The Colonists by Vivian Stuart

Author:Vivian Stuart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jentas Ehf
Published: 2022-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

All Sydney turned out to witness the arrival of His Majesty’s ship Tamar, of twenty-six guns, and she made a brave sight as she sailed down the harbor, her signal gun firing the customary salute and her seamen lining her spotless upper deck as she brought-to at the entrance to the cove.

In common with everyone else, George De Lancey went to seek a vantage point on the lawns of the Government Domain in order to watch her come in. It was Sunday, and having attended divine service in the church of Saint Philip, he was at a loose end. His little daughter, Magdalen, was having her afternoon nap, and Rachel, his wife, had been gone for almost two weeks; so, having no particular reason to return home, he lingered in the pleasant sunshine, enjoying the fresh southerly breeze, exchanging a word now and then with passersby who were known to him, and relishing the peace of his surroundings.

It was with a shock of surprise that he saw Katie Tempest in the distance, his surprise engendered by the fact that, for a moment, he did not recognize her. She was still as beautiful as he remembered her, but painfully thin, her shoulders drooping and her gait a trifle unsteady. As he approached her, he was struck by the deathly pallor of her small, piquant face, half hidden beneath an elaborate flowered bonnet, which became her so ill that George wondered whether it had been borrowed . . . from Julia Dawson, perhaps. Julia, he recalled wryly, had a fancy for such unbecoming hats.

“Mrs. Tempest . . . Katie—” The sound of his voice clearly startled her, for she turned with an exclamation, looking up at him in confusion.

“Oh—oh, it’s you! I hadn’t expected—that is, I did not imagine you would have time to spend on—on sight-seeing.”

“It is Sunday,” George reminded her.

‘Is it? I—I’d forgotten; but of course it is. How stupid you must think me.”

“I shall never think you stupid, Katie. Unhappy, perhaps, but not stupid.”

Waves of embarrassed color flooded her pale cheeks, and George remembered belatedly what Rachel had told him—that Katie had lost the child she had been expecting. He had not taken in the details, had not wanted to, for no reason that he could have explained to his wife, but . . . He looked down at the girl he had once loved so deeply, and could have bitten his tongue out for the thoughtlessness of his remark.

“The arrival of one of His Majesty’s ships is always an occasion in Sydney,” he suggested, trying to cover up his error. Damn it to hell, of course the poor girl was unhappy, and with reason, he reproached himself, and . . . she was alone. Tempest was not with her, and he could see no sign of Abigail or her husband or even of the two Dawson girls. “I understand she’s the frigate Tamar, under the command of Captain Bremner, who is charged with the task of establishing a new settlement on the northern coast.

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