by Rachel Leary
They made their way easily through the scrub, stopped and waited as she limped her way up the slope. At first it was a sound, a sound without a name, and then as she followed them towards it and the sound became louder there was a word: river. River.
At the top of the slope they stood talking. They were talking about her, she thought. One of them looked at her and pointed to the river. Then they turned around and headed back along the slope.
...
She pushed through the scrub with a surge of energy that brought her out onto a column of rock. At the bottom of it flowed an almost-black river laced with trails of white, a rapid further down where it slipped through a gorge. She went back into the scrub and beat down through it to the rapid and then below it to where she could lean down from a rock and touch the water. She lay with her stomach on the rock and drank.
The land on the other side moved in a gentle wave, the trees seeming to slowly rise and fall, and there, near them, was a white building. A cottage. Smoke was coming out of its chimney, rising, rising into the sky. She could smell it in the air. The smell of smoke.
...
She stood behind the tree, dripping wet, her breath a rasp from the cold river crossing. The back of the house was only yards away. Between her and the house there was a pigpen, a pig standing close to the fence. She stood there watching it. The door to the cottage opened and someone came out with a bucket, emptied it into the pen and went back inside. She waited for more movement from the house and when there was none, she walked straight to the pen, stepped in between the railings and put her hand in the slop, pushed the handful into her mouth. The pig tried to push in and she shoved it out of the way. It squealed. Bridget swallowed, took another handful of the food.
The cottage door opened again. A girl stood in the doorway, hands on her hips. ‘What are you doing? Mary, Mother of God, get out of there! What are you doing?’
She swallowed, scooped up another handful of the slop.
A woman came out and stood next to the girl, put her hand to her mouth. ‘Goodness gracious me. What…?’
‘It’s a woman,’ the girl said. ‘It’s a woman.’
Bridget felt her stomach turn, reached out for the fence.
It had been the woman who walked forward and opened the gate. The pig had run out, nearly knocking the girl over. The little woman had tried to take Bridget’s weight. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s get you inside,’ and then the girl had been on the other side of Bridget.
They sat at the table and watched as Bridget ate and then the woman stood next to her while she was sick onto the ground outside. The girl had come in and out of a room with buckets of water and then the woman held Bridget’s naked arm to support her while she stepped into the tub.
Later she lay on a wide bed in a clean, tidy room. On the wall was a painting of what looked like an English lane and house. She fell asleep, was aware sometime, maybe more than once, of someone coming into the room, going again. She woke, sat up, drank from a cup the woman held and then slept again.
The next time she woke there were voices outside the door. A man’s voice. ‘I will go in tomorrow.’
‘She needs a doctor, that gash on her head is nasty. It needs seeing to.’ The woman now. Bridget remembered her: short and grey-haired with the voice of a little girl.
Bridget put her hand up to her head, found the cut above her right eyebrow. She tried to remember. She didn’t know how she had done it. She must have fallen. Had she fallen? Now she did remember. The gun had gone in the fall. She had been trying to shoot something—an animal. They were too fast, thumped away into the bushes. She remembered the men, the river, she had taken her coat off before the river crossing, left it on a rock. She looked around for her clothes, remembered taking them off by the tub. She was wearing a gown now, crisp and clean-smelling, white.
‘Who is going to pay for this?’
‘We don’t know yet, do we? Surely we have to give her the benefit of the doubt. Anything could’ve happened.’
‘What happened is that she’s a runaway convict.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Look at her hair,’ he said. ‘And why was she dressed like that?’
And the woman: ‘We don’t know. You don’t know what’s happened, Peter. She’s ill, for goodness’ sake. Look how thin she is.’
‘Yes, she’s ill. And what I know is that there is a woman in my house—in my bed, for that matter—who looks like she’s just crawled out of the fires of hell and who smells worse than a fox.’
‘I’m just saying, you don’t know what’s—’
‘Yes. I don’t know what’s happened.’
Bridget sat up. Her mouth was dry. Very dry. There was a table next to the bed, a glass and a jug of water. She picked the jug up and drank from it.
There was silence outside and then the door opened.
‘Hello. You’re awake. We wondered when you would wake up.’
Bridget put the jug down, sat up further.
The woman smiled. ‘How are you feeling? I have some hot soup ready for you. I will bring it in.’
The woman left the room again, shut the door behind her.
Outside the door there was whispering. She sat on the bed looking around the room; a pile of folded clothes on top of the dresser, a brush next to them. The room was bright with the white of the curtains and bedding.
The woman came back into the room carrying a tray with a bowl on it and a hunk of bread. She moved the jug and put the tray on the table. ‘I imagine you are quite hungry.’
Bridget nodded.
The woman sat on the edge of the bed and watched Bridget as she ate.
‘It’s been a while since you’ve eaten,’ she tried.
‘Where is this place?’
‘So you are lost then?’ the woman said, her voice full of both hope and relief. ‘I knew you must have been lost.’
Bridget nodded.
‘This is Meadowvale, on the North Esk River. Where are you from, dear?’
