He climbed the steps towards her and she wondered if she should offer him a drink. He was sweating from the exertion of the ride.
‘Nothing amiss, Mrs Hawkins.’ He gave a sly smile. ‘Just a neighbourly call.’
‘It’s a long way up for that and I’m afraid Joe is out.’
‘I know.’ His smile grew wider. ‘I saw him down in the market place. He was drinking with some cronies, ex-convicts by the look of them.’
She didn’t answer. The men that Joe knew were settlers or farmers; some had come out as emigrants, one or two had been convicts but
had established themselves with hard work and endeavour as Joe had done. None of them had travelled with them on the convict ship the
Flying Swan.
‘Or they might have been miners,’ he drawled, ‘they had the look of labour on them anyway.’
She watched him draw off his white gloves to reveal his soft hands. ‘Not gentlemen, then, Captain Boyle, such as yourself?’
He glanced swiftly at her, then grinned. ‘Hardly! And I imagine your husband would be offended should such a description be applied to him?’
‘He would. Joe knows exactly who he is and is happy with his status.’
‘Just as well,’ he said ironically, ‘for there is no likelihood of him changing it.’
‘Why have you come, Captain Boyle?’ Her tone was icy. ‘Not to discuss the merits of my husband?’
‘Still got a sharp tongue in your head, Meg,’ he said softly. ‘I like a woman with spirit. It was one of the things which attracted me to you all those years ago.’
‘Aye,’ she snapped. ‘That and ’chains which were binding me. It excited you, didn’t it, seeing all those women in fetters?’
‘Come now,’ he said placatingly. ‘I haven’t come to quarrel. That was all a long time ago. We have changed, all of us. We could be friends.’
She laughed. What a nerve the man had. ‘Friends! How could we ever be friends wi’ likes of you?’
He gave a small dismissive gesture. ‘Don’t think of yourself as inferior, Meg. You are the wife of a successful man, and if I might say so, you are still – no, even more so, a very handsome woman.’
She roared with laughter. ‘You haven’t changed, Captain Boyle, you are still as obnoxious as ever – and I
don’t
think myself inferior!’
She leant towards him. She hadn’t invited him to sit down and he hovered on the top step of the veranda. ‘But ’reason we can’t be friends wi’ likes of you is plain to see when Joe takes his shirt off every night and I see ’scars which you put there. We’ll not forget you. Not ever, nor others of your kind who sent us here.’
Bitter memories spilled over and she had to bite her lip to keep back angry tears. She didn’t often cry, but sometimes the past was too painful to remember.
Captain Boyle gave her a wry look and moved towards her. He touched her arm. ‘That’s done with, Meg. I’m here to make amends. We’re sensible people, we must try to forget what went before. Look,’ he said. ‘You’re alone. Your husband is busy. I don’t suppose he gets a great deal of time for socializing – my wife is away in England. We could perhaps have an evening together at the theatre, or maybe supper? All
above board of course.’ The pressure on her arm increased and he stroked her flesh with his thumb. ‘I would like that, Meg. I really would.’
She lifted her head and stared at him coolly. ‘And then,’ she said softly, ‘we could go back to your house for coffee, and the servants would be out so we would have to have a glass of wine instead, and as the weather was warm you would invite me to take off my jacket and make myself comfortable – ’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I wasn’t suggesting – ’
‘Oh yes you were, Captain Boyle. I haven’t forgotten what I learned at my trade,’ she said bitterly. ‘The men then might not have been your class but you run to type. If there was one thing I did learn, it was when a man was making a suggestion and pretending he wasn’t.’
‘Well, seeing as you mention it,’ he said smoothly. ‘Why not? An occasional rendezvous would bring a little excitement into our lives, would it not?’
‘You’re right of course, Captain Boyle,’ she said quietly and moved towards him. ‘We can all do with a little diversion now and then.’ She ran her fingers slowly down her throat and neck and fingered the neckline of her gown, watching his eyes glisten as he followed their trail. Slowly she unfastened the top button of her gown and then the one below. She was wearing a low-cut lacy cotton chemise beneath it and she saw his eyes linger. He licked his lips and she fought back a
shudder as she stretched out her hand to reach him.
‘We allus get what we want if we try for long enough,’ she murmured. ‘And I’ve never told a soul that I’ve yearned for this for many a year.’
She heard the rear door of the house open – it had a decided click and she knew that someone, maybe one of the Aborigine children, was entering the kitchen.
