Dorothea preferred not to think about Martha Potts.
‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Molle sympathetically, after a long pause. ‘Not such a treasure, then?’
‘By no means.’
‘Untrained?’
‘Utterly untrained.’
If that had been all, however, Dorothea would have coped well enough. It was certainly irritating that Martha Potts, a London shoe-binder convicted of stealing a teaspoon, should have lived in such a very slovenly way all her life that she appeared to be ignorant of even the most basic points of good housewifery. Nevertheless, this was not the chief of Dorothea’s burdens. She had no objection to teaching her servants how to make a brine. She could understand how some women might be ignorant of those methods by which water might be softened or dishcloths sweetened. She could even endure having to remind her housemaid, repeatedly, that a joint must be wiped every morning and night with a clean, dry cloth, to preserve it. Even servants with training are not always properly trained, and a good mistress must always be vigilant.
But Martha Potts was so clumsy. And so unprepossessing. A woman of indeterminate age and doleful countenance, she was rather small and drab; she dragged herself about in a dispirited manner, her shoulders slumped, her hair lank beneath a drooping cap, sniffing in a way that Dorothea found difficult to tolerate. (Even when provided with a handkerchief, she continued to sniff.) To her credit, she was otherwise a very quiet person, quieter even than Daniel—who, when asked what he thought of her, had replied in his usual guarded way that she was ‘very closed company’. But really, that was little enough of a recommendation, especially in a woman who was so stupid. Although Dorothea had repeatedly instructed her to avoid dark gills, sunken eyes and a flabby texture, Martha continued to bring fish home from the market that were not fresh. Despite having been told on numerous occasions that an egg cannot be shaken if it is newly laid, Martha continued to purchase eggs that were practically inedible. It was fortunate that Dorothea was able to procure vegetables directly from the regimental garden, and that her bread and meat were issued to her by the Quartermaster; no fault could be found with these items. But when it came to milk, butter, eggs, cheese, raisins and so forth, Dorothea was already at her wit’s end. She was beginning to wonder if she would have to go to market herself—or perhaps send Daniel.
Moreover, no piece of crockery was safe in Martha’s hands. And no dish of food emerged from the kitchen, now, without having been disfigured by a burnt crust or some other irreversible damage. ‘She is a dreadful cook,’ Dorothea was finally driven to complain, after being pressed, ‘and a terrible slattern. I am continually finding hairs in food. She has no more idea of domestic service than a—a—’
‘A sow,’ Mrs Molle finished. ‘How unfortunate.’
‘And yet she came so highly recommended!’
But Mrs Molle shook her head. ‘As I recall,’ she reminded Dorothea, ‘Mrs O’Connell described her only as “willing” and “honest”. I suppose, in this colony, that is high commendation. But nothing was said about her abilities.’
‘Charles cannot abide her,’ Dorothea sighed. ‘He says that she harbours fleas, and transfers them to our bed linen. She has no idea how to shake or beat a feather bed—you would think that a chicken had been plucked. And she is forever banging doors and forgetting to extinguish candles.’
‘A common fault,’ Mrs Molle agreed.
‘Yet she is willing,’ Dorothea went on. ‘And I have heard so many frightening tales …’
‘Of maids with vicious propensities. I know.’
‘If only Sarah could have stayed!’ Dorothea mourned.
Alas, however, Sarah was gone. And later, as she walked the short distance back to her house, Dorothea reflected on the problem of Martha Potts. It was so much worse than she had led Mrs Molle to believe. While Martha’s faults were manifold, they were made infinitely worse by Charles’s response to them—for Martha offended him, and he frightened her. Consequently, if she was going to break a teacup, she would invariably do it in his presence. Then he would rage at her, and she would become even more clumsy. On one occasion she had completely lost all restraint while being chastised, throwing her apron over her head and running from the room.
