An Unconventional Heiress

Sarah nodded. ‘I know who is going to make a good marriage, thinking like that, Lucy. That is, if you don’t meet someone devastatingly handsome, and quite worthless, and fall head over heels in love with him. I don’t advise you to do that.’

Her tone was so bitter that Lucy looked at her curiously—but said nothing.

‘Come on, my love,’ Sarah said at last, slipping her hand round Lucy’s waist. ‘Downstairs with you so that we can try to find these paragons whom we ought to marry.’

They met Pat Ramsey in the little hall. Lucy moved away, probably to try to find Frank Wright, leaving Sarah to entertain Pat again.

‘Your servant, Miss Langley. No Emancipists here to amuse you tonight, hey?’

Sarah was annoyed to discover that her friendship with Tom was the subject of gossip, but she refused to betray her feelings.

‘I’m sure, Captain Ramsey, that Mrs Menzies’s guest list is composed of only the best in Sydney society.’

He roasted her gently. ‘Ah, but what is the best, Miss Langley? The latest on dit, from Colonel O’Connell, no less, is that the Governor is thinking of making magistrates of some of the Emancipists. Imagine Dilhorne and Kerr as magistrates, what could be more respectable than that? O’Connell is nearly having apoplexy at the very thought. Now you, I suppose, would approve of at least one of my two names, if not the other.’

Sarah refused to be drawn. ‘Tedious stuff, Captain Ramsey—and why should you suppose any such thing? For all you know, I might be willing to support one of the aborigines as a magistrate. It might be what the colony deserves.’

Pat gave a shout of laughter that penetrated into the Menzies’s drawing room and turned heads there. ‘Oh, Miss Langley, you quiz me cruelly. You make me realise that Sydney’s gain is London’s loss. Come, take my arm—my stay tonight will be longer than usual for your sake alone, I promise you.’

She took his arm, but her smile for him was cold. ‘For my sake, Captain Ramsey? Pray do not put yourself out for my sake.’

He bowed to her again before they entered to make their salutations to the Major and his wife. ‘If not for you, Miss Langley, then for no one.’

Sarah forbore to tell him how much such idle badinage bored her. She had heard sufficient of it from Charles to sicken her of it forever, but she supposed that it was the usual way in which men spoke to women, and she must endure it or earn the title of a shrew.

The assembled guests chattered and gossiped for a short time before the main event of the evening—which was a short concert—began, and Sarah found herself being compelled to listen to a great deal of the kind of fustian which Pat had been serving up to her. Not only that, much of the gossip was again about the Emancipists and their goings-on. It seemed that one of Sydney’s select gentlemen’s clubs—if not the most select—had actually asked Tom Dilhorne to become a member. Worse than that, he had actually accepted their invitation. It became the evening’s major topic of conversation.

‘I don’t believe it’, ‘It can’t be true’ and ‘Whatever next!’ were only a few of the comments that flew round the room. ‘They’ve only invited him because they want to get a finger in his financial pies,’ said one knowledgeable old fellow who worked at Government House.

‘Ah, but you haven’t heard the best part of the story—which also happens to be true,’ said Frank Wright. ‘You remember Fred Waring?’

Heads nodded. Yes, everyone remembered Fred Waring, the drunken remittance man of good family who had been sacked from his poor post as a Government clerk for drunkenness and incompetence.

‘It seems that when Fred turned up and found Dilhorne present by invitation of the committee he made a great scene and said that if Dilhorne, who was nothing but a rascally Emancipist, had been admitted as a member, he would resign and leave immediately. The chairman told him that it was his choice since Dilhorne was staying, so Waring walked out.’

‘There’s not a decent house in Sydney that will receive him,’ Sarah heard one stout matron say. ‘And now he’s not even got the club to attend. Is his daughter here tonight?’

Frank Wright looked around. ‘I don’t think so. Only the Middletons receive her these days and not very often, I believe.’

‘Do you know his daughter?’ Sarah whispered to Lucy who was, as usual, being squired by Frank.

