Morgan’s Run (97 page)

“A hat?”

“Yes. Would you not like to see? It is very splendid.”

Kitty looked absolutely blooming, belly protruding a little, fair skin shaded by a wide sun hat made of a local strappy grass (the convict transports had contained far more milliners than farmers), fair hair straggling in fetching wisps from beneath its brim, fair lashes and brows giving her face a slightly bald look that somehow managed not to be a disfigurement. Plain she was, but plain she definitely was not. Gossip had told Lizzie that Kitty Clark was beautifully shaped these days, was far from the thin scrawn she had been when Mrs. Richard Morgan had marched up the garden path. Well, now she could see for herself, which was no comfort. Nor was that bulging belly. Waves of sorrow and disappointment swept over her—where was that bottle of medicine?

“Sit down,” Lizzie said curtly, then gulped furtively from a medicine bottle, its contents catching her breath.

Kitty held out the hat box, smiling gravely. “Please take it.”

Taking it, Lizzie sat on a chair, untied the tapes, lifted the lid. “Ohhhh!” she sighed, exactly as Kitty had. “Ohhhh!” Out it came to be examined, held, gazed at raptly. Then, so unexpectedly that Kitty jumped, Lizzie Lock burst into noisy tears.

Calming her took some time; in an odd way she reminded Kitty of Betty Riley, the tough older servant girl who had led all four of them to disaster. “It is all right, Lizzie, it is all right,” she crooned as she stroked and patted.

There was a small spouted kettle on the hob and an old china teapot on the table. Tea. That was what Lizzie needed, tea. A search unearthed a jar of tea and a jar containing a huge rock of sugar together with a sugar hammer; Kitty made the tea, let it steep, chopped off some sugar, then poured the steaming liquid into a china cup and saucer—how well equipped Government House was! China cups and saucers in the
kitchen!
Kitty had not seen a cup and saucer since she had been arrested, now here were two cups and two saucers—
matching!
—in a mere kitchen. What sort of treasures did Government House itself contain? How many servants were there to wait on Mr. and Mrs. King? Was there tea on demand without fear of its running out, were there china bowls and plates and soup tureens? Pictures on the walls? Chamber pots?

“I have just been given my notice,” Lizzie managed to say through hiccoughs and tears. “Mr. King has just told me.”

“Here, drink your tea. Come, ’twill make you feel much more the thing, truly,” coaxed Kitty, stroking the black hair.

Lizzie mopped her eyes with her apron and stared at her nemesis ruefully. “Ye’re really a nice little girl,” she said, the tea beginning to warm the other contents of her stomach.

“I hope I am,” said Kitty, sipping daintily. Why did tea taste so wonderful sipped from a china cup? “Do you like your hat?”

“As ye said, it is a very splendid hat. Major Ross would have whistled and told me I looked like a queen in it, but Mrs. King will only
try
to be complimentary. She is a very pleasant person with excellent manners, so I cannot say she is to blame for my going. Commander King is responsible. And that Chapman fellow, the crafty booby! An eye to the main chance, that one! Already scheming how to make money out of the place. Brings out the worst in Mrs. King too—which the Commander is starting to realize, let me tell you! I predict that Willy Chapman will shortly be packed off to Queensborough or Phillipsburgh. But Commander King don’t like me, Kitty, and that is a fact I cannot get around. Too vulgar for the likes of Mrs. King, is how he put it. Vulgar!
Me?
He don’t know what vulgar is! Said he don’t want his children to hear me—sometimes I forget myself and out pops a fuck or two. But never a cunt, Kitty, never a cunt, I swear! It ain’t my fault—blame gaol. Never used to swear and curse.”

“I understand
completely,
” said Kitty fervently.

“Anyway, he cannot just throw me out, he will have to do the decent thing by me,” growled Lizzie, thrusting out her chin. “I am a free woman, not a convict. And d’ye know who he is going to put in my place?” she demanded, outraged.

“No, who?”

