‘Thank you,’ responded Sarah glacially, ‘but we have already met.’ Her manner did not suggest that the meeting had been a happy one.
‘Indeed,’ replied Dr Kerr, equally coldly, ‘Miss Langley and I have already exchanged opinions on the manners and morals of colonial life.’
‘Yes,’ said Sarah. The devil inside her that had made her respond to Major Menzies’s warning about Tom Dilhorne by secretly determining to meet and speak with him again was compelling her to be as overtly rude to this particular colonial savage as she dare. ‘Doctor Kerr has given me an extremely accurate picture of the level of civility that I may expect to find here. I cannot but thank him for it.’
‘On the contrary,’ Alan Kerr replied instantly, looking more like an offended eagle than ever, ‘it is I who should thank you, Miss Langley, for making me acquainted with the intellectual baggage that great persons from England bring with them to this poor colony.’
Sarah rose to this bait magnificently. ‘Pray do not offer me thanks, Dr Kerr. I am only too willing to spread civilisation and culture in whichever part of the globe I may happen to find myself. Particularly when it is so obviously needed.’
They glared furiously at one another. Their hearers were fascinated. Sarah suddenly became aware of what a spectacle she was making of herself and also of what the Governor might think of her own lack of manner, if not to say manners, towards his friend. She also suddenly grasped that the officers of the 73rd were, by their expressions and reactions, cheering her on and she did not really wish to be part of any feud that was currently simmering. She had not only been unladylike, but also unwise—and it was all Dr Alan Kerr’s fault. His very presence seemed to provoke her into one excess after another.
She really must try to behave herself in future.
Alan Kerr was, although Sarah did not know it, also regretting his own lack of civility before his friend and patron, the Governor. Like Sarah, he decided to mend his manners.
He bowed.
Sarah curtsied.
The Governor said nothing, although he thought a lot, since saying something might prove unwise. What he was thinking might have surprised both parties and their fascinated audience. He also bowed to Sarah, before taking Alan Kerr’s arm and walking him away.
‘Oh, well done, Miss Langley,’ said Menzies appreciatively. ‘Well done, indeed. It’s all a jumped-up ex-felon deserves: a real set-down from a fine lady like yourself. It’s a great pity that all Emancipists cannot be served so.’
‘An Emancipist?’ said Sarah, surprised. ‘You mean that Dr Kerr was transported here as a convict?’
Menzies was about to refine on his answer when he saw the Governor approaching them again with a respectable Exclusive in tow this time. ‘Ahem, Miss Langley, tell you later. I think that you ought to know the truth about Kerr.’
Little though she liked him, Sarah found it difficult to believe that the man with the eagle’s profile had arrived here in chains. For what? she wondered. His crime was doomed to remain unknown for the time being since Major Menzies found no further opportunity to enlighten her and she did not wish to raise the subject with anyone else.
She was later to discover that Major Menzies was not the only person to resent Macquarie’s friendship with Alan Kerr. Few of the Exclusives shared the Governor’s tolerant attitude towards Emancipists, and many of them expressed their anger over it as plainly as they could. This did not prevent them from availing themselves of his medical skills, but it meant that he was cut off from most society in Sydney, such as it was.
Indeed, everyone whom she met that night commiserated with her on her encounter with the two men so early in her stay. Even Major Middleton’s wife and his pretty daughter, Lucy, who was near in age to Sarah, and eagerly anxious to make a new friend, were not slow to speak of them.
Lucy’s major exclamations, however, were all on the subject of Sarah’s lemon silk gown.
‘Oh, Sarah, how delightful your frock is. I suppose that it is in the very latest fashion since the waist is so much lower than any you will find in Sydney.’
‘That may be so,’ said Sarah, smiling and greatly relieved to be gossiping about something as innocent as the dress she was wearing for the Governor’s dinner. ‘But since it is over six months since I left England I must suppose that it is already out of date there!’
‘Never mind that,’ was Lucy’s brisk reply. ‘It is of the highest fashion here and that is all that matters. The colour suits you so well, too. Mama and I are determined to introduce you to all the best people and the places where only the Exclusives are allowed to visit—although even there,’ she added, ‘one cannot be sure that one will not meet some of the low creatures such as Alan Kerr, even if he is a good doctor—to say nothing of Tom Dilhorne.’
It was becoming increasingly plain to Sarah that Dr Kerr and Tom Dilhorne were like a pair of sore teeth to Sydney’s elite since the conversation constantly kept returning to them and their enormities.
The only officer who seemed to have a good word for either of them was a darkly handsome Scot introduced to her as Captain Patrick Ramsey.
He and Sarah chatted together happily about nothing for a few moments before she said, somewhat provokingly, ‘I have to tell you, Captain Ramsey, that you are the first person to whom I have spoken who has not spent a great deal of time warning me about Dr Kerr, after commiserating with me for his having been the first of Sydney’s inhabitants whom I chanced to meet.’
‘Oh, Kerr,’ laughed Pat Ramsey cheerfully. ‘What the 73rd resents the most about him is his having been sent here for committing treason. To make matters worse, when he and that outsider Dilhorne visited the Chevalier Ince—the fencing master sent here for fraud—to take fencing lessons, they turned out to be better with the foils than any of our officers. They’re both crack shots, too. Don’t seem fair, does it?’
‘But you don’t feel particularly resentful about them, Captain Ramsey?’
‘No, not I. I can’t feel resentful about poor devils sent here in chains. I shall be leaving shortly, while Kerr and Dilhorne are doomed to stay in this Godforsaken hole. Kerr’s a good doctor, but one thing worth remembering about Dilhorne is that he’s dangerous.’
All this merely served to push Sarah more and more towards meeting again these strange characters who were remarkable enough to set everyone talking. The perversity that ruled her these days drove her towards the dangerous and the forbidden, the permitted and the allowed having let her down so much. Truth to tell, Dr Kerr fascinated her, particularly now that she knew that he had arrived here in chains. Never before had she met such high-nosed insolence—and from an ex-convict, too.
In future, of course, she must not let herself be tempted to lose her temper with him. No, dignified reproof must be the order of the day. He must be left in no doubt of her displeasure should he offend again, but, in future, she must not give him any opportunity to attack her verbally again. By no means.
She really must stop thinking about the wretch.
Fortunately for Sarah, her new life in Sydney was busier than she might have expected. Lucy Middleton arrived on the following afternoon to fulfil the promise which she had made on the previous night to show Sarah all of Sydney’s main sights as soon as possible.
Lucy, charming in a young girl’s straw hat and a simple muslin dress embroidered with flowers, came to the point as soon as possible.
‘I persuaded Mama to let me visit you alone—much more fun for both of us. I do hope that you are not finding Sydney too hot. I know that Mama was very overset by it when she first came here, but one soon gets used to it. She thought that you might be feeling lonely today so she told me to ask you to come to dinner this afternoon. Papa has promised to take us all out to Hyde Park for an airing afterwards. Do say yes. Mr Langley is included in the invitation,