‘Who? Oh, you mean little Hester Waring. Not that she’s so very little, but she’s a poor shy creature, about my age, quite plain. They say that Fred ill treats her. Mama and Papa came across them, by chance, the other night when they were returning home after visiting Colonel O’Connell. He was quite drunk. Hester was trying to help him along and he was cursing her. Now Mama says that she won’t have her in the house, either. She could be setting a bad example for me to follow. Oh, look, Mama is signalling to me that the concert is about to begin and I am the first performer.’

Poor Hester Waring, indeed, thought Sarah, and then forgot her. Lucy was opening the evening’s bill of fare by singing two old Scots ballads, after which Captain Parker was to delight the audience with some folk songs.

‘He has a pleasant baritone voice,’ Lucy had told Sarah. The next turn was to be Sarah’s: she was to play a short piano piece and then sing some of the songs that had been all the fashion when she had left London.

All in all, once the gossip about the Emancipists had been disposed of, it had been one of the more pleasant evenings that Sarah had spent since setting foot in Sydney. She was flattered by the young officers, and deferred to by most of the matrons and their husbands, even if they did deplore her taste for talking to such undesirables as Tom Dilhorne and Will French. Besides, her brother was a fine figure of a man, and filthy rich, too. Who knows, given a bit of luck he might even decide to take one of their daughters for a wife before he returned home again.

Of course, Sarah soon found that this sense of well-being was too good to last long. Two days after the party she was sitting in the drawing room, readying herself to do some painting, when she heard violent screaming coming from the kitchen.

She put down her unopened portfolio and ran to discover what in the world could be the matter. Before she reached the door, Nellie flung it open.

‘Oh, Mum, it’s poor Sukie, that old bitch Hackett was downright careless with the kettle and managed to pour boiling water all down Sukie’s arm. It’s in a right mess.’

Sarah pushed past the distraught girl into the kitchen to find that she was speaking no less than the truth. Sukie, now sobbing gently, was seated in a Windsor chair while Mrs Hackett, ignoring the scarlet ruin of her forearm, and making no attempt to care for it, was berating her at the top of her voice.

‘You careless fool,’ she was roaring, ‘do you never look where you’re going? Now you won’t be fit to work for a least a week. I’ve a good mind to turn you off immediately.’

Sukie’s sobs redoubled and Nellie shrieked, ‘It weren’t her fault. ’Twas yours, you old cow.’

Sarah banged a fist on the table.

‘Be quiet, all of you. Whose fault it was is of no account, Mrs Hackett. May I also remind you that it is I who turn off servants in this house, not you. At the moment Sukie’s welfare is all that matters. Allow me to look at your arm, Sukie. No, don’t wince, I shan’t touch it.’

Mrs Hackett opened her mouth to defend herself, but Sarah banged the table again, raising her own voice this time. ‘Be silent, Mrs Hackett, while I examine Sukie’s arm.’

This served to quell the housekeeper, but her malevolent glare was now for the mistress and not the maid. Sarah took no notice of her, particularly when she discovered that Sukie’s arm was so badly scalded that she needed the assistance of a doctor.

She looked up at Nellie. ‘Is Carter at home—or did he go out with Mr John?’

‘At home, Mum—doing some carpentry in the shed at the back.’

‘Good, go and tell him what has happened and ask him to run round to Dr Kerr and see if he is able to visit us immediately. I understand that he has returned from Paramatta.’

‘Yes, Mum,’ and Nellie lumbered off to find Carter, who, she told herself fiercely, wouldn’t be best pleased to hear that the old bitch had hurt the girl he had been sparking at recently. Divested of her weird clothing and attired in one of Sarah’s old cotton dresses, Sukie had begun to blossom—until this latest mishap had occurred.

‘Make yourself useful, Mrs Hackett,’ Sarah said sharply, ‘and brew us some tea. Drinking it might help poor Sukie to feel a little better.’

She had never felt herself to be so helpless before. She had not the slightest notion of how to treat the dreadful burn, which was beginning to weep gently, so that when the kitchen door opened and Alan Kerr, followed by Carter, came in, carrying his bag, she sprang to her feet to greet him.

‘Oh, I am so happy to learn that Carter found you so quickly. Poor Sukie really does need some instant attention. There has been an accident in the kitchen, and as a result boiling water was poured over her forearm.’

