The morning after their reunion, she was lying in bed, dozing, when her Mentor, who had been quiet since Tom first made love to her, suddenly spoke again.
‘Goodbye, Hester,’ it said. Always before the voice had been low, but now it was so loud that she could almost imagine that Tom, who was shaving before her long mirror, could hear it.
Why was it saying goodbye? Even as she thought this, the voice said, sadly, ‘You don’t need me any more, Hester. You’re no longer a defeated mouse. You’re Tom’s mate, his tigress. You’ll go hunting together, see if you don’t.’
‘I shall miss you.’
‘No, I’m not wanted now. But if ever you do need me, I’ll be back. Goodbye, Hester.’
Silence. It had gone.
For a moment she was desolate before she thought, I’m no longer frightened Hester Waring. I can say aloud what I think.
To add to her confidence Tom continued her education in life, and now it involved many a seminar in the arts of love. His inventiveness in terms of enjoyment stretched far beyond the physical act itself. He seemed capable of finding something new for them to do on every possible occasion—either at work or at play.
He showered her with presents: fans, clothes, exotic food and wine. He bought her a horse so that they could ride together, had breeches made for her so that she could ride astride. He taught her to swim and made love to her in the water. He made love to her everywhere as the fancy took him.
Happiness enveloped her and the change in her looks became so marked that Tom was astonished to discover that she was unaware of it.
‘My Venus,’ he said to her once when they were making love in the bush, surrounded by flowers and scents. ‘My exquisite miniature love.’ She had become what he had always believed she might be, when everyone else in Sydney had merely seen poor, plain Hester Waring.
It was obvious, however, that she thought that it was his love speaking and not the truth. She could never forget that Tom’s intervention had saved her from falling into the pit which awaited those who had been swept from life’s table.
Tom often took her with him when he was engaged on business, and the way in which he deferred to her and frequently asked her opinion was often noted with sneering amusement. This amusement would have faded if they had known how often she actually advised him and how sure her judgement was.
Sometimes his associates spoke carelessly in front of her—and she was able to pass useful information to him. They complemented one another: if Tom was sometimes too hard, Hester was there to soften him. If she were sometimes too tender, he was there to stiffen her. Even so, she still remained unaware of what Hester Dilhorne had become: a beautiful woman secure in her husband’s love.
It took a ball at Government House to reveal to her that she had changed indeed.
That evening Jack Cameron entered the ballroom at Government House determined to have a good look at Hester Dilhorne. In the weeks which had passed since his downfall at that bastard Dilhorne’s hands he had looked for her in Sydney, and somehow had never seemed to find her.
‘She’s turned into a regular little beauty,’ Ramsey told him one day, echoing O’Connell.
‘Pigs might fly,’ he had guffawed.
Hester Waring a beauty! If ever he had looked at her, which wasn’t often, thank God, he had seen a plain gauche child who had blushed an ugly red every time he did. That ass, Frank Wright, had also said that she was much improved—but what the devil did he ever know about anything!
O’Connell had advised him to cut down on the drink, so he was sober when he looked around the room for entertainment. His face still bore the mark of that felon’s handiwork. His nose would never be the same.
Where, then, was Hester Dilhorne? He wanted to have a good look at her, but she was nowhere to be seen. No matter, as much as a good laugh at her he needed a little light relief with a pretty woman, before going on duty. A fellow as ill-done to as he had been deserved no less.
He soon found his light relief.
Across the room, sitting quite alone, was a delectable creature whom he could not remember having seen before. She wore an elegant gown of the palest lemon silk, a rope of pearls of the finest quality was twisted through her lustrous black hair. Around her creamy shoulders was an exquisite Chinese scarf embroidered with mauve irises. On her lap was a half-opened fan, also from China, remarkable for the pure beauty of its porcelain decorations. On her tiny feet she wore cream-coloured kid slippers such as Chinese ladies wore, sewn with pearls.
Dazzled, Jack wondered how in the world such a delicate beauty could have escaped his notice—she must have arrived on the ship which had docked the previous week. He decided to take advantage of the freedom of the ballroom and introduce himself to her. He strode purposefully across the room, all else forgotten.
