Sara Dane Read online

  Sara Dane

  Catherine Gaskin

  Copyright © The Estate of Catherine Gaskin 2014

  This edition first published 2019 by Wyndham Books

  (Wyndham Media Ltd)

  27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX

  First published 1954

  www.wyndhambooks.com/catherine-gaskin

  The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Titles from Wyndham Books by Catherine Gaskin

  The Property of a Gentleman

  Sara Dane

  The Lynmara Legacy

  The Summer of the Spanish Woman

  A Falcon for a Queen

  Promises

  Edge of Glass

  Blake’s Reach

  Fiona

  Corporation Wife

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  Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  PART TWO

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  PART THREE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  PART FOUR

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  PART FIVE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  PART SIX

  Chapter One

  Preview: The Property of A Gentleman

  Preview: The Lynmara Legacy

  Preview: The Summer of the Spanish Woman

  Preview: A Falcon for a Queen

  Preview: The Wine Widow by Tessa Barclay

  Preview: Lily’s Daughter by Diana Raymond

  Preview: Hardacre by CL Skelton

  Preview: Wonder Cruise by Ursula Bloom

  Author’s note

  The story of Mary Reibey has become something of a legend in Australian history ‒ it is the story of a woman, who, sentenced to transportation for what can have been no more than a child’s prank, overcame the stigma of her conviction, and rose to a position of wealth and prominence among the citizens of early New South Wales. This novel is not her story, but is based on the assumption that what one woman can do, so may another. The broad outlines of the lives of Mary Reibey and of Sara Dane are similar ‒ the details differ sharply. This book is meant in no way to be a portrait of Mary Reibey, but simply a novel of her times.

  In only one instance am I conscious of not having kept to the exact dates of the principal events in the colony. In Part II, Andrew Maclay takes up his grant of land on the Hawkesbury River about a year before the Historical Records show that the first settlers established themselves there.

  Lastly, I should like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. G. M. Mackaness, of Sydney, for his advice and many suggestions on the chapters; to Miss K. Lindsay-MacDougall and Mr. G. Naish of Greenwich Maritime Museum; also to my sister, Moira, for whose help with research, and in editing the manuscript, I am deeply grateful.

  C. M. G.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead …’

  There was very little movement among the crowd that packed the Georgette’s deck. They listened to the words recited at the burial service, seeming frozen by the unemotional calm of the captain’s voice. Only a few of the more curious pressed forward for a better view of the stitched bundle of sailcloth, partly hidden under a Union Jack.

  It was noon of a June day in 1792. The Georgette, a sixty-four gun, two-decker, of the East India Company, was ten days out of Rio, headed for Cape Town. On leaving the Cape, her orders were to turn south into the Antarctic and then eastwards following a track that only a few ships had ever taken before her. Her destination was the settlement established four years ago on the shores of Port Jackson, in the new colony of New South Wales. It was hardly yet known by its proper name of Sydney ‒ the familiar name, the name that rang through the courtrooms and prisons of England was that of Botany Bay. This was the dreaded settlement raised to house the overflow of the prisons, a prison complete in itself, from which escape was impossible, and the hope of ever returning to England almost futile. The Georgette was a convict transport, and the thought of Botany Bay stirred somewhere in the minds of most of those who listened silently to the captain’s words.

  ‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live …’

  They made a strange sight herded round the flag-draped sailcloth. All about, there on the upper-deck, the quarter-deck and the poop, the crew was ranged in orderly lines, bare-footed and dirty; they stood with faces arranged in careful solemnity; indifferent faces, because the identity of that roll of sailcloth meant less than nothing to them. One or two, making a gesture towards the occasion, had braided their greasy hair into a pigtail, much neater than the careless efforts of the rest. They were unwashed; they looked it, and they smelled vilely.

  Four officers, the master, his mate, and six midshipmen, stood in a stiff line behind the captain. The ship’s surgeon had taken his place at the end of the row ‒ his attitude suggesting that he did not belong to that little hierarchy, because he was not, as they were, wholly a seaman. Each face in the row bore that same frigid look which found its echo in the crew about them; eyes were mostly fixed on the horizon that tilted steadily with the movement of the ship; bodies were drawn up in disciplined rigidity. The words of the service fell on inattentive ears; they had all heard it many times before, and only the midshipmen were young enough and fresh enough to the life of the sea to be greatly impressed. The youngest midshipman, a lad of fourteen, on his first voyage, now and then shot quick, nervous glances towards the sailcloth. But the rest wore an expression of patience, and an acceptance of the monotony, struggle, and death to which their long, slow voyaging had made them accustomed.

