‘Of course you must feel flat and languid after your experience,’ she said briskly, ‘and cannot be blamed for any imagined debility. But you must make an effort to invigorate yourself, Mrs Brande, or the debility will become actual and inescapable. Your health will truly begin to fail. Now, why not take a turn with me around the barracks square? There can be no objection to that, surely?’
‘There can be if Captain Sanderson is there,’ Dorothea rejoined. Only her awareness of the debt that she owed Mrs Molle prevented her from feeling resentful. What business did Charles have, discussing his wife’s frailties with Mrs Molle? Dorothea had never once succumbed to the same temptation when irritated by his shortcomings.
‘Why, whatever do you mean?’ said Mrs Molle. ‘Has Captain Sanderson offended you, in some way?’
‘I do not like him,’ Dorothea replied shortly.
‘I see.’
‘If I can avoid him, I would prefer to do so. But if you would care to take a turn around the garden, Mrs Molle, I would be delighted to join you.’
Politely, Mrs Molle accepted the invitation. She accompanied Dorothea into the garden, where she admired the flourishing state of the grass in the front (‘not quite a lawn, but in the way of becoming one’), the condition of the soil in the beds, and the arrangement of the borders. To Daniel she was overpoweringly gracious, and to Dorothea she gave a good deal of sound advice. But on taking her leave, Mrs Molle warned her friend, apologetically, that she was bound to comply with Captain Brande’s request.
‘He has asked me to stop visiting you, in the hope that you will visit me,’ she said. ‘And I can find no fault with that. How long is it since you paid me a call, Mrs Brande?’ With a kind of heavy playfulness, she tapped Dorothea on the arm. ‘Far too long, I think. When next we meet, it should be in my drawing room, where you will hear a great deal of news that you will not garner otherwise. Come, do me the honour. And set your poor husband’s mind at rest.’
Annoyed as she was, Dorothea was tempted to comply. She did reflect on the matter, as she checked the laundry, and supervised the cooking, and transplanted bulbs. There was nothing to threaten her in Mrs Molle’s drawing room, after all. It was a very pleasant place, with its English furniture, and its heavy draperies, and its airy size.
But then she thought of the barracks square, and Clarence Street, and the children who played at floggings by the barrack walls, and felt vaguely ill.
The next day, she refused once again to accompany Charles to St Philip’s.
‘I cannot,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’
‘If not now, when?’ he demanded. ‘Next week? Next month? Next year?’
‘When I am ready.’
‘Ready for what, in God’s name?’
‘I don’t know, Charles!’ Her nerves felt like violin strings. ‘When I am ready to breathe the air in that place! When I am ready to see a roadgang, and not faint away on the spot! When people stop talking about my disappointment!’
Charles regarded her for a moment. Then he shook his head in disgust.
‘People are more likely to be talking about your lunatic conduct,’ he growled. ‘By God, Madam, you would try the patience of a saint, with your megrims and affectations.’
And he promptly departed, muttering under his breath. Left alone, Dorothea sat staring at the wall. She was dismayed to find herself behaving so capriciously, but knew that she had no choice. There was nothing beyond the palings of her fence that would do her any good at all. What benefit could be derived from the heaving press of bodies in church, or the tedious gossip of a colonial drawing room, or the viper-infested wilderness surrounding Sydney Cove?
After a while she sighed, and rose, and summoned Daniel Callaghan.
‘I thought that I might read from Jonah today,’ she said brightly, when he had seated himself in his customary position. She was attempting to dispel the rancorous atmosphere that seemed to linger in the drawing room, but she was not entirely successful. He looked uneasy, and mumbled, and avoided her gaze—until she began to read. Then the psalms, as always, began to cast their spell, and he listened intently, his eyes fixed on her face.
