‘Someone has used a knife,’ he pointed out, ‘and, being unable to pick the lock, has tried to force the hinges. These marks were not here last night. The damage was done today. Have any strangers been in the house today, Mrs Brande?’
Dorothea felt faint. Unable to speak, she shook her head.
‘Then there can be only one culprit,’ Charles said coldly. Dorothea’s presence seemed to have calmed him, somewhat; though his cheeks were still flushed, his voice was now steady. ‘Jack Lynch I discount. The occasional dressing-down can only do him good—without it, he would become careless and lazy—but he is not the man who did this thing. He was at the barracks most of the day, and has too much sense to run such a risk. No—the culprit is certainly Daniel Callaghan. Once a thief, always a thief.’
Dorothea shook her head. She opened her mouth, but was unable to make a sound. Captain Brande, who was looking at the damaged tantalus, did not regard her.
‘That Irish ingrate,’ he said, with concentrated venom, ‘will rue the day. Oh, but he will rue the day.’
‘Charles,’ Dorothea whispered.
‘I shall have him flogged till his ribs show.’
‘Charles!’ Dorothea caught her husband’s arm, as he turned to carry out his threat. ‘Wait. Please.’ Seeing his expression change from one of surprise to one of dawning suspicion, Dorothea hastened to explain herself. Her lips were trembling so pitiably that she could barely force them into the required shapes. ‘It—it was not Daniel,’ she stammered. ‘I know it was not Daniel.’
His eyes narrowed.
‘How can you know?’ he demanded.
‘Because it—I think—because it must have been Martha.’
Naturally, this reply was not in itself sufficient. Dorothea was forced to elaborate on it, propping herself against the table as she acquainted Charles with the story of Martha’s insidious failing. Her eyes filled with tears as she did so. She was blinded by them, and could not see his face. She knew herself to be utterly at fault. She had been foolish—treacherous—naive. She could offer up no excuse for her stupidity.
‘Forgive me,’ she whispered. ‘Forgive me.’ And, as if from a great distance, his reply reached her—brittle with suppressed fury, cracking in an effort to retain control.
‘You knew Martha to be a drunkard,’ he said.
‘Forgive me …’
‘You knew this, and you let her stay?’
‘Oh—oh—’
‘Without deigning to inform your husband of the fact?’
Dorothea wept.
‘Oh, this is very fine behaviour. Yes indeed, this … this beats everything.’ He began to move about the room—she could hear his uneven footsteps as she covered her eyes. ‘My own wife conspires to deceive me. Yes! Deceive me! Knowing what my opinion will be, she conceals the truth, and expects to profit by it!’
‘My dear—’
‘With the inevitable result!’ Charles cried. ‘With the result that she is betrayed and robbed! Because that is the natural consequence of defying good sense, proper conduct, and the advice of someone better placed to direct her actions!’
‘I am so sorry—’
‘Are you mad? Good God, are you not a lady? How could you even tolerate the presence of a drunkard? I fear that I was mistaken in you. I fear that I expected a certain daintiness—a certain refinement of conduct—where there is none!’ He began to pace the floor once again, as Dorothea sobbed. She could hardly catch breath, she was crying so bitterly. ‘How could you do this? How could you behave with such little regard for my wishes? For my rights and my entitlements as the master of this house? I am master of this house, Madam!’
Dorothea was unable to reassure him. She had not the voice to do so. But gradually, after he had unburdened himself of many more remarks concerning her treachery, his disappointment, and the folly of accommodating vice in any form, Dorothea’s pitiful appearance began to work on his sense of outrage. He stopped shouting. He stopped pacing. He told her, in more measured tones, that she should take time to reflect on her errors, while he removed Martha from the premises.
‘I shall take her to the nearest watchhouse,’ he said hoarsely, ‘and inform the constable that we have no more use for her —that she is a suspected thief, and a confirmed drunkard. Then Superintendent Hutchison may do as he wishes.’ Floorboards creaked under his heavy tread. The door opened. ‘You would do well, Madam, to remember that I merit more consideration than a convicted felon,’ he concluded. ‘You would do well to honour me as your wedding vows require. I am your husband. I know what is best.’
