Destiny's Path (19 page)

‘I might be tempted to invest a little money in such a venture myself. Would you be interested in having a partner?’

‘I might, if you don’t try to take over. I’d not want someone telling me what to do.’

‘I might offer advice from time to time.’

‘And I’d listen to it. But I’d have the final say.’

Conn looked at him, saw the determination in his face and nodded, holding out his hand. They shook, then he said, ‘Fine. Come up to Perth with me and we’ll maybe both look round once I’ve attended to my personal business.’

‘I’m glad that fellow’s gone,’ Kathleen announced at breakfast, which she now took in the kitchen because she didn’t like sitting alone in the dining room and couldn’t persuade Mrs Largan to join her there.

‘Who do you mean?’ Xanthe asked, wondering if she meant Conn.

‘That Deagan fellow. Ronan shouldn’t have brought him here. I’d dismissed him, you know.’

‘He seems a hard worker. He’s been very helpful here.’

‘That’s not the point. I dismissed him for impudence. For talking about his betters.’ Kathleen elevated her nose. ‘The lower classes shouldn’t do that.’

Xanthe suppressed a sigh of exasperation at this comment. She hadn’t at first understood why Kathleen came here so often to chat to her, when she was so scornful about the lower classes. But gradually she began to realise that the poor creature was lonely and lost, still trying to make the same sort of life for herself as she had in Ireland.

‘This bread is stale.’

‘You can toast it. The toasting fork is there.’

‘Me?’

‘Why not? Do you have anything better to do?’

‘You should be making fresh bread every day.’ Kathleen sat frowning at the bread, then got up and took the toasting fork, but Xanthe had to show her how to use it.

‘I don’t have the time to make bread every day,’ she said. ‘Can’t you see how much work there is to do and how few people to do it? You could help me if you liked. I can see time is hanging heavily on your hands.’

‘I’m not a servant! Conn should hire more people.’

‘There aren’t any to hire. People bring maids out here but most of them get married within months. There are ten men for every woman, you see.’ She’d said the same thing a couple of times before but it didn’t seem to sink in.

Kathleen sat frowning. ‘Why are there so many men?’

At least it was a new question. ‘Because they bring only male convicts here. That’s brought thousands more men here in the past few years but though some women have been brought out – people call them the “bride ships” – there are still far fewer of them.’ She wasn’t even sure whether her companion had understood this because Kathleen sighed and sat fiddling with her toast. She didn’t seem to have much of an appetite.

‘I think I’ll go for a ride.’

‘That’d be nice.’

‘I’m a good rider.’

‘Yes, everyone says so.’

Kathleen nodded. ‘I like horses. I can ride anything.’

‘Except Conn’s horse. Sean says he won’t go to anyone else.’

‘Demon comes to me.’

‘Well, don’t ride him. It wouldn’t do you any good to upset Conn, if you want him to help you.’

A bell rang just then and Xanthe wiped her hands on the kitchen towel. ‘I have to answer that. It’s Mrs Largan’s bell.’

She left Kathleen still fiddling with her food and heard her muttering to herself about being a good rider.

11

I
t was a relief to get away from Galway House. It was usually his refuge from the world, but now Conn’s spirits brightened as he rode up to Perth with Bram. There was nothing as pleasant as being out of doors on a sunny winter’s day, without the searing heat of the summer sunshine.

‘I wasn’t guilty,’ he said, needing to be sure his old friend understood that.

‘I knew you weren’t.’

Conn gave a small nod, which was all he could manage, and swallowed hard.

They got to Perth quite late in the day because they’d been careful to rest the horses regularly. After leaving their mounts at a livery stables Conn had used before, they sought lodgings at a house he knew. Today all the widow who owned it could offer them was a very small shared room with two narrow beds and little else.

‘She treats you with respect,’ Bram remarked.

‘Her husband was a convict. He died on a road gang. She’s worked hard to build up the lodging house. It’s mostly emancipists and ticket-of-leave men who stay here.’

In the morning the two men had breakfast then parted company. Conn set off for the cathedral, intent on finding someone who could tell him how to get an annulment. He arrived at nine-thirty, surely a reasonable hour to find someone, but the early mass had finished a while since and the only person around was a woman sweeping the floor.

‘Could you tell me where to find the priest?’

She stared at him incuriously. ‘Having his breakfast, if he has any sense.’

‘Where does he live?’

She gave him directions and he walked there slowly, not looking forward to this interview.

The priest was an older man, who listened to his story in silence. ‘You don’t feel – you’ve been given a sacred charge to look after this poor woman?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘You’ve admitted she can’t look after herself.’

‘I have. And I’ll make sure she’s cared for afterwards, though she does have an income of her own, which I’ve not touched and won’t, not to mention a brother still living. But I want a family, children to carry on my name.’ And not children who might be like their mother. ‘Isn’t that a reasonable thing to hope for?’

‘Most people would say so. We’ll have to make an appointment with the Bishop for you. I can’t deal with this.’

‘How quickly can we do that? I’ve a farm to run and an invalid mother to look after.’

‘I’ll send round to his excellency now. My housekeeper will give you a cup of tea while you wait.’ He showed Ronan into a small cheerless room and left him there, with a few old newspapers to entertain him.

It was nearly two hours before a reply was brought that the Bishop would see Conn at two o’clock sharp the following afternoon.

He bit back a protest at this delay and thanked the priest for his help. Outside he stood for a moment, wondering what to do with himself for the rest of the day.

In the end, he walked down to the river and strolled along it in the sunshine, not worrying about tomorrow’s meeting, not worrying about anything, just for a little while.