After finishing her chosen psalms, Dorothea turned to that portion of the scriptures known merely as ‘Jonah’. She had selected the tale of Jonah because it was a simple adventure, of the kind that generally appeals to children and common folk. She had thought that Daniel would find it interesting, as well as illuminating, and had favoured it also because it was not very long. So she read with determined energy of Jonah’s flight from the Lord, his voyage to Tarshish, the mighty tempest, the crew’s despair. She read of how Jonah bade the sailors throw him overboard, and how they did—whereupon a great fish swallowed him for three days and three nights. ‘The waters compassed me about, even to the soul,’ she read, ‘the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me forever; yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.’
She then narrated the story of Jonah’s preservation: how the fish vomited him onto dry land; how the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying ‘arise, go to Nineveh’; how Jonah went thereto, warning the wicked city that it would be overthrown in forty days; how Nineveh repented, and was saved, and Jonah was very angry that he had been made to look a fool. ‘It is better for me to die than to live,’ he said, sitting upon the ground outside the city, in order that he might see what would become of it. Whereupon, by God’s will, a gourd grew up to shade him, and to ‘deliver him from his grief’; Jonah’s delight, however, was quickly extinguished when God sent a worm to wither the gourd, and Jonah was left fainting in the heat of the sun, wishing to die. At last God said to him, ‘Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: and should not I spare Nineveh …?’
Dorothea had always thought that Jonah’s tale ended rather abruptly. She had often wondered what might have subsequently befallen him, and why nothing further had been written of his life. But she was surprised, when she raised her head, to see Daniel sitting pale and motionless, with his mouth ajar and his eyes staring.
‘That is all,’ she said—and blinked as he expelled a gulping sigh.
‘Ah.’ He covered his face with his hands. ‘Ah, Jaysus.’
‘Daniel!’ She had never before heard him blaspheme. It alarmed her. She watched his hands fall away.
‘Did ye choose that for me?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Did ye?’
‘What?’ she quavered.
‘Out of the belly of hell cried I,’ he said, and his eyes were wide and shocked. ‘What did ye mean by it? What does it mean?’
‘Why …’ Dorothea groped for words. ‘What does the story mean?’
‘Aye.’
‘I should think it means that you must accept God’s plan, and not try to hide from it,’ said Dorothea.
Then she stopped.
And caught her breath.
‘Would ye read it again?’ said Daniel, sounding thoroughly shaken. ‘By a mercy, Ma’am, would ye read it again for me? Please?’
Dorothea stared down at the heavy volume open in her lap.
‘Ma’am? I’m thinkin’ it might be meant for me. For my ears.’ A pause. ‘Ma’am?’
Dorothea looked up. She saw Daniel’s eyes. They were big and brown, heavy with the weight of some abiding sorrow.
She stood up, clasping the book to her breast.
‘No more,’ she croaked.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Not—not now. Later. I cannot …’ She felt almost winded. ‘It was meant for me, too,’ she stammered, as he rose to his feet. ‘I—I must think. Please.’
‘Ma’am—’
‘Forgive me. Let me think.’ And she hastened from his presence, shutting herself in the bedroom with her Bible.
Three days later, she paid a visit to Mrs Molle’s house.
CHAPTER TW
ENTY-FOUR
DOROTHEA DID NOT DISCUSS her curious response to Jonah with another living soul. She did not even refer to it when conversing again with Daniel (whose delicacy was such that he made no pointed remarks himself, but was content to cast one or two meditative glances in her direction). Though she refrained from speaking of it, however, she thought about it a good deal. She thought about little else. She would muse for hours, almost fearfully, on the subject of Jonah’s sea voyage, and how it might be relevant to her own position. She would ponder the curious coincidence of the gourd, which grew up to shelter Jonah, and wonder if it bore any relationship to the garden that she cherished. Could Sydney Cove be seen as a second Nineveh? Could she herself be regarded as a Jonah, hiding from God’s intentions by hiding from Nineveh’s wickedness? There could be no doubt that her own predicament bore a certain similarity to Jonah’s.