Then he was gone.
Dorothea ran to the bedroom. She threw herself on her bed, and gave herself over to misery. The wretchedness of her situation struck her as unendurable—her domestic woes, the loss of her unborn children, the absence of respectable society, and now this terrible falling out with her husband—how was it possible to survive such misery? She wept and wept, and when at last she could shed no more tears, lay sniffing and groaning as Captain Brande’s accusations returned to haunt her. Again and again she heard them, as if her mind was a chamber of echoes. How were they ever to be expunged? They had scarred her for life. She wanted to go home. She had to go home.
At last someone knocked on the door.
‘Who—who’s there?’ she quavered.
‘Ma’am?’ It was Daniel. ‘Would ye be wantin’ yeer dinner?’
Calf’s cheek? Dorothea felt ill at the very thought. ‘No,’ she said faintly.
There was a long silence. Dorothea could not hear the sound of Daniel’s retreating footsteps; she knew that he was still standing outside the bedroom, and she resented his proximity, because it prevented her from giving way to her grief.
‘Can I fetch ye some tea?’ he finally suggested.
‘No!’
Go away, she silently begged him, hot with shame and despair. She lay rigid, clutching her wet handkerchief, until at last she heard his heavy tread. He was withdrawing. He had gone.
She realised that he had undoubtedly heard Captain Brande upbraiding her—that all the servants must have heard—and was so mortified that the tears began to flow again.
The thought crossed her mind that she might henceforth never leave the bedroom.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MRS MOLLE WAS VERY sympathetic when she learned of Martha’s disgrace. Eyeing Dorothea’s dull face and drooping form, Mrs Molle inquired with great delicacy how her friend was getting on without a maid. ‘Of course it must be difficult. Do you find yourself greatly discommoded, Mrs Brande? Is there anything that I might do to help?’
In a small, flat voice, Dorothea replied that she was managing very well—that Daniel had simply abandoned the garden, so that he might take over many of Martha’s duties, and that she herself, with Daniel’s assistance, was preparing the meals. ‘Charles would prefer that I not cook,’ she went on, ‘but realises that I have no choice, in the circumstances. He has applied to Superintendent Hutchison for another housemaid.’ Captain Brande, in fact, had insisted that he assume all responsibility for hiring staff. He had already turned down one convict offered to him, as being ‘obnoxious and deplorable’, and had offended the Principal Superintendent of Convicts very much by accusing him of ‘favouring’ certain other applicants, principally Mr Riley, Captain Gill and Mr John Campbell.
Dorothea was burdened by an awful suspicion that they would never acquire an acceptable housemaid, if Superintendent Hutchison had anything to do with it.
‘Ye-es,’ said Mrs Molle. ‘I see.’ Gazing into her teacup, she seemed to ponder the problem. Dorothea wondered if she had heard about Captain Brande’s disagreement with the Principal Superintendent of Convicts, and decided that she almost certainly had. Colonial gossip thrived on such affairs. The thought made her feel tired. She felt dreadfully tired nowadays, what with all the cooking required of her, and the necessity of keeping her spirits up. Fortunately, Charles appeared to have forgiven her—was, in fact, indulgent of her as
of a child whose conduct, although deserving of reproach, can be attributed to innocence rather than malice—but even so, she could not seem to shake off her gloom. It had even crossed her mind that Charles’s magnanimity might stem less from generosity of spirit than from a need to resume conjugal relations.
He was, in every respect, a passionate man.
‘Really,’ said Mrs Molle at last, ‘I begin to wonder if you should be seeking out an assigned servant at all.’ Looking up, she addressed Dorothea in gravely inquiring tones. ‘One must begin to question the suitability of convicts fresh out of their irons. Have you considered, Mrs Brande, engaging a girl who has been pardoned, or given her ticket-of-leave? She would, of course, be a more expensive proposition, but the evidence of her good character would lie in her very emancipation. And one must always pay more for a superior article.’
Dorothea frowned. ‘I was told that such women were in great demand,’ she objected. ‘I was told that I had no hope of procuring one.’
