Beyond the Blue Mountains

by Jean Plaidy

  “He does not think of children now, you tell me.”

  “Sometimes it seems he does, sometimes not. He told me of that girl. Esther. Is it not good of him, to concern himself with her? He is arranging everything for her, and when he talked of her I saw a gleam of something in his eyes.

  “She is going to have a child,” he said.

  “I am arranging for her marriage to the man responsible.“I thought he was wonderful then, so good.He wants to make this place a beautiful country; that is what I think. He wants to set it in order; he is like that … he wants to set everything in order. He was envious of that man because he is going to be a father. He still feels it.” She shivered.

  “If I could have given him children …”

  “Listen,” said Carolan.

  “You must not fret. It is bad for you. You must forget that you cheated him, that you killed his child.”

  “Killed, Carolan!”

  “There! I have hurt you. No, no! That is not murder; it is only when a child is born that killing it is murder. I will put this bottle away. You must not take so many doses. They will cease to be effective if you do, and it would be dangerous to increase the dose. I will cover you up. There is a chilliness in the air. Now try and sleep gently, naturally, and I will go down to the kitchen and order your bath.”

  Carolan saw that fear drew down the corners of the woman’s mouth. Murder! She had not seen it like that before. Her hands trembled. They often trembled. It was too much drugging that did that to her. Fool that she was! She deserved her fate surely. She had had everything, and she was afraid to live the easy life that had come her way.

  Carolan went downstairs. There was a light in her eyes that might have been the light of battle.

  “Poll!” she said.

  “Heat water for the mistress’s bath.”

  Poll! Who had murdered her baby! A different sort of murder, it was true. For the rich one law; for the poor, another. Poll would never have been able to pay the convict doctor’s price; so she had murdered her baby after it was born … with those skinny hands of hers. Lucille, the lady, had had it done for her.

  What was the difference? Poor Poll. Poor Lucille! Not for her to waste her pity on them; she needed all her resources to fight for herself.

  Esther was not there; she was with Marcus now. Picture Esther working at some garment in happy preparation; happiness made Esther beautiful, and Marcus was very susceptible to beauty. Margery, at the table, watched her slyly. She had a strange and grudging affection for the lecherous old woman.

  Margery’s eyes went all over her. Fear shot through Carolan’s heart. Those sharp eyes would see whatever there was to be seen.

  “Ha, ha! Not often we have the honour…”

  “You put it very charmingly.”

  “Don’t suppose you’d deign to drink a glass of grog with me now. Don’t suppose it for a moment!”

  Carolan laughed, showing her sharp white teeth in a rush of friendliness. The woman was more than ready to meet her half way.

  “That is an invitation I cannot refuse.”

  “Jin. Bring out that bottle.”

  Jin came sullenly, and Margery made her pout it out for them.

  Margery smacked her lips.

  “Good stuff, eh?”

  “You know how to get the best out of life, Margery!”

  Now what did that mean? Who knew what she would be saying to the master? Queer things women would say to men in bed o’ nights. Margery touched Carolan’s breast with a caressing finger.

  “Now don’t you too, me love?”

  Carolan laughed falsely. They were suspicious of each other. Sly smiles on Margery’s lips. Admiration, envy, excitement to have the girl sitting so close. You couldn’t help your thoughts, now could you? And for all his funny ways, he was a fine figure of a man. And to think of her ladyship, going with him out of pique for, not being born yesterday, Margery knew, sure as fate, that it was the other one she wanted. To use the master like that! The master! It was the best thing she had heard for years. And here was the girl, sitting right next to her, her lovely body close, the body the master was in love with! It made you feel funny, no mistake!

  That slyness, thought Carolan, that knowledgeable slyness. How can she see? What is she thinking? She knows so much. It may be that she sees what I cannot. They were very friendly with each other, almost ingratiatingly so.

  “Things ain’t what they was. with you out of me kitchen, dearie.”

  “I shall often come down for a chat like this.”

  “And how do you like sleeping in a nice feather bed?” .Hot colour ran up under the girl’s cheeks. Margery had a vision of her going in to the master. No, of the master’s going in to her; she would see to that! Margery could have rocked with laughter.

  “It is very comfortable, of course.”

  Margery nudged her.

  ‘ “Course it’s comfortable!”

  Poll came in eventually with the water.

  “Carry it up,” said Carolan.

  There she was. giving orders in Margery’s kitchen! Carry it up yourself, me lady, is what she ought to be told. But how can you say such things to a girl what’s got the master where she wants him? And that in a house where the mistress goes foe nothing!

  Poll went up with the cans; Carolan followed. Margery stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching.

  “Knock at the door,” said Carolan, ‘and tell the mistress her bath is ready.”

  “What!” said Poll.

  “Knock at the door, I said.”

  “What, me!”

  Carolan went across the toilet-room. She knocked at the door, listened for Lucille’s sleepy “Come in,” then opened the door and pushed Poll in.

  Lucille looked up. Poll stared at the woman in the bed; at the luxury around her.

  If… yes?” said Lucille.

  “Bath’s ready!” said Poll, and fled.

