Sara Dane

by Catherine Gaskin

  His tone had softened, and she looked at him in a more kindly fashion. The dust of the roads had gathered thickly on his clothes and boots; his black hair, hanging on his forehead, was damp with perspiration. A far cry, this, she thought, from Louis’s elegance; yet it was very familiar, and, after a fashion, beloved to her. She had never learned to look at Jeremy without recalling the first years at Kintyre, the happiest time of her whole life.

  ‘Tell me, Jeremy,’ she said gently, ‘tell me why you think I should not marry Louis de Bourget?’

  The tension left his body somewhat as she spoke; the hand holding the rolled, crumpled paper dropped to his side. For a moment he seemed bewildered; slowly he walked across to the desk, bringing his fingers up to rest against the edge, and leaning towards her.

  ‘Does one cage together two animals of a different species, Sara? Does one try to wed happily two people of utterly dissimilar character, purposes, and thought? Louis de Bourget’s mind and outlook is European ‒ more than that ‒ it belongs to France before the Revolution. To you, this colony is home, and the life, however crude and rough, is the shape of better things to come. To de Bourget, the colony is a refuge from all that he finds uncongenial in his old world. Although he may not consciously see it in this fashion, to him, the convicts here are like the peasants of France. There is a great wealth to be won from the soil, and at the expense of their labour. A new-born France is how he sees it. It’s a country where the laws of privilege and wealth hold good, where all power is in the hands of the few, and there exists a level of society even lower than the French peasant.’

  ‘Careful, Jeremy!’ she said. ‘These surely are the sentiments which earned you your passage to Botany Bay in the first place.’

  He waved her words angrily aside. ‘Never mind the colour of my political sentiments! Listen to me, Sara! How can you possibly marry de Bourget, when he doesn’t know one particle of what you have experienced here? How can he ever know the person you were once ‒ the girl that Andrew brought to Kintyre? And can you, for the sake of his position, and his ideas of how his wife should behave, leave behind everything you and Andrew created together? Will you sell the store, the farms, the ships? Are you content to sit over your needlework all day? Because, if I am any judge of Louis de Bourget, that is precisely what he will expect of you!’

  ‘How blind you are,’ she retorted angrily. ‘It’s to keep the store, and the farms, and everything else I have, that I am doing this! Have you thought of that, Jeremy Hogan? Have you remembered that it isn’t easy for a woman to carry on these things entirely by herself? Each time I give an order, or handle a transaction, it is resented, because it is not backed by the authority of a husband.’

  She drew in a swift, deep breath, feeling the furious colour spring to her cheeks. Her anger was beginning to match his own.

  ‘And what of my children? What is to become of them? You know the emancipist problem as well as I do. Since Andrew’s death I have been merely an ex-convict, and nothing more. My sons have been treated accordingly. Is it fair to bring them up to face that situation, and the knowledge that they are not accepted by the people they would wish to know?’

  ‘Your sons are also Andrew’s sons,’ he said firmly. ‘Not one of the three will be a weakling, unable to fight his own battles. They’ll make their way wherever they choose, and there’ll be no barrier they cannot cross if they so wish. At least, give them the chance to do it themselves ‒ don’t impose upon them the worse burden of a stepfather who is at odds with his environment, who will sneer at the commerce and trade which Andrew taught them to look on as their world. Would you give them thoroughbred horses and soft hands ‒ and have them grow up not knowing a spade from a plough?’

  ‘My sons need a father,’ she said sullenly. ‘And I … I need a husband.’

  Perspiration was breaking out on his forehead; his hands, pressed against the desk, trembled slightly.

  ‘If it’s a husband you want, Sara ‒ then, marry me! Surely I’d fit that role better than Louis de Bourget?’

  Her mouth dropped open; the colour mounted again rapidly in her face, until her cheeks were two patches of scarlet.

  ‘You!’ She choked over the word.

  He looked at her steadily for some moments, his eyes narrowing as they concentrated on her face. The perspiration stood out in beads on his forehead; he put up one hand and wiped it impatiently, his eyes never leaving her. Then, quite abruptly, he leaned still farther forward until his face was within inches of her own.

