Wild Lands

by Nicole Alexander

  His hand lifted the material of her mother’s shift. As it disappeared beneath a ruffle of cotton, Lesley grasped the Reverend’s shoulder, leaning towards him.

  Kate’s eyes widened.

  ‘And there are other things you want, the base cravings of a woman that can only be satisfied through a servant of God.’ His voice grew hoarse. ‘See how you want this union. Enter it in the knowledge that you are serving God through serving me.’

  Shocked, Kate watched as her mother lifted the flimsy material of the shift over her head. It fell to the floor. ‘I will care for you and your daughter. Is that not what you want?’ The Reverend tipped the candlestick. Hot wax dripped on her mother’s breast and she moaned. She moaned as she had moaned with Kate’s father, loudly. Loud enough for Kate to hear her parents through the thin walls of their old home. But she’d never seen them together. Not like this.

  The Reverend blew out the candle and sat it on the dresser next to the slush lamp and began to undress. He told Lesley how blessed she was and then pushed her onto the bed.

  Her mother waited, her arms extended above her head as if a cat stretching in the sun. The Reverend lay the pistol he wore at his waist on the bed and, dropping his trousers, slowly lowered himself onto her body. Kate was sure that he would squash her mother flat but instead she lifted her legs and the Reverend began to move backwards and forwards, like Kate had seen two of the convicts do when they thought no-one was watching. As Kate began to back away her mother turned her head sideways and looked into her eyes. Kate blinked and ran. She ran through the parlour and out into the rain and back to the warmth of the kitchen, where she curled up before the fire and cried herself to sleep.

  Chapter 2

  1827 June – eight miles west of Sydney

  Kate kept busy in the kitchen until their noon meal – soup and bread for her, Lambeth and Madge, roasted kangaroo with potatoes and sage stuffing for the Reverend and her mother, followed by a plate of native fruits and nuts. The cook was in a bad mood, one minute weepy and maudlin, the next sharp-tongued, with not a kind word to be said for anybody, particularly Kate. Apparently the Reverend was very angry with Lambeth, although Kate had no idea why. Kate chewed the tough bread, watching the puddles drying through the door, aware of the two women staring at her. She could tell they wanted to say something. They broke their bread into pieces and poked the dough in their bowls, all the while exchanging glances as if urging the other to speak.

  Through the open door the day was clear and bright. The view from atop the fig tree would have been wonderful, but for the first time since her arrival in this place Kate didn’t feel like climbing the tree, nor speaking to her father. She knew what she’d seen last night in her mother’s bedroom was wrong and for some reason she found herself hating the Reverend. The bread was a hard wad in the side of her cheek.

  Lambeth spooned the remnants of the soup into her bowl instead of sharing it equally, as was the custom. The cook sniffed as she ladled the thin broth while Madge’s lips quivered. Kate had seen that look before.

  ‘You’re a wicked, evil thing you are, Kate,’ Madge told her.

  Kate concentrated on the bits of kangaroo floating in her bowl. Madge had been calling her a wicked evil thing ever since the cook had been scolded by the Reverend that morning. Kate knew she should answer her, but whatever she said would only cause more trouble, and Kate had no idea what she’d done wrong. She was usually in trouble for dawdling, and then the pots and pans had to be scrubbed twice over; and if she was caught wandering about outside, her meals were cut in half. This was a particular favourite as it meant Madge and Lambeth ate more. Kate wiped her nose on the back of her hand and lifting the bowl slurped up the soup. The women were still staring at her but Kate was beginning to think about other things, white fleshy things, things she couldn’t easily wipe from her mind.

  Finally Madge paused in her eating, one hand knuckle-deep in the soup as the bread she held grew soggy in the meat-flavoured water. Her head tilted sideways and with the movement Madge’s curly hair poked out from beneath the mob cap.

  ‘You went in there, didn’t you, Kate? Nicked Mrs Lambeth’s shawl and then left it in the Reverend’s parlour so he’d think she was out to steal something.’

  ‘Madge,’ the cook cautioned, ‘remember who she is.’

  ‘I never,’ Kate retorted; she felt her cheeks turn red.

  ‘Caught, you are, good and caught. But you know it won’t do no good what I say, or anyone else, ’cause you’re her daughter and she’s with ’im. Oh yeah, we know all about it. Your mother lays with him, she does. The God-fearing man what calls ’imself the Reverend. Reverend!’ Madge spat on the dirt floor. ‘And your pretty mother opens her legs for ’im and says Amen.’

