Читать книгу Mistress Betty Carew - Mary Gaunt - Страница 5

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Ah! when autumn dells are dewy, and the dew is ever still,

And that grey ghost called the twilight passes from the distant hill—

Even in the hallowed nightfall, when the fathers sit and dream,

And the splendid rose of heaven sees a sister in the stream—

Often do I watch the waters gleaming in a starry bay,

Thinking of a bygone beauty, and a season far away;

Musing on the grace that left us in a time of singing rain,

On the lady who will never walk amongst these heaths again.

"NOW here's a modest wench for you! Bless me! I haven't seen the like since I landed in this God-forsaken land! Look up my girl, and let's see those pretty dark eyes. I warrant they've a sparkle of their own."

Betty Carew looked up involuntarily and drew away with a shamed start. The little man in the scarlet uniform with the yellow facings and the blue breeches had actually laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Now, sir, now Captain," pleaded the woman beside her, whose wrinkled old face was hidden in the depths of a calico sunbonnet. "Please to let her alone. Mistress Betty is young yet, and she is not accustomed to the gay ways of the gentry, and the soldiers in these outlandish parts."

"And you're a first fleeter, I suppose, Granny! And pray what ship did Mistress Betty honour with her presence?"

"Devereux, you young dog!" A strong hand turned the little man round. "What the——, Mistress Carew, I humbly beg your pardon. Mr. Devereux shall mind his manners for the future or I will know the reason why. There he will apologise to you himself. Yes, you will Devereux," for that young gentleman was stamping his feet and looking thunders. "Oh! never talk to me of pistols! For the honour of the New South Wales Corps you will not insult a lady."

"No, I would not," said Devereux. "But I thought—I mean—I'm sure I beg pardon humbly, Madam."

Betty bowed gravely.

"There, be off with you and take care whom you make free with next time. Mistress Carew," said James Williams, "I am at your service. What can a poor lieutenant in his Majesty's New South Wales Corps do for you? Command me."

Betty looked up with a grave smile.

She was glad Williams had interfered, but she had been avoiding him, successfully she flattered herself, for the last week, and as she looked into his coarse, sensual face she rather thought she preferred the honest foolishness of the man who had accosted her with so little ceremony.

Again she bowed gravely.

"Indeed, sir, you have done all you can, and I am deeply obliged. Ann Collins and I are just waiting till the rush is over at the stores and then we have one or two things we wish to get."

"But I might——"

"No, I thank you. You can do nothing more." And as she looked demurely down on the ground it was evident even to James Williams, who did not take a hint easily, that she did not desire his company. She curtsied and putting her hand on Ann Collins' arm drew the old woman a little aside to sit down on the fallen trunk of a tree a little apart from the stream of people who were making their way to the biscuit coloured brick store house.

"The baggage," said Williams, aggrievedly, as he joined Devereux and a tall dark man who in his shirt sleeves, because it was March and the weather was still very hot, was leaning up against the wall in the shade of the store house. "There I rescue her from you, you dog, and she will have naught to do with me."

"She's a lady," said Devereux, feeling his shoulder tenderly. "Pest on you, Williams, what a grip you've got. Where the dickens did she come from?"

"Ah! All the settlement is asking that. She lives at Parramatta with one Thomas Rosen, a free settler who came out in the Bellona. He is a decent enough farmer and she is apparently one of the family, but she is not of his kind. Come, Bass, my gay medicine man, you've been in Parramatta lately, can't you tell us something of Mistress Betty Carew? You must know something even though wenches are not in your line."

"Faith!" said Devereux, looking at his companion's splendid proportions, "he's in the wenches' line, I should think."

Bass flicked his ear cheerfully but evidently he was not quite pleased at the turn the conversation had taken.

"Mistress Carew does not lightly dispense her favours," said he. "I am no more fortunate than the rest of you."

"The poor child does not know her power yet," said Williams.

"Child!" said Devereux. "It wasn't a child that looked at me."

"Maid, then," said Williams. "Come along and drink to the lucky beggar that gets her to wife."

