Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

For Kitty, the day was the happiest she had known since her father died. Sirius canvas was spread out for the women to sit on, pillows provided to ease the awkwardness of the pregnant ones. The pines broke the force of the wind, fathers took their toddlers down onto Turtle Bay to paddle and build sand castles, mothers gossiped comfortably. Kitty had brought her kettle to make tea for her friends, setting it on its own fire. The men, once duty at the water’s edge was over, moved off a little way to squat on their haunches and talk together, while the women attended to the spits, prepared bowls of lettuce, celery, raw onion and raw beans, buried potatoes in the embers. About two in the afternoon they sat down to feast, then the men joined the women in a toast to His Britannic Majesty and afterward lay flat out for a postprandial nap, toddlers cuddled against them.

They are all so easy together, thought Kitty. Because of shared experiences and hardships, she had grown up sufficiently to realize. We are a new sort of English people, and what we make of ourselves will always be influenced by the fact that we were sent here as unwanted by our betters. Betters who are not betters at all, but rather people who do not see beyond their own noses. Out of the blue, it seemed, she suddenly had a feeling that none of these convicted people would return to England. They have lost respect for England. This has become home.

What about herself? Never having been to the shore, she sat with her arms wrapped about her knees and propped her chin on them to look along the reef, invisible under billows of foam and tendrils of spray. Though its spectacular beauty was not lost on her, it did not draw her either. In her mind’s eye true beauty was Faversham, a good big stone house with bullioned casement windows and tumbles of pink and white roses-snapdragons, stocks, columbines, pansies, foxgloves, snowdrops, daffodils-apple orchards, yews, oaks-grassy green meadows, fluffy white sheep, birches and beeches. Oh, the perfume of her father’s flower garden! The placid, dreaming quality which overlay all human activity and endeavor. This Norfolk Island kind of beauty was too alien, too untamable. This humbled and crushed people. Whereas home enhanced people.

She looked up to find Stephen’s eyes upon her, and blushed crimson. Clearly startled, he transferred his gaze at once to the reef. Oh, Stephen! Why will you not love me? Did you love me, Richard would let me go-I know he would. I am not the center of his life. He has put me in my own room and he bolts the door between us, not because I tempt him-if I did, the bolt would be on my side of the door. To shut me out of his home. To pretend that I am not there. Stephen, why will you not love me when I love you? I want to cover your dear face in kisses, take it between my hands and smile into your eyes, see my love shining in their blueness like the sun in a Norfolk Island sky. Why will you not love me?

As soon as the strength went out of the sun and the toddlers became tired enough to grizzle, everybody started packing up. Families dropping off as they went, Richard and Kitty walked home with their share of the leftovers, Nat and Olivia Lucas the last to leave them. Olivia’s tiny son, William, was but recently born, and her twin girls were extremely proud of him. What nice folk!

“Did ye like your first antipodean Christmas?” Richard asked.

“What sort of Christmas? But I did, I did, truly!”

“Antipodean. That is the correct name for the ends of the earth-the Antipodes. It comes from the Greek, and means something like ‘feet at the opposite end.’ ”

The sun had gone behind the hills to the west, Richard’s acre was plunged into deep cold shadow.

“Would ye like a fire?”

“No, I would sooner go to bed,” she said rather mournfully, her mind occupied with Stephen, the way he had turned from her in rejection. Of course she did know why: she was as plain as a pikestaff despite the weight she was so delighted at gaining, fancying that her breasts were now quite as nice as most, her waist as small, her hips as properly hippy.

“Close your eyes and hold out your hand, Kitty.”

Obeying, she felt something small and square put into her palm, and opened her eyes. A box. Fingers trembling, she prised its lid off to see that it held a necklet of gold. “Richard!”

“Merry Christmas,” he said, smiling.

She flung her arms about his neck and pressed her cheek to his, then, in an ecstasy of gratitude and pleasure, kissed him on the mouth. For a moment he stayed very still, then put his hands upon her waist and returned her kiss, which transformed it from a thank you to something very different. Far too intelligent to mistake her response for anything other than what it was, he contented himself with savoring her deliciously soft lips. She neither fled nor made a protest; instead she nestled against him and let the kiss go on. Vibrant warmth kindled inside her, she forgot herself and Stephen to follow where his mouth led, thinking with what remained of her to think that this first real kiss of her life was a very exotic and wonderful experience, and that Richard Morgan was more interesting by far than she had realized.

He released her abruptly and went outside; the sound of the axe came immediately after. Kitty stood, immersed in an afterglow, then remembered Stephen and was consumed with guilt. How could she have enjoyed being kissed by Richard when it was Stephen she loved? Tears brimming over, she retreated to her own room and sat on the edge of her bed to weep silently.

The box with the gold necklet in it had somehow stayed in her hand; when her tears dried she took it out and clasped it around her neck, resolved that before next she bathed, she would look at her reflection in the pool. How kind of him! And why did some of her keep wishing that Richard had not let her go?

On the6th of February 1791, the tender Supply finally arrived in the roads, bearing a letter from Governor Phillip instructing all Sirius personnel to board her for Port Jackson, but promising that those who wanted to take up land and settle in Norfolk Island would be granted 60 acres each and be returned on Supply’s next voyage. Captain John Hunter’s eleven-month exile was over, and not a moment too soon. He had conceived a hatred of Norfolk Island that was never to leave him-and was to bias much of his conduct later in his career. He had also conceived a hatred of Major Robert Ross and every fucken marine in the world. With him Captain Hunter took Johnny Livingstone, back in the fold at last.

Storeship Gorgon from England, which had been expected in New South Wales for months, had not arrived. Nor had any other ship save Supply on the 19th of November last from Batavia with a piddling amount of flour and a great deal of everybody’s least favorite food, rice. The chartered vessel Waaksamheid had followed in her wake from Batavia to reach Port Jackson on the 17th of December, loaded with tons more rice, plus tea, sugar and Dutch gin for the officers; the salt meat she carried proved to be a putrid mess of mostly bones.

According to Lieutenant Harry Ball of Supply, His Excellency was going to hire Waaksamheid to carry Captain Hunter and the crew of Sirius to England. In a hurry to get back to Port Jackson, Supply sailed on the 11th of February. Among those who went on her but intended to return as settlers were the three Sirius men who had helped guard and run Major Ross’s distillery, now closed, the contents of its kegs nicely maturing in a secret place. John Drummond had fallen in love with Ann Read off Lady Penrhyn. She was living with Neddy Perrott; though Drummond understood that he could not have her, he could not bear to sail to England either. William Mitchell had taken up with Susannah Hunt off Lady Juliana and they planned to stay in this part of the world. Peter Hibbs was caught in the toils of another girl off Lady Juliana, Mary Pardoe, who had been a sailor’s “wife” and borne a little girl toward the end of the voyage, whereupon the wretch had abandoned her, left her to be transferred to Norfolk Island.