‘Certainly, I have heard of no such paragon seeking employment among our friends and acquaintances,’ Mrs Molle admitted. ‘But if you were to advertise in the Gazette, Mrs Brande, you might reach a wider circle.’
‘Advertise?’ said Dorothea, doubtfully. Public advertisements had always been regarded somewhat askance at Bideham.
‘Of course I should help you to write it,’ Mrs Molle went on. ‘The terms must be clearly stated, and the requirements so carefully worded that no misunderstandings will arise.’
‘I—I cannot be sure—’
‘Naturally, you must consult your husband,’ Mrs Molle concluded—rather impertinently, Dorothea thought. It was not up to Mrs Molle to tell her when she should or should not consult her own husband. But Mrs Molle was so very energetic in her wish to be of use, and so very much convinced of her own good sense, that she could sometimes overstep the bounds of what was, if not decent, at least mannerly.
For this, however, Dorothea could easily forgive her. Where would she have been without Mrs Molle? Of course, Mrs Molle could be a little domineering, at times, but after all, she was the wife of Captain Brande’s commanding officer.
And she had never once made a suggestion that was not worthy, sensible, or kindly meant.
‘Mrs Molle believes that we might be better off hiring a free servant on full wages,’ Dorothea remarked to her husband that night. They were picking at some rather tough, dry mutton, and she would normally have refrained from making an appeal to him at such a time—for even a very fine accompanying dish of stewed onions could not, in his opinion, compensate for the hardship of dried-out meat, and he was consequently not in the best of moods. But on this occasion Dorothea decided that she could use the dry meat to her advantage. She pointed out, in dutifully humble tones, that they faced a future replete with dry mutton (not to mention burned pie-crusts and watery puddings) if they did not acquire another housemaid. Another good housemaid.
‘I begin to doubt that good housmaids can be had from Superintendent Hutchison,’ she said quietly. ‘Or even that they exist, among the Government gangs. I begin to wonder if Mrs Molle might be right.’
‘Oh, Mrs Molle is always right,’ Charles snapped. ‘How could the Old Man’s wife be wrong?’
‘You do not agree with her, then?’
‘A free woman would cost us more than a convict, do you realise that? Between two and three shillings a day, I should think.’
Dorothea said nothing.
‘The rate of hire in the colony is deplorable,’ Charles went on. ‘McIntosh was telling me the other day that when the harness rooms were fitted up in the light horse barracks, three years ago, the carpenter charged twenty-one pounds in spirits at thirty shillings a gallon! Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.’
Still Dorothea said nothing. She allowed him to rant about the iniquity of colonial prices until he had practically exhausted the subject, and even then she did not break the ensuing silence. Sitting with her head bowed over her plate, she simply masticated her mutton. She heard him push his own plate away, with an exclamation of disgust.
‘Do you know what my mess bill is?’ he growled. ‘You must understand that it behoves me not to fall behind in generosity. All the other fellows are free with their money—am I to be different because I have a wife to support? It will not do. If I cannot pursue the habits of a gentleman—if I cannot be open handed—then I might as well resign all hopes of a special appointment.’
‘They must be abandoned in any case,’ Dorothea replied.
‘What?’
‘They must be abandoned in any case.’ She raised her voice a little. ‘Without a housemaid, we cannot possibly entertain guests here again. Not in the evening. And you said that such entertainments would win Colonel Molle’s support.’
Charles began to drum his fingers on the table. Then he flung himself out of his chair and rang for Jack Lynch, who came and cleared away the dirty crockery. After he had withdrawn, Charles said: ‘If I am forced to appeal to Hutchison again, I shall almost certainly kill him.’
Dorothea fixed her husband with an inquiring gaze.
‘He is unspeakably vile,’ Charles continued. ‘Though his character is irretrievably soiled, he is so puffed up with pride and vanity that he thinks himself superior to the convicts under his direction. He makes my skin crawl.’
Dorothea looked down at her folded hands.
‘And Gill, of course, is of no use whatsoever. He maintains that he has never found Hutchison to be impertinent or obstructive in any way.’
