Death and the Running Patterer

by Adair, Robin

  “Will you go home?” asked Rachel Dormin. She emphasized the word home the way so many English in Australia, even convicts, did, Dunne thought. Home: You could almost see it with a capital H, the manner in which it was often rendered in the newspapers. The yearning in so many people was almost palpable, no less so in those exiles for whom “home” meant nothing better than a poverty- and disease-riddled rookery such as St. Giles.

  He recalled that there had been cheers, and even tears, when he read to gatherings from a poem contributed to one of his newspapers. It had ended:Tho’ boundless leagues from dales and moors

  Under a foreign sky,

  And stranded far on unknown shores

  An Englishman I’ll die.

  The patterer shrugged and answered his companion. “Where or what is home to me now?” he asked, giving the word a neutral intonation. “I would not be welcomed at the Dunnes’ hearth—if they are still alive. I fear they felt that I had disgraced their name. Indeed, I gathered that my offense went somehow even deeper. No, perhaps I will try and make a fresh start here, although as an Emancipist that can be difficult.”

  “Why so, if you have paid your debt to society?”

  Dunne sighed. “Oh, my dear young lady! It appears you have not been here long enough to learn that the class divisions in the colony are as complex—perhaps more so—as those in Britain, or even as the caste system of the Hindoostani.

  “You,” he said with a gesture, “are doubtless ‘Sterling,’ freely come from Britain. Other free men and women, born here, are ‘Currency.’ Why these odd names? It seems they were coined—and you will pardon my pun—by the pay officer of the 73rd Regiment in Governor Macquarie’s time. Currency circulating locally was considered inferior to the pound Sterling.

  “Not all Sterling are equal, however. At the top of the tree are the ‘Pure Merinos,’ such as Captain Macarthur and the Reverend Marsden and all other members of the pastoral elite. Their aim is to keep their bloodlines pure from contamination by lesser mortals; like their animals, they boast of no cross-blood in their human flocks. These people lead the master class called the ‘Exclusives.’ The military, officers only of course, are top-drawer, too. Exclusives even look down on free men in trade, let alone the one-time prisoners who have stayed on and succeeded, such as Mr. Terry and Mr. Underwood. Even powerful men not in trade but in the professions, men who appear to be and are indeed perfectly respectable, can be snubbed at the mere hint of a convict stain.

  “Why, take Mr. Wentworth, whom you have encountered at The Australian. Gossipers whispered—not too loudly; D’Arcy had a fierce disposition, as does his son—that the old man ‘volunteered’ for exile here after trouble with the law. The Brahmin caste shut many doors to the father and they still do the same to his son William. And imagine the obstacles for a convict who is Irish and Roman Catholic!”

  “It is quite bewildering,” said Miss Dormin. “I’m sure I will never work out who everyone is. I’m not even quite sure who I am!”

  “Why, it’s simple: I judge you not only suitable for the label of Sterling—you are also a ‘Jimmy Grant,’ an immigrant.” Then the patterer added mischievously, “Of course, if you married a settler over the Blue Mountains, you would be linked to a ‘Stringy-bark’ and your children would shoot up as ‘Cornstalks’ or, by their healthy outdoors coloring, be known as ‘Nut-browns’!”

  As the young woman blushed, the patterer apologized. “Forgive my chatter, I beg you. Let me be suitably chastened and serious. Please tell me, what brought you all the way to Australia?”

  Miss Dormin hesitated. “I suppose it all began as a promise of new life. And ended in death.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  … the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.

  —Edgar Allan Poe, “Berenice” (1835)

  RACHEL DORMIN′S STORY, NICODEMUS DUNNE DECIDED, WAS ONE of optimism and quiet courage in the face of tragedy and sadness.

  She told him how she had arrived in the Cove on a late summer’s afternoon in 1826. Her ship dropped anchor and she and her fellow passengers were rowed to the King’s Wharf.

