The Gentleman's Garden

by Catherine Jinks

  Charles would make no concessions. He abused Daniel roundly. He directed Dorothea to dismiss Rose—or, if she were ill, to censure her parents for neglecting to inform him of this fact. Then he left, in a high dudgeon.

  An hour later, Jack returned from Rose’s house. Dorothea was in her bedroom at the time. She was tying up pillows, and contemplating the possibility of making the bed. (Would Daniel attend to the mattresses, perhaps, while she herself took charge in the kitchen?) Hearing footsteps in the hallway, she looked up.

  The footsteps slowed.

  She went to the door, pillow in hand, and saw Jack with Daniel. They seemed to be hesitating within a few steps of the bedroom’s threshold. Daniel’s face was white.

  Dorothea noticed its pallor immediately.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Ma’am,’ Jack replied, and hesitated. He glanced at Daniel.

  ‘What?’ Dorothea exclaimed. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘That girl—that Rose,’ said Jack, in his flat, nasal drawl.

  ‘Well? What of her?’

  ‘She’s bin killed.’

  Dorothea gasped.

  ‘Murdered,’ Jack continued. ‘By the feller she was promised to.’

  ‘Oh …’ Dorothea reached for the wall.

  ‘Last night, in the street. Laid open her head. They’ve taken him, though—or so her ma tol’ me.’

  Dorothea was speechless. Shock had deprived her of her wits. She allowed herself to be conducted into the drawing room by Daniel, who urged her, hoarsely, to sit down. She sat. She stared.

  ‘I’ll inform Captain Brande, shall I, Ma’am?’ Jack asked her. He seemed utterly unmoved—a soldier faced with yet another unwelcome duty. ‘He’ll be wantin’ me at the barracks, I should think.’

  Dorothea nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, in a voice so faint that she could hardly hear it herself. But as he turned, she detained him. ‘Why?’ she croaked. ‘Why—why did this happen?’

  Jack shrugged. ‘The two of ’em fell out, Ma’am, far as I can tell.’

  ‘Over what?’

  Another shrug. ‘Beggin’ yer pardon, Ma’am, but he was a ticket-o’-leave man. There’s never any tellin’ what them bast—er—scoundrels is goin’ to do.’

  Dorothea gazed at him, mutely. Jack waited. When no more questions were forthcoming, he took his leave. Daniel then asked Dorothea if she required a glass of brandy.

  ‘No. Thank you,’ she replied.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Yes.’ She spoke almost without thinking. ‘I should like a cup of tea.’

  He went to fetch some from the kitchen, where the kettle was still on the hob. Dorothea sat for while, trying to comprehend the meaning of this terrible event. Murder. A murderous attack—so close to home! And upon Rose, of all people. Rose, who was only seventeen years old …

  With a little start, Dorothea recollected her duty. She had a duty to Rose’s mother. Formalities had to be observed. Responsibilities could not be neglected.

  She followed Daniel to the kitchen, where she found him slowly—clumsily—arranging a tray. He looked stricken. He had to stop, and reflect, before retrieving every article of crockery and piece of silver. It was as if his memory had been affected.

  ‘I must send a token to Mrs Taylor,’ Dorothea told him. ‘A sponge cake. A note.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Flowers?’ Dorothea tried to think. Her own mind was not clear. ‘Money.’

  Daniel was silent.

  ‘How many eggs have we? Daniel? I must have seven eggs at the very least. And lump sugar equal to the weight of four eggs. Where is the flour?’

  As it happened, there were sufficient quantities of all the ingredients required for a sponge cake of reasonable size. There was also enough strawberry jam with which to fill it, and a starched white cloth to wrap it in. While the cake was baking, Dorothea sent Daniel out to buy cheese and more sugar. She herself sat down to compose a brief letter, in which she strove to express her profound sympathy to Rose’s family.

  I cannot convey to you, she wrote, the grief that I felt upon being informed of Rose’s tragic death. I am so very, very sorry. Your suffering must be made infinitely worse by the horrid circumstances of this loss. If there is anything that I might do to ease your burden, please do not hesitate to communicate with me. Rose was a very good servant. She worked hard, and was clever and willing. It is difficult to comprehend how an offence of this kind could be visited upon so upright and goodhearted a girl …

  When Daniel returned to the house, and reported to Dorothea, he found her weeping over her portable writing desk.

