Kate frowned. ‘It was my understanding I was employed in the capacity of companion to you, Mrs Hardy.’
‘Good gracious,’ the older woman let out a chuckle, ‘my husband’s cousins have indeed sent us a gentlewoman.’ She turned at the approach of her husband and waited for him to deposit a trunk in their dwelling. ‘Mr Hardy, your cousins have fulfilled my original request.’
‘How so?’ Behind him Betts and Gibbs were lugging a large sea-chest, while Mr Callahan carried a hip bath. Kate could have cried as the items were transported into the house. She had no idea a bath was stored within the goods they’d transported northwards.
‘Miss Carter thinks to be my companion.’
There were two perpendicular lines above Mr Hardy’s nose. Combined with his impressive frown he appeared almost beakish. ‘You will find, Miss Carter, that your role here will consist of anything that is required of you, especially now we are without the labour I requested. As a currency lass you should be fit for most tasks.’
‘Heavens.’ Mrs Hardy stopped fanning her face and placed the hat on the table. ‘A currency lass? Native born. Please don’t tell me that your parents were convicts. Are you a convict?’ She looked aghast at her husband. ‘I did say I wanted no woman with the stain. You did tell Jonas that, Mr Hardy? For we are surrounded by these infernal offenders and I so wanted some semblance of normality, someone at least –’
‘They have done their best to find us someone suitable,’ her husband placated as he followed the men back to the bullock drays.
Sophie returned with a single pannikin of water. ‘Mrs Ovens says that she’s no time to be fetching pitchers of water for the servants.’ She sat the cup on the table. ‘She says she needs help in the kitchen. Do we call her Jelly-belly?’
Kate looked at the pale brown water and cautiously took a sip. It tasted of bark and dust.
‘Jelly-belly. Jelly-belly.’
Kate looked furiously at Sophie. ‘My father was assigned to the colony, my mother was born of free settlers.’ Kate spoke over the chanting child and, finishing the water gratefully, was careful not to wipe her mouth on her sleeve as she’d become accustomed to doing over the weeks of travel.
Mrs Hardy composed herself with some effort. ‘Dear me, your grandparents must have been most disappointed by your mother’s union.’
‘I believe they placed happiness above the constraints of society.’
‘A supposed luxury undoubtedly much admired by the lower classes but hardly appropriate in civilised society,’ was Mrs Hardy’s response. ‘I have learnt that there is a place in the world for everybody, and that everybody has their place.’
‘They have my trunk,’ Kate pointed out. Betts and Gibbs were stumbling across the uneven ground carrying her mother’s chest. ‘Where am I to be lodged?’ She was eager to escape both child and mother.
‘With the cook,’ Mrs Hardy informed her. ‘Her room adjoins the kitchen.’
There was little point arguing with this arrangement, so Kate excused herself and followed the men towards the other hut.
‘And make yourself helpful in the kitchen,’ Mrs Hardy called after her.
Kate’s legs felt like lumps of wood as she trailed the convicts. It appeared her new accommodation was not much different from that she’d left behind when a child in the Reverend’s kitchen. She had come full circle.
‘What did you expect?’ Kate overheard Mr Hardy speaking to his wife. ‘A gentlewoman would hardly journey to the outer limits.’ He did not bother to lower his voice.
‘I did,’ Sarah sighed.
‘She is presentable and speaks passable English.’
Mrs Hardy rubbed her hands on her skirt. ‘You are right of course, my husband. And the girl is educated, a boon for young Sophie, but unmarried. With those looks, I thought there was some shame there that we were yet to discover. Having spoken with her, however, I believe her character is such that she would need a strong husband. She was most outspoken to you on arrival.’
‘Yes, Jonas implied that there were certain inconsistencies in the girl’s nature. Considering her background I suppose one should not be shocked at her trying to negotiate the terms of engagement, but really, whoever heard of such a thing?’
‘A daughter of an emancipist. They think they are the same as everyone else.’
Kate halted and turned back towards the couple. The Hardys noticed that she had stopped and was listening in, but they kept on talking.
