Mebbe tha’s best off not knowin’,’ he said, ‘seeing’ as ’ow tha don’t like folks settlin’ old scores.’
It was Jonathan’s turn to get up. He paced agitatedly about the room while Thornton watched him, face composed.
My God, Jonathan thought, brain racing. Thornton wants to get into the sealing business. He’s got a score to settle with Cash Tremain. Now he’s talking of sending Jones … Jones the pirate. I can’t go along with it. Mustn’t. We’re talking piracy, here. Murder. He can�
��t mean what I’m thinking.
Thornton said, ‘I ’ear Crabbe’s goin’ to authorise twenty new land allocations this week.’
Jonathan’s eyes lit up. ‘I’d better put in a bid myself. I’d like all the land from here to the bridge.’
‘If tha takes my advice, tha’ll hold off for a while,’ Thornton told him.
Jonathan’s close-set eyes regarded him suspiciously. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Land prices are set for a fall.’
Jonathan frowned. ‘Impossible! Settlers and emancipists are clamouring for land.’
‘’appen that’ll change. Funny what people will do for grog,’ he said. ‘Spends all they got, some does. More.’ The hard face creased into what might have been a smile. ‘I told thee about the credit I bin givin’. Crops are comin’ along right well, now. Reckon it’s time to ask for our money back.’
‘They won’t be able to pay anything before harvest.’
‘I knows that! Shame, ain’t it? So we’ll just ’ave to take their land off ’em in settlement.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘An’ all for a few bottles o’ grog that cost us mebbe five shillin’ a gallon, an’ that’s before we put in the water!’
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour. Ira glanced at it. It was a fine piece – mahogany, with an inlaid silver dial – one of the trinkets that Jonathan picked up from time to time. Maybe he should buy something like it for himself. He did not eat or drink much but there were other ways of demonstrating wealth.
‘How many acres are you talking about?’ Jonathan asked.
‘Five hundred ’n’ twenty, all told.’
‘Five hundred and twenty?’
‘That’s for now. There’ll be more, later.’
Jonathan was astounded and envious. At a stroke it would make Thornton the biggest landowner in the colony.
‘I congratulate you,’ he said, hoping he sounded more enthusiastic than he felt.
‘Us,’ said Thornton softly.
Jonathan stared. ‘Us?’
‘Taverns belong to both of us.’
A pause. It had not occurred to him.
‘That’s very handsome,’ Jonathan said.
The two men regarded each other across the desk.
‘Why are you doing this?’
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