Wild Lands (24 page)

‘No indeed.' The older woman studied Kate carefully and smoothed her own hair with a freckled hand.

Kate guessed Mrs Hardy to be in her early forties, although she appeared older.

‘Did you bring pretty things with you? Did you bring things for me? She would have pretty things, Mama, because she is pretty and I would like to see them.'

‘Such looks will be wasted up here.' Mrs Hardy's tone was dismissive. ‘I wonder at your coming. I wonder at your need for money. Pretty is trouble, my husband tells me, especially with so few of us womenfolk in these outer areas. Best you stick to your tasks and not draw attention to yourself. We don't want any trouble. We've had trouble enough.' She tugged at a frayed cuff and a pale pink slip of material appeared. She dabbed the square of silk, no doubt cut down from a dress, at her perspiring brow.

‘What trouble?' Kate interrupted, noting Mrs Hardy's changeable temperament.

‘The natives do not all tend towards peace. The ones here are generally amenable, but there have been incidents along the river.'

‘Such as?' After the journey Kate had just endured, she'd actually prefer not to know.

‘Stockmen have been killed, stealing, the rushing of stock, the odd spearing of shepherds. Either they have no concept of property or they are simply intent on causing trouble. We can't afford losses. It's cost us our savings to settle up here. Mr Southerland's return and those of the assigned convicts is doubly welcome. And it's a boon that you carry a pistol. Yes, it'll make me feel a lot better when Sophie is in your care.' Mrs Hardy rubbed tiredly at an eye. ‘It is so difficult. How does one tell between the good and the bad? How do we know that one we feed today on our land will not spear a cow in the morning? But enough of this talk. I'm told you are against marriage and turned down a respectable position with a man of the cloth?'

Mrs Hardy told Sophie to fetch a pitcher of water. The girl dragged her feet on leaving. ‘You will understand my intrigue.'
Glancing in the direction her daughter had just taken, she lowered her voice. ‘If you are running away from some disgrace,' she leant forward, clearly eager, ‘I would share your concerns.'

‘There is no disgrace,' Kate replied brusquely. ‘I simply believe that a woman should be allowed to make her own choices in life and not be dictated to.'

Mrs Hardy fanned her face with her hat. The cabbage-tree fronds in the crown were partially worn and had been lined with a piece of old newspaper. ‘My, my, I see why Mrs Kable did not offer you some form of employ.' There was a tinge of amusement. ‘My daughter is my salvation in these wilds my husband has set us in and she needs schooling and discipline. I'm afraid, however, I am much remiss in these two fields.' She looked out across the bush. The sun was tipping the trees to the west. ‘There is much to do here and although the days are long, too long, they are not long enough. I shall place her in your hands.'

Kate frowned. ‘It was my understanding I was employed in the capacity of companion to you, Mrs Hardy.'

‘Good gracious,' the older woman let out a chuckle, ‘my husband's cousins have indeed sent us a gentlewoman.' She turned at the approach of her husband and waited for him to deposit a trunk in their dwelling. ‘Mr Hardy, your cousins have fulfilled my original request.'

‘How so?' Behind him Betts and Gibbs were lugging a large sea-chest, while Mr Callahan carried a hip bath. Kate could have cried as the items were transported into the house. She had no idea a bath was stored within the goods they'd transported northwards.

‘Miss Carter thinks to be my companion.'

There were two perpendicular lines above Mr Hardy's nose. Combined with his impressive frown he appeared almost beakish. ‘You will find, Miss Carter, that your role here will consist of anything that is required of you, especially now we are without the labour I requested. As a currency lass you should be fit for most tasks.'

‘Heavens.' Mrs Hardy stopped fanning her face and placed the hat on the table. ‘A currency lass? Native born. Please don't tell me that your parents were convicts. Are you a convict?' She looked aghast at her husband. ‘I did say I wanted no woman with the stain. You did tell Jonas that, Mr Hardy? For we are surrounded by these infernal offenders and I so wanted some semblance of normality, someone at least –'

‘They have done their best to find us someone suitable,' her husband placated as he followed the men back to the bullock drays.

