Nanberry

by Jackie French

  ‘Please sit down, Mr Moore. I’ll fetch tea.’ She hoped there was some tea left. And that Nanberry hadn’t eaten all the hearth cakes.

  No, there were still some on the plate on the kitchen table, rich with currants and candied lemon peel. The Surgeon had sent the currants and lemon peel too. She emptied the dregs of sarsaparilla flowers, the Surgeon’s favourite of the native herbs, from the teapot into the slops bucket. She then began hunting for the tea caddy.

  Nanberry looked up, a giggling Andrew in his arms. ‘Who is here?’

  Rachel found she was blushing. ‘Mr Thomas Moore. He’s the man who rescued Maria. He’s a ship’s carpenter. I met him at church.’ She didn’t say it had been over three years earlier.

  ‘He’s a good man. I’ll make the tea,’ said Maria firmly. She had already heard the tale of how Mr Moore and Rachel had first met.

  ‘Please, come and join us —’

  ‘I think it’s you he wants to see,’ said Maria quietly. ‘Nanberry and I will watch Andrew. You go into the parlour and sit down.’

  Rachel nodded, flustered.

  ‘You call me if he gives trouble,’ muttered Nanberry.

  She smiled at that, thinking of the big hunting spear in his room, up on the wall out of Andrew’s reach. Nanberry was so young, and so protective. But he would protect her too, not that she thought she needed help with Mr Moore. She straightened her cap again as she went into the parlour.

  Mr Moore looked too big for the chair, his hands thick and red after the Surgeon’s long fingers, which were white from being scrubbed so often every day. He stood as she came in and sat only after she was seated.

  ‘You’ll be wondering why I’m here, Mistress Turner.’

  ‘To ask how Maria is, perhaps?’

  ‘I’m here to court you,’ he said simply.

  She stared. Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she asked faintly.

  ‘To court you. I think you know what that means. We sit and talk over a cup of your tea. We take a walk each afternoon. And at the end of it all, if we suit — and I think we will — I ask you to marry me. My intentions are honourable, Mistress Turner.’

  He smiled, but she could tell there was tension there too. ‘You said when we met that day that you would be no man’s sea-wife. So here I am. I waited till I had all that I promised you. I’ve a shore job now — I’m a colonial carpenter, with a good brick house in three acres of orchard and garden up at the top of the Tank Stream. I’ve applied for a land grant too —’

  ‘Sir, I’m sorry.’ She had to stop his catalogue of assets. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do I want to marry you?’

  She nodded, though there were other questions too.

  He considered. ‘I saw you walking up that road and thought: That’s the woman I want to marry.’

  ‘That’s all it took? One look at a pretty face?’ At least she hoped she had been pretty, hoped she was still pretty now.

  He smiled at that. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘But it were more than that. I saw you stop to give something to children who had nothing — and you gave it with a smile, not the pursed lips of duty.

  ‘You looked like a miracle, Mistress Turner. There was Sydney Town filled with red-faced drabs in dirty petticoats. There was you, all clean and shiny-haired, your skirts mended even if they were no fine lady’s clothes. I thought: Here’s a lass who is kind, who can work, who is proud of who she is and what she can be.’

  ‘Mr Moore …’ He knew nothing of her, she thought. Not about her years with Surgeon White, that Andrew was her son, not a child she had been looking after …

  But before she could say anything else Maria appeared, holding a tray with the pot and cups and a jug of milk and the sugar bowl, with Nanberry behind holding the plate of hearth cakes.

  ‘Mr Moore, you must remember my friend, Mrs Jackson, who you rescued so nobly. This is my … my foster son, Nanberry White.’ She had never used the term before, but it was true, she thought. Nanberry was her foster son now as much as he had been the Surgeon’s.

  Mr Moore stood up again. He bowed to Maria. ‘I’m right glad to see you looking so well, Mrs Jackson.’

  Maria curtseyed. ‘If I am, it’s thanks to you, sir.’

  ‘It were my privilege. And Mr White.’ He bowed again to Nanberry. Rachel was glad to see him polite to a man with dark skin. ‘I hear your foster father was a good man. The Captain of the Brilliant spoke well of you too.’

