Matilda's Freedom

by Téa Cooper

  They swapped horses under the watchful eyes of both Beth and Hannah. ‘Tell your mother I’m fine, but I have to go and talk to Matilda. She’ll understand. I’ll be back home as soon as I can.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Kit—we’ll sort Mother out. Just make sure you get Matilda back for us. We don’t want her running away anymore than you do.’

  He tossed a wry grin at his younger sister and turned to leave.

  ‘Boss, go back along the Morpeth way and cut up before Slack’s Creek. You’ll get there ahead of her and then you can have the billy on.’

  ‘Thanks, Jem.’ He lifted his hat in farewell and took off down the road at a gallop. Water splashed up from the road and covered his back, but he didn’t care. If Jem was right and Kit arrived before Matilda, it would make their meeting a bit easier. They would have more of a chance to sort out this mess away from prying eyes, anyway.

  Her reaction when he had spoken to her had confused the hell out of him, but he only had himself to blame.

  Slack’s Creek had spread across to the surrounding paddocks, so Kit scanned the foothills for another route. The remains of the old government hut—once the headquarters of the road and bridge building parties—scarred the lower slopes of the hill. He walked his horse up a path that used to be the main thoroughfare to Wollombi and then picked out a wallaby track. As the track cut up into the hills, he turned right.

  The slow meander up on horseback frustrated Kit. More than once, he toyed with the idea of walking, but he persevered and eventually found himself standing before the high rock wall that signposted his destination. There was little noise, save for the odd birdcall and the incessant trickle of water over rock as it worked its way down to the valley below.

  Kit unsaddled the horse and tethered it. Then he slung the saddlebags over his shoulders and climbed up into the cave. The remains of the fire from the girls’ visit were now well and truly cold. He scouted around, gathering a few dry branches and sticks from below the rock overhang, but then saw the neat pile of timber stacked in one corner of the cave.

  Jem and his mates obviously kept the cave well-stocked; he wondered how often it was used. The last time he’d been there was when he had mapped the property with Barclay, but maybe this was one of the places Jem disappeared to when he said he was going walkabout. He’d long given up questioning the Aborigine, who pretty much came and went as he liked but still managed to be on hand in an emergency.

  With the fire lit and the billy boiling, he sat back to wait. He hoped this wasn’t one of the rare times Jem would be proven wrong.

  About half an hour later, he realised his trust in Jem’s instincts had not been misplaced. He watched from his perch as Matilda walked her horse along the track, her white shirt easily spotted through the scrub and spindly trees. Resisting the temptation to rush out and greet her, he sat back quietly by the fire and listened instead to the snapping of twigs as she walked.

  ‘Jem? Is that you, Jem?’ Her voice was tentative. ‘I know there’s someone there because I can smell smoke.’ The heels of her boots slipped on the rocky pathway at the cave’s entrance and made a scrabbling noise, but as she reached the sandy cave floor, her footfalls softened.

  Kit sat waiting silently—if she heard his voice, would she flee? His patience was rewarded moments later as Matilda’s head came into view.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Her shoulders sank, her voice exhausted. It was as though something had drained her of all energy and the mere effort of speaking was more than she could manage.

  ‘I’m getting to dislike that greeting, Matilda. That’s the second time today.’ Kit pushed himself to his feet, fighting the desire to pull her into his arms. He had no intention of making the same kind of mistake he’d made back at Bonnie’s, but he didn’t know how to deal with this new Matilda. He wanted the girl with the golden hair and wide smile back, the girl that made his heart sing and his blood run hot. Not this imitation. Not this pale and drained replica of his love.

  ‘Well, you keep turning up when I least expect it.’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘That’s the second time today you’ve said that, too.’ A confused frown flittered across her brow, and her head tilted to one side. She sank down on the floor on the opposite side of the fire.

  Respecting her apparent desire to keep a distance between them, he settled onto his haunches and gazed across at her pinched white face. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and he could tell she had been crying.

  God, he’d made a mess of things. How he wished he could rewind the clock all the way back to the moment he’d been sitting beside her in her cottage bed. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ How banal that sounded. All he wanted to do was to pull her into his arms, wipe away her tears and tell her how much he loved her.

  She inclined her head. ‘You’re well prepared. I was anticipating a cold, damp night up here.’

  ‘Jem,’ he said.

  Matilda nodded. ‘Jem. I thought it was him up here when I saw his horse.’

  ‘We swapped horses at the billabong. He’s taken the girls home.’

  ‘How did you know I was up here?’

  ‘Jem,’ he said again.

  ‘Jem seems to be the font of all knowledge. What else does he know?’

  ‘I think he sees more than all of us put together; he just doesn’t say much.’ It was a pretty meaningless discussion, and he hadn’t come up here to talk about Jem. He wanted to talk about what Matilda was planning to do, and about his mother and everything he had learnt, but he supposed the meaningless discussion might put them back on an easy footing. That was more important than anything else at the moment. ‘Jem told me to stop mucking around.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re taking advice from your stockmen now?’ The first tentative flicker of a smile teased the corner of her mouth.

