The Gentleman's Garden

  The pains began to afflict her that afternoon, not long after she had received her husband’s message. She was darning stockings at the time, and continued to do so until discomfort prevented her from working. Then she quietly retired to her bedroom, where she lay down and waited. She had no wish to send for Surgeon Forster. She could not bear the thought of his discovering her condition. She wanted to hide away, and never emerge again. She wanted to endure her despair all alone, without being distracted by the need to express gratitude or regret.

  She did not want the world to know that, once again, she had lost a baby.

  As a consequence, she did not send for help. When Emily knocked at the door, and informed her that dinner was ready, she replied that she would not be dining. The housemaid seemed to accept this. Dorothea heard the pad of her footsteps receding down the hallway. Presently, however, a heavier tread announced Daniel’s approach. He too knocked, and asked if Dorothea required anything.

  ‘No,’ she answered.

  ‘A cup o’ tea?’

  ‘No.’

  After a pause, he said: ‘Are ye not well, Ma’am?’

  Dorothea stifled an urge to sob. She managed to croak out a brusque ‘I am perfectly well’, and was relieved when a shuffling noise seemed to suggest that he had departed. For a while she lay anxiously, listening for evidence of another person in the house. But after a time, such trifling matters ceased to concern her. The pain began to take its toll. She forgot about the need for concealment. She forgot to muffle her groans. She withdrew into herself, for an immeasurable period, and was surprised when she opened her eyes to discover Daniel standing by the bed.

  I did not give you leave to enter, she thought. But she had not the energy to translate the thought into speech.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘shall I fetch the master?’

  ‘No,’ she gasped.

  ‘Shall I send for Surgeon Forster, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ma’am, ye’re ill. Ye’re very ill. I heard ye …’

  Dorothea turned her face to the wall. She was on the verge of tears, and she did not want to disgrace herself. ‘Go away,’ she whispered.

  There was a long silence. At last he said: ‘Yeer pardon, Ma’am—but is it a baby ye’re losin’?’

  At this, Dorothea began to cry in earnest. She could not prevent herself. ‘Go away!’ she wailed, then moaned as the cramp in her belly became more fierce.

  ‘Ye need the doctor. Ma’am, please.’ He sounded scared. ‘Ye need help.’

  ‘No …’

  ‘I’ll send for him.’

  ‘No!’ Dorothea surprised herself. She rolled over, and raised her voice. ‘I do not need a doctor!’

  ‘But Ma’am, if somethin’ should happen—’

  ‘I know what will happen! Do you think I don’t know, by now?’

  ‘If somethin’ befalls ye, I’ll be blamed!’

  Panting, Dorothea fell back onto her pillow. She stared at Daniel.

  ‘Please,’ he entreated, ‘I’d not want to see ye hurt.’

  ‘If you go to Surgeon Forster,’ she croaked, ‘you need not come back.’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘You heard me.’ She covered her eyes with one arm. ‘Why should I keep a disobedient servant?’

  The pain was ebbing now, and Dorothea lay still, gathering her strength for the next. After a time, she realised that Daniel had left the room. The door had creaked. The silence was hollow.

  One glance confirmed his disappearance. But where had he gone? Dorothea peered up at the bellrope, wondering if she had the strength to lift herself and pull it. Then she heard muffled noises issuing from the room next door. ‘Daniel?’ she cried. ‘Daniel!’

  The noises ceased. There was a short interval. At last Emily appeared, carrying a pile of linen.

  ‘Ma’am?’ she said, blinking nervously.

  ‘Where is Daniel?’

  ‘In the kitchen. Boilin’ up water.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dorothea felt a sense of relief so profound that her tears welled up again.

  ‘He said you was about to need these sheets, and these dishcloths,’ Emily continued.

  ‘Yes.’ Dorothea sighed. ‘Put them—put them here. Just here.’

  Emily did so, and stood helplessly as her mistress once again succumbed to a gripping pain. By the time it had receded, leaving Dorothea as limp as someone drowned and cast ashore, the housemaid was wringing her hands.

  ‘Oh, Ma’am,’ she whimpered. ‘Oh Ma’am, you need a doctor.’

  ‘No. I do not.’

