Morgan's Run

February was blowy and wild, hurricanes lurking. At least the crops were all in and the grain under shelter; a harvest big enough to feed every person in Norfolk Island, though there would be none to spare for New South Wales. Just a lot of lime, a little timber.

On the 15th of February, Richard hurried home, late and very anxious because the Lieutenant-Governor had delayed him with more questions than Kitty could think of in a week. Kitty was not yet due, but the head had engaged, so Olivia Lucas had told him, and Joey Long was nobody’s idea of a midwife. Comforted by Olivia’s and Kitty’s assurances that first babies did not come in a hurry, he headed down the track to the house. No smoke issued from the tall stone chimney; his pace quickened. Even at almost nine months, she still insisted upon baking her own bread.

Not a sound.

“Kitty!” he called, bounding up the three steps to the door.

“I am here,” came a small voice.

Heart drumming a tattoo against his rib cage, Richard burst through the door, taking in the room with a single glance. Not a sign of her. In the bedroom—Christ! It had begun!

She was sitting on the bed propped against two pillows, her face turned toward him with a beatific smile. “Richard, meet your daughter,” she said. “Say good evening to Kate.”

His knees sagged but he managed to reach the bed, sit on its edge heavily. “Kitty!”

“Look at her, Richard. Is she not beautiful?”

A pair of work-scarred hands offered him a tightly wrapped bundle—oh, it was not fair that his hands should be better cared for by far than hers! He took the bundle and delicately pushed the swaddling away from a tiny folded face, its mouth a perfect O, its puffy eyelids shut, its skin too dark to be red, surmounted by a shock of thick black hair. The ocean of love opened and swallowed him whole; he sank without a protest back into that magical realm, leaned forward to kiss the weeny creature upon her forehead, felt the tears come.

“I do not understand! Ye were so well when I left for the afternoon. Ye said nothing.”

“There was nothing to say. I was truly well. It happened all in a muddle, I had no warning. My water broke, I had a gripey pain, and then I felt her head. So I spread a clean sheet on the floor, squatted down and had her. The whole did not take above a quarter of an hour. As soon as the afterbirth came I found some thread, tied the cord and cut it with my scissors. She was screaming—oh, what a voice! I cleaned her, tidied up the floor, put the sheet in to soak, and bathed myself.” Bursting with pride, she beamed complacently. “I truly do not know what all the fuss is about.” She pushed her calico house shift aside and displayed one exquisite breast, its dark red nipple beaded. “My milk has come in already too, though Olivia said to wait a while before giving suck. Am I not clever, Richard?”

Careful not to squash the bundle, Richard leaned forward to kiss her reverently upon the lips. His eyes worshiping her, he brushed the tears from his face and smiled shakily. “Very, very clever, wife. Ye did it as if ye’d done it twenty times.”

“I have no scales so I ca

He squinted at Kate’s face and tried to verify this, but could not. “She is very beautiful, wife, that is all I can see.” After that he looked more closely at Kitty. She seemed a little tired, but glowed so radiantly that he could not believe she stood in any danger. “Ye’re well? Honestly?”

“Truly. Just weary. She slipped out so easily that I am not even uncomfortable. Olivia recommended that I squat. That is the natural way, she says.” Kitty took Kate back to look at her again. “Richard!” she exclaimed, her tone reproachful. “She is your image—how can you not see it?”

“Are ye happy to call her Catherine, like yourself?”

“Yes. Two Catherines—one Kitty, one Kate. We will call our next girl Mary.”

He could not help it; he wept until Kitty put the baby down and took him into her arms.

“I love you, Kitty. I love you more than life itself.”

Again her lips parted to say something offering him herself. Then Kate yelled lustily. So instead she asked, “Will you listen to that? I think Stephen is right, we have a shrew to rear. And that settles it. I am going to give her suck.”

She slid both arms out of the shift and let it drop to her waist, unwrapped the little creature and held her naked against her own skin with a sensuous pleasure that devastated Richard. The O of mouth fastened around the nipple offered it; Kitty emitted a huge sigh of utter pleasure. “Oh, Kate, this makes you truly mine!”

It had never occurred to Kitty to doubt one fact: that Richard would be a wonderful father. What surprised her was his complete surrender to fatherhood. So many of her women friends and acquaintances complained that their men were wary of being seen as unma

He worked too hard because he tried to fit more into less time, always eager to be off home to see Kitty and Kate. When Kitty timidly suggested that perhaps he could do less sawing and more farming, he looked horrified—no, no! His job as supervisor of sawyers was well paid, and every note of hand he accumulated on the Government books was an insurance against the future of his children. He would manage to saw and farm, he was not dead yet.

Kate was six months old at the moment when Tommy Crowder came to the second sawpit looking for Richard, enquiring when Richard intended putting baby Kate on the Government Stores list.

“I can keep my wife and child off the Stores,” said Richard with dignity.

“Commander King insists that they be on the Stores. Come to my office and we will do it now.” Off trotted Crowder, not pausing to see if Richard followed.

“I do not see why my wife and child should be on the Stores,” said Richard stubbornly in Crowder’s tiny office. “I am the head of the family.”

“That is just it, Richard. Ye’re not the head of a family. Kitty is a convict woman and a spinster. That is why she is still on the Stores list and her baby must go on it too. I simply need ye here as a witness,” Crowder explained.

Richard’s eyes had gone completely grey and dark. “Kitty is my wife. Kate is my daughter.”

“Catherine Clark, spinster. . . . Yes, here she is,” Crowder burbled on, finding the right line on the right page in his big register. He picked up a quill, dipped it in his inkwell and added, speaking aloud as he wrote, “Catherine Clark, child.” He looked up brightly. “There! That is done and ye’ve seen me do it. Thank you, Richard.” He put the quill down.

“The child’s name is Catherine Morgan. I acknowledge her.”

“No, ’tis Clark.”

“Morgan.”

Tommy Crowder was not a very perceptive man; he spent too much of himself upon becoming invaluable to people who could help him get ahead. But suddenly, looking up into eyes as stormy as Sydney Bay during a squall, he felt the blood leave his face. “Do not blame me, Richard,” he stammered. “I am not your judge, I am merely a servant of the Norfolk Island Government. Commander King wants everything”—he simpered—“shipshape and Bristol fashion. As a Bristolian, ye should be pleased.” He was babbling now, could not stop babbling. “I have to put the baby on my lists, and I have to ask ye to witness the fact that I have. Her name is Clark.”