  Nanberry bowed in return, with the perfect formality he could assume when he liked. Mr Moore looked back at Rachel. ‘And your son, Mistress Turner? I would very much like to see him again too.’

  So he must know that Andrew was the Surgeon’s son. Must know that she and the Surgeon had never been married; that she had given the Surgeon what she had told Mr Moore she would give no man without a ring.

  She felt her knees tremble. She sat, quickly, as he pulled a small carved boat from his pocket. ‘I made this myself, Mistress Turner. I hope your son likes it.’

  He smiled, aware of her shock. ‘There are no children’s toys for sale yet in the colony. But there will be one day. One day I reckon you’ll be able to buy anything here in Sydney Town that you can in London.’

  ‘This place?’ Maria shook her head.

  ‘We have the best harbour in the world, Mrs Jackson. That’s all a town needs to become a city. That and good grazing and whales in the water.’

  A cry came from the kitchen — Andrew, feeling neglected. He toddled in, one shoe off, his face smeared with jam. He glanced at the stranger then at Nanberry. ‘Dance!’ he commanded.

  Nanberry looked at Rachel, then at Mr Moore. Nanberry took Andrew’s hand. ‘We’ll dance in the kitchen,’ he said. Maria gave another small curtsey and followed them out.

  Mr Moore met Rachel’s eyes. ‘You can find many things in the stores of Sydney Town, gossip being one of them. It is still small enough here for everyone to know his neighbours’ business.’

  She tried to keep the flush from her cheeks. ‘What do you know about me, then?’

  He hesitated. ‘Mistress Turner, your case at the Old Bailey made you famous for a time. A servant girl betrayed by her master, defended by a man in court.’

  Her flush grew deeper. ‘I wasn’t guilty of the crime, but I wasn’t innocent either. The Master gave me those gifts for a reason and I accepted them. And I lived with Surgeon White as his wife, with no wedding ring.’

  ‘But you’ve lived with no man since. I’ve lived a long time without marrying, Mistress Turner, back and forth on whatever ships will pay me best. Maybe by now I don’t think of marriage the way a young man might, back in England. I don’t want a young innocent. I want …’

  He struggled to find the words.

  ‘Someone to trust? To talk about your day with? To share your life with?’ It was what she wanted, so desperately, she thought.

  He grinned at her. Despite his many voyages, his teeth were still good. ‘See? I knew we’d be well matched. You’re highly thought of, Mistress Turner. A woman I would be proud to have as my wife.’

  She still couldn’t believe it. ‘You could have anyone. Far younger than me,’ she added frankly. ‘I … I saw you with a young lady in the store that day.’

  He laughed. ‘That’s Mrs Marsden, the new clergyman’s wife. I’m sure you’ll meet her soon. I offered her an escort through the streets while her husband was away. As I said, I weren’t coming to you till I had my shore job and my house.’

  ‘You could set up in business back in England.’

  ‘And be a workman all my life? Can you read, Mistress Turner?’

  ‘I’ve taught myself a bit, the last few years. I’m no hand at writing though.’

  ‘I can do neither, though I can do some figuring. But here I can make myself a gentleman. There’s land grants and free labour from the convicts. There’s mills hungry for wool back in England and we can send it to ’em. The colony needs ships and I can make
’em. By the time we’ve been ten years wed you’ll have a diamond necklace, I promise you that. And I keep my promises.’

  He does, she thought. At least he’d kept this one.

  ‘And you haven’t said no,’ he added with satisfaction.

  She hadn’t, she realised. She had doubted he knew what he was doing. But it had never occurred to her to say no.

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ he said gently. He looked like a man who was used to getting his own way. But it would be a good way and he would be kind to all about him.

  He stood up. She had a feeling he wasn’t a man to sit still long. ‘How about we take young Andrew to see if this boat I’ve made will sail in the stream? It’d be a poor lookout if a boatbuilder made a toy boat that sank. We need to give it a trial, before I make a bigger one.’