“Mary Rolt.
Mary Rolt!
Says cunt as well as fuck, I do assure you! Huh! ’Tis all because Mary Rolt fucks Sam King the marine, and he is settling here, and all that. King. Same name, y’see. Makes anyone better in the Commandant’s eyes. Huh!” She sipped a little more tea and stared at the hat. “I wish I had a mirror.”

“Mrs. King must have one.”

“Oh, she does, a big one in her bedroom.”

“Then ask her if you may look. If she has excellent manners and is kind, then she will not say no.”

“It
is
a fine hat, ain’t it?”

“The finest I have ever seen. Mr. Thistlethwaite said in his letter that it is all the crack—exactly what duchesses and other high ladies are wearing. He says you cannot tell high-born women from whores these days—” She broke off, horrified at where her tongue had led her, but Lizzie was staring fixedly at the medicine bottle. “Perhaps,” Kitty rushed on, “the Kings might keep you on as cook? Richard told me that Major Ross said your cooking was the best he had ever tasted.”

“I,”
said Lizzie haughtily, “have other ideas.”

Kitty’s heart soared; some of it was rawness, some of it was shock, but underneath both Lizzie Lock was already springing back. Of course she was! So do we all, we convict women. We have not come this far and survived without being able to spring back. Lizzie is tough. Not hard, just tough. She has had to be. No doubt everybody free will prate their admiration for Mrs. King’s courage in coming so far and putting up with inconveniences, but Mrs. King has never been a convict woman and Mrs. King will never be as admirable in my eyes as Lizzie Lock. Or Mary Rolt. Or Kitty Clark. So there, Mrs. King! said Kitty to herself. Drink your tea from your fine china cups after the convict servant girl has made it and served it to you! Pin on your course clouts after the convict servant girl has washed your blood from them and hung them out to dry! You may be everything a prison commandant’s wife should be, but you are not
our
equal.

“What ideas do you have?” she asked.

“I have gotten over hating ye for stealing Richard,” Lizzie said, getting up to refill the pot, chip off a bit more sugar, pour more tea.

“Truly I did not steal him!”

“I know
that!
He stole you, more like. Peculiar, ain’t they? Men, I mean. As far as most of them are concerned, keep the belly and what hangs off it well fed, and they are happy. But Richard was always different, right from when he stalked into Gloucester Gaol like a prince of the blood—you know, sort of cool and royal and quiet. Never needed to raise his voice. Mind you, he is a big man, ha ha ha! Eh, Kitty? Ain’t that right?”

“Yes,” said Kitty, blushing.

“Took on Ike Rogers—an even bigger man—without the blink of an eye. Faced him down. Yet I heard that later on they was real good friends. That is Richard. I am in love with him, but he was never in love with me. No hope. No hope.” Voice teary, Mrs. Richard Morgan got up again to tip the contents of the medicine bottle into her tea. “There! That will ginger it up a treat. Like some?”

“No, thank you. What are your plans, Lizzie?” Kitty realized that whatever Lizzie had gurgled into her tea had been sipped at for some time, probably since the moment Mr. King had walked out after giving her her notice.

“I am thinking of Thomas Sculley, a marine just arrived back to take up land here. Not far from Morgan’s Run. Quiet sort of man, a bit like Richard in that respect. Don’t want no children, but. He ain’t got a woman, and he made me an offer after tasting my banana fritters in rum. I turned him down, but now that the Commandant says I have to go, I may as well move in with Sculley.”

“It will be nice to have you as a neighbor,” Kitty said with sincerity, preparing to take her leave.

“When is the baby due?”

“About another two and a half months.”

“Thankee for bringing the hat. Mr. Thistlethwaite, ye said?”

“Yes, Mr. James Thistlethwaite.”

A great deal more at peace, Kitty pattered off to find Joey and the two dogs waiting for her at the foot of Mount George.

