Richard crouched beside her. “You heard.”
“Yes.”
“Well, better to hear it that way than from my wife,” he said, put an arm about her shoulders and hauled her upright with himself. “You were bound to find out sooner or later. Come, off to bed. ’Tis cold out here.”
She suffered herself to be led inside, then looked at him out of a wan white face and William Henry’s eyes.
“Go to bed,” he said firmly, face impassive.
Without a word she turned and went to her room. He was right, it was cold; shivering, she got into her night shift and climbed into that warm soft feather bed, there to lie sleepless, going over and over what she remembered of their—no, not conversation. Nor argument. What she had heard was an exchange of feelings and impressions between two very old friends, friends who could not truly offend each other no matter what had to be said. From the little her life had shown her, a rare occurrence. The word “maturity” came from somewhere, and it suited them. Why were they what they were? Why did Stephen choose to love a man? And why was that man Richard? Why had he called Richard “God the Father”? Oh, she thought, squeezing her hands together in pain and bewilderment, I know nothing about either of them! Nothing!
The wish to die faded, died. Nor, she discovered, was she shattered beyond hope of mending. That Stephen did not love her was a grief, but she had never thought he loved her; that was an old disappointment. The shape of her sorrow melted, burned away by yet more questions. Perhaps, she thought, I do have the brain to learn, though what the lesson is I do not know. Only that I have spent my life hiding, and I cannot go on hiding. Those who hide are never seen. With that enlightenment, she fell asleep.
When she woke in the morning, Richard had gone. The dishes were washed, the stove top tidy, the kettle steamed, the fire lay in embers, and a plate of cold chicken and rice lay on the table.
She made herself tea in the sturdy baked clay pot warming on the hearth and sat to pick at the food, looking back on last night as if from a great distance. The memories were all firmly embedded, but the intensity of feeling had gone. Feeling. . . . Surely there was a better word than that?
Richard walked in with his usual easy smile. As if nothing had happened. “You look very thoughtful,” he said.
The comment was a signal, she divined that: he did not wish to discuss last night. So she said, rather feebly, “No work?”
“Today is Saturday.”
“Oh, of course. Some tea?”
“That would be nice.”
She poured him a mug and cooled it down with cold sugar syrup, then sat down again to go on toying with her food. Finally she put the spoon down on the pewter plate with a clang and glared at him. “If I cannot talk to you,” she burst out, “who is there?”
“Try Stephen,” he said, sipping appreciatively. “Now that is one could talk the leg off an iron pot.”
“I do not understand you!”
“You do, Kitty, you do. ’Tis yourself you do not understand, and where is the wonder in that? Ye’ve not had much of a life,” he said gently.
She stared across the table straight into his eyes, something she had never had the courage to do before. Wide, the color of the sea beyond the lagoon on a squally day, and deep enough to drown in. Without, it seemed, the slightest effort, he took her inside himself and swept her away on a tide of—of—Gasping, she leaped to her feet, both hands clutching at her chest. “Where is Stephen?”
“Fishing at Point Hunter, I imagine.”
She fled through the door and into the vale as if Satan’s hounds bayed at her heels, slowing down only when she realized that he was not following her. How had he done that? How?
By the time she negotiated the perils of walking unescorted through Sydney Town—a matter of running from one group of women to the next—Kitty had regained a little composure and was able to smile and wave at Stephen, who rolled in his line, strolled to meet her, then shepherded her away from the vicinity of half a dozen other men also fishing. He seemed ignorant of what had happened; that eventuality had not occurred to her, she had automatically assumed that Richard would have gone to tell him. Did Richard discuss nothing with anyone?
“They are not biting,” he said breezily. “What brings ye here? No Richard in your wake?”
“I overheard what passed between you last night,” she said, and gulped audibly. “I know I ought not to have listened, but I did. I am sorry!”
“Bad child. Here, we can sit on this rock and look at the wonder of yon isles in the midst of such a smother, and the wind will blow our words away.”
“I am indeed a child,” she said miserably.
“Aye, and that I find the strangest part of it,” he said. “Ye’ve been through the London Newgate, Lady Juliana and Surprize as if none of it touched you. But it must have, Kitty.”
“Yes, of course it did. But there were others like me, you know. If we did not die of shame—one poor girl did—we managed not to be seen. Among so many, that is not as difficult as you might think. The crowds—the fighting, spitting, snarling, prowling—stepped over us as if we did not exist. Everybody was so drunk, or else after someone—to rob or fuck or beat upon. We were thin, poor, plain. Not worth going after for any reason.”
“So ye became a hedgehog curled into a ball.” His profile against the pines of Nepean Island was pure and serene. “And the only word ye know for the act of love is ‘fuck.’ That is the saddest thing of all. Did ye see people fucking?”
“Not really. Just clothes and jumping about. We used to shut our eyes when we realized it was going to happen near us.”
“ ’Tis one way to keep the world at a distance. What about Lady Juliana? Were ye not pecked at by the brazen madams?”
“Mr. Nicol was very good, so were some of the older women. They would not let the mean ones peck at us for spite. And I was always seasick.”