  ‘Ah, no,’ he murmured. Hearing him, she raised her head. He had come to a halt in the doorway; he seemed not to know what he should do with his hands.

  She wiped away tears, and they gazed at each other.

  ‘I am—I am writing to Mrs Taylor,’ she announced, with a hiccough.

  He nodded.

  ‘This is a terrible place,’ she went on, and her voice broke. ‘A terrible place. I cannot bear it here.’ Her sobs redoubled, whereupon she covered her mouth with her handkerchief. Daniel took a step forward.

  He said: ‘What can I do?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she quavered. Then, with a great effort of will, she blew her nose. ‘You can take this to Mrs Taylor,’ she said, correcting herself. ‘When the cake is ready, you may go.’

  ‘Aye, Ma’am.’

  ‘You must present her with my compliments and my deepest sympathy. You must ask her if there is anything that I might do to assist her. Anything at all.’ With a faltering hand, Dorothea signed her name to the slip of paper on her writing desk. ‘Take this with you,’ she instructed, folding the letter and passing it to Daniel. ‘I cannot say more than I have said here. Tell her that I am at her service.’

  ‘Aye, Ma’am.’ But he seemed to hesitate. Dabbing at a fresh flow of tears, Dorothea asked him if there was anything more.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. Raising his eyes from the letter, he fixed them on Dorothea’s face. ‘Will ye not—will ye kindly read it to me, Ma’am?’

  ‘Read you what? This letter?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Why?’ she asked, before something occurred to her. ‘Would you like me to add a few words?’ she inquired gently, and was surprised when he declined her offer.

  ‘I’ll pay me own compliments,’ he said. ‘Sure, and there’s no words can help the pain to go. But I’d be grateful if ye could read me yeer letter, Ma’am. In case no one in Rose’s family is a scholar.’

  So Dorothea read her stumbling missive aloud, in a small voice. And Daniel listened, and thanked her at its conclusion. ‘ ’Twas a fine thing to hear,’ he said.

  Then he went to do his chores, while Dorothea attended to the cake. She spread it with jam, and wrapped it in a white cloth. When it was ready, she sent Daniel with it to Mrs Taylor’s house.

  Upon his return, an hour later, she was sitting at the kitchen table as white as salt.

  ‘Are ye not well, Ma’am?’ he asked.

  ‘You were a long time gone.’

  ‘Yeer pardon—’

  ‘It does not matter. What happened? Did you talk to Mrs Taylor?’

  ‘Aye.’ He looked down at the floor, and grimaced. Dorothea pressed him.

  ‘Was it very bad?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Does she need my help?’

  ‘No, Ma’am, but she thanks ye for yeer kind offer.’

  ‘Is there nothing I can do?’

  He hesitated. ‘Only,’ he said at last, ‘that ye will ask the master to see to’t that Bill Hawkins is hung. Beggin’ yeer pardon, Ma’am.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dorothea. She stared at the tabletop, which was marked with many stains and burns. She was too weary to rise. She was almost too weary to think. And she had dinner to prepare, on top of everything else.

  What could she possibly undertake, without Rose’s assistance? Cold meat? A salad?

  ‘Ma’am?’
>
  ‘What?’ It was an effort to speak. ‘What is it, Daniel?’

  ‘There’s soup from last night, Ma’am. And salt tongue, and half a plum puddin’. Ye’ll need no more’n beans and potatoes cooked, for dinner. Beggin’ yeer pardon, Ma’am.’

  Dorothea looked up, shocked at this evidence of Daniel’s perspicacity.

  ‘Well, I—thank you,’ she stammered. ‘Yes. Yes, you are quite right.’ He was standing with his fingers spread, each fingertip resting lightly on the tabletop. His hands were large and rough, but shapely. His figure was imposing. Since coming to work at the house he had put on more flesh, and it suited him; he no longer possessed such a cadaverous, haunted appearance. Indeed, although he was not what Dorothea would have called a handsome man, he did possess certain striking features that might have elicited admiration from people unacquainted with his circumstances. His nose was large, but delicately made. His face, though long, was constructed with perfect symmetry, boasting high cheekbones and a strong, smooth jawline. As for his eyes, they were extraordinarily fine for a man of his condition.