He was quite unaware that when his destination became obvious a hundred pairs of eyes followed him in hopeful anticipation of yet another delicious piece of scandal. Near to her he saw her beautiful dark eyes widen and a flush colour her ivory cheeks.
Unwisely Jack took this as a tribute to his own advance and his bow was a deep one.
‘I never like to see beauty neglected, madam. May I introduce myself to you? Captain Jack Cameron at your service.’
His beauty gave a little gasp. Her flush deepened and she opened her fan to blot out the face which he was gallantly bending towards her.
Enlightenment suddenly dawned.
‘Why, I do believe…’ Jack stammered. ‘It cannot be! Can I possibly be addressing Miss Hester Waring?’
Hester shook her head proudly, half-amused by his evident confusion. ‘My name is Hester Dilhorne, sir, as you well know. I do not think that you should be speaking to me. It is scarcely wise.’
She had lowered her fan to regard him steadily. Her coolness, her poise, were doubly surprising to Jack when he remembered her former manner. O’Connell and the rest had been right. She was transformed. She had changed into an elegant and confident beauty.
Rage filled him. What had that brute Dilhorne done to deserve a pearl of such price? Reason should have told him to ask what that brute Dilhorne had done to turn her into this exquisite and composed lady of fashion!
‘Mrs Dilhorne, then.’ He bowed again. ‘I am delighted to have found you. I wish to apologise for any hurt which I may have caused you in the past, and to inform you of my admiration for you tonight. You are beauty’s self, madam.’
He was not lying. Before him was the woman whom he had always felt was his due, but had never managed to find—but Hester let him go no further.
‘No need, sir. I have no wish to converse with you, nor receive apologies. Pray retire, sir. You must be aware that you address me at your own risk.’
Useless to speak to him so. Jack was fascinated. Reckless of danger he persisted. His eyes could not leave her glorious face. There was no one else in the room to compare with her. Beauty and pride of manner alike singled her out from all others.
Hester looked around for Tom, who stood a little way away talking to Will French. She could not answer for the consequences if Tom saw him pestering her—she could not believe that Jack’s admiring stare was genuine.
Too late! Jack made no effort to move and Tom, bored by Will’s long-windedness, looked back at Hester—to discover that she was being badgered by that swine Cameron. It was plain from her manner that she wished him gone.
‘My wife needs me,’ he told Will abruptly, and strode across the ballroom floor, every fascinated eye now on him, to where Jack was still pressing his unwanted attentions on Hester.
Tom seized him by the shoulder and swung him round, grimly pleased to see that Jack’s face paled at his presence.
‘I’ll thank you not to trouble my wife, Cameron.’
‘I was only trying to apologise, Dilhorne.’
‘Insult by apology is not wanted from a swine like you.’
‘I was only trying to do the decent thing, Dilhorne.’
‘You w
ouldn’t begin to know how, Cameron.’
Jack decided that to back down before the whole room which was avidly watching this exchange would be the last disgrace. He began to bluster.
‘Now, see here, Dilhorne…’
The killing rage that had swept over Tom when he had seen Jack talking to Hester deepened. He had difficulty in controlling it. His hand tightened cruelly on Jack’s shoulder.
He said, in a voice of ice, ‘Do I have to teach you manners all over again? I warn you of the consequences, Cameron, if you try my patience. Stay away from my wife.’
The whole room was staring at them. Hester looked at Tom and saw that his expression was murderous. He was scarcely recognisable as the man she knew. Something had to be done to prevent him from leaving Jack Cameron dead on the ballroom floor.
She rose gracefully, put her left hand on Tom’s free arm and at the same time, closed her fan with the defiant swoosh which Tom had told her was the Japanese ladies’ way.
‘Mr Dilhorne, my love, I feel a little faint. I wish that we might take a turn outside. I am sure that Captain Cameron would not seek to detain us.’
