Beyond The Blue Mountains

“You, my dear Miss Masterman, can have no conception of the extravagances of our pleasure gardens.” Then he talked of Ranelagh and Vauxhall, and she saw the pleasure gardens and she walked in the avenues with him, she watched the fireworks and she was at the concert, and it was the most exciting time she had ever known. She drank hot punch and syllabub and shared oysters with this man, and Mr. Handel’s music and Mr. Mozart’s music was the background of the scene, for now and then he would burst into song.

He drank a good deal, and he told her then of how on out occasion at Vauxhall he had stolen the purse of a fine lady who had gone there to meet her lover. She dared not raise a hue and cry because it must not be known that she had gone there to meet her lover.

When he told that story, which was no more shocking than others he had told, Esther got up from the table.

“You are devilish I’ she said, and burst into tears. And he just looked at her, cruelly, without saying anything, but Katharine could see he hated her and she hated him. She ran out of tie room, crying, which made Katharine very uncomfortable at first, but the other children hardly seemed to notice, and guessing that the reason they did not was because they had seen it happen many times before, she did not care either; for after all, she would care only on their account, and if they did not, where was the sense in her doing so? She was rather glad Esther had gone; she had tried to spoil the fun anyway. They could be more rollickingly gay without her.

When the meal was over, they sat on, talking. Darkness had come and lamps were lighted. Then Elizabeth’s mother came in and took the child away; she was a comely girl with a fat, stupid face, and the man Marcus kissed the little girl tenderly and the servant girl lightly, which seemed a very extraordinary thing to do, but none of the others appeared to think so. She tried to imagine Papa’s kissing Poll or Amy. It was quite impossible!

They gathered round the table when it had been cleared of the food; two tame dingoes stretched themselves out on the floor.

Then Marcus took a map and spread it on the table, and she and Henry pored over it with him. There was Sydney, a big black dot, and there was the coast and the sea, and Port Jackson and Botany Bay … and then, all furry looking, like a great caterpillar, wound the Blue Mountains. And beyond the Blue Mountains was a blank space.

Oh, it was wonderful to lean over that table and to see his face with its wrinkled skin and merry blue eyes in the lamplight, to be there ..” one of them … to listen to him as he talked and pointed with his finger at the places, now and then throwing out a word for her alone.

“What do you think, Miss Masterman?”

“Do you not think so?” As though she were not only a grownup but an explorer. She knew now why Henry adored him; she was not disappointed in him now. Once she cut into the most exciting conversation to say: “May I come here again? May I come often?” And he did not reprove her for interrupting; he seemed glad that she had interrupted, for he stretched out a hand quickly and gripped hers so that it hurt. He said: “Come as often as you like, Miss Masterman. Or perhaps I may call you Katharine…”

He talked of how he and others had tried to cross the mountains; how they had hacked away at the brushwood, how they had camped in deep gullies, how they had followed what they had thought might prove to be a way over the mountains, only to be disappointed. He told of dwindling stores, of the necessity for return, of weariness, and cold and heat, and sleeplessness.

They adored him because at one moment he was a child with them, delighting in the things that delight children, and the next he was a man, and they man and woman with him.

The woman spoilt it all by putting her curly head round the door and saying: “It is time Henry went to bed; it is time she did too.”

And strangely enough he did not protest, but folded up the map, and the lovely evening was over.

Katharine had a little room with a narrow bed in it, a basin and jug and a washstand and chest of drawers. The woman lent her a nightgown, and when she brought it in, Katharine could see that she had been crying. But Katharine was too tired to think much of her, and was soon asleep; and when she awakened in the morning, remembered where she was with a delicious sense of excitement. She washed hastily and went downstairs to find Marcus on the veranda, where the fat servant brought her bread and milk.

Marcus said: “We will ride back to Sydney as soon as you are ready.” He seemed less happy than he had been last night, wistful and very sorry that she was going. When she had finished her bread and milk, and Had eaten newly baked cakes, and drunk coffee, he said very earnestly: “I hope you will come again. It is not such a long ride out from Sydney, if you know the direct way to come. You must watch as we ride back, and take note of best way to come.”

“Thank you very much!”

“You are not sorry you were lost?”

“No, I am glad. I have loved it. I shall certainly come again..” often. May I come often ?”

“It could not be too often for me.”

“I am glad you like me.”

“Does that mean you like me?”

“You are different from other people.”

“Different from your father?”

“Oh, yes! Very different from him.”

“Yet you do not dislike me? You must be very fond of him.”

“Why, yes. He is very clever, you know. And very important.”

“And he amuses you… as I did last night?”

“Oh … Papa is not like that. He does not talk… very mud Except about the First Fleet and Mr. Bass and Mr. Flinders… and then only a little. He does not talk like you do.”

“And you liked the way I talked, did you not?” She was puzzled. She did not know what he wanted her to say, but had stopped thinking solely about him because her thoughts had switched to Papa and Mamma. She hoped they had not been frightened.

She said: “He is the best father in the world.”

“How do you know?” he said, just like Martin might have said Mamma says so.”

Then he dropped the subject, and she was glad.

She said goodbye to Henry, who intimated very definitely that she must come again. She said goodbye to Esther and Mr. Blake ‘ and all the children. Then she rode back with Marcus.

He talked fascinatingly as they rode, pointing out landmarks; he explained the difference in the grasses and the trees, and compared them with those of the Old Country. He sang songs he had known in the Old Country, and she was sorry when they came into Sydney.

Mamma came out into the yard. She was very white, and there were dark shadows under her eyes, and she stared at them as though they were ghosts.

“Hello, Mamma!” she called uneasily.

“I was lost.”

“Katharine!” said Carolan stonily, looking at the man. Katharine slipped off her horse; she stood there holding the bridle nervously.

Marcus said: “Carolan, your little daughter was rescued by my son. Do you not think that a rather charming sequel to … everything?”

Mamma called to one of the men to take Katharine’s horse. Mamma was white and haughty. Margery appeared; she had been crying. She screamed out when she saw Katharine: “Oh, my little love! My own little love!” And Katherine, frightened for some reason of which she was only partly aware, ran to Margery as if for protection, and Margery knelt on the stones of the yard and put her arms about her.

“Scared out of me wits, lovey. Why, you scared me out of me natural… Why, whatever was you up to?”

“I was lost, and Henry found me. and…” Margery’s body had gone taut; she was no longer thinking of Katharine; she was staring over Katharine’s head at Marcus.

Papa appeared. His face shone with sudden joy when he saw Katharine, and Katharine knew then that they had had no message, and had been very frightened.