‘Keep still, Catherine, stop fidgeting or I’ll poke you with a pin, on purpose.’
‘Oh. Mama, I am so happy. Teddy is such a gentle man. I know he is ten years older, but that doesn’t seem to matter when we are,’ she stopped herself from saying sleeping together but her mother’s wry smile indicated she knew.
sleeping together‘Yes, he is a good man, Catherine, and the ten years matter little. Papa is thirty-two years older than me and that has made no difference. The wonderful life I had on Norfolk Island and the wonderful life I have here in Van Diemen’s Land is all to him. I don’t think a younger man would have had the ability to achieve all your father has.’
Catherine kept still while her mother made some adjustments to the wedding dress; the dress her mother wore seven years earlier, w