And Betty, watching under the ample folds of her silken hood, drew a sigh of relief.

"I'm glad the're gone," she said.

"Why, my pretty? You'd think a pretty maid like you would be on the lookout for sweethearts. But I warrant Mistress Rosen will have plenty of young gentlemen coming up to do a little game shooting about the farm in the next day or so."

But Betty held her chin a little higher.

"They shan't come for me. I wouldn't speak to either of them."

"He's a pretty man, the doctor," said the old woman, slily. "And his manners are pretty too."

Betty did not answer. She let her eyes wander over the blue waters of Sydney Cove. The ground sloped a little toward the store, and though a road had been roughly marked out, at its side the grass newly grown after the recent rain was green and pleasant to the eye. Overhead there was never a cloud and there was not a breath of wind stirring, but the concourse of people, soldiers, and convicts, settlers, and even women and children who made their way to the Government Store trampled the sandy soil into dust which rose about their feet, and their voices reached Betty's ear as a pleasant murmur.

"The stores is low," sighed the old woman. "They do say to-day will see the last of the salt meat given out, and then Lord help us! There ain't no beasts to kill, and what's a hog now and agen. It's but a sop, dearie, but a sop."

The people began to disperse at last, and there came along this road a two-wheeled light cart drawn by four men in dark-coloured smocks and knee breeches. Another cart followed, another and another, all similarly drawn by convict scarecrows. They were harnessed like horses, and their frocks were stained and torn, and the stockings of those who wore such footgear were so ragged that the dusty bare feet of the others looked more honest and certainly neater. A private of the New South Wales Corps, musket in hand, walked by each cart, and the whole company were in charge of a sergeant. The soldiers' red coats and high stocks seemed uncomfortable and out of place in the glare of the sunshine, and the prisoners' faces looked peaked and yellow and thin, and they drew their heavy loads with difficulty. But the girl hardly noticed this. She was accustomed even in this short time to a tired half-starved looking convict; indeed, all the settlement was hard up for food.

"We can go now, Ann," she said, rising and shaking the dust from her skirts. Here come the carts for the Brickfields. Let us be quick before the store shuts."

"Ah, dearie, dearie me," said the old woman; "the poor fellows, the poor fellows," and she went so close to the leader in the nearest cart that their hands touched and the soldier in charge sang out to her:—

"Did you give him that tobacco I gave you?" asked the girl in an undertone.

"Ah, dearie, dearie me, my pretty. He's but a lad and his back all cut to pieces with the 500 they gave him for stealing a turnip from his Honour's farm. They work hard and go half-famished, and the gnawing of it, Missie, the gnawing of it. You don't know the gnawing of it."

The girl gave an impatient sigh.

There was so much misery around her and yet she had come into Sydney just to buy if she could a piece of sarcenet. It seemed wrong somehow, but she wanted the sarcenet.

There were only a few children round the door now on the lookout for any scraps that might have been dropped. One little party in ragged smocks were dressed to a line, and the boy at the head was commanding them, issuing his orders in a deep voice.

"Steady men, steady. Now, when I give the word. March! Left right, left right, left wheel. Steady, men, steady! You are going into the woods immediately to rout out the Indians. Now, steady."

He was only about eight years old, and Betty smiled down on the stern little face. It was a white face, too, for the summer had been long and their food was poor and unsuitable. She had a little packet of precious sugar in her bag and she undrew the strings and held it out to the boy.

"For all of you, mind, my little captain, fair."

"Oh, fair does, lady," he said gravely, and she lifted her smiling eyes from the child's face to meet the penetrating dark ones of George Bass.

"Permit me, madam," he said, offering her her pocket handkerchief.

"Oh, surely, could I have been so careless? And in this country where cambric is an unattainable luxury."

"I am fortunate," began Bass, who had put his coat on now and looked a finer fellow than ever. "Will you allow me."

"I only want some little thing from the store," hesitated Betty, because she caught sight of Williams' back in the doorway of the thatched hut next the store. She knew it for a tavern, and the back hardly looked sober. She wished with all her heart she had some one besides old Ann Collins as an escort.

