For now. The words hung heavy in the air.
Hannah looked at the white china plates and silver forks and spoons, the crisp white tablecloth and the elegant mahogany chairs. She hated them. She hated the silver toast-rack, the delicate pink china cups and saucers, the dresses that James bought her, and the tiny satin slippers that were already coated in a thick layer of yellow dust. Everything reminded her of her old life in London, and she knew that the one thing she truly wanted from that old life, she couldn’t have.
‘You must be exhausted,’ said James.
‘Yes,’ said Hannah.
‘You’ve been through a lot.’
‘Yes.’
James nodded. ‘You may go to bed early tonight,’ he said. ‘I shan’t ask you to stay up with me.’
Hannah rose and left the table, feeling like a little girl again.
James had taken up an administrative position in Parramatta, overseeing the distribution of convict labour to the free settlers. Hannah was left on her own for most of the day. Occasionally, James’s work would take him to Sydney for a few days, and then Hannah would see no one other than the shy girl who dressed her and brought her cups of tea in the morning, and the butler when he came to serve the evening meal.
Every Thursday, James would stay out until the small hours of the morning. Hannah would wake to the first pale light appearing, and hear James swearing and stumbling up the hallway, his voice thick with drink.
The first few times, she shrank into her bedclothes, terrified that he would burst into her room and demand that she offer herself to him. But he never did, and Hannah remembered the women at the factory dancing the mermaid dance, blue numbers daubed on their backs, paint dripping down over their buttocks and thighs.
She imagined James standing in the ring of clapping, jeering men. He wouldn’t come into her room. He was already getting his fill.
Hannah spent her days wandering around the house and surrounds, and staring out the window over the flat farmland towards the looming blue-grey mountains to the west and thinking about Thomas.
She remembered when she had first met him. She had been only eleven years old. He seemed so much bigger, so old and grown up, although Hannah now realised he couldn’t have been more than sixteen.
Hannah’s father had let her nurse go. ‘Rag-mannered bluestocking’, he called her, scowling heavily under perfectly shaped eyebrows. ‘And you’re getting too old for a nurse anyway,’ he had added. ‘I’ll hire you a tutor. Someone who’s been to Oxford.’
Hannah had loved her nurse, and cried and pleaded with her father to reinstate her, but he was adamant.
‘Only the best for my little princess,’ he said.
Hannah had resolved to hate her new tutor.
He had arrived at their front door, hat in hand, a parcel of books tucked under one arm, just as he always did for the next three years. He was a large man, and he hunched over self-consciously when he went to shake Arthur Cheshire’s hand. Hannah took one look at him – his unkempt pale hair like straw, his silver-rimmed spectacles – and burst into tears, fleeing up to her bedroom where she refused to come out.
He had followed her and tapped on the door.
‘Go away!’ Hannah had said. ‘I want my nurse!’
Hannah heard a sliding noise and a soft thump, as Mr Behr had sat down in the corridor outside her bedroom door.
‘Do you like stories?’ he asked.
Hannah had paused mid-sob. ‘What kind of stories?’
‘Oh, all sorts,’ Mr Behr had said. ‘Princesses and trolls and witches and castles.’
He had paused.
‘Go on,’ said Hannah, sniffing.
She heard Mr Behr chuckle.
‘Well,’ he had said. ‘My favourite is a story about a girl called Scatterheart, who was very beautiful, but selfish and vain. Her heart was as fickle as the changing winds…’
Hannah stared out the thick glass window. She tried once more to remember how Scatterheart’s story ended, but her mind was still a blank. Perhaps there would never be a happy ending.
The convict butler discreetly entered the room and placed another log on the fire. Hannah turned to look at him. He looked about forty, with thinning hair and a slight limp.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
The butler looked at his shoes. ‘Pete, madam,’ he said. ‘Pete Levine.’
‘Nice to meet you, Pete,’ said Hannah. ‘I’m Hannah.’
‘Yes, madam,’ said Pete.
‘What did you do?’ asked Hannah. ‘To get here?’
