Toward Love's Horizon Page 7

  Her wide aquamarine eyes with that indefinable air of past sorrows melted his reserve. He couldn’t help but admire her and the fact that she had made such a voyage dragging herself and her children halfway around the world. She could have sent agents to do the job.

  “Lady Harrington,” he replied getting to his feet. “I will do everything within my power to help you.”

  He looked through the files himself searching for the name Scott Harrington. Over an hour later he shook his head dejectedly and Angela’s heart sank. It was going to be harder than she had expected at first but she should have anticipated that. After all nothing had been going right for the past four years—why should it be easy now?

  “There is no record of him, but don’t lose hope. Your husband must have arrived in 1808 and Governor Bligh was in charge here then. Things were very disorganized—what with all the graft and corruption among the officers. You must have heard of the Rum Corps? A thoroughly bad business culminating in Governor Bligh’s arrest.

  “Records could easily have been lost; in fact a lot of Bligh’s personal things disappeared without a trace. Sometimes too, no records at all were sent on the convict ships. There was no way of knowing a convict’s name or the sentence the courts had handed down. It was left to the discretion of the governor as to how long each man or woman would serve.”

  “Then there is a chance that he arrived and is here—somewhere....” she choked on the last word, her worst fears looming before her.

  When Keith had tricked her into believing Scott dead he had used a plausible enough story since many of the convicts died en route to the penal colony. What if the sham had been true after all unknown to Keith and Scott really had died on board the ship, never reaching this land? Frantically Angela pushed aside the thought. She couldn’t go to pieces in front of Governor Macquarie. Her search couldn’t end so abruptly.

  “Please, Lady Harrington, don’t distress yourself. If your husband is here I assure you we will find him. Perhaps he assumed another name,” he suggested soothingly. “Without records many convicts did that hoping to spare their families’ names.”

  Governor Macquarie went to the door and called his secretary. “Have tea sent in. And send for Captain Macdonald. I want him here within the hour!”

  The governor further allayed Angela’s fears over an excellent tea which she choked down for his benefit. He told her about the colony and some of its history and his plans for future growth. Already since his arrival in 1809 the colony was vastly improved.

  He had broken the power of the Rum Corps, the officers of which had drawn their army pay while engaging in their own business ventures. They had been granted huge parcels of land and used their time farming and lining their own pockets, seemingly safe under cover of the vast distance from home and England’s preoccupation with the French war.

  From their position of authority they monopolized trade setting prices and robbing the government, prisoners, and small holders. Rum was the means of exchange, for with it they could acquire anything: convict labor, land grants, houses, luxuries from home. Rum was used like money, and though it was illicit they were so powerful who could stop them?

  So they broke every rule of their service and every law of the land, making themselves rich in the process. When Governor Macquarie arrived he brought his own regiment with him, the Seventy-third Highlanders, and had the 102nd Regiment of the Line alias the Rum Corps recalled to England.

  Now under his benevolent dictatorship the colony flourished. Licensed public houses in Sydney were reduced from seventy-five to twenty. He widened the streets and forbade the erection of temporary buildings. New buildings went up: a granary, barracks for one thousand soldiers, a market near Cockle Bay—and there were grand plans for a future hospital and church. The Parramatta Road was repaired and the stumps removed, and he advocated morality by encouraging marriage and pardoning convict women who found respectable husbands.

  “There will be no problem finding your husband, Lady Harrington. After all we are a small colony. Our perimeters are limited to the area approximately fifty miles around Sydney. After that the bush and the Blue Mountains take over and no white man has made it past there. So you see, with some time and patience he is sure to be found.”

  Angela smiled, relieved by his optimistic outlook but he hadn’t told her about the outpost settlements. Let her start with Sydney, Parramatta, and the Hawkesbury areas first. Then she could search Brisbane, Newcastle, Norfolk Island, and Van Diemen’s Land where the most vicious scum of all were sent.