"Madam," said Bass, gravely and courteously, "if you want any feminine fads now is your very best time, for his Honour himself has just gone in to take stock, and if you will permit me to escort you I shall esteem it an honour."

"Indeed," Betty hesitated, for Williams was coming towards them now, and he had toasted her so often, though she did not know that, that his step was not quite as steady as it might have been, "I doubt I was unwise—-"

"Permit me," said Bass, and he drew her hand through his arm. She looked straight in his face and the young man thought he had never seen such lovely dark eyes, such bright red lips, with the proudest little curl in them. He returned her look. Then he raised the big shady hat that he wore, for George Bass was ever unconventional.

"Permit me, Madam. Sydney is no place for a lady young and unprotected. Let me manage this for you, see you get your purchases, see you safe on board the Rose Hill packet, and then if you will it so you need never notice me again. I am your humble servant."

They were close at the door of the store now, and it looked dark after the brilliant sunshine outside. Behind she heard Williams' voice, thick and husky with the rum he had drunk, but Betty looked at her companion with a brilliant, trusting smile. Her fears had vanished now.

"That is not the way I treat my friends," said she, and the young surgeon of the Reliance felt his heart beat faster than its wont as he entered the store and found himself face to face with Governor Hunter.

"Hallo, my lad," said the bluff old gentleman, kindly. "What have we here?"

Inside the store was lined with logs, for the bricks had been built up over the old log building, and the interstices were filled up with mud. The walls were plainly to be seen, for the place was woefully empty. There were some big harness casks in one corner, some planks on trestles down the middle, on which were weights and scales, made a sort of counter, and in the far corner were a few, a very few bales of cloth and a box or two of boots and shoes.

"This, your Honour," said Bass, presenting Betty, "is Mistress Betty Carew, who, having lost her cousin in the crowd, has done me the honour to allow me to escort her and her woman hither."

The Governor, like the bluff old sailor he was, first bowed low over Betty's hand, and then put his own kindly on her shoulder.

"You're too pretty a maid to be straying about Sydney alone," said he. "No one would insult you, but still——"

"I am deeply obliged to Mr. Bass, your Honour."

The Governor gave Bass a dig in the ribs, which made that young man blush to the roots of his dark hair. Seldom was powder worn in Sydney in those days, whatever they might do in England.

"And what can the Governor do for you, Mistress Betty? I trust you want neither salt nor flour, for the last ounce of both is gone," and he sighed, for indeed he did not know but that the little colony was on the brink of starvation.

Betty blushed. She had not expected to present her request to the Governor himself.

"It was some sarcenet I wanted, your Honour," she said, "and the storehouse at Parramatta——"

"Did not contain such furbelows. Well, I doubt if the storehouse at Sydney does. Still, there were some stuffs sent out for Mistress MacArthur and the other officers' ladies. Here, Walker, Walker"—a man rose up from under the counter where Betty had not noticed him—"open me one of the bales there and let Mistress Betty see what manner of mercer's man the Governor of the colony makes."

There was no green sarcenet but there was some blue satin, and Betty chose that and some white muslin, hesitated over some dimity for a petticoat, the Governor, his secretary, the storekeeper, and George Bass looking on with deepest interest.

"You want the petticoat, my pretty," said Ann Collins.

"Yes, but"—Betty emptied five golden guineas on to the counter—"this is all I have, and I do not know——"

The Governor swept them back into her bag again.

"You will permit an old man," said he, "to give you these. He has never done such a thing in his life before, but for the sake of your sweet English face in this land of iniquity—Walker, do them up so as her woman can carry them and enter them to my charge."

"Oh, your Honour," said Betty, "I——"

There came a cry that was taken up and echoed again and again and grew apace.

"A sail! A sail! A ship! A store ship! A sail!" and a sound of rushing, hurrying feet, swept past the door.

"A ship!" cried the Governor, and he gathered up Betty's possessions and bundled them into Ann's arms. "Providence will sure never be so kind. It will be the saving of this community." And he, too, ran to the door and away down the rough track to the shore of the cove.