  ‘A midwife, then. Mrs Peel is a midwife—’

  ‘Emily,’ Dorothea groaned, ‘please—please understand, dear. This has happened before, many times. It will pass. If …’ She took a deep breath. ‘If you help me, I shan’t need anyone else. I shan’t want anyone else. This is my concern. You must not speak of it, do you hear?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  ‘Now go away, like a good girl. I can staunch the bleeding myself.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  Emily went, and Dorothea was left alone. With trembling hands she arranged the linen, before her next pain overtook her. It was very much worse than the last. When it had ebbed, she noticed that the bleeding had begun, but she barely had time to catch her breath before the cramps struck again.

  How much time passed, she could not tell. Soon there was nothing but pain and despair. The bedclothes were wet; the room was dark. Then it brightened—there was a candle—and she heard Daniel’s voice.

  ‘No,’ she cried, in horror. ‘No, go away.’

  ‘In a trice, Ma’am,’ he said gently. ‘We’ll jest be gettin’ yeer dirty sheets off ye.’

  ‘You should not be here!’

  ‘I know. I know’t. But Emily cannot lift ye, alone.’

  There was a confused moment of dragging, and tumbling, and pressure under her back. Whispers. Footsteps. A hand on her forehead.

  She was offered tea, and drank it down greedily.

  Daniel was holding the cup.

  ‘Will ye have anythin’ more, Ma’am?’ he inquired.

  She shook her head. The pains were subsiding. Her ordeal, she knew, was nearly over. The child was gone—too small to be missed by anyone but herself. A clot. A speck. Washed out of a linen sheet.

  Never known. A secret absence.

  She covered her mouth and wept.

  ‘What can I do?’ It was Daniel. ‘Tell me.’

  There was nothing that anyone could do. Dorothea gulped and sniffed and wiped her eyes, clearing a path for fresh tears. She was drowning in tears. In anguish. Lying in her own rank blood, she was too weak and weary to feel ashamed. Yet she was aware, in some remote corner of her mind, that the shame would come.

  Go away, she thought. What are you doing here? But she was unable to utter the words.

  ‘My aunt lost six children,’ Daniel remarked softly, ‘before she came to bear a livin’ child.’

  Dorothea grunted. The pain came and went—no longer reaching a sharp peak, or point, but dragging at her like an undertow. Grimacing, she rolled over. The pillow tasted of salt, but it was not bloody. It was wet from her tears.

  Lying with her back to Daniel, she wondered if he would go. But he continued to talk.

  ‘Ye may think that God is hard to ye,’ he said, ‘but think on this, Ma’am. When ye’re old, very old, and the Lord takes ye, and ye must leave all yeer fine children behind to grieve—well, ye’ll not be so unhappy. Because there will be more fine children in heaven, waitin’ for ye.’ He paused. ‘Ye can only be parted from them once,’ he finished. ‘Only once, and never again. That’s a small comfort. ’Tis all the comfort there is.’

  Dorothea opened her eyes. She found herself staring at the chair upon which her husband’s clothes were customarily laid out. His nightgown was draped over it. His cap. His socks. All glowing white in the dimness.

  ‘You have children,’ she said, with utter certainty.

  ‘A so
n,’ Daniel replied. ‘But he perished. His mother and him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They were sick.’

  His voice was calm, but Dorothea had to blink, and swallow. ‘I am sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘Aye.’

  He moved, then. She could hear his joints crack. Was he going to leave? Suddenly, she could not bear to drive him away. She said urgently, ‘Did you steal for them?’, and held her breath until the answer came.

  ‘They were sick,’ he repeated, speaking in a slow and hesitant manner. ‘I was fair mad. Desperate to feed ’em—the meat and the milk, aye, and the medicines, too. But I wasn’t in work. I was sick meself, and wasn’t in work.’ A sigh. ‘They perished for my sins, while I was in fetters. And no kin to attend them. Our kin were in Ireland, long away.’

  Dorothea had grief to spare—she was a bottomless well of it. So she had no difficulty in finding tears for Daniel’s child. They flowed freely, because the world’s misery seemed to lie on her heart. She sobbed for all the dead children, and he came around the bed, and hovered over her.

