Captive Wife, The (9 page)

No I do not, says the governess.

For, as if that were not enough, Nancy died a month later, the girl who had been Elizabeth and Edward's. I should have known she was sick, my grandmother said, for her fingers were blue like the claws of birds when she curled them around mine.

My grandmother believed she had brought bad luck on my grandfather, though I think she was hard on herself, for he was a man who brought a fair bit of bad luck on himself. Later when he'd served his time, he was given some land out Parramatta way, although it was not the pick of what was on offer. That went to the military and those who arrived free. I've heard you have a brother out that way, Miss Malcolm?

I see that the governess is very pale.

Well, it's none of my business. Still, perhaps your brother was able to buy some acres of good land but a ticket of leave man took what he was given. He wasn't much of a farmer, for he'd been a carpenter by trade; it was Granny who had green fingers. She could grow almost anything, and milk a cow as fast as hot rain on the roof, and raise chickens, so there was always food on the table. That is how I came to be born out that way at Parramatta, where I was baptised at St John's, for at the time my mother and father were living with them.

My grandparents eventually had five children of their own, which my grandmother said were blessings, though some more than others. The first one was David, born just nine months, give or take a few days, after the wedding. My grandfather had work in those times, for he was a carpenter and they were in short supply and there were many houses to be built. There was not much work for the women convicts except to keep body and soul together and Granny was carrying the new baby. All the same, she helped other women with their laundry, for there were many worse off than her. They gave her what they could in return.
Their husbands gave her their convict hats, which they hated, and she sewed a quilt made of nine of them she had unpicked, which was to cover the new baby in his cot.

But David did not live long and so the grief continued.

David was the son who was to have filled the place in her heart where Sweet William had been. My grandfather suggested they call him by the same name but at the time she was against same-naming that many people believed in. She saw it as a bad omen, though later she changed her mind about this.

This naming of people is important, I tell Miss Malcolm. It is worth asking yourself how you came by your name, for often there is a story behind it. What of you? I do not know your first name, but perhaps it is one you were called for your grandmother?

That is just an idle thought on my part, but Miss Malcolm says in a strangled voice, You are right, my name is Adeline and, indeed, I was named for my grandmother. It is a saintly name, a name that was given to the daughter of kings.

I feel that she wants me to know that she is better than the women of my family. I say a little quickly, perhaps unkindly, Well, well, saintly, Miss Malcolm. If you ask me, names are all tied in to the omens and tidings such as my grandmother saw at every turn.

The woman half rises from her seat and I think she is about to send me on my way. All this talk of the dead is unsettling her. Or perhaps she finds me too forward. She says in a low voice, My friends call me Adie. I can't tell her whether it's an invitation to call me by that name or not.

Well, either way, it did Granny no good when it came to naming David, for he perished with the runs, if you understand what I mean, and no offence intended. But the next two, who are my uncles Simon and Edward, did survive, although they took off for city life when they were young and we haven't seen hide nor hair of them since, though I believe they are working on farms out towards the Blue Mountains. My mother, Harriott,
was born next and last my Aunt Charlotte.

I am the first of Granny's daughter's children, the first grandchild that is known of, though my uncles may have other children. I should say something here of my father, Stephen Parker. He was a convict who came some years after the First Fleet. By then my grandfather was on the farm at Parramatta and entitled to convict labour of his own, assigned servants as you will know them. Not that he trusted convicts, which is funny when you come to think of it, but then he and my grandmother had a bad experience once, when a man called Michael Dennison stole a pound of flour from their house one Christmas Day, not long after they'd arrived in Australia. At any rate, Stephen Parker came to work on his land, and that is how he met my mother Harriott.

My father and grandfather got on very well, and soon he had his feet under the kitchen table, not taking his meals with the other hands. Granny was not so keen on him. That man has a weak chin, she said, and he doesn't work hard enough on the farm.

My mother was seventeen at the time. She is a woman who has always pined for town life, even when she was a girl, for the family had been down to Sydney twice in the ferry and seen George Street lit up with lanterns at night. And my father was a man who liked a drink, and he promised her that as soon as he was free they would come to Sydney. So that did it for the two of them, they felt theirs was a match made in heaven, no matter what Granny Pugh said. For her wedding, my mother wore a trailing white lace cape and held a bouquet of mignonette and ferns in her hands. This was the beginning of the end on the farm. All of us finished up moving to the Rocks, but not before I and my brother David were born. Yes, my brother was named after the lost baby, but how I came by my name is another matter.

When I say David's name, I feel I've said enough and fall silent, the tears like bruises behind my eyes. But I am like Granny, and I would not let a stranger see me crying and so I pull myself together.

My grandfather had asked Granny if she would call one of her girls Elizabeth, after the first one that he loved, Elizabeth Parker. She refused point blank and I can't say I blame her. My grandfather let the matter rest.

My mother nearly died giving birth to me. As Granny told it, my mother had brought forth the afterbirth without me inside. Granny knew that was a bad sign and that I might suffocate in my mother's womb. She spoke roughly to my mother and told her to stop her wailing. She called to Charlotte, who was in a fright with all the noise, to come in and sit on my mother's head. Placing one foot on the bed to give her balance, she thrust her hand inside my mother and grasped me by the shoulders. In my mother's story, Granny was panic-stricken too and perhaps she was, so many children had already slipped through her fingers, as it were. She tore me from my mother's body, and gave thanks that I was still breathing.

It was her pact with the devil, my mother said. Mostly I think she was bitter because my grandmother had not told her what it would be like and that babies came from parsley beds.

