Dream Time (historical): Book I

by Parris Afton Bonds

  When she donated a portion of her advance to the Female Immigrants’ Home project implemented by her father’s church, the consensus was that she was singularly odd. Was indeed odd!

  “Why would you do such a thing, Amaris?” Celeste’s horse danced beneath her as she waited for the older girl to mount up. The stirrup’s leather strap had broken, and Amaris was removing the saddle herself. “Why should I depend on Sin, when I can do it myself?”

  “No, I mean why are you plowing all your time and more into that home?”

  Amaris wasn’t really sure herself. To help correct injustices? Then why wasn’t her writing and her attendant projects more fulfilling? She met every ship of immigrants that came in. Single girls needed protection against the consequences of being in short supply. “Aren’t you helping by making dresses for the newly arrived convicts at the Female Immigrants’ Home?”

  Celeste’s smile deepened the dimples in her pink cheeks. “That’s nothing. You are diving headlong into this project as feverishly as you did your writing.”

  “Look, here comes your fiancé.”

  Celeste glanced through the stable doorway. “Oh, Amaris, don’t say things like that. I truly like Francis. He’s kind and charming and utterly handsome—”

  “And all the females in Sydney are dying for a glance from him.”

  “Aye.”

  “And your parents have their hearts set on him for a son-in-law.”

  “Only Mama,” she laughed. “Father doesn’t care, as long as I marry a ‘good man.’ Francis would marry me now instead of waiting a year if I were willing.”

  Then she waved a hand in greeting. “Francis! You’re keeping us waiting, you rogue.”

  He approached Celeste’s mare, took Celeste’s hand, and dropped a kiss on its back. “An unforgivable sin to keep two beautiful ladies waiting. Where do we ride today?”

  “To the park. Amaris says the swan eggs have hatched.”

  Celeste and Francis cantered their horses down the pebbled drive, and Amaris let her gelding fall behind. She knew that one of the reasons Nan continued to welcome her presence was that she served as the perfect chaperon: young enough not to damper an outing but old enough to provide a restraint on any potentially developing intimacy.

  Francis’s restraint was not due to a lack of passion. At times, Amaris would catch his gaze upon Celeste, and in his eyes burned an ardent desire for the young maiden. And why not?

  Celeste was not only the only heir to a business empire, but she was also a comely young lady, whose face was redolent of the soft-brush-stroked women Rubens painted. Never an unkind word about anyone passed Celeste’s lips. She was loved, and in turn she loved people and life itself.

  Amaris felt guilty about her own less-than-decorous thoughts. Despicable ones they were at times. Her contempt for Nan, her dislike of Sin, her attraction to Francis, her envy for all that Celeste was . . .

  Sometimes, Amaris half expected to peer into a looking glass and see sheer ugliness reflected as a projection of her inner self.

  She saw only plainness.

  § CHAPTER TEN §

  “You’re looking peaked, Amaris.”

  “Just haven’t been getting any fresh air, Father.” She scribbled the last line of the paragraph and, putting aside her pen, looked up at her father. “You don’t look too sprightly yourself,” she teased.

  The spindly rector pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. Rogue, the half-dingo/half-kelpie puppy she had rescued at Elizabeth Farm, stirred long enough to wag his scraggly tail and growl. “Old age does that to you. You don’t have that excuse. You are running yourself ragged between the writing and working at the home.”

  Which was how she wanted it; that way she had little time left to expend on confused and frustrated longings for an answer to some secret, which she wasn’t even quite sure existed. “You and Mother spend as much time at the home as I do.”

  “Aye, but you are young and should be being courted.”

  “Well, I’m late as it is. I told Mother that Pulykara and I would be at the home by the noon hour.”

  “Must you, in this weather?”

  “As if you ever refused to go out to administer to a parishioner because of inclement weather!” She rose, kissed her father’s bald head and, gathering her writing paraphernalia, hurried up to her loft bedroom to change clothing.

