‘What did I do?’
‘You were not to blame.’
‘I must be! It was a punishment!’
‘It was nothing of the sort.’
‘I cannot bear this any more …!’
‘Hush.’
‘Oh God, God help me …’
Mrs Molle had been right; Charles’s breath smelled of spirits. But he was very kind, and was soon able to calm her by standing firm, and refusing to acknowledge that there was the least bit of sense in anything she said.
‘You are overwrought,’ he insisted. ‘You are not yourself.’
‘I cannot think what offence I might have committed!’
‘None against God.’
‘Should I have gone to church?’
‘Thea, stop fretting yourself over such trifles. It will do you no good.’
‘Tell me, Charles. You must tell me.’ She gazed up at him with frantic entreaty, her eyes wet. ‘What have I done?’
He replied that she had done nothing untoward, that she was clearly exhausted, that she must rest, and accept what had happened, and comfort herself with the thought that she was still a young woman, with many childbearing years ahead of her. ‘You will have others,’ he declared, too carelessly for his wife’s taste. How could he speak of others, with this loss so fresh? His tone was troubling; she realised that he did not, perhaps, regard the dead child as a child, but more as an unformed hope, and a messy failure. Obviously he had not indulged his imagination, picturing what might have been: the bud-like hands, the milky breath, the first word, the nursery songs.
But she could hardly blame him for it. Such fond musings had brought her nothing but pain. Charles was undoubtedly wiser than she.
‘That’s better,’ he said, seeing her fall back, with dull eyes, onto the pillow. He laid a hand on her brow, and declared that she did not seem feverish, but that she must be watched carefully, lest feverish symptoms appear. Surgeon Forster, he said, had been very insistent as regards the perils of a puerperal ague. Then he urged her to sleep, kissed her nose, and went to eat his dinner.
Dorothea, for her part, ate only a little tea and toast, fed to her by Anne Ezzey. She did sleep, but woke again when Charles joined her, wearing his gown and nightcap. When asked, he assured her that he had dined very well. He also told her that Anne had returned to Mrs Molle’s house, and that Mrs Molle had promised to call.
‘She asked me if you might want to speak to Vale,’ Charles continued, ‘and offered to arrange a visit. I told her that I was much obliged, but that a visit from Vale would probably do you more harm than good.’ He snorted as Dorothea gasped. ‘Contain yourself, my dear—of course I said no such thing,’ he amended. ‘I simply declined the offer with every appearance of goodwill. You have no wish to see Vale, I take it?’
‘No,’ Dorothea replied.
‘No. I thought not.’
‘But I should like to speak to Mr Cowper,’ Dorothea said faintly, and her husband frowned.
‘Of course, I have no objection to that,’ he rejoined. ‘But I should not like to think of you indulging yourself in fancies spawned by a febrile imagination. Recollect that your constitution is framed for hysteria, and that you are wont to be depressive at the best of times. You must not become morbidly fixated on this notion of divine punishment.’
Dorothea remained silent.
‘Only remember,’ Charles concluded, ‘that while religion is necessary, it can be taken to extremes—and that if penitence is misguided, no amount of counsel will bring you any comfort.’
He was right, as it happened. When the Reverend Mr Cowper was summoned the next day, he was singularly unhelpful with regard to Dorothea’s predicament. Naturally, he advised her to pray. Naturally, he urged her not to succumb to the sin of bitterness, for God was good, and His actions could not be judged by mere mortals. Perhaps, being a somewhat retiring man blessed with an overabundance of offspring, he could not regard Dorothea’s situation as being entirely without its benefits, for he was decidedly vague when Dorothea made inquiries about the curse of barrenness in holy scripture. Had not Rachel, the wife of Jacob, been so cursed? And for what reason?
‘Ah … well … you know, Mrs Brande, that was before Christ’s coming,’ Mr Cowper stammered, ‘when men had many wives, and I believe that Jacob had several wives, Rachel being one and her sister—his cousin—being another … what I mean to say is, there is no similarity in your situations. None at all.’
‘What have I done, then, to merit such a punishment?’