  It was a joke, she thought. He was laughing. To her surprise she found she was smiling too.

  ‘I’ll get my bonnet,’ she said.

  They married the next January, in the Reverend Johnson’s new church. It hurt, a little, to leave the Surgeon’s house, to see new folks move in there.

  But Mr Moore’s house was bigger, with rooms for Andrew and Maria and Nanberry too, as well as rooms off the kitchen for a maid and a man to do the heavy work. There were silk carpets from China and carved chests from India, bought on his travels; a set of fine porcelain dishes that he’d found in a foreign port and carried to Sydney Town in his sea chests. But best was the furniture he had made with his own hands in the last few months — the tables, the bedsteads, as well as the carved shelves he had made during many long days and nights at sea.

  Yes, this man knew exactly what he was doing. He dreamt of it, he planned it and then he did it.

  But more than that, he was honourable and generous. I have been lucky, she thought. Three men in my life and two have been kind. This last was the kindest of all.

  Her life was so rich now. Rich in friends, in good deeds, a grand colony to build, her husband, and her son.

  Chapter 54

  ANDREW

  SYDNEY COVE, JANUARY 1798

  A hand on his arm woke him. Andrew saw his brother’s face, grinning at him from above the bed. Sometimes visitors stared when he said that Nanberry was his brother, because Nanberry had black skin. But Nanberry was the best brother in the world.

  ‘Wake up,’ whispered Nanberry.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Shh. Don’t let anybody hear.’

  Andrew sat up. Dawn was a grey haze behind the window shutters. ‘It’s still night.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. It’s almost dawn. The best time of the day to go hunting.’

  ‘Hunting!’

  His brother grinned again. ‘Would you like to hunt with me? Or stay and do lessons with Mama?’

  ‘Go hunting,’ said Andrew. He blinked at Nanberry’s spear. ‘Can I use that today?’

  ‘One day. Not yet. A warrior has much to learn before he may use a spear.’

  Andrew swung out of bed and reached for his boots.

  ‘No boots,’ said Nanberry softly. ‘Animals hear boots. They smell them too.’

  ‘My boots aren’t smelly!’ Papa Moore had bought them from an American whaler last week. Mama said no boy in the colony had boots as fine as these.

  Papa Moore was the best man in the colony. He could make ships and carve a penny whistle and he let Andrew ride on his shoulders and pretend he was a horse. Most men in the colony were drunk most of the time. Like all Sydney Town children Andrew had learnt early how to tell when a man was angry drunk, and to stay clear of fists and kicks.

  But Papa was never drunk. He laughed a lot too. Andrew hardly ever saw grown-up men laugh, unless they were drunk, except Nanberry.

  Now Nanberry looked at him as though they shared a private joke. ‘Your boots are smelly to animals.’

  Nanberry waited while Andrew pulled on his shirt and trousers. He was proud of them. It wasn’t so long ago he’d worn a little boy’s smock. He followed Nanberry down the stairs as quietly as he could.

  Nanberry paused in the kitchen and propped a piece of paper on the table. Andrew tried to read it, but there were too many big words.

  ‘It says I have taken you for a walk,’ said Nanberry. ‘A friend wrote it for me yesterday.’

  ‘Why don’t you learn to write? Papa Moore is learning. Mama writes beautiful letters, now, all curly.’

  ‘Anyone can do my writing and my reading. I know other things.’

  It was cool outside, the breeze from the south still blowing, and fresh, the cook fires still smouldering under their banks of night ashes. They walked swiftly up past the headwaters of the Tank Stream, down a gully and over two hills.

  A shadow moved from the trees towards them. Andrew stopped.

  It was a native savage. A stranger. Mama warned him never to talk to strangers. The boy looked to be a couple of years older than him.

  Andrew took it for granted that almost everyone around was guilty of some crime, except Papa and the Reverend Johnson and Mrs Johnson, and the Governor, Mr Hunter. Even most of the officers were what Papa called thieves and bounders.

  Andrew wasn’t sure what a bounder was. Maybe it meant they were good at jumping. Though there wasn’t a law against jumping, was there?