  Why had she essayed such a voyage? Surely she had not done so alone. Long an orphan, she explained, she had no family left after her aunt died. This lady bequeathed her 150 pounds, leaving an equivalent sum to a local church charity. And, indeed, Miss Dormin received the welcome windfall on reaching her majority during the year before her voyage. (So, reckoned Dunne, she is twenty-four.)

  Life was so promising. She had completed her informal indentures with a well-regarded London milliner and costumier. With her inheritance she had the wherewithal to establish, if she wished, her own business, and could enjoy her passion for the theater. “You must come and see me contribute to Mr. Levey’s entertainments at the Royal,” she added as an aside.

  And, she explained, there was another reason for contentment: love. “I was newly engaged, to a young man in the wool-importing business.” She paused. “So you can see that I more than understood your references to pure merinos. I expect I could exchange more than pleasantries with the pastoralists here. And, by the by, I have no doubt that Captain Macarthur will be viewed by future generations as the father of the Australian wool trade. Whereas, in fact, Elizabeth—Mrs. Macarthur—did all the hard work, while he was off gallivanting overseas. And the Reverend Marsden and Mr. John Palmer, strictly speaking, owned merinos here before Mr. Macarthur ever did.”

  The young woman suddenly giggled. “You know that he and I have something in common?”

  “I can’t imagine what.”

  “Well, surely you know why his enemies sneeringly call him ‘Jack Bodice’? It’s because his father was a corset-maker!”

  The patterer could only gape at the arcane knowledge pouring from the lips of this seemingly most unlikely source. “And your engagement?” he prompted, to return to safer ground.

  “Oh, he was offered a new position, to go to Sydney with the Australian Agricultural Company. It seemed a godsend. He had found he was stricken with phthisis, and the doctors believed the dryness and heat here would be beneficial.”

  Dunne nodded. Phthisis was the dreaded lung-wasting disease that invariably consumed the sufferer. What a burden for both young people. And who did not know of the Australian Agricultural Company? With a capital of a million pounds it held a similarly vast number of acres north of Sydney, past the Coal River secondary punishment settlement. There were many people who thought the harbor there would eventually become as important as Port Jackson, filling ships with the promised bounty of wool, olives, wines and coal. In 1825, the endeavor had begun, to great fanfare, with the arrival from England of two ships carrying 25 men, 12 women, 726 sheep and 8 head of cattle. The patterer reflected that the land was not living up to the great expectations.

  “It was a wonderful chance,” said Miss Dormin. “He left and I agreed to follow, once my affairs had been settled. I was fortunate to gain a position as companion to a wealthy lady who was returning to the colony alone. Thus I acquired a chaperone—and a first-class passage cabin worth between seventy and a hundred pounds. Even steerage would have cost me twenty-five. Oh, what a bonus! I laid out fifty pounds on clothing—and cloth to sell here; I believed ladies would be starved of European finery—plus books to read on the voyage and such food and drink as would not be provided. So you can see that I sailed with much of my legacy intact.”

  “Did you have a fair passage? My own was hideous—200-odd days stop-start via Tenerife, Cape Verde, Rio and Cape Town.”

  “La, sir, we took but half that time! We went straight to Rio then dropped down to ride the winds for a straight run out.” Then Miss Dormin frowned. “We had a safe and uneventful voyage and I was the happiest of women—until I set foot on Australian soil.

  “All went well until the actual landing. At the headlands we were boarded by the pilot, who was later joined by the quarantine physician, which was my first sight of our esteemed Dr.
Bowman. We had aboard no notifiable sickness, so we were free to proceed to an inner anchorage. It was also my first chance to see King Bungaree. He boarded and was paid the golden tribute he demanded. With a glass of rum! I only learned later that he called on all newly arrived vessels. It is my last pleasant memory of that day.”

  The patterer broke in. “If it upsets you to talk—”

  Rachel Dormin shook her head. “On landing, I was directed to the Australian Hotel, where my fiancé had arranged for me to await him. Alas, all that awaited me was the news that my husband-to-be had died not long after his arrival and was buried.”

  “Surely his consumptive disease had not advanced that quickly?” asked the patterer.

