The Governor's House

by J. H. Fletcher

  ‘I’d better prefer if you would dance with me,’ she said.

  And felt a rose-red flush rise into her cheeks because she knew ladies were not supposed to say such things, whatever their private thoughts might be.

  And why shouldn’t I say it? she thought rebelliously. I am not a lady and never will be. This man is not Mungo Jackson and never will be but he is kind and we like each other. He is a safe harbour from stormy seas and if I want him to dance with me I shall say so.

  ‘It would give me the greatest pleasure,’ Roger said. ‘But unfortunately this confounded leg –’

  ‘You see,’ Catherine said, ‘I don’t know the steps of these dances, what do they call them? The waltz and that other one you mentioned once?’

  ‘The mazurka?’

  ‘That’s the one. I thought that maybe,’ she said coaxingly, ‘if we could try it together, very quietly on the edge of the dance floor, you could show me the steps and it would give you a chance to exercise your leg. Which is much better than it was, is it not?’

  He looked at her and smiled and she was encouraged. But knew better than say any more at this stage.

  Servants had begun to circulate, carrying trays of food to the tables. Ham and cold sliced beef and hot pies and smoked salmon and oysters and hot roasted fowls and smoked game birds and fruits of various kinds.

  ‘Do salmon live in Tasmanian waters?’ Catherine asked.

  ‘Unfortunately not. Neither salmon nor trout. Yet the climate and the inland lakes would seem ideally suited to trout and possibly salmon too.’

  ‘And would people want to eat more of that sort of fish if they could get them?’

  ‘I am sure they would,’ he said.

  ‘Fancy,’ she said.

  A young man, tall and upright in a frogged uniform jacket and navy blue trousers, approached. Catherine looked up at him and thought he was the epitome of in-breeding and the arrogance that seemed so often to go with it.

  He looked down his nose at her. ‘General Allen has asked me to inform you, Miss Haggard, that he would be honoured if you would give him the pleasure of having the first dance of the evening with him.’

  Catherine was very conscious of Roger watching her. She smiled warmly at the arrogant young man. ‘How kind of General Allen. But unfortunately I am already engaged to Mr Mortimer for that dance. And the one following,’ she said as an afterthought. ‘But please thank the general for his courtesy and tell him, if he cares to ask me himself, we might be able to arrange something later in the evening.’

  The young man looked as though she had slapped his face, while Catherine continued to regard him with the same warm smile as before.

  He gave her a curt bow, turned on his heel and marched away towards the general.

  ‘Sending someone to ask me instead of coming himself,’ she said. ‘The idea of it!’

  ‘The military tend to regard the rest of us as inhabiting a lower sphere than they do,’ Roger said.

  ‘Is that how you felt when you were in the military?’

  He laughed. ‘Hopefully not.’

  ‘In any case the general had better start learning better,’ Catherine said, pleasantly vicious. ‘He wants to send his messenger boy, let him rather send him to Mrs Talbot. I’ll wager she won’t say no.’

  ‘I’ll wager he’s not desperate enough for that,’ Roger said. ‘But you realise you have put me in a devilish spot. I can hardly not dance with you now.’

  Catherine’s eyes laughed at him. ‘I know. And I do hope,’ she added thoughtfully, watching him sideways, ‘that the prospect is not too unpleasant for you.’

  ‘Not at all –’ He saw her expression and laughed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I believe you are a guileful lady.’

  ‘Shame on you, Mr Mortimer. How can you say such a thing?’

  The music started. Sir Harry and Lady Black led the way, then other couples started making for the floor. Catherine looked at Roger.

  He sighed and stood. ‘Miss Haggard, may I –?’

  She sparkled at him. ‘Mr Mortimer, you may.’

  It was tricky at first but they soon got the hang of it.

  ‘Round and round and round we go,’ she said gaily.