Pete looked uncomfortable. ‘Please be excusin’ me, madam, but Lieutenant Belforte told us we weren’t to talk to you.’
Hannah blushed. ‘Oh.’
Pete let himself out of the room without a word. Hannah stared out the window. The only colour between the grey skies and the brown earth was the stripe of blue-grey that was the westerly mountains.
Hannah wondered what was on the other side, and dimly remembered James saying something about an expedition to cross them, and a new road.
She closed her eyes. After Mr Behr had finished telling her Scatterheart’s story that first time, she had opened her door and come out into the corridor. Her eyes had been red from crying, and she was still sniffling. But her mind whirled with the story of Scatterheart and the white bear. She had shyly taken Mr Behr’s hand, and he had led her downstairs to the sitting room, where they had talked about history and geography and stories.
His hand had been so large, it had engulfed hers entirely. It was a soft hand, soft as velvet. His eyes had sparkled as he talked about stars and discoveries and adventures. His enthusiasm was infectious, and Hannah clasped her hands together and leaned forward in her chair with her mouth open, eager to hear about far-off lands and enchanted castles. When the grandfather clock in the hallway had chimed twelve, he stood up to leave. Hannah couldn’t wait for their next lesson. She had already completely forgotten her nurse.
Hannah heard the scraping of feet, and turned to look out another window. A native was shuffling down the road that led to Parramatta, dragging his feet in the dirt. Hannah held her breath. She had heard stories about the natives from the women in the factory. They were cannibals, violent and unpredictable. Lured the children away from the town with their singing and dancing, and then…
Hannah shuddered. The native’s head snapped up and looked in her direction, showing the bright whites of his eyes. Hannah shrank back into her chair.
‘Savages,’ James had called them. ‘Stay away from them, they’re animals.’
His words had made Hannah think of Long Meg and Molly. She wondered where Molly was, and hoped that she had found a good home where she would be loved and looked after. On their way back from the Female Factory, Hannah had asked James if Molly could come and live with them.
‘The freak?’ James had said, his face twisting. ‘I don’t think so.’
The native shuffled off, and Hannah relaxed. A wave of weariness swept over her, and she climbed the stairs to her room and crawled into her bed. It was still morning, but already the day had dragged on too long.
She felt under her pillow – a feather-pillow that James had gone into Sydney Town to buy for her – and drew out a little bundle of ragged cloth.
Unwrapping Thomas’s handkerchief, she looked down at the broken and twisted frames of his spectacles. She waited for the grief to come, the tears, the sobbing. But nothing happened. With a sigh, she curled up on her bed.
She slept fitfully, dreaming that she awoke to James returning home.
‘I have brought you a bridal gift,’ he said, dumping a bulky paper package on the dining table.
Hannah opened the package to reveal a thick, white bearskin rug. The bear’s head, stuffed and lifeless, stared at her with mournful glass eyes.
Hannah awoke with a start and looked around the room. How long had she been asleep? A minute? An hour?
The front door banged. ‘Hannah!’ James was home.
/>
He called her name again, and Hannah sighed and slid off the bed.
He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her. Her heart caught a little to see him, still so handsome. She wished she could go back to the happy, ignorant days on the Derby Ram where she had believed him to be a true gentleman, her handsome prince. If she could still believe that, how happy she would be now.
‘I have to make a short trip into Sydney,’ he said. ‘I thought perhaps you would like to accompany me.’
He paused, clearly waiting for the gratitude that he felt this statement deserved. Hannah just nodded, and returned to her room.
They took a small private boat down the river to Sydney the next morning.
It felt good to be on the water again, the familiar rocking of a boat, the gentle lapping of small waves against the hull. Hannah said so to James, who raised his eyebrows.
‘I thought you would be keen to forget that particular experience,’ he said.
Hannah thought about it. She had certainly experienced some terrible things on board the Derby Ram. But she also remembered the sun shining on her face, and the wind whispering through her hair. She remembered joking with Long Meg. She remembered how sweet the water had tasted when they stopped in Cape Town.
