Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

“No, thank you. What are your plans, Lizzie?” Kitty realized that whatever Lizzie had gurgled into her tea had been sipped at for some time, probably since the moment Mr. King had walked out after giving her her notice.

“I am thinking of Thomas Sculley, a marine just arrived back to take up land here. Not far from Morgan’s Run. Quiet sort of man, a bit like Richard in that respect. Don’t want no children, but. He ain’t got a woman, and he made me an offer after tasting my banana fritters in rum. I turned him down, but now that the Commandant says I have to go, I may as well move in with Sculley.”

“It will be nice to have you as a neighbor,” Kitty said with sincerity, preparing to take her leave.

“When is the baby due?”

“About another two and a half months.”

“Thankee for bringing the hat. Mr. Thistlethwaite, ye said?”

“Yes, Mr. James Thistlethwaite.”

A great deal more at peace, Kitty pattered off to find Joey and the two dogs waiting for her at the foot of Mount George.

“You were quite right to insist that I take the hat,” she said to Richard as she sliced their own salt pork thinly, spooned gravy over it made with lots of onions, and piled potatoes and fresh beans onto the pewter platters. “Lizzie and I will become friends.” She giggled. “The two Mrs. Richard Morgans.” She put a plate in front of Stephen and another in front of Richard, then carried her own to the table and sat down. “Commander King gave the poor thing her notice this morning.”

“I was afraid of that,” said Stephen, cutting busily with his knife until everything could be scooped up with the spoon. How good it would be to have a fork! “King is a strict husband, wants to shelter his wife from all undignified or sordid phenomena, and Lizzie Lock is definitely an undignified phenomenon. A pity, really. Mrs. King is a tall, gangling sort of creature who does not present as particularly prudish, especially when Willy Chapman is with her.” He pulled a face. “Now there’s a sordid phenomenon, William Neate Chapman. A natural leech.”

“They have china cups and saucers,” said Kitty, busy eating for two, “and I drank my tea out of one. Since there are china cups and saucers even in the kitchen, I think that Mrs. King must be very genteel.”

“I would gladly give ye china cups and saucers of your own, Kitty,” said Richard, “but it is more than a question of money.”

Attention caught, Stephen looked up. “Exactly,” he agreed. “For a long time to come, I suspect, the closest thing Norfolk Island will have to a shop is a stall set up on the straight beach by some ship’s captain. Unfortunately such stalls do not contain fribbles like china tea sets and silver forks. ’Tis always the same kettles, stoves, calico, cheap paper, ink.”

“We need kettles, stoves and calico more than fribbles,” said Richard, God the Fathering. “There are clothes occasionally.”

“Aye, but I notice they never appeal to the women,” Stephen objected.

“That is because men chose them,” said Kitty, smiling. “They always think women would rather buy clothes than china or window curtains, then they choose the wrong clothes anyway.”

“Ye’d rather have window curtains?” Stephen asked, wondering to himself why Kitty seemed not to care that she couldn’t marry Richard. “The two Mrs. Richard Morgans”-said without a qualm.

“Oh, yes.” Kitty put her spoon down to gaze about the living room, which was coming on; the interior walls were all up and most of them were polished, there were now several shelves of books one beneath the other, and she had found a flowering plant to put in a battered mug. “I love my home best. Rugs and curtains would be truly wonderful, and vases, and pictures on the walls. If I had embroidery silks, I could work tapestry cushions for the chairs and samplers for the walls.”

“One day,” Richard promised. “One day. We will just have to hope that one day a more enterprising ship’s captain comes along to sell lamps and oil, embroidery silks, china teasets and vases. Government Stores are not very imaginative. Slops, shoes, wooden bowls, pewter spoons and mugs, blankets, dippers and tallow candles.”

After the meal was done the men settled to talk of what the flimsies and gazettes said, then drifted to more important things like wheat, clearing, sawing, lime, and the changes Commander King was implementing.

“For all his fine talk, he has not managed to cut punishments down,” said Richard. “ Eight hundred lashes, for pity’s sake! Far kinder to hang a man. The most Major Ross ever levied were five hundred, the bulk forgiven, and I note that the surgeons are not allowed to intervene as freely as they used to.”

“Be fair, Richard. The fault lies with the New South Wales Corps, who are brutes commanded by brutes. I wish they would not single out the poor Irish, but they do.”

“Well, the Irish come from outside the Pale and few of them speak English. The soldiers insist that they do, but will not admit it. How can they work when they do not understand their instructions? Yet I have found one man among them with whom it is a pleasure to saw-the best partner since Billy Wigfall. Cheerful, obliging-does not understand a word I say to him any more than I him. Put a rip saw between us, and we are in utter communion.”

“What is his name?”

“I have no idea. Flippety O’Flappety, it may as well be. I call him Paddy, and give him a good lunch of bread and vegetables at the sawpit. Cold meat too. A man cannot saw without plenty of food, I will have to reinforce that with Mr. King.”

Suddenly Kitty laughed and clapped her hands. “Oh, Richard, do stop talking about your sawpits! Stephen has big news.”

Richard stared. “Do you? Tell us!”

“King summoned me this morning and informed me that I am to be the official pilot for Norfolk Island. I think he and Major Ross must have had a talk about the number of longboats, cutters and jollyboats which have been wrecked coming across the reef against orders and signals not to attempt to land. Or even defying advice not to return to their ships from the beach. So from now on I and I alone have the ordering of it, no matter what any ship’s master might have to say on the subject. My word is law-and that includes a ship in the roads-when she may bear in, or go to Cascade, or Ball Bay. I am pilot! Had I been pilot when Sirius was here, she would never have gone on the reef.”

“Stephen, that is truly splendid!” cried Kitty, eyes shining.

Richard wrung his hand. “That is not all, is it?”

“There is more, I admit.” He looked lit from within, a fine man not many years past thirty with a whole new world spread before him. “I am in the Royal Navy with a temporary rank of midshipman, but as soon as Commander King can get permission from His Excellency I am to be commissioned a lieutenant-for rank, probably to some ship permanently in Portsmouth harbor. I will be staying here, however, so do not panic. When a genuine lieutenancy comes up, then I am afraid I will have to go. Not an immediate prospect. Meanwhile I am pilot, shortly ye’ll have to address me as Lieutenant Donovan, and in my spare time I have been placed in charge of men clearing forest on Mount George, so I am out of that wretched stone quarry.”

“This calls for a small celebration,” said Richard, rising to dig behind a bookshelf. Out came a bottle. “’Tis my own rum-Morgan’s special blend. Major Ross gave me a good supply of it when he left, but I have not tasted it. So you and I will see what the local rum is like after it has aged a while in a cask with some decent Bristol spirits to help it along.”

“Here is to you, Richard.” Stephen lifted his mug and sipped, expecting to flinch or at least grimace. Surprise spread over his face, he took a full mouth of it. “Richard, not bad at all!” The mug was tipped in Kitty’s direction. “And here is to Kitty and the baby, whose godfather I demand to be. May she be a girl and may ye call her Kate.”