A man with an eyeglass and a very elegant coat had come aboard. He stood near them, exchanging a word with one of the Marines. He stuck his eyeglass into his eye, quizzed the rows of female convicts, said something to the Marine and they laughed coarsely.
“By gad!” His voice drifted over to Carolan.
“A lovely crew! What beauties, eh?”
He approached.
“By gad!” he drawled.
“By gad…”
Flash Jane tittered. One of the women began to sing in order to call attention to herself.
“Silence, you old whore!” cried the Marine.
Carolan watched the eyeglass turn on one woman, then on another. It was getting nearer to her and to Esther. She gripped Esther’s hand; Esther cowered close. The indignity of it! The humiliation! Hot colour flamed into Carolan’s face; the eyeglass was approaching her; instinctively she knew that when it reached her it would pause.
Another man had appeared. He was very fair and very large, with big, irregular features. The captain was with him, and from the respectful attention the captain was giving him it appeared that he was a person of some importance. His mouth was a straight line; he looked as if he could be excessively cruel, coldly cruel. Carolan was alert now. Neither she nor Esther must fall into the hands of the man with the eyeglass.In her panic, Carolan told herself that anything would be preferable to that. She began to bargain, which was the only way of prayer she knew: “Please let the other one see us. Do not let that eyeglass find us. If You will only not let that happen, I will… I will… try to believe in You: I will try…”
This way, Mr. Masterman,” the captain was saying. This way, sir. They freshen up, sir. Soap and water will work wonders, sir. A cargo always looks very frowsy on arrival; it’s the conditions aboard.”
“Frowsy is a very mild way of expressing it,” said the man who had been addressed as Mr. Masterman. His tone was cold; his words clipped. The eyeglass was very neat now.
“Hello, ladies.”
The little girl began to scream suddenly.
“I won’t go up a chimley! I won’t! I won’t! I’ll jump in the sea. I won’t be burned to death!”
Mr. Masterman and the captain had paused. They stared at the child who had thrown herself down on the deck and was sobbing wildly.
The Marine kicked her.
“Get up, you baggage! You ugly imp, get up!”
She did not move and he kicked her again.
“Get up, I say! Get up!”
“What is it that the child says?” inquired Mr. Masterman.
“It is giving themselves airs, sir, to call attention to themselves. A taste of the lash will do her good.”
The man with the eyeglass stared down at the child.
“Ugly little devil. Cripple, ain’t she?”
Carolan stepped forward unthinkingly.
“She has been badly frightened. She was nearly burned to death.”
They were all looking at Carolan now. The man with the eyeglass quizzed her with insolent interest.The captain’s face was scarlet; so was that of the Marine.
“Get back into your place. Speak when you are spoken to.” He turned to Masterman. These convicts have no shame, sir. They push themselves forward to get attention.”
“Bless me!” said the man with the eyeglass. He rocked backwards and forwards on his heels.
“I believe it is a redhead. And Dammed, I do declare a little soap and water would make a beauty of the gal!”
Carolan was limp with terror. Impulsively, foolishly, she had done that which she had most longed to avoid; she had called attention to herself. She remembered some of the stories she had heard of prisoners who were taken into households; she guessed the fate of anyone taken into the household of a man such as this one.
It was one of the important moments of her life, and she knew it. She was aware of everything about her, the rocking ship, the changing sea and sky, the bright plumage of birds, the green lush land before her. Perhaps she forgot her cynicism and prayed then, humbly: she did not know; all she was aware of afterwards was that some instinct made her turn her head towards Mr. Masterman, to hold him with her burning eyes, to beg, to plead.
“Save me!” said her eyes. And then as though from a long way off she heard his voice.
“My wife wants a couple to work in the kitchen. She looks a strong girl, that one.”
Carolan thought she was going to faint. The smell of filthy bodies in that fresh air enveloped her. Desperately she fought her faintness. She took an almost imperceptible step forward, and she was dragging Esther with her.
Those queer grey eyes withdrew their gaze. It seemed like minutes before he spoke, but actually it was only a second or two. He said: “Those two look all right. Those are the two I will take.”
The man with the eyeglass dropped it. Carolan heard his exclamation “Gad, sir! I saw the girl first. By gad, Mr. Masterman …” But there was defeat in his voice, which told her that Mr. Masterman was an important person in the new land for which they were bound.
When Carolan and Esther went to Sydney it was little more than a settlement, for several years were to elapse before Lachlan Macquarie with the help of a transported architect, was to replace its wood, wattle and daub with stone and brick, and straighten out in some measure the confused crookedness of its streets. The house into which Carolan and Esther were taken was one of the grandest in Sydney, standing on the corner of an up-hill road that branched out of Sergeant-Major’s Row, now George Street, and which was little more than a track which drivers of carts had followed among the low hills. From the upper part of the house it was possible to get a perfect view of what has been called the most beautiful harbour in the world, with its sand and gravel beaches, and its many indentations fringed with green foliage. When Carolan had first seen it, having been sent to clean the attics, she was lost in admiration for so much that was beautiful; and then in one of the narrow, winding, up-hill roads she saw the bent backs and manacled limbs of a chain gang returning from work, and went quickly from the window, wondering if it were possible that one of those scarcely human creatures was Marcus. She had been lucky, she and Esther. So much that was horrible might have happened to them, but they had had the good fortune to be taken into Gunnar Masterman’s house; this man was a leading citizen with his eye on big rewards for the services he rendered the youthful town; a cold and calculating man by all accounts, but a wise and good man who went to church every Sunday. Upright, commanding, excessively virtuous, he was friendly with Governor Philip Gidley King; he had married the daughter of Major Gregory, a man of wealth and power in the town, and it was a worthy marriage, for everything Gunnar Masterman did was apparently worthy.
Being confined to the basement, it was only rarely that Carolan saw the upper part of the house. The servants were kept to the basement as much as possible, for they were convicts, all except Margery the cook, and she was on ticket of leave. Their bedroom a huge room which every one of them shared was in the basement. Its floor was of earth, and one of its walls was the side of the hill against which the house had been built. There was a small grating high in one wall; and this place was considered adequate, even luxurious, accommodation for convicts.
It was at the end of January when they arrived, and in the next weeks the summer weather grew intolerable. The mosquitoes were a plague to torture English skins, and there were no sleeping nets available in the basement. The moist heat was intense and oppressive; there was no respite. It was too hot to work by day; it was too hot to sleep at night.
Esther, who was adaptable, was almost happy, but Carolan rebelled against this new life, and as the memory of Newgate and the convict ship became more and more remote, her dissatisfaction grew greater.