Hester Waring's Marriage (12 page)

They all looked at one another and laughed immoderately. Even Lucy laughed, and hardly reprimanded Frank when, wiping his eyes, he said, ‘I didn't think that plain piece had it in her. The great Tom Dilhorne outwitted by a woman, and too gentlemanly these days to give it to her without permission. Sorry, Luce.'

Other gossip was even more indelicate. Running around Sydney, the unlikely tale even entered Government House and reached Lachlan Macquarie, who pulled his lip and said to his wife, ‘What is that devious devil up to now?'
He knew Tom better than most and could not believe him put upon by Hester Waring. Others, though, wanted to believe him bested, and even Mary Wilkinson, late Mahoney, thought it likely that Tom had been cheated, and felt sorry for him.

The last to know were the Kerrs. Most people were too afraid of them to pass on the news, but Sarah, while visiting Lucy Wright one afternoon, overheard some rude laughter about Tom and Hester, and said as fiercely as only she could, ‘What is that, Mrs Middleton? You are speaking of my friends. What slander is that?'

Before her mother could answer, Lucy, fearing an explosion if Sarah were publicly informed of the gossip, signalled to her and took her into another room to tell her what all Sydney already knew.

‘I don't believe it,' said Sarah sharply, and then fell silent, as everything she had wondered about the marriage, and how the pair had behaved after it, fell into place.

Lucy watched Sarah's face change, and thought, It's true then, the gossip is true, and somehow, Sarah knows. Since, for all her matronly assumptions and her pretty child, she was young and careless, she thought gleefully, What larks!

‘Can it be true, Alan?' Sarah asked her husband—he was the last person in Sydney to know. ‘Poor Tom. If it is true, what does it mean? Whatever can he be up to now?'

‘Yes, I think it's true. I've suspected so for some time. Hester does not look, or act, like a married woman. Her appearance is healthier than it was, but that is the result of having enough to eat and drink at last. But, Sarah, you know Tom nearly as well as I do. Believe as I must that there is more to this than Sydney thinks. Trust him, as I do.'

 

Aware or not aware of what was being said about his marriage—and it would have been strange if he did not know, for it was always held that whatever happened in Sydney, Tom Dilhorne somehow knew of it—Tom continued his wife's education in the ways of his world.

First, he insisted that she learn about his business. He had seen too many self-made men's widows cheated of the fortune their husbands had left them. He was determined that Hester should not be left unprotected.

Throwing the letters to her at breakfast was only part of his method of instruction. In the evenings he went further. The week after their marriage he called her into his study after their evening meal.

‘This room is yours, as well as mine,' he told her.

Hester looked about her, a little bewildered. He was standing at his desk and patiently he showed her his records, his private ledgers and the order in which his books and papers were arranged on the shelves.

Slowly Hester learned the mysteries of bookkeeping, discounting, money-lending, the running of his Emporium and his warehouses, the building and maintenance of ships, carriage building, the hauling of goods, the upkeep of quarries and the brickfield, and even the arcana of auctioneering—of which Tom was a master.

Some of this she found tedious, some of it interesting, if not exciting. She had a good mind, learned quickly and impressed him with her rapid grasp of affairs, and the matter-of-fact way in which she accepted what must have seemed to her an odd education for a gentlewoman.

Once, puzzling over his explanation of a deal with Sandy Jameson involving the brickfields and which owed more to Tom's intuitive understanding of the world than to his manipulation of figures and contracts, she put one word to him. ‘Why, Tom, why?'

Oddly now, whenever they were speaking seriously together, it had become Tom and Hester. Mr and Mrs Dilhorne were reserved for the comic banter with which they had begun their acquaintance and which had continued into their marriage.

He knew exactly what she meant. ‘I want you to understand everything I do, Hester. You are the only person in whom I confide and I want no other. You are my wife, even if in name only. You follow most ably all that I explain to you. If I should die suddenly—or be killed, for this is still a dangerous place—I do not want to leave you to be cheated.'

