Hester Waring's Marriage (22 page)

Above all else, Hester must not discover what had happened for a new reason and one which was beginning to trouble him. Her health and strength, which had returned once her morning sickness had ended, had disappeared again and he wanted nothing to disturb her.

By the time he reached home there was nothing in his manner to betray that he had been the subject of a murderous attack—except that Hester, sensitive to everything to do with him, knew that something was wrong, but what, was quite another thing. Wisely, she said nothing.

 

Jack soon discovered that he had not so much as winged his enemy and tried to drown his disappointment in drink. There were, perhaps, safer ways of disposing of Dilhorne than killing him himself: ruining him might be a good start. He had friends in The Rocks who might do him a favour, particularly if he asked them to help him to loot the Regimental stores of liquor again—he badly needed the money which such a ploy would bring him. One way or another, he would do for the wretch.

‘I
s anything worrying you, Tom?' Hester asked him.

They had been playing chess: the athletic activities of their early married life had stopped now that Hester's pregnancy had advanced. She had grown very large quite early on. The weight of the child seemed to be almost too much for her to carry. Even walking was difficult.

There were no more romps in the open, no excursions which took them to strange places, no driving out to the quarry, or to his place of business in Sydney where the sight of little Mrs Dilhorne on her husband's arm had become commonplace. Hester never complained about her straitened life: the stoicism which she had learned during her poverty still sustained her.

Tom turned his inventiveness to devising games and pastimes which made no physical demands on her. They played cards, he showed her magic tricks and explained how they depended on misdirection. At night she would read to him. He continued to consult her on business matters, even when she could not go out with him.

‘However big you grow, Mrs Dilhorne,' Tom said firmly to her one evening, ‘I am not having you dwindle into a
wife.' He was quoting to her from the Congreve play which she had read to him the previous evening.

‘You are my partner now and must learn the business. You may look after your child, but it must not be your whole life, for the day will come when the child has grown up and, think on, what will you do then?'

Only Tom, thought Hester, amused, could contemplate his wife, not yet due to give birth, and energetically decide what he, she and it would be doing twenty years hence.

Recently his teaching of her about his business had become more urgent. Once she had overheard him say to Joseph Smith, who had remonstrated with him for burdening his breeding wife with such matters, ‘By God, man, if aught should happen to me I don't want her to be like those ignorant fools of widows who become the prey of the unscrupulous.'

Was it the prospect of an early death which was troubling him, and if so, why? Almost, as Hester watched him sitting opposite to her, mending his harness, for his hands were as skilful as his brain, she was tempted to ask him what was troubling him so. What stopped her was the thought that he would certainly tell her all in good time, for he had always done so before.

Her silence had him looking up at her.

‘Tired, Mrs Dilhorne?'

Hester shook her head. ‘Not more so than usual.'

Tom's intuition did not fail him. He was sure that she had detected a change in his manner since Jack had become a threat, but he was not ready to burden her with his knowledge.

Instead he murmured, ‘Time for some more Gibbon, perhaps?'

Hester smiled a yes and picked up the heavy book which lay on the table by her elbow. She had begun to read to
him
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
and he had found that Gibbon's cynicism matched his own. They had become engrossed in the world of the Antonines where other men and women, like Tom and her, had lived on frontiers so that still others could live in comfort.

 

Even though Tom had been expecting another attack, it surprised him when it came. Only his finely tuned instincts saved him. He had called late at Will French's that night and was hurrying home to Hester, whom he was less and less inclined to leave alone even though he had posted an armed servant, Miller, in the hall of Villa Dilhorne to act as watchdog during his absence.

It was dark in the unpaved streets which led away from the centre of Sydney, and by night he always walked warily. It was only at the last moment that he became aware of his attackers. He never knew how many there were—possibly two or three—and it was only by great good fortune that he turned away from a blow with a cosh which might have proved fatal had he been completely under it.

Half-stunned, but with an instinctive and snarling determination to survive, he lashed out like the street-fighter he had once been, and used some of the queer tricks which he had learned from a Japanese who had settled in Sydney.

With the edge of his stiff right hand he struck the holder of the cosh in the throat so hard that he fell voiceless and unconscious to the ground. Then, his senses reeling, he put the point of his boot into the second man's groin to such effect that he gave a high-pitched scream and dropped, clutching himself, to the ground.