Mr Cowper fluttered his hands, and knitted his brows, before his face brightened; he said, ‘Perhaps you should ask yourself: what is it that I have not done?’, and suggested that she might think of knitting stockings for the Female Orphan School.
When he had gone, Dorothea considered his advice with a sinking heart. It was indeed probable that her sin, if she had committed one, had been a sin of omission. She had not, after all, been particularly busy in her habits, since arriving in New South Wales. But how could she therefore right the wrong? By knitting stockings? By reading more tracts? By observing Lent so strenuously as to earn her husband’s undying resentment?
Fretfully, she turned her head on the pillow. She could see by her bed, on the washstand, the flowers that Daniel had cut for her. Unlike Rose, he had not yet been given the opportunity to express his sympathies to Dorothea in person. (If he had, he might have phrased them more delicately than Rose.) Instead, he had offered his mistress flowers gathered from her own garden, arranged with no great skill, and delivered by the housemaid—who had surveyed them critically after placing them in a glass bottle.
‘Not too pertickler in ’is choice,’ she had remarked, with a sniff. And it was true—the flowers were wizened and windblown, long past their best. There were three scorched-looking roses (their petals brown at the edges), two faded geraniums, and the very last of the forget-me-nots, more grey than blue. Dorothea would have wondered at such a pitiful collection, had she not remembered that rain had been infrequent, recently, and the weather unseasonably warm. Doubtless Daniel had endeavoured to keep the beds properly watered, but in a climate such as this, and with the nearest well at such a distance, his failure could not be entirely condemned.
Gazing at the sorry bouquet, Dorothea thought: this is no place for English roses. And suddenly it all became clear.
Of course she was not to blame. New South Wales was to blame. It was unfertile ground. It was parched and unyielding. It gave her no assistance, and sapped her dry.
She thought sombrely, as she looked up at the ceiling: I shall bear no children in this Godforsaken country. There is no hope for me, here. I should have known. I should have known. It is not my fault at all.
Nevertheless, three days later, she took to her receiving cloth with a pair of fine embroidery scissors, and savagely sliced it to ribbons.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IN APRIL, GOVERNOR MACQUARIE at last lost patience with the native tribes. Despite his attempts to domesticate and civilise these wild, rude people, they persisted in burning sheds, stealing sheep and killing shepherds. Many settlers had entirely abandoned their farms, owing to native depredations. The Governor therefore ordered that an expedition be sent out against them, comprising two flank companies of the 46th Regiment. Captain Schaw took his force north-west, along the Nepean River. Lieutenant Dawe marched a battalion company down to the Cowpastures. And Captain Wallis led his grenadiers to the country known as Airds and Appin, where he distinguished himself in a raid on a native camp near Mr Broughton’s farm. During this action, fourteen natives were killed, including two of the tribe’s most ferocious and sanguinary leaders.
After twenty-three days, the weary campaigners returned home to an enthusiastic welcome, having driven the tribes back into the wilderness and destroyed all those who had attempted to resist. They brought with them several prisoners, whose subsequent punishment served as an example to their fellows.
Charles was furious at hav
ing been left out of the expedition.
‘Schaw and Wallis—the Governor’s toadies!’ he raged. ‘And Dawe is just the same! To distinguish yourself in this damned country you must fawn, and flatter, and endure the society of felons, and generally say farewell to all honour! I despair, indeed I do.’
His disgust with the Governor’s tendency to ‘play favourites’ was, in fact, so profound that he was tempted to sign his name to a petition then circulating. Drawn up by the Reverend Mr Vale and Mr Jeffery Bent, it was a petition addressed to the House of Commons, demanding relief from the oppressions of Governor Macquarie’s rule. Among its signatories was Mr Moore—who had been dismissed from his post as Crown solicitor, owing to his part in the Traveller affair—and a publican called Rose, who had been denied a renewal of his licence to sell spiritous liquors. Having been ordered back to England on the first available ship, Mr Vale was intending to take the petition with him; he was keen in his pursuit of signatures, and had already trawled the mess. But Charles, after a good deal of thought, refrained from signing. Upon mentioning the matter to his wife, he declared that he did not like to ‘keep company with publicans’, and that in any case he would lose all hope of an appointment, if he were to put his name to such a document.