  ‘She does not,’ Kate cried.

  ‘Lambeth ’ere will be punished for your doings. She’ll be sent to the Female Factory in Parramatta with the rest of the sluts and the whores who’ve done wrong and they’ll shave her head if she even points her little finger in the wrong direction. She’ll spend her days making rope and carded wool. Isn’t that right, Mrs Lambeth?’

  The cook’s eyes grew wide with fear. ‘I thought them women did sewing and the like there now?’

  ‘Sleep on piles of wool she will, eat slops that a pig wouldn’t touch. I always said you’d get us into trouble, you with your native-born ways, sneaking about, thinking you can go anywhere and do anything.’

  ‘I never,’ Kate replied, shrinking back from Madge’s anger.

  ‘Maybe if she said something,’ Lambeth began thoughtfully, her gaze resting on Kate. Her lower eyelids drooped so that the red inner part of the eyeball revealed itself. ‘Her mother has the ear of the Reverend, like you say.’

  ‘She’s got a lot more than an earful,’ Madge replied knowingly. ‘Turn a trick that woman can. And who would have thought it? Native born, better than us, eh? I don’t think so. Lesley Carter’s no different to the rest of us. In the end the only thing a woman has that’s worth a spit is what’s between her legs.’

  The two women stared at Kate from across the table. The room was stuffy with the heat from the fire. Sweat dripped from Kate’s hairline and ran down her cheek. She wanted to tell these women that they were wrong. That her mother wasn’t like them, that she would never be like them because Lesley Carter was free-born.

  ‘Look what you’ve done, Madge, you’ve made her cry,’ Lambeth tutted.

  ‘Go on. You could say something, you know.’ Madge’s voice grew soft and wheedling. ‘Help Mrs Lambeth out. She does feed you and care for you in her own way.’

  ‘Yeah, in me own way.’ The cook leant across the table, reached out a crinkly skinned arm.

  Kate pulled away from the woman’s touch.

  Madge’s cracked smile revealed a line of broken teeth. ‘We could all be friends then, eh? You show us you’re willing to help one of us and we’ll be more kindly towards you, won’t we, Mrs Lambeth?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ The cook stacked the chipped bowls and wiped the table of crumbs, tipping them into the pot bubbling over the fire.

  ‘You being so pretty and all,’ Madge continued, ‘well, how could the Reverend say no to you?’ She turned to the cook. ‘Spitting image of her mother. Ain’t she the spitting image of her mother? That long dark hair and them big eyes.’

  Dipping the bowls in a basin of water, the cook wiped them disinterestedly with her apron and sat them on the table. ‘I’ve said it before, haven’t I, the very same words. It’s a boon it is to be a woman and to be pretty. Men will do anything for a pretty face. They can’t ’elp ’emselves. Why, if you were a convict lined up with the rest of the prettiest girls ready for the choosing, some fancy soldier would drop his hanky in front of you and you’d not be desperate like the rest of us to pick it up. No, there’d be a better one for you, young Kate. There’ll be a better proposal of marriage for you in the offing.’

  ‘Plenty better,’ Madge agreed.

  Kate thoug
ht of what she’d seen last night. If that’s what men and women did she was never getting married. She would die an old maid with two cats for company.

  ‘You, Lambeth,’ the Reverend commanded from the door. ‘Get your things and come out.’

  The cook turned white. ‘Please, sir, I didn’t do it. I was asleep in my bed, I swear, just like I told you. Ask her, ask young Kate. She gets sleepless at nights she does, sir, and wanders about, not meaning anything of it of course, sir, and she gets cold, sir, so she took me shawl, not that I mind, sir. But it wasn’t me, sir. Please, sir, I’ve done me best for you, never done nothing wrong, served you loyal I have these three years, I swear. I’ve only got a year to go, sir, please, sir, a year to go.’ Mrs Lambeth pressed her squat body into the far corner of the kitchen, between barrels of preserved fruit and bags of salt and sugar.

  Madge and Kate moved to stand before the hearth, their faces downcast.

  The Reverend gave Madge a hard look and then turned to Kate. ‘Is what Lambeth says true? Did you take her shawl and enter the cottage last night without permission?’

