‘Mrs Bent had dismissed John Harvey. He entered Mr Broughton’s employ with her entire concurrence—she told me so herself. What right did she have to demand his return? I think that Mr Bent is mistaken in his opinions. I think that he is guilty of unfounded prejudice.’
‘Do you, indeed?’ Charles threw back the covers and climbed into bed. ‘Is that why you sat like a log of wood throughout the entire evening?’ he demanded. ‘Is that why you behaved like a dead weight?’
Dorothea did not reply.
‘Sometimes I despair,’ he went on. ‘What is the point of attending these affairs if you make no attempt whatsoever to enjoy them—or to increase the enjoyment of others? It is discourteous. There is no other word for it.’
‘I was not discourteous,’ Dorothea said stiffly. ‘I was perfectly polite.’
‘Oh yes. A perfectly polite blancmange.’
‘Would you have wished me to inform Mr Bent that I disagreed with him?’
‘You are being deliberately perverse.’
‘You told me to go, so I went. What more do you want?’
‘I want you to display a modicum of enthusiasm for the company of our friends! Before you become repellent to them!’
He turned his back on her, and slammed his head into his pillow. Dorothea lay still. She thought about the conversation that evening. She thought about the candlelit table, and how detached she had felt from it—almost as if she had been an unseen guest. She thought about John Harvey, and the meal that he had cooked for her so long ago. He had been a good, efficient servant. She had been impressed by his skill. And it occurred to her that Mrs Bent had spoken of him exactly as if he had been a piece of branded livestock.
She wondered how Daniel Callaghan might have felt, in Harvey’s position.
New South Wales
August 1st, 1816
My dearest Margaret,
Life here becomes increasingly tiresome. Charles has not been at his best, as you know, because he is repeatedly passed over, and regards each lost opportunity for advancement as an insult. I do not see his predicament quite in those terms. But I must concede that, within the last few weeks, he has been insulted, and that the insult was offered by his own commanding officer.
You may recall my mentioning certain pipes, of a defamatory nature, written against Colonel Molle. It seems that these malicious attacks have been preying on the Colonel’s mind—far more so than I would have thought probable. Indeed, it would appear that his distress has somewhat undermined his good judgement, for he recently demanded the keys to all his officers’ desks, that he might search them for evidence of complicity in the production of these scurrilous verses. Nothing, I assure you, could have been more ill conceived. To begin with, it so happens that one of the pipes—which was first circulated in March—attacked the officers as well as their commander (not to mention the Governor himself, who was referred to as ‘poor Sandy’). Furthermore, several months ago the regimental mess offered a reward of two hundred pounds for the detection of the pipes’ author. What more proof could be needed to demonstrate the loyalty of those gentlemen serving under the Colonel’s command?
As you may imagine, Charles was very much hurt—as were his fellow officers. Nevertheless, their mess entered into another subscription, by means of which an even greater reward was offered for the name of the perpetrator. The only result, I fear, was yet another pipe. Since then, Colonel Molle’s temper has become more and more irritated, to the detriment of Charles’s own. Charles has it firmly fixed in his mind that Governor Macquarie is ultimately to blame—though the poor man has offered emancipation to any convict who might provide a solution to the mystery, and has himself been lampooned (though mildly, for the perceived weaknesses in his dealings with Colonel Molle). I cannot think why Charles should be so stubbornly prejudiced, unless it is owing to Captain Sanderson’s influence. Captain Sanderson loathes the Governor. He has done so ever since the Governor admonished him for his conduct towards the Chief Magistrate of Police and the bench of the Police Court. Oh—and that is a tidbit worthy of mention. I only recently discovered, my dear sister, that Captain Sanderson appeared before the said bench charged with a misdemeanour (could anything be more distasteful?) and that his language on the same occasion was most unbecoming. No doubt this fact, which was brought to my attention by Mrs Molle, must have slipped Charles’s mind. For he never once referred to it in my hearing, though he is perpetually entertaining me with stories of Captain Sanderson’s other adventures.
