– Lord Irish has done his best, Mr Macarthur, Hannaford said. Served mightily, among so many. But any chance you might get, sir, for a few more good rams might be an opportunity you might think of taking.
I heard him going carefully. Who was a convict, to tell Mr Macarthur his business?
WOOL AND HAIR
You could tell where the Irish ram had been among the Bengals. As the lambs grew and their coats developed, among them were some with a smoother coat and of a different shape.
– Look at this beauty, Mr Macarthur, Hannaford said, holding one for us to see. Such a strong big bugger, pardon me Mrs Macarthur. And look at this here.
He parted the lamb’s short dusty hair.
– See here, sir, he said. Under the hair d’you see, right on the skin, something near wool.
Mr Macarthur did not care to touch, but I did. Hannaford was right: under the hair was a secret second skin of something like velvet, the imprint of the Irish on the hairy Bengal.
– The good blood coming out, Hannaford said. The good blood for wool.
But Mr Macarthur cared nothing for wool or hair, only about the numbers. Hannaford and I watched him trying to count the sheep, losing count, trying again. Hannaford had his tally string in his hand.
– A hundred and fifteen lambs by my count, Mr Macarthur, he said. The whole flock a hundred and eighty-seven.
OF THE SPANISH BREED
The colonel’s grants had allowed Elizabeth Farm to expand as far as it could: further expansion was now blocked on every side by other men’s land or by water. For Mr Macarthur this was the spur to a larger ambition. Some thirty miles away there was a piece of land superior to any yet seen, on which the cattle that had escaped in the earliest weeks of the colony had made their home. Mr Macarthur, in his capacity as inspector, had ridden over it, glimpsed the cattle, recognised the uniquely splendid nature of the place, and decided that Cowpastures, as it was called, must become his.
He was not discouraged by its distance from the settlements, although that would make it difficult to defend against attacks and depradations. The more immediate obstacle was that Cowpastures had been set aside in perpetuity by the first governor as Crown land, never to be granted away. But for Mr Macarthur this was not so much an obstacle as a stimulus to ingenuity. Like a general arraying his troops, he made preparations for the long game.
The first step was to acquire more stock, any animals at all, their only function to give the man who owned them an argument for needing more land.
His next purchase was four ewes and two rams. They were skinny and slope-shouldered, with no chest to them and not a good shape as to the ribs, but even bedraggled after their time on the ship their fleece was softer and finer than the wool of the Irish.
– Merinos, so called, Mr Macarthur said. Waterhouse bought them at the Cape, someone spun him a tale about these being bona fide Spanish merinos. A good tale, so he wasted good money on them. Well, they may once have been Spanish, but admixed since then. I told him, these are no more the pure Spanish than I am a Dutchman!
The memory of which witticism amused him considerably.
Grandfather had spoken of the mythical Spanish merinos, sheep so precious, their wool so fine, that Spain kept them locked up for itself alone. I was glad he was not here to see the myth in the flesh.
Why had Mr Macarthur bought these unpromising things? Oh, that was easy—to spite the new parson, Mr Marsden, who fancied himself as a farmer.
– I wanted them all, he said. But Waterhouse had already shaken on the deal with Marsden. I leaned on him, but the obstinate fool would only sell me half.
He watched the sheep mill and bleat.
– Had the satisfaction of seeing the parson’s face fall, he said. Not the only one in New South Wales to have merinos of the Spanish breed! The fool has some grand fantasy of fine wool, imagine.
All the same, I could see that he regretted the purchase.
– We will keep them apart, he said. Keep them pure.
He spoke as if he had a hundred Spanish, not six.
– Keep their impurity pure, he said, and laughed. So I may call them Spanish for the next man who comes along wanting some pure merinos.
Hannaford was not impressed by the new sheep. Told me the Spanish were reputed to be slow to multiply, and poor mothers. Was not convinced, either, by the notion of purity. Six sheep kept pure would soon become a sickly flock. Still, he did everything as Mr Macarthur wanted, and at great labour fenced off the miserable-looking Spanish in their own field.