  Rachel Dormin paused and sighed. “Ah, no. It was a related illness of the respiratory organs. They called it pertussis. Another p word—for pain.”

  She hurried on. “I knew no one. The lady with whom I traveled had already been met and had gone inland. I had my luggage, much of my inheritance and my professional skills. Oh, and I had this …” She reached deep into her reticule and produced a small leather-bound portfolio. “It is my lucky charm; I carry it everywhere practicable.”

  She opened the bindings to reveal a painting, small but far from a miniature, of a ship under full sail. Inset, in an oval outline in one corner, smiled a small portrait. It was clearly of Miss Dormin.

  She pointed. “The ship portion was a gift, painted by a fellow passenger. I had my likeness added later, here. If circumstances had been different I would have added my fiancé’s face.” At this she broke off.

  Dunne wildly clutched at straws to change the subject. “It is indeed a fine painting, but obviously not by a sailor—see that whip?” He pointed to a trailing red-and-white pennant. “I believe it should be flying forward with the wind.”

  “You are very observant. Yes, it is so, he was an amateur dauber.” She laughed. “But I trust the added portrait is more true to the fruit?”

  The patterer peered at the likeness and nodded. Yes, “J. L.,” whose tiny initials signed that part of the work, was very professional. As good as any Dunne had seen. “You never forget a voyage like that, do you?” he said, covering the artwork once more with its protective sheet of paper. Written on that layer, in artistic script, were the words “A memento of the Azile.”

  “No, you certainly do not,” agreed Miss Dormin briskly, taking the painting back and securing the wallet in her bag. “Nor its aftermath.”

  The patterer was still curious. “Forgive me, but how did you manage to, shall we say, survive—and prosper?”

  “Oh, a friendly soul introduced me to Reverend Halloran at The Gleaner, and I returned to dressmaking. I accept private commissions and also do much work for Mrs. Rickard’s Fashionable Repository. I board with a respectable family near her shop. Then there is the theater, and other projects keep me busy.” She broke off. “Oh, speaking of Dr. Halloran, there he is over there. He has offered to give me luncheon. I am unhappy to interrupt our promenade but I have promised him—and I did not know I would meet you today.”

  “Perhaps tomorrow?” said the patterer as, after a pretty curtsey, Rachel Dormin turned to cross the road to meet her approaching host. Dr. Halloran apparently could not see the young man, and so was unaware of his bitten-back curse, which belied the salute offered by his doffed topper. Dunne decided that he would miss that hat when it went back to the Waterloo Stores in the morning.

  HE COULD NOT have known that, even had Miss Dormin desired it, he would not meet her the next day. For that matter, nor would he return his borrowed finery to Mr. Cooper.

  Overnight, yet another death would claim all his attention.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,

  Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

  —William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1606)

  WITH HONORABLE (AND EVEN DISHONORABLE) EXCEPTIONS—children, the aged, the ill, or any of Madame Greene’s hard-working horizontal helpers—on that Sunday night Miss Rachel Dormin may well have been the first Sydneysider to go to bed. Alone. It was nine P.M.

  A sensible young woman, aware of a very busy day ahead, she first cleaned her teeth with a brush and baking soda (imported powders were too expensive) and washed her face, using her Castile soap sparingly.

  After her ablutions, she brushed fingers through her hair, then rummaged through bottles, bowls and vials cluttering a shelf of the commode on which the washbasin and ewer stood. She pushed aside violet-scented hair powder, orris root perfume, salt of lemons for fabric stains, a bottle of Godfrey’s tonic for unsettled stomachs and oil of cloves for toothache—although, unlike most settlers, she had been free of this plague.

  She found what she wanted: a pomatum of specially mixed cream, which she proceeded to massage onto her face, neck, hands and wrists. Ah, she thought, if only Mr. Dunne—Nicodemus … she played with the name—could see what a girl has to do! She frowned. Perhaps he would see, one day.

