'Has he th' bottom f'r a fight?'
Redfern grinned without humour. 'I think so, friend. He's the son of a draper born in the wilds of Launceston and knows what it is to stand before gentlemen and prevail.' His face clouded. 'I honour him most for his fearless support of those who have paid their penalty and want to contribute to their society. There are many—your MacArthur is chief among them—who would deny us the right and take the odious view that, once a criminal, the blood is tainted and we must be deprived for ever of any chance to aspire to higher things.'
'Do have some more silver bream, Mr Kydd. You'll find then why it's famed for its succulence,' Mrs King said brightly, easing a morsel of fish on to his plate, then motioning to the servant to offer it to the other guests.
It was indeed a fine dish and Kydd did justice to it. 'Tell me, Mrs King,' he mumbled, 'what is th' name o' the sauce? It has a rare taste.'
'Ah, that is our Monsieur Mingois having one of his better days. It is his Quin's fish sauce.'
King beamed at Kydd. 'Rather better than we find on our plate after a week or two at sea, hey?'
'Aye, sir—an' you'll be remembering th' midshipman's burgoo an' hard tack, not t' say other delicacies an enterprising young gentleman c'n find!'
Laughing gustily, King looked fondly at his wife. 'L'tenant, not so free, if you please, with your sea tales in front of Anna.' She dimpled and stifled a giggle.
Picking up his glass, Kydd enquired politely, 'The French still in harbour, sir, is it resolved as t' who may name th' new-found territories? Commander Flinders or . . . ?'
'Why, we, of course,' King answered smugly. 'Flinders was there before them. For all their 'Napoleon Strait,' 'Josephine Bight' and such, they were pipped. We have sea charts of our south such as would make you stare, sir.'
'Mr Kydd,' broke in Mrs King, 'were you indeed an officer at the glorious Nile with Admiral Nelson? I've only just heard.'
'Why, er, yes, Mrs King,' Kydd said. Now he understood: it had only just been discovered that he was a hero of the Nile, which placed him at a social pinnacle in this faraway outpost and had earned him the good-natured envy and curiosity of the governor, himself a naval officer and far from the excitement and honours of active service.
'Goodness, how exciting! We shall have a
'I'd be interested m'self, if I'm to be invited,' the governor said stiffly, but with a friendly gesture leaned over to top up Kydd's glass. 'Should you have been received by the first governor, your invitation to Government House would say, at the close, 'Guests will be expected to bring their own bread.''
He waited for the dutiful merriment to subside and went on, 'But as you might remark it, we have advanced a trifle since then. We are all but self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs and I have my hopes for a form of staple that may be exported. Coal, sir. We have made substantial finds on the banks of the Hunter River, and by this we may at last be able to expect a net inflow of specie and thus pay for our imports. And put a stop to this barbarous practice of payments in rum.'
The obvious sincerity in his enthusiasm for the enterprise touched Kydd. 'Sir, th' fine stone buildings I see on every hand are a great credit t' your colony. Y' have faith in its future, an' I hope t' make my return one day to see it.'
'Thank you, Mr Kydd. I have my faith also—but it shall be so only because the inhabitants themselves will it so. Sir, to be frank, there are those who would see a land with two peoples, the free settlers and the emancipated. They see the one in permanent subjugation to the other. I am not of that kind. I believe that if a convict is offered hope and rehabilitation and accepts, then he is redeemed and may take his place in our society. I will not have it that there are two races apart in the same land.'
'Hear, hear!' A strong-featured man further down the table raised his glass to the governor. Others murmured approbation.
'I dream that this settlement shall mightily increase, shall prosper by the labours and blood of both bound and free and, with our staple now secured and a mighty port at our feet, within a lifetime we shall be a great and wonderous people upon the land.'
A burst of applause broke out. Kydd watched the faces: hard, sun-touched and lean. Some of these were probably the 'emancipated' of whom King had spoken, and each had a sturdy, unaffected air of resolution that made the governor's dream seem so very possible.
'Do tip us the poem of Sydney Cove, Jonathan, if you will,' King directed at the strong-featured man. Then he turned to Kydd and said, 'Penned by Erasmus Darwin at our establishing and only now proving true—except for the bit about the fantastical bridge across the harbour, that is.'
It was met with proud cries and hearty table thumps. A realisation dawned on Kydd: beyond the tawdry and makeshift of the raw settlement, beyond the flogging triangles and penal apparatus, there were those who were going to bring a new country to life by their own efforts and vision.
For the first time he understood what was impelling Renzi. What he had seen was beyond the dross of the everyday. He had known that New South Wales had a future, a splendid future, and the country would owe it to Renzi and his kind. Such sacrifice— and so typical of his high-born friend.
His eyes stung as he wondered where Renzi was at that moment.
CHAPTER 14
THE BAD BLOOD between the convicts and the new men was getting worse. Willis, whom Renzi had hired to act as wrangler, was big and swaggering, with a foul mouth. The other was a laconic Portuguese seaman who, for some reason, had put himself out for hire as a farm labourer. Probably it was the money, Renzi mused wryly—it was costing four shillings a day for him and five for Willis, a shocking sum compared to rates in England but it was the only way he could see to get the work done.