‘Norfolk Plains,’ she said, the first place she thought of.
She could see the woman thinking.
The door opened then and a tall man came in, his face serious. He took in the scene before him. ‘My wife was worried you were dead,’ he said.
‘We’ll talk later,’ the woman said, gave the man a look of warning. ‘You rest for now. Rest.’ She ushered the man out of the room.
...
In the night Bridget woke up. The letter. It was in the pocket of the shirt she’d been wearing. She got up and went out into the hall. She stopped when she heard the man’s raised voice. ‘Take her in to the constable.’
‘No reason to suspect her, Peter.’
‘You think far too well of people, Alice. Did you see her boots?’
‘What about them?’
‘The state of them.’
‘She’s probably very poor. How do you know what Mary looked like when she went looking for a stable?’
‘I’m not even going to answer that.’
‘I’m just saying—’
‘I know what you’re saying.’ A silence, and then: ‘You amaze me, Alice, you really do. What about that necklace? If she’s so poor, what’s she doing with that?’
The woman said something Bridget couldn’t hear then and Bridget put her hand up to her neck, felt the pendant.
‘We’re not keeping her here.’
‘Keep your voice down.’
...
‘There we go then,’ the missus said, opening the curtains. ‘Rest and some good food, we’ll keep on bathing that wound and you should be as good as new.’ She asked Bridget did they need to get word to anyone; her husband would surely be concerned, and what about children?
‘No,’ Bridget said.
The missus turned and looked at her then, disappointment and sadness showing in her eyes before she turned away.
‘I need my shirt,’ Bridget said.
‘Oh,’ the woman said.<
br />
She came back in holding it out in front of her like it was a dead thing. ‘This?’
Bridget nodded.
After the woman was gone she fished in the pocket, sat holding the note.
...
She dressed in the dress and underwear the woman had given her, all of it too big. She sat at the table with them. The man said Grace and then they ate in silence. She felt the man watching her. ‘There were bushrangers shot not far from here just recently,’ he said. Bridget looked up, met his gaze.
‘Apparently there was a woman with them.’
She speared a chunk of potato.
‘Do we need to talk about this now, Peter?’ the woman said, but she didn’t look at Bridget and her voice was quiet.
He didn’t say anything else but she felt him watching her.
...
Bridget lay awake until well after the house was quiet. She’d asked the convict girl, their servant, what the nearest town was. Launceston, the girl said, about ten miles away.
Against the wall in the sitting room was a cabinet. Bridget got up, slowly slid the top drawer open. A knife. A small silver tin. She looked back at the door to the bedroom, picked up the knife. In the kitchen she took bread and a sack, a lump of ham.
Outside a triangle of silver spread over the river.
She went quickly along the road. Two men on horseback passed by and then a shiny carriage with four people inside, a young woman with flaxen braids, her pale face pressed to the window. For a long time after that there was nothing. Then there was the sound of rattling wheels and a bullock cart came into view, a man and a woman sitting up front, two animals pulling a cart loaded with goods.
She stepped out into the road and they slowed. She said her name was Mathilda and she had been in Norfolk Plains visiting her sister and was headed south to Hobart Town. They were going to Ross, the man said, she could get on the back with the children, concern and doubt filling the woman’s face.
She sat on the back on top of a crate, the littlest of the three girls staring at her the whole time.
‘I want to go home,’ the girl said. ‘Susie doesn’t like it here one little bit,’ she said. She was looking down at the dolly that she held with both hands.
The girl looked up at Bridget. ‘She doesn’t like it,’ she repeated.
‘Susan, be quiet,’ the man said.
The girl lowered her head.
Bridget looked behind her. The road was clear.
...
They dropped her off at twilight just before the small town of Ross. She walked along the quiet street and then along a track that followed alongside the wide river the town was built on. There was a stone house close to the river, at the end of it a timber barn, its door open. Inside was a pen with a horse in it. The animal watched her. She tripped over something then walked into straw, lay down near the snorting horse. At dawn she opened the stable door, saw a bonnet on the line, snatched it before she ran towards the road.
...
A grey day, drizzling on and off, the road quiet. She stayed close to it, sometimes walking along the actual track. When she heard the cart coming she stood for a while watching it and then started to walk. She walked ahead of it and then stopped to look again. A man drove the cart alone, a brown horse pulling it. She stood and watched as it came closer. The man had a moustache but no beard, he wore a shirt and waistcoat, a long coat over it spread out either side of him on the seat. He stopped the horse, was looking at her as though he expected to recognise her. ‘Hello,’ he said, more loudly than necessary. ‘Looks like rain.’
She nodded.
‘Where are you headed?’
‘Hobart Town.’
He looked at the sack she held. ‘Well. Hop up if you would like to.’
She looked back up the road. Then she stepped up onto the cart.
He drove in silence and then he turned to her. ‘My name’s Patterson, George Patterson; some dim-witted buggers, like the much-esteemed magistrate who has a property adjacent to mine, call me Georgie Porgie. When he’s had a drop, that is. Sober, you couldn’t fault him. Charming man. The colony is swarming with them, don’t you think?’ He laughed. ‘Don’t mind me…What’s your name?’
