The Gentleman's Garden

by Catherine Jinks

  Certainly he behaved like an honourable man. Before opening his new account, he insisted on signing a letter that testified to the fact that he was in possession of Dorothea’s money. He did this after discovering that she intended to deposit thirty-two pounds, ten shillings and sixpence.

  Clearly, he had not expected so generous a sum.

  ‘You must not think me inquisitive,’ he said, upon taking his leave of her in Macquarie Place, ‘but may I ask you, Mrs Brande, why you feel it necessary to leave your man with a sufficiency in excess of thirty pounds? Half that would have been more than adequate, in my opinion.’

  Dorothea looked up, and studied his face. It was not a kindly face, but it was strangely reassuring. The speculative glint in his eye, the stubborn set of his jaw and the subtle expression of his mouth suggested a character that was at the same time both worldly and high-principled.

  So she did not attempt to avoid answering him. Instead, after reflecting for a moment, she replied: ‘Even thirty-two pounds, Mr Campbell, will not serve to make amends.’

  Then she left him, and went to the gaol. She wished to inform Daniel of the arrangements that she had made on his behalf. Although these arrangements were not precisely what she would have wished, they might at least give him cause to hope, and reason to endure.

  She was too late, however. Upon reaching the gaol, she discovered that Daniel had already been sent off, with a draft of men, to repair the lower reaches of the road over the mountains.

  EPILOGUE

  New South Wales

  October 30th, 1827

  My dearest Margaret,

  I have no expectation of your reading this letter with any sympathy. Perhaps you are no longer interested in my fate or my progress, now that I have deliberately and irretrievably ‘lowered’ myself in pursuing a purpose that you have described as absurd, distasteful and perilous. I cannot agree, but I do understand. Despite your disapproval, you remain my sister—even if I am no longer yours. Therefore I have put aside these few minutes to acquaint you with my recent experiences and immediate intentions, in the hope that by doing so, I may to some degree banish your doubts and concerns. I do not regret my actions. So far, nothing has occurred that merits regret.

  When I left this country ten years ago, I had no intention of ever returning. I abhorred it mightily, believing that it had destroyed everything I held dear—save for yourself, my dearest Margaret, and all the other inhabitants of Bideham. I had lost my health. I had lost my children. I had lost my husband—for though he died some three years later in Madras (as you know), I believe I lost him long before that. I lost him as soon as I began to perceive that he was not the man I had married. You have long condemned me, I know, for the manner in which I abandoned him, allowing him to sail to India two months before I myself left the colony. Perhaps you believe that, had I accompanied him, he would not have perished. But you do not know all the truth. Even had I been at his side, nursing and tending, he would certainly have succumbed to the illness which felled him—for it was not a tropical fever. It was a malady that had plagued him for many years, slowly destroying his reason and depriving him of every physical advantage. More than that I cannot say, for I have already done him a great disservice.

  The fact is, I have spent the last six years pondering the failure of our marriage, and have come to the conclusion that Charles was not entirely at fault. Though his temper was not easy, his illness certainly inflamed it. Though he could often be boorish and ungenerous, the company he kept was often to blame—for he was easily influenced by it. I do not believe, on reflection, that he was a very strong man, either in his health or in his character. And I freely admit that I could not provide the unending assistance and devotion that a man of his uneasy temperament required. Perhaps another, rarer spirit could have done so, shouldering his weakness as her life’s burden. I do not know. I know only that I could not, and in this I failed. Indeed, my ‘betrayal’ (for so he called it—and so, I suppose, it was) left him irretrievably shaken. When I last saw him, before he sailed to India, he wept even as he railed at me, displaying the attributes of man much set upon by ravaged nerves and unreasonable fears. I pitied him, then—a little. But my heart had hardened against him. It has only softened gradually, over the intervening years.

  Perhaps I would have been more sympathetic had I not been quite distraught, at the time, over the fate of one Daniel Callaghan. You perhaps do not realise that I had no opportunity even to bid him farewell, though I made several attempts to do so, even visiting Parramatta with that purpose in mind. Alas—I discovered that a journey even as far as the Nepean River was far too expensive and arduous an undertaking for a woman of my breeding to attempt without assistance. I could only leave a letter for him with Mr John Campbell, who promised that it would be delivered to Daniel upon his return to Sydney. I know that you were once suspicious of Mr Campbell, Margaret, though you never expressed your suspicions openly. Let me assure you here that Mr Campbell, while he was of great service to me—arranging my passage home, finding a respectable situation for Emily, and undertaking to keep me apprised of Daniel’s fate—was never anything more than a good friend. If we seemed to correspond with unnerving regularity, it was because I wished to keep abreast of Daniel’s progress.