Sophie returned with a single pannikin of water. ‘Mrs Ovens says that she's no time to be fetching pitchers of water for the servants.' She sat the cup on the table. ‘She says she needs help in the kitchen. Do we call her Jelly-belly?'

Kate looked at the pale brown water and cautiously took a sip. It tasted of bark and dust.

‘Jelly-belly. Jelly-belly.'

Kate looked furiously at Sophie. ‘My father was assigned to the colony, my mother was born of free settlers.' Kate spoke over the chanting child and, finishing the water gratefully, was careful not to wipe her mouth on her sleeve as she'd become accustomed to doing over the weeks of travel.

Mrs Hardy composed herself with some effort. ‘Dear me, your grandparents must have been most disappointed by your mother's union.'

‘I believe they placed happiness above the constraints of society.'

‘A supposed luxury undoubtedly much admired by the lower classes but hardly appropriate in civilised society,' was Mrs Hardy's response. ‘I have learnt that there is a place in the world for everybody, and that everybody has their place.'

‘They have my trunk,' Kate pointed out. Betts and Gibbs were stumbling across the uneven ground carrying her mother's chest. ‘Where am I to be lodged?' She was eager to escape both child and mother.

‘With the cook,' Mrs Hardy informed her. ‘Her room adjoins the kitchen.'

There was little point arguing with this arrangement, so Kate excused herself and followed the men towards the other hut.

‘And make yourself helpful in the kitchen,' Mrs Hardy called after her.

Kate's legs felt like lumps of wood as she trailed the convicts. It appeared her new accommodation was not much different from that she'd left behind when a child in the Reverend's kitchen. She had come full circle.

‘What did you expect?' Kate overheard Mr Hardy speaking to his wife. ‘A gentlewoman would hardly journey to the outer limits.' He did not bother to lower his voice.

‘I did,' Sarah sighed.

‘She is presentable and speaks passable English.'

Mrs Hardy rubbed her hands on her skirt. ‘You are right of course, my husband. And the girl is educated, a boon for young Sophie, but unmarried. With those looks, I thought there was some shame there that we were yet to discover. Having spoken with her, however, I believe her character is such that she would need a strong husband. She was most outspoken to you on arrival.'

‘Yes, Jonas implied that there were certain inconsistencies in the girl's nature. Considering her background I suppose one should not be shocked at her trying to negotiate the terms of engagement, but really, whoever heard of such a thing?'

‘A daughter of an emancipist. They think they are the same as everyone else.'

Kate halted and turned back towards the couple. The Hardys noticed that she had stopped and was listening in, but they kept on talking.

‘Well, they aren't, wife, so keep your eye on the girl and keep her busy. Regardless of the young woman's opinionated nature, a few months up here will soon rid her of the pretensions that are
so endemic among the native born. You'll see, she shall be of some benefit to you.'

Kate wanted to scream.

The kitchen hut, a mere ten feet from the Hardys' dwelling, had a woodpile and chopping block near the door, while a dray held a number of wooden water-barrels.

The kitchen was empty. Betts and Gibbs carried the trunk around to the rear and dropped it in the dirt where a lean-to at the back served as the cook's sleeping quarters. Exchanging sly grins, they walked back around to the front.

Kate knew what they were thinking. If she'd thought herself better than the likes of them it appeared that they were now all on the same level. ‘I hope things go well for the both of you,' she said politely. Now they were here it was best she made a point of being cordial. Who knew when she may need to call on them for assistance?

The convicts were rendered dumb. Betts took interest in an ant tracing the toe of his boot, while Gibbs stared at the kitchen hut. It was an airless box. Each wall had an airhole the size of a small fist.

‘Musket holes,' he said quietly, disbelief creeping into his tone.

Betts' eyes widened.

Kate digested this sobering news, noting that there wasn't even a covered walkway between the house and the kitchen, which would make for a wet passage when it rained.

‘You need a hand,' Betts mumbled, ‘let one of us know, eh? I'm a fair judge of a person and Hardy has the look of a hard man.'