‘God knows, I have every sympathy with Vale’s predicament,’ he said, ‘but to some degree he brought it upon himself with his own foolishness. And I do not intend to make the same mistake.’
So he followed the prudent course, declaring that he would sign if his commanding officer did. Since Colonel Molle was far too cautious to put his name to something so vituperative in tone, Charles was able to avoid committing himself. But the need for discretion was very galling. Unable to vent his dissatisfaction with the Governor even in this small way, Charles took to venting it at Dorothea. And his temper was not improved by the fact that he and she were engaged in a battle that his ill humour only made worse.
For it happened that Dorothea, in the weeks after her miscarriage, had turned against the colony as never before. Previously, she had refused to leave the house for fear of what might happen to her unborn child. Upon losing the child, she had sequestered herself in order that she might recover her health, and no one had thought the worse of her for doing so. Even Charles had acceded to her request for privacy, and had allowed her to remain at home, during the Sunday service, for two weeks running. His patience was somewhat tried when he discovered that Dorothea occupied herself, while he was in church, by reading aloud scriptural texts to that ‘damnable papist croppy’ on his staff. He growled something to the effect that Dorothea was casting pearls before swine, and demanded to know exactly what it was that she read to the ‘skulking rascal’—nothing too inflammatory, he hoped. When Dorothea replied that they had finished the Book of Daniel, and had begun the Book of Job, he observed that the Book of Daniel might give the convict ‘inflated ideas of his own importance’, and that the Book of Job might encourage him to feel ill used. ‘I will tell you what you should read to him,’ Charles declared, and spent several evenings leafing through the holy scriptures, compiling a list of suitable extracts.
He approved of the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelation, which he declared would ‘put the fear of God’ into even a papist villain like Daniel. For the same reason he recommended Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel and Ezekiel. The Song of Solomon he prohibited without explanation. He also proscribed the Second Book of the Kings (because it was not fit that his wife should read aloud to a convict the story of Jezebel), Psalm 10 (because in his view it sounded ‘too much like a damned Irish treason song’) and the Book of Judges (because he had never been able to abide Samson, the lovestruck fool). As to the rest, he cautioned Dorothea to ‘be careful’ with Ecclesiastes, to ensure that she did not omit the Book of Ruth, and to skip that portion of Genesis dealing with the Sodomites.
Having established to his satisfaction that Dorothea understood what she must (and must not) do, he freely allowed her to remain at home on the second Sunday. But by the third week, he was becoming fretful. Dorothea, he said, should have recovered by now. Mr Cowper had been asking after her. Dorothea’s place was at her husband’s side, especially on the Sabbath—she was shirking her marital duty, and shaming him withall. Why was she not more active? She seemed well enough. Had she no sense of propriety? If she did not bestir herself very soon, he would begin to think that she favoured a scurvy bogtrotter over himself.
‘You will grow fat, and lose the use of your limbs, if you persist in mooning about like this,’ he said. ‘You will make yourself ill with such behaviour. I cannot allow it.’
‘I am busy enough,’ Dorothea replied sullenly. ‘If I were mooning about, you would have no dinner to eat, nor clothes to wear. And I often go into the garden.’
‘But you never set foot outside it!’
‘Because I have no wish to.’
‘In God’s name why?’
‘Because there is no reason to do so.’
‘Nonsense! What nonsense.’ Charles began to pace the floor; they were in the drawing room, and he was becoming quite flustered. ‘What better reason could there be than divine worship? Eh? Tell me that!’
Dorothea sat playing with the fringes of her shawl. ‘I hate that church,’ she said flatly. ‘I hate the smell, and all those men …’
‘You think I like it?’ Charles exploded. ‘You think I enjoy rubbing shoulders with the scaff and raff of the London sewers? If it were up to me, they would be working the mines in Newcastle, not offending my wife with their stench! Mrs Brande.’ He stopped in front of her. ‘We all feel as you do. But we do our duty nonetheless.’