At his mention of dying Hester shuddered, and without thinking, pressed herself against him. Instinctively she wished to be reassured, to feel his strength, to know that he was there, that she could call on him for help. To think of losing him was suddenly an idea so hateful to her that she could not endure it. So far he had kept faithfully to their strange bargain and she had come to trust him absolutely. Living with him, fear had been replaced by liking—and more than liking.

She could hardly wait for him to come home so that she might be with him. When they went out together she watched for him if they were compelled to part, and the strange feelings which the sight of him had provoked before marriage were growing stronger and stronger…

She wanted…oh, what did she want? You know perfectly well what you want, what you wish he would give you, said her naughty Mentor. You are beginning to regret your bargain. Suppose he kissed you now. Passionately. Would you like that? Of course you would. To kiss him back would be of all things the most delightful…and then…

Tom put his hand absently on her head and stroked her
hair to comfort and to reassure her. He felt her quiver beneath him while he did so.

‘It seems so strange,' she said at last, ‘you are the last person I would have thought of as instructing a woman in business practice.'

‘Well, Mrs Dilhorne,' he said playfully, ‘you know that a wife's first duty is to please her husband and you please me mightily by doing this.'

‘Then I shall try even harder to understand it all, Mr Dilhorne.' She waved her hand at the desk and the walls of books and papers. ‘But I trust that you do not expect me to officiate at your next auction!'

 

Later that week Tom came home early and called to Hester to come into the garden, he had an entertainment for her.

Putting down the fine silk shirt which she was making for him, she slipped on her shawl and went outside. The garden was large with an English-style shrubbery and lawn. At one end was a small Japanese pagoda with a wooden table and chairs, painted white, set out before it, where they often took tea.

Tom had carried out a large mahogany box. He opened it and placed on the table a brace of pistols, a powder horn, balls, and a ramrod to load the pistols. Some distance away from the pagoda he had placed in the soft earth of the border a crudely worked piece of wood in the shape of a man.

‘Goodness, Mr Dilhorne, what are you going to do now?'

‘Not what am
I
going to do, Mrs Dilhorne, but what
you
are going to do.' He had begun loading the pistols while he was speaking.

‘Watch me carefully, Hester,' he said. ‘Later on I shall want you to load them.'

‘Oh, no, Tom—' Mr Dilhorne was forgotten, for she could see that he was deadly serious, all banter gone ‘—they're horrid things!'

‘Oh, yes, Hester. New South Wales is a dangerous place, and even women should be able to defend themselves. I want you to be able to load and fire a pistol without flinching as though you were really trying to kill a man.'

It was useless to protest. Somehow he always won such battles. It was hard to argue with him. He was so very reasoned and sure.

‘You really mean that you want me to fire one of these things?'

‘Exactly. Let me show you.' He was being as short with her as though they were engaged in a business deal.

Patiently and carefully he taught her how to shoot. She was not strong enough to hold the pistol in the dueller's traditional stance, left arm behind her back, right arm extended: but neither did he want her to. Instead he taught her to hold it in front of her, in both hands, to keep it steady.

‘You aren't going to fight a duel, Hester, so there's no point in learning a lot of nonsense. No one's going to drop a handkerchief and wait for you to fire. First shot, dead shot is my maxim.'

She looked at his hard determined face as he continued. ‘Only a fool waits for the other fellow to fire first, and you aren't a fool.'

There was no point in doing anything but obey him. He was quite adamant, so, although to begin with the noise and the recoil of the pistol disturbed her, she gradually became used to them.

‘We're not playing at Lords and Gentlemen in Manton's
rooms in London,' he said drily while teaching her to shoot in a crouching stance far removed from the polite forms of the duel.

‘No funny little targets here,' he told her, making her fire at the man-shaped board. ‘You'd be shooting at a man, Hester, not a little circle. Always aim at his chest and never the head. The chest is a bigger target and you're certain to damage him if you hit him there. No pistol is accurate beyond a shortish range, any road.'

