Mrs Morgan did not say whether she believed Cat’s story or not.
‘You have led a very interesting life.’ Her expression changed. ‘Heavens! That poor man! I had completely forgotten him –’
She opened the kitchen door and Cat heard her speaking to the soldier outside. ‘I believe Haggard and I will get along very well. Thank Mrs Conroy for me and say I shall call on her in a day or two to complete the paperwork.’
She shut the door and gave Cat a look. ‘Am I right? Shall we get along very well, do you think?’
‘I hope so, ma’am. I’ll do my level best –’
Mrs Morgan cut her short. ‘Let me show you the rest of the house.’
The large living room was panelled in white-painted wood, with views of the sun-dappled river through the trees and with doors opening to a veranda that ran along the front of the house. A model of a sailing ship stood on a shelf above a large empty fireplace and one wall was lined with books. Cat looked around her, thinking it would take a lot to keep this room clean.
Next door was a dining room with a long polished table and twelve chairs. More books, more paintings. One was of a young Mrs Morgan and Cat saw how pretty she had been.
‘My husband likes to entertain,’ Mrs Morgan said. ‘Part of your duties will be to wait at table. Have you been trained to do that, Haggard?’
‘I don’t rightly know, ma’am. They did teach us a few things at the Cascades but it wasn’t much.’
‘Mr Moffatt will instruct you. No doubt you will soon get the hang of it.’
She explained that Mr Moffatt was a manservant who looked after her husband and doubled as a part time butler. ‘We are lucky to have him,’ Mrs Morgan said, ‘with so many men off at the goldfields.’
There was also Mrs Amos who did the cooking and a woman called Lee who took care of the laundry. Cat was relieved she would not be expected to look after this big house single-handed. She didn’t mind there being a man called Moffatt, provided he kept his hands to himself. It was also a relief to know there was a cook and someone to do the washing. She knew her cooking wouldn’t be good enough for people like the Morgans and at the Cascades she’d had enough of laundry to last a lifetime.
With every minute, as Mrs Morgan continued to show her around the house, she was feeling better about her prospects here and was determined to stay if she could. She hoped it wouldn’t mean sleeping with Dr Morgan – with any luck he’d be too old for such things – but it wouldn’t be the first time, after all.
‘Dr Morgan is at his clinic in town,’ Mrs Morgan explained. ‘He will decide whether we wish to keep you or not. You will meet him this evening.’
At the rear of the house was a flight of stone steps leading up to a small, domed building with a door but no windows. ‘That is our ice house,’ she said.
Cat thought she must have misheard her. ‘Ma’am?’
‘We have ice brought down from the mountain and stored here every winter. The way it is built means that most of the ice remains unmelted through the summer months. Iced drinks and puddings can be refreshing in hot weather,’ Mrs Morgan said. ‘Also Dr Morgan has a theory that the cold can preserve items such as meat and fish.’
Cat did not see how that could be so but decided to keep her thoughts to herself.
‘Dr Morgan is a man with many revolutionary ideas,’ his wife said.
Finally she showed Cat a room above the stables that she said would be Cat’s own while she was with them. ‘It is homely,’ she said. ‘But I believe Bertha was quite comfortable here before she left to get married. And the horses keep it warm in winter.’
The room was open to the rafters and ran the full width of the stables, with a small window at the far end through which Cat could see the branches of a tree stirring in the breeze. It contained a single bed and a white-painted chest of drawers with a water ewer and earthenware basin standing on top of it. The bed had a pillow, sheet and blanket.
‘Who shall I be sharing with, ma’am?’ Cat said.
‘Why, no one,’ said Mrs Morgan. ‘Lee comes in every day and Mrs Amos has her own quarters at the rear of the kitchen.’ She looked at Cat with concern. ‘Are you afraid you will be lonely here by yourself? I believe Bertha found the sound of the horses quite companionable.’
