Colleen McCullough: Morgan’s Run

Kitty tooka long time to fetch one bucket of unneeded water. First she sat beside the spring and smoldered for a while, then held the bucket beneath the main fall to fill it, after which she set it on the ground and sat down again. Her outburst had caught her unaware, she had not realized that these resentments simmered so near the surface; her days were too busy to permit the luxury of self-examinations. The reason why her feelings had come tumbling out today was manifest: Richard did not want a second child so soon-if he wanted one at all. But these were not things in his province! God had made her to procreate and she loved procreating. The words of workhouse days and workhouse sermons rattled off as fingers were busy embroidering held meaning now. Adam may have been the first person on earth, but until Eve appeared he was an-an-an exhibit! Eve was more important than Adam. Eve made the children and a house a home.

Richard could not have it entirely for himself because he won their bread. She baked their bread! And in future, she vowed, jumping up and lifting the twenty-pound bucket with ease, he was going to have to take notice of her wishes. I am not a mouse and I am not a boot-scraper. I am a person of consequence.

The picture he presented as she walked up the path through the vegetables from the spring was, she admitted, softening, truly heart-warming. Her heart warmed. Unnoticed, she stood still to watch him with the baby, turn her to face him, talk solemn words to her, kiss her hand and gaze down on it with a face filled by love and wonder. The way he cuddled her then. The way he stared over her head into nothing.

Move, Richard, move! Kitty stood willing him to move, but he would not. The sun always set behind the house and its front lay in shadows, yet the light was absolutely clear, fell on father and child as if they had been petrified, stilled to stone. A very old memory came surging up from the depths, of the Master at the workhouse presiding over the Sunday service, sitting in his chair of state looking into nothing while the chaplain preached the sins of a flesh none of his listeners comprehended. The Master continued to stare vacantly; the chaplain ended, the orphan audience remained without stirring, the stiff and bitter spinster mistresses let their eyes patrol the ranks to make sure no girl wore an unchurchlike expression; and the Master sat gazing into the distance as if he saw a vision neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It was only when the chaplain took him timidly by the shoulder that he moved. Moved to fall forward out of the chair onto the chapel flags and lie there as shapeless as the stockings half-full of sand with which the inmates were beaten so that the marks did not show.

Move, Richard, move! But he did not, while time flowed on and the child in his arm slept obliviously. Suddenly she knew that he was dead. It broke on her in an instant and drove her to her knees, the bucket falling, water cascading, the world a thing of utter silence. Even then he did not move. He was dead! He was dead!

“Richard!” she screamed, scrambling up, running.

Her cry dragged him out of his abstraction, but not in time to catch her. She was upon him in the same moment, weeping and keening, her hands plucking at his shoulders, his chest.

“Kitty! What is it, my love? What is the matter?”

She wailed and howled, tears streaming down her face, lost to all reason. When Kate joined her mother to bawl in her own key, Richard got to his feet with two demented female creatures clinging to him as to a lifeline, his head spinning. Kate he dumped in her cradle unceremoniously, where she yelled in outrage at being so cavalierly discarded; Kitty he sat in the armchair by the stove, where she sobbed as if her heart were broken. Out came the rum; fussing and clucking, he forced Kitty to drink.

“Oh, Richard, I thought you were dead!” she moaned, choking, looking up at him with eyes and nose running. “I thought you dead! I thought you dead!” She flung her arms about his hips and pushed her face against him, weeping afresh.

“Kitty, I am not dead.” He disengaged her hands, picked her out of the chair and sat down in it with her on his lap. The hem of her calico dress was the only available rag, so he took it and wiped her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, her chin, her throat-the spate of tears had even soaked into the yoke of her dress. “My dearest love, I am not dead. See?” he asked, smiling tenderly. “Corpses cannot deal with fits of the vapors. Though it is nice,” he added, heart full, “to know that I am so desperately mourned. Here, have another sip of rum.”

Kate’s tantrum in the bedroom was increasing in volume, but she would get over it faster than Kitty would get over her shock, so he turned his head and shouted sternly, “Kate, hush your roars! Go to sleep!” Much to his surprise, his daughter’s howls subsided into blessed silence.

“Oh, Richard, I thought you were dead like the Master, and I could not bear it! You were dead-and you had loved me so much-and I had never understood-and I had hurt you and spurned you-and then it was too late to tell you that I love you. I love you the way you love me, more than life itself. I thought you were dead, and I did not know how to live in a world without you! I love you, Richard, I love you!”

He pushed her hair off her face, did some more work with his makeshift rag. “All my Christmases have come at once,” he said. “I know there have been a lot of tears, but why are ye so wet?”

“I lost the bucket of water, I think. Kiss me, Richard! Oh, kiss me with love and let me kiss you with love.”

Love reciprocated, they both discovered, turned lips into the thinnest possible of skins between body and spirit. From now on, thought Richard, there need be no secrets. I can tell her anything. Kitty simply knew the bliss of music in her heart and wings on her soul. Love had been there all along.

Stephen cameout to see them on Kate’s first birthday, the 15th of February, 1793, bearing an amazing gift.

But it was not the gift which caused Richard, Kitty and the child to stare: Lieutenant Donovan was clad in the full glory of his Royal Navy rank-black shoes, white stockings, white breeches and waistcoat, ruffled shirt, cutaway Navy coat, a few touches of gold braid, sword by his side, wig on his head, hat tucked beneath his arm. Not merely strikingly handsome-also strikingly impressive.

“You are going!” said Kitty, eyes filling with tears.

“What a figure ye cut!” said Richard, concealing his grief with a laugh.

“The uniform came from Port Jackson-not a bad fit,” said Stephen, preening, “though the coat needs work about the shoulders. Mine are too broad.”

“Broad enough for command. Congratulations.” Richard held out his hand. “I knew there was some significance in the name of this wretched ship just arrived.”

“Aye. Kitty. I wore the uniform in honor of young Kate, I do not go immediately. Kitty will not sail for at least a week, so we still have a little time.” He pulled the wig off to reveal that he had imitated Richard and cropped his hair. “Christ, these things are hot! Meant for the English Channel, not Norfolk Island in humid Februaries.”

“Stephen, your beautiful hair!” Kitty cried, looking closer to weeping. “Oh, I loved it! I keep trying to persuade Richard to grow his, but he says it is a nuisance.”

“He is absolutely right. Since I cut mine I feel as free as a bird-except when I have to put the wig on.” He went to Kate, sitting in a high chair Richard had made, and put his parcel on its tray. “Happy birthday, dearest little godchild.”

“Ta,” she said, smiling and reaching out to touch his face. “Stevie.” She looked beyond him to Richard and beamed. “Dadda!”