The Ballad of Desmond Kale, page 19
It so happened that Joe had a gold ring, in a kidskin bag of jewels. It was on the market at a fair price, with only a little haggling involved.
And that was how, in a dusty glade of trees, next night of the full moon (which was as soon as the following Sunday) Tom Rankine and Meg Inchcape were married.
The ceremony took place a few miles from the river, out under trees, where Joe stopped their waggon. Those who attended were advised to leave the main tracks and follow a set of deep gouged ruts where a rag was tied to a bush, then to follow a lighter impression of tracks through dry grass. ‘Be there by nightfall,’ was the word. ‘Come,’ was sent to Warren, but was a message equivocally mangled en route; anyway, he did not come. As many of Meg’s friends from Parramatta came as could find their way, which was a good number, but from among Rankine’s fellow officers there came not one.
Meg had nothing more beautiful to wear than Martha’s gypsy woman’s costume worn for fortune-telling. Tightened at the waist, where Meg was slenderer, lowered in the hem, where she was taller, it accomplished on her a ravishing sweep of black satin, its dark folds shimmering blue as a cock bowerbird’s plumage in naked lights. The dress had an orange silk embroidered collar and cuffs, in a pattern of flower-de-luces. A trader’s treasure box was rifled to find jewels and perfumes. Over her long combed hair, which fell in a ripple to her waist, Meg wore a black lace mantilla saved by Rankine — he did not know what for, until he took it out for his wedding day — from a box of mementos of Spain. Her face was pale and serious when she caught Rankine’s gaze. She was the paleness of bleached dry leaves in the dry grass.
Storm clouds travelled along the western horizon. They pounded the rocky ramparts beyond the biggest river. Sheets of rumbling white lightning played behind the tallest trees. The priest, a bony man with large knotted fingers, arrived on dark and hurried them into a gathering. Mick Tornley lit two bonfires, one either side of the clearing. It was Mother Hauser gave Meg away. Rankine heard Meg and a dozen others obediently chanting Latin, saw them crossing themselves as the priest scuttled between them fingering wafers onto their poor tongues. Then the priest called to Rankine, and whispered his questions: did he love Meg’s Church; would he never stand in its way?
‘As I do love her,’ said Rankine.
‘You are bold, impartial, regardful, allegiant, and known as a friend,’ said the priest, making a sign. Joe Josephs wrenched his head aside on seeing that sign.
Before Rankine knew, Meg was given as his wife, and he was taken as her husband — and they could hardly believe it, the fountaining of joy, the renewal of hope, the corrective of disruption. They could not remember what the troubled questions were between them. They were all gone away. Rankine was the proudest glad fool in Christendom — Meg the conqueror of his life. The lack of civil papers in their form of marriage made no difference to their pledges. Papers would be obtained in time: Rankine wanted to see the governor’s face when he told him. A washerwoman taken as bride. Do not just stand there gaping. Pray sign the declaration.
Placing the chamfered gold ring on Meg’s finger, Rankine lifted his eyes to Meg’s — her hazel eyes almost reluctantly lifted to his. Overhead the moonlit sky was glassy clear; Meg’s face was lit by intermittent strokes of lightning. Rankine’s parched hungry eyes were on fire gazing at her.
All bowed their heads when the convict priest said so, raised their heads when he said so, and cried into their blessed handkerchiefs as he gave the benediction.
Afterwards, Leah Josephs served sweet plumcakes, Joe served rum from a cask, Arthur Josephs played his violin and Father Cahill tipsily recited a ballad, which nobody understood, except that in some lines he looked at Rankine in a measured, knowing way, and struck a hand to his knee, with a rhythmic crack. Mother Hauser took Mick Tornley by the arm and they danced until both fell over. The drinking, dancing, and toast making were accelerated because of the coming storm. A rush of wind came through the tops of the trees, then died away.
Before too long Rankine went around these friends saying good night and then he came to Meg. Taking her by the waist he lifted her onto his horse. She was a dreamer in a dream of contentment. Climbing up behind her, he held her around the waist and everyone gathered in and farewelled them.