  A man and a woman, with their two children, stood behind the officers, and a little to the side of them. They were grouped closely together, looking ill at ease, as if they were well aware that their servant, whose body lay under the flag, was no concern of the crew; she had been an ordinary woman, leaving no impression with these men who might have passed her on deck a dozen times in a day. The wind played with the long bright skirts of the woman and her young daughter; i
t played among the fringes of their shawls. The colour and the movement of the soft materials was a touch of frivolity thrust among those erect lines.

  The convicts stood by themselves, farther away from the captain, their armed guards making a sharp division between them and the rest of the crowd on the upper-deck. There were two hundred and seven convicts aboard the Georgette, an ill-assorted mass of human cargo, housed down in the darkness between decks, waiting without hope for the arrival in Botany Bay. They were sullenly submissive while the words of the burial service droned over them. But heads kept turning, eyes wandered to the masts and the rigging stretching above, to the endless horizons. They blinked constantly, in the strong light; the distances of sea and sky were painful when they had looked at nothing for weeks but the bulkheads, dark with age and damp. The wind sported pitilessly with the rags they wore. They were a wild-looking lot ‒ men and women; long hair, matted with filth, hung on their frowning brows; their eyes, screwed up against the hard glare, were fierce and unrepentant. There was scarcely an adequate pair of boots or shoes among them, and the flapping of their tattered clothes gave them the appearance of a collection of scarecrows. They shifted gingerly from one foot to another, savouring the relief of stretching their legs and filling their lungs with fresh air.

  ‘We therefore commit her body to the deep, to be turned into corruption …’

  All heads craned in curiosity as the sailcloth bundle was raised and slid forward through one of the open gun ports. The flag was drawn back, and the body fell with a splash into the sea. The shock of the sound registered briefly on a few faces. There was a strange, choked-back cry from the midst of the convicts, and a child of eleven suddenly bent her face into her grimy hands. No one took any notice, except a woman standing behind who gave her a half-affectionate pat on the shoulder. The child’s sobs continued, soft little cries which the captain’s voice easily overrode. As though afraid of the noise she made, she ceased weeping abruptly, and raised her head. The tears had made fresh tracks in the dirt on her cheeks.

  Finally the captain lifted his eyes from the book he held, reciting the last words of the service from memory.

  ‘Amen.’ The crew mumbled the word in a chorus. They waited for the order to dismiss.

  Among the convicts there was a sense of tension as they formed up to go below again.

  Andrew Maclay, the Georgette’s second officer, watched them go below, a tattered, barefoot mob. They were a miserable-looking lot, he thought. There wasn’t even a picturesque quality about them ‒ just a collection of thieves and ruffians, some of them lucky to have escaped the gallows. They murmured among themselves as they bunched around the hatchway, waiting to go down. A guard’s voice sharply ordered them to silence. Andrew watched only a moment longer, thinking that it would take more than the sort of punishment New South Wales meted out to reform the greater part of this sorry crowd. He turned, starting to make his way to the companion-ladder leading to the cabins. But he was halted suddenly by a woman’s voice, rising high and indignantly from the midst of the waiting convicts.

  ‘Here, mind what you’re doing! You’ll have the child down that ladder on her head!’

  ‘You mind your words, you …!’ The sentence finished in a stream of oaths.

  Andrew wheeled. The group round the hatchway parted at his approach, and stood silently watching to see what would happen. The guard, made aware of an officer’s presence by the quieting of the crowd, turned swiftly. He jerked his thumb backwards at the convict-woman who had called out.

  ‘Causing trouble, sir,’ he said. ‘Holding up the line, she was.’

  The woman had her hand on the arm of the child whose sobbing had broken into the burial service. She drew herself up very straight, looking from the marine guard to Andrew, and for a brief moment the filthy remains of the gown she wore seemed to stir and quiver with the force of a barely controlled anger.

  She burst out: ‘You saw what happened!’ The words were fairly flung at Andrew. ‘He,’ pointing to the guard, ‘almost threw her down there!’

  ‘Sir …!’

  The guard made a savage movement with his musket towards the woman. The circle of convicts closed in, heads craning, tongues loosened with excitement at the prospect of a set-to. In those dulled eyes Andrew saw a flicker of interest build up within a second. This crowd was spoiling for a diversion, eagerly waiting his order for punishment for the woman. He was sickened by the sight of them, the sharp, watching faces, without a trace of pity for one of their own kind, or even for the child.

  ‘Enough! Silence ‒ both of you!’

  He addressed the woman then. ‘Get below ‒ at once!’

  She looked back at him for only a moment longer, and then she urged the child towards the companion-ladder. The guard, relieved, began to hustle the convicts forward again. The babel of talk increased.

  ‘Keep them in order, there!’ Andrew commanded curtly as he turned away.

  ‘Aye, aye, sir!’

