The Far Horizon (7 page)

Chapter Eight

The morning sun blazed across Sydney harbour, the sky clear and blue, the air hot and humid, for although it was deep winter in England, it was the beginning of summer in the new world.

A fleet of boats had been rowing back and forth from the ships for almost an hour, bringing ashore the soldiers of the 73rd Regiment: but as soon as Lachlan Macquarie stepped onto the wharf, dressed in scarlet regimentals and surrounded by his officers, the powder of fifteen cannons roared out salutes of welcome.

Nearly every inhabitant of the settlement, free settlers, emancipists, and a large number of convict-servants had come out eagerly to see the man who was to be their new ruler.

This was the man who had been decent enough, and intelligent and humane enough, to give consideration to their plight and take action to remedy their hunger as soon as he had heard about it, even before he had arrived here in the colony.

They saw he was tall, fair and trim with a fine military carriage, and not short and round-shouldered like that old sea dog Captain Bligh. They also liked the fact that he had also brought with him a ship loaded with more desperately needed supplies – most Governors usually only brought trouble.

At the Pier, Colonel Paterson and Lieutenant-Colonel Foveaux of the New South Wales Corp were waiting with prominent ‘Gentlemen of the Settlement.’ But it was the soldiers of General Macquarie's own 73rd Regiment who formed a guard, under arms, for his passage along the short route up to Government House.

The gentleman of the settlement and their wives bowed deferentially to the new Viceroy: these were the self-styled aristocracy of the colony, known as ‘Exclusives,’ because of their creed of not mixing with emancipists or any person who had once been a convict.

A group of young female convict-servants had managed to get a place near the edge of the crowd. Some climbed up into the trees for a better view. These girls needed no chains, no prison doors. Their walls were the ocean and the impenetrable wild bush. They had very soon learned that there was no escape from Botany Bay.

*

Government House, naturally enough, was the most lavish house in the colony. A white mansion, with the Union Jack fluttering above the entrance, and standing within four acres of gardens and lawns which sloped down to the Governor's private wharf and a crescent of sandy beach.

Elizabeth stood in the drawing room staring at one of the full-length windows that looked onto the garden. ‘
My God!
’ she gasped in shock. ‘
Oh my God!
’

Her cry brought Lachlan in from the reception hall where he had been standing talking with his officers. ‘Elizabeth?’

Elizabeth pointed to the full-length window.

A young Aboriginal boy of about twelve years was standing there, peering in – black-skinned and as naked as the day he was born.

As soon as he saw Lachlan in his red-coated uniform, the Aboriginal boy waved excitedly, shouting through the glass, ‘
Halloo new Gubnor! Halloo Gubnor's lady! Halloo! Halloo!’

Lachlan grinned, the sight was no different to those he had often seen in India. ‘He's just being friendly.’

Elizabeth turned abruptly and walked hurriedly towards the door. ‘I think I will go and meet the kitchen staff now rather than later.’

Red-faced she pushed her way through the crowd of officers in the hall and, after a polite enquiry to a maid, headed towards the kitchens.

*

The Governor's household consisted of over ninety servants, male and female. There were two kitchen buildings: the smallest kitchen being for the preparation of meals for the Governor's personal household, which would now be presided over by Mrs Ovens. And a second, vastly larger kitchen, for the preparation of food for the staff, presided over by Mrs Kelly.

Elizabeth stood in the massive staff-kitchen looking round at the battalion of young maids who were scrubbing and cleaning.

She turned to Mrs Kelly who was robustly plump, as most cooks usually are, and was about to make a polite inquiry about the ages of the girls, but the stout woman shook her head vigorously and sought to pre-empt Elizabeth's question.

‘There's no thieves in here, m'lady,’ said Mrs Kelly in a rich Irish lilt. ‘I won't have thieves in my kitchen. Not for a minute I won't! No, nearly all these lasses ye see here are Irish lasses, m'lady, out in Botany for being rebels.’

Rebels?' Elizabeth cast a startled glance at the girls.