On the other hand, there was Nineveh’s repentance—what did that mean? And how was she to understand the prophet’s resentment of God’s mercy, in the context of her own life? She would wrestle with these complex questions repeatedly, and exhaustively, to no avail. Though it seemed to her that God had almost certainly put the story of Jonah into her hands, there remained some doubts in her mind. What exactly had He been trying to tell her, in doing so? That she was hiding from His plan? (No doubt.) That she had an obligation to warn the residents of New South Wales that they were in peril of God’s wrath? (Surely not.) She fretted over certain phrases. What did God mean, when He said that the people of Nineveh could not ‘discern between their right hand and their left’? She wanted to know if God had, in fact, persuaded Jonah to abandon his anger—for the text was not enlightening on this point. She was puzzled by the words ‘I will pay that that I have vowed’.
She also thought about Daniel, and his response to Jonah. She was quite convinced that he saw a resemblance between the prophet’s story and his own. On reflection, she was even willing to concede that in Daniel’s case, the resemblances were quite profound. He had, after all, turned away from God by committing a crime—and had endured much ugliness at sea in consequence. He had then found a refuge in her own house (or so he had once told her). Like his mistress, he had been spiritually refreshed by the tender growth in her garden. If he were to be deprived of the garden, as Jonah had been deprived of his gourd, he would—like the prophet—be much distressed.
She would watch him surreptitiously, and wonder about any conclusions that he might have drawn from Jonah’s story. Had he undertaken to reform himself, in some way? Was he conscious of any new responsibilities, to himself or to others?
She could not ask him. She was frightened to ask him, for it would have been an unsuitable topic of conversation. Already she was aware of a certain new level of restraint existing between them. Jonah seemed to be hovering over their every exchange, forcing her to be abrupt, lest the prophet become too intrusive. She regretted this necessity. She did not like to be abrupt. Nor did she like blushing all over her face every time she announced to Daniel that she was going to church, or whenever she encountered him lighting the drawing-room fire. She felt that her dignity was compromised, but could do nothing to prevent the hot blood from rising. She felt self-conscious. She felt guilty. Daniel had asked her to read him the story of Jonah again, and she had not done so.
She had taken to attending the Sunday service instead.
Charles approved of Dorothea’s attempt to ‘shake off her megrims’. He was pleased that she had decided to return to church and pay calls on her friends again. He even advanced a theory that the approach of cooler weather had effected this improvement in his wife’s condition. Heat, it was evident, rendered her languid and febrile, whereas the restoration of a more English style of climate served to calm her jangled nerves.
His own mood, however, was not much lightened by this happy development. Any pleasure that he may have felt upon discovering that Dorothea had taken his advice to heart was soured by the realisation that he himself had been passed over, once more. For it happened that in June, Captain James Wallis was appointed Commandant of Newcastle—no doubt in recognition of his work during the expedition against the native tribes. As a consequence, his income rose by one hundred and eighty-two pounds and ten shillings a year.
Charles was furious.
‘That posturing fop, with his journal and his watercolours and his flannel waistcoats!’ Charles cried. ‘What the deuce does he know about soldiering?’
‘He did distinguish himself at Appin,’ Dorothea pointed out, but her husband would have none of that.
‘Oh, a brave action! Stumbling into a camp full of women and children, who went screaming off into the dark and perished when they tumbled over a precipice! Fine work, that. A real pitched battle.’ Charles would not be comforted. He ground his teeth, and slammed his fists onto his knees. ‘It is more devilry of the Governor’s!’ he exclaimed. ‘More blatant partiality and prejudice! The moment will arrive, I tell you—the moment will arrive when he will answer for his tyrannous conduct.’
Governor Macquarie’s tyrannous conduct was the subject of much discussion among genteel persons at the time. Indeed, it formed the chief topic of conversation during a dinner held at Mrs Bent’s house, late in June. Here the subject of Governor Macquarie’s offences was thoroughly aired over the oxtail soup, sautéed kidneys, pickled mushrooms, salt tongue, wild duck, roast pork, jellies and custards. Aside from condemning His Excellency’s treatment of the Vales, Mrs Bent’s guests were also loud in their censure of the Governor’s latest offences against Mr Jeffery Bent. There were many such offences, for Mr Bent frequently felt compelled to question the Governor’s decisions, and was often chastised as a result. But the incident uppermost in everyone’s mind, on this occasion, was that involving the Bent’s former cook, John Harvey, and one of Mr Bent’s fellow magistrates, Mr William Broughton.
