Sara Dane

by Catherine Gaskin

  He drew nearer to her, slipping his arm about her waist, and pushing his body close to her side to support her weight.

  ‘Lean harder on me, Mama! You’re not leaning on me at all!’

  They started down the way they had come, but Sara’s steps were less certain now. She was conscious of the desperate need for haste, and yet her body couldn’t be urged to the effort she required of it. Determinedly she clung to the wooden horse, pressing it close to her, like a talisman. She stopped abruptly, as yet another spasm of pain gripped her. Longingly she pictured the comfort of Kintyre, and at the same time was torn with anguish at the thought that Sebastian might be somewhere close by, and needing help. But pain and weakness were beginning to blur every other feeling; she forced herself to concentrate on placing one foot carefully before the other. Now her whole body was bathed in sweat, and her wet cloak clung to her icily. She began to lean on David more and more, though aware that his child’s strength couldn’t support her much longer in this way. Then, at last, her judgement clouded with the effort of resisting the waves of pain, she let her foot slip on a loose stone. David clutched frantically as she was flung forward, but he couldn’t hold her; she pitched heavily against a boulder. It broke her fall, and she managed to remain upright; but the breath was knocked out of her body, and her will to fight the increasing pain had evaporated. She clung to the boulder, the side of her head pressed against it, sobbing wildly.

  Then David’s fingers roused her, plucking urgently at her cloak.

  ‘Walk, Mama …! I can see a lantern. It’ll be Mr. Sullivan. Please do try to walk, Mama!’

  He swung the light he held high above his head to attract attention. A shout reached them thinly through the rain. Sara opened her eyes only long enough to make certain that the flickering lantern ahead was coming towards them, and then she sagged gratefully against the rock.

  Again David plucked at her cloak. ‘It’s all right now, Mama. There’s two men! It’s Mr. Sullivan …’ He tugged violently now. ‘Mama, look! It’s Mr. Hogan!’

  Sara turned her head weakly. ‘Jeremy? Jeremy, here …!’ Blackness was crowding in on her as she felt herself lifted into Jeremy’s arms.

  At sunrise Annie came wearily into the kitchen; with Bess and Kate she began to prepare breakfasts for the men who, headed by Jeremy and Michael Sullivan, had spent most of the night searching for Sebastian. There was little conversation between the women as they moved about, handling dishes and pans quietly, so that the sounds did not reach the other parts of the house. A pale sun streamed through the windows, touching kindly Annie’s wrinkled, worried old face. Now and again she paused to wipe her eyes on her apron, and to give a loud sniff which could be heard across the room. During the night the flood had reached its greatest height, but before dawn the wind died and the rain stopped. This morning the floor of the convicts’ cookhouse was six inches under water; presently the tired, hungry men would come trooping in for their meal. For once Annie had no thoughts for the mud they would track across the kitchen floor.

  She paused as a shadow darkened the doorway, and turned to find Trigg and Jackson, the second overseer, there.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded eagerly.

  But Trigg shook his head. ‘The last of the men are back ‒ there’s no trace of Master Sebastian. I’ve had a word with Mr. Hogan and Mr. Sullivan, and they say we’re all to have a few hours’ rest, and then to start again. The water will be lower by that time …’ His voice trailed off dismally.

  ‘Mercy on us!’ Annie cried, the tears springing to her eyes. ‘There’s hardly hope now for the poor little lamb … and him so bright and full of fun.’ Once more she raised the corner of her apron.

  Jackson nodded. ‘Aye, he was that, all right. A real favourite with the boys, was young Master Sebastian. I’ve never seen them set to anything with such a will as they did last night. Ah, well …’

  Then his eyes wandered to the table with its places already set. Annie, interpreting the glance, dropped her apron and moved briskly to the range. ‘It’ll not be more than a minute now …’

  Trigg and Jackson took their seats, their heavy movements betraying the fatigue of the long night in the rain.

  Suddenly Trigg twisted round to Annie.

  ‘Any news of the mistress yet?’

  She looked up. ‘Lord, yes! I’ve been so taken up with Master Sebastian that I didn’t think to tell you. Four hours ago ‒ a girl. A little scrap of a thing ‒ but she seems strong enough, and it looks as if she’ll live. She has black hair, and she’s the living image of her father.’