The door opened. Jack Lynch entered, and set down before his master and mistress a dish of boiled custard sporting a thick, yellow skin. Beside it he placed a portion of crumbling soda cake, its shrivelled currants presenting the appearance of dead flies.
Charles regarded this offering.
Then he looked at Dorothea.
‘Oh, all right!’ he barked. ‘Go and hire an emancipist! I suppose that I shall have no peace—no, nor edible food—until you have your way!’
‘Thank you, Charles.’
‘But there will be no more additions to this house,’ he grumbled. ‘No more servants. No more furniture. No more wax candles when we dine.’
‘No, my dear.’
‘And I shall expect a very superior class of service from this overpaid wench, or out she goes!’
The advertisement finally placed in the Sydney Gazette called for ‘a sober, steady Woman, of unexceptionable character, who can cook and will make herself useful about the house of a small, genteel Family’, and announced that ‘a Person of the above description may hear of a comfortable Situation by applying at the Gazette Office’. Dorothea was not sanguine as to the possibility of finding such a paragon; she was most surprised when her advertisement prompted two applications, one from a woman who seemed, if not ideal, at least not utterly unsuitable. Her name was Peg Whiting, she was fifty-one years of age (though hale and hearty still), and she did not take exception to the sum at which her wages were to be fixed. As long as she earned enough for her bed and board, she said, all would be well. She was living with her daughter, but her daughter’s husband insisted that she pay four shillings a week for fire and lodging, not to mention an additional sum for her food.
‘ ’E’s as ’ard as they come,’ she cheerfully informed Dorothea, ‘but I pay ’im no mind.’ On being asked what experience she might have, Peg replied that she had once been the mistress of a public house, but that her husband had brought it into disrepute by allowing all manner of unsavoury persons to frequent it (‘If I said no, ’e’d give me a bloody nose,’ she explained), and that, as a result, she had lost her licence shortly before he had drunk and gambled away the house itself—which she had owned outright.
‘ ’E’s in Newcastle now, on the chain gang, and good riddance,’ she declared. ‘Warn’t never no good. But I kept a clean ’ouse, Madam, and cooked a good stew. And I’m a-thinkin’ as ’ow I’d like to know more about good ’ousekeepin’. The way it’s done
—proper, like—among the quality.’
‘I see,’ said Dorothea. She was somewhat taken aback by Peg Whiting, whose voice was rather strident, and whose manner, though brisk and cheerful, was a little too exuberant for Dorothea’s taste. In addition, Peg could offer no recommendations from past employers; she had worked as a cook for a member of the New South Wales Corps upon her arrival in the colony, and through his offices had secured a ticket-of-leave before her sentence expired. But the officer in question was long gone. It was therefore impossible to deduce whether she had won his favour on account of her efficiency, or for other reasons of a more questionable nature.
On the other hand, however, Peg was clean, and with a cleanliness that testified to more than hurriedly applied soap and water. Her clothes were starched and pressed, her skin was remarkably clear (for a woman of her age and history), her hair shone, her very fingernails gleamed. Furthermore, she was evidently a woman of good humour—a plump, beaming, handsome matron—and Dorothea was homesick for happy servants.
It will not do any harm to give her a trial, she thought.
‘Would you consider sleeping in this house, Peg?’ she queried. ‘I would prefer that, if it can be managed. Your room, as you will see, is quite pleasant.’
But Peg shook her head energetically. ‘No, Madam, if it’s all the same. Family’s family, and my daughter likes to ’ave me there.’
‘But you must rise very early, in that case. Very early. You must be here to cook breakfast. Nor can you retire until your master and mistress do. Where does your daughter live?’
‘Not far from ’ere, Madam, near Charlotte Place,’ Peg replied. ‘Won’t take me any time, so don’t fret. You’ll never know I’ve gone, of a hevening.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Or maybe you will. My daughter says as ’ow I never stop talking. But I can be quiet enough when it’s needed.’
‘Well—you will need to be quiet in this house,’ said Dorothea, nervously. ‘Captain Brande will not stand for idle chatter. You must confine your talking to the kitchen.’