It was a long time before she would look at me. She lay in bed for days and days, not able to move, and slow to heal, ranting and raving at everyone who came near her. Granny stoked up fires, even though it was December, to boil water and cook broths. She left the naming of me until my mother was well enough to speak for herself, though my grandmother thought that childbirth had touched her in the head, a view she continued to hold forever after. That Harriott, she would say of my mother, she was never the same after her first-born. That woman developed a taste for men that is hardly decent, especially in one already married, which I think now is rich coming from Granny, who had had her own fine old fling. I heard her once say, you'd think she had the itches between her legs.

It was during those days when my mother hung between life and death, that my grandfather came into the room where she lay. My grandmother wasn't watching, simply worn out perhaps, and
asleep in some moment when I stopped crying and gave her a rest.

My grandfather said, Harriott, what name are you giving this child? My mother said she did not know, because her husband Stephen Parker had been expecting a boy and they had not talked about it. Please then, will you call her Elizabeth he said. It is a name that I fancy. My mother did not know what had taken place when he was a young man, nor that he had had a lover before Granny, and said yes, she was happy to call me that.

When Granny came in, my mother told her that my grandfather had named me Elizabeth and it was all agreed. At that, Granny said, the candle on the table burnt blue, and as I expect you know, Miss Malcolm, that is a sign that there is a spirit in the room, an apparition which my grandmother saw. For my name was not just Elizabeth, but Elizabeth Parker.

You might have asked Stephen, Granny had said. Or so my mother told me. She must have remembered this, in particular, for as a rule my grandmother never had a good word to say for my father.

I think it was then Granny decided she wanted me for herself, that she must protect me, for she had been offered a second chance to make good to the woman who perhaps she'd wronged.

I believe that is why Granny kept me with her as long as she did, when she could no longer take care of my brother and sister, for my mother has not been inclined towards child rearing, for all that she has babies at the snap of her garters. I swear a man has only to lay his trousers across the end of the bed and my mother will give birth to another.

Miss Malcolm makes a whinnying noise and I know I have taken things too far.

I shouldn't go on in this fashion, I say, for you don't want to hear all of this, it is not about David, or what happened.

Please, I want you to go on, says Miss Malcolm, wiping her eyes with a lawn handkerchief.

I didn't want to make you upset, I tell her. And yet a part of me is not telling the truth. I am quite enjoying the triumph of
seeing Miss Malcolm in such a state. My old school teacher.

It is not that, says Miss Malcolm, in an agitated way, it is just that you are making me see some things in an unexpected light.

I wish you no harm, I say, for she is again just a foolish ageing woman who is meddling where it is best she leaves things alone. I have given up all thought of being touched by her right thumb.

I didn't think you did, Miss Malcolm says in her prim and saintly voice, descended from kings. I can tell how truly shocked she is by the things I've told her.

It could be harmful to a lady in your position to come to know the people of the Rocks too well.

Miss Malcolm straightens herself up. I choose my friends. It is nothing to do with you. But soon the children will be here, so we should stop, for this conversation can go on another day.

I've told you enough, I say, and yet I have not. I have not begun to tell her about my brother David.

Somewhere, in the depths of the Roddick house, there is the distinct clatter of pots and pans. Not for the first time, Adie Malcolm stirs and looks edgily across her shoulder, as if she is half expecting someone to appear.

‘It sounds as if dinner is on its way,' says Betty Guard.

‘The children will be back soon,' says the governess, seeming uneasy, signalling that the conversation is over.

‘What is your cook making for dinner?'

‘Oyster pie, I believe.'

‘Oysters, eh? My husband fed me oysters when I was a girl. I didn't know it then, but they make a woman keener to be with a man. Did you know that, Miss Malcolm?'

‘An aphrodisiac,' says Adie, the words slipping from her mouth before she can prevent them. ‘Aphrodite, the goddess of love,' she says by way of embarrassed explanation.

‘Ah, those Greeks of yours. Well, now I couldn't look at an oyster if you offered it to me.'

Adie rises to her feet. ‘I'd like you to come again next week,' she says.

‘It is something about the smell,' Betty says, as if she hasn't heard the invitation. ‘I used to make a grand oyster pie. My husband bought me a recipe book. Does your cook use recipes, or does she make it all from her head?'

‘I don't know,' Adie says, walking towards the door. ‘I'm not sure that she can read and write. I've asked her but she avoids an answer.'

‘I can,' says Betty, ‘because you taught me.'

‘I remember.'

‘It changed me. I could not have sat and had a conversation like this with you if I had not met you. I am grateful for that.' The smell of oysters wafting down the corridor has become pungent and strong. Betty covers her nose with the edge of her shawl.

‘I think the oysters are not as fresh as they might be. You should speak to her.'

‘About your visit.' Adie's dismissal is becoming urgent. ‘It cannot be the day before, or the day after. It is this day one week hence or not at all. Do you understand?'

‘Oh yes, I understand.' But Betty stands poised as if listening to some other voice, her nostrils flaring and quivering. ‘Some say it smells like pork, tastes like pork, but the smell of an oyster that is not fresh gives me the same sensation, the same reminder. It is the paleness of the flesh that is similar.'

‘What is that? What are you talking about?' asks Adie, her voice chill and afraid, even as she continues to move her visitor to the door.

‘Nothing. I'm sorry, nothing I should mention. It's the dreams I've been having, the ones I told you about.'

A door bangs near by. Footsteps hurry along a corridor.

‘Louisa, my little girl, has not been well,' Betty says. ‘She has a cough that pains her, but it's not the whooping cough, which is different.'

Adie clutches the rail of the verandah, as if to keep herself from falling. ‘But you do understand? About the day?' she says.

A sense of panic has gathered round the conversation. Both women seem suddenly afraid of something, or someone who might catch them in each other's company.

‘I do, Miss Malcolm, but I cannot promise one way or another,' Betty says.