‘Well, they aren’t, wife, so keep your eye on the girl and keep her busy. Regardless of the young woman’s opinionated nature, a few months up here will soon rid her of the pretensions that are so endemic among the native born. You’ll see, she shall be of some benefit to you.’
Kate wanted to scream.
The kitchen hut, a mere ten feet from the Hardys’ dwelling, had a woodpile and chopping block near the door, while a dray held a number of wooden water-barrels.
The kitchen was empty. Betts and Gibbs carried the trunk around to the rear and dropped it in the dirt where a lean-to at the back served as the cook’s sleeping quarters. Exchanging sly grins, they walked back around to the front.
Kate knew what they were thinking. If she’d thought herself better than the likes of them it appeared that they were now all on the same level. ‘I hope things go well for the both of you,’ she said politely. Now they were here it was best she made a point of being cordial. Who knew when she may need to call on them for assistance?
The convicts were rendered dumb. Betts took interest in an ant tracing the toe of his boot, while Gibbs stared at the kitchen hut. It was an airless box. Each wall had an airhole the size of a small fist.
‘Musket holes,’ he said quietly, disbelief creeping into his tone.
Betts’ eyes widened.
Kate digested this sobering news, noting that there wasn’t even a covered walkway between the house and the kitchen, which would make for a wet passage when it rained.
‘You need a hand,’ Betts mumbled, ‘let one of us know, eh? I’m a fair judge of a person and Hardy has the look of a hard man.’
Kate was surprised but very grateful. ‘Thank you, I will.’
‘“Need a hand”?’ Gibbs bandied his friend as they walked away. ‘She’s up here to hold the Missus’s hand and wipe the arse of that toffee-haired brat of theirs while we’ll likely be sleeping rough, under the stars, watching our backs of a night, and you’re offering to help the likes of her?’
‘You be forgetting she’s like us now. Besides, I don’t like the look of ’im.’ Betts spat in the dirt as they walked back towards the wagon. ‘Nor those musket holes in that hut.’
The screeching of chickens led Kate uphill. The cook sat cross-legged in the dirt, poking at the caged birds with a stick. Cut lengths of timber lay side by side on the ground, walls for a building perhaps, laid out and yet to be constructed. The woman kept trying to stick the chickens, and the hens pecked angrily at the twig as the rooster attempted to spread his wings in the close confines. In return the woman muttered back, complaining that there had been no eggs for the past month, despite the rich scraps they’d been given.
Kate cleared her throat. She may well have been a ghost for all the notice the woman paid her. The poking continued. The birds screeched. ‘Stop it.’ Kate reached out a hand and made a grab for the offending piece of wood. She considered it a miracle the hens had survived the journey.
The woman clutched her chest. ‘Jelly-belly, you pointy-nosed wrench, you gave me a fright, you did. What are you doing sneaking up on a person like that? I thought I told you to peel those tatties. You know Mr Kable likes ’em roasted a dark brown and they’ll not be ready when they ring the bell for tea.’
Kate squatted by the thin-haired woman. ‘I’m Kate Carter, Mrs …?’
‘Mrs Ovens. The cook.’
‘That’s not your real name,’ Kate said softly. ‘What is it?’
The woman seemed momentarily unaware of her surroundings. ‘Mary Ho
rton, I be Mary Horton, cook and housekeeper to Mr Jonas Kable.’ She clambered to her feet. ‘And housekeeper to Mr Kable senior afore him. No-one told me to expect another maid.’ She rubbed at the pink scalp visible above her ear.
A kindly smile and a soft voice were the only things that Kate could think of to bring Mrs Horton back to the present. ‘And you’re now cook and housekeeper to Mr Samuel Hardy.’ Kate could see the cook’s mind working overtime in her rheumy eyes. ‘Jelly-belly is still with Mr Kable at Parramatta, Mrs Horton. I’m newly arrived with Mr Southerland.’ It was almost impossible to believe that Mr Kable would have sent this old woman on such a journey northwards.