Alan Kerr stared at the little scene. At Sarah, who had now seated herself at the kitchen table, her cup of tea before her, at Nellie, holding a cup for Sukie to drink from, and at Mrs Hackett, standing belligerent, arms akimbo, before the kitchen range, glaring her dislike at everyone, including him.

He put his bag down and pulled up a kitchen chair so that he was able to sit by poor Sukie and inspect her arm most carefully before deciding how to treat it. Even so, he still found time to notice that Miss Sarah Langley seemed to be in much finer fettle than usual. She finished drinking her tea before rising and coming over to watch him treat Sukie.

I refuse to stand here helpless, thought Sarah firmly. Mrs Hackett is apparently useless in an emergency, and Nellie would doubtless be little better. I’m sure that he would welcome some assistance, even from me.

‘Doctor Kerr,’ she ventured, ‘if there is anything I may do to help you, pray tell me.’

‘Indeed, I will,’ he said, without looking up. ‘I usually have a young assistant with me, but he is out tending a poor old lady who does not need medical care but whom a little nursing will benefit. If you will pick up my bag, put it on the table and open it, you will find inside it a large blue bottle, some scraps of cotton wadding, bandages, and a pair of scissors. Hand me the bottle and the cotton, and have the bandages and the scissors ready to pass to me when I ask for them.’

Sukie gave a groan on hearing the word scissors. Doctor Kerr said kindly to her while he poured something from the bottle on to the cotton. ‘Don’t be frightened, Sukie, I don’t propose to cut you with the scissors, only some of the wadding and the right length of bandage.’

He worked patiently on in silence, Sukie occasionally moaning a little. After a moment Mrs Hackett snorted. Sarah looked across at her and said, as pleasantly as she could, ‘I would be grateful, Mrs Hackett, if you would put a kettle on to boil again. I don’t think that Dr Kerr will need any hot water in his treatment of Sukie, but I’m sure that he would be grateful for a cup of tea when he has finished.’

The woman tossed her head, but did as she was bid. Alan Kerr, on hearing this little interchange, smiled to himself, remembering his conversation with Tom Dilhorne. Well, he was seeing Miss Sarah Langley in action against Mrs Hackett and it was quite plain who was the victor. Miss Langley was not going to be driven to tears by the old battle-axe. Not only that, when he said, somewhat peremptorily, ‘Bandages!’, she was prompt to hand them over, and then the scissors, after another brusque command.

Finally he had finished. Sukie’s poor arm had been carefully dressed and her pain relieved a little in consequence. Mrs Hackett needed yet another order from Sarah: this time to make the tea, and offer Dr Kerr some biscuits, which she did with an ill grace. While he waited he held Sukie’s hand and tried to comfort her.

‘It looks worse than it is,’ he said, ‘but it is a very nasty scald and you are not to use that arm until I have seen you again in a few days’ time. I am leaving Miss Langley a small bottle of laudanum for you to take a few drops at night so that the pain does not prevent you from sleeping. I’m sure she will see the necessity for you to rest until the arm is healed.’

‘Indeed,’ said Sarah, and then sternly to her housekeeper, ‘You heard that, Mrs Hackett—Sukie is to rest until Dr Kerr says that she is fit to work again.’

‘Doubtless you’ll send her back home for them to look after her,’ Mrs Hackett bit back.

‘No.’ Sarah’s voice was as cold as it was firm. ‘She sustained her injury here, and here she will be looked after—be in no doubt of that.’

Alan Kerr nearly choked over his cup of tea at the sight and sound of Miss Sarah Langley treating the town dragon to the same dismissive manner that she had employed with him. His feelings for her were growing into a strange blend of admiration and dislike—mixed with something else which he tried to thrust to the back of his mind. It would never do for him to begin to feel anything like lust—yes, that was what it must be, lust—for a woman so far above him in station.

Sarah was also seeing a new side to him. His care and consideration for Sukie had been exemplary. He had insisted that she be given another cup of tea—‘with plenty of sugar, mind’—and before he left had given Sarah and Mrs Hackett instructions about what to do if the pain increased, or a fever developed.

‘You are to send for me at once, at any hour of the day or night, if you are worried about her condition,’ he ended, immediately before leaving them.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Hackett when the door shut behind him, ‘I’m glad to see the back of him. It’s a great pity that decent people have to depend for their doctoring on an Emancipist.’