Tom barely conscious, fell backward against the wall of the house behind him and began to slide down it until he reached a sitting position on the ground. The third man, if three men there were, had taken to his heels on hearing
the noise of some late-night revellers from Madame Phoebe's approaching them. The 73rd's finest were lurching back to the Barracks, flown with wine and singing lustily.

One of the officers saw Tom, dazed and stunned, propped up against the wall.

‘By God, it's Dilhorne,' exclaimed young Parker. ‘Is he drunk, do you think?'

‘That'd be a wonder,' returned Pat Ramsey, bending down and meeting Tom's dulled, but still sardonic gaze.

‘Not drunk, attacked,' croaked Tom. ‘Help me up, Ramsey, there's a good fellow.'

‘Good God, there's another of them here,' said Major Menzies, putting a disdainful toe on the ruffian whose larynx Tom had damaged.

‘Should be two, at least,' mumbled Tom, swaying in Pat Ramsey's grip.

‘Two!' ejaculated Pat. ‘Where's t' other?'

Young Osborne found the second and Menzies examined him as well.

‘He's nearly killed the pair of them,' drawled Menzies, rising. ‘There's one here who'll be slow to talk again, and by the look of it his friend will be lucky if he ever pleasures another girl. What did you hit 'em with, Dilhorne? A brick?'

Parker had found the cosh and Pat had raised Tom into a sitting position on a low wall.

‘They damaged his head and his left shoulder,' he reported. ‘Here, Osborne, hold him up for me, will you. I want to see exactly what Dilhorne did to 'em.'

While one of the junior officers went for the watch, Pat examined Tom's victims before returning to ask, ‘Just to satisfy my curiosity, Dilhorne, what exactly
did
you hit them with?'

Tom looked blearily at Pat. He was slightly concussed, one eye was closing, and bruises were beginning to appear on his face. He muttered, ‘Hand—nigh broke it, and foot—' And he indicated the point of his polished military-style boot.

Osborne said helpfully, ‘Let's get him to Madame Phoebe's.'

‘No!' exclaimed Tom, his voice momentarily normal. ‘Home. Hester will worry. Carriage round corner, I'll drive.'

‘She'd worry if you drove home in this condition, my friend,' Pat said briskly, thinking that here was a splendid chance to see the inside of Villa Dilhorne. ‘Parker and I will take you.'

‘I'll come, too,' offered Osborne eagerly.

‘No, lad, no room,' said Pat. ‘But we'll tell you what was what, later.'

Privately his respect for Dilhorne, already high, had increased after seeing what he had done, half-conscious, to his enemies. That stupid ass, Jack Cameron, could count himself lucky that Dilhorne had spared him.

It was gone two in the morning before they arrived at Villa Dilhorne. Tom had given Pat his keys. He had the doors open before Miller, pistol in hand, reached them, a worried Hester, carrying a candle, close behind him. The two officers helped Tom, still suffering from pain and shock, into the hall.

Hester said sharply, ‘Tom, what's wrong?' Her eyes on Stephen Parker and Pat were accusing.

Tom lifted his head.

‘Hurt, not drunk,' he managed to say. ‘I promised you, remember?'

The effort of speech had him putting his entire weight
on Ramsey. ‘I was attacked. Good friends brought me home.'

Parker's fascinated eyes were on Hester. Her body, thickened by pregnancy, was concealed by a pink silk Chinese robe decorated with cream and yellow irises. It was loosely belted by a pale mauve sash. Her face was translucent as a result of her growing frailty, but it was delicately beautiful, and full of concern.

Once her first fright was over, she put down the candle and briskly started to organise matters. Miller was sent for further help. Pat Ramsey and Parker were asked to take Tom to his room. Both men were only too willing to find out what his bedroom was like now that they had seen the dazzling splendours of the room below.

They were particularly impressed by the screen with the running tiger on it.

Young Parker could not help regretting that he had callously rejected the rare piece of womanhood which Hester had become. Once he could have had her for the asking. He wondered, as Pat Ramsey was doing, how the brutal pirate they were assisting to his bed, and whose handiwork was lying battered in the lock-up, had managed to create such a rare treasure.