  Kate licked at the sweat on her upper lip. Behind the man in the dark cloth suit were two soldiers wearing the distinctive red tunics of the British Infantry.

  ‘If you are lying, God will strike you down in your sleep. You know that, don’t you, Kate?’

  It was an accident. She’d only borrowed the shawl and then left it there by mistake when she’d run away. Surely God forgave mistakes.

  ‘Kate!’

  She flinched.

  ‘So you’ve nothing to say?’

  What could she say? If Kate told the truth the Reverend would certainly punish her, perhaps send her away, and if she told the truth he might guess that she’d spied on him and her mother and that seemed worse than taking Mrs Lambeth’s shawl and sneaking into the cottage. Kate felt bad for Mrs Lambeth, but she pressed her lips together and said nothing. The Reverend gave her a stony stare. Kate swallowed. If God didn’t forgive her Kate figured she would be a lot worse off than Lambeth.

  The cook rushed at Kate, lifted a bowl from the stack on the table and hit her on the forehead.

  ‘Take her,’ the Reverend said disinterestedly, as Kate fell to the floor.

  Mrs Lambeth screamed and begged and wailed but the soldiers grabbed her and dragged the older woman through the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll get your things,’ Madge called out above the din, running into their room and reappearing with a few items of clothing bundled into a ball. ‘Take ’em and God bless.’ She pushed the bunch into the cook’s hands.

  When the soldiers and their noisy charge finally departed, the Reverend mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘Well, tend to her,’ he said to Madge.

  The kitchen was moving in a circle. Pots and pans spun. Kate put her palms to the floor to steady herself as Madge dampened a cloth and squatted next to her.

  ‘It’s a bad cut.’ She pressed the wad of material to the side of Kate’s head. ‘She needs a doctor.’

  ‘Clean it, bandage it and put her to bed. She’s young, she’ll survive.’

  Kate woke lying on the pallet in the room next to the kitchen. Her right eye was blurry and her head pained awfully. It had been three days since Lambeth had attacked her. Her mother had made soup and tied a bandage around her head that she changed once a day, but the cut was slow to heal. Her head spun as she sat up and took a sip of water. On the dirt floor lay a mirror, which her mother had left. Unwrapping the bloodstained bandage, Kate looked at the cut. The edges of the wound were an angry red.

  ‘There you are. You’ll be up and about in no time.’ Madge passed her a piece of bread, grimacing at the injury. ‘Nasty that is, real nasty. Lucky your mother had some skill with the bandage. I’m not much good with things like that. You’ll have a fine scar, something to remember old Lambeth by, eh?’

  ‘I still can’t see properly from this eye, Madge.’

  ‘Well, the way the world is today a person is better suited to only seeing half of it anyway.’ She sat cross-legged on the pallet next to Kate’s and leant forward conspiratorially. ‘The Reverend was called away this morning. It seems one of the wives has got uppity. Mrs Markham, what used to oversee the hat makers –’

  ‘I remember her.’

  ‘Will you let a person tell a story? So, it seems her husband had enough of her shenanigans and was keen to be rid of her so he put a rope around her neck and tried to sell her at the markets. Seems she didn’t get one bid, she didn’t. Anyways, on account of that, Mr Markham called for the Reverend and that’s where he went to this morning, to their farm to give her a good thrashing.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ Kate exclaimed.

  ‘Aye, the poor man. They’ve been married for years, so you can imagine what she would have cost him in food and not one bid.’

  ‘Madge?’ the Reverend called.

  The girl moved quickly. Quicker than Kate thought possible. The Reverend waited in the kitchen, pressing a handkerchief to his brow before folding the square of material and placing it carefully in his trouser pocket.

  ‘Yes, Reverend, sir, I was just checking on Kate. She’s coming along she is, sir.’

  ‘I’ve decided you’re to have Mrs Lambeth’s position.’

  Madge gave a little curtsey. ‘Thank you, Reverend.’