  ‘Ah no,’ he muttered. ‘Ah no—please—I’m sorry.’

  He is not a bad man, she thought: He is not. And she remembered, with dismay, the threat that she had offered him earlier.

  ‘You—you are not disobedient,’ she stammered.

  ‘Shh. Be easy.’

  ‘I would never dismiss you, Daniel, never …’

  Even as he knelt, Emily reappeared. She had taken the dirty linen, and rinsed it as best she could. Now she was ready to wash her mistress. With Daniel’s assistance, she placed her basin of warm water on the washstand. Then she went to fetch towels.

  Dorothea sat up. A sense of urgency was growing within her.

  ‘This room must be aired,’ she said, peering through swollen eyelids.

  ‘Aye. Later.’

  ‘No. No, immediately!’

  ‘After yeer wash.’

  ‘What hour is it?’ Dorothea knew that it must be late. ‘Has the sun set?’

  ‘The watch has cried ten,’ Daniel replied. ‘Did ye not hear it?’

  ‘Ten! Oh dear …’ She cast about her, weakly. ‘This room must be aired. This bed must be tidied.’

  ‘Ma’am, ’tis a chilly night. Should ye be openin’ yeer windows to it?’

  ‘I must, or Charles will know. He will know, I …’ Realising what she had just said, she gazed at Daniel, almost fearfully, her hand creeping up to her mouth.

  But he simply waited, without comment, and she was reassured.

  ‘Please do not tell Captain Brande,’ she continued. It was not a command; it was a request. ‘I—I do not want him troubled. He would worry himself. Needlessly.’ In fact, he would be angry that Dorothea had not summoned him. But she was not going to admit to that. ‘It will be best for us all, I think. Emily, too.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Daniel, bleakly. At which point Emily returned with the towels, and Daniel withdrew. There followed a lengthy toilet. With soap and oil and dusting powder, Emily was able to remove from her mistress all traces of her recent discomfort. Dorothea shed her clothes, and put on her nightgown. With Emily’s help, she rose from her bed. Then she went to the drawing room (where Daniel had built a roaring fire) and lay on the sofa while her bedchamber was exposed to chilling draughts.

  She was very anxious lest Charles appear, and inquire as to the reason for all this unusual activity. But he did not.

  He did not join Dorothea until well after three, when she was safely abed, scoured and sweet-smelling, and suffering only a small flow of blood—which was easily concealed. Seeing her awake, he read to her the letter that he had composed, at Colonel Molle’s request. He was very proud of it. Captain Sanderson’s, he said, was almost identical.

  Then he went to sleep, leaving Dorothea to mourn alone, silently, staring into the darkness as he snored beside her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  THOUGH CAPTAIN BRANDE KNEW nothing of his wife’s loss, it gradually became apparent to him that she was not well.

  The possibility might have occurred to him sooner, had he not been very much occupied with matters arising from his regiment’s campaign against Governor Macquarie. Almost every day, it seemed, he would regale Dorothea with a detailed account of some new development in this war of words. One evening he informed her that Captain Sanderson had determined to establish his innocence in the matter of certain scurrilous labels attached to the infamous caricature of Governor Macquarie. Ensign Bullivant, the man responsible for the caricature, had been prevailed upon to sign a letter, in which he attested that, to the best of his knowledge and belief, Captain Sanderson was not the author of these labels. But Ensign Bullivant was a broken reed. He soon accused his superior officer of taking him by surprise, and demanded that Captain Sanderson erase from his letter any expression of his beliefs regarding the captain’s innocence.

  ‘The little worm has written to His Excellency,’ Charles lamented, ‘and I shudder to think what he has said, for he went to John Wylde, to swear out a deposition.’

  There were other incidents too, of a most petty nature, but Charles continued to relate the cut and thrust of his regiment’s campaign against Governor Macquarie in the most tedious and interminable detail, boring his wife almost to tears. She listened dully as he talked, picking at her dinner and offering no sympathetic observations. At last he broke off, and fixed her with an impatient look.

  ‘Are you not well, Mrs Brande?’ he inquired.

  ‘No,’ was her rejoinder.

  ‘Indeed? What ails you?’

  ‘I do not know.’ She was determined not to mention her miscarriage. ‘I wish I did.’