They followed Hester up the massive staircase, past the Chinese idols and through the bronze doors. Hester began to light the numerous blue and white candles, thick in their porcelain holders, which stood about the lovely room.

She was amused to see that the two officers' eyes were everywhere after they had lifted Tom on to the big divan bed. She went into the dressing-room and emerged carrying a priceless Chinese bowl: the two men stood back to allow her to wipe Tom's face, one side of which was rapidly turning purple.

Miller's arrival, after seeing to Tom's horse and car
riage, left them free to leave, full of what they had seen. Hester took them into the room where the tiger rampaged. A maid brought them sandwiches and Hester poured brandy for them into Tom's priceless glasses.

After a moment's small talk she said coolly, ‘Now I must ask you to tell me exactly what happened before and after you found him.'

The note of authority in her voice was such that Pat took her at her word. When he had finished she asked, ‘Have you any notion of who his attackers were—or why he was attacked?'

Hester was privately of the opinion that this wretched business had something to do with Tom's recently changed manner, but she was not about to tell Pat so.

He shook his head. ‘No, I can tell you nothing. The most likely supposition is that they saw a splendid opportunity to rob him, the hour being so late. The brutes were so badly hurt that I doubt whether they will be able to tell the watch anything, either.'

‘He would not be kind,' she said dismissively. ‘You have both been as considerate as I might have hoped. We cannot thank you enough.'

They left. Although whether it was the house or Hester which impressed them the most, neither of them could have said.

 

In the Mess on the following day they told their story and it was the house which they dwelt on.

‘You should have seen the bedroom,' exclaimed Pat. ‘Lucy Wright didn't exaggerate, she didn't even tell all. It was filled with treasures: ivory gods, Chinese vases, silks, lacquered furniture—and the bed! You've never seen anything like it. No curtains, just pillows and bolsters everywhere and it was as big as a ballroom. I swear to God it
was large enough for him to have entertained all Madame Phoebe's girls at once if he'd had a mind to.'

 

Tom recovered quickly from the ambush. He told Hester that it must have been a botched attempt at robbery. Both of the injured men were escaped convicts who had been living in the bush around Sydney and were known to be petty thieves. The one who could speak told the magistrates that they had been after Tom's money and valuables: both Tom and Hester for their different reasons doubted this. Tom was sure that Cameron was behind it, but he had no proof.

He had other things to worry him. His wagon trains, which operated between Sydney, Paramatta and other outlying settlements, were coming constantly under attack, each one worse than the last. They were not armed, but the bandits were, and in the most recent attack one of the accompanying men had been badly injured.

Again it was supposed that escaped convicts and masterless men were responsible.

‘Any idea who might be behind it?' Tom asked his wagon master, O'Neill. He had met him on the quay by the harbour.

‘None, except…' He hesitated. ‘No one else is suffering, only us.'

‘Right. If we're the target again on the next run, I shall ride with you on the one after that. I shall be armed, with half-a-dozen reliable ruffians I know of at my back. They'll be armed, too. We can't afford a running sore of this nature to damage us.'

He said nothing more. Only time would tell whether the attacks on his wagons were merely coincidence or a sign that Jack had changed his tactics. Something else to keep from Hester, unfortunately.

 

Governor Macquarie invited the Dilhornes to a small private dinner party. It was to be one of Hester's last outings before her baby was born. The reason for the privacy was that the Governor wished to discuss some matters with Tom in an unofficial, rather than an official, capacity.

He noted, with his usual kindly, slightly inquisitive concern for his fellow men, that all Sydney was right when it gossiped about heartless Tom Dilhorne's loving care for his heavily pregnant wife. He could not miss the occasional touching of hands, the speed with which Tom moved to effect anything which might add to her comfort, or relieve her discomfort, nor the way in which they looked at each other. It made the Governor feel old even while it pleased him.

After dinner, his wife helped Hester to her pretty withdrawing-room while her husband offered Tom brandy and cigars. Tom took a little of the first, refused the latter. He was wondering what all this was leading up to, and now thought it advisable to resume his business persona: during dinner he had been an exquisitely mannered English gentleman.

‘The thing is,' began Macquarie after they had made small talk about the possibilities of exploring and settling further inland instead of being content to remain on the edge of the vast continent, ‘you know how hard I've been pressing you to allow me to nominate you as a magistrate.' He paused.