Tom looked down at her. There was not the slightest sign that she was faint or in any way discomposed. She had spoken to him in the voice which she used in their teasing exchanges. Her nod to Jack was dismissive. His rage at the man was swept away, and was replaced by admiration for her cool head. Not for the first time in their dealings with the outside world she was using her supposedly weak femininity to defuse a difficult situation.
Reluctantly he released Jack’s arm. He took his wife’s instead and, without a backward glance, his head bent solicitously towards hers, he walked her to the open glass doors. The room behind them stopped holding its collective breath. Jack Cameron was left alone and foolish on the edge of the ballroom floor.
Half of the watchers were disappointed that the famous scene in Madame Phoebe’s was not to be repeated, this time with more serious consequences. The other half, who liked Tom and were coming to admire Hester, were relieved.
Lucy Wright, who had been sitting next to her, said to Frank, ‘You were right when you said that Tom would have killed Jack that night at Madame Phoebe’s if you had let him. For a moment I thought that he was going to murder him here, publicly, before us all.’
‘Jack’s a fool,’ Frank proclaimed, ‘and someone should tell him so. Did he really not recognise her?’
Lucy nodded. ‘I’m sure he didn’t.’
Pat Ramsey, who had enjoyed watching Guinea Jack’s discomfiture at the hands of both Dilhornes, turned to his fellow officers of the 73rd and drawled, ‘Now what I should dearly like to find out is how that devious devil knew that if you fed and thoroughly bedded that plain piece, Hester Waring, she would turn into a raving beauty and fit to help him run his empire into the bargain! That sort of know-how ain’t for sale, my boys, else we should all be so lucky!’
Outside Tom led Hester to a white-painted rustic bench standing among some acacia bushes in the Governer’s garden.
Neither spoke for some moments until Hester said quite deliberately, ‘My dear, you shouldn’t be so troubled by Captain Cameron speaking to me. I know that you don’t like it, but it does seem a little excessive for you to want to kill him for doing so.’
Tom’s grim expression lightened at this, and still more so when she continued, ‘It was really the oddest thing. Are you sure that you didn’t addle his brains at Madame Phoebe’s? He came prancing over to me as though I were the Queen of Sheba, paid me a series of extravagant compliments with the most absurd expression on his face and then tried to pretend that he didn’t know me!’
Tom said carefully, ‘I think that perhaps he didn’t recognise you, Mrs Dilhorne.’
Hester was brisk with him. ‘Fiddlesticks! I expect it’s these clothes I’m wearing. But that’s you, Tom, not me.’
It was useless for him to try to tell her how much she had changed. Tom smiled and said simply, ‘Nevertheless…’ before slipping an arm around her shoulders. ‘You’re not really feeling faint, are you, Mrs Dilhorne?’
‘Not really, no. But I had to get you away from Jack Cameron somehow. I wasn’t wrong, was I?’
‘Not at all. You were right. It would be a pity to swing for such an ass. He’s his own punishment. But I would have liked to see his face when he did recognise you, though.’
Hester stood up. ‘I think that we ought to go back now. We have given them enough time to talk about us, and they should have started on another topic by now.’
He grinned back at her. ‘Oh, I doubt that, I really do, but yes, we’ll return. I need to placate Will French—I left him rather abruptly, to say the least. Wouldn’t do to lose business over Jack Cameron.’
Their return to the ballroom was eagerly watched. Tom led her over to rejoin Lucy Wright and her friends.
He bowed to them. ‘Your servant, ladies and gentlemen. I wonder, Mrs Wright, if you would look after Mrs Dilhorne for me while I apologise to Mr French for my late ill manners. She is not feeling quite the thing.’
Every regimental head turned to look at Hester. If she were not feeling quite the thing, then that was the condition to which all women ought to aspire. She had never looked more charming and composed.
The officers who had passed her by when she had been poor Hester Waring were almost officious in their gallantry to her to the degree that she became a little embarrassed.
She said shyly to Lucy, ‘I think everyone has run mad tonight. First Jack Cameron and his nonsense, and then Captain Parker has been favouring me with some extravagant rubbish about beauteous nymphs, and even Frank has joined in the game.’
