“Spoil her life, Carolan!” he said earnestly.
“Why should she spoil her life?”
“You know the life as well as I do. What is it, for a woman? She would have to live in the wilds; she would meet scarcely anyone. I can see her in London, sparkling for she is only budding and will bloom gloriously. London is her proper setting. Money… Position… that is what I want for my daughter. How do we know what will happen here? This is a new country, heard stories of the terrible things that can happen on lonely stations. Men are more desperate here; laws are less rigid. No no! She would very soon forget your son. Oh, I imagine he is very like you were once; I imagine he knows how to charm a young girl. He will hurt her, I know he will… as you hurt me, as you must have hurt Esther and your Lucy and Clementine Smith and God knows who else. I want her to have security. Who knows better than I what can happen to a woman who is unprotected and …”
“Carolan, Carolan, where is your good sense? She will be secure enough with Henry. He will love her, I promise you. He will look after her.”
She was emotionaclass="underline" it was not so much of Katharine that she was thinking, but of herself and Marcus, and tears of self-pity welled into her eyes, for his charm was potent as ever. And she thought of the years immediately behind her, and the ghost that had haunted her for eighteen years and of what wild, free happiness might have been hers for the taking.
He came to her and slipped his arm about her. He had seen the tears in her eyes.
“Carolan,” he said, ‘we are still young.” She spun round to look at him, and he threw back his head and laughed.
“Carolan. Carolan! I am just past forty. Is that so very old? You are thirty-six surely in your prime. Carolan, look at those mountains! Are they not beautiful? Do you feel them beckoning you? They are wild, they promise adventure; there is a new country beyond them. Carolan, Carolan, why should you go back to Sydney? Why should you, why should you, my darling? This is linking up, my dear, linking up with eighteen years ago. You are mine, and I am yours… that was how it was then; that is how it is now. That cannot change.”
“Marcus!” she said.
“Marcus!”
He caught her to him and kissed her; she kissed him wonderingly.
“It is strange,” she said, ‘to feel young again. It is years since I felt young.” She had lost control for a moment, but she was resolved it should be for no more than a moment. She wanted to capture that feeling of recklessness, she wanted to know again what it meant to love without thinking … just to love. She had jail that moment; she would remember now.
That is all,” she said.
He shook his head.
“Carolan, come away with me. Why should we not? You would have come with me… once.”
“Once!” she said.
“But so much has happened since then.”
“A moment ago,” he said, “I thought you were still my sweet and beautiful Carolan whom I loved in your father’s shop, and in Newgate, and on the ship and in Margery’s kitchen. You broke my heart when you went to him.”
“And you mine when you went to her!”
“It was nothing, Carolan. Did you love him?”
“I am fond of him,” she said.
He kissed her angrily.
“Why did you spoil our lives?”
“It was you who spoiled our lives, Marcus.”
“No, it was you… you with your conventional ideas.”
“It was you with your philandering, your lies, your cheating … How do I know that even now you are not cheating! You may be laughing “Oh, this is funny! I am amusing myself with Mrs. Masterman of Sydney!”
“Do not speak his name.”
“It is my name I speak.”
“You are Carolan, nothing but Carolan! Why do I love your daughter? Because she is so like you! Why was my life brighter when she came and sat on the veranda and talked to my boy, Henry? Because she is so like her mother.”
“Why do you always say the things I most want to hear?”
“Because I love you.”
“Oh, Marcus, it is too late to talk of love.”
“It is never too late to talk of love. Carolan, never go back to Sydney! We will go to England … to London. It will be a different London from that wicked city in which we met. We will conquer it this time, Carolan.”
“It is too late. Do you think I would leave my children and my husband?”
“If I had twenty children I would leave them for you!”
“Please, Marcus, do not talk of it any more.”
“If I talk enough you will understand how it is we cannot throw away this chance of happiness.”
“There is no chance, Marcus. We lost our chance eighteen years ago.”
“My darling, while there are boats to carry us away from this place, there is still a chance.”
“I would never leave my family.”
“I am your family. I am your home. You are mine and I am yours. You must understand that.”
“But Marcus, people change in eighteen years. I have changed.”
He kissed her; he held her against him and he laughed with joy.
“You have not changed; you are my own sweet Carolan. You will never go back. Always I have vowed that if I could talk to you, if I could but hold you like this, I would never, never let you go again. I am no longer young, Carolan, I am old in wisdom. Never shall I let you go again, my darling. I will keep you by my side always. You are my comfort, my love, my darling!”
“I should not have come,” she said sadly.
“I am only making you unhappy, and myself unhappy. I was resigned. I will never, never leave my husband. I have sworn that, Marcus.”
“What oaths you have sworn go for nothing, darling. You are mine you cannot deny that.”
“These oaths I have sworn in the dead of night, when I wake up trembling, or when I have been unable to sleep. I have sworn, Marcus. He lies there beside me; sometimes he is sleepless too, and I wonder what he is thinking. I have said “I will never leave you, Gunnar. I will do all I can to make you happy.” It is because of that… because of what happened, Marcus, I have never told anyone, but I will tell you now because I owe it to you, Marcus. I must tell you why I cannot go away with you. How I long to. I cannot pretend any more; I have always loved you. I could have killed you and Esther … but there is no one but myself to blame; how well I know that now! Listen. Marcus. I am a murderess. That is why I cannot go. Did you ever hear talk in Sydney? Did you hear how Lucille Masterman died? I was to have Ms child, Marcus, and I was alone and afraid, and I was brutalized; Newgate did that to me or so I tell myself! Perhaps it is just an excuse; perhaps if you are strong, nothing can maim you.
“She used to take a drug, Marcus. I knew about it; so did Gunnar. I used to think it would be so easy for her to take an overdose. She did not want to live; I did … desperately. I wanted a good life for my child. How do we know what motives prompt our actions— I tell myself I did it for my child; but did I? Did I do it for myself? He was so kind to me; he said I should go away to discreet and sympathetic people, but I laughed at that; I laughed it to scorn. No! I said, you must marry me; we must have a real home for my child, or I shall marry someone else. You remember Tom Blake would have married me then. Gunnar loved me; he loved me as you would not believe he could love anybody; he wanted children, and she had cheated him. Marcus, do not look at me like that! Put your arms around me, hold me tight. She has haunted me since; she will go on haunting me. Sometimes I feel she will drive me mad. She was so weak, Marcus, and she did not greatly want to live. You see, the bottle was there; it should have been so easy. She had bought the stuff from an ex-convict who dealt in illicit medicines. She used to drug herself to get some sleep. She always imagined herself ill. And I think she knew how it was with me; I did my best to tell her … without doing it in so many words. I put the idea in her head that it would be so easy… just an extra dose, and then she would sink into that deep peaceful sleep of which she had talked to me.”