Is it any wonder that I am concerned about the company my husband keeps?
Why, the very Regiment in which he serves is so tainted with petty and vindictive conduct that I begin to despair of human nature. Last month, for example, a caricature of Governor Macquarie was found on the wall of the barracks guardhouse, with a derogatory label underneath it. An inquiry is now underway, and the culprit will no doubt be court-martialled, but I cannot tell you how grieved I was at Charles’s response. He simply laughed over the affair, and all but admitted to me that, while a humble ensign (Ensign Bullivant) was widely known to be responsible for the drawing, Captain Sanderson himself had affixed the label to it!
The caricature, I should tell you, remained on the wall of the guardhouse for several days, with the full knowledge of several senior officers, before Colonel Molle was finally informed, and ordered that it be expunged.
What am I to think of such behaviour? Is it that of mature men or spiteful boys? There is something in the very air of this colony that seems to undermine every noble tendency and encourage the growth of rancorous, uncharitable, petulant feelings. And yet I must confess that while the tone of society here troubles me, its paltry disputes and miserable intrigues leave me cold. I can neither feel nor display any great interest in them. And this, of course, angers Charles.
Oh my dear, I am so sorry to inflict my worries on you. If the trifling concerns of New South Wales seem unimportant to me, how dull you must find them! I should not write to you when I am in low spirits. Yet I cannot help it. Once it was my custom to turn to you whenever I needed comfort, and now that you are so far away, I am forced to fill my letters with every detail of my domestic tribulations. I often think to myself: why has God put me here? For what purpose do I endure the strains of a colonial existence?
These are questions that have occupied me much over the past weeks. And I am still unable to find an answer to them.
With apologies from
your loving sister,
Dorothea Brande
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AT LAST, IN SEPTEMBER, Charles was given the opportunity to distinguish himself.
A band of convicts seized the brig Trial, which was anchored in Port Jackson. Upon the alarm being raised, a party of the 46th Regiment was sent in pursuit, aboard the Rosetta. Charles was placed in command of this party.
But the Trial was not apprehended.
Dorothea heard very little about the expedition until after its conclusion. While awaiting her husband’s return, she was provided with snippets of news that were on the whole unenlightening, and sometimes contradictory. Mrs Molle sent word that the two vessels were heading north. Rose returned from the markets with the latest gossip, which held that the Rosetta had run aground. Captains Thompson and Sanderson, who stopped in on their way to the dockyards, contradicted this claim most emphatically; no communications had been received indicating anything of the sort. They assured Dorothea that Charles would give the escaped convicts a ‘good thrashing’, and would return victorious with the Trial in tow.
They were wrong, however. The Rosetta failed to run down its quarry, and when Charles was finally restored to Dorothea, he was in a humour as black as a thundercloud. Before departing, he had attributed his ‘good fortune’ to the fact that Governor Macquarie was very ill (his life had almost been despaired of, at one point) and was therefore unable to exert his usual influence over the command of the expedition. Upon returning, defeated, Charles changed his tune sli
ghtly. He instead sought to blame the Governor for a system that allowed convicts enough freedom to seize a ship in the first place. He also blamed the captain of the Rosetta for his stupidity and insubordination; the crew of the Rosetta for their lackadaisical attitude; and his own health, which, because it was beginning to fail, had affected his judgement.
Hearing this last complaint again and again, in the days following her husband’s disappointment, Dorothea began to wonder if it was, in fact, true. At first she had thought it an excuse, employed not only to mitigate the extent of his failure, but to give him a legitimate reason for subsequently staying at home—for he was too ashamed to dine at the mess. Then she began to wonder. He had been very restless at night for several weeks past, and his bowels were more troublesome than usual. His colour, she thought, was not good. And when at last he confessed that he been suffering from a mild sore throat, which he had striven to conceal lest he lose command of the Rosetta party, she realised that he was once again afflicted with his mysterious ailment.
Naturally, Surgeon Forster was summoned. He made his usual recommendations, approving Dorothea’s prune tisane and providing her with a two-week supply of mercurial pills. When she pressed him for a decided opinion, however, he would not satisfy her.