‘No, ma’am, I shan’t be lonely. It’s just that I never had a room to myself before.’
Later she met Mrs Amos the cook, who seemed amiable but whom she would need to watch as the one giving her the orders, and Mr Moffatt, who was stern and dignified and aloof. She had expected no less: Mr Moffatt was a man, after all, and a butler. She wasn’t sure what a butler did, exactly, but knew it had to be important. Dunkery Hall had also had a butler, Mr Ellis, and he had been stern and dignified, too. Cat couldn’t begin to imagine what such a superior being was doing in a penal colony like Van Diemen’s Land. It was hard to imagine that Mr Moffatt or Mrs Amos might also have come out as convicts but it was not a question she thought wise to ask.
Dr Morgan arrived home at seven o’clock. Cat heard the clop of hooves coming up the drive. She risked a look out of the dining room window and saw him dismount in front of the entrance. It was still full daylight so she got a good look at him: not tall but sturdy, plainly clad in a dark-blue jacket, buff breeches and knee-length riding boots of brown leather. He wore a tall black hat that he removed as he dismounted and Cat saw his hair was grey.
Cat was surprised to see Mr Moffatt there to take the doctor’s horse. So he was not just a butler but also a groom – something she doubted Mr Ellis would have lowered himself to do. Maybe things were different in the colonies but the idea that Mr Moffatt was a groom as well as a butler made him less intimidating than before.
Dr Morgan looked up and she found him staring at her through the glass. Quick as a blink she skipped out of sight but was sure he’d seen her. That’s torn it, she thought. Surely just looking at someone couldn’t be enough reason to send her back to the factory, could it? But who could say and she remembered the time she’d spent in solitary because of Mrs Byfield’s lies.
She heard him come into the house but by then she was back in the kitchen and safe, if only for the moment.
At eight Dr Morgan and his wife sat down to dinner.
‘Every night on the dot,’ said Mrs Amos. ‘Dr Morgan don’t like to be kept waiting.’
It was Cat’s first test and she was as nervous as a treed cat, too.
‘Don’t drop the soup,’ Mrs Amos warned. ‘And don’ let him see you with your thumb in it, neither. Likes everything ship-shape, he does. Ship-shape and Bristol fashion, Mrs Amos, he tells me. It’s a pet saying of his.’
‘Where do I put the soup?’
‘On the sideboard. Then you ladles it into the soup bowls and hands it to each of them. And remember – ladies first.’
‘What?’
She had never heard of such a thing. In Cat’s life it had been a case of ladies last and don’t you forget it. But maybe it was different when you weren’t a real lady.
Wearing the long white apron that Mrs Amos had given her – he’s particular about that and all, said Mrs Amos – Cat managed the soup without any real disaster. She got her thumb in it despite Mrs Amos’s warning but managed to lick it clean before anyone noticed.
The doctor gave her a keen look when she put his soup bowl in front of him. ‘So you are the one who was spying on me through the window.’ He had a Welsh accent, too, although not as strong as his wife’s.
Cat thought it best to say nothing.
‘I shall speak to you after dinner,’ Dr Morgan said.
Now I’m for it, Cat thought.
The soup was followed by a loin of lamb, a fat capon and a veal pie. Dessert was apple pie and cream, with a side dish of jellies.
‘Do they eat like this every night?’ Cat asked Mrs Amos.
‘Mostly. When the mistress is poorly the doctor makes do with a slice or two of ham and maybe half a grilled fowl.’
‘Make
s do,’ Cat said. She remembered times when she and Mother had survived on wild sage leaves and potatoes, often with few potatoes either.
‘When they entertain it’s much grander, of course,’ Mrs Amos said comfortably.
‘Of course,’ Cat said.
Mr Moffatt came looking for her as she was washing up the supper things.
‘The doctor wishes to speak to you in the library,’ he said. ‘I shall escort you.’
‘No need to trouble yourself, Mr Moffatt,’ said Cat brightly, wiping her hands and combing her fingers through her hair. ‘I know where it is.’