  ‘The mistress …?’ Jackson asked.

  Annie frowned doubtfully. ‘I just couldn’t say … She had a terrible time, poor soul. Not like the others, this one weren’t. She hasn’t perked up at all, now that it’s over. Not sleeping either ‒ just lying there with her eyes open, and asking all the time about Master Sebastian. Lord, how I wish the master were back! Can’t say how long it’ll be before he gets through, with the water come as high as it has.’

  Then she set their plates before them, and there was silence again in the sunlit kitchen.

  ‘If you could just rouse her in some way, Mr. Hogan,’ Emily Bains said anxiously. ‘She doesn’t seem to want to have the baby with her, and she takes no notice of anything I say …’

  Jeremy nodded, finishing the low-voiced conversation that had taken place outside Sara’s bedroom. He stepped forward gently, and opened the door.

  The large room was flooded with light; the curtains fluttered softly by the open windows. Sara lay in the simple, white-canopied bed, her eyes opened wide, staring up at the cloudless sky. There was a frightening stillness in her body, a sense of waiting. Her face and lips were colourless; her hair, drawn back and thickly braided, lay across the pillow. Low at her throat a ruffle of cream lace showed, and round her shoulders she wore a fluffy blue shawl. The room was immaculate; it gave no sign of the chaos of the night before.

  ‘Sara!’ he said softly, closing the door.

  She turned her head towards him, half-raised it, and then let it fall back again.

  ‘Jeremy! What news …?’

  He looked at her steadily. ‘None … not so far. All the men are back now. They’re having a meal and a few hours’ rest, before they start again.’

  ‘Oh …’ The hope that had sprung to her eyes was gone as quickly as it had come.

  He walked to the bed. ‘Sara … Sara! Don’t look like that! There’s a chance that we may yet find him. Now that it’s daylight …’

  ‘Daylight, yes. But you won’t find him ‒ not now.’ As she spoke she turned again towards the windows. Her face was haggard in the strong light; the look of stillness and brooding had returned to it. He gazed down at her, acutely conscious of his helplessness to rouse or stimulate her. She was as chill and cold as stone lying there. He moved noiselessly and came to stand at the foot of the bed. Now he could see her clearly, and for the first time he noticed that close to her side she clutched the white wooden horse, with its worn bridle of red cord. She gripped it possessively, as if afraid it might be taken from her. In the same way, he remembered, she had clutched it when he had found her last night, refusing to give it up.

  ‘Sara,’ he said gently.

  Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t speak.

  ‘Sara, you haven’t seen your baby yet ‒ your daughter.’

  She twisted her head on the pillow to look at him.

  ‘My daughter? But I have lost Sebastian. He wasn’t much more than a baby, either. Look, Jeremy, he took a toy with him when he went ‒ that’s how much a baby he was still.’ And with her finger-tips she stroked the chipped side of the horse.

  Suddenly she put her hand across her eyes. ‘Oh, Jeremy!’ she cried out. ‘Come here … Come here, quickly!’

  He went to her side, bending over her. Her fingers sought his hand, and gripped it feverishly.

  He dropped to his knees beside her.

  ‘Sara …!’ he breathed.


  ‘I couldn’t believe it when you came,’ she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. ‘I remember thinking that I needed you badly, but that you were miles away.’

  His lips brushed her fingers clasped round his hand.

  ‘I came when I knew the water was rising,’ he murmured. ‘I heard Louis was in Sydney ‒ I thought you might need help.’

  He laid his cheek against their locked hands, and they were both silent. He could hear her quiet breathing close to his ear. The coldness of her hand terrified him; he drew it closer to his body, and tried to press some warmth into it. Her eyes were closed, and he had a moment of agony wondering whether she might lose consciousness. But then she opened them fully, looking straight up at him.

  ‘I’m so glad you came,’ she said faintly. ‘I don’t believe Sebastian can be alive now. But your being here helps me to bear it. Stay here at Kintyre awhile. I’m so lonely with all those others. You’ll stay, won’t you, Jeremy?’

  He bent over and kissed her quietly on the lips.

