along the deck, Sarah on the Lieutenant’s arm while he steered her through the noisy bustle of a ship being unloaded.
‘They are preparing to bring the convicts on deck,’ he explained to her. ‘The Commissioner will inform them of the nature of their future life and direct them to where they will be inspected by those needing labourers.’
Still other workmen were coming on board to arrange for stores and supplies to be released from the hold. The Langleys’ small party was compelled to wait at the tip of the gangplank since two men were already on their way up it. The first, tall and dark, and well dressed in civilian clothes, Sarah noticed idly, was advancing on to the deck and speaking in tones of barely controlled fury.
‘So,’ he said to Chalmers, who was directing operations, ‘I am to understand that the medical supplies which I ordered, and which I badly need, have not arrived. Your excuse being that there was not enough room for them in the hold. Tom,’ he said, turning to his companion, ‘which do you think ought to come first? The needs and health of the colonists, or the comfort and convenience of a fine lady and gentleman from England?’
His companion, a sandy-haired man with a pair of striking blue eyes and a humorous, rather than handsome, face, was wearing what Sarah was later to discover were the typical clothes of a Sydney Emancipist. Easy and careless, they consisted of a white-spotted red neckcloth, a loose grey jacket, baggy trousers, scuffed boots and a grey felt hat on the back of his head. He was pulling at his friend’s arm to indicate the presence of Sarah and John.
‘What?’ snapped his friend, turning his head and giving Sarah an excellent view of his eagle’s profile and a pair of furious grey eyes that were regarding them both with a look of ill-concealed contempt. John, with his stance and air of a gentleman, and Sarah, the very model of a useless fine lady with her cream silk dress and tiny parasol, seemed to be anathema to him.
Frank Wright could almost feel the Langleys’ indignation. ‘Steady on, Dr Kerr,’ he said cheerfully. ‘There’s no need to insult Miss Langley and her brother. That won’t restore your missing supplies.’
The hard grey eyes swept over him, too. ‘Squiring the ladies again, Wright?’ he said, unbending enough to doff his straw hat in John and Sarah’s direction before he strode off along the deck without waiting to be formally introduced.
His friend, raising an eyebrow, half-bowed, his bright blue eyes hard on Sarah and her brother, assessing them coolly without Dr Kerr’s open hostility. In contrast to his friend’s taut self-control he was all ease. ‘I am Tom Dilhorne, at your service. I hope to see you in my store.’
His voice carried overtones of a rural Yorkshire origin, but he could scarcely have been more confidently sure of himself than if he had been on equal terms with them for years. Lieutenant Wright made no attempt to introduce him, or to acknowledge him in any way when he, too, pulled off his battered felt hat before following Dr Kerr’s path along the ship’s deck.
‘Good God, who in the world were they?’ asked John Langley, his voice indignant. He was not accustomed to be spoken to in such a cavalier fashion. To make matters worse, the second, ill-dressed oaf was the owner of a shop!
‘Oh, Dilhorne,’ said Frank Wright carelessly. ‘Dilhorne’s nothing. He’s an Emancipist. I wonder he had the impudence to speak to you at all. That’s not true,’ he added, with a laugh. ‘I should say that Dilhorne’s got impudence enough for anything. The brute has even made a friend of one of the aborigines.’
‘Well, his manners are better than Dr Kerr’s, even if he is an Emancipist, whatever that is,’ said Sarah, furiously. She might not like circumstance, but good manners were good manners the world over.
Frank Wright began to explain to her that an Emancipist was a man or woman who had come to New South Wales as a convicted criminal, and who had served their term or been pardoned. They had no social standing, and were cut off from the colony’s elite, the so-called Exclusives, who were those free men and women who had gone out in the service of the Crown as civil servants, the military or the Navy, or who were free traders and farmers, there by choice, not necessity.
‘You mustn’t mind Dr Kerr,’ he ended. ‘That’s his manner. He doesn’t mean anything by it—what’s more, he’s the best doctor in the colony. The Governor swears by him, although…’
What the ‘although’ meant Sarah was not immediately to find out, for Carter, who had gone ahead, now returned with the request that Lieutenant Wright should arrange for the transfer of the Langleys’ possessions from the hold to the shore as soon as possible.
The Lieutenant, John and Carter left Sarah in the waiting carriage on the quay outside, her parasol up to defend her from the hot sun that shone down brilliantly on this inappropriate November day. ‘We shan’t leave you long, I trust. Corporal Mackay, the driver, will look after you,’ Frank Wright volunteered before he left her. He was invariably cheerful, Sarah was to find.
Sarah was not destined to lack company. First of all Tom Dilhorne emerged from the ship and saw her sitting on her own. He evidently considered himself to have been introduced for he came over to the carriage, pulled off his hat, and said, ‘Abandoned already, Miss Langley?’
From anyone else this might have seemed almost impudent, but his cool, laconic manner and his impersonal blue eyes seemed to rob his words of any undesirable overtones.
‘Indeed, Mr Dilhorne. But not for long, I hope. There seem to be a large number of ships in the harbour, which I confess surprises me very much. Why is this so?’
He answered her question as gravely as she had asked it without the accents of condescension that most men whom she knew employed towards a pretty woman. ‘Why, Miss Langley, Sydney is a major staging post in the Pacific already. There are ships from Macao here and Yankee whalers, too. The nearest one, The Sprite, is my own.’
‘I understood you to say that you were a store-owner, Mr Dilhorne.’
‘I am a trader, as well, among other things. I shall be unpacking some silks from Macao tomorrow. I think that you might like to inspect them.’
‘Huckstering away, Tom?’ Dr Kerr had arrived while they were speaking. His words to his friend were jocular, but his manner to Sarah was cool if not so brusquely harsh as it had been when they were on board ship. Behind him John, Carter and Lieutenant Wright were also coming down the gangplank, making for the waiting carriage.
‘Miss Langley,’ he said, ‘I must apologise for my earlier discourtesy to you. I fear that my anger at the non-arrival of some of my stores was transferred to your brother and yourself.’ He half-turned towards John at the end of his little speech.
Before John could answer him, Sarah lowered her parasol and stared over Dr Kerr’s shoulder at Tom, who had retreated and was watching them impassively. Her reply was short.
‘Your apology is accepted, Dr Kerr, although there was no need to make one. My brother and I are well aware that our presence is not particularly welcome in New South Wales. However, that is no matter since it is unlikely that our paths will cross again.’
Her tone and her manner to him were as cold as she could make them.
Dr Kerr clapped his hat firmly on his head and answered her in kind. ‘You are mistaken, madam. Unless your health is perfect, or you are willing to settle for some half-trained leech from The Rocks, then you and your brother are likely to encounter me on a number of occasions. I bid you good day and good health—you are likely to need both.’
With