  “I’m going to assign Captain Macdonald the task of helping you find your husband. He knows the area and many of the settlers from here to the mountains. Then you will need to find a place to stay and servants. I’ll assign you as many convicts as you need and Macdonald can see to all the details. Yes, he’s your man to get things done.”

  “Governor Macquarie,” Angela said bemusing him momentarily with her most dazzling smile. “I’m forever in your debt. I can’t thank you enough for your help....” A knock on the door interrupted her, and the governor barked an order to enter.

  Captain Macdonald hesitated, stifling a yawn with one hand on the doorknob. He had been in this godforsaken place for two full years now and cursed the impulse that had made him join the Seventy-third Highlanders. But who would have thought at that time that the regiment would be posted to Sydney?

  Sick to death of the monotonous rounds in London, the endless partying, gambling, and debaucheries he had joined the regiment for a diversion. Besides, all his riotous living in London hadn’t been able to blot out the terrible void of his lost love. No other woman had even come close to filling that gap.

  He had gone from one extreme to the other; from excesses in London to burying himself in his moldering old castle in Scotland for months at a time. The fact that the woman he loved was married to another man who treated her badly didn’t help matters any.

  Now he was the one moldering away in New South Wales, a scruffy dumping ground for felons. But lately his interest had been picking up in the things around him. He had received a land grant on the Hawkesbury River and was fascinated by the speculations of what lay beyond the Blue Mountains. Men were predicting land of untold fertility and he was itching to be part of an expedition.

  Imagine being the first white man to cross the mountains and see what no one but the aborigines had laid eyes on before. It had been tried several times before but no way could be found past the barrier of the mountains. But he had a new theory that they should follow the ridges instead of the valleys, and had proposed it to the governor. His blood coursed faster—maybe the summons was good news. Could an expedition have been formed?

  Captain Macdonald burst into the room with boyish enthusiasm, his sun-bleached sandy hair falling across his forehead. The woman in the chair glanced up at him and he paled visibly beneath his dark tan, petrified into speechlessness.

  “Clyde!” Angela cried rising gracefully and rushing at him. Somehow both of her hands were in his and her warm smile was melting away the shock that froze him. “Clyde Macdonald! Of all the people to meet at the end of the world! I’m so glad to see you again, although our parting was rather—abrupt!”

  There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes reminding them both of their last meeting and his ignoble departure. Being booted in the seat of his pants down a long flight of stone stairs by her husband was definitely not an impression he had relished leaving her with. But considering the towering rage Lord Harrington had been in, the faster his exit, the better.

  He filled his eyes with her, sure the mirage would waver and vanish. But this was no illusion and she squeezed his hands and he couldn’t help but respond to her silvery laughter. He smiled in bewilderment and lines crinkled at the corners of his boyish green eyes.

  “Angela! Angela! I never thought I would see you again. And to meet you here of all places—why here?”

  The governor cleared his throat and brought the young officer back t
o reality. He had completely forgotten the summons, where he was, and the fact that Macquarie was in the background watching the whole scene. Dropping Angela’s hands Clyde saluted smartly and the governor hid his smile.

  Things were becoming quite interesting, Macquarie thought, and all in the matter of a few hours. The fact that they were acquainted was astounding and to break the awkward silence he said, “Obviously introductions are unnecessary.”

  “You must forgive us, Governor, but Clyde and I are old friends,” explained Angela taking a seat again. “We were neighbors in Scotland. Why our castles were separated only by a small stretch of water and some mountains, which in the Highlands is like living on each other’s doorsteps.”

  Clyde listened with a perplexed frown as Governor Macquarie explained his assignment. It was all as clear as mud with only the sketchiest of explanations. “If Lady Harrington wishes she can fill in more of the details but I will leave that to her discretion.”

  Lachlan Macquarie fixed him with a stern look. “Of course, everything said here today is in the strictest confidence, Captain Macdonald, and does not bear repeating. I will expect a full report from you once a fortnight as to your progress.”

