Masterman!”
"I do not believe he minds that she has a room to herself," said Carolan.
"He does not mind that he has no son or daughter. He is cold as ice.
You feel it.”
"So your ladyship feels it, does she! So your ladyship has been looking at Mr. Masterman, eh? Now Tom and Harry, riding in from the stations with the smell of cattle in their clothes, now they wouldn't be the ones to attract your lovely ladyship! Of course not! Why, your ladyship's eyes are all for Mr. Master-man!”
"How dare you!" cried Carolan. I... hate the man!”
"Hate your master, eh? Don't forget the whip over the mantel.
"Margery," he says to me.
"I trust you to use it judicial.”
"You can trust me, Mr. Masterman," I says. And so he can. And listen, my lady, if I hear another word against your master, I uses it.
It's mutiny, nothing less!”
Margery would never use the whip, though she talked so often of doing so. Carolan laughed at her.
"Suppose I tell you about my lover how would that be?”
There now. me love, I knew you'd got one. You tell Margery. I understand. You don't want this other scum to hear.”
It was so easy to please Margery; she loved the story of the squire.
"His rage, me love, when he found the bird flown! You was a sly one!”
Carolan told of Everard.
"Parsons, me lovely, they're men too. I can tell that. I said to him: "Now there ain't no sense in staying out there shivering. There's room in here for the both." And what if he does mutter a prayer afore he gets in! Why, bless us all, it makes a change, now don't it?”
But Carolan never said a word about Marcus; yet she thought of him often.
Esther was almost happy. Each night she knelt by her bed to say her prayers. Margery chuckled at the proceedings; Jin looked on with cold distaste, and Poll watched with vacant eyes; but none molested her.
"If only," said Esther, 'we could hear news of Marcus, how happy we could be!”
"You might be," said Carolan.
"I could never be happy again.. You forget I have lost Everard, and my mother is dead.”
Esther was full of contrition.
"I am selfish! I think only of myself. Poor, poor Carolan!”
Carolan spent a lot of time talking to Margery, who loved to hear her talk. She told of the passion of the squire, who was not really her father; she told of Charles who had been cruel and had tried to kiss her; she told the story of how she had been locked in the tomb. "Ah!” sighed Margery, rocking with glee.
"You and me, me love, is as like as peas in a pod. You'll be the spit of me when you grows up to be my age. And one word in your ear, lovely keep clear of pedlars!”
Carolan thought, Shall I be like her?
Her hands were rough with housework. She was an indifferent worker, and but for the fact that she was a favourite with Margery, the woman might have been tempted to get down the whip from above the mantel.
Crockery seemed to slip out of Carolan's hands." Tis a mighty good thing that poor lady's so sickly. Now if it was some ladies who took a pride in their homes, it would be the triangle for you, lovey, and the lash about your white skin." Margery liked to pull the yellow dress off Carolan's shoulder and stroke her.
"Lovely white skin it is, lovey. Dead spit of what mine was when I was twenty, and it ain't so long ago neither.”
Carolan, restive in the basement, hating the dirty water into which it was necessary to plunge her hands, washing dishes, peeling potatoes, hating the smell of cooking, was bored. She longed for the fields and lanes round Haredon, and the feel of a horse beneath her. She asked a good many questions about what went on above stairs.
"There used to be a good deal of entertaining," Margery told her, 'but the mistress don't often feel up to it nowadays. Her health's bad, and getting worse. I can't think that it's what you might call a happy marriage. There she is, spending half of her time on the bed in her room with one of her headaches. Now if I had a nice upstanding man like Mr. Masterman for me husband ...”
"Do you think she is really ill?" asked Carolan.
"Illness is a funny thing. There's people who thinks they has it, and if they thinks hard enough they've got it. That's illness just as the smallpox or anything else is. Well, that's the sort of illness she's got. Why, I remember a year or so back there was an epidemic of fever and people was afraid of its spreading; bless me. if she didn't take to her bed and was burning hot, and the doctor coming. It wasn't fever she'd got, but it was something well nigh as bad, and if it hadn't been for Doctor Martin ..." Margery smiled affectionately as she said the doctor's name'... if it hadn't been for him, she'd have had fever all right. That's her for you.”
They sat round the table, Esther, Jin, Polly. Margery, James and Carolan. eating supper of bread and cheese, which they washed down with ale. It was lax in Margery's kitchen. It might have been a servants' hall back in England. Where else in Sydney were convict servants treated like this! Margery was responsible of course. She sat at the head of the table with James on her right hand and Carolan on hex left. She was well pleased, for the presence of James meant that she was still attractive enough to bring him round to the basement every night, though he had his own quarters with the other men in some outbuildings near the house. And there was Carolan, with her smouldering eyes and her lovely budding body to remind Margery of what she was a mere twenty years ago.
There was a dinner-party going on above stairs, and Jin wore a white apron over her yellow dress; she looked attractive in the lamplight.
Carolan said: Tell us what the table looked like, Jin.”
"It looked all right," said Jin.
Margery said: "The table looked beautiful. I done it meself. The linen! And the glasses! I took in the pudding meself, pretending it was to see all was well, but really to have a look at them. Now he was at the head of the table, and a handsome man he is, and mighty pleased with himself he was looking too, and do you wonder! Quite some of the best people in Sydney was at his dinner table. And her... well, there she was at the other end of the table... in blue. Her fair hair's getting thin, I noticed, and she was too pale. Too much lying a-bed, my lady, I says to meself.”
"Lazy old woman!" said Jin.
"Why should we slave like we do ..: Margery's eyes flashed.
"Now that's enough of that. I'll tell you why. Because you're nothing more nor less than a murderess, and she... she's a lady of the land.
Another word from you and I ask James to get down the whip for me ... aye, and to lay it about you for me. It's mutiny, that's what it is!”
Jin lifted a lazy eyelid and surveyed James. It was the first time she had glanced in his direction. There was something fiery and passionate about the gipsy, stormy and fascinating. James stared at her; Margery flushed a dirty pink; her jowls quivered. She looked very old, thought Carolan.
Esther said: "I saw her; she was coming down the stairs and the kitchen door was open. I saw her pass along the upper floor. Her dress was shimmering blue. She looked...”
"I know." said Margery curtly, 'like one of them angels you're always praying to!”
Esther blushed and cast down her head.
"Here, Poll, you go and get me that bottle out of me cupboard," said Margery.
"Go on. Don't gape. Look sharp.”
"Tell us about her dress," said Carolan to Esther.
"It was blue, and there was some silver about it, and she had silver slippers. She looked like a fairy ... she is so small.”
"A sickly fairy!" said Margery, still angry.
"And next to him at the table was that Miss Charters. A big, bold girl, she is, and looking for a husband, if you'll be asking me. There she was, right next to him, and you could see how he would have been the one she would have chosen if it wasn't for the fact that he had a wife already.”