  After turning down the blankets and sheets on her narrow bed, Miss Dormin raked up into a bundle the scattered twigs lying on the mattress. Cabinetmakers made varnish from this plant’s seeds; every good housewife knew that the twigs killed bedbugs. All apothecaries sold the plant: hemp. The young woman believed the botanical name was Cannabis sativa … or was it indica? No matter, she knew it provided fabric and cordage—and could yield the euphoriants bhang or hashish. Soldiers and sailors had brought such drug habits here. She had seen the results.

  She opened the window and breathed deeply to relax. She had her bag packed and clothes laid out ready for work. Tomorrow was just another day, one she was confident would proceed to her liking.

  As always, she said her prayers. Only then did she lie down, carefully cross her arms upon her breast and compose herself for rest.

  ELSEWHERE IN SYDNEY, not everyone found sleep easy or desirable. Not even during the small hours of the morning.

  Mr. William Charles Wentworth, for example, usually spent his weekends at home with his young family at Vaucluse House, his grand property six miles east of the town, passing weeknights in Sydney in a room near his legal chambers. But late this Sunday night, he slipped out of the house as soon as its other inhabitants had settled down and strode to an outhouse where he had earlier saddled his horse. He walked the animal out of earshot of his family, then mounted and trotted toward the town.

  Always an irascible man, he scowled and muttered angrily as he rode. He had no fear of being bailed up; the dragoons of the mounted police, called “goons” behind their backs, had pushed the banditti far beyond the town. There were official assurances that even the most feared outlaw, Irish convict “lifer” John Donohoe, was roaming the Blue Mountains. Wentworth knew Donohoe was a folk hero. They sang of him, discreetly:Bold Donohoe was taken for a notorious crime.

  And sentenced to be strung up on the hanging-tree so high.

  As Donohoe made his escape to the bush he went straightway.

  The people were all too afraid to travel night and day.

  Wentworth snorted. They called him “Bold Jack.” Bold, indeed! He had not always cut such a dashing figure. Why, at first he had been reduced to robbing slow-moving bullock trains on foot because he did not have a horse.

  Still, the lawyer felt more than a certain sympathy for the twenty-two-year-old. Caught for his rather pedestrian crimes, he had been sentenced to death but had escaped between jail and gallows. Now he was a bigger menace than ever.

  So, although Wentworth felt safe on the road, he still carried, in a pannier at the front of the saddle, two long-barreled pistols.

  THE REVEREND DR. Laurence Hynes Halloran was out and about in the same dim streets toward which lawyer Wentworth was riding.

  He had no chance of slipping from his home. To say he was a family man was an understatement, for although they did not all live with him, he had twelve children by his first wife (who had died during her last confinement). He was s
till a strong and virile man in his sixties and had fathered several more children with his second wife, Elizabeth, whom he had married four years before, less than a year after donning widower’s weeds.

  As he left the house now, he vowed to Elizabeth that an emergency concerning The Gleaner called him away at such an ungodly time. His duty in the following hours would not be pleasant, he knew, but he had seen worse on the blood-sluiced decks of battleships.

  AND, IF THEY had stirred and found an empty bed, the household of editor Edward Smith Hall could have been reassured by the note explaining that he, too, had urgent overnight business at his paper, The Monitor.

  WHEN DR. THOMAS Owens left the Rum Hospital carrying his doctor’s bag, the public clock (a legacy of Governor Macquarie’s passion for punctuality) atop the nearby Hyde Park Barracks stood at three-thirty A.M.

  Had the hall porter been awake, he would not have remarked on Owens’s movement at such an uncivilized hour. The doctor was often out on medical rounds at all times of the day or night. Even if the porter had followed Owens outside, he would only have noted idly that the sawbones (he was an old sailor; this was what he called all surgeons) headed north along Macquarie Street before disappearing into the depths of the dark.

  CAPTAIN CROTTY, A flowing cape over his green-faced uniform, acknowledged the sentry’s salute as he strode past the guardroom and vanished toward the port.

  “Taking the long road round to Madame Greene’s, I’ll be bound,” muttered the redcoat. “Lucky bastard!”