Farewell to Lancashire (31 page)

Cassandra hesitated. ‘I still feel guilty about taking them. What if there are some personal items in the trunk?’

Mrs Barrett shrugged. ‘Serves Hilda right. She should have thought of that before she changed her mind. My husband paid for that trunk to be transported to Australia, but he doesn’t intend to pay for it to be sent back. So it has to be disposed of and you might as well benefit.’ She waved her hand again. ‘Go away. I need to have a nap. I’ve never been so sleepy in my whole life. The things we women have to endure to provide an heir!’

Her attitude to the trunk seemed very heartless and Cassandra was thoughtful as she went along to her cabin. If Mrs Barrett could dismiss the feelings of a woman who had been her maid for years, it seemed likely that she’d be equally cavalier in her attitude towards Cassandra once they arrived in Australia, especially when she found her new maid was also expecting a child.

She sighed as she went into the tiny cabin, relieved that Miss Pershore had finished dealing with her things and gone back on deck. Feeling like a thief, she opened Hilda’s trunk and took out the contents one by one. As she’d feared, there were some very personal items, things which couldn’t be replaced. The one which she felt most guilty about was a photograph of a family group in a silver frame, obviously a treasured possession. They were all staring at the camera, glassy-eyed. No wonder, she thought with a smile. When she and her family had had their portrait taken, they’d had to stay motionless for over a minute. It wasn’t easy to keep a smile on your face for that long.

On the back of this one was the name of the photographer, and the address of his studio. It had been taken in a place called Linforth, near Kendal. She wondered if she dared ask Mrs Barrett whether this was the place Hilda had come from. She’d have to catch her in a good mood, because her mistress was very sharp-tempered at times and you couldn’t please her whatever you did.

There were also some books, a volume of famous poems and two novels. She’d enjoy reading those. A package wrapped in an old piece of cloth revealed a square of material for an embroidered tablecloth, with a thread-counted design carefully drawn on a piece of paper attached to it, the numbers given and faint marks for where to position the design on the cloth itself. Wrapped in a shawl was a small watercolour of a rural scene showing a village in the distance. On the back of the painting was the same name: Linforth.

At the bottom of the trunk she found some letters, tied up with a blue ribbon. She unfolded one and found the full address of Hilda’s sister and husband – and the first page, which she read guiltily, showed her the Suttons were a close, loving family. That must be why poor Hilda had run away rather than go so far from them.

If it was possible, Cassandra would return the personal items to the poor woman one day, but as she desperately needed some extra clothes and underclothes for such a long voyage, she’d have to use the clothing. She was relieved to find that all the skirts and bodices were in dark colours which would suit her supposed widowhood, but of course the skirts were far too short. The bodices and blouses were too wide as well, so everything would need altering.

Well, that would give her something to do, wouldn’t it? She’d ask Mrs Barrett’s advice about how best to do the alterations. Her mistress knew so much more about sewing and fashion than she did. Mrs Barrett spent a lot of time talking about clothes, growing animated as she described in detail the outfits she’d worn on special occasions, some of which were packed in one of her many trunks. And she occupied some of her time with sewing and embroidering exquisite little garments for her baby, when she could be bothered.

Cassandra was glad Hilda had been quite stout, because she would need fuller clothes to wear later as she grew bigger.

When her mistress woke up and rang for her, she confided her worries about how best to alter the clothes and to her surprise, Mrs Barrett bounced out of bed at once. ‘Bring the things you’ve chosen here. I’ll work out how to alter them and supervise your sewing. If I’d been born a poor person, I’d have become a dressmaker, and I’d have been a good one, too.’

If only the rest of her life was as easy to change as the clothes, Cassandra thought as she sat on deck later, within call of her mistress, sewing a flounce on the hem of one skirt to make it longer. She’d sacrificed a navy blue skirt to lengthen two others of the same colour, and Hilda’s best outfit had had so much material in the skirt, they’d been able to take some fullness out and make a band for the hem from that.

As she sewed, she listened to the choir practising at one end of the deck. She’d have liked to join in, but Mr Barrett hadn’t thought it proper for her to do so. She wasn’t going to look for work as a maid when she got to Australia. It was horrible being at someone else’s beck and call, having to accept unreasonable decisions.

Francis and Reece spent the next few weeks going to inspect pieces of land which were for lease, mostly without Livia, who hadn’t enjoyed her first trip. Gradually they got to know something about how people farmed here, and what constituted good land or bad.

Poor land, most of it was. But some blocks had fine stands of timber and you could make good money from felling trees and selling the wood. One man had told him that if you took the trouble to saw the timber into planks and let it stand for a year or two, so that it was seasoned, you could make even more money from it.

His informant offered him a timber felling job on the spot, and if he’d been free to accept the offer, he would have accepted so that he could learn how to do it properly.

‘Any time you want work, even if it’s only for a few weeks at a time,’ the man said, ‘come and see me. I pay well, and I feed my men well too.’ He grinned at Reece. ‘If you don’t mind working for an ex-convict, that is.’

‘As long as you deal honestly with me, I’d not care if you had feathers instead of hair,’ Reece threw back at him.

But he knew by now how scornfully people regarded ex-convicts. Even Francis, usually friendly enough towards his fellow men, whatever their station in life, had become very stiff when he’d discovered his neighbour if he took one place would be an emancipist. ‘Not a suitable place for Livia,’ he muttered.

Reece lay in bed that night fretting that they were getting nowhere and that coming here might have been just as bad a mistake as coming without Cassandra. Then he scolded himself. Surely Francis would find some land soon?

Maybe it was time for Reece to write to Cassandra, asking her to come out and marry him.