TO BE DOING
When the Spanish dropped their lambs, Mr Macarthur was disappointed: from the four ewes, only three live lambs.
Hannaford was in the fold with one of the mothers, I could see him trying to persuade her to stand still so the lamb could suckle. The mother did not look at her lamb, but as fast as it approached she moved away, as skittish as if it were a stranger, leaving the poor little mite straining up to nothing. We watched it stumble, fall, stagger after its mother again.
– Mrs Macarthur, if I hold this one still, would you bring the lamb over to her, Hannaford said, taking hold of the ewe.
The lamb was featherweight in my arms, a lamb in need of a good suck if ever there was one. But a winsome thing like a child’s toy, its coat smooth and soft. I crouched with it beside its mother, stroked the ewe under her chin and held the lamb to her, and finally she stood still long enough for it to latch on. How I loved to be doing again, among the sheep, smelling the wool up close, remembering what Grandfather had showed me.
– It could break your heart, Hannaford said. Somewhere down the line, the blood that makes a good mother and the blood that makes good wool went their separate ways. Give me a good Leicester any day of the week.
The lamb had drunk its fill and lay down exhausted from the chase after its mother.
– If we were to mix some of this Spanish blood back into those others, I said. The crosses, when they are of an age. I wonder would the blood for mothering stay, and the blood for wool come out?
I was following a thought and speaking it out loud, but when Hannaford was silent, bending over the ewe intent on getting a prickle out of its fleece, I realised I had made a difficulty for him. It was not up to him to remind me of my husband’s order to keep them pure.
– I could not say, Mrs Macarthur, he said at last. I am just an ignorant fellow.
– Nonsense, Mr Hannaford, I said. You are no ignorant fellow, but a sheepstealer, and what greater expert can there be in the matter of sheep than a man who came within a whisker of paying with his life for a good one?
He laughed, glad not to have paid that price, and I was happy to leave the moment of difficulty behind. The little puzzle of good wool against good mothering had been a quick flare of curiosity. The pleasure of that puzzle would not be worth setting myself against Mr Macarthur.
But Hannaford was standing by the ewe, his hands smoothing and parting her fleece. Soft, fine, creamy, it sprang up strongly under his fingers.
– The rams, Hannaford said. You know, Mrs Macarthur, a ram can spread its seed, if you pardon my language. And not lose anything. Not lose any…
He was avoiding saying purity. We did not look at each other, only down at the wool opened up under his hands. Crimp: the word came to me in Grandfather’s voice. Tight, densely packed, this was better crimp than Grandfather could ever have imagined.
– Of course the Spanish ewes must be kept separate, I said.
– And so they would be, Mrs Macarthur, certainly, he said. The Spanish gentlemen to do their duty with their countrywomen. Then have at as many of the others as they have the vigour for.
Now at last he looked me in the face.
– No purity would be lost, Mrs Macarthur. I assure you. None whatsoever.
Oh, he knew what I laboured under. They all knew.
LAMENTABLE
Land, though irresistible when it could be got for nothing, was secondary to Mr Macarthur’s real passio
ns. It was not sheep or corn that interested him, and certainly not his unexpectedly onerous military obligations. What was uppermost in his mind was trade: the Britannia had been only the first of many charters. It was not only the gigantic profit to be made from liquor. It was that his nature made him crave to be at the heart of a complicated tangle of other men’s greed, fear, sloth and malice, directing them by plotting, scheming, luring, threatening, coaxing. More than the money, more even than the power to shape events, was the pleasure he took in his own ingenious schemes.
We had not been at Parramatta more than a few months when he came to me full of endearments.
– It is regrettable, my dearest wife, he said. Nay, it is lamentable. But it is essential that I spend some time in Sydney. I must ensure that the DD’s favour continues to run in my direction.
It was what I had hardly dared to hope for, but I pouted, for form’s sake, and to tease. I watched him cast about for another argument.
