Whispers Through the Pines

by Lynne Wilding

  It seemed to take forever for the ship to find anchorage. Sarah made sure she stayed out of the sailors’ way as they clambered up rope ladders, furled sails and began to get the passengers’ trunks in order. She watched the buildings and roofs of the township come into view, both amazed at the bustle and disillusioned by the squalor around the wharves. It was a far cry from the order of the Dublin she remembered. The anchorage known as Sydney Cove abounded with ships of all types and sizes: a Dutch frigate, several barquentines and sloops, cutters with their furled masts swaying to the ebb and flow of the tide.

  Will managed a quick word to her as she was about to disembark. ‘Sarah, I’ll be goin’ to the barracks with my regiment, but I’ve asked one of the sailors, Mikey O’Mara, to see you settled at the Red Lion Inn at The Rocks. It’s a reputable place. As soon as I can, I’ll find us accommodation near the barracks.’ He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘I know you’re eager to explore, me darlin’, but don’t go roamin’ about. Sydney Town’s no safe place for a woman after dark.’

  ‘When will I see you, Will?’ Sarah frowned, not altogether pleased with the arrangements her husband had made. Did he expect her to stay in her room until he reappeared? She’d be having none of that. Sarah O’Riley was quite capable of finding lodgings for them. Hadn’t she been looking after herself from the age of eleven? But at the stern expression on Will’s face, she deemed it wise not to point such a truth out to him.

  ‘As soon as the Captain will allow me some time off.’ He caught a glimpse of O’Mara and beckoned him over. ‘O’Mara, you be acquainted with my wife, Mrs O’Riley. I’m chargin’ you with seein’ her settled.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’ O’Mara, a sturdy sea-dog, bowlegged and in his forties, gave the O’Rileys a gap-toothed smile. ‘I’ll be lookin’ after ’er like she was me very own.’

  Will scowled at him. ‘Be sure that you do, man, or else…’

  ‘Mrs O’Riley,’ O’Mara addressed Sarah with respect. ‘Me duties don’t finish till we’ve unloaded the cargo, so I’d be suggestin’ you stay aboard until then.’

  Sarah looked at Will, who nodded. ‘Very well,’ she said finally and watched the sailor walk away.

  ‘O’Mara’s all right, Sarah. He’ll see you safe.’

  Sarah struggled to conjure up a smile. It wasn’t quite as she’d expected it would be, but she was a practical woman. She would, as her husband suggested, take care, but she would also explore this town of teeming humanity. Sydney Town was now her home, and she was eager to learn all she could about it and the colony.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was six days before Sarah saw Will again and, during that time, she explored the main streets of Sydney Town, including the waterfront though, prewarned, she kept well away from the boisterous taverns which seemed to be full of half-drunk sailors and ticket-of-leavers by day and a worse lot at night. At the same time, she was dickering over rent for a three-room cottage in Cambridge Street, down towards Dawes Point and within walking distance of the barracks and Fort Phillip. As well, and keen to get started, she had been looking for work. Seamus O’Toole had written her a fine reference, and while employment wasn’t easy to come by despite the surface prosperity of the town, she had found work at a new hotel in George Street, supervising the provisioning for the kitchen.

  Will was bewildered and, at the same time, delighted when Sarah informed him of their good fortune with a house to rent and a position for herself.

  ‘You don’t waste time, do you, lass?’ he said, with a shake of his head as she sat upon his knee.

  ‘Well,’ her cheeks dimpled in a smile. Secretly she was relieved that he hadn’t scolded her for her endeavours. ‘I could not bear ta stay in this stuffy room all day and night.’ Blue eyes took in the attic bedroom, spartanly furnished with a low bed, a wardrobe which was little more than an elongated box, a bedside table with an oil lamp and a single chair. From the many-paned window, a limited view of the harbour could be had.

  ‘I am eager that we should start our new home, get things in order.’ She gave him a droll look. ‘Remember, you told me your dream, Will O’Riley, about gettin’ an allotment of land ta build a proper home, ta raise cattle and grow wheat and maize so that one day we can be self-sufficient. Will we not need money ta do this?’ She watched his affirmative nod. ‘Then the sooner we start, the sooner we make your…I mean, our dream come true.’