‘I shall escort you,’ said Mr Moffatt with added emphasis.
Oops.
The doctor was sitting in an easy chair with a brandy in front of him. In one corner of the room was a desk with papers spread upon it. There were many books in shelves around the walls but Cat did not look at them. She focused her attention on Dr Morgan and wondered what was coming. He had a firm mouth, tightly drawn, which might spell trouble, but she thought the expression in his grey eyes was interested rather than hostile. Finally he began to question her.
‘You come from Porlock in Somerset?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are your parents living?’
‘No sir. They both be dead. Mother of the consumption and Father drowned.’
Not for anything would she admit he might just have run away.
‘Consumption is one of the major killers,’ Morgan said. ‘And often runs in families.’ He looked sharply at her. ‘Do you cough, girl?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Spit blood?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I shall need to sound your chest.’
‘Sir?’
‘To make sure your lungs are working as they should.’
‘What are you going to do, sir?’
‘I shall listen to your breathing through an instrument called a stethoscope.’
‘What be that?’
‘No reason to be alarmed, girl. It is an instrument I have designed based on a paper published in 1840 by an Englishman named Golding Bird.’
‘I’m not alarmed, sir. More curious, like.’
He scrutinised her thoughtfully. ‘I believe you are. That is very interesting. Have you read anything about it?’
She smiled ruefully at him. ‘I can’t read, sir.’
‘Forgive me. I should have thought.’
‘Do I have to take me clothes off?’
‘Only to the waist. I can ask Mrs Amos to be present if that will make you more comfortable.’
‘No need. After all –’ a touch of bitterness – ‘they do call us whores, don’t they?’
‘I have never subscribed to that view,’ Dr Morgan said.
‘Don’t matter,’ Cat said. ‘Reckon I can look after myself, if I got to.’
He looked startled and perhaps a little amused. ‘I believe you may very well be right.’
All the same she watched cautiously as he fetched this stethosomething. It was a strange-looking object with a mouthpiece like a small trumpet that he pressed here and there over her chest and back and two tubes that he plugged into his ears. She felt nothing yet at the same time it was odd to think he was listening to how her insides worked.
‘Can you hear what people be thinking through that thing?’ she asked.
He did not answer but pressed the trumpet firmly against her and listened, pressed it and listened. Over and over. Once the back of his hand grazed the underside of her left breast. Dr Morgan was the first man to have touched her there since Ensign Noakes and it was like a shock running through her. Yet she would have sworn it meant no more to the doctor than touching a block of wood. She didn’t like that: it made her feel she was not there at all. Finally he stopped what he was doing and removed the tubes from his ears.
Cat thought it would be interesting to hear what he had heard. ‘Can I listen?’ she said.
Again he gave her that curious, searching look. ‘Interested, is it? Certainly you may listen, if you wish.’
He fitted the tubes into her ears and pressed the trumpet piece against her chest. She heard what sounded like a drumbeat, so loud that it startled her.
‘What be that noise?’
He removed the tubes from her ears. ‘That is your heart, girl,’ he said. ‘And a good, strong heart it is too. Nothing wrong with it at all.’
It was scary to think of that noise going on inside her and not even to know about it. She was glad she’d heard it, all the same. It made her think. What other things might be happening that she knew nothing about?
He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You really find it interesting?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said.
I’ve always had lots of questions. She thought to say that too, but did not, uncomfortable about telling him too much about herself so soon.
‘The good news is there seems to be nothing wrong with your lungs, either. And no, I cannot hear your thoughts. One day it may be possible, perhaps, but not now.’
‘I never thought there was aught amiss,’ she said.
Hopefully that meant there was less danger of her being sent back to the women’s factory. All the same, she knew she must watch her step. So far Dr Morgan had been polite to her, almost friendly, but he did not have the mouth of a man who would tolerate liberties from a servant.