Hester soon understood that, although he made something of a game of it for her and called it an entertainment, this was no game he was playing. She tried to please him by losing her fear and improving her skill. It was one way in which she could thank him for rescuing her from penury, and for his forbearance over the physical side of their marriage.

In the first stages of teaching, however, they inevitably came into close contact when he stood behind her and helped her to steady the pistol. Hester found Tom's nearness exciting. Her heart beat faster, her breathing changed, and she found that not only did she not want him to move away, but that she resented it when he did.

He was scrupulous in gaining no advantage for himself in their nearness, but Hester began to wish that he would show her some sign of affection. She even found that her desire to kiss his warm cheek whenever it was placed next to her own grew stronger every day of their practice.

She was waking up to the world of the senses which had been denied to her all her life by her parents' indifference to her. She hoped that Tom did not observe her strange reactions, but he was well aware of them. He knew what they meant, but also knew that he must be patient, not push or force her, or she might retreat again.

 

Once Hester had learned to use the pistols skilfully, he made her load and practise with them every day. She grew to be proud of her accomplishment, but the other consequence of their continued intimacy was a disturbing one for her. On the evenings when they practised together sleep was long arriving. She lay restless in her bed, wondering what on earth was coming over her.

Tom could have told Hester what was wrong. He watched her face flush when he touched her to correct her aim, or to steady her, and felt her leaning against him unnecessarily. She would have been surprised to learn how much he longed to take her in his arms and begin to teach her the arts of love for which she was almost ready.

He, too, lay restless in bed. The more so since he was determined not to find solace at Madame Phoebe's. His patience with her would be rewarded, he knew. With each change in body and spirit the time was fast approaching when she would welcome him, not repel him, and he would become her husband in fact as well as in name.

Husband and wife in separate beds found comfort in different ways. Tom fixed his mind on his next deal, and dreamed of the beauties, not of women, but of porcelain and silk.

And Hester?

Hester did what she had so often done in Sydney. She imagined herself back in the garden at home in England. Only, when she drifted into sleep and the door in the wall opened, it was Tom who walked in to greet her, and not her dead brother.

Tom was not surprised by Hester's good head for business, or at her growing ability with a pistol. His view of men and women was essentially a pragmatic one and was as practical and down-to-earth as his advice to Hester on shooting.

He had early noted that Madam Phoebe had a better business brain than most men, and that his own mother's bravery, half-remembered from his lost boyhood, had been exemplary. Both before and after her father's death Hester had displayed a stoic courage—indeed, it had been that attribute which had first brought her to his notice.

He didn't think that men and women were equal. In Tom's world there was no such thing as equality, but he thought that most women he knew were silly, trivial and incompetent because their lives and men had made them so. Not that they were more trivial and silly than all the parsons and most of the gentlemen he had met, but that they had had less chance to be otherwise.

His understanding of human motivation and his ability to manipulate his fellows arose from the fact that he had no theory of life, but worked solely on the basis of observation, allied to the intuition which arose from that observation and which allowed him to make startling leaps of understanding. It was one of these which had informed him of the innate possibilities of Hester Waring.

The sight of Hester daily growing in confidence and beginning to enjoy her new-found skills, added to his determination to bring her gradually to be his true wife and the mother of his children.

H
ester stood at her bedroom window looking out over the broad sea across which the First Fleet had sailed to reach Botany Bay on January 2, 1788. First Fleet day was usually celebrated by the Governor in fine style. A holiday was proclaimed, even convicts sharing in it; rum was distributed to the garrison, and the Governor gave a great dinner party to every person of consequence in the colony.

This year, although a holiday had been granted on the proper day, the official ceremonies had not been carried out because the Governor had been detained at Paramatta and only now, in late February, was Macquarie's dinner party being held.

