One of Us Buried by Johanna Craven (year 2 reading books TXT) 📕

my eyes. My mind refused to be drawn into the story. I had already been transported into another realm that I would have believed fictitious had I not been living it.

I became aware that Blackwell had joined me by the river. He had changed out of his uniform into dark trousers and a faded riding coat. There was a clay pipe in his hand. I’d not seen him smoke often. He looked upwards.

“These trees are very beautiful,” he said. “Redgums.”

I nodded.

“I come here sometimes,” he told me. “For a little space.”

“I’m sorry.” I moved to stand. “I’ll leave. I—”

He held up a hand to stop me. “I didn’t mean for you to leave. I simply meant to say this place helps relax me.”

“Why do you need help relaxing?” I knew it a foolish question. Maggie’s murder. The Irish rebels. Owen’s upcoming trial.

“You put me on edge,” he said finally.

I looked up at him in surprise. “Why?”

“Well,” he said after a moment, “there’s the matter of my storage chest, to begin with.”

I felt my cheeks colour with shame. How did he know I had gone through the chest? Had I not put things back neatly enough?

“I’m sorry,” I said, meeting his eyes. “That was unacceptable.”

His face was unreadable. He gestured with the pipe to the grass-flecked earth beside me. “May I?”

I nodded.

For several moments we sat in silence, Blackwell’s long legs stretched out towards the river, mine folded neatly beneath me. Water burbled in the stillness.

After a moment, he gestured back to the redgums. “I used a little of this wood in the roof of the hut.”

“You built it yourself?”

“Mostly,” he said. “I learned a little construction when I was at school. I’ve always found it most rewarding. A way of leaving your mark on a place.” He chuckled lightly. “Although I can’t imagine that hut lasting too many generations. Each time the sky opens I fear the rain will carry it away.”

I ran my fingers over the faded leather cover of the book in my lap.

“You’re not enjoying it?” he asked.

I lowered my eyes. “In his sermon today, Reverend Marsden spoke of revealing the colony’s immorality. Do you know what he meant by it?”

“A muster,” Blackwell said shortly. “Nothing more. The governor likes to keep track of who is holding land, how many colonial-born children have arrived. Which prisoners are on and off stores…”

“What does any of that have to do with immorality?”

He puffed a line of smoke towards the clouds. The pipe didn’t suit him. He looked like a young man trying to whittle away the years. “Reverend Marsden is also to register the females in the colony. The service will take place next Sunday.”

“Register us?” I repeated. “And? We are catalogued by our place of birth? Our ages? Our children?”

“Yes,” said Blackwell. “Among other things.” He jammed the pipe back between his teeth.

“What other things?” I looked at him through narrowed eyes. “How does the reverend catalogue us, Lieutenant Blackwell?”

“You are to be catalogued by your marital status,” he said finally. “Wife or concubine.”

He spoke the words carefully, gently, but I felt the sting of them. I was not a wife. So it left no doubt as to what I was in Reverend Marsden’s eyes.

As to what I was in the colony’s eyes.

Once I had been a wife. But my husband had died and his spilled blood had led me to New South Wales. Now I spent each night lying on the floor beside a member of His Majesty’s Army.

Concubine.

“What do you think of this?” I asked, my voice hardening.

He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“That is not an answer.”

“I’ll not fight with you, Eleanor,” Blackwell said calmly. “I’ll not be a dumping ground for your anger.”

“I don’t want to fight. I just want to know what you think of this muster.”

He lowered his pipe. “Reverend Marsden is doing what he thinks is best for the colony. And the women within it.” His words sounded rehearsed.

“Is that what you truly believe?” I asked. “Or is that just what you think you ought to say to me?”

He looked taken aback by my boldness. “The reverend has been pushing for a women’s barracks to be built. He believes the factory lasses’ plight will be eased with a safe place to sleep each night. And he hopes the muster will support his cause.”

“That may be so,” I said, “but that’s not what I asked. Do you think for yourself, Lieutenant? Or do you follow Reverend Marsden blindly?”

Blackwell’s voice rose slightly. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

I gave a small shrug. My words had come spilling out half formed. But I was glad I had finally gotten a rise out of him. Glad I had finally seen a little emotion. I sat up on my knees so my eyes were level with his. “Do you believe us all immoral harlots, Lieutenant? Us factory women who curl up on your floors? You’re a man of God. And the Bible says we must only do such a thing in the presence of our husbands. Is that what you’re thinking each night I sleep beside you?”

Blackwell’s neck reddened. And I saw then that my opinion mattered to him. What a strange thing, I thought distantly, that the views of a convict woman might hold such weight to a military officer. Perhaps I was not so insignificant. Perhaps none of us were.

“Reverend Marsden is not everything I believe in,” Blackwell said shortly. He emptied his pipe into the river and disappeared inside the hut. I hugged my knees to my chest and watched the silver streaks of ash float away on the tide.

CHAPTER TEN

 

 

They blamed Maggie’s murder on the blacks. Who could pretend to