Mr Horsley—a small pockmarked gentleman with a rather sly manner—was particularly keen to hear a thorough account of the infamous episode.
‘Did you prevail?’ Mr Horsley inquired. ‘Is this excellent meal a product of your cook’s skills? I am told that Mr Broughton was trying to take your cook away from you.’
Dorothea was surprised, for she had heard differently. She had heard that, upon the death of Mr Ellis Bent, Mrs Bent had decided she no longer needed a cook, and had dismissed John Harvey—who had thereafter sought employment with Mr William Broughton. When Mrs Bent had recently changed her mind, Mr Broughton had proven to be somewhat uncooperative, refusing to comply with Mrs Bent’s request that John Harvey be returned to her.
Dorothea therefore listened with great interest to Mrs Bent’s account of the affair.
‘Apparently,’ Mrs Bent complained, ‘my sin was to send a constable to collect the wretched man. If I had myself expressed a wish to have him back, my wish would have been granted. Or so Mr Broughton says.’
‘Utter poppycock,’ was Mr Bent’s muttered comment.
‘It does not appear to have crossed Mr Broughton’s mind that I may have been acting in accordance with the usages of this country,’ Mrs Bent went on, ‘where every matter concerning Government labour must pass through official channels.’
‘So Broughton turned the constable away?’ Mr Horsley wanted to know, and was informed that this was indeed the case.
‘I was obliged to issue several warrants, but Broughton positively refused to surrender the man,’ Mr Bent explained.
‘He did ask John if he wanted to return here,’ said Mrs Bent, in an unsteady voice, ‘and John said no. I cannot imagine why. He was always treated very well in this house, though I daresay Mr Broughton is very lax and indulgent with his Government men.’
‘Broughton had the gall to say that he considered my warrant inoperative,’ Mr Bent added, ‘and that he would give Harvey the protection of his house for as long as the wretch required it.’
Mrs Bent went on to describe how Jeffery had finally been forced to issue a writ of attachment against Mr Bro
ughton, whereby Mr Broughton was required to appear before the judge at his chambers. But when Mr Broughton finally did appear, he challenged Mr Bent’s authority.
‘I told him that unless Harvey was given up, he would be sent to gaol,’ Mr Bent declared. ‘He replied that I could send him to prison if I pleased—so I deuced well did! I would not give him bail.’ A grimace. ‘But he was out of gaol within the hour. The Governor had issued a warrant for his release. Naturally.’
All the guests present made muted noises indicative of shock, or disappointment, or disapproval—with the exception of Colonel Molle and Dorothea. Colonel Molle toyed with his duck, his face inscrutable. Dorothea studied the arrangement of the silverware.
Then Major Mackenzie asked: ‘What now?’
‘Now?’ Mr Bent retorted. ‘Now we are without a cook, thanks to His Excellency’s high-handed methods. Mrs Bent was forced to produce this meal herself—with the aid of a mere kitchenmaid. Such is the inevitable consequence of living under the rule of a man like Governor Macquarie.’
Dorothea thought about this comment as Colonel Molle—with a well-timed remark about Mrs Bent’s anticipated departure from New South Wales—turned the conversation. She watched Mr Jeffery Bent talk. She watched Mrs Molle smile, and Mrs Bent eat. She offered no opinion on anything whatsoever, and spoke only when asked if the wine, or the meat, or the temperature was to her liking. Even when the ladies withdrew she had nothing much to say, because they spoke almost exclusively of Mr Broughton’s unforgiveable behaviour—and she was at odds with the prevailing view.
Later, upon returning home, she confessed as much to her husband.
‘I do not think that Mrs Bent was justified in her treatment of John Harvey,’ she said. ‘I do not think that Mr Broughton acted in an indefensible manner at all.’
Charles was pulling on his nightcap. ‘You know nothing about it,’ he replied. But Dorothea continued stubbornly.