The Dilhornes had been invited, although as an Emancipist Tom would be snubbed by everyone else who was present, other than the Governor himself and the Kerrs. Hester was curious to find out how her old friends in the Regiment would treat her—and, more to the point, would they snub Tom?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Tom, she knew. He was always scrupulous about never coming into her room unannounced and, when she called ‘Come in', he pushed the door open, hesitantly for
him, and advanced on her, holding the crumpled linen of his cravat out to her, a rueful smile on his face.

‘I can never get the hang of these damned things, begging your pardon, Mrs Dilhorne. Thought you might have the knack of it.'

Hester looked at him severely. She did not believe a word of what he was saying. She only knew that lately he had taken to asking her to help him to finish dressing.

‘Need to be just so, Mrs Dilhorne,' was his usual excuse.

Now what would that lead to? she wanted to know. Something you might like, whispered her naughty Mentor.

‘I used to do Papa's,' she said, ‘after he could no longer afford a man.'

She knew that Tom kept no valet and allowed few servants in his home—other than Mrs Hackett who had a room near the kitchen. The other servants' quarters were apart from the house, over the mews.

She dragged a stool up to stand on it after he had handed her the cravat and briskly began to arrange its folds for him.

‘This one is called a waterfall,' she announced. ‘Rowland always liked a waterfall. I think that the one Papa preferred was more suitable for an older man.'

‘You don't consider me an older man, then,' murmured Tom. ‘Pity, that. I thought that now I am not only your husband but one of Sydney's more prominent citizens I might qualify in your eyes as someone grave and reverend, to be respected. Why, I even had to be quite elderly with Macquarie or he would have announced the appointment of myself and Alan to the magistracy today at dinner—to spite the Exclusives who try to tell him what to do as much as to honour Alan and myself, I suspect.'

‘If appearing grave and reverend are the qualifications for being an older man,' said Hester naughtily, smoothing
the final pleat, then stepping down and standing back to admire her handiwork, ‘then I doubt whether Mr Tom Dilhorne will ever qualify—even if he should reach ninety!'

‘I shall certainly never qualify if I have such a disrespectful wife,' he said, bending his head to kiss her fingers when she leaned forward to give her creation a last approving flick.

‘Tell me, Mrs D.—what happened to the meek and mild creature we appointed to be school-ma'm last year? She seems to have disappeared quite. More such advice and you will qualify as a nag.'

His voice was amused, not reproving, and Hester gave him another sly look from under her lashes; she enjoyed teasing him back these days.

‘Why, Mr Tom Dilhorne happened to her, sir. Now, your hair, Mr Dilhorne, your hair.'

Tom rose, stared at himself in the mirror. ‘My hair? I thought that I had made a good fist for once of rivalling all those lively young officers after whom my wife hankers. You do hanker after lively young officers, Mrs Dilhorne, don't you?'

Hester ignored him. ‘You rival the riff-raff in the Rocks as you are,' she informed him with mock severity. ‘Pray sit down and allow me to make you over.'

‘Nag, nag, nag,' he said. ‘I suppose all this is because you have given up the school and no longer have the children to master.'

Nevertheless he sat down again and held his head so that she could brush his unruly sandy crop forward into a windswept coiffure
àla
Brutus, thinking while she did so what a comfortable old married style they shared these days—except, of course, that they were still not truly married.

‘Now,' said Hester, admiring the pair of them in the
mirror, ‘pray tell me why you do not wish to be a magistrate. I am sure you are aware that every Exclusive in Sydney thinks that you are positively burning for the honour, and cannot wait for the Governor to name the day.'

‘Too soon,' said Tom, reverting to his usual short self before growing expansive again—he was always careful to explain his sometimes cryptic utterances to her. ‘Macquarie goes too far and too fast. I shall never be accepted in polite society, such as it is in Sydney. Alan might be. He was a gentleman before he was transported, whilst I—' and he shrugged ‘—was Yorkshire, and then London, scum. I don't even know who my father was. The shadow of my origin and my chains will always hang about me, however rich and powerful I may become.'