‘It is a recurring complaint, of a putrid nature,’ he declared. ‘I can tell you nothing more.’
‘Could it be occasioned by something in the atmosphere?’ Dorothea asked. ‘Could some antipodean substance—some poison, or exhalation—be causing it?’
‘I doubt it,’ Surgeon Forster replied.
‘Have you seen any other cases like my husband’s, hereabouts?’
At this Surgeon Forster looked slightly uncomfortable. He glanced away, and cleared his throat. ‘I am not at liberty to discuss my other patients with you, Mrs Brande,’ he said. ‘Forgive me. I have a duty to them.’
‘But I do not require names, sir. Just an indication as to whether an illness of this kind can be found elsewhere in the colony. Or indeed, in England.’
‘Many strange fevers incubate aboard convict vessels,’ was Surgeon Forster’s vague response. He was so unhelpful, so evasive, so pompous, that Dorothea quite lost patience with him. It occurred to her that he had failed to preserve two of her unborn infants, and that he had been unable either to identify or to cure Charles’s strange affliction. Perhaps, she suggested to Charles, it would be wise to consult another doctor.
‘Dr Harris, perhaps? Or …’ She hardly dared say it. ‘… or Dr Redfern?’
‘Redfern!’ Charles snorted. He was sitting half-dressed in the drawing room, sullen and dishevelled. The prospect of ingesting another course of mercurial pills clearly did not appeal to him. ‘If I were half-dead, and Redfern the only physician in reach, I would not consult him.’
‘But he has an excellent reputation, Charles. He attends the Governor’s family—’
‘Hah!’
‘And Mrs Macarthur cannot praise him too highly.’
‘Mrs Macarthur may do what she likes. I will not be treated by a damned convict.’
‘Dr Harris, then. Why not seek an opinion from Dr Harris?’
‘Because it will be the same as Forster’s.’
‘How do you know? Surgeon Forster cannot even identify your complaint—’
‘Good God, woman, will you kindly desist! I have made my decision! I will not be argued with!’ In a sudden burst of bad temper, brought about by his irritated nerves, he added: ‘No wonder my health is in decline, when I must put up with so much faulty behaviour from you!’
Charles’s own behaviour, in the weeks that followed, was enough to try the patience of even the happiest soul—and Dorothea was not in a particularly cheerful frame of mind. While the mercurial pills seemed to improve his throat, he quickly succumbed to mouth ulcers and stomach pains. These symptoms, in turn, made him morose. So did his costiveness, which also left him with a sallow and greasy complexion, a poor appetite, and a lack of vigour. Upon consulting Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, Dorothea learned that the want of secretion in the intestines was almost certainly caused by a languid or weak circulation—that a cure might be facilitated by imbibing more water and less wine, by eschewing Indian and Chinese tea, by substituting whey or beef tea for too-solid dinners, by exercising more in the open air, and by avoiding excessive use of the brain. When she conveyed this advice to Charles, however, he scoffed at it. He pointed out that he was forever drilling in the barrack square, that he would perish on a diet of beef tea, and that the problem lay not with his own habits, but with the disease that afflicted him. He demanded syrup of violets, and rhubarb pills. Then he complained because they seemed to make his stomach cramps even worse.
He also brooded over his failure to capture the Trial. The ignominy of his position weighed on him. He retired into a cloud of gloom, and abandoned himself to an invalid’s existence almost thankfully, declaring himself unable to perform his duties even before the effects of the mercurial pills disabled him. Dorothea thought that he was hiding. When his friends came to visit, he anxiously sought reassurance from them, returning time and time again to the subject of the Trial, so that they might confirm its superiority to the Rosetta and deplore the unassailable lead that it had enjoyed when the Rosetta had finally set off in pursuit. No one, as far as Dorothea could tell, particularly blamed Charles for the debacle. He had not, after all, been responsible for sailing the Rosetta; he was a soldier, not a seaman. Nevertheless, he felt acutely that he had been disgraced, and had not the nobility of character—or perhaps the healthful vigour—to acknowledge this humbly, gracefully and serenely, as befits a gentleman.