  ‘I won’t leave you, Sara,’ he said.

  III

  The baby, Henriette, was three days old before Jeremy at last made up his mind that he must leave Kintyre and return to his own farm. He was anxious about his livestock; although penned on high ground, the enclosures he and his men had built were rough and temporary. And the thought that, at the highest of the flood level, his store huts had probably been a couple of inches under water, worried him considerably. As the water went down there would be plenty of work ‒ debris to be cleared, carcases to be burnt, cramped livestock moved and turned out to pasture again. Along the whole of the Hawkesbury valley a gigantic effort would be made to wipe away the traces of the disaster, and every man was needed on his own property. He felt badly at having to go, leaving Kintyre in the hands of Michael Sullivan. The young schoolteacher from Cork was a good lad, Jeremy thought, but more at home with history books than dealing with the aftermath of a flood. He hoped that Trigg and Jackson might both exert their full energies now, and, not for the first time in the past three days, he wished it was Andrew Maclay’s return they awaited ‒ not Louis de Bourget’s.

  Sebastian had not been found. A disheartened search was still going on, up and down the river ‒ but there was no longer any hope held that he might be alive. Sara grieved for her little son, but seemed to have taken comfort from Henriette at last. Perhaps, Annie had suggested to Jeremy, when Sara pressed her face against the tiny head, with its fuzz of black hair, it was Sebastian she was reminded of. She lay in the white-canopied bed, the baby asleep by her side, but she seemed to care nothing for what went on outside her room. She ate little, and said little, except to constantly ask for news of Sebastian.

  David and Duncan were saddened and downcast; Elizabeth questioned the men frantically ‒ where was Sebastian? Why didn’t they find him? But after three whole days of searching, even Elizabeth grew silent.

  By the late afternoon of the third day, the water was down enough to allow Jeremy to make the journey back to his own farm by horse. He was preparing to leave, standing on the front steps giving last instructions to Trigg, when he caught the sound of horsemen on the road below. He watched them as they trotted quickly up the slope ‒ Louis de Bourget, and the surgeon, D’Arcy Wentworth.

  Trigg took the bridles of the sweating horses, and Jeremy went forward to greet the two men. He looked hard at Louis. His shirt was dirty, its ruffles limp; his boots were caked with mud, days old; his coat appeared to have been soaked through several times. Jeremy concluded that he had been caught by the flood at some point along the river, and, like every other available man, had turned out to help move the livestock to higher ground. He looked tired and worried. By now he would know of his daughter’s birth and Sebastian’s disappearance ‒ not more than half an hour ago Jackson had set off from Kintyre with one of the farm carts loaded with children and supplies of food and clothing. They were being taken to the Talbots’ house ‒ Kintyre’s nearest neighbours to have escaped the flood. The offer to take them had come as soon as the news had spread of the state of affairs at Kintyre. If Louis had not known before then, he would certainly have heard from Jackson on the road.

  Jeremy had a few moments in which to wonder how he would be received by Louis. He had not spoken to the other ‒ he had done nothing more than glimpse him once in the street, in Sydney, since his return from England. There was no way of telling how Sara had reported their last meeting to her husband, or what her explanation had been for his giving up the management of the three Maclay farms. Louis, gay and charming, but with the temperament and ideas of the French nobility, might regard his presence here, at this time, as damned impertinence. He was capable of walking past without a glance, and going straight into the house.

  But Louis approached him, his hand outstretched. He was unshaven, and he had the look of weariness common to them all for this past week.

  ‘I was relieved when Jackson told me you were here, Hogan,’ he said. ‘You will have been a great comfort to my wife.’

  Jeremy gripped the other man’s hand warmly. ‘I have achieved nothing, so far. Sebastian is still …’

  Louis cut him short. ‘I have news of Sebastian ‒ this morning.’

  ‘What is it?’ Jeremy said sharply.

  ‘His body has been found ‒ about six miles down river. He was caught in a tree on the Sutton Farm ‒ they found him when the water went down. They recognized him, of course, and Mark Sutton passed the news to Captain Pierce, who sent a messenger after me. I have told Jackson to go on to the Suttons after he has delivered the children. I told him I would return myself, as soon as I had seen my wife.’