Dorothea stared up at him. She searched his face. At last, in desperation, she said: ‘It poisons me.’
‘What?’
‘This country is poisonous. Everywhere I go, there is some —some canker that makes my head ache, or my stomach revolt.’ In a small voice, she tried to explain the fear that was growing within her. ‘I am infected by it. I cannot bear a child, because of it. Out there …’ She glanced at the window. ‘Do you not feel it?’ she whimpered. ‘There is a dark stain on everything.’
But Charles only blinked, and looked at her askance.
‘You are not talking sense,’ he replied.
‘Am I not?’ Dorothea almost wanted to be persuaded that this was, indeed, the case. She wanted reassurance. ‘What about this illness that plagues you?’ she pleaded. ‘This sore throat? This costiveness? I cannot help but wonder—are you being poisoned, too?’
Charles peered at her in consternation.
‘You cannot be in earnest,’ he protested. ‘Mrs Brande, you are raving.’
Dorothea flushed. ‘I am not!’ she cried.
‘You are. This is the most arrant twaddle. Good God, I warned you that you would make yourself ill, and I was right, you see!’ Charles put his hand on her brow. ‘Anyone would think you were feverish.’
‘Charles—’
‘I begin to wonder if you have recovered your strength after all. Perhaps you should consult Surgeon Forster. I shall speak to him this afternoon. Are you feeling weak, Thea? Tired or faint?’
‘No, not especially—’
‘I shall speak to Surgeon Forster.’
Surgeon Forster was therefore consulted, and came to visit Dorothea within the day. He conversed with her at length about the condition of her bowels (did she or did she not purge?), the frequency of her headaches, the duration of her nocturnal slumbers, her monthly cycles, her reading habits, her diet, and the amount of exercise she took. He then pronounced her a ‘pretty perfect case’ of someone with an hysterical predisposition.
‘Your muscular fibre is not strong, and your nervous system is extremely sensible,’ he said solemnly. ‘Together, these are the characteristics of a female prone to syncope, dyspepsia, fatigue, convulsions, headaches, miscarriages, and a variable and capricious appetite—not to mention a tendency towards the romantic and fanciful.’ He patted Dorothea’s hand. ‘A delic
ate flower, in other words.’
‘But my digestion is perfectly good,’ she said faintly, and he shook his head.
‘It will not remain so, if you do not attempt to correct your habits,’ he replied. ‘Staying shut up in a close atmosphere is the very worst thing, Mrs Brande. Proper exercise in the open air is demonstrably useful to a person of your inclinations. Restricted studying times; good, plain, lean meat, with a little claret or weak sherry and water; no beer and not much bread; plentiful sleep at night. No rich pastries or overwrought literature, and a cold drink of water on rising.’ He beamed at her. ‘The only poisons that you are imbibing, Mrs Brande,’ he added, ‘are the tainted air of closed rooms and the foolish ramblings of popular novelists.’
Dorothea wondered if this were so. She had never fainted in her life before, and it was Charles, not she, who suffered from a faulty digestion. As for exercise in the open air, no doubt it was desirable—she had exercised regularly, at Bideham—but in New South Wales it was more likely to give her a headache than cure her of one.
She conceded, however, that her temper was becoming more irritable, and announced to Charles that she would take upon herself increased responsibility for the garden.
‘I shall weed, and hoe, and dig over the beds,’ she told him. ‘That will be my concession to Surgeon Forster.’
‘Stooping in the heat? Do you call that refreshing exercise?’ was her husband’s response. ‘I am quite sure that he means you to walk, Mrs Brande.’
‘In which direction? We are hemmed in by horrors, as well you know.’
‘There can be no objection to an evening promenade in Hyde Park.’
‘I loathe Hyde Park. To walk round and round, while the rowdies stare and make comments—what is the attraction in that?’
‘You are being deliberately perverse. I shall not indulge you.’
Dorothea knew that she was, in fact, being perverse, but somehow she could not prevent herself. She felt horribly on edge, and took to dosing herself with a tonic. Towards the end of the third week, Mrs Molle came to visit, for the purpose of informing Dorothea that Charles had spoken to her about his concerns.