  ‘No. That wouldn’t do for you, would it, Sara? I’m merely another ex-convict. By marrying me you’d be hopelessly ruined, and your children also. But you’ll marry this Frenchman without counting whether or not he loves you ‒ or whether you love him. If you searched the whole world you wouldn’t find a man less like Andrew in every way ‒ and yet this is the man with whom you choose to spend the rest of your life. Are you going to buy your way into pompous little receptions at Government House with this wedding? Would you rather your sons were bathed in vice-regal smiles ‒ or that they turned out men like Andrew?’

  Suddenly he slapped his open hand down on the desk.

  ‘Damn your mercenary little soul, Sara! You’re not worth any man’s regard!’

  He drew back, his expression frowning and dark.

  ‘Well, go ahead, marry your Frenchman ‒ but you’ve lost your overseer! I’ll be damned if I’ll slave out my guts to provide more gowns for Madame de Bourget to wear to Government House! Farm your own land in future! Do what you like with it ‒ it’s no longer my concern. The day you marry de Bourget, you can stop sending your instructions to me ‒ I won’t be at hand to receive them.’

  ‘Jeremy!’ she said faintly. ‘You wouldn’t leave! What would you do …? Where would you go…?’

  ‘I’ll be occupied using my time to my own advantage,’ he said shortly. ‘You’ve had enough of my life ‒ from now on it will be my own.’

  She jumped up quickly. The papers on the desk fluttered briefly, and subsided.

  ‘Wait!’ she said harshly. ‘Wait, Jeremy! You can’t leave me like this …!’

  He stepped back from the desk. The crumpled newspaper he had held fell to the floor.

  ‘It’s high time you learned that you can no longer say, “Do this” and “Do that” and expect to be obeyed. You seem to forget that I’m free. I do what I want now ‒ and that includes telling you that I’m finished with you. I’ll bring the farm accounts up to date, and send them here to Glenbarr. There’ll be no need for us to meet again.’

  He turned and strode to the door; he opened it, and then, after a pause, his hand fell away from the knob. He wheeled around, fumbling in his pocket.

  ‘I’d forgotten … I called at the Ryder Farm on the way down. Mrs. Ryder asked me to deliver this note.’

  He crossed the room and laid a letter on the desk. He took no further notice of Sara, nor did he bang the door as he left. Outside, she could hear him calling to Annie for his hat. Listening carefully, after a few minutes she heard the smart clop of horse’s hooves in the drive.

  Only then did she reach for Julia’s letter. She tried to control her rage as she broke the seal.

  ‘My dear Sara,

  I trust that in time you will be able to forgive me for writing as I do now. Believe me, I do so only in the hope that you may pause to consider what you are doing in committing yourself to marriage with Louis de Bourget.

  My dear, can there be any real happiness in this for either of you? Are you content to give up all you and Andrew have built since the beginning of the colony, to retire to Banon? Or has Louis de Bourget decided to give up Banon to suit your interests? I sincerely hope that you are not attempting to compromise between the two ways of life ‒ for I see the result only as confusion and unhappiness …’

  Angrily, Sara read to the end. The whole letter was Jeremy’s words over again, though less forcefully expressed. When she reached Julia’s signature, she crumpled the paper in
her hand, screwing it into a tight ball and letting it fall to the desk. Damn all of them! she thought. They thought they knew what was best for her ‒ they thought they could bid her carry on as she had been doing for the past year, and that she would meekly do as she was told. They strove to see, Julia and Jeremy, a bent in Louis’s character that would run contrary to her own, a difference of purpose that would give them no peace together. She clenched her hands in defiance.

  There had never been any intention in her mind ‒ and she didn’t believe there was in Louis’s either ‒ of selling the farms or the store. He knew that they were not hers alone, that they belonged to her sons. When they had discussed them, he had suggested bringing an experienced manager out from England to run the store, and perhaps two farmers, with their families, to help Jeremy. Naturally, after their marriage, Louis would expect more of her time than she was at present able to give ‒ but she felt that he would be patient until her London agents could find such people as she needed.