  ‘Kate.’ He moved to the doorway, avoiding her gaze. ‘You’re to get up and start moving about. You’ll not heal yourself lying about all the day and I’ve not the space for invalids. And you’re to move into your mother’s room. Tonight. That’s not to say that you’re to stop your daily tasks. In the morning you will help Madge prepare the midday meal and tend the vegetable garden. In the afternoons you will work with the women making cabbage-tree hats. And you’ll continue to eat here in the kitchen.’ He pointed a stubby finger. ‘Children should be seen and not heard. And if there have been any unlawful wanderings as has been suggested, I would imagine that your recent injury will stymie such future thoughts.’ He turned to Madge. ‘I’m partial to potato soup and we’ll have the kangaroo cold this evening with a mustard sauce, and don’t forget the oysters. The household deals with Wills’ Groceries and Fine Produce, as you know. We’ve a standing order and he’ll also be expecting his weekly supply of hats for the store as well. Mr Wills’ man will be at Burwood Farm at three of the afternoon. He is known for trading with the natives but we can’t condemn the man for that if he provides us with sustenance to do the Lord’s work. Take six hats with you and don’t dally, girl, and you best take one of the convict women from the lean-to for safety’s sake. Mind you choose one who’s already filled her quota of hats.’ He turned to leave. ‘And in future you will discuss the week’s menu with Mrs Carter.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Madge replied.

  When the two girls were alone again Madge rejoined Kate, watching the young girl as she wound the length of cotton around her head. Madge tied the ends of the material together, her tongue poking out between her lips in concentration. ‘Fell on your feet, didn’t you?’ she commented, not unkindly. ‘Well we both did, so we’re even, for now.’

  ‘Will Mrs Lambeth get a flogging?’

  ‘Maybe, it depends on what the Reverend says. But that would be fitting, blood deserves blood. Come on now. Let’s get you up for a bit.’

  Kate allowed Madge to pull her up from the pallet. In the kitchen she sat down quickly, her head throbbing.

  ‘With Lambeth gone, you and I will be feasting from now on.’ Taking a bubbling pot from the fire, Madge stirred the gluggy contents. ‘Today it’s kangaroo, bread and potato.’ Ladling a small amount of the stew into a bowl, she pushed the serving across the table. ‘Eat it slowly, mind, you’ve only been on soup.’ Removing her apron, Madge selected a straw hat from the peg on the wall. ‘Well, I’m off for the oysters. You best chop four potatoes and put them in water to boil. Add a pinch of salt and sit the pot in the embers. And no wandering off leaving the fire unattended.’

  After Madge left,
Kate selected some potatoes from the shelf and, placing them in the centre of the table, crossed her arms and stared at them. One of the spuds had a black spot on its dirt-crusted skin, which appeared to move up and down as if winking at her. Kate held a hand over her weak eye and the spot stopped moving. She couldn’t believe that she was finally going to be able to sleep in the same room as her mother. That they would be together once again. But now she didn’t want to go. Kate was angry with her mother and she hated the Reverend. She thought of what Madge and Mrs Lambeth had said and of the night Kate had seen the Reverend and her mother together. Sitting at the table she began to pick at the black spot on the potato with a knife. If God was truly going to strike her down he may as well do it while she slept in the pallet beside rag-doll-haired Madge, than in the bed her mother and the Reverend Horsley had lain on.

  After supper Kate went to her mother’s room. Lesley sat on the bed wearing a plain beige cotton dress that fell in soft gathers from her bust. Lesley smiled and patted the coverlet.

  ‘I’m so pleased to see you up and out of bed, Kate.’ She fingered the bandage, straightening it a little and tucked a length of matted hair behind Kate’s ear. ‘We daren’t wash your hair until the wound is dry. Tomorrow we’ll sit you in the sun for a bit. That will help.’ She held out a bone-handled hairbrush. ‘I would have come to see you more often but you know how demanding the Reverend is.’

  Kate held onto the wooden bedstead for balance. ‘Madge said I should have had a doctor.’

  ‘Come now, sit on the bed and brush my hair and we’ll talk like mothers and daughters should. One day you will be doing this very thing with your own daughter, Kate, and probably in this gown.’ She fingered the material. The dress was slightly worn in places but had been carefully looked after. ‘I have always loved this dress of my mother’s. Of course it’s really verging on the unfashionable, even with all the alterations. One only has to walk down the street to see that the high bustlines are slowly dropping downwards.’ She sat the hairbrush on the bed and unwrapped a package, unfolding a thick swathe of material. ‘Look, cotton and muslin.’ Lifting the gauzy fabric, her mother pressed it to her face with obvious delight. ‘And,’ a card held a length of wide cream lace, ‘imagine, a lace hem and collar.’