  As Angela left the office on Clyde’s arm she was cheered immensely. To find a friend when she had expected none and to have acquired the full cooperation of the governor made her sure her quest would end soon and successfully. On the carriage ride back to the Cygnet she filled in the details of her life during the five-year interval since she and Clyde had last met. Not all the details by any means, but just enough so that the puzzled look left his eyes.

  As the sun shone down on them in the open carriage she marveled that he had grown from an average looking boy into a handsome man. Perhaps it was the sun-darkened face and the red and white uniform with the dully glinting gold braid, or could it be his confident military bearing? Well neither one of them was the same as they had been but one thing was the same; he couldn’t hide the open admiration in his eyes or the fact that he was still wildly infatuated with her.

  Within a week Angela was settled in a small but charming red brick house overlooking Cockle Bay. It was on the outskirts of town away from all the noise, squalor, and hustle and bustle. The bush pressed in very close to them and she liked that. It was more like living in the country and she caught occasional glimpses of exotic birds—parakeets and cockatoos—flashing brightly against the dull gray-green of the gum trees.

  The house had only one floor with three bedrooms, a dining room, a sitting room, and a lean-to kitchen. But there was a stable out back large enough for four horses and the green hill they occupied was laid out like a well-ordered English garden. The rent was outrageous but then the price of everything here was wildly inflated.

  Clyde had been instrumental in finding the house and the two horses that now resided in the stable. He insisted she use his carriage until one could be found for her and after all his activities of getting her situated he spent his evenings tirelessly seeking out convicts wherever they were and searching their faces. Lachlan Macquarie had been right, he was efficient and to Angela indispensable. She was relying on him more and more with each passing day.

  It had rained, just enough to wet down the streets so that the dust didn’t take to the air covering everything. Now it was very hot and the sun beat down mercilessly on the lush garden of English flowers that seemed so incongruously out of place in such an exotic land.

  Angela stood beneath a wattle tree heavily weighed down with golden blooms, taking advantage of its shade. For the past three mornings at exactly ten o’clock the same bedraggled procession had made its way up the hill and into her garden, for as of today no proper servants had been found. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as Clyde herded a group of smelly, filthy convict women through the gate.

  Would she never find even two suitable servants? She had the pick of all the unemployed convicts in the colony but couldn’t bring herself to choose one of those sluttish, evil-looking creatures to entrust with the care of the house to say nothing of the children. With a soft sigh she watched as Clyde lined them up for her inspection.

  They all looked alike: their hair lank and greasy the color of mud, their bodies covered indecently with rags, the dirt so ingrained into their skin that it was gray. Only their shapes and eyes were different and the eyes were those of dangerous caged beasts filled with hate or sly boldness.

  Angela tried to hold her breath against the foul odor as she walked slowly down the straggling line. She didn’t get too close for they were alive with lice and after the first day she knew why Clyde had insisted on bringing them no farther than the garden.

  She was almost at the end of the line, utterly depressed, thinking of Scott in the same condition. What if she had passed him by without recognizing him? It was quite possible when humans were reduced to a degrading sameness. Had he been shackled to one of those repulsive chain gangs she had seen being driven like cattle through the city? Surely she would know if she passed that close to him—her heart would signal her, he would call out her name or she would recognize those golden-brown eyes that haunted her dreams.

  The two grotesque scarecrows at the very end of the line clung together as closely as Siamese twins with their heads bowed staring at the grass. They were much younger than the others.

  “Your name?” inquired Angela of the taller of the two.

  “Kate Murray, milady,” she said with a thick brogue and a little bob of a curtsy that made the girl she was clinging to dip too. She looked up with wide gray eyes filled with despair and a certain resignation.

  “How old are you, Kate?” asked Angela, her interest sparked by a dim flicker of impudence in her eyes.

  “Nineteen, milady, and my sister Maggie is seventeen,” she said with a quick glance at the smaller girl she held onto.

  “Can you cook and sew? Have you ever looked after children?”