“ ’Tis a wonder ye lived. But ye came through it all to land here, and land none other than Richard Morgan. That, Mistress Kitty, is the most remarkable thing of all. I doubt there is a woman or a Miss Molly has not—well, perhaps tried is too strong a word, but at least wondered if it would be possible.” He turned his head to laugh at her.
How strange. His eyes were much bluer than Richard’s, so blue that they reflected the sky as if making a barrier of it. Not water to be engulfed by but a wall to come up against.
“I have fallen out of love with you,” she said in tones of wonder.
“And into love with Richard.”
“No, I do not think so. There is something, but it is not love. All I know is that it is different.”
“Oh, very different!”
“Tell me about him, please.”
“Nay, I’ll not do that. Ye’ll just have to stay with him and find things out for yourself. Not an easy task with our close-mouthed Richard, but ye’re a woman, and ye’re curious. I am sure,” he said, pulling her up, “that ye’ll give it your best try.” Leaning down, he put his cheek against her hair and whispered, “Whenever ye find something out, tell me.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, she was not sure why, except that a spasm of grief clutched at her heart. Grief for him rather than because of him, and not because she had taken anything away from him. I wish, she thought, that the world was better ordered. I am not in love with this man, but I love him dearly.
“Tobias and I,” he said, taking her hand and swinging it as they walked, “will make excellent uncles.”
At the head of Arthur’s Vale he released her hand and stopped. “This is as far as I go,” he said.
“Please come with me!”
“Oh, no. Ye must go alone.”
The house was empty; Richard had gone out, but the fireplace had been cleaned and fresh kindling stacked in it, her water buckets were full, four of the six chairs Richard had accumulated were tucked neatly beneath the table. Disappointed and bewildered—why had he not waited to see what Stephen had said to her?—she wandered about aimle
ssly, then went into the garden and began to dig, hoping that one day sufficient plenty arrived to allow her to waste ground outside the house upon flowers. Time passed; John Lawrell arrived with six Mt. Pitt birds he had cleaned and plucked, which solved dinner, served in the middle of the day now that winter approached.
By the time that Richard returned the birds had been browned in a pan and were braising, stuffed with herbed bread, in a covered pot with onions and potatoes.
“What,” she asked for something to say, “are the tiny green trees growing in a sunny spot below the privy?”
“Ah, you found them.”
“Ages ago, but I never remember to ask.”
“Oranges and lemons grown from seed I saved in Rio de Janeiro. In two or three years’ time we will see fruit during winter. A lot of my seeds came up, so I gave some of the plants to Nat Lucas, some to Major Ross, some to Stephen and some to a few others. The climate here should be perfect for citrus, there is no frost.” One brow lifted quizzically. “Did ye find Stephen?”
“Yes,” she said, pricking a potato with a knife to see if it was cooked.
“And he answered all your questions?”
Blinking in surprise, she paused. “Do you know, I do not believe I had time to ask any? He was too busy asking me questions.”
“What about?”
“Gaol and transports, mostly.” She began to transfer pieces of bird, onions and potatoes onto two plates, spooning juice over them. “There is a salad of lettuce, chives and parsley.”
“Ye’re a very good cook, Kitty,” he said, tucking in.
“I am improving. We almost support ourselves, Richard, do we not? Everything on our plates we either grew or found.”
“Aye. This is good soil and there is mostly enough rain to keep things going. My first year here was very wet, then it became dry. But the stream never ceases to flow, which means that it must originate in a spring. I would like to find the source.”
“Why?”
“That would be the best place to put a house.”
“But you already have a house.”
“Too close to Sydney Town,” he said, carefully scooping juice onto his spoon with the last of his potato.
“More?” she asked, getting up.
“If there is any, please.”
“It is close to Sydney Town in one way,” she said, sitting down again, “but we are quite isolated.”
“I suspect that when the next lot of convicts arrive, we will not be so isolated. Major Ross believes that His Excellency intends to push the number of people here up beyond a thousand.”
“A thousand? How many is that?”
“I forgot, ye cannot do sums. Remember last Sunday at divine service, Kitty?”
“Of course.”
“There were seven hundred present. Cut that crowd in half, then add your half to all who were there. That is over a thousand.”
“So many!” she breathed, awed. “Where will they go?”
“Some to Queensborough, some to Phillipsburgh, some to the place where the Sirius sailors were, though I believe that the Major might end in putting the New South Wales Corps soldiers there.”
“They do not get on with his marines,” she said, nodding.
“Exactly. But the vale will blossom with houses at this end, where the land is not in Government cultivation. So I would rather pick up and move farther away.” He leaned back in his chair and patted his belly, smiling. “At the rate ye feed me, I will have to work harder or grow fat.”
“You will not grow fat because you do not drink,” she said.
“None of us drinks.”
“Gammon, Richard! I am not as green as all that! The marines drink, so do the soldiers—and so do many convicts. If they have to, they make their own rum and beer.”
His brows flew up, he grinned. “I should lend ye to the Major as an adviser. How did ye pick that up?”