Trees formed an archway of trunks and branches. Moonlight slipped bars of shadow across their backs as the mare stepped through bars of shadow in front of them. There was not far to go. Meg tipped back her head while Rankine kissed the fledged hairs of her neck. Coming up behind them were piled silvered towers of cloud threatening the moon. They rode towards a dim light coming low through the trees. As they grew closer to that light Meg made guesses of what it was. There was the fuzzy glow of lamps and the shadowy outline, enlarged, of a three-legged stool. Somehow it seemed the moon had broken off part of itself and crashed through the trees until it took on a shape of a house and a room. It had glowing walls with lanterns lit inside.
‘Under the porch with you,’ said Rankine to his mare. He got down first. As he set Meg down, she slipped through his arms like a ribbon of moonlight. Rankine hobbled the mare. He turned back to see Meg with the palms of her hands brushing the canvas walls. She was quite absorbed in the motion. He could have stood there watching her for an age, but the sound of the canvas on the bare skin of her palms was the whisper of sand sifting through an hourglass. A drumming whisper of touch. Love a connection of moonlight condensing hope down through thin walls. After tonight Rankine was ready to throw the tent away and told Meg so. ‘You mustn’t, ever,’ she said. This made him smile, and he did remember their differences. They stood awkwardly at the threshold until Rankine remembered his duty and carried her over the log that made the front step. (Rankine was not to tell Meg it was a bastard to rig up. He was never to complain about it. It had taken two days. There were the boards needed to make a portion of floor, newly sawn gum wood, sticky scented yellow boxwood planks — and then ask him how the bedding required all the plucked widgeon feathers from a dozen miles around Parramatta, and three layers of rare silk. Not to mention the pillows. The time Mother Hauser spent scrounging them. The time Martha spent embroidering them — all for this night of storm.)
A rattle of heavy raindrops went over the roof. There was the smell of damp dust before rain, the clatter of twigs, the pungent oil of gum leaves released by stormy dampness. Rankine steered Meg into the side division forming the bedroom. The walls were guyed taut, timber and rope braced. Meg sat on a stool while Rankine checked the rigging. The legs of the rough bush stool had scabs of bark on them. When Rankine came back he knelt on the floor and unlaced Meg’s boots. Undoing his shirt he placed the bare sole of her foot against his heart. Their eyes met, Meg laughed and pushed him away. But when Rankine stood, Meg turned mutely accepting, as he undid the hooks at the back of her dress, wrenching where they resisted. His fingers were fat from wanting, his cheeks and his lung passages congested with drawn blood. He pressed hard against her, feeling for her givingness. ‘Tom,’ she chided, lest he rip the precious material. Satin hung loosely from her shoulders. She guided his hands. He tugged the material from the waist, leaving it slumped at her feet. Then she was ivory lit, resplendent in every curve and hollow turning in his arms. He drew her back against him and stroked her belly. She sidled around, accepting, waiting, breathing. The closeness of her body gusted with heat and pungent Eastern perfumes sampled from Martha Josephs’s jars and pots. The moment was upon them, it was Rankine’s choice how the moment was played. Her fingertips traced an electric pattern on his skin. He dropped his arms slack, as if he was already done, while his arousal said otherwise. Meg stepped clear of the dress, collecting it in folds. It was her first act of housekeeping under their roof. She took the mantilla and drew it across the foot of the bed. Quite openly, then, to his gaze, she scrambled across the bedclothes and turned offering herself to him, lying back on the downy bedroll. Rankine doused the lanterns. ‘Tom,’ she called to him. Racing cloud-shadows whited moonlight inside the tent and darkened it by turns. Lightning sizzled, cracked, exploded fairly close, may be a tree went up, dazzling the eyes but they had the lightning rod. It was barbed over the cap of the tent house. Only a part of Rankine’s awareness checked the progress of the storm. The other storm was in their lovemaking.
NEXT TIME THE JOSEPHS WERE found, their party was picketed inside boundaries of Laban Vale, some miles from the parson’s homestead, with orange sparks of a campfire flying up in the first dark. It was a week since the wedding. A plan had been made for Rankine and Meg to ride out and join them on their way. They would continue together from there as far as they could. But someone else arrived first.