  He said: ‘Will ye read from the Scriptures, Ma’am?’

  Dorothea blinked. Her mind had been far away. She had been contemplating the unlikely possibility of dressing Daniel in proper footman’s livery. How fine he would look, she had decided, in a dress coat and epaulettes!

  ‘W-what?’ she said.

  ‘Will ye read from the Scriptures?’ he repeated. ‘ ’Twould be a comfort, if it please ye, Ma’am.’

  ‘Well, I …’ She considered the suggestion. ‘I suppose I could,’ she said at last. ‘Yes, it would be proper, I think. But only for a little while. You have a great deal of work to do, Daniel—as have I.’

  Because she was feeling disinclined to move, Daniel fetched the Bible from the drawing room. Then Dorothea opened it to the first epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, and read from chapter fifteen. She read of the Apostles, and Christ’s resurrection. She read of evil communication corrupting good manners, and of awakening to righteousness. She read: ‘Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.’ And she read: ‘We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible …’

  Finally, she read: ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ At which point tears filled her eyes, and she could no longer read.

  ‘We should say a prayer,’ she muttered, overcome by a great, black wave of grief that seemed to come from a source far more deep and ancient than Rose’s untimely death. ‘You—you say it, Daniel.’

  ‘Aye,’ he responded. And he began to formulate a simple prayer, simply put, requesting for Rose Taylor eternal peace in the arms of Jesus. In a careful but straightforward fashion, he catalogued her many virtues, and described his own gratitude at having been favoured with her acquaintance. He spoke of her ‘bright, clear tongue’ and the purity of her soul’s desire. She had been ‘as fair and clean as the sea wind’, he said.

  Then he crossed himself.

  ‘Well,’ Dorothea said wearily, after a long silence, ‘I must wash my face now, and attend to matters. The kitchen will be my domain today. You must sweep out the house, Daniel, and make the bed. You know what has to be done.’

  ‘Aye, Ma’am.’

  ‘I am not sure—it seems callous to raise the subject, but I am not sure how soon we may expect to engage a new housemaid. Until we do … well, you know how it is.’

  Daniel nodded.

  ‘I shall consult Captain Brande this evening,’ Dorothea concluded. She did so, and discovered that he had already applied to Captain Gill for assistance. He had nothing much else to say on the subject of Rose’s murder, which he seemed to regard more as a source of irritation than anything else. It was bothersome that, having acquired a housemaid who had proven to be suitable, they must now endure all over again the tedious process of locating, training and becoming acquainted with another.

  He did observe, however, that the fatal assault had been a particularly grisly one. ‘It was done with an axe,’ he informed Dorothea, with a certain, almost undetectable, relish, ‘and the head was left in several pieces.’ Rose’s parents, he added, had been forced to identity the corpse from the clothes that it was wearing (or so he had heard). He delivered himself of the opinion that the hanging of Bill Hawkins would be a very, very popular event.

  ‘The mob will be paying for their places on Gallows Hill,’ he declared and, having laughed a little at his own wit, attacked his cold beef with a hearty appetite.

  Dorothea would be pleased to know, he said, that his digestion had been much improved lately.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ROSE’S MURDERER WAS TRIED and punished with great expedition. As Charles had predicted, the hanging of this scoundrel was well attended; though it took place in the gaol, and was therefore, in one sense, not a public event, the gaolyard was overlooked by high ground (popularly known as Gallows Hill) upon which a great crowd assembled to watch Bill Hawkins meet his Maker. The following day, the Gazette published a brief account of the execution, which Charles read aloud to Dorothea, commenting as he did so on the satisfaction that every civilised man must feel upon seeing justice carried out so swiftly and efficiently.