– Those rogues in the Corps, he said. If I am not on the spot, some other man will be convinced he can do as good a job of the new charter. I must be there.
– Oh, I said, and may I not accompany you, and enjoy the novelty of society?
– Oh well, he said.
I let him flounder before I rescued him.
– On second thoughts, I would not feel easy in my mind to leave the children in the care of the servants.
His frown cleared, and there it was: two people pretending a thing was lamentable when in their hearts they both rejoiced.
That first morning as he rode off to Sydney I stood with Elizabeth’s hand in mine, watching the horse grow small in the distance. When I turned back into the house I walked with her from room to room. The air in every corner seemed more still. The light gleamed along the boards in a more serene way.
I had come to hate the marital bed, and even the room it was in. Can a person fear a marble mantelpiece, the particular shape of the cracks in the ceiling? I flung open the French doors—he liked a closed-up bedroom where I loved a flow of air—and let in the outside world. There was the garden, and beyond that the yellow-green of the bush, pale trunks like Chinese writing in among the blur of leaves as the sun shifted calmly through its day.
How quickly a person could reclaim a space! How little it took!
That night I lay savouring a joy no more complicated than the certainty of being alone. I could not sleep for the novel pleasure of it, and another novelty occurred to me. I slipped down from the bed and stood on the verandah, barefoot on the flagstones, letting the dewy darkness of the night enter me. My body felt alive along every morsel of skin, my feet on the cool paving were aware of every grain of the stone.
A dog barked, far off, a hollow sound, the dog unhurried, unworried, its barking as if for the sake of hearing its own voice. Chained somewhere, its sound carried miles, not filling the silence but making it bigger. That hollow distant sound told you how vast the night was, like a speck on a white sheet that showed you how white it was. The dog was doing what I was doing, simply being in the darkness, greeting the hidden world.
Beyond the flower garden a light gleamed between the cracks in the hut where Hannaford lived with the shepherd lad. I was seized with an impulse to walk out across the grass, slip up to the wall of the hut, and place my eye to one of those cracks.
Why did I want to peer through that tempting chink? It was nothing about Hannaford, or the shepherd lad. It was a curiosity that was the other side of ignorance. Having come to myself, and in the freedom of being alone, I wanted to watch another life, to watch other people when they thought no one was looking. I had seen surfaces only, all my life. I had presented only surfaces to others. Now I was consumed with wanting to see beyond surface. Who are other people when they think themselves unobserved? What is it like, to be a person?
I crept up to the hut, trying in a confused way to prepare what I could say if I were discovered. Could I convince someone that I was sleepwalking, staring and muttering like Lady Macbeth? But Lady Macbeth would not stand on tiptoe to peer through a crack, no matter how fast asleep she might be. Nor would she have had the idea of pulling on her blue wrapper to hide the white of her nightdress. I had no story, no pretext however mad, as I approached my eye to the crack.
In the flicker of the fire I could see nothing clear at first. Then something moved and someone murmured. There was a sound like a contented sigh. I squeezed myself sideways to the chink and saw that the movement was a bare leg, and that the leg belonged to Mrs Brown, and that it was entwined with an arm that belonged to William Hannaford.
I stepped away quickly. More than I bargained for, I thought. Oh, more than I bargained for! I was laughing, although what was so amusing? I was doubled over around the mirth, or whatever it was, as I went silently back across the grass to the house. Of course I knew that Hannaford and Mrs Brown had found each other. And of course they would arrange a way to be together. Easy enough, when they wanted time to themselves, to tell the shepherd lad to make his bed in with the other men. But somehow I had not followed the knowledge further. Had not considered what I might see, had only wanted the freedom to look.
Back in the house I slid into bed and lay coiled up, my heartbeats slowly calming. There was a pang, no question, a wryness that twisted around in me like a small unhappy animal. I had once been where those two people were now, in the tenderness of two bodies and two spirits coming together. But it was gone, gone, gone. I did not think it would come again.
