The Gentleman's Garden
‘Our—?’
‘“I suppose the officers have the usual privilege of taking a servant from the ranks”!’ Charles spat, pacing the floor. ‘That is what he said, curse him. Those were his very words!’
‘Whose very words?’
‘Why the Governor’s, of course! He has decided that our Government men should be struck off the stores. That we should provide for them ourselves.’
In effect, it had been decreed that Daniel Callaghan would no longer be fed or fitted out at Government expense. Henceforth, Captain Brande would have to provide him with clothes, bread and beef, in addition to the daily payment of one shilling to which he was entitled (owing to the fact that he worked a longer day than that commonly known as ‘the Government task’). All the officers of the Regiment were to be similarly circumstanced, with the exception of those currently acting as magistrates.
‘A “servant from the ranks”, indeed! Curse his impudence.’
‘What—what is the set ration, for a male convict?’ asked Dorothea, who knew only that which was required to be issued to a female.
‘Something in the vicinity of a pound of meat per day,’ Charles replied, ‘and a pound of flour.’
‘Oh dear …’
‘We cannot possibly afford it.’
‘Oh!’ Dorothea looked at him in alarm. ‘But my dear, we must.’
‘Tell me how, then.’
‘But we cannot lose Daniel!’
‘The Governor thinks differently. He would have Jack Lynch drawing water and chopping wood.’
‘Daniel does more than that. He cleans. He mends. He works in the garden.’
‘The Governor would have Jack Lynch performing all those tasks.’
At this point Jack himself knocked on the door, and announced that dinner was served. So the conversation was interrupted, and subsequently continued only in a sporadic manner, as Jack went in and out of the dining room with the soup, meat and vegetables. Charles was very sullen. His anger had settled into a black, scowling mood. Dorothea was on the edge of tears. She could not bear to have her arrangements overturned, after so much effort.
She urged Charles to consider her health. To consider his own position. To consider the fact that economy could be practised in the preparation of daily meals, and in the management of laundry. General laundering could not be attempted without the aid of a copper, a mangle, and various other implements in which Dorothea’s kitchen was deficient; a laundress must continue to be employed for general laundering. But for cleaning stockings, or removing resin, or lifting grease spots from silk—for such minor tasks, no special assistance was truly required. ‘Mrs Molle has been lecturing me on the subject,’ Dorothea admitted, ‘and I am aware that there is no excuse for offering jobs of that sort to a laundress. Mrs Molle is very well informed about the methods that may be employed to remove small stains, or clean small items. I undertake to master these methods, thereby saving a modest sum every week. I only wish that Margaret’s laundry-maid had been less efficient, else I would have mastered them long since.’
‘A few pence saved every week or so will hardly cover the cost of Daniel’s maintenance,’ Charles grumbled, before Jack’s entrance with the baked custard silenced him, briefly. It was not until Jack had withdrawn again that Dorothea was able to remind her husband that money would also be saved in the kitchen, by means of a greater reliance on dishes such as vegetable soup and broken bread pudding. ‘Without Daniel, moreover, there will be no vegetable garden,’ she pointed out, ‘and I feel sure that, once producing, it will more than cover the cost of Daniel’s maintenance, since we will no longer be forced to rely entirely on the regimental garden.’
‘Hmmph,’ said Charles.
‘Moreover, it seems to me that when you are dining out, of an evening, if I am to be left here with only Martha as my protector—’
‘Yes, yes,’ Charles interrupted testily. ‘I understand your position.’ Moodily, he poked at his custard. ‘Vegetable soup I can endure,’ he went on, in tones of discontent, ‘and broken bread pudding, and salt beef hash. But I shall not practise economy to the extent of admitting a pig’s head into this house. I abhor pig’s head.’
‘Yes, my dear.’
‘I should as soon eat harness blacking.’
With many grudging and ill-tempered remarks of this kind, Charles finally allowed himself to be persuaded to keep Daniel Callaghan. Dorothea was hugely relieved. She knew, however, that her husband was perfectly capable of reversing this decision if he felt out of sorts. Therefore she turned her attention once more to the kitchen garden, which had been marked out, dug and manured, but not planted. The sooner it was planted, the safer Daniel would be. And with the antipodean spring not far distant, it was undoubtedly time to give the matter of planting some serious thought.