  They looked at each other steadily ‒ Sebastian had stood in almost the same relationship to them both. He was Andrew Maclay’s son, and, they both suspected, Sara’s most loved child. Because he was the youngest, he had been closer to Louis than his brothers, and Elizabeth had given her heart to him. Jeremy realized that had Sara’s child been a son, Sebastian’s death would not have affected Louis so greatly. But there was a sense of desolation in his bald words, and Jeremy was conscious, for the first time, of feeling sympathy for Louis.

  ‘Could I not …?’ He shifted uneasily, wondering how much he dared presume on his past association with the Maclays. He looked carefully into Louis’s dark face. ‘I should be glad to go immediately to the Suttons myself, if you would like that.’

  A touch of warmth came to Louis’s eyes. ‘That is kind of you ‒ but you have your own farm, and there must be much work to be done …’ He finished, lifting his shoulders a little, ‘None of us have escaped in this flood.’

  Jeremy was momentarily inarticulate. Then he said, ‘I have known all the Maclay children since they were born. I should be grateful if you would permit me …’

  The other nodded. ‘Of course. Go now ‒ I will follow as soon as I am able.’ He added, so quietly that Jeremy could scarcely hear what he said, ‘Sebastian must have his friends to bring him home.’

  By this time Wentworth had unstrapped his saddlebags. Trigg still held the horses’ heads, and Annie and Bess had come out on the veranda. Both women looked expectantly towards Louis, as if they somehow sensed that news had arrived. He glanced up at them. There were no glad faces to greet this homecoming ‒ this, the first time he would see his daughter.

  ‘And now, Hogan,’ he said, ‘I must go and tell my wife that they have found Sebastian.’

  Slowly his gaze moved along the veranda, until it rested on the windows of Sara’s bedroom. He had the look of a man who is afraid. Silently Annie and Bess made way for him as he mounted the steps.

  Chapter Five

  On a morning of September, 1806, the de Bourget carriage waited for a long time before the open door of Government House. Edwards sat on the box, blinking in the sunlight, and every now and then raising his head to sniff the fresh, sharp smell of the wild flowers, which for a week had been appearing in a quiet, half-vague fashion to announce the sprin
g. The old man stretched his legs to their fullest extent, grateful for the hot sun which gave him such relief from his rheumatism, but still feeling unaccountably disgruntled at what he saw about him. He sadly missed the English springs, the sudden breaking-out of the young green on tree, hedge and hedgerow, after the long months of nakedness. It was his private opinion that spring in this country of evergreens was no spring at all.

  His eyes brightened with the prospect of a gossip as he noticed a man, carrying pail and a twig-broom, come slowly round the corner of the house. He climbed rather stiffly down off the box, laid a gentle hand on the bridle of the nearest horse, and waited for the man’s approach. He and the newcomer, Simon Brand, had shared many a pot of ale in Costello’s, while Government House gossip had been bandied about; but he had not seen the other for some time past, and he was eager for news.

  ‘Good mornin’ to ye, Simon, lad!’

  ‘Good mornin’, Tom! It’s a fine sort of day we’re havin’.’

  ‘It’s that, all right, Simon.’

  Brand ran a speculative eye over the carriage, noting the shining paintwork, the rich, fresh upholstery.

  ‘The Frenchman has business with the Governor?’ he said casually.

  Edwards shook his head. ‘’Tis the mistress I’m driving.’ He winked, laughing a little. ‘Nothing but the best for His Excellency ‒ so the master’s own carriage was ordered.’

  Brand spat reflectively into the neat, clipped shrubs that lined the drive. ‘Well … let me tell ye, a fine carriage’ll not make old “Bounty Bligh” think any better of her. He’s not in love with any of the moneyed folk in this colony, because he knows fine well they got it from rum. I tell ye, Tom, that man’ll stir up a power of trouble in this place, before he’s through. An honest man, Tom, but harsh … Let me tell ye …’

  He came closer, taking out his tobacco pouch and offering it to Edwards, at the same time giving a careful glance in the direction of the windows of the Governor’s study. Then, with heads close together, the two men fell into a low-toned conversation.