‘I knew it.’ Captain Boyle’s lips were wet as he mumbled, ‘I knew your desires were the same as mine. I can always tell a lustful woman. What a time we can have, Meg. I can’t wait! Come with me now. Where can we go?’
‘You can go to hell and back,’ she yelled as she gave him a great shove on his chest. ‘And just see how you like it.’
He fell with a thump down the veranda steps and flat on his back on the ground and lay there groaning. ‘My back! Oh, God. My back! You’ve broken it, you bitch. You whore!’
She reached for the lash and shouted, ‘Tommy! Barai! Sal!’ This last name to her housekeeper, a convict’s daughter whose mother had died at the hands of a rough settler and had had to fend for herself since she was eight.
Sal came running through the house at her call. ‘What’s up, missus?’
‘An intruder,’ Meg gasped. ‘He tried to assault me.’ She stepped down the veranda steps and, flourishing the whip high above her head, she
thrashed it so that it whistled and cracked as it cut through the air.
‘Don’t come near me, I’m warning you.’ Captain Boyle tried to rise to his feet but fell backwards and grimaced in pain. ‘You bitch,’ he groaned. ‘I’m in agony.’
She stepped forward, nearer to him, and once more the whip whistled through the air. ‘Do you remember that sound, Captain Boyle? Do you remember when you lashed Joe after half-drowning him? And do you remember you were going to lash me?’
The thin leather strap whistled towards him and Boyle put his hands to his face. ‘Don’t! Don’t,’ he whined and she felt a pleasing sense of power.
‘Why not?’ she jeered, and with swift rapid movements spun the whip above her head and lashed out towards him. Boyle ducked as she knew he would and the whip hit his shoulder, cutting through the fabric of his wool coat. ‘It feels good, doesn’t it Captain? To be in control. In command!’
‘Shall I fetch the men, missus?’ Sal said eagerly. ‘They’ll know what to do with likes of him.’
‘Yes,’ Meg said, staring down into Boyle’s face. ‘And tell them to fetch a rope to tie him in case he becomes violent.’
Sal ran off and Boyle, groaning, eased himself onto his hands and knees. ‘I never touched you,’ he grunted. ‘You’re a damned liar.’
‘Only you and I know that,’ Meg sneered. ‘But
this time, Captain, I shall be believed. I am now a respectable woman and you are a well-known rake.’
He stared at her, his mouth open. ‘What – what do you mean?’
‘I mean that your reputation has even come up here to Creek Farm. You have been seen entering the brothels of Sydney. It’s well known that you frequent the houses of the Aborigine women whose only means of living is to satisfy the needs of white men like you. Even there, Captain, your reputation stinks!’ She went on contempuously, ‘and you have sunk very low indeed when you have to enter the Rocks for your pleasure.’
‘Well, you should know all about that, Mrs Hawkins,’ he spat. ‘No doubt you have friends there.’
Her expression froze. ‘I have few friends,’ she said icily. ‘But those I have I value dearly and one of them is your wife.’ She saw the alarm on his face and instantly could have cut off her tongue. How would he react towards Mrs Boyle on her return from England after such a revelation? Would he make that gentle lady’s life a misery?
‘My wife?’ He staggered to his feet. ‘
You
are a friend of my wife’s?’
She lifted her head proudly. ‘I am! She is a gracious lady and doesn’t deserve to be tied to a reprobate like you. I could be very worried for her health!’
‘You needn’t be,’ he snorted. ‘Women like Mrs Boyle are purely decorative and an asset to a marriage. Unlike women like you,
Mrs
Hawkins.’
Meg wasn’t hurt by his insults, she had heard worse but not in a long time. She glanced across the fields. Men and dogs were running towards them with Sal trying to keep up behind. The dogs were barking and children were shouting. Most of the men were Aborigines and carrying sticks.
‘You’ll get your come-uppance one day,
Captain
Boyle, that I’m sure of. Now go,’ she urged. ‘I can’t guarantee your safety.’
He too glanced up and started to hobble towards his horse. ‘I shan’t forget this,’ he panted. ‘You’ve just about crippled me.’
‘You’d better forget it,’ she said. ‘Or I shall tell Joe and then you’ll be really sorry that you came.’
He threw a glance of pure venom as he eased himself into the saddle. ‘And stay away from my wife when she returns,’ he spat out as he slid his feet awkwardly into the stirrups. ‘I shan’t allow her to mix in your company.’