Dorothea had been forced to instruct her to stay out of the Captain’s way. Duties had been rearranged, somewhat, to enable her to do so. But there would be no comfort in the house until she was removed altogether, and Dorothea was considering the means by which this removal might be accomplished. She had not, so far, had any dealings with the government offices concerned with convict assignment, and was at a complete loss as to how the correct authorities might be approached. By written application, perhaps? Charles, when his opinion was sought, had been rather vague. ‘I shall ask Gill,’ he had replied, with feeling. ‘Gill should know. He seems to spend most of his time with the gangs.’ But either Charles had forgotten his promise, or Captain Gill was too busy to attend to the requests of his brother officers. For Dorothea remained unenlightened.
She was not sure, in any case, that replacing Martha would solve her problems. After all, a drunkard or thief would be worse than a slattern, and the transport ships were overloaded with drunkards and thieves (or so she was informed). Arriving at her front gate, she was weighing her chances of securing a girl from the Female Orphan School when Charles suddenly emerged from the house, flinging open the front door.
‘Oh,’ he said, upon sighting her. ‘So you’re back, are you?’ He was attired in full regimental dress, and seemed most put out. His cheeks were flushed. ‘If you would not keep running to Mrs Molle for every direction, this house would be better run.’
Not wishing to discuss her domestic affairs in full view of any passer-by, Dorothea hurried into the hallway. It was very dim, inside; she could hardly see. But by the time she had removed her bonnet, her eyes had become sufficiently adjusted to the shadows, and she was able to discern evidence of a recent altercation.
Martha was standing near the back door, with her head down. Jack Lynch, also in the hallway, was wiping his hands on a dirty cloth, his face twisted into a kind of warily impatient grimace. There was no sign of Daniel Callaghan.
‘See what that fool did to my new boots,’ said Charles. ‘Not satisfied with spilling hot fat on them, she tried to conceal her idiocy by wiping up the spill with a dirty plate-rag.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘The result being,’ Charles continued, ‘that they were unwearable, and Jack had to polish them again, and now I shall be late for the evening parade!’
‘Oh, surely not,’ said Dorothea, faintly.
‘The fault was bad enough—the attempt at concealment was infinitely worse. What if I had walked onto the parade ground in those things?’
‘But where did it happen?’ Dorothea wanted to know. ‘In the kitchen? Did Jack leave your boots in the kitchen?’
‘In the hallway.’
‘The hallway? Then—’
‘It was colza oil, Ma’am,’ Jack suddenly supplied, ‘from one o’ the lamps.’ He had a flat, drawling, nasal voice that Dorothea disliked. ‘No harm done, but I had to get out my blacking agin.’
The offence was a serious one, for the state of Charles’s boots, like the state of his sword and the brass fittings on his scabbard, was something that occupied a very great deal of Jack Lynch’s time. Nothing, in that house, took precedence over Captain Brande’s uniform. Indeed, Charles’s anxiety that he should always be well turned out bordered on the obsessive. He seemed determined that no one should ever find fault with him, in this respect.
‘My dear, I am so very sorry,’ said Dorothea. ‘How vexing for you. I shall have a word with Martha.’
‘Words make no difference!’
‘I know.’
‘What she needs is a beating!’
‘Very true.’
Dorothea saw that her first act must be to remove the offending housemaid from her husband’s presence, lest the sight of that mournful, grease-sp
attered face drive him to an even greater pitch of fury. Therefore she dismissed Martha, curtly, before accompanying Charles to the front door, soothing his ruffled temper with many submissive expressions of agreement. (As ever, it required only deference to calm his rage.) Then, once he had left the house, she went to the kitchen. There she found Martha fearfully awaiting punishment; with her large, suety face, greasy hair and shambling gait, Martha seemed to belong in the kitchen.
Her appearance did not excite the same degree of irritation and disgust among the boilers and dripping pans as it did in more refined surroundings. Her clumsiness was perhaps more pardonable when only gridirons and saucepans were at risk.
‘Martha,’ her mistress declared sternly, trying to ignore the presence of Daniel Callaghan (who was quietly cleaning the silver), ‘I am very disappointed in you.’
Martha stared mutely.
‘Carelessness may be excused, Martha, but not dishonesty,’ Dorothea continued. ‘It was your duty to tell Captain Brande what you had done as soon as you did it.’