  Strange natives could kill you with their spears. At least this boy had no spear.

  Nanberry took Andrew’s hand, as though he knew that he was scared. ‘This is your friend,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know him!’

  ‘You will know him after today.’ Nanberry knelt down to Andrew’s level, as the native boy walked towards them. ‘Andrew, I have to go away tomorrow on the Reliance. When I get back …’ He hesitated. ‘I have to see my own people then.’ He shook his head. ‘I am a sailor and a warrior. There isn’t time to show you the things you need to learn.’

  ‘Papa Moore says I will have a tutor —’

  ‘Not for these things.’ The native boy had come up to them now. He stood listening, though Andrew thought he didn’t understand the words Nanberry was saying. Most natives didn’t know proper words, Maria said, only their own savage tongue.

  ‘You were born in this land, Andrew. Your body is made of its earth, just as mine is. I remember that when I am travelling. You must remember it too.’

  Andrew nodded. It didn’t make sense. But so much adults said didn’t make sense.

  ‘Garudi learns things from his clan. Now you are his friend he will teach them to you.’

  Andrew looked at the boy suspiciously. He was naked, like most of the savages. His hair was tangled. His feet looked as though they had never worn boots at all. How could a boy like this teach him anything?

  The boy looked back, equally suspicious.

  ‘Come,’ said Nanberry. He spoke more words to Garudi, a long patter of words that sounded like o’possums’ grunts, not real words at all.

  The boys followed him into the shadows of the trees.

  The horizon was pink now, out at the edge of the sky and sea. The day was warming up. Nanberry stopped and put his hand up for silence. He pointed to a pile of rocks.

  Garudi grinned. Andrew looked at him with dislike. What was funny about a pile of rocks?

  He looked at the rocks more closely. There were faint scratches …

  Suddenly something moved between the rocks. Nanberry froze. So did Garudi; they were almost not breathing like they had become rocks too, or trees. Andrew tried to do the same.

  Nanberry pounced. He held something up in triumph.

  It was a goanna almost as long as Andrew, with great sharp claws and a snake head and skin like old grey lace. It wriggled a bit as Nanberry held it up, but not too much.

  Garudi said something.

  Nanberry spoke to Andrew. ‘A good hunter doesn’t run. He waits. Waits by a waterhole for the animals to drink. Waits where he sees o’possum scratches or where goanna claws have been. This gan has been asleep all night, when it was cold. He sleeps all winter too. But when the rock is
warm in summer he comes out early. But he is still too asleep to try to fight me.’

  Nanberry casually whacked the creature’s head against the rock. The skull cracked, and Andrew stared as blood seeped through the skin.

  Nanberry grinned. ‘Now we make a fire.’

  The remains of the goanna lay by the ashes of the fire, shreds of skin and bones, the skull and claws. Flies buzzed about it, sounding lazy in the heat.

  Andrew felt sleepy too. He lay back against a tree, like Nanberry and Garudi. The goanna had tasted strange: food in a dream. It tasted like smoke, like dirt, like animal. He had never tasted meat that tasted of animal before. Vaguely he knew that lamb chops came from sheep, and salt beef from cattle. But to pluck the meat straight from the body …

  It had tasted good.

  Nanberry’s eyes slid open. ‘Would you like the claws?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For a necklace. Or to wear on a string around your waist.’

  Andrew considered. ‘Do you think Mama would let me keep them?’ he asked cautiously.

  Nanberry laughed. ‘No.’ He looked at Andrew seriously. ‘Some things women don’t need to know.’

  ‘What about Papa Moore?’

  ‘He is from the land called England. He doesn’t know these things either.’

  ‘Papa Moore knows lots of things!’

  ‘He does. But not these.’

  Garudi was awake now. He looked at Andrew with what might have been contempt. He spoke again in the strange language. Andrew was starting to make out word shapes in it.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said you were a little caterpillar who doesn’t know how to break out of its cocoon.’

  ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he is a savage who doesn’t know how to … to brush his hair or wear clothes.’

  Nanberry looked from boy to boy. At last he said, ‘We’ll go swimming. Come on.’