Meg smiled, though she felt not in the least humorous but only anxious now about Mrs Boyle. ‘Is that so? And what about your daughter and my son?’ she said. ‘Did you know about that?’
Anger flushed his face but he glanced anxiously at the approaching crowd which had
now reached the paddock. ‘What?’ he bellowed. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘That there might be a wedding,’ she scoffed and fervently hoped that there wouldn’t be. ‘But get on your way or you might not live to see it.’
CAPTAIN BOYLE GRIMACED
in anger and discomfort as he rode. The pain in his back increased with every movement from the horse beneath him. Blasted woman; but he should have expected as much. She’d got uppity now that she had money. If she’d been down on her luck she would have welcomed him. Then an unwished-for doubt crept in: or maybe her husband keeps her satisfied. A picture of Joe Hawkins, strong and defiant even though he had been in fetters, came into his mind. He hadn’t been able to break his spirit all those years ago, not with the ducking overboard or the cat-o’-nine-tails.
And what does she mean, I’ll get my come-uppance? Will she tell Hawkins? Or will she send somebody to frighten me off? No, she was bluffing. But I shan’t go up there again, even though I’d like to bed her. His salacious appetite sharpened at the thought of Meg Hawkins’s fine figure. She’s been a whore, and once a whore, always a whore.
But what Meg Hawkins had said was true; the sight of so many women in chains had excited him, and it was for that same reason that he visited the brothels in town and on occasion the Rocks, the most notorious of districts in Sydney. The women there were so downtrodden they were willing to do anything to earn a copper.
He felt himself stirring as he remembered the last time he had visited the Rocks. He had seen a young girl, maybe fourteen or perhaps younger, attractive in spite of the dirt on her face and her torn clothes. He had beckoned her to come with him, and her mother, her face haggard and worn, and dirtier even than her daughter, had pushed her forward, even though the girl had been unwilling.
He’d held her tightly by her thin wrist so that she wouldn’t run away, and taken her to a seedy downtown hotel and ordered a room with a bath and hot water. He’d watched her as she stripped off her dirty dress and stepped gingerly into the water, tears streaking her face.
He had lain on the bed chewing on a cigar and watched her as she soaped her thin body as he directed. He’d felt the excitement growing inside him at the sight of her small round breasts and buttocks, at the soft downy pubescent hair, until he could bear it no longer. He’d pulled her out of the bath and without permitting her to dry herself he pushed her onto the bed and held her down with one hand whilst he tore off his trousers.
She’d screamed and cried, but in that area of the town no-one had enquired about the noise and when he had finished with her he threw some money at her and told her to go. She gathered up her clothes against her naked body and staggered out of the room. He saw that she was shaking and crying but he simply turned over on the none too clean sheets and slept for an hour before going home.
He thought of the girl now. Perhaps I could find her again, or someone like her. His anger over Meg had increased his frustration and brought his licentious desires to the fore. I’ll go home and bathe and change out of these clothes. He was hot and sweaty and his back ached. He hated blasted horses and wished he’d brought the trap, but that wouldn’t have cut much of a dash. Women’s transport! If only I could afford a curricle.
Perhaps if Edwin is at home, he mused, I could persuade him to come with me into town. Edwin had a position at Government House, but puzzlingly didn’t go into the office regularly but often slept late in the morning and went to the office in the afternoon, working until very late in the evening, so that his family saw little of him.
Yes, if he’s at home, that would be good, he thought. I’ll persuade him to take the rest of the day off. We could get two girls. A pain shot down his back and into his legs, but he wasn’t deterred. Maybe even bring them back for the
whole night. I’ve never been able to do that before.
He had initiated Edwin into the charms of the brothel when the boy had reached seventeen. Edwin hadn’t wanted to go, he’d made all kinds of excuses but his father had insisted and had waited for him in the reception area with a glass of wine in his hand, compliments of the management, feeling self-satisfaction that he had done right by the boy in helping him to achieve his manhood.
He and the madam had chosen the girl themselves, a pretty eighteen-year-old with plenty of experience and charm. He had been disappointed when Edwin refused to discuss the experience, saying that it was private; but the girl had had a merry gleam in her eyes as they came downstairs, and watched with a smile on her lips as he paid the madam. Yet he never knew if Edwin had been to the brothel again. He’d used the girl himself, quite often since then, but she wouldn’t be drawn as to whether she had seen his son and it was almost as if Edwin had avoided conversation with his father ever since.