Martha mumbled an apology, her eyes cast down, her fingers working in the folds of her apron. Dorothea’s gaze wandered towards the kitchen table, where Martha had been preparing a beef-steak pie. Boiled meat, already drying, lay in a dish lined with paste.
‘Martha, where is the broth?’ Dorothea inquired, briefly distracted from her purpose. ‘You should moisten that meat with the water in which it was boiled, before you bake it.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘I have told you this before.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘If you do not improve, Martha, I am very sorry, but you will have to be dismissed. Captain Brande will not stand for it. He will not, Martha.’
‘Oh Mum,’ Martha whimpered, ‘please, Mum, I ham sorry. I ham.’
‘So you say—’
‘Mum, please.’ The woman’s voice cracked on a sob. ‘Don’t turn me away.’
‘I do not wish to turn you away,’ Dorothea replied. ‘But if you do not apply yourself, Martha—’
‘They’ll send me back to the Fact’ry!’
‘Well … perhaps.’ Dorothea was uncertain as to what this might mean. She could only assume that Martha was referring to the Female Factory at Parramatta, where—as far as Dorothea knew—convict women were housed and given work commensurate with their skills. ‘Perhaps you are better fitted to work in a manufactory—not having been trained to domestic service,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you would be better off weaving or dyeing.’
‘Oh Mum, the Fact’ry ain’t no fit place! No fit place for man nor beast! No—nor woman, neither! They—they shaved our ’eads! They put us on the mill! Ah God, Mum, not that place!’
The passion in her housemaid’s tone startled Dorothea, who fell back a step. In some discomfort, she watched Martha begin to cry, slobbering into her apron.
The sight of such distress was quite painful to behold.
‘Please calm yourself, Martha,’ Dorothea said, not as firmly as she would have liked. ‘There is no need for such an exhibition. Simply do your work well, and … and no one will be dismissed.’
An empty promise, in many ways. But Dorothea did turn her attention to the problem of Martha’s shortcomings, and the next day, having given the matter some thought, she approached Daniel Callaghan with a suggestion. She was reluctant to do so, of course. Being still wary of his size and his history, she avoided speaking to him wherever possible. But she was forced to acknowledge that he had, against all expectations, proven to be a most dependable servant, respectful and retiring. He was also much quicker than Martha could ever be, and had mastered a good many household tasks without undue effort.
So Dorothea sought him out the next morning, in the yard, where he was chopping wood. And she asked him if he considered himself capable of going to market in Martha’s place.
‘Martha will not learn,’ she explained. ‘Nothing makes the slightest impression upon her. She will never see the difference between good produce and bad.’ Carefully averting her eyes from Daniel’s dirty sleeve, squinting in the sunlight, Dorothea studied the shingle roof of the house next door. ‘I believe that you might do better,’ she went on. ‘You clean the silver very well, Daniel, but our food is more important. From this day, Martha will clean the silver, and you will go to market.’
Expecting a soft ‘Aye, Ma’am’ from her manservant, Dorothea was surprised when no reply was immediately forthcoming. She looked at him, and saw that he had bent his gaze to the axe in his hands. His brows were knitted, as if in thought; he was damp, and red-faced, and breathing heavily.
She was hardly aware of her own mounting sense of alarm, however, before he suddenly spoke.
‘Please, Ma’am,’ he said, ‘let me go to the market, and clean the silver also.’
‘But—’
‘Martha’s that clumsy, but the more she does, the worse she is.’ As was his custom, Daniel kept his eyes turned away from Dorothea as he conversed with her. He rarely raised them to look at anyone. ‘I like to clean the silver, Ma’am. ’Tis a fine thing, to see it shinin’ there.’
Dorothea could find nothing to say in response. She was almost too surprised to speak. At length, however, she murmured something that was not quite an expression of thanks, and went away to think about how Martha’s cooking might be improved.
For even the best quality produce would fail to restore domestic harmony, if it was not adequately prepared.