  A large crowd also gathered to watch Rose interred, though it was not as large as the one on Gallows Hill. Dorothea herself was present. Despite the objections of her husband, who refused to abandon his duties out of respect for a humble housemaid, she had felt that it behoved her, as Rose’s mistress, to attend. She brought flowers and smelling salts. Daniel accompanied her. The funeral was not much to her taste, since it attracted many idle and intrusive gawkers, who imposed on the bereaved family in a fashion that Dorothea would have found unbearable, shouting crudely encouraging comments and groaning with sympathy at every tear shed. But she endured it all staunchly, for Rose’s sake. With Daniel, large and grim, at her side, she was not much jostled. Nor was she required to stand for an extended period, because the service was not long. It was, indeed, such a noisy and confusing affair, with its crowd of curious onlookers, its mumbled Committal (Mr Cowper had a very bad cold), and its continual disruption by Rose’s youngest siblings, that Dorothea was left quite unmoved by it. She was not obliged to uncork her salts, or ply her handkerchief. When she approached Mrs Taylor, to express her condolences, she was able to do so in a firm and gentle voice, as befitted a lady.

  Mrs Taylor received her good wishes with the utmost gratitude. This unfortunate woman, her face besmeared and her eyes brimming, was able to blurt out a few halting words (‘honoured’ and ‘loss’ were among them) before her feelings overcame her completely. Peg Whiting, who stood at her side, thereafter spoke for her—and Dorothea was impressed by Peg’s bearing, which was kindly, and protective, and grave. It was Peg who thanked Dorothea on Mrs Taylor’s behalf. It was Peg who acknowledged that Rose had found Dorothea a fair mistress, always ready to help and teach her staff—‘a lady through and through’, as Peg put it. Dorothea was quite struck by the manner in which Peg addressed her. They might almost have been of equal station, so quiet and calm was Peg’s tone.

  Looking at her former housemaid, stately in respectable garments, her thriving family gathered about her, Dorothea was almost—irrationally—envious. How well established Peg seemed to be! How easily she seemed to have made her way on this benighted shore!

  No doubt she was made of coarser stuff than Dorothea. A refined person could not be expected to flourish in such a climate. Nevertheless, Dorothea felt that her own predicament in many ways did not compare favourably with Peg Whiting’s, and she left abruptly, pleading fatigue.

  She was tired; her excuse was not without foundation. Still reeling from the shock of Rose’s untimely death, she had been forced to cope with her husband’s delicate appetite unassisted, and was finding it a toilsome chore—even more so, now that she could n
ot view him with any great sympathy. His proximity, at nights, filled her with despair. Only the fact that she was still somewhat dazed and disoriented allowed her to be civil when he complained about the food, or gloated over one of the many insults offered to the Governor by Captain Sanderson. How mean-spirited he was! Had he always been so? She could not believe it. She was sure that he must have changed, and that this change must have been effected by his sojourn in New South Wales.

  She wondered if a return to England might repair the damage. She wept (alone, in her room) when reports reached her that the Regiment would almost certainly be dispatched to India once it had left the colony. Rumours of its imminent departure were rampant. Even Colonel Molle conceded that the 48th was being sent to relieve his force. Bets were being placed that the South Devonshires would be on the high seas again before the year was out. Many maintained that Governor Macquarie had insisted on their recall.

  To Dorothea, the thought of enduring yet another terrible ocean voyage was only mildly intimidating, for she had more pressing concerns. The foundations of her marriage appeared to be crumbling. She was alone—utterly alone—in her appreciation of this fact. She was surrounded by sin and misery, she was afflicted by punishing headaches, and, for six days after Rose’s death, she was obliged to spend most of her time in a hot and stuffy kitchen, toiling over saucepans and dripping pans and bushell measures.

  Moreover, when she was finally relieved of this duty, her situation became even worse. For it transpired that the new housemaid was utterly and immeasurably unsuitable.

  Her name was Jane Steel. She was about Dorothea’s age, and she was a Londoner, convicted of theft. Though she professed to have been a laundress before ill fortune had overtaken her, she displayed no fondness for clean linen. Indeed, her appearance was entirely unprepossessing; she had stiff, rather wild black hair, a creased and sallow face, and a baleful eye. Her voice was harsh, and her speech vulgar. When asked about her crimes, she confessed, in sullen tones, to having ‘napped seven penn’orth’ for ‘canting the dobbin’ from a haberdashery. (Captain Brande, upon sharply requesting that she employ the King’s English, was able to extract from her that she had in fact stolen a roll of ribbon, valued at two shillings.) Her bearing was more insolent than otherwise, comprising a discontented slouch, a sidelong glance and folded arms. Nevertheless, Captain Brande—who was proud of having secured her so rapidly—insisted that Dorothea put her to work.