‘Indeed, I will,’ he said, without looking up. ‘I usually have a young assistant with me, but he is out tending a poor old lady who does not need medical care but whom a little nursing will benefit. If you will pick up my bag, put it on the table and open it, you will find inside it a large blue bottle, some scraps of cotton wadding, bandages, and a pair of scissors. Hand me the bottle and the cotton, and have the bandages and the scissors ready to pass to me when I ask for them.’
Sukie gave a groan on hearing the word scissors. Doctor Kerr said kindly to her while he poured something from the bottle on to the cotton. ‘Don’t be frightened, Sukie, I don’t propose to cut you with the scissors, only some of the wadding and the right length of bandage.’
He worked patiently on in silence, Sukie occasionally moaning a little. After a moment Mrs Hackett snorted. Sarah looked across at her and said, as pleasantly as she could, ‘I would be grateful, Mrs Hackett, if you would put a kettle on to boil again. I don’t think that Dr Kerr will need any hot water in his treatment of Sukie, but I’m sure that he would be grateful for a cup of tea when he has finished.’
The woman tossed her head, but did as she was bid. Alan Kerr, on hearing this little interchange, smiled to himself, remembering his conversation with Tom Dilhorne. Well, he was seeing Miss Sarah Langley in action against Mrs Hackett and it was quite plain who was the victor. Miss Langley was not going to be driven to tears by the old battle-axe. Not only that, when he said, somewhat peremptorily, ‘Bandages!’, she was prompt to hand them over, and then the scissors, after another brusque command.
Finally he had finished. Sukie’s poor arm had been carefully dressed and her pain relieved a little in consequence. Mrs Hackett needed yet another order from Sarah: this time to make the tea, and offer Dr Kerr some biscuits, which she did with an ill grace. While he waited he held Sukie’s hand and tried to comfort her.
‘It looks worse than it is,’ he said, ‘but it is a very nasty scald and you are not to use that arm until I have seen you again in a few days’ time. I am leaving Miss Langley a small bottle of laudanum for you to take a few drops at night so that the pain does not prevent you from sleeping. I’m sure she will see the necessity for you to rest until the arm is healed.’
‘Indeed,’ said Sarah, and then sternly to her housekeeper, ‘You heard that, Mrs Hackett—Sukie is to rest until Dr Kerr says that she is fit to work again.’
‘Doubtless you’ll send her back home for them to look after her,’ Mrs Hackett bit back.
‘No.’ Sarah’s voice was as cold as it was firm. ‘She sustained her injury here, and here she will be looked after—be in no doubt of that.’
Alan Kerr nearly choked over his cup of tea at the sight and sound of Miss Sarah Langley treating the town dragon to the same dismissive manner that she had employed with him. His feelings for her were growing into a strange blend of admiration and dislike—mixed with something else which he tried to thrust to the back of his mind. It would never do for him to begin to feel anything like lust—yes, that was what it must be, lust—for a woman so far above him in station.
Sarah was also seeing a new side to him. His care and consideration for Sukie had been exemplary. He had insisted that she be given another cup of tea—‘with plenty of sugar, mind’—and before he left had given Sarah and Mrs Hackett instructions about what to do if the pain increased, or a fever developed.
‘You are to send for me at once, at any hour of the day or night, if you are worried about her condition,’ he ended, immediately before leaving them.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Hackett when the door shut behind him, ‘I’m glad to see the back of him. It’s a great pity that decent people have to depend for their doctoring on an Emancipist.’
‘That will be quite enough,’ said Sarah, tired of the woman’s unpleasantness. ‘He dealt with poor Sukie’s scald most efficiently and that is all that matters, not what label he has been given. Nellie, you must look after Sukie while I make arrangements for a temporary servant to take her place. If she feels faint, help her up to bed. If she can’t walk, then Carter will be able to carry her.’
She was surprising even herself, she thought. If she had been at home, back in England, she would never even have known that a servant had been scalded, let alone have helped with her treatment and then been responsible for replacing her!
Not only that, but she was daily performing tasks that other people had done for her. She was beginning to find pleasure in doing them and also that she had an unsuspected talent for organising the work of the house. One drawback, however, was that all these new duties were preventing her from having the time to paint the strange scenery that lay all around her.
After Sukie’s replacement has arrived, she promised herself, she would try to remedy that by persuading Lucy to go with her on some afternoon excursions to the more picturesque parts of Sydney. It would be pleasant to spend an afternoon without having Mrs Hackett constantly troubling her with some problem which she should have been able to solve herself.
Suddenly life in Sydney seemed more bearable to her—and why should that be? Who would have thought that handing the surly Dr Kerr bandages and scissors, and looking after Sukie and Nellie’s welfare in the face of Mrs Hackett’s unspoken antagonism, would make her feel so fulfilled?
Stranger still, who would have thought that she would find herself defending Dr Kerr from Mrs Hackett’s unpleasant attempts to demean him?
Chapter Four
It was not the week-end, but the following week before Sarah could make one of the expeditions which she had promised herself. Sukie’s arm was healing nicely, but she was not yet ready to work again. Unfortunately their new girl justified Mrs Hackett’s daily complaints about her, but Sarah refused to send her back since there was no reason to believe that her replacement would be any better. Sarah, indeed, was beginning to think that they had been lucky to have Nellie and Sukie assigned to them, after she had listened to many of the other Sydney ladies moan about their own servants.
She had decided to walk towards the point, overlooking Cockle Bay, where she could draw the sea, the pines and the everlasting sky. She had hoped to have Carter with her, but John had taken him off into the bush early that morning to finish a picture which he had been painting for some time. Since she was not going very far from the edge of the town and was impatient to be off, she decided that she would be safe enough—and would be happier—on her own. Only Sukie could have gone with her and the heat of the day would have been too much for her in her weakened state.
She walked briskly down the unmade road outside their home, passing on the way a convict gang who were busy paving it. They were dressed in coarse canvas marked with a variety of arrows showing that it was drawn from Government stores. They stared boldly at her when she walked by them without an escort. One nudged another and their laughter followed her until she turned the corner.
The first time she had seen them she had been shocked, but familiarity bred contempt, and now she scarcely noted their presence. What did distress her were the aborigines she saw. They bore little resemblance either to the noble savage of Rousseau, or to the drawings in the folios that had so entranced John and herself. They sat about, half-naked, in the streets, occasionally clowning to entertain those few who might throw them money to buy the drink that degraded them further.
John had told her that they had met some in the bush who looked and behaved like the drawings they had seen back in England, and he could only conclude that it was living alongside their new European masters which had damaged them. What troubled her most was their apparent indifference to the life going on around them.
Nevertheless she walked merrily along, whistling quietly to herself, a low habit that she had learned from one of the grooms back home and had earned her reprimands from her father when she had indulged in it as a child. She wondered why she was doing it, and concluded that it was the result of a kind of mindless happiness brought on by the freedom of the trip that she was taking, the balmy weather and the chores which she had left behind.
She