  He looked at her solemnly for several moments, beginning to see that not only had he married a beautiful woman but that she was prepared to work side by side with him to achieve his dream.

  ‘I see I made a good marriage bargain back in Dublin,’ he said, a twinkle in his eyes, ‘but what about babes, Sarah dear? Are they not part of our dreams, too?’

  ‘Oh, aye, Will, that they are,’ she said, her voice suddenly husky. Her arms crept up around his neck and she kissed him with a boldness and hunger born of absence and many months of semi-abstinence. His arms tightened around her, and she saw his pupils dilate with passion. ‘By and by we’ll be havin’ all that we dreamed of.’

  Within a month, as summer storms lashed Sydney Town, and turned the streets to cascading rivers of mud, Sarah and Will were comfortable in their cottage in Cambridge Street. But in furnishing their house, Sarah had depleted half her savings. In Dublin she had had forty-five pounds fifteen shillings and six pence in her savings tin. Everything was more expensive in Sydney Town: furniture twice the price it would be in Dublin, as was manchester, and also clothing.

  On the good side, the colony’s merchants were proud to advertise that they could produce most of the food needed for domestic consumption, which made beef and mutton easy to procure, though with the heat, beef and dairy products went rancid within days. But Sarah, through her work at the hotel, was always able to find a good deal, so they ate well and heartily.

  Bridget O’Toole received her next letter from Sarah in March, 1851.

  Dear Bridget,

  Sincere and warm congratulations on your marriage to Seamus.

  I pray that you both will be happy and prosper. Is marriage not a wonderful state, Bridget? Will and I are very content. Last month he was promoted to the rank of sergeant, and the small increase in his pay will be very handy now that we have another mouth to feed.

  We are the proud parents of the most beautiful babe. She was born on the 30th November, 1850 and christened Margaret Bridget (after you, my dear) Kathleen O’Riley. She has Will’s blonde curls and my blue eyes. We call her Meggie, a nickname which suits her well.

  A month before Meggie’s birth, Will hired a carriage and we travelled out beyond a town called Parramatta (Bridget, many of the villages have strange, native names, and ‘Parramatta’ means ‘place where the eels are born’) to a village called Rouse Hill.

  The countryside here is different to anythin’ I have ever seen, not like Ireland or that place in the Pacific, Otaheite, where we landed enroute to Sydney Town. The creatures of the forest here are strangely different, too—you will, I am sure, see them nowhere else in the world.

  Will is hopeful that when his term of duty is complete, in two years’ time, he will be given a land grant of possibly twenty acres at Rouse Hill. That is where we will build our home, so we are saving every penny we can to get us off to a good start.

  At present I stay at home to care for Meggie. I enclose a sketch of her so you can see how beautiful she is. Will is adamant that I should not work now that we have a babe of our own. I have found other work to do from home and have a steady clientele wanting my embroidered works.

  With deep affection, always,

  Sarah.

  Will and Sarah rarely said a cross word between them until one particular day when Will brought Elijah Waugh home for supper to celebrate his promotion to the rank of corporal. He had been in their home before, but for only short periods of time, and never when Sarah was alone with Meggie. She had made an effort to tolerate him, especially after Will had related to her what a terrible, unaffectionate
life he had endured as a youngster, but something about the man, a slyness, a lack of respect for women and society in general, stuck in her craw and caused her continuing discomfort.

  Will and Elijah had sat in the small back garden, which was no more than ten feet wide by twelve feet long. Amongst Sarah’s modest garden and her small vegetable patch, they drank their ales and smoked their clay pipes, while they gossiped about the regiment and the exciting news of the day: gold being found near a town named Bathurst.

  In the open lean-to kitchen attached to the house, as Sarah prepared roasted lamb, potatoes and greens, she sensed Elijah’s eyes upon her. Such a situation would normally not have concerned her but, curiously, tonight she had had enough of it. In her early teens she had become used to men’s glances, to their occasional ogling, and she was not overly vain. There was, however, something about the lust in Elijah’s gaze, his gestures that, tonight, offended her mightily. And his craftiness, too. For, as she tidied the table after their meal, he had managed to deliberately touch her breast while Will was playing with Meggie. Such behaviour, no matter his childhood privations, set her firmly against the corporal.