‘Oh then, it's not worried ye need be, m'lady,’ Mrs Kelly quickly assured her, ‘because they're all innocent. That they are! Innocent victims of informers who were paid for as many as they could name and frame. And that's why Irish lasses like these are known in Botany as
pretty pictures
– because of them being framed.’

Elizabeth looked with dubious cynicism at the cook. ‘Surely that’s not the truth?’

‘It is, God knows.’ Mrs Kelly heaved a wavering sigh that wafted over the entire kitchen, and Elizabeth had never realised so much pathos could be expressed in one sigh.

‘God knows,’ said the cook, ‘that all these poor unfortunate girls are victims of injustice. And as for my English girls...’

Mrs Kelly rapidly pointed here and there, singling out the English girls.

‘Why, most are merely imps who got up to some little prank and no more. Now, young Gracie there …’ She pointed to a small fair-haired girl of very delicate looks. ‘Gracie is my own little cockney sparrow. Like a daughter to me is Gracie. And hers is a very sad story.’

Gracie, at the sink, turned and gave the Governor's lady a shy smile, then dropped a little curtsy, as she had been instructed to do.

Elizabeth smiled back, which seemed to surprise the girl, sending a bright blushing colour into her face, which made her look extremely sweet.

‘Gracie,’ said Mrs Kelly, ‘was only eleven when she left the workhouse in Billingsgate, but within hours she was taken advantage of by two men – two brutes who left her raped and bruised and weeping. They was seen and caught though, and hauled in by the constables and charged. But what did the two maulers say to the judge? They swore on the Bible that Gracie was a prostitute! And she only a child of eleven! And what's more – Gracie is partly dumb and couldn't even speak in defence of herself, on account of her taking so long to get a sentence out. But the judge was in a hurry, so what did he do to our poor little stuttering Gracie? He sent her out to Botany for seven years without giving her a hearing. Isn't that terrible? Isn't that a crime?’

Mrs Kelly looked at Elizabeth as if expecting at least a nod, but Elizabeth knew it would be imprudent to make a comment.

Instead she said curiously, ‘And what about you, Mrs Kelly? Are you a rebel too? May one ask?’

Mrs Kelly huffed and puffed as if unprepared for the question. She pushed a strand of hair away from her brow with a distracted air, and then, after another heavy sigh, looked demurely at Elizabeth. ‘It was never proved, m’lady, so I am innocent too.’

‘Of what?’

The cook glanced round the kitchen at the girls and then lowered her voice into a confessional whisper. ‘I was charged, m'lady, with a crime of passion against my unfaithful lover.’

‘Indeed?' Elizabeth looked at the big buxom woman and decided not to probe further. ‘And how long, Mrs Kelly, have you been here?’

‘In Botany? Eighteen years, m'lady. But I earned my Pardon eleven years ago. So I’m as free to leave the colony as you are.’

‘And yet you choose not to go back to Ireland?’

‘And leave my poor chicks with no mother to care for them?' Mrs Kelly shook her head. ‘What would my Gracie do without me for a start? No, it’s here I'm needed badly. And sure, what would there be for me back in Ireland once it was learned I was in Botany Bay? I'd not get a job in a lovely kitchen like this.’

Mrs Kelly straightened her apron. ‘No, m'lady, thank you for asking, but I'm happy where I am. And I hope my cooking and service will be as satisfactory to yourself and His Excellency the new Governor as it was to Governor Bligh and Governor King.’

‘I'm sure it will,’ Elizabeth smiled.

Another of Mrs Kelly's sighs wafted over the kitchen, and again Elizabeth caught Gracie smiling sweetly at her as she turned to leave.

‘There now, me darlings,’ Mrs Kelly cried robustly before Elizabeth was even out the door, ‘I think we'll find life a whole lot more respectable now there is a woman in charge of Government House. That we will! And remember what I told yiz – yiz'll not go wrong in this life if you have nothing to do with men – wicked,
wicked
men!’