At the same time, the thought of that leg, that arm, made me smile. That joy would always be part of who I was. What I had shared with Mr Dawes was a flame that passed from person to person. For a time it had alighted on William Dawes and Elizabeth Macarthur. Now it had come to rest with Agnes Brown and William Hannaford. It was a gift we might have a share in, but it was for passing on, not for owning.
I lay curled around myself in a confusion of smiling and wryness too mixed to be separated. Lady Macbeth had crept to that crack in search of something, and perhaps she had found it: that when life offered delight it should be enjoyed. Here I was, alone, and what a delight that was. How much better to have your own true self for company than to be lost in the solitude of an unhappy marriage.
I never knew how many nights I would be alone in the bed, for Mr Macarthur returned unpredictably.
You may imagine, I wrote to Bridie one day when he had just arrived, how great was my joy on the return of Mr Macarthur. Oh, how I loved to find a two-faced form of words. That private pleasure never staled.
It is possible that Mr Macarthur treated himself to some pretty young doxy in Sydney. But I did not want to know then, do not want to know now.
COMING FORWARD
Nothing was spelled out between myself and Mr Macarthur, but as he gradually withdrew from the workings of the farm, I gradually came forward. Compared to Grandfather’s modest place, this was a gigantic enterprise and in the beginning I was alarmed at all that I had to understand. I had no experience, no confidence in my judgment, no knowledge of working men and how to wield authority over them.
But I was not alone. Every morning Hannaford came to me, then Mrs Brown. Each stood courteously over me beside the table telling me all that was needed, while like a pupil I wrote down the lists of things to be seen to, money to be laid out, projects to be planned, problems to be addressed.
I never told Mrs Brown and William Hannaford that I knew they had found a way to be together. That was their business. But they knew that I knew. It was a warmth between the three of us, like a friend in the room that we were pleased to have among us.
At first I went to Mr Macarthur, papers in hand, for him to advise or approve, but he would run his eye down the pages without interest, and I went to him less and less often. Now and then, to remind him of how dull the farm affairs were, I pretended a dilemma, and obliged him to sit while I laid out endless details and he fidgeted for me to be done. It was Papilionaceae over again.
The farmer’s wife
that I might have become, and that Grandfather had taught so well, came tiptoeing out from behind the gentleman’s wife. My time with Mr Dawes had showed me how keenly I loved a problem, loved to wrestle with difficulty. As mistress of Elizabeth Farm, every day had its vexation. But each new vexation brought the memory of the last, and the fact that it had been solved. Vexation was vexing, but idleness was like death.
FINE WOOL
Hannaford and I said nothing more to each other about putting the Spanish rams to the crossbred ewes, and certainly nothing to Mr Macarthur. But it was done, and as the lambs from those pairings grew, it seemed that, yes, the Spanish ram had given his fine wool to his offspring, and the crossbred ewe had given her robustness. We had hardly dared to expect such a miracle.
– God must feel like this, I said to Hannaford one evening as we leaned together on the fold watching the woolly lambs we had somehow created from hairy sheep.
I had once, in that other life, said something similar about an orrery, and smiled at the memory.
– Indeed, Hannaford said. God might. And we could help Him along, if we went about it right, to breed the hair out of the whole flock.
There was a flicker of apprehension then, as if he was thinking that William Hannaford, convict, and Mrs John Macarthur should not be spoken of so casually in the same sentence, as we, or that he should speak so lightly of helping God. But I was happy to be we with him, and agreed that God’s work was not always so perfect that it would not benefit from a helping hand.
– Breed for the wool, are you thinking, I said. Not the meat?
– That ram I put my hand to, it was his fleece tempted me, he said. My thinking was, breed for the fleece. Not trust that Spain would always sell us theirs.
He turned his head away as if to spit, but did not.
– When I say us, he said, with a curl of scorn, I meant England. But why not here? Give this place something to go to market with.
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