  Her work at the Female Immigrants’ Home consisted of finding employment for the girls and women who were recovering from malnutrition or abuse. Not that their employment there in Sydney guaranteed any better treatment. All Amaris could do was visually and mentally assess a situation when she inquired at either a place of business or a household about possible employment for a female.

  For these occasions, Amaris dressed in a businesslike brown alpaca skirt, white blouse, and brown double-breasted morning coat. On that particularly blustery afternoon, she hurried toward the old tannery that now housed the female immigrants. August’s cold wind whipped her coat about her. The winter had been a severe one, and she longed for January and summer.

  The bay’s gray water roiled and splashed over the wharves to lick at its rickety buildings and spray her with icy showers. Pinchgut Island wasn’t even visible. Leaning into the wind, she held on to her hat. She hugged close to the shanties’ walls, which turned out to be as perilous as being swept off the wharf.

  A door swung open, hitting her. She staggered and clutched at a man’s greatcoat to keep from falling. “Amaris, what are you doing here?”

  She looked up into Francis’s handsome face. “I might ask the same of you.” The establishment he had just left was one of the more disreputable grog shops in the Rocks.

  “Let’s walk,” he said, taking her elbow.

  “I really can’t, Francis. I have to—”

  “I need a friend right now.”

  His color was high, probably from drinking, and she could smell the heavy odor of liquor on him. “All right then.”

  She fell into step with him. The wind whistled around them, enforcing a silence she did not attempt to break. When Francis wanted to talk, he would.

  Eventually, he did, and it wasn’t about Celeste, as Amaris had anticipated.

  “I’ve lost my investment in High Seas Insurers.”

  “Oh, Francis! How?”

  “This bloody bad weather. We lost four ships off the Cape and two more sustained heavy damage in the North Sea. Another floundered off the coral reef. My solicitor wrote that the company is virtually bankrupt.”

  “Will your personal finances sustain you?”

  “Oh, sure. And the partnership with Nan Livingston is on solid ground.” He whacked the tip of his cane against a mooring. “Tis just that I am dogged by bad luck.”

  A high wave slammed against the wharf, sluicing them both. “You’re a fool, Francis Marlborough, if you think that.” Her mouth tightened. “Let me take you to the Female Immigrants’ Home. Those women know bad luck.”

  He shot her a sideways glance. “You are a consoling person.”

  She laughed. “I am truthful. What better friend than a truthful one?”

  He stopped to face her. Her woolen scarf whipped back and forth against the two of them. “I want more than the truth. I want you to plead my side to Celeste. I want her hand in marriage.”

  “I don’t consider it necessary I plead your side. Mrs. Livingston favors you and that’s enough.”

  He grimaced. “A pope’s blessing could be no more beneficial. Mrs. Livingston is ready to publish the banns. Still, I would like to enlist you on my side.” “Celeste knows her own mind. I won’t attempt to change it for her.”

  With a heavy sigh, he bid Amaris good day, and she continued on her way to the home. As it turned out, Celeste was waiting for her in the front office that was partitioned off from the tannery shop by a wall woven of bamboo. Candlelight from the single sconce fell on her face and cast shadows beneath eyes that obviously had had little sleep recently.

&
nbsp; “Celeste,” she said, crossing to the wobbly chair in which her friend sat, “what are you doing here alone?”

  “Pulykara let me in.” Celeste withdrew a small hand from the beaver muff. “Oh, Amaris, you must help me.”

  She almost laughed. “What am I today? An angel of mercy?” She struggled out of her wet jacket.

  “Aye.” Celeste’s hand, clutching hers, was cold, despite having been nestled in the fur muff. “’Tis Mama.”

  “Isn’t it always?” From behind the bamboo wall came the cough of a sick woman and Pulykara’s rough/soft voice bidding the woman to drink the medicine, undoubtedly some aborigine concoction. Amaris swore the potion’s taste had often made her sicker than her malady.

  “Mama won’t delay any longer. She wants me to wed Francis this spring.”

  Amaris took a seat behind the desk, a renovated shipping crate. “What makes you think I can do anything?”

  “You’re the only one who doesn’t quail before her. Please, Amaris.” Celeste’s eyes were large and imploring.