Lucy looked sharply at her. Did Hester really not know how much she had changed. Had Tom not told her?
‘Do you never look in your glass, Hester?’ she said, unconsciously echoing Tom. ‘Is it possible that you are not aware of the great improvement in your appearance? It is so great that you have become the talk of the ballroom.’
She would have said more had not Governor Macquarie and his wife come up to them, only for the Governor to add to Hester’s confusion by praising her lavishly—he had always had an eye for a beautiful woman.
‘I wish that your husband were with you, Mrs Dilhorne, so that I might compliment him on his wife. If we had the old-style Queen of Beauty at our balls these days there is no doubt who would win the crown tonight. Trust Tom Dilhorne to acquire the prettiest woman in Sydney for his wife.’
The ground opened up before Hester. Jack Cameron had not overset her, but the Governor had. Coming on top of Lucy’s remarks, he had finally convinced her that Tom was not paying her loving, but meaningless, compliments. She must examine herself in the glass when she reached home.
The Governor kissed her hand before moving on. The whole room watched him give the accolade to Mrs Dilhorne. Tom, approaching the little group after leaving Will French, was a delighted spectator.
Driving home through a night lit by an enormous moon, Hester spoke to Tom.
‘You were right, Mr Dilhorne.’
‘I am always right, Mrs Dilhorne. Which particular thing was I right about this time?’
‘My looks. I have to accept that I am greatly changed and that it is not solely due to the splendid clothes and presents which you have chosen for me.’
‘Oh, yes, Mrs Dilhorne, I was certainly right about that.’
‘But why?’ she cried. ‘And how? What has happened to change me so?’
He grinned at her, his face triumphant. His day was finally made as Hester at last entered her kingdom.
‘Good food, Hester, my love, and food and wine, and fun in bed. Especially fun in bed. Let’s get home quickly—and make you even lovelier!’
Happy Tom might be, but Jack had to be dealt with—he was a loose cannon. Tom moved swiftly. He heard on the secret grapevine which existed in Sydney that Jack was determined to get his revenge for the insults which Tom had offered him, never mind his broken nose and damag
ed looks.
‘He’s a mad dog, Tom,’ his informant, Natty Jemson, told him. ‘I’d be careful if I were you, mate. He’d do you any damage. Best watch your back.’
Yes, mad dog was a good description of a man who was wandering around The Rocks, half cut, letting his hatred of Tom and his desire for Hester become public knowledge.
While there were those in The Rocks who might like to do Tom Dilhorne a bad turn, there were others who either feared him too much, or who owed him, either for his forbearance, or for what he had done in the distant past when he was still the young London thief let loose in a frontier town, ready to make it his own territory.
Tom walked to his office, dodging the growing traffic, thinking over what Jemson had told him, and pondering on how to cut Cameron’s claws. Dealing with a mad dog was difficult: they were the most dangerous dogs of all because they were irrational.
Above all, Hester must not know of this. He wanted nothing to mar their happiness, so Jack must be dealt with quickly. Chance was kind. He entered his office, saying abruptly to Joseph Smith, ‘I want you to scour Sydney and buy up as many of Captain Cameron’s debts as you can.’
Smith grinned at him. ‘No need. Larkin came in not an hour ago and offered me the lot—and glad to get rid of them. I havered a bit—though I knew you’d most likely want ’em. Was I right?’
‘Very right. Pay him as little as you can—they’re worthless, except to me.’
Buy up a man’s debts and you could control him. Tom sat down at his desk, laughing and saying to himself, Here’s to cutting Master Jack’s claws, and wrote him a letter instructing him to visit Dilhorne and Co.’s office in a week’s time to discuss matters of business relating to his debts. That should fetch him at the double, reflected Tom, as he handed it to his boy to deliver.
He was particularly merry at dinner that night. Hester said, smiling, ‘If I did not know you better, Mr Dilhorne, I would think that you had been drinking.’
Hester Waring's Marriage Page 19
