Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“Mrs. Morgan?”

The stiff, dark-clad figure hovering over the stove turned, the black eyes widened; a young convict girl peeling potatoes at the work table laid down her knife and stared with mouth adenoidally agape. Staggering a little, which seemed peculiar to Kitty, Lizzie walked to the table and gave the girl a thump. “Take that outside and do it!” she snapped. Then, to Kitty, “What d’ye want, madam?”

“I have brought you a hat.”

“A hat?”

“Yes. Would you not like to see? It is very splendid.”

Kitty looked absolutely blooming, belly protruding a little, fair skin shaded by a wide sun hat made of a local strappy grass (the convict transports had contained far more milliners than farmers), fair hair straggling in fetching wisps from beneath its brim, fair lashes and brows giving her face a slightly bald look that somehow managed not to be a disfigurement. Plain she was, but plain she definitely was not. Gossip had told Lizzie that Kitty Clark was beautifully shaped these days, was far from the thin scrawn she had been when Mrs. Richard Morgan had marched up the garden path. Well, now she could see for herself, which was no comfort. Nor was that bulging belly. Waves of sorrow and disappointment swept over her-where was that bottle of medicine?

“Sit down,” Lizzie said curtly, then gulped furtively from a medicine bottle, its contents catching her breath.

Kitty held out the hat box, smiling gravely. “Please take it.”

Taking it, Lizzie sat on a chair, untied the tapes, lifted the lid. “Ohhhh!” she sighed, exactly as Kitty had. “Ohhhh!” Out it came to be examined, held, gazed at raptly. Then, so unexpectedly that Kitty jumped, Lizzie Lock burst into noisy tears.

Calming her took some time; in an odd way she reminded Kitty of Betty Riley, the tough older servant girl who had led all four of them to disaster. “It is all right, Lizzie, it is all right,” she crooned as she stroked and patted.

There was a small spouted kettle on the hob and an old china teapot on the table. Tea. That was what Lizzie needed, tea. A search unearthed a jar of tea and a jar containing a huge rock of sugar together with a sugar hammer; Kitty made the tea, let it steep, chopped off some sugar, then poured the steaming liquid into a china cup and saucer-how well equipped Government House was! China cups and saucers in the kitchen! Kitty had not seen a cup and saucer since she had been arrested, now here were two cups and two saucers- matching! -in a mere kitchen. What sort of treasures did Government House itself contain? How many servants were there to wait on Mr. and Mrs. King? Was there tea on demand without fear of its running out, were there china bowls and plates and soup tureens? Pictures on the walls? Chamber pots?

“I have just been given my notice,” Lizzie managed to say through hiccoughs and tears. “Mr. King has just told me.”

“Here, drink your tea. Come, ’twill make you feel much more the thing, truly,” coaxed Kitty, stroking the black hair.

Lizzie mopped her eyes with her apron and stared at her nemesis ruefully. “Ye’re really a nice little girl,” she said, the tea beginning to warm the other contents of her stomach.

“I hope I am,” said Kitty, sipping daintily. Why did tea taste so wonderful sipped from a china cup? “Do you like your hat?”

“As ye said, it is a very splendid hat. Major Ross would have whistled and told me I looked like a queen in it, but Mrs. King will only try to be complimentary. She is a very pleasant person with excellent manners, so I cannot say she is to blame for my going. Commander King is responsible. And that Chapman fellow, the crafty booby! An eye to the main chance, that one! Already scheming how to make money out of the place. Brings out the worst in Mrs. King too-which the Commander is starting to realize, let me tell you! I predict that Willy Chapman will shortly be packed off to Queensborough or Phillipsburgh. But Commander King don’t like me, Kitty, and that is a fact I cannot get around. Too vulgar for the likes of Mrs. King, is how he put it. Vulgar! Me? He don’t know what vulgar is! Said he don’t want his children to hear me-sometimes I forget myself and out pops a fuck or two. But never a cunt, Kitty, never a cunt, I swear! It ain’t my fault-blame gaol. Never used to swear and curse.”

“I understand completely, ” said Kitty fervently.

“Anyway, he cannot just throw me out, he will have to do the decent thing by me,” growled Lizzie, thrusting out her chin. “I am a free woman, not a convict. And d’ye know who he is going to put in my place?” she demanded, outraged.

“No, who?”

“Mary Rolt. Mary Rolt! Says cunt as well as fuck, I do assure you! Huh! ’Tis all because Mary Rolt fucks Sam King the marine, and he is settling here, and all that. King. Same name, y’see. Makes anyone better in the Commandant’s eyes. Huh!” She sipped a little more tea and stared at the hat. “I wish I had a mirror.”

“Mrs. King must have one.”

“Oh, she does, a big one in her bedroom.”

“Then ask her if you may look. If she has excellent manners and is kind, then she will not say no.”

“It is a fine hat, ain’t it?”

“The finest I have ever seen. Mr. Thistlethwaite said in his letter that it is all the crack-exactly what duchesses and other high ladies are wearing. He says you cannot tell high-born women from whores these days-” She broke off, horrified at where her tongue had led her, but Lizzie was staring fixedly at the medicine bottle. “Perhaps,” Kitty rushed on, “the Kings might keep you on as cook? Richard told me that Major Ross said your cooking was the best he had ever tasted.”

“I,” said Lizzie haughtily, “have other ideas.”

Kitty’s heart soared; some of it was rawness, some of it was shock, but underneath both Lizzie Lock was already springing back. Of course she was! So do we all, we convict women. We have not come this far and survived without being able to spring back. Lizzie is tough. Not hard, just tough. She has had to be. No doubt everybody free will prate their admiration for Mrs. King’s courage in coming so far and putting up with inconveniences, but Mrs. King has never been a convict woman and Mrs. King will never be as admirable in my eyes as Lizzie Lock. Or Mary Rolt. Or Kitty Clark. So there, Mrs. King! said Kitty to herself. Drink your tea from your fine china cups after the convict servant girl has made it and served it to you! Pin on your course clouts after the convict servant girl has washed your blood from them and hung them out to dry! You may be everything a prison commandant’s wife should be, but you are not our equal.

“What ideas do you have?” she asked.

“I have gotten over hating ye for stealing Richard,” Lizzie said, getting up to refill the pot, chip off a bit more sugar, pour more tea.

“Truly I did not steal him!”

“I know that! He stole you, more like. Peculiar, ain’t they? Men, I mean. As far as most of them are concerned, keep the belly and what hangs off it well fed, and they are happy. But Richard was always different, right from when he stalked into Gloucester Gaol like a prince of the blood-you know, sort of cool and royal and quiet. Never needed to raise his voice. Mind you, he is a big man, ha ha ha! Eh, Kitty? Ain’t that right?”

“Yes,” said Kitty, blushing.

“Took on Ike Rogers-an even bigger man-without the blink of an eye. Faced him down. Yet I heard that later on they was real good friends. That is Richard. I am in love with him, but he was never in love with me. No hope. No hope.” Voice teary, Mrs. Richard Morgan got up again to tip the contents of the medicine bottle into her tea. “There! That will ginger it up a treat. Like some?”