  A few minutes later Carolan went in.

  “Your bath is ready.”

  “Yes. A… that girl told me.”

  “Poor Poll! She’s a sad wretch, do you not think so?”

  “Dreadful.”

  “More than a little crazy.” Carolan smoothed the silk coverlet angrily.

  “Newgate! Transportation! They can be terrible experiences; none knows how terrible unless experienced.”

  “Carolan, my wrap please.”

  “She was sentenced for murder. She murdered her baby. Foot Poll!” Carolan arranged the wrap round Lucille’s shoulders.

  “Why, you are shivering! It has turned quite chilly. Come now … while the water is hot.”

  Her room was just above Lucille’s - a small room with a feather bed. If Lucille needed her in the night, she could knock on the ceiling with a long stick. She never did.

  He came some nights. Carolan would lie listening for his step. He would knock lightly, and she would be at the door, opening it swiftly and letting him in. Sometimes this stealth amused her; sometimes it disgusted her. She seemed to be full of inconsistencies these days. Sometimes she saw herself as a scheming woman, a woman who has suffered much and is determined to lie on a feather bed for the rest of her days. Wild thoughts came into her head when she was in that mood plans and schemes. But there were other times when she saw herself differently. She had gone to Masterman, she believed then because she had known Marcus must marry Esther, and only when she had taken her determined steps away from Marcus could she bear to give him up. Perhaps she did scheme; perhaps she had made a great sacrifice; she was not entirely sure. But whatever had been that primary motive, her feet were now firmly set upon the road she must take. That was why, if he stayed away for more than two nights, she grew frightened. Once he was with her, he was completely hers, and she could do with him as she wished. But when he left her she was afraid; she, who had made so many false steps, was afraid of making more. Love between them was to her intensely exciting, and his very shame in their relationship added a piquancy for her. But
she was afraid always that one day he would say he was going away, perhaps to work on one of the stations for awhile, where he could avoid her attraction. It was exciting to know that he had meant to talk of ending their relationship, and to lure him into complete surrender, to make him admit that he would face anything rather than miss this happiness. There was power; in all but his desire for her, he was the strong man; that made his downfall more gratifying, that in itself made her enjoy these months, made her hold her head high, made her heart glad even when she heard of the birth of Esther’s son.

  He would lie in her arms, this master of men. and talk a little. She was sure he had never talked to anyone else as he talked to her. He wanted her, not only as bedfellow, but as companion to hear about his ambitions, to listen to the stories of early struggles. She was determined to be everything to him, to strengthen the bonds about him.

  He was a strange man cold and passionate: sometimes she felt she hardly knew him; at others he seemed as simple as a child; and ambition and idealism were the keystones of his character. He spoke shyly of his dreams. Himself and his family a big family, a family of boys to cultivate this land which he loved with a passion that, until he had met Carolan, he had bestowed on nothing else; girls to breed more men to cultivate the glorious land. That was what he had wanted. Himself a man of importance in the town, Governor perhaps; though it was hardly likely that the government at home would approve of that.

  He grew excited, talking of his adopted country. He liked to think of the arrival of the first fleet.

  “Eleven ships, Carolan! Only that … to start a new world! What a glorious moment it must have been when they sighted land!”

  Carolan thought of the convicts, battened down under the hatches, and she was silent.

  “And Phillip… that great man… I like to think of his sailing into Botany Bay that great wide-open bay and turning from it into our own Sydney Cove.

  “The finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security.” It is the finest harbour in the world. Why should not this be the finest country? In years to come people will remember that it was men such as I who made this new world. Pioneers who left the home country to start a new life. Men like Phillip, that great genius, men who with small worldly goods, but great courage, set out to open up this great new world of the South.”

  He was lyrical about the place. When his enthusiasms were roused they were prodigious. His love for her, his desire for children, his love of his adopted country all were the enthusiasms of a strong man.

  And below lay that useless woman, that selfish woman who had denied him his dearest wishes.

  Carolan was waiting for him now. Tonight she must be seductive, cautious and wise, for much was at stake. Tonight she was fighting not for herself alone.

  The mirror told her she was beautiful. There was a new softness in her eyes, and a new fierceness too. A tigress at bay, preparing her lair.

  She was trembling with fear. What would he say… this puritan? What would he do now? Did she really know him very well? Could she be sure of his reactions? She was terrified that he would not come. All day she had rehearsed her speeches.

  Her heart felt as if it had leaped into her throat when she heard his footsteps on the stairs. She opened the door, and she was in his arms.

  They would make love, and then he would very tenderly tell her that he was a monster and that he must think of some plan which would help them both. But before he could talk in that way she said: “Gunnar. I am frightened, terribly frightened!”

  “Why?” he said.

  “What has happened?”

  “Can you not guess?”

  He was silent, but she knew by the hammer strokes of his heartbeats that he was deeply affected. So much depended on the way he felt about it whether his joy would overcome his conventions.

  She released herself from his embrace and sat up; she drew her knees up to her chin and put her arms round them; her bait fell about her face. She was aware of her own beauty; she could see herself in the mirror; she could see him too.