  And round and round and round they went. If his foot was hurting Roger concealed it admirably. If Catherine did not know the steps she was a quick learner. Round and round and round…

  The dance finished and people returned to their seats. Mrs Ruth Talbot stopped by their table, her smile poisonous.

  ‘The steps are a little tricky at first, are they not? Perhaps you would be more at home with the can-can, Miss Haggard?’

  Catherine had never heard of the can-can but something in the woman’s face and voice put her on her guard. ‘I am not familiar with it, Mrs Talbot. I was hoping you could give us all a demonstration.’

  Fury flamed across Mrs Talbot’s face. Catherine watched her hating shoulders as she marched away across the room. She looked back to find Roger trying unsuccessfully to conceal his laughter.

  ‘Can-can?’ she said.

  ‘It is a scandalous French dance in which the women kick their legs high in the air,’ Roger said.

  ‘I think I could do that better than Mrs Talbot.’

  ‘No doubt. And would you?’

  ‘Only in private.’

  The evening passed. The room grew heavy with the scent of flowers and hot bodies. Catherine danced again: twice with Roger and once each with other male guests who approached her. She wasn’t sure of the form in such matters but Roger told her to go ahead and she went. Neither General Allen nor his messenger boy approached her.

  It grew late. Many guests had departed by the time Catherine said that she too must go.

  ‘There is a question I have been wanting to ask you,’ Roger said.

  She looked expectantly at him.

  ‘I believe you were a friend of Mr Mungo Jackson?’

  ‘I hope I still am.’

  ‘Of course. But I think you know what I am saying.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Mr Mortimer, are you familiar with the play The Tempest?’

  ‘I saw it once.’

  ‘There is a speech towards the end when Prospero denounces his magic arts. And deeper than did ever plummet sound, I’ll drown my past.’

  ‘My past?’ Roger said. ‘But surely –’

  ‘My past,’ she repeated emphatically. ‘I’ll drown my past. All of us have to move on, Mr Mortimer. When the moment comes.’

  ‘I see. In which case I wonder whether it might be possible for me to call on you, Miss Haggard?’

  If she hesitated it was for barely a second. ‘Mr Mortimer,’ she said, ‘it will be my pleasure.’

  She rubbed her forehead as the carriage carried her home. The clop of hooves and ringing of cicadas combined to carry her into a magical world. She knew he liked her; liked her a lot, perhaps. She knew she had encouraged him but felt no shame about it. She could not remain forever in the past. She was twenty-eight years old and, as she had said, it was time to move on. There were many worse people to move on with than Roger Mortimer.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Catherine

  Saturday 18 October, a beautiful spring morning, with twentyeight-year-old Catherine Haggard riding to her wedding in an open carriage. It was a magnificent vehicle of richly polished wood with ivory-coloured wheels and trim, drawn by a pair of matching greys. There was a liveried driver and footman and she was holding a long-handled silk parasol to shield her from the sun. Money could not buy style but style without money was impossible.

  Her hooped wedding dress had cost more than most men earned in a year. It was made of ivory silk, high necked and long sleeved, with lace at shoulders and wrists. It was so tight across the bust that Catherine would gladly have exchanged it for something less fashionable and more comfortable but that was out of the question because the wedding was certain to be the event of the year.

  All things together, it s
hould have been a truly wonderful day yet her heart was bleeding. Her face was joyful, as befitted a bride, and she knew this was the hardest thing she had ever done.

  She gave her best smile to the smartly uniformed man seated beside her. ‘Colonel Mitford, is it not a lovely day?’

  The colonel, seeing her eyes bright with unshed tears, thought they were tears of joy. ‘Absolutely right, Miss Haggard,’ he said.

  He would sooner have faced a hundred Pathan warriors than go through the ordeal of a society wedding but the governor had issued his orders and Sir Harry was not someone to take no for an answer. The forthcoming service was not the only reason for the colonel’s concern. Sitting beside a woman who legend said had been both a bushranger and a pirate was like having a Bengal rocket in his lap. Yet he had to admit she was a looker, which was some compensation, and as smart as paint.