“You were quite right to insist that I take the hat,” she said to Richard as she sliced their own salt pork thinly, spooned gravy over it made with lots of onions, and piled potatoes and fresh beans onto the pewter platters. “Lizzie and I will become friends.” She giggled. “The two Mrs. Richard Morgans.” She put a plate in front of Stephen and another in front of Richard, then carried her own to the table and sat down. “Commander King gave the poor thing her notice this morning.”

“I was afraid of that,” said Stephen, cutting busily with his knife until everything could be scooped up with the spoon. How good it would be to have a fork! “King is a strict husband, wants to shelter his wife from all undignified or sordid phenomena, and Lizzie Lock is definitely an undignified phenomenon. A pity, really. Mrs. King is a tall, gangling sort of creature who does not present as particularly prudish, especially when Willy Chapman is with her.” He pulled a face. “Now there’s a sordid phenomenon, William Neate Chapman. A natural leech.”

“They have china cups and saucers,” said Kitty, busy eating for two, “and I drank my tea out of one. Since there are china cups and saucers even in the kitchen, I think that Mrs. King must be
very
genteel.”

“I would gladly give ye china cups and saucers of your own, Kitty,” said Richard, “but it is more than a question of money.”

Attention caught, Stephen looked up. “Exactly,” he agreed. “For a long time to come, I suspect, the closest thing Norfolk Island will have to a shop is a stall set up on the straight beach by some ship’s captain. Unfortunately such stalls do not contain fribbles like china tea sets and silver forks. ’Tis always the same kettles, stoves, calico, cheap paper, ink.”

“We need kettles, stoves and calico more than fribbles,” said Richard, God the Fathering. “There are clothes occasionally.”

“Aye, but I notice they never appeal to the women,” Stephen objected.

“That is because men chose them,” said Kitty, smiling. “They always think women would rather buy clothes than china or window curtains, then they choose the wrong clothes anyway.”

“Ye’d rather have window curtains?” Stephen asked, wondering to himself why Kitty seemed not to care that she couldn’t marry Richard. “The two Mrs. Richard Morgans”—said without a qualm.

“Oh, yes.” Kitty put her spoon down to gaze about the living room, which was coming on; the interior walls were all up and most of them were polished, there were now several shelves of books one beneath the other, and she had found a flowering plant to put in a battered mug. “I love my home best. Rugs and curtains would be truly wonderful, and vases, and pictures on the walls. If I had embroidery silks, I could work tapestry cushions for the chairs and samplers for the walls.”

“One day,” Richard promised. “One day. We will just have to hope that one day a more enterprising ship’s captain comes along to sell lamps and oil, embroidery silks, china teasets and vases. Government Stores are not very imaginative. Slops, shoes, wooden bowls, pewter spoons and mugs, blankets, dippers and tallow candles.”

After the meal was done the men settled to talk of what the flimsies and gazettes said, then drifted to more important things like wheat, clearing, sawing, lime, and the changes Commander King was implementing.

“For all his fine talk, he has not managed to cut punishments down,” said Richard. “
Eight hundred
lashes, for pity’s sake! Far kinder to hang a man. The most Major Ross ever levied were five hundred, the bulk forgiven, and I note that the surgeons are not allowed to intervene as freely as they used to.”

“Be fair, Richard. The fault lies with the New South Wales Corps, who are brutes commanded by brutes. I wish they would not single out the poor Irish, but they do.”

“Well, the Irish come from outside the Pale and few of them speak English. The soldiers insist that they do, but will not admit it. How can they work when they do not understand their instructions? Yet I have found one man among them with whom it is a pleasure to saw—the best partner since Billy Wigfall. Cheerful, obliging—does not understand a word I say to him any more than I him. Put a rip saw between us, and we are in utter communion.”

“What is his name?”

“I have no idea. Flippety O’Flappety, it may as well be. I call him Paddy, and give him a good lunch of bread and vegetables at the sawpit. Cold meat too. A man cannot saw without plenty of food, I will have to reinforce that with Mr. King.”

Suddenly Kitty laughed and clapped her hands. “Oh, Richard, do stop talking about your sawpits! Stephen has big news.”