‘It’s the heat, you see. It comes at you like a blanket and tightens itself about your neck until your lungs dry and crack and your throat closes over. Affects a person’s head, it does. Makes you remember things you don’t want to and forget the things that you shouldn’t. Just look at the land if you don’t believe me. Hard and dry and endless, and not a bit of green to soothe a person. I only just survived it last year I tell you, lass. I had a terrible thirst the whole summer long and it was only when the rain came that I was better. ’Course now there’s been no rain again, not a skirret for months.’
‘It will rain soon,’ Kate promised, knowing no such thing.
The cook shook her head and sat heavily on the timber boards. ‘It won’t, you’ll see. I ain’t got no feeling in me bones. So then, you’ve just arrived with the wagons?’
Kate told the older woman a little of the journey, omitting the engagements they’d had with the Aboriginals and saying she was hopeful that the stores had all arrived in good condition. The news was greeted warmly.
‘It was the same last summer,’ Mrs Horton explained. ‘It’s a task just to keep the water up. I’ve two orange trees down the hill apiece which are still alive, but we’re living on bread and kangaroo, although there’s sheep meat when Mr Hardy decides to kill one. And then there’s the rabbits. Got eight he has now and right proud of them he is. Brought a breeding pair from Sydney. Kept them alive all that way. Mark of a gentleman that, keeping rabbits for the table. Mr Kable senior was like that. Oh, he kept a fine table. But Mr Hardy, well, he’s hard with the rations. Wants to keep his sheep for wool he does. For the money. I’m right glad you made it through. Real glad.’
‘Well, I’ve two more plants for the orchard.’
The cook rolled her eyes.
‘And apart from the other stores there’s preserved fruit. Oranges and lemons.’
The older woman’s face brightened. ‘They’ve not gone bad?’
‘They smell fine,’ Kate told her.
‘You poke your finger in them, did you?’
Kate laughed. ‘No, but I thought of it.’
The cook pointed to a wooden door that was partially concealed in the side of the hill ten feet further up from where they sat. ‘That’s where they’ll be going.’
‘And the holes in the kitchen wall?’ Kate had to know. ‘Has there been cause to use them?’
‘Frightened you, did they? Well, you best get used to them, girl. That’s our lot. An airless box. But if they attack us again, it’s a comfort to have them there.’
‘Again?’ Kate repeated.
‘It weren’t the mob what live here. No. Some mad black came through these parts the first few months we was here. Tall he was and scarred something terrible with a mass of dark hair. Held us up in there for half a day. Luckily it weren’t real hot or we all would have been asphyxiated. ’Course that’s how the Missus lost the baby. The shock of it. But Mr Southerland killed a couple of the men who were with that black bastard. They pinched some sheep and then they was gone. Since then we’ve had cattle rushed, but no more attacks. That black-loving Englishman has seen to that. Talks to the mob on Mr Hardy’s land, he does, treats ’em as equals. Keeps them happy. They hunt and fish and the women go a-digging and the rest of us keep out of their way.’
‘How old was the baby?’
‘Born too soon, it was. I birthed it meself in that very room on the kitchen table while the men fired their muskets and yelled at the blacks. It were a terrible day. Now tell me, who’s with you? Any likely lads? My eyesight’s not what it used to be but I can appreciate a fine description.’
Kate found herself liking the muddle-headed cook, and she did her best to satisfy the woman’s demands, Mr Callahan becoming something of a Scottish dandy with a strong gait and intelligent forehead while Betts and Gibbs were described in terms that made them twice the men that they actually were.
‘Convicts, eh? If you ask me we didn’t want anymore, but I heard Mr Hardy himself complaining about the shortage of staff. Can’t blame the immigrants for staying in the city. No, if I had me druthers, I’d never have come.’
‘Why did you?’
The cook wrinkled her nose. ‘I was getting forgetful and what with my eyesight, well, Mrs Kable she wanted someone younger. Got tendencies to greatness the Kables have. Not that a person can blame them. Anyways, I had a choice: come north with the Hardys or end up on the streets of Parramatta to spend me days down-at-heel. Not much of a decision in the end,’ she sniffed.
