Виктория Холт - Beyond the blue Mountains

"They want to live beyond the Blue Mountains," she whispered.

"Let them, Carolan! Oh, let them! Perhaps you are right: perhaps she would be wiser to marry her knight and go to London Town. But it is not for us to say. The future does not belong to us, Carolan, but to them. They must have freedom; we must give them that. You understand, Carolan. You do understand?”

"I am glad I came, Marcus.”

Do not go back, Carolan. Why should you? To a haunted house! I will make you forget there was ever such a woman as Lucille Masterman. You did not kill her! My child, you are not to blame. If she killed herself, who is to blame but herself! If he did it, let him take the blame. Come to me, Carolan. I will show you happiness.”

"You have shown me that our children must choose their own happiness, Marcus," she said, 'and that is a good deal. I shall think of what you said. I shall always think of it.”

"You will go back, Carolan?”

"Yes.”

"You broke my heart once. I mended it very roughly. Will you break it again?”

"No, Marcus, it was never broken. You will go back, and you will enjoy many moments in your life; sometimes you may think of me, and perhaps you will believe then that I alone could make you happy. You have not changed at all, Marcus. Your heart is strong it will not easily break.

I shall go back and be the same haughty, arrogant, though sometimes gracious, Mrs. Masterman. This afternoon I have cried like a foolish girl, but that is only a part of me. I am part foolish girl, part arrogant woman. I am soft, I am a schemer. Do not ask which is really me; I do not know. I yearn to be a saint like Mrs. Fry, and I am only a murderess. I could have been the saint perhaps; I was the murderess.

I was not strong enough. Events have made me what I am; they have made you what you are, Gunnar what he is. We are weak people, all of us. But now there is no press gang; Newgate is changing. There will be other changes. Marcus. And it will go on like that ... always ... for a hundred years, for two hundred years. However difficult the mountain range is to cross, it can always be crossed. I'll remember. Goodbye, Marcus. Goodbye!”

She did not look back at him as she mounted her horse. She held her head high and rode away, back to the house in Sydney, back to Gunnar and her family and the memory of Lucille Masterman.

She turned after a while though and saw him. a lonely figure against the background of the Blue Mountains.