  The weather was glorious, the river shining azure in the sunlight and the trees lining the route in full leaf. Even the mountain looming over the city was cloud free and Catherine, blue eyes scanning the summit, could make out the tiny specks of eagles circling against the sky.

  People were waving as the carriage passed. That was what fame and money did for you. She waved back, her face all smiles. The road followed the river for half a mile before turning inland. They passed the Governor’s House and a little later the place where twelve years before she had been brought ashore after the four-month journey from England. The savage baying of the guard dogs echoed faintly and died beneath the steady clop of the hooves, the rumble of the carriage wheels.

  The carriage drew up before the cathedral. Catherine adjusted her lace headdress over her black hair and the footman leapt to help her alight amid a scattering of applause from the onlookers. Head high, chin firm, she allowed Colonel Mitford to lead her into the crowded cathedral.

  She processed with slow and stately step up the aisle, conscious of heads turning to observe her as she passed. The old gypsy croaked, promising her a man tower-tall; her blood exulted amid the thunder of racing hooves; flames reached hungrily into a night sky. She would have wished Mother here and the Morgans but now was not the moment for grief.

  She reached the chancel rail. She placed her hand in the bridegroom’s hand and a thousand generations of women accompanied her in what from the first had been the ritual of the woman’s surrender to the man.

  ‘Do you, Catherine…?’

  ‘I, Catherine, take thee…’

  Amen and amen.

  The pealing of exultant bells broke the stillness.

  Later she stood beside her husband with the walls of the Governor’s House rising proudly behind her and looked at the gaily dressed crowd milling on the lawn. Many here would not have spat on her in the old days; now they fawned, hoping for a smile. So the world turned. She had neither forgotten the culprits nor forgiven them. For Catherine this might be a day of peace and joy but Cat Haggard’s blade remained unsheathed, as one day they would find. One such was approaching now. Catherine gave her most ravishing smile.

  ‘Mrs Talbot, how delightful to see you! So glad you were able to come!’

  While Cat watched, red-toothed. Things she’d done, things she hadn’t done: she’d been blamed for all of them.

  In the ornate bedroom, dominated by a portrait of the queen wearing her habitual expression of regal disapproval and cluttered with all the bric-a-brac appropriate to its majestic surroundings, husband and wife talked quietly together.

  ‘I find it hard to believe we are here together at last,’ he said.

  Her open hand rested on his thigh, but quietly. She was shy of this man because he would not be her first. He knew that because she had told him, wishing all things to be open between them. She was certain he had guessed already yet she had hoped that acknowledging the past might expunge it not only from his thoughts but hers. Yet now she knew that she would neither forget the past nor wish to because there was nothing in it to shame her.

  ‘It is something I have longed for since I first met you,’ he said.

  She knew she should say something similar. She owed it to him and their future yet her throat closed on the lie.

  ‘I am truly content,’ she said.

  She knew he would hear what she had not said but she would be a good wife; she knew he desired her and was determined he always would, and hoped that these important things would be enough.

  She smiled at him and he, as though he had been awaiting her permission, drew closer to her. He held her and ran his hands through her hair and over her compliant flesh and drew closer still. And at last was neither withdrawn nor diffident but surprisingly and gratifyingly dominant, while she accepted the love and force of the man as he in return drew on her own especial strength, the assurance she had learnt from the triumphs and catastrophes of her past.

  She took him into herself knowing that she was not yet able to offer him the love they both needed she should give but believing it would come in time through the continued intermingling of their bodies and lives and the warm interchange of the shared breath and glances that were the true beginnings of their new life.

  Mungo Jackson had told her the Governor’s House symbolised everything she had wanted from life but neither of them had thought that she would ever live there. Yet that was what would happen. Tomorrow, as Mrs Roger Mortimer, she would move into the suite of rooms that were allocated to the governor’s personal secretary. The Governor’s House of her dreams would no longer be a symbol of her ambition but the reality.