  ‘Perhaps you should consult Surgeon Forster,’ he advised, returning his attention to the pickled cabbage. ‘No doubt you are sickening for a cold.’

  ‘Even if I were, Surgeon Forster could not help me. He is never helpful. I have no faith in him.’ Taking a deep breath, Dorothea added: ‘I should like to consult Dr Redfern.’

  Charles glanced up in surprise. He blinked. He frowned.

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said, dismissively.

  But Dorothea would not be deterred.

  ‘I should like to consult Dr Redfern,’ she repeated.

  ‘Then you are sicker than I had supposed,’ said Charles, and chuckled at his own wit.

  ‘Dr Redfern is highly respected.’

  ‘By those lacking in self-respect.’

  ‘He has almost never lost a baby, Charles. Even Mrs Molle concedes that.’

  Her husband narrowed his eyes at her, his fork poised in front of his mouth.

  ‘Are you expecting?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why all this talk of Dr Redfern?’

  ‘I want to see him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he is a better doctor than Surgeon Forster!’

  ‘You are misinformed,’ said Charles coldly. ‘Redfern was nothing but a naval surgeon before he was tried for mutiny. He possesses no qualifications that Forster does not also possess.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I should like to consult him.’

  ‘Not with my permission, Mrs Brande,’ Charles replied, scowling, and Dorothea dropped her gaze. She was overcome by a sudden, almost irresistible urge to defy him. She thought him utterly unreasonable, though she understood his position. To accede to her request would be to lower himself in the regard of his closest comrades—a regard which, it now seemed to her, constituted the most important governing force in his life. After all his professed support of their exclusivity, would he turn around and allow his wife to consult an emancipated doctor? It was out of the question.

  ‘No one need know,’ she murmured.

  ‘I would know,’ he growled. ‘Do you think that I would permit my own wife to submit herself to the attentions of a depraved felon?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No, Mrs Brande!’ He rose abruptly, his colour high. ‘No. I have given you my answer! It is final! Now kind
ly do not question my authority in this! Am I not the master in this house? Have you no respect for my judgement?’

  Dorothea was silent. She felt guilty. She could not meet his eye.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Answer me!’

  ‘You are very unfair,’ she whimpered.

  ‘Answer me, damn you!’

  Dorothea looked up, indignant at being addressed thus.

  ‘I shall certainly not answer when you speak to me like that!’ she exclaimed. Whereupon Charles stormed from the room, slamming the door so hard that the entire house shook.

  It was only one in a succession of painful disputes, but it marked a distinct change in their relations. Thereafter, Charles did not speak to his wife about the Regiment’s battle with Governor Macquarie. Sarcastically, he delivered himself of the opinion that such matters ‘clearly did not interest her’. And since he could think of little else but this sorry affair, he hardly spoke to her at all. For five evenings in succession, he would dine at the mess; on the sixth, he might return to his own dining room, but would glance at the Gazette, or a piece of correspondence, while he ate.

  As for Dorothea, she would look at him and think: you were not there. You were not there for me when I lost my child. It mattered little, somehow, that her own omission had caused him to be absent. After all, she had neglected to summon him. She had never even informed him of her loss. It was unreasonable to blame him, and she knew it, and felt guilty for doing it. Yet at the same time she was secretly resentful—even angry. Guilt and anger filled her heart. The estrangement between them was, she realised, largely a product of her own undutiful conduct. On the other hand, she could not help deploring her husband’s quick temper, his boorishness, his lack of sensibility. Her despair was such that she was beyond tears. She had wept herself dry, and could do nothing but brood. Over and over again, she would review her situation. This was her marriage. She was bound to it, by sacramental authority. Could its dead embers be revived? She had begun to entertain grave doubts that such a thing was possible. She had begun to think that her marriage had entered into an endless and irrevocable winter.

  It seemed to her that Charles now regarded her with something not unlike resentment. He exhibited no interest in her accomplishments or activities. He displayed a kind of weary impatience when she came to him for advice on domestic matters. He did nothing but snap, and sneer, and fix her with suspicious looks. The more she brooded, the more he sulked. Her lack of interest in regimental affairs seemed to have offended him profoundly.