‘Mathilda.’
‘Don’t mind me, Mathilda, I’m a cynical bastard—life’ll do that to you, won’t it? Don’t you envy children? I do. I envy them. I don’t like them much, they whine too much for me, but I envy them all the same. Where are your children, Mathilda?’
Bridget looked down at her feet.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘none of my business. It’s annoying, isn’t it? The questions people ask. Why are people so nosy? Do you ever wonder that, Mathilda?’
Bridget thought about jumping off, stared at the worn toe of her boot.
A man passed them walking the other way along the road. Bridget pulled the bonnet in close around her face. George noticed her do it, looked at her.
‘So what are you going to tell me, Mathilda? Tell me something.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. Anything.’
She shrugged. ‘Nothing to tell.’ Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, as though she hadn’t heard it for a very long time, maybe never.
‘Ah, you see, that just means you have more to tell than most.’ The man winked and tapped the side of his nose.
She wanted to get off again, put her hands on the seat either side of her thighs to hold herself there.
...
They came to a hill on the right-hand side of the track, a lesser track leading up to a small cottage sitting halfway up it. ‘This is Mrs Laughton’s place,’ he said. ‘I buy flowers from her every time I come past.’
He turned the horse off the main track and they passed behind an outcrop of rock and then along in front of a paling fence that surrounded the cottage. Between the fence and the house was a garden full of flowers, a shock of colour against the grey of the cottage. As George got down off the cart the door opened and a woman came out, her hands held protectively over her stomach. Behind her in the doorway stood a girl, her hair long and dark, her skin pale. George bowed low. ‘Mrs Laughton, how do you do today?’
‘Alright, Mr Patterson. Will you take some flowers?’ The woman glanced at Bridget.
‘Well, why not?’
She turned and said something to the girl, who went back inside and then came out with a knife. The girl stayed near the door while the woman walked down to the garden and started cutting.
‘Nice day, isn’t it, Miss Emma?’ George called.
‘It’s nice enough, I suppose,’ the girl said.
‘Emma.’ The woman stood up from her flower-cutting. ‘Be polite, please.’
George was not put off. ‘Yes, Miss Emma, it is that. It is nice enough.’
They all stood there and then the woman stood up from the flowerbed and gave the bunch of flowers to him.
‘Beautiful, Mrs Laughton. Beautiful!’ He pulled a coin out of his pocket and gave it to her and she flushed red.
‘Thank you, Mr Patterson. I…we…’
‘That’s quite alright; your flowers are worth every penny of it.’ He looked up at the girl who hovered in the doorway, her arms crossed.
‘Well, see you next time.’
‘Will you be by again soon?’
‘I hope so.’
He flicked the reins and headed the horse back down the hill.
‘She’s lovely, isn’t she? The girl, I mean. Beautiful.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ He looked over at her. ‘Piffle. Of course she is. You don’t have to be a man to see that. In fact, in my experience women are a hundred times more observant than men. My daughter is always trying to bring women home for me to meet—widows for the most part. “She’s very handsome, Father,” she says. Ah, but they never are! So, I take that back, whatever I said. My wife died you see, quite some time ago now. No one likes to talk about it, but it’s going to happen to al
l of us sometime.’ He glanced at her, drove in silence until they reached the road again. ‘You’re not a very happy person, are you, Mathilda?’
The question shocked her.
He threw his arms up in the air and nearly knocked her. ‘Happy? What is happy? What am I saying? Who is happy, Mathilda? Eh? Who?’
He was singing now. A song she’d never heard before. ‘Old Happy Mac. Old Happy Mac was a happy chap. Dear old Happy Mac.’ Then he stopped singing and went along frowning again, and the next time he spoke he was serious.
‘Her husband died a year or so ago. I suppose they’ll go soon. Where and do what, I don’t know. Anyway, it makes me gloomy, thinking about what her life will probably be. Emma’s, I mean. You can see it, can’t you? All laid out before her. Still, you never know. The wind might change, pick her up and blow her off somewhere else—somewhere better, perhaps. I can’t help thinking she deserves better, not that she did anything to be so beautiful, that was just luck. Old doctor luck. Good old doctor luck, eh?’
He was quiet for a while and then he hit his hand on his thigh so that she jumped in her seat. ‘Oh, it’s a fine day, isn’t it? The sun is out, the birds are singing, you and I are having a nice chat, what more could you want? Hmm? Isn’t it perfect? Perrrfection, that’s what it is.’
He slowed the cart to cross a wet ditch. Bridget jumped, fell, but quickly got to her feet. She heard him calling out, ‘Mathilda!’ as she ran.
Seven other people stood waiting for the ferry to take them across the river to the Hobart Town side. When the ferryman came to Bridget she gave him a silver thimble that had been inside the tin she’d taken. He looked at her, studied her face. She thought he was going to give it back but then he nodded towards the ferry. All the way across she felt him watching her.