  “Oh, yes! I’m the oldest and there are thirteen little ones in me family. Both of us can cook and sew, plant potatoes, shear sheep, spin wool, weave. . .

  “How long is your sentence?”

  “Seven years—for the both of us, milady.”

  “And the crime?”

  “Why for the crime of being Irish!”

  “Don’t be impertinent!” snapped Clyde slapping his riding whip threateningly against a shiny black boot.

  “ ’Tis the truth, sir!” she looked appealingly at Angela. “I swear on all the holy saints, milady. Me Da was hidin’ guns in the loft and the soldiers came and burned down the house. They shot me Da in the field and carted us all off.” Tears traced grimy rivers down her cheeks. “We were all separated except Maggie and me and us not knowin’ what’s become of the rest!

  “Seven years, the judge said, though we told himself we didn’t know our Da had the guns.”

  Maggie was crying now too, silently with just the shaking of her thin body as proof of her distress. They looked like two abandoned kittens clinging together for safety in the midst of a storm. Somehow Angela knew Kate was telling the truth and her heart went out to them. How many more tragedies would send innocents like Kate and Maggie to their doom?

  “I’ll take these two,” she told Clyde. “But how will I ever get them clean?”

  “I suppose they are probably the best you will find, Angela. But don’t be taken in by their story. Every convict here is innocent—according to their version.” He gave her a wry smile. “Can you manage them while I get the rest of these sluts back?”

  “Of course I can, Clyde,” Angela laughed. “You don’t know me very well—I can handle anything!”

  He gave her a piercing look. “Someday you just might come up against a situation that you won’t be able to handle!” But she kept laughing and waved him off, turning her attention back to the two Murrays baking in the sun.

  “You, my girls, are going to have a bath.” Kate smiled at her nodding in agreement. “Ezra!” she called walking toward the house. “Ezra!”


  He came through the back door ducking so he wouldn’t bump his head. “Look what I have found,” she said turning toward the girls just in time to see Kate cross herself several times as she stared in horror at Ezra. “Two servants fresh from Ireland. . . .”

  “I’d hardly say fresh,” commented Ezra as he got a little closer and caught a whiff of them.

  “You didn’t smell like a rose yourself when I found you,” she admonished with mock severity, behind which lurked a smile.

  Ezra brought a big tin tub out into the garden and strung ropes between several trees from which he hung blankets to provide a secluded outdoor bathroom for the girls to bathe. They watched him with fear, for neither of them had ever seen a Negro before. When his amber eyes glanced their way Kate’s lips moved as if she was praying for deliverance under her breath.

  Under Angela’s watchful gaze they bathed and washed their hair with strong lye soap. She made them repeat the process several times, rinsing their hair with strong disinfectant while Ezra burned their clothes. When they were finally clean and she was properly satisfied the vermin were gone she stood back and surveyed her handiwork.

  They were both utterly transformed and Angela noted with surprise what wonders could be accomplished with soap and water. Kate’s hair was a fiery red and her short nose was generously peppered with golden freckles—not a pretty girl by any stretch of the imagination, but once she gained a little weight men wouldn’t find her unattractive. Maggie had brown hair and enormous brown eyes that eclipsed her pointed little face. So far she hadn’t spoken one word even when Angela questioned her.

  “She doesn’t talk,” Kate informed her, “not a word from her lips since. . . .” Her sentence dangled in the hot summer air.

  “Since what?”

  “Since the jail,” Kate answered almost too quickly. “Terrible it was!”

  Angela had a feeling she wasn’t being told the whole truth about Maggie’s muteness, but wasn’t even a convict entitled to privacy? So instead of prying she spent part of the afternoon showing them what their duties would be. And when they met the children Maggie showed a spark of interest as Clare crawled over to her and hauled herself erect on her skirts. With a shy, fearful glance at her new mistress Maggie tentatively touched a golden curl on the baby’s head and when Angela nodded she bent and scooped her up burying her face against Clare’s soft shoulder.