*

Although Government House was indeed the grandest residence in all of Sydney, George Jarvis gave his mind no time to be impressed by its spacious rooms and elegant furnishings, because in his mind he could still remember the cool shaded rooms of a palace in Surat, with gold goblets and ruby and sapphire-encrusted fruit trays, all left lying about so carelessly in the chamber of rooms where he and his mother had lived.

But he
was
impressed, truly impressed, by the sight before his eyes now.

George’s living quarters in Government House were next to Lachlan and Elizabeth’s on the upper floor of the house; a small sitting-room and a larger bedroom with a closet for washing and dressing, all nice enough, but it was the view from the windows that impressed and entranced him.

From the window he stood and gazed on what Captain Pritchard had described as the most beautiful harbour in the world, “
even more beautiful than the harbour at Rio,
” and Sydney Harbour truly was beautiful with its sandy beaches and inlets of the bluest water shimmering under the golden sun.

Long ago it seemed now, in Cochin, as a boy, George had believed he had been captured and transported by slave-traders to the end of the world, the very edge of it.

How young and foolish he had been then, before his journeys to China, and then to England and Scotland – all the countries that had helped him to grow up. But now he was grown, and he knew that at last he really
had
reached the end of the world, in this fifth part of the earth, in this wilderness called New South Wales.

He turned as someone knocked on the door. A young girl entered … a maid by her dress. She seemed about to speak casually then stopped suddenly with her mouth open and stared at him.

‘Yes?’

She looked at him with wide blue eyes. ‘Are you … George Jarvis?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s … it’s m’lady … Mrs Macquarie … she said to tell you … her and the Governor are ready to eat luncheon.’

George nodded and smiled. ‘Tell her I shall be right down.’

As she turned to leave the maid paused and looked back at him. ‘Would … would you like me to show you the way to the dining room?’

‘Yes,’ George realised, ‘I don’t know my way around yet so that would be a help.’

The girl’s cheeks blushed a bright pink, but she said not a word to him as she walked beside him down the stairs. So George asked her a question.

‘What is your name?’

Her blushing deepened. ‘Rachel … I’ve just started as Mrs Macquarie’s personal maid.’

‘Just started … so before that?’

‘Well, before that, Governor Bligh, he didn’t have a wife, so before that I worked for Mrs Kelly.’

‘And who is she?’

‘George …’ Elizabeth stood by the dining-room door looking anxious. ‘George, thank goodness you have come. Lachlan has gone off somewhere with his officers leaving us to dine alone – and I need you to tell that Aboriginal boy at the window to either go away or to put some clothes on.’

George grinned and moved towards the long window, but not before he paused momentarily and looked back at the maid saying, ‘Thank you.’

Rachael immediately turned and fled down the hall and out the back door over to Mrs Kelly’s kitchen where she rushed up to two girls chopping vegetables at the long table and gasped out, ‘I’m in love!’

‘What’s that?’ Mrs Kelly barked, her face alert. ‘What’s that I heard you say, Rachel?’

‘N-nothing, Mrs Kelly … I was just saying as how I love your cooking.’

Mrs Kelly narrowed her eyes. ‘And is that why you came dashing in here like a mad lunatic – to eat some of
my
cooking?’

‘Yes, Mrs Kelly, I loves your cooking, so what’s wrong with that?’

‘Wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, girl – because
you
don’t work or eat in here with us no more, do you? Not now you’ve been promoted to be a lady’s maid! Now you must take all your meals in the Governor’s kitchen with his own personal cook, Mrs Ovens.’

‘Oh, blimey, yeah …’ Rachel muttered, ‘I forgot about that.’

Mrs Kelley put her hands on her fat hips and laughed. ‘What a name, eh? A cook named Mrs Ovens? Did you ever hear the like?’ She rocked with laughing delight. ‘Mrs Ovens? Well, she’d better not act the snob with me, not with a name like that!’

Rachel whispered secretively to the two girls at the table and then turned and dashed out of the kitchen.

As soon as she had gone the two girls began to giggle together and Mrs Kelley abruptly stopped laughing and pounced on them, her palms flat on the table in front of them.