  Daniel is, and always has been, my chief concern. Mr Campbell has put himself at my disposal only as friend and agent.

  I arrived here on the seventeenth of this month. It was a far more pleasant voyage than the last, if only because Dr Redfern’s recommendations as to the treatment of convicts are to some degree being followed. Rebecca, too, was a cheerful and active companion. Upon disembarking from the ‘Champion’, I discovered that—as I always maintained—Daniel had not been lying to me. Margaret, he does indeed own a farm. It is called Clonmel, as he said, and comprises ninety-two acres of land near Cawdor, in the Cowpastures. He has forty-five head of cattle here, a horse, a plough, a dray, ten cherry, five peach and ten apple trees, four pigs, poultry, ducks, a hayfield and two assigned farm servants—I have seen them all. The farmhouse is not very elegant, comprising only four rooms (including the kitchen), but it is, at least, reasonably dry. Daniel has promised that the bark roof will soon be replaced by a shingle one; he made arrangements to that effect when he came to Sydney to meet me. He is very attentive to my comfort—far more so than Charles ever was, though I know you will not believe it. I was not mistaken in him. He is as I remember, though far more cheerful. A fine man, Margaret. A good, kind, upright, admirable man. Every evening, after the hard labour of the day, he exerts himself further by sitting down to learn his letters, with my assistance. His education is so far advanced that I believe he would no longer require the assistance of a literate person if he was writing to me now. And you must agree, Margaret, that his style of expression was always very beautiful. Though you scoffed at his clumsy signature when he was first able to affix it to someone else’s script, you could not despise the manner in which he framed his thoughts, nor indeed the content of those thoughts. Even to you, the nobility of his character was evident.

  I am as happy here, Margaret, as I will ever be. How can I make you understand? It was not that Bideham was spoiled for me, but that I was spoiled for Bideham. I could not live there, knowing what was happening here. I could not be comfortable. It would be too much to say that I left a portion of my heart in this country, but there can be no doubt that I did leave my peace of mind here. I have retrieved it now, to some degree, though of course the condition in which Charles left me has meant that I am never truly at peace.

  If I had been able to bear a child, Margaret, doubtless I would not have come—for what kind of home is this, for a child of good breeding? It is a home of fractured hopes and mismatched refugees. But perhaps we shall acquire an orphan, Daniel and I. A little boy to raise as an Elysian farmer, here at the outer limits of the world. I should like that. It would give me some occupation, aside from the remorseless demands of kitchen garden and hen-coop.

&nbs
p; Society hereabouts is restricted, as you may imagine, and I am glad of it. Though Mrs Macarthur seems happy to receive me, and often calls in as she rides by, I know that she regards me with pity and concern. No doubt she is more generous than many of her friends, who would scorn me if I imposed my presence upon them. So it is as well, perhaps, that our visits to Sydney will be few. In any event, this countryside is far prettier, and more wholesome, than the town. I like it here. It is a quiet and spacious refuge, now that the blacks have ceased to give us any concern. It is a suitable habitation for one such as myself.

  My life will not be easy, Margaret, and it may not even be long. But it will be useful, and interesting, and deeply, deepy appreciated—you cannot conceive of Daniel’s gratitude, for all that it is ill deserved. Perhaps (who knows?) he will come to take me for granted. Perhaps I shall end my days milking cows, and binding sheafs of hay. But even if I do, I shall be grateful. I shall be grateful that God has bestowed on me Daniel’s great heart and tender regard, with which he has repaid tenfold any small assistance that I might have rendered him, long ago.

  And I shall always be grateful that you are my sister, dearest Margaret, for I know that your disapproval has only stemmed from your anxiety on my behalf. Do not be anxious. Do not be distressed. Though I have found a life away from you, I am quite content—and would be perfectly serene if only I were to remain, now and for eternity

  your loving sister,

  Dorothea Callaghan