‘That will be quite enough,’ said Sarah, tired of the woman’s unpleasantness. ‘He dealt with poor Sukie’s scald most efficiently and that is all that matters, not what label he has been given. Nellie, you must look after Sukie while I make arrangements for a temporary servant to take her place. If she feels faint, help her up to bed. If she can’t walk, then Carter will be able to carry her.’

She was surprising even herself, she thought. If she had been at home, back in England, she would never even have known that a servant had been scalded, let alone have helped with her treatment and then been responsible for replacing her!

Not only that, but she was daily performing tasks that other people had done for her. She was beginning to find pleasure in doing them and also that she had an unsuspected talent for organising the work of the house. One drawback, however, was that all these new duties were preventing her from having the time to paint the strange scenery that lay all around her.

After Sukie’s replacement has arrived, she promised herself, she would try to remedy that by persuading Lucy to go with her on some afternoon excursions to the more picturesque parts of Sydney. It would be pleasant to spend an afternoon without having Mrs Hackett constantly troubling her with some problem which she should have been able to solve herself.

Suddenly life in Sydney seemed more bearable to her—and why should that be? Who would have thought that handing the surly Dr Kerr bandages and scissors, and looking after Sukie and Nellie’s welfare in the face of Mrs Hackett’s unspoken antagonism, would make her feel so fulfilled?

Stranger still, who would have thought that she would find herself defending Dr Kerr from Mrs Hackett’s unpleasant attempts to demean him?

Chapter Four

It was not the week-end, but the following week before Sarah could make one of the expeditions which she had promised herself. Sukie’s arm was healing nicely, but she was not yet ready to work again. Unfortunately their new girl justified Mrs Hackett’s daily complaints about her, but Sarah refused to send her back since there was no reason to believe that her replacement would be any better. Sarah, indeed, was beginning to think that they had been lucky to have Nellie and Sukie assigned to them, after she had listened to many of the other Sydney ladies moan about their own servants.

She had decided to walk towards the point, overlooking Cockle Bay, where she could draw the sea, the pines and the everlasting sky. She had hoped to have Carter with her, but John had taken him off into the bush early that morning to finish a picture which he had been painting for some time. Since she was not going very far from the edge of the town and was impatient to be off, she decided that she would be safe enough—and would be happier—on her own. Only Sukie could have gone with her and the heat of the day would have been too much for her in her weakened state.

She walked briskly down the unmade road outside their home, passing on the way a convict gang who were busy paving it. They were dressed in coarse canvas marked with a variety of arrows showing that it was drawn from Government stores. They stared boldly at her when she walked by them without an escort. One nudged another and their laughter followed her until she turned the corner.

The first time she had seen them she had been shocked, but familiarity bred contempt, and now she scarcely noted their presence. What did distress her were the aborigines she saw. They bore little resemblance either to the noble savage of Rousseau, or to the drawings in the folios that had so entranced John and herself. They sat about, half-naked, in the streets, occasionally clowning to entertain those few who might throw them money to buy the drink that degraded them further.

John had told her that they had met some in the bush who looked and behaved like the drawings they had seen back in England, and he could only conclude that it was living alongside their new European masters which had damaged them. What troubled her most was their apparent indifference to the life going on around them.

Nevertheless she walked merrily along, whistling quietly to herself, a low habit that she had learned from one of the grooms back home and had earned her reprimands from her father when she had indulged in it as a child. She wondered why she was doing it, and concluded that it was the result of a kind of mindless happiness brought on by the freedom of the trip that she was taking, the balmy weather and the chores which she had left behind.

She found a natural seat among the rocks on the cliff’s edge overlooking the sea, where the trees and bushes behind her offered her a little shade. She loosened the fichu around her neck, and since she was alone, she lifted her skirts to calf length in order to enjoy the breeze which came off the sea.

The scene before her came to life on the paper, and Sarah entered the almost trance-like state that accompanied her practice of the art she loved best in the world. So it was, she later understood, that she did not see or hear the arrival on this idyllic scene of what was to spoil it for her forever, so that she could never again pass it without a shudder.

