Morgan’s Run

manners.

* * *

On the morrow, Monday, she saw little of Richard, who was off shortly after dawn to his work in the sawpits, came home for a hasty lunch of something cold with a pair of shoes for her, and spent most of his break at the pigsty, growing rapidly. It was about twenty feet on each side and consisted of wooden palings atop a course of stone.

“Pigs root,” Richard explained as he labored, “so they cannot be confined as sheep or cattle are, within a simple fence. And they must be shaded from the sun because they overheat and die. Their excrement stinks, but they are tidy creatures and always choose a corner only of the sty as their privy. That makes it easy to gather for manure-it is very rich manure.”

“Will I have to gather the manure?” she asked.

“Yes.” He lifted his head to give her a grin. “Ye’ll find that baths are very necessary.”

In the evening he did not come home. Her rations were hers to do with as she pleased, he told her; he was used to caring for himself and usually ate with Stephen, who was a stern bachelor and did not care for women in his house. They played chess, he explained, so she was to go to bed upon darkness without waiting for him or expecting to see him. Naive though she was, this seemed odd to Kitty. Stephen did not behave like a stern bachelor. Though, come to think of it, she had little idea how a stern bachelor behaved. However, that Sunday dinner had taught her that men liked the company of men and were hampered by the presence of women.

On Tuesday a marine private appeared to summon her to Sydney Town, where she was required to identify the man who had molested and robbed her. The view from Richard’s house was limited; Arthur’s Vale, opening out and out, astonished her. Green wheat and Indian corn grew up the slopes of the hills on either side, waved in the vale itself; there were occasional houses perched at the edges, several barns and sheds, a pond harboring ducks. Then all of a sudden she emerged from the vale into a large collection of wooden houses and huts arranged in proper treeless streets, an expanse of vividly green swamp separating them from bigger structures at the bottom of the hills; she passed by Stephen Donovan’s house without recognizing it.

Two military officers-she did not know a marine from a land soldier-waited for her outside a big, two-storeyed building she found out later was the marine barracks. A motley group of male convicts had been lined up nearby, and the officers were correctly dressed down to wigs, swords and cocked hats. The convicts all wore shirts.

“Mistress Clark?” asked the older officer, piercing her to the soul with a pair of pale grey eyes.

“Yes, sir,” she whispered.

“A man accosted ye on the road from Cascade on the day of the thirteenth of August?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He tried to force himself upon ye and tore your dress?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ye ran into the woods to escape?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did the man do then?”

Cheeks burning, striking eyes wide, she said, “He seemed at first to think of chasing me, then came voices. He picked up my bundle and bedding and walked in this direction.”

“Ye spent the night in the woods, is that so?”

“Yes, sir.”

Major Ross turned to Lieutenant Ralph Clark, who, having heard the story from Stephen Donovan and verified it from Richard Morgan, was curious to discover what his namesake looked like. Not a whore, he was relieved to see; as gentle and refined as Mistress Mary Branham, taken advantage of by a Lady Penrhyn seaman and delivered of a son in Port Jackson. She and the infant had been sent to Norfolk Island aboard Sirius; Clark had become interested in her after she was put to work in the officers’ mess. Adorably pretty, much in the mold of his beloved Betsy. Now that he knew Betsy and little Ralphie were safe and well in England-and especially now that he had his own comfortable house-it might be easier for Mary to look after just one officer and one house; her little boy was walking now and making rather a nuisance of himself. Yes, to take Mary Branham in would be doing her a good turn. Of course he would not mention this arrangement in his journal, which was written for darling Betsy’s eyes and could contain nothing might shock or perturb her. Slighting references upon damned whores were permissible, but approval of any convict woman was definitely not permissible.

Good, good! His mind made up on the future of Mary Branham and himself, he looked at the Major enquiringly.

“Lieutenant Clark, pray conduct Mistress Clark down the line to see if the villain is among this lot,” said Ross, who had rounded up every convict ever punished.

Talking to her kindly as they went, the Lieutenant led Kitty along the row of sullen men, then took her back to his superior.

“Is he there?” barked Ross.

“Yes, sir.”

“Where?”

She pointed to the man with two mouths. Both officers nodded.

“Thank ye, Mistress Clark. The private will escort ye home.”

And that was that. Kitty fled.

“Tom Jones Two,” said the private.

“That is who Mr. Donovan said it would be.”

“Ain’t none of them Mr. Donovan don’t know.”

“He is a very nice man,” she said sadly.

“Aye, he ain’t bad for a Miss Molly. Not one of your pretty field flowers. I watched him take a man apart with his fists-a bigger man than him too. Nasty when he are annoyed, Mr. Donovan.”

“Quite,” she agreed placidly.

And so went home with the private, Tom Jones Two forgotten.

Richard continued to absent himself in the evenings-not always, she learned, to play chess with Stephen. He was friends with the Lucases, someone called George Guest, a marine private Daniel Stanfield, others. What hurt Kitty most was that none of these friends ever asked her to accompany him, a reinforcement of his statement that she was his servant. It would be nice to have a friend or two, but of Betty and Mary she knew nothing, and Annie had indeed gone to the Lucases. Meeting Richard’s other helper, John Lawrell, had been an ordeal; he had glared at her and told her not to fiddle with his poultry or the grain patch.

So when she noticed a female figure tittuping up the path between the vegetables, Kitty was ready to greet the visitor with her best smile and curtsey. On Lady Juliana the woman would have been apostrophized as a quiz, for she was very grand in a vulgar sort of way-red-and-black striped dress, a red shawl with a long fringe proclaiming its silkness, shoes with high heels and glittering buckles, and a monstrous black velvet hat on her head nodding red ostrich plumes.

“Good day, madam,” said Kitty.

“And good day in return, Mistress Clark, for so I believe you are called,” said the visitor, sweeping inside. There she looked about with some awe. “He does do good work, don’t he?” she asked. “And more books than ever. Read, read, read! That is Richard.”

“Do sit down,” said Kitty, indicating a handsome chair.

“As fine as the Major’s,” said the red-and-black person. “I am always amazed at Richard’s run of good luck. He is like a cat, falls on his feet every time.” Her little black eyes looked Kitty up and down, straight, thick black brows frowning across her nose. “I never thought I was anything to look at,” she said, inspection finished, “but at least I can dress. You are as plain as a pikestaff, my girl.”

Jaw dropped, Kitty stared. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. Plain as a pikestaff.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Mrs. Richard Morgan, what do you think about that?”

“Nothing very much,” said Kitty when she got her breath back. “I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Morgan.”