‘What about you?’ she said. ‘Don’t you want to go back to London? Play piquet and drink brandy at White’s?’
James shrugged. ‘I like it here,’ he added. ‘I like the idea of taming the wilderness. Making it civilised.’
Hannah looked down the river, at the twisted low grey and green trees and thick snarls of undergrowth. She didn’t think it could ever be tamed.
As the countryside slipped slowly by, Hannah found herself relaxing. The rhythm of the water was soothing, and the sun made her sleepy. She was on the point of drifting off when she heard a rustling of leaves on the bank. Hannah started as a native appeared on the riverbank.
It was a woman – as brown as mahogany. She wore a sort of string belt which had a number of animal skins hanging from it, covering her private areas. Her breasts hung low and bare, reaching almost to her belly.
Hannah stared. She thought of Long Meg, grey and cold and naked on Dr Ullathorne’s operating table. This woman looked so alive. She moved like she was made from water, graceful and flowing. The sun gleamed on her dark skin. Her hair was a mass of wild black fuzz.
She looked at James, Hannah and the convict boatman, and a vague look of contempt passed over her face. There was another rustle, and a small child stepped out of the bushes behind her. He was completely naked. The woman said something to him, and the child burst out laughing, flashing his white teeth. Hannah thought of Molly, laughing at Long Meg, or a Mr Bear story.
James turned at the noise, and saw the natives. He reached out a hand and covered Hannah’s eyes.
‘Don’t look at them,’ he said.
Hannah pushed James’s hand away and looked back at the natives as the boat continued on down the river. She thought that the woman had found them disgusting, too.
‘Hannah!’ James said sharply. ‘You should not look at such a vulgar display of…’ he paused, searching for a word that could appropriately convey his revulsion, ‘savageness.’
James shook his head. ‘Damn murkies,’ he said. ‘Can’t even put them to work,’ he said. ‘They’re worse than convicts.’
Late that afternoon, the boat anchored on the outskirts of Sydney Town. A few ramshackle wooden huts stood near the tiny wharf, and Hannah could smell animal manure. A dirty goat was tethered to a post, bleating plaintively. A carriage was waiting to convey Hannah and James to their hotel. A few scrawny children danced around the carriage horse – horses were rare in the colony, and only the rich could afford them for anything other than ploughing and farm-work.
James offered Hannah his hand to help her into the carriage, but she ignored it and climbed up on her own. James followed her, and rapped sharply on the roof. The groom uttered a sharp command to the horse and the carriage rumbled off.
Hannah peered out the window of the carriage, looking around the growing town with interest. She had barely glimpsed it on arrival. The streets were wide – mostly unpaved, but some paved in yellow sandstone, and some in what looked like blocks of wood. The buildings were simple yet elegant, either made of the yellow stone that seemed to be everywhere, or whitewashed timber. Cottages stood in neat rows, with shady verandahs and immaculate kitchen gardens, trimmed with geranium hedges.
They passed an elegant three-storey house made of sandstone. A delicate verandah sloped over the street. An immaculately dressed man sat underneath it on a cane chair, sipping at a tall glass. He was very handsome, and winked at Hannah as she stared from the window of the carriage.
‘Filth.’ James scowled.
Hannah was surprised. ‘Isn’t he a gentleman?’
‘A gentleman! That’s Simeon Lord. He is an ex-convict. Made a fortune through trade.’
James said the word as if it were an oath.
‘Oh,’ said Hannah, looking back at the grand house as the carriage rumbled past. It looked much more stylish than James’s ugly squat house.
‘You must learn, Hannah,’ said James, ‘that money is no indication of Quality. It doesn’t matter how fancy your house is. Once convict scum, always convict scum.’
Hannah said nothing, but thought of James’s father, rich from selling buttons.
James pointed from the window of the carriage. ‘See there? Those ladies sitting on that verandah? They may wear fine dresses and have silk slippers, but look at their hands and faces. As filthy as pigs.’