  “Why not do as your mother wants? Francis is a good catch.”

  Celeste rose to her feet. For such a short person, she appeared as regal as Queen Victoria. From outside, the blustering of the wind almost drowned out her next words. “Because I’m in love with Sin, that’s why.”

  “Celeste! You can’t still be infatuated with him. I could understand that when you were a child, but you’re nearing twenty.”

  “I’ll be seventy and still loving him.”

  “He’s twelve years older than you. He’s a convict. He’s Ir—”

  “No, he’s not.” Her lips curved in a rapturous smile. “Sin’s a free man.”

  “What?”

  “He’s served more than his ten-year term. Papa has arranged for him to be pardoned.”

  “Celeste ... has Sin ever kissed you?”

  Celeste blushed, glanced down at her muff, then said, “You might say so.”

  “Well? Yes or no?”

  “I kissed him. At least, at first.”

  She couldn’t help herself. “What was it like?”

  Celeste’s eyes closed. “Soft. Warm. Tender. Happiness so much I couldn’t stand it.”

  Her stomach knotted. “Has Sin said he loves you?” The girl’s eyes opened. Her smile faded. She shook her head. “No.”

  She rubbed her forehead. Behind her, she could hear the immigrant woman’s racking cough again. Lizzie Johnson and her daughter had been transported for theft of five potatoes. Her daughter had died the week before the ship had put into Sydney Bay. “You are under age, Celeste. Your mother can make you.”

  “I won’t. I’ll wait. If Sin won’t marry me, I won’t marry at all.”

  “Does your mother know how you feel about Sin? A foolish question, because little escapes her eye.”

  Mama says that anyone who marries Sin is courting disaster. If she thinks to influence me, she’s wrong. Well? Will you speak with Mama?”

  “I have to agree with your mother. At least, on this point.”

  Celeste stared back at her with steady determination. “I’m not asking your opinion, Amaris. Only your help.”

  “All right.” She held up her palms. “All right, I will, for all the good it will do. Your mother suffers my presence only because of you.”

  She intended to call on Nan Livingston the next day, but fate intervened. Pulykara awoke that following morning with a dreadful cough.

  “You stay put for the day,” Rose told her. “Amaris and I will take turns caring for you.”

  Pulykara didn't even respond. Her skin was dry and feverish. To move her head seemed a monumental effort for her.

  Toward late afternoon, Amaris bent and kissed the old woman on her forehead. “I’ll be back soon, Pulykara. I have to check on Lizzie Johnson.”

  The wind had abated, but the cold damp air seeped into Amaris’s bones as she hurried toward the home. She wasn’t too worried about Lizzie, since three other females still occupied the available beds and would be there should the ill woman need help. However, those three weren’t in the best of health themselves.

  When she entered the home, they were in various stages of grief—shocked numbness, hysteria, quiet weeping.

  “Another one died,” cried Margarite, at fifteen the youngest of the three. “Just like we all are going to! Tis the devil’s grip.”

  Amaris shuddered. Usually the devil’s grip ran its course in a week or so, but a virulent form brought in off the ships could claim lives. She glanced past the three women to the cot. The woman stretched out beneath the tattered covers didn’t move. “How did Lizzie die?”

  A wail from the one sitting on the end of Lizzie’s cot was the only answer. Amaris crossed to the cot and took the woman’s hand. It was marble cold. When she released the hand, it fell like an anchor onto rumpled sheets. “Let’s prepare her for burial.”

  Night’s blanket had already shrouded Sydney by the time Amaris began to climb the back streets of the Rocks and make her way to the outskirts of Sydney proper and home.

  The woman’s death had deposited an unsettled feeling inside Amaris. At one comer she stopped and turned to stare out over the bay. Boat lights twinkled below like fallen stars. She felt lonely. Lonelier than she had in years. And empty. What was it all about . . . this struggle through days that brought neither joy nor despair but only a slow and inevitable decaying of the life spark?

  A fog crept in, snuffing the boat lights. Pulling her coat more tightly about her, she turned her footsteps back toward her home.