  ‘I’ll take advice wherever it’s offered, as long as it’s the right advice.’ As he spoke, she leaned forward and prodded the fire with a stick, sending a flurry of sparks to the roof of the cave.

  ‘Jem showed me the handprints at the back of cave. Then he told us the story of Tiddalik, who was too greedy, and spoiled everything for everyone.’ Something snagged in his chest as Matilda’s voice wavered. ‘I think I’ve been greedy, too. I don’t want to spoil everything for everyone, and that’s why I have to leave.’

  Kit let out a long, low sigh that made the smoke from the fire spiral and blow across at Matilda. Tears spilled down her cheeks—whether from the smoke or her words, he had no idea—and for the second time that day, he had to resist the desire to take her in his arms and kiss away her misery.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Matilda could not stop the tears that trickled down her cheeks and made no attempt to wipe them away. The sting from the smoke was like an absolution, grounding her.

  Much to her surprise, she had been pleased that Kit had been waiting for her in the cave. It was better that they talked this through and Matilda explain why she couldn’t stay. She wanted to make her reasons clear to him, and perhaps in doing so, she would understand her own reactions better as well.

  ‘Kit, I wasn’t entirely honest with you from the beginning.’ There. That was a start and hadn’t been too difficult. As the tears cleared from her eyes, she found his black eyes fixed firmly on hers. He’d removed his hat. In the warmth of the fire, his hair had begun to curl around his ears and catch in his collar. It had grown since they had first met and had softened his looks, making him appear gentler, more relaxed, and less of the man about town.

  ‘When you offered me the position of companion I was happy to accept. It provided an immediate solution to my dilemma.’

  He acknowledged her comment, but she raised her hand to halt his words.

  ‘But I also thought perhaps there was more to our meeting. I entertained the possibility that you would find me attractive and we might one day marry.’

  The heat of the fire had little to do with the flush that covered her face, but she pushed
her discomfort aside and continued. ‘Once I spent some time at The Gate, however, I knew it could never be. Your mother was right—I did have ideas above my station, but I threw them away long before she made her remarks. It was obvious we could never be wed. When you started talking about Eliza and all the things she offered you, I knew I could never compete. I don’t have any connections, and I don’t have the social skills to be a society wife. I had nothing to offer you and would be a disgrace to you and your family.’

  Kit rocked back away from the fire and looked as though he was going to stand. She didn’t want him to. She couldn’t go on with this, not if he moved any closer, not if she could feel his warmth and inhale his scent.

  ‘Go on.’ His voice was low, almost angry. She knew she was offending him and making him see her in a different light, but she had to explain.

  But how?

  She had to explain that she had fallen in love with him and that was why she had given herself to him—not to try and trap, or ensnare him. In one greedy moment of childish selfishness, she had wanted for herself what she could not have.

  ‘So then I just stayed. I stayed for purely selfish reasons because I wanted to be with you, and then I …’

  ‘And then you what?’

  Why was he making this so difficult? Couldn’t he see what she had done?

  ‘Then I threw myself at you. Not for you, not for us even, but for myself because in my selfishness I wanted to take something away with me. I wanted something of you that I could keep.’

  ‘You wanted to keep something of me, something to remind you of me?’

  This was worse than having a tooth pulled. How had she managed to get herself into this situation?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  Kit was being impossible. He would squeeze the last bit of pride from her and leave her drained. Now Matilda knew how Tiddalik must have felt, and she must end this before he turned her to stone.

  ‘Because I had fallen in love with you.’ She said the words very, very quietly, incapable of lying but hoping against hope he wouldn’t hear. She had finally said it, but she could still not look him in the face. She didn’t want to see the rejection in his eyes.

  He stood up, walked around the fire and then squatted next to her. She lifted her palms as a warning to him to stay back. If he came too close, she would dissolve into a screaming mess of misery at his feet.

  ‘Matilda. Look at me.’

  She turned, knuckling away her tears. ‘But I …’

  Placing his warm finger against her trembling lips, he hushed her quietly.

  His deep voice was calm and soothing, but she feared the worst. It was the voice people used when they were delivering bad news, and she didn’t want to hear it.

  ‘There is no problem. And there is nothing we cannot solve if you will just let me speak and explain.’

  A tiny glimmer of hope flared in her breast. She gritted her teeth and doused it.

  ‘It is true that when we met I thought to offer you assistance, but I also had the desire to keep you close to me. You captivated me from the moment I first saw you and—to be honest—aroused my baser instincts. Then, as the days passed, I discovered it was not simply your looks that enthralled me. I liked you. I liked spending time in your company, and in the same way you freed the girls from their inhibitions, you freed me too. You’ve brought out something better from within me.’

  Colour flooded her face. She remembered berating him and telling him that he was not the man she had thought he was. How could she have done that? She was not the woman she’d thought she was either.

  ‘My marriage to Eliza was conceived long before either of us were even out of the schoolroom. It was a dream of my mother’s, and the culmination of a plan forged long ago with Barclay. I thought it would lessen the guilt she felt at having conceived me out of wedlock and at not being able offer me what she saw as my birthright. But that is not the whole story.’