The supper pots were all to one side when Patrick Lehane got down from his horse. Two of them had blankets spread on the ground and were smoking their pipes — Josephs father and son. They had muskets beside them which they only fingered lightly, when they saw it was just one man, and a white one. Either they had never heard of the eye of reason or did not believe in the eye as a threat; whichever way, no credit to them. Their horses stood in the trees hobbled and their bullocks were hobbled in the sand of a dry creek, pulling at whatever they could find of fodder and breathing sternly in the quiet as they munched noisy clusters of growth, staring their wide dark horned heads through the reeds by the campfire’s throw of light. The wife and two younger children had a lantern and were settled under the high floor of the dray, their legs crossed on a patterned rug unrolled on the ground. They stood out to acknowledge their visitor. The wife was dumpy as a beehive; the daughter, of an age to be eyed, with a strong figure and a fringe of black hair across a white forehead — and so Lehane consumed her with his stare until she damned his ogling by turning aside. The boy of about nine or ten had a head as big as a pumpkin, and Lehane wanted to kick it to smithereens, just for the heck of it. The good wife beamed out a welcome that Lehane would like to rub in her shining face. It was all too comfortable, too cheerfully loving and complete except for the bugs and moths bothering them, diving into their light and sizzling in the flame.
‘Who is it, Joe?’ said the wife.
‘A passerby.’
‘Do you have any baccy?’ said Lehane, thrusting a hand deep in a pocket as if he had coins there, stirring his fingers around conspicuously to be sure it was known he intended to pay.
‘I do have baccy,’ said the trader, ‘as it happens, and plenty of it, but it is all high up and bundled, can’t ye wait for it?’
‘Not if I want to keep on my way,’ said Lehane.
Joe Josephs offered his own pouch then.
‘Take a good fist of niggerhead, and consider yourself in debt to Joe Josephs’s friendship, sir. This here’s my eldest boy, Arthur, and over by our house on six wheels is my Martha and the two younger ones, Leah and Solly. No doubt I shall learn to know you better, if you join our fire. So far I am wondering if you have a name at all. This gentleman soundly snoring is Mick Tornley, the bullocky.’
They looked across at the lumpy shadow on the dirt.
‘I have heard of Mick Tornley,’ said Lehane, turning pale: Tornley stood for no nonsense, and he’d not counted him into the equation of a bail-up. So he’d better hurry.
‘Oh, and the next thing you are going to say,’ said Joe Josephs, lowering his reedy voice, ‘at least from the warning look on your wise count’nance, is you know Mick Tornley will kill two or three bullocks at ten guineas a head in twelvemonth’s driving unless he gets a sovereng every full moon, and I better have my geld ready because it is a wide country we are in.’
‘Something like that, matey,’ said Lehane, reaching around to his backbone and releasing his pistol. ‘Now if you would all step forward, and get in a line, I shan’t bother you long. You can get back to tormenting our saviour with your evil spells. I am Patrick Lehane, the eye of reason. I would ask the young lady to collect everything shining silver or gold. Go to your father’s pockets, dear.’
Chinking coins were passed to Lehane. The girl limped back into line.
‘Five holey dollars, is that all? You shall have to move faster. What is wrong with you?’
‘She is lame,’ said her little brother, which the girl did not like hearing.
‘Now would you answer me, Joe, where is your gold?’
‘Leah,’ said Joe, ‘look in the trunk. You know the pearly one?’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Solly.
‘Run along and hurry,’ agreed Lehane.
The boy went under the waggon and dropped from sight on the other side. They waited for him to reappear. Lehane levelled his pistol on Joe. There was an unnatural quietness everywhere.
‘Where is the boy?’
‘He is directly behind you, sir.’
Lehane felt a tickling at his waist, like a mouse escaping from his trousers. When he turned around it was to find the boy holding a cocked pistol pointing at his heart. The trader and the older son scooped up their firearms and Lehane was completely covered and done.
‘Thank you, Solly,’ said the trader, as the bullocky stirred from his blankets, blinked awake, assessed the need and without a word too many set about finding greenhide straps to bind Lehane’s wrists and ankles until morning.
‘What is my crime?’ said Lehane. ‘I am only a victim of temptation, which is a very human thing.’