  In Pulykara’s tiny room, Rose slept upright in the cane-backed rocker. Gently, Amaris shook her mother’s shoulder. Rose’s eyes focused sleepily on her. “Go to bed, Mother. I’ll spell you for the night.’’

  Her mother smiled and touched her cheek. “You be a good colleen.” She nodded toward the aborigine woman. “Her fever hasn’t broken. I’m worried about her.”

  “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you if I need you.”

  “Give her the honey and whiskey if her cough comes back, now.”

  “I will. I will. Now go on.” When her mother was gone, Amaris pulled the rocking chair close to the bed and took the veined hand. Even though the flesh was hot, Amaris was relieved the cold of death hadn’t set in.

  Throughout the night, Pulykara coughed intermittently. Each time, Amaris would pour out a measure of the cough mixture, but the old woman would refuse it. Toward dawn, Amaris fell asleep with her cheek on the woman’s hand.

  When Amaris awoke, her cheek was damp from contact with Pulykara’s hand. The aborigine woman was sweating profusely. Her eyes were open and glazed. “Amaris,” she whispered.

  “Yes? Yes, Pulykara?"

  “I’ve been talking to them Dream Time people.”

  Oh, God, Pulykara was delirious with fever! Amaris forced herself to keep calm. “I’m going to bathe you in cold water, Pulykara. You’ll feel like your old self in no time.”

  Her head barely shook. Her words were scarcely more than the breath of a breeze. “No. My old self is leaving.”

  “No! You’ll get better. It’s only a—”

  Pulykara’s hand squeezed her own with an amazing strength. The tattoos across her cheekbones furrowed. “No, Miss Priss. They say it is time.”

  “You can’t believe cockamamy like that! You can’t!”

  Pulykara made no attempt to speak further and closed her eyes, as if dismissing Amaris.

  Tom paced the floor of his office. In the front of the warehouse, the window looked out on Sydney Bay. This was his dominion. In the core of his heart, he knew that Nan made the more important decisions for New South Wales Traders from her workroom in their Georgian mansion. He didn’t begrudge her assumption of authority. She was the backbone of the company, and he admired her astuteness and energy. However, her driving force wore on him, and he welcomed the occasional respite his company obligations afforded him.

  Today wasn’t to be one of those days of respite. For
not the hundredth time, he wished he had Nan’s gift of persuasion, although he suspected not even she would be able to change the mind of the man who stood, hands thrust in jacket pockets, as he gazed outward at Pinchgut Island.

  “Is there no way I can convince you to stay, Sin?”

  Without taking his eyes off the view, he said, “None.”

  “Even if I offered you a share in the company?” The convict—ex-convict—had become invaluable to both the Livingston company and the Livingston household. He probably knew as much or more about the ins and outs of the daily operations of New South Wales Traders. Nan had a grand overview of the company and instinctively and instantly knew the right decisions to make; but details she detested.

  At this, Sin turned. His intelligent eyes searched Toni’s face. “Have you spoken of this to Mrs. Livingston?”

  Tom plopped down in the chair behind his desk and grunted. “No.”

  “I don’t think she would agree to your proposal. And even if she did, I wouldn’t.”

  Astounded, he stared at the former convict. “My God, man, do you realize what you are passing up?”

  “I need to escape the loving bosom of humanity for a while,” Sin said with that cynical grin Tom had come to know so well. “I have thirty acres due me as an Emancipist. I’m going to claim it somewhere far from places like that.” He nodded toward Pinchgut. “Somewhere beyond the Blue Mountains, maybe—in the Never-Never.”

  Sin’s entire possessions could fit into a saddle pack. He searched through what he had accumulated over thirteen years of service, deciding what he would take with him, what he would leave behind.

  “You can't be going!”

  He spun around. Celeste stood there, tears glimmering like diamonds in her eyes.

  “Aye. I am.”

  She shoved his door closed behind her and ran to him. Stretching on tiptoe, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Sin, I love you! Don't leave without me!”

  He tried to pull her arms away, and she clung even more tightly.

  “I have no pride,” she wept. “You are more important than pride or dignity.”