  Andrew made his way below, and he found himself thinking of the incident. It was all over in a few seconds ‒ it hadn’t even attracted the attention of any other officer. It was no more than the smallest point of discipline, something which happened constantly when the convicts were bunched together in groups on deck. Yet his mind lingered on the scene. The eager, pitiless faces revolted him; he had seen their quick willingness to turn upon one of their own. And the woman herself ‒ there had been a fierce kind of spirit in the way she sprang to the defence of the child. He tried to think what she had looked like; but she was no different from any of the other young women who clutched their indistinguishable rags. All he could clearly recall was the angry flash of an extraordinary pair of eyes when she had first turned to him.

  With his hand stretched towards the knob of the wardroom door he halted, remembering, with a sense of shock, that her voice had been that of an educated woman.

  II

  As readily as any other member of the party, Andrew had accepted Captain Marshall’s invitation to eat dinner with him after the burial service. This was a diversion from routine for which they were all thankful; these meals at the captain’s table, lengthy and rather boisterous, made up for a whole week of monotony in the wardroom. He settled back in his chair, drowsy, contented, and watched the man opposite, their passenger, James Ryder. Ryder had been a prosperous East Anglian farmer, who now, for some inexplicable reason, was determined to settle and farm in New South Wales. Andrew privately thought this revealed a man of incredible eccentricity, and yet his appearance was perfectly normal. He carried the marks of his class and type ‒ well-cut coat and immaculate linen. Ryder’s pretty, frail wife had also been pressed to join them at the table, but the ordeal on deck that morning had tired her, and she had gone directly to her cabin. Also absent was Howlett, the purser, and young Roberts, the fourth lieutenant.

  It was mid-afternoon and the meal had not yet finished. They had eaten well; the madeira was good and plentiful. Their spirits were high, though their talk had turned for a second time to the subject of the scene they had witnessed at noon that day.

  Brooks, the surgeon, addressed Ryder.

  ‘I’m afraid your wife, sir, will be greatly inconvenienced by the death of her servant. Most unfortunate …’

  Ryder nodded agreement. ‘I’m afraid she will, Mr. Brooks.’

  Andrew’s eyes flicked from one to the other of the company, watching their expressions change as the topic was reintroduced. The men’s ages ranged from Lieutenant Wilder’s twenty-four years, to the captain’s mid-fifties. It was a party of six ‒ the captain, Harding and Wilder, his first and third officers, Brooks, James Ryder, and Maclay himself.

  Ryder fingered some breadcrumbs on his plate, then he looked directly towards the captain. He cleared his throat. ‘My wife has been wondering, Captain Marshall,’ he said, ‘if it’s possible that you have a woman among the convicts called Sara Dane?’

  A silence followed the words. The captain tilted the decanter
carefully over his glass. The wine had been brought aboard at Teneriffe by Ryder, and it was uncommonly good. He sipped, raising his eyes to his passenger.

  ‘What name did you say, Mr. Ryder?’

  ‘Sara Dane, sir.’

  The captain glanced at his first officer. ‘Mr. Harding, can you recall that name on the list?’

  Harding shook his head. ‘There are sixty-seven female convicts on board, sir. I can’t, at the moment, remember if this person is among them.’ He turned to Ryder. ‘You have some special interest in this woman, sir?’

  Ryder took his time in answering. He was frowning; his leathery skin was dark and lined, rough against the smooth white of the linen at his throat. ‘My wife, as you know, is a bad sailor. She is so often confined to her cabin that I honestly don’t know what is to become of the children now that Martha Barratt is gone. She was quite excellent with them, you know.’

  Harding nodded, waiting to hear the rest.

  But it was Brooks who spoke, his voice was cold and rapid. ‘And is that your reason for seeking this woman, sir? Are you thinking of making her a nurse for Ellen and Charles?’

  Andrew saw that Ryder stiffened at the tone.

  ‘Have you any objections to such a scheme, Mr. Brooks?’

  ‘Well …’ The surgeon hesitated. ‘She isn’t known to you, is she?’

  ‘Not personally,’ Ryder replied. ‘By hearsay.’

  They had all become interested by this time. Andrew noticed that the captain was leaning forward, his elbows on the table, his glass clasped between both hands.

  ‘Before we embarked at Portsmouth,’ Ryder said, ‘my wife received a letter from a friend who lives in Rye. The lady writes of Sara Dane, who was servant to a parson’s family there ‒ and sentenced to transportation about twelve months ago. My wife has hopes that this young woman may be on board. And, if so, as she is domestically trained, she would probably be of great help to her for the rest of the voyage.’

  He went on, ‘The doubt is, of course, whether she survived her imprisonment in England.’ Then he lifted his shoulders slightly. ‘She may already have reached New South Wales. Or, again, she might still be awaiting a transport.’