  Matilda turned to face Kit. He stared into the fire as though in a trance, perhaps remembering back to a time when he hadn’t had the security of a home and a family. No wonder he had so easily understood her plight.

  ‘You were right. I am not the man you thought I was, and not even the man I thought myself be. My mother didn’t lie to me, except perhaps by omission, and had simply not told me everything. I, to be honest, had never thought to ask.’

  Matilda sat as still as she could, not daring to move. She could sense a change in Kit, as though the final pieces of a puzzle were settling into place.

  ‘My mother and I arrived here together. She was transported here as a convict, and I accompanied her. She was to serve a seven year sentence for theft.’

  A gasp slipped out from between Matilda’s lips, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

  ‘My mother stayed at the Female Factory at Parramatta until I was almost four and due to be sent to a school for orphans. She accepted Barclay’s offer of marriage so we could stay together, and he provided us with all of the things she couldn’t. Theirs was a marriage of convenience, but they had common goals and within that marriage they grew to love each other. When you and I met, I had been away for three years. Nothing in my mother’s mind had changed—she had no desire to go back to a life she had well and truly moved on from, and with Barclay’s death she feared that might become a very real possibility. Although it is not something I am proud of, I had grown up with the idea of marrying Eliza for so long that I had accepted it almost un fait accompli.’

  She stared at Kit and tried frantically to make sense of his words. Was he telling her that his mother—the woman with all the airs and graces, and the arrogant attitude—was no better than her convict father? If so, what did that make Kit? Why, a currency kid, the same as she.

  A small laugh escaped Matilda’s lips. Kit turned to her and slipped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. This time she didn’t resist. Sighing, she nestled her head against him and relaxed into the comfort and security of his arms.

  ‘When I made that ludicrous suggestion to you and asked you to become my mistress, that was from was my selfishness, not yours. I simply could not envisage my world without you in it. That’s why I left for Sydney so quickly. I knew that if I didn’t leave then, then I never would. I hadn’t realised how far in the past I was living. By the time I reached Horseshoe Creek to stop for the night, I knew I could never go to Sydney and follow through with it. Not only had I dishonoured you, but I would also be dishonouring Eliza, who would be an innocent bystander in the whole sorry affair. She knew nothing of the circumstances that had evolved.’

  Kit rested his cheek against hers, his breath warm against her face.

  ‘To hear you say you had fallen in love with me had filled me with the greatest happiness I have ever known. My only hope is that I haven’t killed that love with my boorish, foolish suggestion because, my darling, I love you more than life itself.’

  He loved her. She wasn’t quite sure what she should do or say. If he had said those words to her three days ago, a week ago even, she would have shouted for joy from the top of the highest hilltop. Now, she could do nothing more than sit and silently revel in the peace and calmness that his declaration evoked. There was a certain rightness and symmetry to his words, but they didn’t make her heart sing and they wouldn’t solve their problems.

  After a few moments, Matilda slid her hand into the pocket of her breeches and felt the unwelcome bulk of Richard Bainbridge’s letter.

  They had one more bridge to cross, and as ridiculous as she knew she was being, she had to cross it. As much as she loved this man, she had no intention of the situation going further with any half-truths or dishonesty in her heart. There had been enough of that to last them both a lifetime.

  Would it make a difference? Once he knew that she was no longer the pauper she had claimed to be, would his feelings change? She wanted him to love her and want her for herself, not for her connections and money. She didn’t want to be
another Eliza Ramsbottom.

  Matilda cleared her throat, but her voice sounded hushed—almost timid—when she finally spoke. ‘Thank you, Kit. You have no idea how much it means to me to hear those words, but they still don’t solve our problems. Even if your mother accepts me, your family still has a standing in the Wollombi and Sydney communities. Any relationship you had with me would be frowned upon. You would be ostracized by their society, and any chance of a political career would instantly vanish.’

  ‘But, darling, I don’t want a political career. I’d happily throw it all away to be with you. What I want is to settle in Wollombi, and grow our grapes, and live peacefully together.’

  ‘You might say that now but would that really be enough for you? Wouldn’t you wake up one day, maybe five or ten years down the track, and regret that decision?’

  Kit shook his head gently, but she was determined to finally have the security she craved. ‘And what about your mother—she would forever hold me responsible for shattering her dreams and your chances.’

  ‘I think you should stop there for a moment. Let me tell you something—when I returned to The Gate, I had hardly had the opportunity to tell my mother about my feelings for you before she interrupted, asking me why it had taken so long to come to my senses. She knew all along that I was in love with you. It was then that she told me her story, my story.’

  It was easy for him to say that now, but that didn’t sound like the Mrs Barclay she had come to know. ‘Then why did she continue with her encouragement and arrange for Eliza to come and stay?’

  ‘I asked Mother that, too, and she said it was because she wanted me to be sure this was what I wanted. She and I both realise my decision will have an impact on our lives at The Gate. Barclay was a kind-hearted man and a good provider, but I will really have to make a go of my farming enterprise. Hopefully, Hannah and Beth will secure good marriages. You and I will be comfortable but not well off, my love. But we will get by. With you by my side, I know we can do it. Our love is a gift from God and we should not throw it away for the sake of a few extra pennies.’