  Later that evening, as Meggie slumbered in her cradle, Will and Sarah had their first serious argument.

  ‘I’d be askin’ you not ta bring the corporal ta our cottage again, Will,’ Sarah said with her typical frankness.

  Will, who’d had one ale too many, took umbridge. ‘An’ why not? Elijah is a friend of mine, a long-time friend. This is my home, Sarah, an’ I’ll be invitin’ whoever I damned well please into it.’

  Sarah decided to take another tack. ‘I don’t like him, Will. There’s somethin’ about the man that makes me feel…’

  Hands thrust into the pockets of his breeches, his eyebrow jerked upwards as he asked, ‘Feel what? Spit it out, woman.’

  Her chin lifted proudly. ‘Very well. ’Tis the way he looks at me, tis…unseemly. Lustful. I…I feel uncomfortable bein’ in the same room as him.’

  Suddenly Will laughed. ‘Lustful. Good Lord, is that all? Of course he wants you, he told me so himself.’ He chuckled as if the idea amused him hugely. ‘Said that if you were married to any other man, he’d make a play for you.’

  Startled by Elijah’s openness, Sarah stared at Will. ‘And that doesn’t concern you, a man sayin’ he wants your wife? Are you not angry about such…words?’

  ‘Sarah, I am not blind,’ Will sighed, the anger in him receding. ‘I have seen the way other men, many men, look at you. If I took offence at every glance, I’d be fightin’ with half the red-blooded men in town. Elijah’s a good fellow, even if he is Welsh, an’ a bit rough. He’s an excellent soldier an’ he already has a woman to warm his bed, so I wouldn’t put too much store in what he says. ’Tis the way of some men to imply that they lust after anythin’ in skirts.’

  ‘He makes me feel…like he’s undressin’ me with his eyes.’ Sarah repressed a shudder at the memory of his almost colourless, beady-eyed gaze mentally stripping the clothes off her, and him knowing she was aware of him doing it. She believed that such behaviour was not normal and why, she wondered, couldn’t Will see these flaws in his friend’s character?

  Will frowned at that and became thoughtful for a minute or two. ‘I will speak to him. He will not offend you again. But,’ his jaw firmed into a stubborn line, ‘Elijah’s my mate an’ that, my girl, is somethin’ you must accept.’

  Sarah turned away, lest her tongue betray that she believed naught Will said to Elijah would change how he looked at her. It would simply make his glances more furtive, his touch more sly. Elijah Waugh was trouble. She sensed it as surely as she knew the sun would rise in the east tomorrow morning. But Will was her husband and in their home, whether she approved or not, his word was law. Hadn’t it always been so?

  The winter of 1852 was severe, and a trading vessel from America carried with it not only cargo and prospectors to the gold fields around Hills End, but a strain of fever the doctors called influenza. The infection raged through the docks of Sydney Town, infecting both the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the young and the old.

  Sergeant Will O’Riley and twenty-five per cent of the soldiers in his regiment came down with the fever.

  Afraid that Meggie would catch the fever, too, which was usually fatal for small children, Sarah arranged for a woman in Kent Street to look after her while she nursed Will.

  Will O’Riley was a strong man who never took sick with even the odd cold, but the fever got a mighty grip on him. There was little that Sarah or the regiment’s surgeon, Dr Wilkinson, could do other than the traditional treatments of trying to bring the fever down with lukewarm sponge baths and by bleeding him.

  Dr Wilkinson held the ear horn to his patient’s chest, listening to the thick cough, the rattle of mucous evident in both lungs. Afterwards he eased Will back on the pillow and covered him with the blanket. He looked at Sarah, who stood at the foot of the bed, trying to contain her anxiety, and motioned with a flick of his head for them to move beyond the room.