  Suddenly, to her intense annoyance, tears began to slip down her cheeks. She brushed at them with the back of her hand, but could not check them. They were wrong, Julia and Jeremy, and whoever else was disposed to think as they did. She would show them all what Louis was prepared to do for her sake ‒ and what she would do for his. They were not children, either of them, unused to the ways of the world; they had much to give each other, much to contribute to marriage. Louis knew that she meant to hold every part of Andrew’s property intact; he had agreed to marry her knowing that. So much for Jeremy’s rage and scorn! So much for Julia’s cautious warnings!

  And still the tears could not be kept back. She was forced to face reality, and the fact that Jeremy was gone. He was gone to the sort of freedom he had not known for fifteen years. She preferred not to recall that he wanted to marry her ‒ the person of Jeremy did not weigh up evenly with the other considerations against him. He was free of her now ‒ free to do exactly as he pleased. But the future without Jeremy was bleak, and somewhat frightening. Very slowly she began to unfold and smooth out Julia’s letter again; it was difficult to read, with the blur before her eyes.

  II

  Until the day she was married, a little more than a month after Louis’s return from England, Sara expected a message, or a visit, from Richard ‒ but none came. At first she waited eagerly, and then became resigned to the fact that here was another who anticipated disaster from her marriage, or who was too jealous to even acknowledge the necessity of this step she was taking. After giving the situation some thought, she was able to shrug away her dismay; she should have expected no better from Richard.

  She and Louis were married on a morning in April, with no one but the Ryders, Sara’s three sons, and Elizabeth de Bourget to witness the ceremony. David, Duncan, and Sebastian were quiet, but, on the whole, Sara judged, they were well content. They remembered Louis, and his constant visits when Andrew had been alive, and to them he was a liked and trusted friend. But on Elizabeth constraint and uncertainty were plainly visible. Occasionally, Julia, who had deliberately placed herself near Louis’s little daughter, touched her arm soothingly. The child was obviously bewildered by the whole situation, and she seemed to be glad of the attention Julia gave her.

  That night Glenbarr blazed with lights. The rooms were filled with the scent and colour of flowers; in the dining-room long tables were loaded with food ‒ Louis’s French cook had come from Banon to prepare the supper, and it was something that would be talked over for many weeks after. Polished silver gleamed, and the wine stood waiting. White-gloved servants from Banon glided through the rooms, lighting the last candles. Bennett stood in the hall, magnificent in a hunting-green livery of his own design, directing his helpers. The carriages began to roll up the drive in their numbers for the first time in over a year.

  Sara stood beside Louis to receive their guests. She wore the blue satin gown he had brought her from London; her hair was elaborately dressed, her tanned skin lightly powdered. The gown might have graced a Court function; it was too magnificent for a place like Sydney, but it gave her satisfaction to wear it and have Louis look at her as he did. He tapped his foot a little on the floor as he waited ‒ in his brocade coat and powdered hair he looked more Gallic than ever in the midst of these English faces. People streamed in, their glances quizzical, their eyes ready to notice and to criticize. The Abbotts came, the Macarthurs, the Pipers … Smiling, Sara graciously took the hand of each in turn. The Pattersons, the Johnstons, the Campbells, the Palmers, all presented themselves. So many of these people were, at one time, Glenbarr’s frequent visitors, but had been absent since Andrew’s death. She knew that many of them did not approve of her any more now than they had done formerly, but, as the wife of Louis de Bourget, they were obliged to receive her back into their circle. In the midst of all the gaiety her thoughts went to the little bush wedding in the Ryders’ house twelve years ago, where the only colour in the scene was not the silks and satins of the women she saw here tonight, but the scarlet tunics of the few officers of the Corps that she and Andrew had been proud to welcome as their guests. She recalled the work and love that had gone into the preparing of the rough, unfinished house on the Hawkesbury, and the happiness she had known there. And then she visioned Banon, white, and elegant, and cool … She would be happy again, she told herself. They were wrong, the people who believed this marriage would be a disastrous one. She thought of Jeremy, who today would have taken the last of his belongings away from Kintyre. Silently her lips formed his name. The faces passing before her swam in a blur … William Cooper’s dull, kindly one; Julia’s anxious and searching; a young, laughing girl’s, whom she did not recognize. She turned from them and her disturbing thoughts, and sank into a deep curtsy as the Governor and Mrs. King arrived.