  Later, watching the moonlight on the monarch’s aloof expression and listening to the quiet breathing of the man asleep at her side, she drew up the covers and was peaceful. What she had done had been the right thing. She was as committed to it now as to life.

  SIXTY

  She had thought no more about having a baby than about dying in the street. It was something that happened to others, not to Cat Haggard. But Cat Haggard had been replaced by Catherine Mortimer and less than a year after her marriage Catherine Mortimer found herself with child.

  Mungo Jackson had told her that her biology would catch up with her; now it had. For several months she handled the problem by ignoring it but discovered that became more difficult as time passed.

  The encumbrance of the child was a reality long before it was born on the last day of March. A stinking hot day it was too, which didn’t help. She wondered afterwards whether the heat or her resistance to the idea of motherhood had anything to do with it, but the process of giving birth which she had dismissed proved to be a trial worse than anything she could have imagined. It went on and on. She had not contemplated the idea of crying out but when the time came she did, and loudly. Came out with a stream of choice words too, words that all Mrs Hargreaves’s training had failed to eliminate from her memory. If she thought anything it was indignation that the wretched process should be so hard. Women had children every day, and not always in bed, either. They had them in the paddocks, on the byways; two children had been born on the transport coming out all those years ago. It was a daily event, nothing special about it at all, yet now she felt she was being split apart by an axe. It was not right, not natural, there had to be something wrong: that was her last conscious thought before the pain and her body’s involuntary movements took over, leaving no room for breath or thought. She had become less human than animal, lost in the most basic of animal processes.

  For a time she kept only a toehold on reality, on life itself, and when it was over she found she had come back to a strange place. There was a stillness inside her, a nurse’s smiling face that came and went, a voice saying a boy it’s a boy, and none of it had anything to do with the darkness from which she was beginning to emerge.

  The strangeness of this new world did not go away. The pain became a memory, fading day by day, the birth process a confusion of images that she did not try to disentangle, but the ongoing reality of ownership became more complex. Because Catherine, who under the laws of marriage had lost every pos
session to her husband, found that she was herself now owned by the child.

  She had called him Edmund and Edmund was a demanding master. A wet nurse would have taken away some of the burden and could no doubt have been easily arranged, but it was not in her to suggest such a thing.

  ‘Edmund is my problem,’ she told the father, ‘and I shall deal with it.’

  That was how she thought of him: as a problem. There were so many things she had to do, things that could not wait, and the baby was an impediment. Yet there were times too, when she knew herself to be the centre of the universe, when she walked about the grounds of the Governor’s House with the baby in her arms, the trees bent their branches in homage and even the frogs among the waterlilies chorused their croaking approval. The broken sunlight shining between the leaves fell like showers of gold upon the face of the child, who laughed. Then Catherine felt her heart grow round and full.

  She would undress him and lay him on the bed and look at him, every inch of the perfect body, the perfect child that she and Roger had created between them. Although the child remained hers alone, both the burden and the worship of the child, and the man had only a subordinate role. There were times too when Edmund’s will clashed with hers, when he demanded her attention, screaming endlessly.

  ‘I could strangle you,’ she told him then.

  She never meant it but somehow the idea must have taken hold in both of them. Edmund was her son but grew up wilful. She would have wished it otherwise. She continued to love him as a mother should but found that she did not like him very much. Having owned her for months before his birth, she now found he owned the future too.

  ‘He will improve as he gets older,’ Catherine said.

  But he did not. By the time he was two his mother had given up any thought of his improving.

  ‘He’ll grow up as he will,’ she told Roger. ‘We must let him get on with it.’

  ‘But we shall guide him,’ he said. ‘Teach him things.’

  He would have liked to do that, now the boy was coming to the age where a relationship might be possible. He remembered his own childhood and how little he had seen of his father and how he had told himself that he would handle things differently, but now he was away a lot on the governor’s business.