Instead he skulked indoors. For two weeks he avoided the barracks, as Surgeon Forster’s mercurial pills gradually took effect. He did nothing but read the Gazette, complain about his food, and curse his ill fortune. At first Dorothea was obliged to serve him with the kind of nourishment that would encourage his bowels to function freely (brown bread and stewed fruit, for example). Then, as the condition of his mouth worsened, she had to resort to broths, soups, hashes and custards. Charles was satisfied with neither the rough nor the smooth diet. He preferred white bread to brown; he said that he would starve to death on soups and custards; he felt it a great hardship that a man of his age was prevented from indulging in good English fare such as roast beef and dumplings. When one of his teeth fell out, quite suddenly, he was cast into despair, and retired to bed for a whole day.
Dorothea endured this trying period to the best of her ability. She spent a great deal of time in the kitchen, helping Rose to plan and execute meals suitable for an invalid. She entertained Captains Sanderson, Miller and Thompson repeatedly, pouring their tea, answering their questions and accepting their impudent advice (‘The poor fellow needs more air, Mrs Brande—why do you not place a chair for him in the garden?’) without uttering so much as a word of protest. She pored over Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, and agreed to sleep at her husband’s side—despite the fact that his restlessness disturbed her—because he refused to be left alone. She mixed up medicines and tonics, repelled harmful draughts, read aloud, fetched and carried, turned down invitations, and worked hard to keep the servants out of her husband’s way.
But she did none of this cheerfully, or with particular zest. She did it because it was her duty. Although she often felt deeply sorry for Charles, and knew that much should be forgiven a suffering invalid, she found his captiousness hard to bear. He was so testy. So unreasonable. What could be more unreasonable than his stubbornness in refusing to consult another doctor? Dorothea could not understand him. She could not understand why he clung so tenaciously to the regimental surgeon. As the days passed, and Charles became more difficult, Dorothea began to hold him responsible for his own infirmity. She felt sure that, had he sought the advice of another physician, he would in all probability have been spared the torments of a mercury cure.
She said as much to him, not once, but several times. They argued about it. They argued ab
out Surgeon Forster’s treatment, Dr Redfern’s qualifications, the efficacy of aloes, the detrimental effects of spiritous liquors, and a great many other things. The entire house was made disagreeable by an abiding air of discontent and disputation. As a result, Dorothea found herself spending more and more time outdoors. While Charles sat sulking in a darkened room, drinking too much wine and flicking through The Regimental Companion, Dorothea would escape into the garden, which by now had taken on a definite and pleasing shape.
Thanks to her own inspiration, and Daniel’s hard work, the foundations of a very fine prospect had been properly established. A low, incipient box hedge flanked the gravel path that bisected the front garden. On either side of it lay a neat, round bed of forget-me-nots, geraniums, daffodils and hyacinths, each bed sporting in its centre a spindly young fruit tree—one a glossy-leafed lemon, the other a cherry just beginning to flower. Rose bushes were planted along the fence on either side of the gate; where the palings turned a corner, to the north and south, these bushes gave way to slightly sturdier plants, mostly young fir, laburnum and privet trees, all arranged in an undulating pattern and penned in by borders of a dwarfish native shrub (whose appearance was not irretrievably harsh to the eye). The lawn dividing all these features was well grown, though somewhat dry and dusty in its appearance. The plants themselves, though still small, gave fair promise of a flourishing maturity. To the rear of the house, the kitchen garden had been extended, and was now ringed by a gravel path, trimmed by an incomplete border of alternating lavender and rosemary bushes. A small shrubbery lay behind it. Still little more than a hopeful dream, this shrubbery was nevertheless traversed by two narrow gravel paths which met to form a cross. At the centre of this cross, Dorothea was determined to place an artistic object—a sundial, perhaps? A lilac struggled gamely near the dining-room window. A passionfruit vine had been trained over the kitchen wall.