No, he’d better wait till they were settled, till they’d found some land. A few weeks wouldn’t make that much difference ... would they? And letters might take a long time to get to England, but they went regularly. Ships didn’t come to Fremantle all that often, but the post was often taken down to Albany on the south coast, where it was picked up by ships coming from Sydney or Melbourne on the eastern side of the continent.

No, he’d wait just a little longer. He couldn’t ask the woman he loved to come here and suffer the hardships involved in clearing and settling land.

A
bout a week after the
Tartar
crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, there was a shout of ‘Man overboard’ and sailors began running.

Cassandra stood watching in horror as one of them flung a life buoy overboard, then others lowered a boat. Cork jackets were found for those going after the poor fellow and they set off on their search. Already the man had disappeared from view. As they rowed away, the boat looked so small against the vast mass of water she feared for their safety too.

The ship changed course to come about and they lost sight of the small boat, which had now disappeared from view. The cabin passengers muttered to one another, fearing for its safety and somewhere a woman was sobbing.

The emigrants were so curious to see what was happening that some of them pushed their way on to the poop, which was forbidden to them, and the cabin passengers began to complain about this invasion of their territory.

The Captain ordered the emigrants to leave the poop, and when they didn’t obey his orders, he grew angry and ordered them to be locked down in their quarters.

The boat eventually came into view again and there were murmurs of ‘Thank goodness!’ as it made its way slowly back to the ship’s side. But it was soon clear from the men’s expressions that they’d failed to find their companion.

The clergyman, Mr Millett, led them in a prayer for the man’s soul. The poor fellow was the second person to die on this voyage. A child from the steerage quarters had died earlier and they’d had the sad experience of a burial at sea. The mother had been so distraught, she’d had to be restrained from following her child’s body into the water.

Cassandra found it hard to get to sleep that night. The sailor who’d died had been very young, some mother’s son. That had reminded her of her own child, and she found herself laying her hand protectively on her belly until she saw Miss Pershore frowning at this gesture.

But the incident had a profound impact on her. She was alive, wasn’t she? And this child she was carrying was just that – a child – not a monster.

After that she felt calmer, more resigned to her condition and even began to wonder what the baby would be like. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would it look like her family?

Next time she managed to be private with her sisters, she’d tell them. She wasn’t alone in the world now, nor would the child be. It’d have three aunts. If anything happened to her, they’d care for it, she was sure.

She wished her father had known about his first grandchild. He’d have loved the baby, she was sure, whatever its origins. In that last year he’d spoken many times of his wish for them to marry and have families, had kept insisting that children were precious.
I will treasure it
, she promised him in her thoughts as she tossed about.
I will, Dad
.

Of course that turned her thoughts to Reece. She tried hard to imagine how he’d feel, but the only thing she was sure of was that it wouldn’t be fair to burden him with another man’s child. Nor would it be fair to the child, because he would surely regard it as a cuckoo in the nest. Children should grow up with unconditional love, as she and her sisters had.

She remembered all too clearly Timmy down the street whose mother had married a man who treated the little boy coldly. She couldn’t bear the thought of her child spending its life on sufferance, unhappy, barely tolerated.

But oh, it hurt so much to think of losing Reece! One of her secret hopes in coming to Australia had been to be reunited with him.

As she made a very difficult decision, she realised her cheeks were wet with tears, though she hadn’t realised she’d been crying. She couldn’t ask Reece to take a child fathered in that way, couldn’t risk it being unhappy.

She’d never loved a man before and didn’t suppose she would again, but she could still love her child. Something inside her had eased today. She was sorry it’d taken the death of the young sailor to bring her to this point of accepting her condition, to make her count her blessings. But good had come out of bad, at least.

From now on, she must take strength from the knowledge that she was alive and well, and that, against all the odds, she’d been reunited with her sisters.

On that thought, even before the tears dried on her cheeks, she slipped into the deepest, most peaceful sleep she’d had since she’d come on board.

Francis heard about a piece of farming land to lease a little further south of Perth than they’d looked before, in the foothills. It had been settled by a family who’d had a run of bad fortune and were moving to New South Wales, so it had a house of sorts and he would be entitled to a couple of convicts to help him work the land.

As usual, he took Reece with him to inspect the place. ‘What do you think?’ he asked after they’d been shown round the tiny shack by the current tenant, whose wife looked thin and unhappy and whose children were subdued.

By now, Reece had learned enough to say decisively, ‘Not much.’

‘Couldn’t we make something of it, though? It has a pretty outlook and—’

‘Pretty isn’t as important as fertile,’ Reece said impatiently because they’d had this discussion before.

Francis kicked a piece of fallen branch out of the way and a spider scurried from its underside into the litter of dry, leathery gum leaves. ‘I need to move away from my cousin’s house, and the sooner the better if we’re to remain on speaking terms.’

Reece didn’t need telling that. All the servants were well aware that the two Southerham men had had several quarrels lately. Indeed, this stay in another man’s house had taught Reece that you could have no privacy at all with servants around, and he wondered if it was worth it.

‘Let’s go and see the other block of land we heard about before we decide anything,’ he suggested.

‘It’s further away from Perth and I don’t want Livia to be in such an isolated place. What if some of the natives attacked us?’

‘They don’t sound very warlike. I should think if you treat them kindly, you’ll have no trouble. This is their country, after all, even though they don’t seem to farm it. They must know more about the land and plants than we do.’

Francis looked at him in shock. ‘How can you possibly say such a thing? This is
not
their country now. It belongs to the Queen, is part of Her Majesty’s empire. And what can savages possibly know that we don’t?’