‘We shall let the parson magistrate decide on you,’ said Joe.
‘Too bloody right,’ said Mick Tornley. ‘And whatever else you’ve done can be flogged out of you, you thieving bastard.’
‘Have mercy,’ whined Lehane. ‘I would rather face anyone than him.’ Complaining, he seemed oddly satisfied though.
Parson Stanton was unaware how sincerely and passionately the governor was trying to find him a ship to England to get rid of him. If he’d known the effort being made he might not have wished as much to go, leaving matters to ripen in his absence to his hopeful advantage.
Writing to the governor over his stolen ram, Stanton said he was doing everything he could to cover the many evils in the removal of his prime stock, short of having his own shepherds arrested, tried, flogged, hung on the gallows tree and manacled, thrown on a ship, taken to Hell’s Gate in Van Diemen’s Land, wherefrom if they ever returned it would be as broken souls, in no way usefully productive. This he said in defence of his reputation as a charitable man.
Lifting his head from the ink-spattered page Stanton looked through his garden into a thin line of distant trees, out into the morning’s boiling heat, great whack of summer, where a horseman was appointed to be met by him, week by week. When would he come? Where was Lehane with his promised information? It had been too many weeks and Stanton felt gulled. Why, the minister, through charity, would consider every unlikely story he was told and give to each its credibility before moving on to the next claimed event and the next, until he arrived at the truth finally, which he would know when he took Lehane by the throat and damnably throttled him. There would be the Devil’s own tussle to come out when he came in.
Stanton struck out his letter and started again. It was not really the governor he wanted to address directly, it was the king. Only a voyage to England, it was decided, and a further grant of land would complete the justice pilgrimage begun with a few poor fat-tailed sheep and continued, now, between high ambition and undermining conspiracies of purebreds. Had a rural parson ever risen as far, only to be bothered by mute opposition? Sometimes it seemed to Stanton that Kale himself had elevated him by the very scathingness of his challenge; that he would have been nobody without Kale. And this only drove him more, to define himself crowningly.
Their voyage was the topic of the household when it wasn’t the taken ram. Dolly wished to take Titus. Stanton intended they take Warren. So they would take them both, with Ivy, he declared; and the pair of them, husband and wife, smiled reconciled enjoying a picture of Titus swanning it in London with reports being sent back to the governor of the impression a black boy made on their lordships as a missionary example in cravat and split tails. The only picture Stanton held against it (in private imagination) was of Titus being licked by the clunking cat wielded by Stanton himself — studs in the fronds like cherries. The black race could very well be dealt with — hounded, banished, if not converted — but as for the rest, Stanton would like to say to the king, when he gained his audience:
‘Your Majesty, you have made a prison colony of Botany Bay, but the very scoundrels it was founded to keep, do range its immensities with an expression in their heads, that it is the prisoners’ country now, and by what rights do free men graze there?’
Somebody else was in the room. Ivy with her back to her father flattened her nose on the precious window glass, where fairy water splashed, hesitated and sped in beads, swelled and joined.
‘Why is Warren so sad?’ she said.
Warren’s dogs, maggoty half-bred biters, fell away from his knees and ankles. In the driving rain he was slicked with cold, his freckled skin white and his eyelids blinking water away from his lashes.
‘He is missing our ram, Young Matchless, and blaming himself all the time,’ said Stanton.
Ivy turned from the window and asked her father, with the freedom of address allowed her, ‘Is Warren always to be such a drudge?’
Stanton sighed, set down his quill and shaped his hands into an attitude of prayer, resting his pink dimpled roughly shaved chin on his fingertips.
‘He is my apprentice, m’dear, that’s the nature of the bond, not slavery or unwilling assignment but the arcane wizardry of sheepcraft. You should hear us at the shearing discussing points. Then you wouldn’t call him sad — he raises his voice and shouts at me, laughs, all fired up with sheeply imagination, and we box each other over the ears with arguments, some of which he wins.’
‘I long to hear you at the shearing discussing points,’ said the girl, not having the least idea what was meant, but always wanting to be out in the world doubling, quadrupling the experience she was allowed, enthusing and pleading to the limit of her need, and a fair distance beyond.