His face changed suddenly, all the banter and mockery usually visible on it quite gone as he inspected himself in the mirror.

‘Between us, wife, we have created a pretty fraud, have we not? Under your final ministrations and tricked out in these clothes, speaking as I do—and not as I used to do— I look and sound a perfect gentleman.

‘No, I have no real wish to be a magistrate, although I may end up as one, if only to be able to prove that Tom Dilhorne, thief, felon and merchant, is Tom Dilhorne still and may laugh in the faces of those who consider themselves his betters.'

‘Oh, but you do that without needing to be a magistrate,' said Hester, to have him rise, swing her off her feet into the air, and shake her, oh so gently, and laughing, say,

‘Now I know why I married you, Mrs D. I shall think of that when we sit, grave-faced, among the respectable tonight. That I am no longer alone, and that I have someone to share my secret thoughts with—even if you do not grace my bed.'

He put her down again. ‘We are ready to face them in every sense, my dear, and Miller shall bring the carriage round so that we shall arrive at Government House in state.'

 

Of course, Hester had been right in thinking that Tom would be snubbed. He sat opposite to her at dinner, in Government House's beautiful dining room, chandeliers blazing and the Regimental band playing popular airs while they ate. Not a soul, other than the Governor, spoke to him.

At the end of the dinner official toasting began. Until now both ladies and gentlemen had toasted one another privately, leaning over to clink glasses and to offer each other salutes. Pat had toasted Hester, but no one had toasted Tom, and his wine stood untouched in the glass before him.

Hester knew that, although he valued its qualities as a life-giving restorer, he did not like to drink overmuch of it, and here, surrounded by men and women, many of whom were already fuddled, he showed his indifference to their customs by barely drinking at all.

The band began to play, softly this time, and with great feeling, the Regimental march, ‘My love is like a red, red rose', to usher in the official toasting. The flunkey who was acting toastmaster began to instruct the guests to raise their glasses. The noise of the company rising was accompanied by the sound of a sudden commotion at the far end of the table, away from the Dilhornes.

A young lieutenant who had drunk more than was good for him had risen before the command was given, and had begun to shout in the direction of the Governor.

‘No!' he bellowed. ‘Drink the Loyal Toast to His Majesty King George III in the company of felons and scum
who should still be working in chains, not I! You may be Governor here, sir, but you strain my loyalty if you require me to share the Loyal Toast with him.'

He waved drunkenly at Tom, and, lifting his glass high began to pour the bright red liquid in it on to the tablecloth in a steady stream.

The uproar grew.

Colonel O'Connell, his face as crimson as the spilt wine, shouted down the table, ‘Be quiet, you young fool. Have you lost your wits?'

Other officers, seated near him, embarrassed that the lad in his cups should say publicly what they all privately thought, began to pull him down, but he would not be silenced, shouting again before Major Menzies clamped a hand across his mouth.

‘No, it is he who is mad,' he roared, indicating Macquarie who sat, unmoved, with a stone face while the uproar continued. ‘To ask officers and gentlemen to sit here and consort with such as Dilhorne, to think of making him a magistrate—and the rest of you are hypocrites…' The remainder of his outburst was lost behind Menzies's large palm.

Heads turned. Men guffawed. Women tittered. The only unmoved person in the room beside Macquarie was Tom himself.

He smiled, picked up his glass, and watched the young man being dragged struggling from the room by his embarrassed fellow officers, his muffled protests continuing until he was finally hauled through the double doors at the far end.

The expression on his face was unreadable. He turned to Mrs Major Middleton sitting on his right, who had shown her displeasure at his presence by not addressing a word to him, saying, ‘Come, madam, drink a toast to the
only honest man in the room. He, and only he, had the courage to say what you are all thinking. He deserves a bumper for that—you will surely not grudge him one.'