Kate was surprised but very grateful. ‘Thank you, I will.'

‘“Need a hand”?' Gibbs bandied his friend as they walked away. ‘She's up here to hold the Missus's hand and wipe the arse of that toffee-haired brat of theirs while we'll likely be sleeping rough,
under the stars, watching our backs of a night, and you're offering to help the likes of her?'

‘You be forgetting she's like us now. Besides, I don't like the look of 'im.' Betts spat in the dirt as they walked back towards the wagon. ‘Nor those musket holes in that hut.'

The screeching of chickens led Kate uphill. The cook sat cross-legged in the dirt, poking at the caged birds with a stick. Cut lengths of timber lay side by side on the ground, walls for a building perhaps, laid out and yet to be constructed. The woman kept trying to stick the chickens, and the hens pecked angrily at the twig as the rooster attempted to spread his wings in the close confines. In return the woman muttered back, complaining that there had been no eggs for the past month, despite the rich scraps they'd been given.

Kate cleared her throat. She may well have been a ghost for all the notice the woman paid her. The poking continued. The birds screeched. ‘Stop it.' Kate reached out a hand and made a grab for the offending piece of wood. She considered it a miracle the hens had survived the journey.

The woman clutched her chest. ‘Jelly-belly, you pointy-nosed wrench, you gave me a fright, you did. What are you doing sneaking up on a person like that? I thought I told you to peel those tatties. You know Mr Kable likes 'em roasted a dark brown and they'll not be ready when they ring the bell for tea.'

Kate squatted by the thin-haired woman. ‘I'm Kate Carter, Mrs …?'

‘Mrs Ovens. The cook.'

‘That's not your real name,' Kate said softly. ‘What is it?'

The woman seemed momentarily unaware of her surroundings. ‘Mary Horton, I be Mary Horton, cook and housekeeper to Mr Jonas Kable.' She clambered to her feet. ‘And housekeeper to Mr Kable senior afore him. No-one told me to expect another maid.' She rubbed at the pink scalp visible above her ear.

A kindly smile and a soft voice were the only things that Kate could think of to bring Mrs Horton back to the present. ‘And you're now cook and housekeeper to Mr Samuel Hardy.' Kate could see the cook's mind working overtime in her rheumy eyes. ‘Jelly-belly is still with Mr Kable at Parramatta, Mrs Horton. I'm newly arrived with Mr Southerland.' It was almost impossible to believe that Mr Kable would have sent this old woman on such a journey northwards.

‘It's the heat, you see. It comes at you like a blanket and tightens itself about your neck until your lungs dry and crack and your throat closes over. Affects a person's head, it does. Makes you remember things you don't want to and forget the things that you shouldn't. Just look at the land if you don't believe me. Hard and dry and endless, and not a bit of green to soothe a person. I only just survived it last year I tell you, lass. I had a terrible thirst the whole summer long and it was only when the rain came that I was better. 'Course now there's been no rain again, not a skirret for months.'

‘It will rain soon,' Kate promised, knowing no such thing.

The cook shook her head and sat heavily on the timber boards. ‘It won't, you'll see. I ain't got no feeling in me bones. So then, you've just arrived with the wagons?'

Kate told the older woman a little of the journey, omitting the engagements they'd had with the Aboriginals and saying she was hopeful that the stores had all arrived in good condition. The news was greeted warmly.

‘It was the same last summer,' Mrs Horton explained. ‘It's a task just to keep the water up. I've two orange trees down the hill apiece which are still alive, but we're living on bread and kangaroo, although there's sheep meat when Mr Hardy decides to kill one. And then there's the rabbits. Got eight he has now and right proud of them he is. Brought a breeding pair from Sydney. Kept them alive all that way. Mark of a gentleman that, keeping rabbits for
the table. Mr Kable senior was like that. Oh, he kept a fine table. But Mr Hardy, well, he's hard with the rations. Wants to keep his sheep for wool he does. For the money. I'm right glad you made it through. Real glad.'