He pointed again. ‘And that young dandy crossing the road ahead of us. He must have a dozen rings on his fingers. His shirt-pins are bejewelled, and his pocket-watch is solid gold. Yet he wears no stockings or socks on his feet. For heaven’s sake, you can see his ankles.’
The disgust in his voice was plain, and Hannah miserably thought of her father’s well-tailored coats and gleaming hessians. Then she thought of Thomas’s ill-fitting hand-me-downs and battered spectacles and sighed.
The carriage rumbled on, through a busy market that stank of fish and rotting fruit. Caged many-coloured birds screeched and flapped.
There were men in cages too, skin pulled tautly over their hungry bones. One man had no skin at all on his chest or back, just angry-looking flesh, shiny like the burn on Molly’s face. His collar bones rose from the twisted flesh, white and shining like the top of Hannah’s father’s walking stick. Hannah looked away, feeling ill.
‘What happened to that man?’ she asked.
‘Two hundred lashes is called a “feeler”,’ he said. ‘When they’ve had too many, the skin doesn’t grow back.’
Hannah looked back at the man. A thick, savage scar slashed diagonally across his face from his left temple, down over his left eye, his nose, and dividing his lips before disappearing under his jawbone.
‘Disgusting,’ said James.
Market stalls were piled high with brightly-coloured fruits that Hannah didn’t recognise. They shone and glowed red, green and yellow. Hannah thought of the mangos she had eaten in Cape Town, and remembered the sharp metallic taste of blood when she had bitten James.
She realised absently that he was talking to her again.
‘Hmm?’ she said.
He frowned. ‘I was asking whether there is anything you desire me to buy you while we are here.’
Hannah hesitated. She was loathe to ask, but she was getting desperate. ‘Do you think,’ she said, summoning up her courage. ‘Do you think I could perhaps have a small number of books?’
The frown on James’s face deepened. ‘What do you want books for?’
‘To read,’ said Hannah. Wasn’t that obvious?
James shook his head. ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate for young ladies to be filling their heads with nonsense from novels and romances,’ he said.
‘You sound like my father,’ she said.
‘Your father w
as a sensible man,’ said James.
The carriage rumbled to a halt outside a large yellow building. Two skinny little boys wearing short pants and no shoes came running up to take their bags inside.
James climbed down from the carriage and Hannah followed, once again ignoring his offered arm.
They entered the hotel. The lobby was cool and quiet. The floor was marble, and the brass railings on the staircase gleamed. James looked around and sniffed.
‘Very cramped,’ he said. ‘But it’s the only respectable hotel in town.’
Hannah thought it looked nice. The two little boys deposited the last of their bags, and stood grinning at Hannah and James. One took off his hat and held it in his grubby hands.
‘Thank you, boys,’ said Hannah, smiling at them both.
‘Pleasure, miss,’ said the boy holding his hat. He had a cheerful round face that was smudged with dirt. She wondered if Molly was wandering the streets of Sydney, carrying bags for rich people.
She turned to James. ‘Do you have a penny or two for these boys?’
‘No,’ he said, and turned to climb the stairs. ‘I don’t give money to convicts.’
Hannah blushed and smiled apologetically at the boys. The round-faced boy scowled at her. The other one just shrugged, and they turned and left the hotel. Hannah began to follow James up the stairs, but stopped halfway.
‘Aren’t I one of those filthy convicts?’ she said.
James turned and looked at her sharply.
‘No,’ he said, firm. ‘You are not. You are a young lady of Quality. Your father was a well-respected London gentleman. You will tell no one how you came to be here.’
They had a small set of rooms on the third floor of the hotel, looking out over Sydney harbour.
‘A maid will be up shortly to help you dress,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back later to escort you to dinner.’
Hannah didn’t wonder where he was going. She didn’t really care.
The suite comprised of a dressing room, sitting room and bedroom. Hannah eyed the large bed with its embroidered damask quilt with suspicion. She was not sharing a bed with James, not for anything. Not even for books.
Scatterheart Page 20