Daniel had laid out eight large beds, under Mrs Molle’s direction, during the period when Dorothea had been recovering from her miserable reverse. According to Mrs Molle, these eight beds would be best employed if they were devoted to late strawberries, sea kale and rhubarb, potatoes (with the possibility of cauliflower, later in the season), early peas, scarlet runnerbeans, carrots, onions and radishes (later in the season) and perhaps some turnips, or celery—but again, they would have to be planted later in the season.
‘Until they are planted, you should prepare the soil,’ Mrs Molle instructed, bestowing on Dorothea another generous gift of horse manure, together with a selection of seeds and seedlings, a Dutch hoe, some earthenware pots, a geranium plant (‘It will need no encouragement, Mrs Brande—these things grow to eight feet high, hereabouts’) and, perhaps most generous of all, a sturdy cutting from Mrs Macquarie’s white dog rose. ‘It has taken root,’ Mrs Molle informed her friend, ‘and should go very well in full sunlight. If you find that it takes, Mrs Macquarie has promised more cuttings from her musk and damask roses. She says that you shall even have part of her moss rose, once she has persuaded it to flourish. It is only lately disembarked, you know.’
Reverently, Dorothea bore the rose back to her house. She left Daniel with the task of transporting her other acquisitions, but would not be parted from her rose. While relaying to Daniel Mrs Molle’s instructions regarding the best method of sowing and transplanting, she nursed the precious cutting against her breast; then, satisfied that he understood what was required of him, she began to drift around the property, in search of a place that might suitably receive the white dog rose.
It was not a reassuring tour, by any means. The stiff grass had blades that were keen-edged enough to draw blood. Huge, ferocious ants busied themselves in every corner. The fence palings were split and rapidly losing their paint. Nevertheless, all at once, Dorothea could envision a future fragrant with roses. Roses cascading over the fence; roses marching along the front path; roses peeping through her windows. She pictured a garden full of roses, peach trees, geraniums, lavender, hyacinths. She imagined a flowering hedge screening the road from her sight, and boughs heavy with cherry blossom enfolding her bedroom. She saw herself sitting under a lilac tree, or perhaps taking a turn around the colourful beds arm in arm with her husband, much as she had in Bideham, when their walks together through perfumed meadows had been so much sweetened by the tender words that they had exchanged …
She went back to Daniel.
‘Daniel,’ she said, with decision, ‘there must be flowers in this garden. This entire garden must be properly laid out. I shall have roses and lavender and geraniums. I shall have a proper English garden—a cottage garden—with a lawn.’
Daniel, who had been very carefully planting seedlings, rose to his feet. Without allowing his gaze to brush against Dorothea, he surveyed the unpromising land around him, with its rocky outcrops and tufts of heavily defended foliage, all spikier than Scotch broom. ‘Aye,’ he said, in doubtful tones.
‘It can be done, Daniel. It will be done. If we have to manure the entire garden.’ Dorothea realised that this was an extravagant remark, for manure was h
ard to come by, and their own slops were hardly sufficient. ‘There are—there are such things as artificial manures, I believe,’ she went on, ‘which may prove to be our salvation.’
Daniel looked at her. He said nothing, but was clearly perplexed. Dorothea explained that artificial manures were not real manures, but imitations of the genuine article.
‘Not real manures?’ Daniel echoed, wonderingly. ‘How can that be, Ma’am?’
‘I—I am not entirely sure,’ Dorothea stammered. ‘Mrs Molle touched on the subject, but could give no thorough explanation. I shall have to acquire a book, perhaps. A book about agriculture.’
Daniel dropped his gaze once more. Brushing his dirty hands against his grubby woollen trousers, he observed, very quietly, that chickens would enrich the ground better than anything. His uncle had kept chickens, and swore by them.