Bram spent the day exploring the city centre on foot, though it was a poor sort of city to his mind. He’d accompanied old Mr Largan to Dublin once when his master’s manservant was ill and the memory of it had stuck in his mind ever since. Now that was a fine city, with some magnificent buildings. He’d slipped into Trinity College Library and stood marvelling at the sight of so many books, more than a man could read in ten lifetimes, all housed in a building as fine as any palace, he was sure.

To Bram, Perth was an incongruous mixture of architecture: tiny wooden houses, larger brick homes, shops with a floor above and attics, too – and a few imposing public edifices, especially two big churches and Government House with its turrets. There wasn’t a proper town hall, though one man told Bram there was going to be one, but there was a fine Church of England Collegiate School, built in an old-fashioned style of red brick laid in patterns. Did the lads who attended such a school know how lucky they were to be offered a good education? Probably not.

And in the bright sunshine, with people bustling about, carts, horses and the occasional carriage passing by, and the river shining just down the slope, Bram realised that he liked this place, or perhaps he liked what it could become. Dublin had the River Liffey, Perth overlooked a wide expanse of water where the Swan River widened, with little boats dotted here and there on it. He hadn’t grown up near the sea, but had learned to like and respect it on the voyage here – though only when it was calm. He’d had a few queasy patches when the sea was rough.

The people in Perth were as varied as the buildings. Some were well-fed and affluent, looking as if they owned the world, others were sturdy working folk moving quickly about their business and some – poor things – looked ragged and hungry. He hated to see that, still remembered his mother’s tales of the famine years when the potato harvest had failed. Conn’s father had made sure his own workforce didn’t starve, but he’d not given them anything more than the basic food they needed, and Bram’s mother spoke of gathering nettles to make soup. The needs of those not employed by old Mr Largan, even though they lived close by, had been totally ignored.

It was well known that Conn’s mother had helped where she could in those terrible times and she was still blessed for that. But even she had been afraid of her husband and had only dared act secretly.

After getting his bearings, Bram looked closely at every shop he could find, studying what they had for sale, slipping inside some of them and listening to customers talking about what they wanted and, more important to him, what they couldn’t find. Food supplies would never go amiss, he decided, if he set up a shop, especially the sorts of food you couldn’t come by easily here. There were enough people with money to buy not only what they needed to eat but also the luxuries they fancied eating.

He saw ladies fingering dress materials and talking to one another in the accents of the rich, seeming to care nothing for who overheard them and raising their voices to address the shopmen who served them. Did they think the lower classes were all slightly deaf? Still, it was useful to hear their views of life in the Swan River Colony, since you could make more money from rich people than poor.

It was as he was leaving one shop that he saw a woman begging near the opposite corner. She could have been any age from thirty to sixty and she was skeletal and pale, despair showing clearly on her wasted face as one person after another walked past, ignoring her. Even as he decided to give her a coin, he saw her eyes roll up and she crumpled suddenly to the ground.

No one stopped to help her and he couldn’t, just could not walk away and leave her. He moved quickly across the sandy street, avoiding a pile of horse dung and waiting for a small cart to pass.

She was still lying there on the edge of the road, hadn’t stirred. He knelt beside her and lifted her head from the dirt, cradling it in one arm. To his relief she groaned and her eyes flickered open. She gasped as she saw his face above hers, then began to struggle.

He let go of her immediately, trying to reassure her. ‘You fainted, miss. I came to help you.’

She leaned away from him, resting on one elbow, but made no attempt to get up and still looked dizzy.

‘Are you hungry?’

She nodded.

‘Let me help you up, then I’ll buy you something to eat.’

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve been hungry myself a time or two.’

‘I won’t let you use my body in payment.’

‘Did I ask to?’

She sighed and closed her eyes. He thought she’d lost consciousness again, but when she began struggling to stand up, he risked helping her again. Once she was on her feet, she had to lean against him, but she weighed very little and he held her only lightly, so she’d know she could get away.

‘Take it easy,’ he said gently. ‘How long since you ate?’

‘A day or two. I’ve been ill. But I couldn’t pay my rent and they threw me out, kept my things in payment.’ Tears came into her eyes. ‘I have nothing now but the clothes I’m wearing.’

From her accent, she was English, southern, he thought, slow speaking, not like those from London. He studied her. Her clothes were crumpled, as if she’d slept in them, but not ragged.

He couldn’t save everyone in the world, he knew that, but every now and then he tried to help someone and this woman had touched something in him. ‘I’ll buy you some food first, then we’ll go and get your things back.’

She studied his face as if trying to understand his motives. ‘Why?’

‘Because I’m an eejit and I do things like helping people for no payment.’

A smile dawned slowly on her face, then faded quickly. She clutched him as if she was dizzy again.

He spoke more gently again. ‘I’m a newcomer here. Where can we find you something to eat and drink? Maybe a glass of milk first, or a piece of bread? You don’t want to eat too much at first if you’ve not been eating properly.’

‘There’s a little shop down that side street.’

He helped her along, wishing he dare pick her up and carry her, which would have been far quicker. But he doubted she’d want that.

The shop was a mean little place and the milk looked dirty to him, but she took the enamel cup the shopkeeper offered and drank it thirstily.

He bought a piece of broken bread and tucked it in her hand. ‘Better wait to eat this to make sure the milk stays down.’

She nodded and wrapped it in a piece of rag, stuffing it into a pocket in her skirt.

‘How far to your lodgings?’

‘A few streets away.’