New South Wales
June 5th, 1814
My dearest Margaret,
What a perilous life we lead here. I had thought us safe from the threat of artillery, at least, but I was wrong. Two weeks ago, one of the transports upon which the regiment sailed caught fire; because it contained between thirty and one hundred and thirty casks of gunpowder (I have not yet been able to ascertain the exact number), it was immediately cut adrift from the government wharf, and went sailing down the harbour, menacing us all with its broadside—for every gun was shotted. Fourteen of them went off in all, beginning at half-past six in the evening, and Captain Piper lost the lower sash of his parlour window to a charge of grape, which also destroyed a shutter and took the corner off his portable writing desk. The ship then drifted onto the rocks opposite Mr Hook’s stores, where it exploded at about a quarter before eight.
As you may imagine, there was no promenade in Hyde Park that evening.
There have also been a great many native attacks on isolated farms and huts recently, and Mrs Macarthur lost one of her servants. (I have mentioned Mrs Macarthur, have I not? You may recall that we met at the Bents’ house.) Mrs Macarthur, whom I admire exceedingly, is superbly courageous in the face of native threats—for she lives at Parramatta, and must manage her acreage there without assistance, her husband being presently in England—but I should not be so brave. Nothing will persuade me to accept her invitation to dine with her at Parramatta. The road that leads there is much frequented by highwaymen (or ‘bushrangers’, as the local cant describes them), and I can see no reason to travel from one part of this country to another, since it is all the same.
Charles is in good health. He was disappointed when the post of aide-de-camp to the Governor went to Lieutenant Watts, but is bearing up well. His temper has also been sorely tried by the recent loss of one of his company—a Sergeant called Morrow—who was killed by an Irish woman in a disreputable drinking house. She stabbed him with his own bayonet. Owing to the dubious judiciary of New South Wales, however (and I should tell you that Mr Bent has always much to say on the subject), the murderess and her husband were not hanged. They received only two years’ hard labour at Newcastle, an outcome which Charles finds hard to stomach. He would like to sit on a bench, as certain other officers do, so that he might remedy such abuses; if he were a magistrate, moreover, he would have three convicts assigned to him, instead of only one, and our domestic situation would be much improved. But it must be confessed that I am not sanguine. Despite his active demeanour, Charles see
ms unable to recommend himself to those in positions of authority. I sometimes wonder if they are jealous of his looks.
For myself, I find hard to stomach the fact that such events as Sergeant Morrow’s slaying—being horribly commonplace in this part of the world—must form the subject of dinner conversation among respectable folk. One’s digestion suffers at most colonial tables. Not that we are wholly given up to social engagements here; indeed, I lead a fairly quiet life, Charles being so often from home attending mess dinners, Lodge meetings, and the like. But when we are abroad together, as we were the other night, our ears are continually assaulted by the most distasteful information. Is it unreasonable, I wonder, to hope that at a dinner held by my husband’s commanding officer, to celebrate the christening of his four-month-old son (a darling child, Margaret, so quiet and good!)—is it unreasonable, I ask you, to hope that I might not be assailed by lurid accounts of bloody depredations? Lieutenant Cox seemed to take a positive delight in acquainting me with the latest reports on native activity, which would have the various tribes declaring their determination that, when ‘the Moon shall be as large as the Sun’, they will commence a work of desolation, and kill all the whites before them.
Can you wonder that I rarely leave the house?
On occasion, however, I must make my appearance at certain gatherings. I drank tea with Mrs Macquarie yesterday, on the occasion of the anniversary of His Majesty’s birth. All the principal ladies of the colony were invited, and the conversation was almost exclusively concerned with the care of infants, this being a subject very much on Mrs Macquarie’s mind at present. She seems pleasant enough, though perhaps a little enthusiastic in her manner. I find that a Scottish accent, in a lady, is rather more difficult to endure than it is in a gentleman; I do not know why. But Mrs Macquarie was perfectly polite, and did not distinguish any one of the ladies present with the kind of special little attentions that can so often lead to disharmony and ill will.
As you may imagine, I continue to long for Bideham Park while in such company. My receiving cloth is now one-third complete, and I flatter myself that I have captured the very tint and shade of your old cinnamon roses. I pray nightly for that Event without which the cloth will never be used. Nothing in this world would make me happier than to see it wrapped around the Inheritor of all my hopes and dreams, whose coming will justify my very existence. Pray for me, dearest Margaret. And believe me to be