He was standing in the middle of the book-lined room, looking measuringly at her. He’s like that stetho thing, she thought. He’s trying to work out what I’ve got going on inside me.
The candlelight flicked on the red and blue spines of the books and on the walls where a picture of what looked like a farmhouse had pride of place.
He observed where she was looking. ‘My birthplace,’ he said. ‘My elder brother owns it now.’
‘Is that why you went to sea?’ she asked. ‘Because it was his and not yours?’
‘For that and other reasons. I had too many questions and no one to answer them in a remote Welsh valley.’
Just like it was in Porlock. For a moment she was startled that their thoughts should be so much in tune with each other. He picked up his glass and drank from it and she saw the brandy shining warmly in the candlelight.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You may stay, at least for now. Now, off with you.’
He sat down at the desk and pulled some papers towards him. Between one second and the next he seemed to have forgotten all about her.
Dizzy with relief, she went out and closed the door softly behind her.
NINETEEN
Joanne
I treated myself to fish and chips at Mako’s and drank a beer. I watched the waters of the inner harbour sloshing beyond the window and thought how the Morgans had given my ancestor the job that had changed her life.
I understood a lot more about Catherine than most of the people she’d actually known, thanks to her journal. The things she’d had to put up with… It was hard to imagine a more traumatic beginning to any woman’s life yet Catherine had not only survived but prospered. She had been exactly the sort of person to have brought destruction on her greatest enemy and stolen the crown of Muar, yet at the end of it had become one of the most highly respected women in the colony.
At first I hadn’t cared one way or the other about the missing crown. Now I wanted to unravel the mystery and prove to the world that my ancestor had indeed been the woman of courage and audacity I believed her to have been.
I fetched my car from the car park and drove home across the Tasman Bridge, with Catherine Haggard my companion all the way. Back at Cat’s Kingdom I closed the door on the world, dropped my sweaty clothes where I stood and walked naked to the bathroom. Was there any greater bliss than easing tired muscles under a hot shower? You bet there was, but the shower would do for now. Ten minutes later, smelling delightful and wrapped in an enormous bath towel, I went into my large living room with its double-glazed windows looking out at the Southern Ocean. I poured a healthy slug of Chivas Regal i
nto a crystal tumbler and sipped it while I listened to my voicemail. Unusually there were several of them.
Two were from Tim. ‘Joanne, let me explain –’
Zip went the delete code. That fixed him.
Dr Wiranto requested an urgent meeting. ‘It does not matter what time,’ he said. ‘Ring me when you get in.’
The next one was brief: a man calling himself Amir asking to meet me at my earliest convenience.
Wiranto again.
One from the vice-chancellor using his I-am-the-boss-and-don’tyou-forget-it voice. ‘When are you planning to go up to the Walls of Jerusalem? Canberra was asking last night –’
Leaving him in mid-splutter I moved on to the final call. The voice perked me up as soon as I heard it. Colin McNeil asked me to ring him back.
I refreshed my glass. No ice: in my opinion it was an insult to good scotch to drink it any way but neat. I considered which call, if any, I should answer first. No contest, really; when a man said you were cute he deserved priority, right?
I dialled. A brief pause. A man’s voice. Colin.
‘Joanne,’ I said.
‘Oh. Hi.’
‘Hi,’ I said pleasantly.
Silence. I sipped Chivas. Cute, huh? It seemed he needed a jump-start. ‘You phoned?’
‘I shall be flying down to Tasmania on Monday morning,’ he said.
What joy. Someone apart from myself who did not call our island state Tassie.
‘That’s nice,’ I said.
‘Averil was saying something about your wanting to visit the Walls of Jerusalem.’
He spoke precisely: a man who liked to keep the laces of his thoughts neatly tied. Not in the least like me but that could be a plus.
‘To talk about it, at least. Did Averil tell you why?’
‘She’s told me nothing.’
‘You know the park?’
‘I do.’
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