‘Er … yes,’ said Dorothea. ‘I understand. But we are not in a position to acquire poultry at this time—not, at any rate, in quantities sufficient for the purpose.’ Colouring slightly, she glanced around, was momentarily disheartened by the amount of work that lay ahead, and forced herself to rally. ‘I shall find a book on garden design,’ she announced, ‘and plan correctly from the very beginning. This task shall not be commenced in ignorance.’ It occurred to her, suddenly, that she might even attempt to imitate the arrangement of her sister’s garden, and her spirits lifted. ‘It will be like a little piece of England,’ she added, enthusiastically, ‘transported to these colonial shores.’
The words were hardly out of her mouth before she regretted them. Daniel was not a suitable recipient of such observations. But he was nodding, not smiling, as his dark eyes travelled from corner to corner of the plot in his care. His voice, when he spoke, was slightly wistful.
‘Aye, Ma’am,’ he murmured. ‘’Twould be a great comfort.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS SPENT in comparative seclusion, Dorothea finally made a public appearance on September the tenth, when she attended the Sunday service at St Philip’s. This barn-like church was Sydney Cove’s only place of worship. It had been fitted out with new pews and galleries not two years before, but retained a worn and beaten appearance — perhaps on account of the great number of people (many of them convicts) who regularly surged through it. Dorothea disliked the building. It stood in a yard of bare, beaten earth, and its rough stone walls, round tower and crenellated parapets gave it the appearance of a fortification, rather than a house of God. Furthermore, she was deeply offended by the necessity of having to worship in the company of convicted felons. Every Sunday morning, not far from the church, several hundred convicts were mustered for inspection. After the Governor, stiff and straight in full dress uniform, had ridden past them they were herded into St Philip’s like sheep or cows, where they would taint the already stuffy air with their odour throughout the service.
Dorothea was always unnerved, as she sat facing the pulpit, by the thought that behind her, not twenty paces away, stood row upon row of thieves, forgers, drunkards, deflowerers of maidens, and violent men of every description. It was hardly the congregation that one would hope to encounter in the Lord’s presence. And even when she was able to turn her thoughts from this menace, concentrating instead on the words of the Reverend Mr Cowper, she would often discover that they, too, contained references to the peculiar and unappealing circumstances in which she now found herself.
On the occasion of Dorothea’s return to church, for example, Governor Macquarie took the opportunity to have a certain General Order read aloud. In it, he ordered that magistrates throughout the colony should muster convicts every Sunday morning for inspection by the district constable, before they were sent into church. He also announced the establishment of ‘limited’ gaol gangs in the interior, so that corporal punishment might be avoided wherever practicable. Where it was not practicable, magistrates were to confine themselves to sentences of no more than fifty lashes.
‘The Governor recommends in the strongest manner to the magistrates,’ Mr Vale intoned, ‘that they inflict corporal punishment as seldom as possible; but to substitute in its stead confinement in the stock for petty crimes, and either solitary confinement, or hard labour in the gaol gang, according to their judgement of the degrees of the offence, still keeping in view the general conduct and character of the delinquents …’
Really, Dorothea thought resentfully, as she attempted to ignore these disturbing pronouncements: how can one possibly hope to lead a genteel life if one is exposed to such distasteful remarks during worship? This would hardly be appropriate if we were soldiers on parade! By the end of the service she had lost all patience with the Governor, and was very subdued when Mrs Macquarie approached her on the stairs of the western porch with a few, kind remarks. No doubt Mrs Macquarie meant well, but her cheerful sympathy did not recommend itself to Dorothea.
It is all very well for you, Dorothea brooded, upon Mrs Macquarie’s attention being claimed by Mrs Riley. You possess a child. You can counsel hope and courage easily, now that you no longer have any need of them.
She slipped away quickly, before being obliged to endure the painful courtesies of any other mothers of her acquaintance.
‘The Governor is extraordinarily lenient,’ Charles grumbled, as they walked home together. Jack and Martha were following some paces behind; Dorothea liked to see them in church whenever their duties permitted it. (Daniel, being of the Roman Catholic faith, did not attend any formal services. Instead he remained at home, protecting the house from sabbath-breaking thieves.) ‘Solitary confinement and the stock!’ Charles continued. ‘Hardly a deterrent to hardened criminals. But then the Governor was ever inclined to favour those who deserve no such attentions.’ Realising that he spoke a little too loudly, Charles lowered his voice. ‘His Excellency is a military man, yet he seems more tender towards his precious convicts than he is towards His Majesty’s regiments of foot. I have seen barracks on the Continent worse than any colonial gaol cell, four men to a crib, twenty men to a room, and an open cesspool outside the door. I have seen soldiers flogged for drunkenness until the skin was taken off their backs. Yet the Governor would preserve the very lowest class of persons from such “hardships”.’