  “It is a strangeness that has come over me. Gunnar. I cannot help but be happy… frightened as I am!”

  He got up; he put his arm round ‘her.

  “Carolan …” he said brokenly.

  “Carolan … I .. have done this… I…”

  “It is my concern as much as yours, Gunnar dear. I will not have you take all the blame.”

  He worshipped her; she could see it in his eyes. He could forget the difficulties in his contemplation of die miracle of childbirth! His child, his and Carolan’s!

  He said falteringly: “My dear… my very dear…”

  She turned and kissed him on the lips with a quiet confidence.

  She said: “Life has always been difficult for me, darling. You must not be disturbed by this.”

  “My … dearest, everything must be done. I am bewildered. Your child, Carolan … and mine! We must get you away from here. But where? Where can I send you? You must not go out of Sydney. It would not be safe…”

  She put her arms round his neck then; she was filled with triumph. Her safety! The safety of the baby! That was what concerned him; not the safety of his reputation. She had not been mistaken in him. He was the strong man. the idealist, the master. Crazy ideas began to whirl round and round in her head; wicked ideas. She was so excited that she could scarcely play the part she had set herself to play.

  “Gunnar, I have thought of a plan. You shall not be worried at all. I would not have the most wonderful experience of my life spoiled in the smallest way.”

  “You are wonderful. Carolan. There is no one like you. So brave… so sensible… so… everything that I could desire in my wife!”

  She buried her face in her hands; hot colour had flooded it;

  she thought for a moment that he had read her wicked thoughts.

  She said coldly, and her voice was muffled coming to him through her fingers: “There is a man who would gladly marry me. His name is Tom Blake. He is a man who has come here to breed sheep. He was taken with me, and I know he wishes to marry me.”

  She felt him to be in the grip of cold horror.

  “Carolan!”

  “Do not look at me,” she cried.

  “How do you think I can bear it!”

  “I thought you loved me,” he said.

  “Ah!” Her eyes flashed as she raised her head.

  “You say that, you say it coldly! You thought I loved you! You had good reason to think so, had you not? I loved you … I did not think of the consequences to myself, did I? You know that. You know that I was virtuous before I fell so much in love that I… I…”

  That was enough. He was embracing her, murmuring endearments. Did she not know that the thought of her marriage to someone else was unbearable to him? That was why he had said cruel things. But if it was unbearable to him, how much more so was it to her who would have to live it!

  “Dearest, do not think of this marriage!”

  “But I must, Gunnar, I must! How can I help it? This child of mine, it must have a father. Oh, I know it has … the dearest, best father in the world… but how can I tell the world that you are its father! Gunnar, you do not understand this. To you it is just a vague child. To me it is already living. I am its mother. Gunnar, I tell you this now, and I mean it as I never meant anything else in my life I will not allow my child to be born nameless into a world which takes count of these things. I am wild; I am rebellious. I came to you without thought of what I might do to myself, what hardship I might suffer. I am not sorry I am to have your child; I am glad, gloriously glad! You wanted children, you said. So do I. Madly! Recklessly! That is how I want this child. It means so much to me that I will marry a man I do not love, in order to give it a name.” She watched him in the mirror.

  “My child must have a name, Gunnar, no matter what its mother suffers to get it!”

  He was heartbroken, crazy with the fear of losing her…
and they were both thinking of the woman who lay below.

  “Carolan, Carolan, if only it were possible .. if only I could make you my wife …”

  “Gunnar, my dearest, you are talking foolishly. You talk of making a convict your wife!”

  “If they had sent you over for life even, I would have found a means of marrying you… if only …”

  “If only… what Gunnar?”

  “There is only one thing that stops our marrying. What else could there be but that I am married already!”

  “Oh … were it but possible! But think of your position here in the town, Gunnar. Gunnar Masterman marries a convict. It would ruin you. Why, even were it possible, I would not accept such sacrifice.”

  He pulled her down, so that they lay side by side. He said, kissing her fiercely: “Do you think that my position here in the town means anything beside us? Do you think that I would not get to any position I wanted, whatever the handicap?”

  “You would, darling. You would! You would do anything, you are so wonderful. Anything you want you could do … Nothing would ever stand in the way… of the things you wanted… you only have to want them badly enough.”

  He kissed her again, holding her fast to him. She knew he was thinking that never, never should she go to Tom Blake. She knew that he was thinking of their life together Mr. and Mrs. Masterman of Sydney. No more creeping up the stairs. No more of that furtiveness which he hated. Nothing but the indulgence in that love which had become necessary to him, nothing but growing prosperous, procreating children, which was what the Prayer Book said marriage was for. She let him go on dreaming sensuously for some time before she mentioned the woman downstairs.

  Then she said: “Life is ironical. She who could have had a child, would not. Oh, Gunnar, is it not cruel. To think of her… your wife… and not… and not…” She had spoken softly, and he was still in the dream. She said again: “I would not do what she did, Gunnar. Even I, in my position, would not do that! I think it is little short of murder…”

  “Murder!” he said, aghast.

  “You were not listening. Never mind. I was talking rubbish.”