  ‘I must be honest with you, Sarah. Will’s in a bad way. The infection has entered both of his lungs. We call it pneumonia. You must keep him propped up on several pillows to help his breathing and make him drink a little. Weak tea, broth. It is important to keep the liquids up.’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘He won’t take anythin’, doctor. First he chatters with the chill and aches in his bones, then his body is on fire and he throws all the covers off. What am I ta do?’

  Dr Wilkinson looked at her gravely. ‘I would move him to the regiment’s sick ward, but it’s full to overflowing and I fear he’s too weak. I will talk to Captain Stewart, have him assign a soldier to assist you, for you can’t nurse him by yourself. I believe that the fever is no longer contagious, so you and the soldier will not be in danger of contracting it.’

  ‘What about Meggie? I sent her ta Mrs Brown. She’s mindin’ several children whose parents are afflicted with the fever.’

  ‘Leave her where she is, you have enough on your hands caring for Will.’

  Sarah took a deep breath before she said her next words. ‘He will get well, won’t he, doctor? My Will’s strong as an ox, he never gets sick. So…this pneumony thing, t’will pass, won’t it?’

  The doctor touched the sleeve of her gown briefly. ‘My dear, I can see you want me to deal honestly with you, so I shall. Your husband is gravely ill, I’ll not deny it. There is nothing more that medical science, such as it is, can do for him.’ He patted her arm again. ‘Pray, my dear. Sometimes prayer is the best healing medicine.’

  His words were much as Sarah expected them to be. She was no stranger to the effects of pneumonia. Hadn’t her father died of it so many years ago? She knew the signs, and her darling Will had all the symptoms of a dangerously ill man. But he would not die. Robbie Flynn had died because he’d been older, his body and mind weakened by a lifetime’s hard work on the land. Her Will would best this illness and be the man he once was. If it took a thousand Hail Marys to achieve that result, then she would pray on her knees day and night.

  The doctor picked up his hat and walked to the door. ‘I’ll have a soldier here before dark. Try not to worry, Sarah. I’ll come again first thing in the morning.’

  The next morning Will’s condition worsened. His breathing became more shallow and raspy, his skin had a greyish hue to it. All day he hovered between semi-consciousness and delirium, and then, at the stroke of midnight, he gave up the struggle and breathed no more.

  The soldier, a lad of eighteen, his eyes huge with fright, for he had never seen a man die before, hurried off to inform the doctor. Certain arrangements had to be made.

  Sarah sat by the bed in a state of shock. Will, gone. Holy Mary, Mother of God, how could it be? If she had ever thought and she had tried not to, of Will dying, she had imagined it would come in a battle of some kind or while performing one of his soldier’s duties. Not like this, not so suddenly. Hollow-eyed and tearless, she b
egan to rock in the chair, her hand still grasping his, hating the feel of the chill creeping into his fingers as the warmth of life slowly left him.

  Five days ago he had been strong, healthy, making love to her, for they were trying for a second child and now, and now…

  Her mind struggled to come to terms with it all, with the loss of the man she loved with all her heart and soul, but she couldn’t.

  Alone at last. The mourning party, small as it was, had departed, to leave Sarah and Meggie to themselves. Meggie, a sturdy toddler of eighteen months, had no conception of what had taken place that day in the cemetery at the edge of the town, but she recognised the grief her mother was going through and tried, in her baby way, to be of comfort, crawling into her mother’s lap and reaching a chubby hand up to stroke a tear-stained cheek.

  They sat thus until darkness forced Sarah to light a lamp, set the fire and get Meggie something to eat. The numbness associated with Will’s dying was lessening, and she was beginning to be able to think again. Will was gone, but she had survived, not catching the fever, and she had responsibilities. Meggie.

  What were they to do? She thought of the coins in the savings tin she kept under a loose floorboard beneath the bed. Not nearly enough to set herself up in a business in Sydney Town. Not nearly enough to buy even the humblest cottage so that she wouldn’t have to outlay rent money. She gave consideration to her small embroidery business, its possibilities. The work was enjoyable but time-consuming, and wouldn’t bring in enough to keep food on the table or a roof over their head.