Looking at her, it was impossible for Nathan not to smile. She had his clothes laid out for him, his shaving soap lathered, and fresh water in the basin. Whenever he performed his morning rituals with less speed than Lydia thought was warranted, she sighed audibly and dramatically.
Their trunks and valises were finally placed on a carriage bound for Sydney along the South Head Road. Lydia would have ridden on top with the luggage if Nathan had let her. She wanted to see everything, know everything, about her new home. The other passengers were indulgent, giving her the window seat on the right so she could enjoy the best view on their journey.
What she saw delighted and mystified her. It also frightened her a little as well. She could not put a name to most of what she saw. Nathan saw her distress and intuitively understood the cause.
“It’s not your memory,” he whispered in her ear. “You’ve never seen the like before, because there’s none like it. Imagine what the men on the First Fleet must have thought when they sighted Botany Bay.”
“It was another world.”
“It was hell.” The words were not said angrily but simply as a statement of fact. “This whole area is sandstone,” he said. “You saw the beaches on the ocean side, how beautifully golden they are. That’s from the wearing away of the sandstone. Where you can’t see it outright in the ridges and gullies, it’s only covered with a shallow bed of humus. It won’t support market crops and it won’t support a garden.”
What it did support, however, was remarkably diverse and hardy. There were trees, some as high as fifty feet, with gnarled trunks and a thick hide of bark, narrow, silvery leaves, surviving in the sandy soil by grit and determination that seemed wholly Australian. There was the red gum, growing quite impossibly where a tree should not have been, sprouting from the head of bare sandstone rock and inviting the sun’s caress on its smooth and satiny bark, shining with a hint of pink and white. There were fragrant eucalypts with their bluish-green leaves and groves of cabbage palms with slender, graceful trunks, and a headdress of fan-shaped leaves.
The billowing sails of clipper ships dotted Port Jackson and the port itself was shaped by dozens of inlets and bays. The route their carriage took closely followed Rose Bay at one point then passed near Double Bay and Woolloomooloo Bay. It seemed fitting that such an alien place should have its share of equally alien names.
Sydney had much in common with the vegetation surrounding it. The city was a battler and a survivor as well, settled by people who had put down roots in spite of the long odds against them. Nearly one hundred years after the First Fleet landed, Sydney was not merely surviving anymore. She had come into her own, flourishing with industry and trade, deserving of the hard-earned reputation as the mother city of the Continent.
Petty’s Hotel, on the western side of York Street, was where Nathan and Lydia finally alighted. It was a grand and stylish building, with three floors, wide verandas, and wrought-iron railings. On the perimeter of the property was a spiked iron fence. Stone pillars flanked the main gate.
Lydia looked around the lobby while Nathan registered them at the front desk and the clerk sent out two boys to bring in the luggage from the sidewalk.
“Does Mad Irish know you’ve returned?” the clerk asked, making a notation in the heavy registration book. He squinted over the top of his spectacles rather than push them up his nose.
“Not unless rumor travels even faster than I think it does,” said Nathan. “We’ve only just arrived.”
The clerk looked beyond Nathan’s shoulder, his brows raised slightly as his eyes darted over Lydia. She was examining the small collection of native oil paintings on either side of the fireplace. “That’s her, then?” he asked, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Who would have thought Mad Irish would—” He broke off because Nathan had closed the registration book over his hand and was pressing on it hard. “So that’s the way of it,” he said, trying to ease his hand out. “She doesn’t know.”
“I swear I’ll break your hand, Henry. But I’ll do it one finger at a time, perhaps one knuckle at a time.”
Henry smiled nervously. His high forehead was instantly shiny with sweat. “Of course,” he said. “I don’t know a thing about the wager. Not a thing.”
Nathan didn’t release the clerk’s hand right away. He leaned his elbow casually on the book and called to Lydia to join him. “Lydia, this is Henry Tucker. Henry, my wife. Henry’s been at Petty’s about four years now. Isn’t that right, Henry?” Henry’s smile was fulsome, but he didn’t do more than nod. “And he’ll see that we get the best treatment while we’re here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Henry was moved to say.
“How very kind you are, Mr. Tucker,” said Lydia. “I’m certain I’ll enjoy my stay.”
Nathan leaned away from the desk. Henry removed his hand surreptitiously and got the keys to Nathan’s suite. “Your room opens on the veranda,” he told them. “Anything wrong at all, come to me. I’ll put it right again, just see if I don’t.”
On the stairs to their room, Lydia said, “Mr. Tucker was very accommodating. You must know him well.”
Nathan shrugged. “He used to work for Mad Irish at Ballaburn. Now he caters to the Squattocracy.”
“The what?”
“The Squattocracy. The aristocracy of the bush. Graziers. Stockmen. Farmers. Men who got their claim on the land by squatter’s rights and now have some money in their pockets to spread in the city. Generally a squatter is a large landholder.”
“I see. Then it was your money and position that made Mr. Tucker so pleasant.”
“I suppose so.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “And I thought it was because you had his hand slammed in that book.”
Saint Benedict’s Churchwas one of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in the country. Built of stone in the Gothic style, it had a spire that towered over its neighbors on Abercrombie and George Streets. The chapel was used on weekdays as a school, and that’s where Nathan found Father Colgan.
“We shouldn’t interrupt their instruction,” Lydia said, pulling Nathan by the sleeve in an attempt to hold him back. “Oh, look, we’ve already distracted them from their lessons.”
Nathan felt the press of two score of eyes turned suddenly in his direction. The youngest children were already talking out loud and shifting in their seats. Father Colgan clapped his hands once to regain their attention, gave his book to the oldest child in the classroom, and bid them all to recite multiplication tables in unison.
