Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

Getting out was not difficult; there was a block of stone on the pool’s bottom to use as a step. The ground about it was thick with cress to keep the feet clean until they dried and the rag was capacious, hid her until she was dry enough to don her shift and convict-issue slops dress, donated it seemed by Mrs. Lucas, who, with the rest of these people, had been at the far ends of the earth for over two and a half years.

Now that she was at the far ends of the earth too, she had no idea whereabouts the far ends of the earth were; all she knew was that it had taken nearly a year to sail to them, calling in at a series of ports she hardly saw. Kitty had been one of those who hid, did not go on deck much, always tried to avoid being noticed by a member of Lady Juliana’s crew. Her plight had not broken her heart the way it had the poor little Scotch girl who died of shame before the ship had left the shelter of the Thames; Kitty had no parents to grieve and disgrace, and that, the Scotch girl’s fate had taught her, was a mercy. Illness had isolated her too; no sailor could be bothered philandering with a retching girl, even if he had fancied her because of her eyes. Those, she knew, were her sole claim to beauty.

Safely clothed and secure in the knowledge that Richard’s house was within hailing distance, she stared about her in wonder. Norfolk Island bore no more resemblance to Kent than had Port Jackson.

When Lady Juliana had arrived in Port Jackson she was so heavy and sluggish that she had been towed from the Heads by longboats and moored well off the shore. A very strange place, so frightening! Naked black people had paddled a bark canoe alongside and jabbered, pointed, brandished spears just as she had found the courage to go up on deck; she had fled back below and hardly ventured out again. Some of the convict women-oh, how much she admired them!-had dressed in the finery Captain Aitken had stored for them during the voyage and strutted about the deck preening, sure of their reception once ashore. What courage they had! One could not live for eighteen months among them, no matter how cowed and seasick, without understanding that Lady Juliana’s 204 women were as different as chalk was from cheese, and that even the hardened madams owned a kind of dignity and self-respect. More by far than she did.

Norfolk Island had begun in terror too; terror over and done with only if she did not offend Richard Morgan and Stephen Donovan, both of whom reminded her a little of Mr. Nicol, Lady Juliana’s steward, innately compassionate. Richard, she had sensed already, owned more power than Stephen. Both had said they were free men, both were supervisors. Yet it was Richard intimidated her, Stephen who drew her. And though she had no inkling of what her fate was to be-how this place worked or who made it work-somehow she knew that the decisions about her rested with Richard rather than with Stephen.

The trees overwhelmed her, she could see no beauty in them. Heaving a big sigh, she set her bare feet upon the path to the house, matted with scaly tails that felt crisp, more uncomfortable than hurtful. As she emerged from the pines she saw Richard working at building something on the far side of his garden, the dog cavorting around him; clad only in a pair of canvas trowsers, mortaring a row of stones set into the ground. His arms and shoulders were massive, the smooth brown skin of his back moved like a river. Her experience of partially naked men was minimal; Captain Aitken had insisted his seamen wear shirts, no matter how hot or becalmed the air was. A godfearing man, Aitken, who had cared for his female prisoners with Christian impartiality, though too sensible a man to forbid his crew-or himself-access to the cargo. Listening to the brasher and bawdier women had acquainted her with male anatomy; they gleefully discussed the attributes and amorous talents of their lovers and despised the Catherine Clarks and Annie Bryants as missish mice. The London Newgate she had blotted from her memory, her disgrace too recent then to have banished shock and fright. She had simply huddled in a corner and hidden her face, fed only because Betty Riley had brought her food and water. In Port Jackson came her first sight of men stripped to the waist, some of them with terribly scarred backs. And though Richard Morgan had been shirtless last night, she had not noticed him because of Stephen.

The sight of Richard now awed her without arousing any tender or feminine yearnings; what she saw reinforced her impression that he was a man to be respected and obeyed. He was also old. Not in the least wrinkled or crabbed, just- old. On the inside rather than on the outside. His outside she thought very strong, very handsome, very graceful. But she had seen Stephen Donovan first, and could see no further.

Stephen. He was like a dream-very strong, very handsome, very graceful-and also youthful, carefree, brilliant of eye and smile, appreciative of the feminine attention he attracted. After landing her, he had bantered saucily with some of the more forward women, yet managed to turn their hints and open remarks aside without offending them. It never occurred to Kitty that these knowing women took one look at him and knew him for what he was, for she had no idea that some folk liked their own sex. A Church of England workhouse in Canterbury, cradle of the Church of England, did not teach the facts of life. It preferred to badger and beat good work habits into its children, use them to best effect while they were young enough, then send them out to find a living as meanly paid servants obsessed with their own worthlessness and utterly ignorant of what went on in the big wide world. Illiterate, innumerate, insignificant. Of course Kitty had heard words like Rome mort and Miss Molly in both her prisons, but they held no meaning for her and went right over her head. That some of the folk who liked their own sex were women, and that they had lived alongside her in Lady Juliana, had also not sunk in.

Stephen, Stephen, Stephen… Oh, why had he not been the one to find her? Why was it not his house sheltered her? And what did Richard want of her?

Richard straightened and pulled on a shirt. “Was the bath very bad?” he asked, letting her precede him through the door, his eyes, had she only possessed the courage to look, twinkling.

“No, sir, it was very pleasant.”

“Richard. Ye must call me plain Richard.”

“It goes against the grain,” she said. “You are old enough to be my father.”

For the first time she experienced a quality in Richard she was to find over and over again; no alteration in expression of the face, no inappropriate movement of hands or body, no change in his eyes, yet something was happening, some kind of mysterious, invisible reaction.

“I am indeed old enough to be your father, but I am plain Richard nonetheless. We do not keep up appearances here, we have more important things to occupy us. I am not one of your gaolers, Kitty. I am a free man, yes, but until recently I was a convict just like you. Only good work and good fortune pardoned me.” He sat her down at the table and gave her corn bread, lettuce and cress to eat, water to drink.

“Was Stephen a convict too?” she mumbled, ravenous.

“Nay, never. Stephen is a master mariner.”

“Have you been friends for long?”

“For at least one span of eternity.” Tucking his shirt into his trowsers, he sat down and ran his finger through his cropped hair rather nervously. “D’ye know why ye were sent here?”

“What is there to know?” she asked, bewildered. “I will be set to work until I serve out my sentence. At least, that is what the judge said at my trial. No one has mentioned it since.”

“Have ye not wondered why you and two hundred other women were put on board a ship and sent seventeen thousand miles to serve out your sentences? Does that not seem strange, to send ye to a place devoid of workhouses and factories?”