Cullen - Bartlett Dynasty Collection

Chapter 14

I’ve not seen anything this beautiful in my life. My baby will be born in paradise. I expect to see leprechauns or elves or faeries peeking from behind those magnificent trees. Me and two other girls put our heads back and take in the sky. It’s bluer than I’ve ever seen. Bluer than the sky over the ocean on our journey. There are no clouds. The air is fresh, and tastes like the quince jam the cook used to let us have in the master’s kitchen. I never thought air could have a taste, but this air does.

The men in the New South Wales Corp on this island don’t push us, they wait while we walk behind, taking in the beauty. We’re put in cabins. Not cells. There’s four of us to a cabin. It’s hot, but not suffocating like Sydney. There’s a breeze coming through the windows. We each have our own bed, and there’s a fire and a table with four chairs. There’s some food on the table, and they tell us to cook it and look after ourselves. We share the cooking and sit down, the four of us, to eat like civilised women. At a table. We even have forks and spoons.

‘They haven’t given us knives,’ I laugh. ‘Wonder why they don’t trust us with knives?’

We have a chuckle about that and tell each other our names and the stories of how we ended up on Norfolk Island.

After the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years, there’s a banging on the door and a bellowing voice tells us to get up and report to the middle of the settlement. We take longer than we should. We take time for a wash and to eat the rest of the bread, salted pork, and carrots. Carrots. Been a long time since I’d had a fresh carrot. The next banging on the door sees it swing wide and a red-faced English soldier straddles the opening and orders us to get to the meeting.

They’re assigning us to settlers. This is the first time since I took the blame for Franny, that something has scared me. I’m with child and I’ve got no idea what it means to be assigned to a settler. Does it mean I’ll be the property of some old man who’ll have his way with me and treat me as bad as the masters of the houses in Dublin? I’ll jump off one of them cliffs that runs along the edge of this Norfolk Island before I’ll do that again.

They tell four of us to get up on the back of a cart with our stuff. None of us has much in the way of stuff, so it doesn’t take long for us to settle. There’s a bullock pulling, and a horse tied to the back of the cart: it’s walking with its head down, staring at the ground its feet are treading on. Turning to the girl next to me, Mary, I say the horse looks broken and sad, like the way I’m feeling.

The driver hears me and turns to look at us. ‘That horse is going to a settler who’ll look after her. A settler who’s earned his freedom. If you work hard you can earn your freedom too and have a good life. A couple of you look like you’ll be convicts for a long while.’

Facing the front, he flicks the reins on the bullock’s back.

The baby kicks me with a force that takes my breath away. ‘I don’t think the babe likes his mammy being a convict,’ I say to Mary. ‘I don’t much like it either.’

Mary’s the third one to get offloaded from the cart. I could see her hands shaking as she crumpled her dress to climb down with some dignity. A man and woman came out of a house that had solid walls, a roof, two chimneys and a front verandah. The man waves, the cart driver waves back, then gets down to greet the couple. I wanted to reach out and grab Mary and drag her back onto the cart, so we could huddle and be miserable together.

‘Greetin’s ta ye Thomas,’ the man says to the driver. ‘Ye’ve brought fer us a hard workin’ lass ‘ave ye?’

Mary moves her head to look at me, grinning. The man has a Dublin accent. He introduces himself to Mary as Patrick Connell. She curtsies like a good servant and tells him her name.

‘Tis me wife, Elizabeth,’ he says, ‘she’ll take ye and get ye sorted.’

Mary waves to me. Thomas flicks the reins on the bullock’s back, and we trundle down the track to my place of servitude.

‘It’s your turn now,’ the driver Thomas says as he pulls the bullock to a stop. ‘You got lucky. You got Mr Cullen.’

I don’t know how a person can think someone like me is lucky. I’m with child, I’m a slave on an island no one else in the world knows anything about, and I’m about to be handed over to a new master. For seven years.

A tall, strong looking older man strides out of a handsome house and makes his way to the cart. He shakes Thomas’s hand and calls to a man working in the stable to untie the old horse and look after her. Then as if an afterthought, he turns to me. Taking off his hat, he gives a little bow and says his name is James Bryan Cullen and I’m welcome on his farm in Queenborough Path, Norfolk Island. I tell him my name’s Elizabeth Bartlett and I’m pleased to meet him. I don’t think he believes me. I don’t believe me either.

‘Go on into the house, Miss Bartlett. Have a wash and change your clothes if you want. There are women’s clothes in a cupboard in the bedroom at the end of the hall. That’s your room. You should find something that fits.’

My feet won’t move. My brain is telling them to go, one in front of the other, but they’re not listening. This man’s being nice, talking to me like I’m a person. There’s got to be a catch.

‘Is everything all right?’ he asks.

I nod that it is, but me feet still won’t move. I start shaking. Can’t stop. Any minute he’s going to slap me across the back of my head.

‘It’s all right, Miss Bartlett,’ he says to me so quiet I can hardly hear him. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. You do a good day’s work, and we’ll get along just fine. We’ll talk about your duties when you’re cleaned up, fed and had a good night’s sleep. Off you go.’ He walks off, leaving me to make my feet move.

Taking a deep breath I got my feet to obey my brain and walk towards the house. The door was open. I stepped inside and wrapped my arms around myself, it felt like the house was giving me a hug. It smelled like old leather and pine needles. For the first time since Franny’s eyes begged me to take the blame for her stealing, the tears run down my face. I don’t wipe them away.

The house has a kitchen and a parlour and two bedrooms. Not as grand as the house I worked at in Dublin, but it’s big, well made, and comfortable. I find the room Mr Cullen said would be mine. It has a sideboard with a wash bowl, a new piece of soap and a jug of fresh water. There’s a towel folded real nice like and put over the side of the wash bowl. One wall has a cupboard, and a window that looks over the greenest grass that reminds me of the farms around Dublin. A big, soft looking bed is against the wall on the other side. The bed has two pillows, and a quilt that looks like the sunrise and sunset have been trapped in its fabric. I use the new bar of soap to wash my face, hands and arms in the water and dry myself with the clean towel.

Sitting on the edge of the bed looking out the window, I’m thinking I might try out the pillows and the quilt.