Mrs Middleton looked him straight in the eye and said, her voice ice, ‘That being so, Mr Dilhorne, one wonders why you chose to attend.'

Tom continued to hold his glass out but, seeing her lack of response, his mouth curled again.

‘No?' he said. ‘Why, madam, I am here because the Governor invited me, as he did you. I cannot say fairer than that. You would not have had me insult him by a refusal, surely?'

Hester watched him, fascinated. Oh, she knew that face and that voice. She heard Pat Ramsey suck in his breath, saw Mrs Middleton's face flame as red as a turkey cock's wattles.

‘The Governor should have more sense—' she began, then realised what Tom had done. He had compelled her to speak to him, not once, but twice, even though she had inwardly vowed, once she had seen who her companion was, that he would receive no such favours from
her
. Worse, he had made her defend herself when he was the one who should have been doing the defending!

‘Some people,' she announced firmly to the table at large, ‘know their place in life and keep to it!'

Tom drank his wine, emptying his glass before he replied to her, ‘I do so agree with you, madam.' His smile was deadly. ‘And my place tonight is here, at this table, beside you.'

He looked at his glass. ‘Why, Mrs Major Middleton, is it not? I do believe that I have emptied my glass—and left nothing for the Loyal Toast. You see, you do not have to drink with me, after all.'

Pat Ramsey began to laugh, he could not help himself.
He remembered what he had advised Jack Cameron—never to cross verbal swords with Tom Dilhorne for he would surely lose.

‘Your husband compels my admiration,' he said to Hester. ‘I only—'

‘You need say no more,' said Hester, cutting him short. ‘I know exactly what you are thinking, Captain Ramsey, and it is the same as that poor young lieutenant. You know as well as I do that Tom was right. He is the only person at this table telling the truth, and he will be punished for it.'

‘He will have a thick head in the morning, and time to think on his folly,' said Pat, unrepentant. ‘Now we must drink the Loyal Toast, you and I.' He lifted his glass, Tom held his empty glass before him and bowed low, first to Mrs Middleton, and then to Hester.

Still defiant, she drank up her wine, saying loudly to an amused Pat, ‘For both of us, Mr Dilhorne and myself,' to hear Pat reply,

‘Bravo, Hester, my dear. One can only hope that your loyalty to him will gain a reward commensurate with your courage.'

Hester thought that he might be taunting her, but perhaps not. She was beginning to discover that Pat Ramsey had hidden depths.

After the toast the company were released to stream into the grounds outside, golden in the late afternoon sun, to discuss with great animation, some amusement and much anger, all that had passed.

The general opinion was that Macquarie had deserved such an outburst for daring to foist the unacceptable on his superiors in Government House where one supposed that such outcasts as Dilhorne would not be received.

Hester, followed by curious and sneering eyes, refused
Pat Ramsey's offer to escort her outside and made straight for Tom. He was as unmoved as ever, talking to the Governor who had made a point of going over to him the moment the dinner ended, taking his arm and walking him outside as a plain indication of his displeasure at the behaviour of the officers of his old Regiment.

Seeing Hester coming towards him, a defiant expression on her face, Tom excused himself, took her arm and walked her away from the disapproving company to a small grove of Norfolk pines through which, far below, the distant sea could be seen rolling.

He felt her arm tremble beneath his hand and said softly to her, ‘Come, Mrs Dilhorne. You were a brave girl in there. Give them no satisfaction by showing distress.'

‘Distress!' exclaimed Hester, her voice rising. ‘It is they who should be showing distress—'

‘Hush,' he interrupted her, and his voice was gentle. ‘It is no more, and no less, than I expected. Perhaps Macquarie will now see that my advice is sound. I have to confess that his conduct in first inviting us, insisting on our attending, and then making such a point in coming over to honour me afterwards, whilst personally gratifying to us, was neither wise nor sensible. Alan taught me a scrap of Latin once which the Governor would do well to ponder on.
Festina lente
, Make haste slowly.'