  Finally, Captain and Mrs. Barwell were announced. They came forward unhurriedly. Alison was exquisitely groomed and gowned in peach-coloured brocade, but, for all her beauty, looking as frail as a piece of glass. Richard, splendid in dress uniform, was sullen and ungracious. He bent over Sara’s hand, kissing it, but as he straightened he did not look into her eyes.

  And later it was said of Richard Barwell that he disgraced himself that night, and shamed his wife, by being noticeably drunk.

  III

  Sara and Louis went to Banon immediately after they were married. The countryside was quiet in the dried-out browns of autumn; the house above the river plains looked as settled as if it had been there always. It was no longer a raw, white gash on the landscape, but sunk back, and warm against its hill. The days were golden and full of sun; at night they burned wood fires late, and Sara drew from Louis his memories of the months in England. Europe seemed far away, almost a dream; tales of the London ballrooms, and the games of faro that lasted through the night, might quicken her imagination, but close at hand her own affairs were absorbing and rich. For almost four weeks she was lazily content.

  Madame Balvet was no longer there to disturb the contentment. Her successor was a soft-spoken Irishwoman, who listened with deference to Sara’s instructions. Madame Balvet was lodged in Sydney, waiting for the first possible passage back to England. The Frenchwoman’s real position at Banon was never explained or discussed; Mrs. Fagan slipped into the role of housekeeper as quietly as if there had never been a change at all.

  When Sara’s idyllic month was almost up, the first disturbing news found its way into the peace of Banon. Clapmore was ill, and the overseer, newly engaged to run the Toongabbie farm, had been killed by a falling tree, as his men worked to clear more land for pasture. Louis tried vainly to soothe her agitation, and, at last, rather unwillingly, agreed to go back to Sydney with her. During the journey she noticed he was often silent.

  She found that that month with Louis was to be a pattern of their married life. He made it quite clear that he wanted her at Banon; as often as possible she travelled up from Sydney, diligently organizing the whole retinue of children and servants to come with them. But she always
went with a backward glance to all she had left undone in matters concerning the farms and store. Clapmore was well again, and a new overseer had been found for the Toongabbie farm. But, even together, they could not greatly relieve the pressure on Sara herself. Clapmore, though conscientious, had not the authority necessary to deal with the questions that required her attention; the overseer, an emancipist, drank too much, and was too free with the men. At best, they ‒ Clapmore and the three principal overseers ‒ were poor substitutes for Jeremy Hogan.

  But she stifled her frustrations and went to Banon whenever she could ‒ and Louis’s good humour returned. A week or two they would spend there, while Louis toyed with his farming, smiling indulgently to see Sara immediately assume control of the overseers and labour. He was amused by the children; he seemed to enjoy taking their lesson hours out of Michael Sullivan’s hands. Outside the huge, bright room at the end of the portico, that had lately become the schoolroom, Sara often paused to listen to Louis’s voice repeating Latin verbs; very soon she noticed that her sons had ceased to pronounce their few words of French with an Irish accent. The happy sound of their laughter, Louis’s mingling with it, reached her constantly.

  She found that it took time and great patience to adjust herself to marriage with Louis. He was not as easily commanded as Andrew had been, or as easily pleased. He expected much from a woman; once, he had breathed the heated, over-civilized atmosphere of the Paris salons, and the gaze he now turned on a woman was for ever coloured by those years. She strove to please him in a hundred different ways ‒ her costume must be immaculate and appropriate from early morning until they retired late at night; she ordered gowns extravagantly, and they were far too many and too magnificent for the society of the colony. But Louis always dined, even when alone, with great ritual and elegance, and her own toilette must match it. She slipped into the habit of speaking French with him, and in their long talks together, she learned that her conversation must never touch more than passingly on the subject of crops or trade. These did not amuse, or even interest him much, and were hardly matters to be introduced over the dinner table, or in the drawing-room. Louis talked as her father, Sebastian, had once done ‒ bringing to the inevitable sameness of the gatherings they attended a whiff of a sophisticated, cultivated world. She was hard put to keep pace with him.