‘It’s a long journey,’ Kate agreed, marvelling at the cook’s hardiness.
‘Aye, and this lot complain about being surrounded by convicts but one thing’s for sure, there’s hardly a free man who wants to come this far north to work for another.’ She hugged her arms, as the sun began to set. ‘And a person doesn’t have to worry too much about runaways up here. Bleached bones is all that’s at the end of an escape – bleached bones and crows. ’Course, occasionally I’d like one of them to try it. It’d give us something to think about. It’s not like Syd-e-ney Town with the goings-on down there. There’s always someone with their tongue a-wagging. When I was younger, maybe twenty years ago or more, two convicts ran away from Syd-e-ney. Oh they gave the redcoats a merry chase they did. Man and woman they were, with a boy child. It weren’t unusual back then for the men to risk the cat-o’-nine-tails, or the noose. Come to think of it, it still isn’t. But for a woman to run, well, it was news. The gossips said it was true love. That the pair of them would die if they couldn’t be together. Had the kitchen in the big house in raptures, it did. We sat around the table late into the night talking about them: where they were, the new life they were living. We were proud of them, and just a bit jealous for they’d risked their lives to be together. Ain’t never been such a love story, never will be again.’ The corners of the cook’s mouth lifted in memory. ‘We wrote our own penny-dreadful novel that year we did. Lived out their love into the wee hours and dragged ourselves ragged around the kitchen during the day. It was the best of times.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘They died,’ the old woman replied simply. ‘The redcoats caught up with the man, Fossey his name was, and flogged his back and rump to jelly until he told ’em where his lover was. Then they hung him dead. Watched him swing, I did, from Gallows Hill.’ She nodded sagely. ‘It were a ghastly thing to see, but a body had to be there for it were something of an event after all the gossip. Afterwards some of us walked down to the water’s edge and shared a pipe between us. It were a beautiful day.’
‘And the woman?’ Kate asked.
‘They found her body in the mountains. At least they thought it was her. Those of us what worked in the big house moped about for days. Of course, I was younger then and yet to realise that a man don’t want love, he wants a mother to care for him by day and a rutting partner at night.’ Her eyes were distant.
‘And the boy? What happened to the boy?’ Kate asked, mesmerised by the story.
‘They never found him. Lost to the wilds, I suppose.’
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and sweet
Of wild birds making melodies,
Nor catch the little laughing breeze
&nb
sp; That whispers in the wheat.
‘Old Australian Ways’ by A.B. Paterson, 1902
Chapter 16
1838 March – heading east
towards the coast
They had left the sandstone outcrops in the south, cutting through the western edge of a great forest that was dominated by the sandy wash of past flooding creeks and ancient empty waterways. All manner of creatures existed here and they grew fond of eating the small furry tree climbers that were easy to catch. They camped in shallow caves during the hottest part of the day or buried themselves in the cool wet sand that bordered calm water. With time, Adam became less troubled. He hoped they were clear of the authorities. Certainly Bidjia had led them a distance, arcing far to the west before heading north-east and to the security of the great forest. But he would not consider camping here through winter in the shade of the tall pines and instead they had crossed the harsh, hot flatness of the plains and headed for the tallest mountain that rose prominently from the surrounding land.
The north-west side of the mountain was dense with timber and it had taken a half-day of solid walking and climbing to find a path that circled around this barrier. Having reached the leeward side, the setting sun was now masked by the mountain and a haze of dust hung, suspended in shafts of tawny brown light. Adam waited silently with Bidjia and Jardi, his musket at the ready.
The kangaroos hopped slowly to a patch of springy grass. The largest, a male, had red-brown fur, fading to pale buff below and on the limbs. This was the one they wanted. The females would be left alone to breed. Jardi lifted his spear, aimed and threw it in one fluid movement, but the big red had already sensed them and darted away, scattering the rest of the mob.
Wild Lands Page 23