‘Please, Charles,’ said Dorothea. ‘Enough mention has been made of floggings already this morning. I feel quite ill.’
‘Yes,’ her husband replied. ‘How true. The Governor cherishes his precious convicts, yet gives no thought to the sensitivities of the ladies and gentlemen who are forced to mix with them. Commendable, indeed.’
‘I have a headache,’ said Dorothea, fretfully. ‘I was never afflicted with headaches in Bideham. It is only since we came here.’
‘I do not wonder at it. The Governor’s decrees are enough to give anyone a headache.’
‘Especially on Sunday,’ Dorothea sighed. ‘Really, it is not nice to refer to such things on a Sunday.’
So ended Dorothea’s first excursion since her bereavement. A second, much longer excursion took the form of a regimental picnic, organised (for the most part) by Lieutenant Madigan and Mrs Molle. This event saw many of the officers taken by Government boats to a picturesque inlet on Port Jackson. The site had been selected with care; a small beach, an open, grassy space and a tumbling rivulet together formed a very pleasant aspect, which was further improved by the encroachment of certain rocky escarpments, high enough to retain a dramatic appearance but low enough to climb without undue exertion. A scouting party had returned to barracks with the news that no traces of native habitation could be identified around the inlet, which also appeared to be unfrequented by the more vulgar class of Englishmen. A further recommendation was the fact that various large trees cast a refreshing shadow over one portion of the beach at midday. All in all, it was an ideal spot for a picnic.
As for the arrangements, nothing had been omitted in that quarter. Once the boats had been dragged onto shore, folding stools were set up, lengths of carpet were unrolled, and
a fine collation was spread out for the enjoyment of the entire gathering. Some of the children were permitted to paddle in the shallows, while others played cricket with the more energetic young officers. A fire was lit, and water boiled for tea. Various shellfish were collected, but only a handful of courageous souls had the courage to partake of them. An attempt was made to catch fish among the rocks.
Dorothea, as one of the few ladies present, received more than her share of attention. Many of the younger officers were especially inclined to hover about her, peeling her fruit, complimenting her on the dishes that she had supplied (a tart, a salad and some cold ham), bombarding her with witty remarks and teasing her about her husband. No doubt, had she been of a more flirtatious disposition, she would have enjoyed herself very much.
But she did not enjoy herself. She had no talent for playful conversation, and knew it. Charles had won her heart, not with elegant speeches, but with his quiet, serious—even halting —discourse on commonplace subjects. She was not accustomed to the kind of attentions which, at Bideham Park, would have occasioned disapproval. The young gentlemen were too noisy and rough. While it was their intention only to compete for her notice, they did so in a way that almost argued a want of respect. They laughed loudly, and fought mock battles over the honour of fanning her. They chaffed each other in a way that Dorothea herself would have found most hurtful. They discussed horses, and drill, and past campaigns, and other subjects about which she knew nothing, and cared even less. They told jokes which, though not in any way crude or offensive, were a little too boisterous for Dorothea’s taste. Furthermore, Charles was inclined to regard her severely when she spoke for too long with other officers—none of whom, in any case, was as handsome as he.
She felt bewildered and uncomfortable. The sun grew hot, and the flies became troublesome. The light reflecting off the water was diamond-sharp, and made her eyes ache; Mrs Vale sat beside her, whining incessantly. It was Captain Gill who provided her with some relief when he served her tea, which had been made very strong, and which she accepted with gratitude (though Mrs Vale complained at its strength). Somewhat refreshed, she even made an attempt to converse with him when he sat down beside her. Charles was not fond of Captain Gill. He described him as ‘the Governor’s toady’, but for her part, Dorothea could see no harm in such a quiet, pleasant-seeming gentleman. And Charles was deep in conversation at the far end of the beach. And Captain Gill, unlike so many of the junior officers, was content to sit still, and to speak quietly.