Her first intimation of danger came with a foul smell accompanied by a low laugh. Startled, she half-turned to see that behind her had crept up a Caliban-like figure, half-naked, half-dressed like a scarecrow in a parody of a gentleman of fashion. He held a black bottle in his hand from which he drank as he staggered towards her. A final grotesque touch was a battered beaver hat which he wore on his filthy curls.

His pleasure on seeing her was unfeigned, but when he spoke his accent was so broad that it was almost impossible for Sarah to understand him. Of his intention, however, there was no doubt. He advanced on her, stopping once to call behind him, when, to her further dismay, another half-drunken, scantily clad figure emerged from the trees to leer at her.

Sarah rose and smoothed down her skirts, which seemed to be revealingly tight and scanty before these nightmare apparitions. So far the only sinister characters whom she had seen had been safely confined in irons, or under the escort of soldiers. She looked around her for help, but could see none.

‘I must go,’ she said, shakily, ‘I am expected back.’ Even to her own ears this sounded like a thin and unreal response, and so it seemed to Caliban who continued to stagger towards her.

‘Stay a while, my pretty. Jem and me can entertain you.’ His grin was wide and cruel.

‘No, no, I really must go.’

This parody of drawing-room conversation sounded ridiculous, even to Sarah, and, not surprisingly, had no effect on her tormentor who continued his steady advance on her, throwing away his bottle when he drew nearer. She could not back away from him since the cliff edge was behind her, and his companion had cut off her only other line of escape.

Finally he reached Sarah and caught her by the shoulders, swinging her round and throwing her towards Jem. ‘Let’s play, my pretty dear. Here, you have her, but you’re not to keep her, mind.’

She landed in Jem’s arms and when he caught her he kissed her full on the lips. The smell of gin on his foul breath was strong and his whiskered face scraped her soft cheek. Lost between fear and revulsion, choking, Sarah tore her face away. Her lips were already bleeding.

‘You’ll pay dearly for this,’ she cried, abandoning all pretence that she had any control over the dreadful situation in which she found herself.

‘Not us, missy.’ Jem grinned. ‘What makes you think that you will tell anyone, dearie?’

He loosened his grip, pushing her a little away from him so that he might pull at her hair which had fallen, loose, about her shoulders.

‘A right pretty doxy for us, eh, Charlie?’

He ran his eyes over her while she struggled to free herself after he had caught her again, secure in the knowledge that she could not escape him. Nevertheless, lost in a torment of fear and shame, she kicked his shins, broke away from him, and tried to run towards Sydney. Was it really possible that she was going to be attacked, ravished and killed on this barbarous coast so far from home and friends?

‘Oh, God,’ she cried. ‘Help me! Help me!’

Jem, laughing, allowed her to run a few steps towards the town before he caught her again, around the waist. He gripped her by her streaming hair and kissed her brutally, one hand roving over her body. ‘Stay still, my dearie. Old Jem’ll pleasure you right enough, after Charlie has had a go at you first. Here, Charlie, you have her again, but not for good, mind,’ and he threw her back to his mate with such force that Sarah lost her balance and landed in the dirt.

Charlie pulled her to her feet. She pushed him back, panting, ‘My brother is rich. He’ll reward you well if you take me home.’

‘Take you home? Now, why should we do that? Your filthy money’s no use to us in the bush. No, me duck. You can pleasure us here and now, and then the fish can have you.’

He pulled her to him: his intention was unmistakable. Sarah tried to fight him off, but in vain, and with Jem cheering him on, he began to bear her to the ground, shouting, ‘Oh, I likes a lass of spirit!’

It was hopeless: death and dishonour now seemed inevitable and a great sob burst from Sarah’s throat…

Doctor Alan Kerr had been visiting a shanty in The Rocks where a ragged Emancipist, who had been dividing his time between honest work and thieving, needed treatment for a leg broken in an attempt to burgle one of the poorer grog shops that existed only to serve such outcasts from society as he was. He had been part of a gang that had dragged him home rather than leave him for the watch to find lest he inform on them.

Alan had a good idea of how the fellow’s injury had come about, but he set his leg, left him some laudanum and took as payment a bottle of the grog, which the gang had liberated after the accident. After that he decided to ride home, having been on duty since sun-up when he had been called out to assist in a difficult birth.