“At the Stores.” She took their empty plates and carried them to the counter beside the fireplace. “I had heard that you do not care for company,” she said, getting out her dish and soap whisk, “and in a way I understand. But moving from here would mean that you would have to start all over again. A terrible burden.”
“No amount of work is a burden if it means my children are protected,” he said in a steely voice. “I would have them grow up untainted, and they will not do that in close proximity to Sydney Town. There are many good people here, but there are also many bad people. Why d’ye think the Major racks his brains to devise punishments that might deter violence, drunkenness, robbery and all the other vices which spring up where people are too close together? D’ye think that Ross takes pleasure in sending men like Willy Dring to Nepean Island for six weeks with two weeks’ rations? Did he, I would not respect him, and I do respect him.”
The first part of this (for Richard) long speech sent her mind whirling, but she chose to answer the second. “Perhaps, did we understand better how folk think, we might find a way. So much trouble happens in drink. Look at me.”
“Aye, look at you. Growing in leaps and bounds.”
“I could grow more if I could read and write and do sums.”
“I will school you if you want.”
“Oh, would you? Richard, how wonderful!” She stood with the soap whisk in her hand, motionless, the same look in her eyes William Henry had borne after his first day at Colston’s School. “God the Father! I know now what Stephen meant. You need people to depend upon you as children do upon their father. You are very strong and very wise. So is Stephen, but he is not a father in his mind. I will always be your child.”
“In one way, yes. In another way, I want to father children of you. I am not God—Stephen spoke in jest, not in blasphemy. He was simply trying, as Stephen must, to put me under a title in his mental library.”
“You have a wife,” she said. “I cannot be your wife.”
“Lizzie Lock is entered in the Reverend Johnson’s register as my wife, but she has never been my wife. In England, I could have the marriage annulled, but the far ends of the earth do not run to bishops and ecclesiastical courts. You are my wife, Kitty, and I do not believe for one moment that God does not understand. God gave you to me, I knew it when I looked into your eyes. I will introduce you to people as my wife, and call you my wife. My other self.”
A silence fell, neither moved for what seemed an eternity. Her gaze was fixed in his, all the consent and communion necessary.
“What happens now?” she asked, a little breathlessly.
“Nothing until after curfew,” he said, preparing to depart. “I do not intend to be disturbed by visitors, wife. Dig in your garden, but bearing in mind that a lot of seedlings will end in being transplanted elsewhere. I am going up the stream to seek its sources. Ye may have been next door to a skeleton, but nine months of Norfolk Island sun and air and food have made a new woman of you. One I do not want gardening alone so close to Sydney Town.”
The pressure of work had left no time to explore farther up the stream than his bath, nor had curiosity prompted him until the truth about Kitty had dazzled him. How long might he have been prepared to wait if Stephen had not lost his temper? Loving her had been an idea; his gift from God was too precious to defile by behaving as most men would, by cozening and coaxing her into something she knew the wrong things about. Gloucester Gaol had shown him what the London Newgate must have been like, copulating couples everywhere. He did not believe for a moment that she had been the victim of any man’s lust, but lust she must have seen through every day and night she spent there. Luckily not long, yet quite long enough. Her attraction to Stephen had blasted his hopes apart without actually destroying them; he knew too well that Stephen was impossible. What he had decided upon was another long wait, patiently standing to one side caring for her while she came to terms with the fact that the object of her affections was incapable of returning them.
He did not think she loved him, but that he had never hoped for anyway. Close to
twenty-three years lay between them, and youth called to youth. Yet when she had stared across the table at him this morning he felt his body stir and unveiled his very core to her. She had fled to Stephen, but not unmoved and not in fright. That revelation of himself had kindled emotions in her that were entirely new and entirely his. The fact that he had such power had filled him with elation. Never a man to spend his leisure looking into the depths of his own being, he had not understood until he worked that power upon Kitty why he was what he was: God the Father, as Stephen had put it. All men and women needed to see and touch someone of their own kind who yet appeared to be more than they were. A king, a prime minister, a head man. He had taken on the care of others reluctantly, as a last resort because he witnessed their floundering and could not bear to have them sink. And slowly this skin of calm strength and purpose had infiltrated him to the marrow; what had once been done with an internal sigh of resignation had become an automatic assumption of authority. The germ must always have lain there in his spirit, but had he lived out his life in Bristol, it would never have awakened. We are born owning many qualities; some we may never know we possess. It all depends what kind of run God gives us.
After twenty minutes of walking barelegged up the muddy-bottomed brook he came to its first tributary, which led down from heights to the northeast. An amphitheatrical dell stuffed with tree ferns and plantains tempted him, but it was still too close to Arthur’s Vale, so he continued up the main course, which bent and wove its way through more tree ferns, palms and plantains until it branched again at the base of a flat expanse he thought the ages had deposited there during heavy rains. The western fork, which he followed first, was too short. The southwestern branch was clearly the principal source of the water in Arthur’s Vale, running deep and strong from somewhere up a fairly steep cleft. Wading on, he climbed higher and higher until, almost at the top of a crest, he found the spring gushing out between mossy, lichen-covered rocks smothered in ferns of more kinds than he had known existed—frilly, feathered, fluffed, fishtailed.