Cullen - Bartlett Dynasty Collection: The Complete Series

Excerpt from Cullen - Bartlett Dynasty Collection

Even though it made her happy watching the girls play, Catherine Blay could feel the tension in her shoulders. It tightened up behind her neck, moved up to the right side of her head, and settled there, throbbing like the drums at a funeral. She kept working the dough, matching the kneading actions with the thump in her head. Bread making reminded her of Teddy. He had loved the smell of freshly baked bread. She placed the dough in a pan, covered it with a cloth and set it aside to rise.

Catherine had given her beloved first husband, James Tedder, the pet name Teddy when they fell in love, because there were many men called James on her parents’ farm and she’d wanted to set her James aside from everyone else.

Her eldest daughter Margaret, five, had memories of her father, but Sarah, called Sadie for convenience, forgot him as soon as Catherine’s new husband, James Blay Jr, asked to be called “Papa”.

She screwed up her face at the memory of brushing aside the warnings. Her mother-in-law, Sarah Blay and her own mother, Elizabeth, cautioned her not to accept James Blay Jr’s marriage proposal. They didn’t see the side of him she had before they married. He’d been gentle, caring, sweet to the girls, and supportive when Teddy died, even writing to Teddy’s family on her behalf, explaining the tragedy of his sudden death in his flour mill.

Catherine missed her first husband. She missed his touch, the look he gave her when he came home from work and wanted the children to go to bed, the way he told her she was beautiful, even if she didn’t agree. She’d hoped marrying James Blay Jr would fill gaps left in her life.

The pounding in her head marched on.

James Jr changed not long after they married, and his personality twists brought on the pains in her shoulders, neck, and head. She couldn’t deny his affection for the girls, but he was no longer good to her. Speaking to her as if she were a convict who had to put up with his every whim, he often disappeared for days at a time with no explanation. He provided no money for the upkeep of the house or provisions, and without the rents from the flour mill James Tedder had left her in his will, she and the girls would struggle.

Catherine remembered her husband as the petulant child who arrived on her parents’ farm in 1814. He came with his mother Sarah, and two younger brothers, William and John. Sarah Blay had followed her husband, James Blay Sr to Van Diemen’s Land from London where he’d been convicted for stealing three pairs of boots. His sentence - transportation for life. Sarah had run her husband’s shoemaking business and saved the money to pay for their passage to Hobart Town. James Jr hadn’t wanted to leave London, and when they arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, he tried stowing away on a ship moored in the Derwent, to go back to England. He came to the farm with his parents, rage pulsing from his purple cheeks, and his hands tied behind his back.

Catherine knew why she was warned against marrying him. She had seen him grow up, witnessed his disrespectful behaviour, and was privy to his selfish, self-centred ways. But he had shown her a different side to his character. She took the risk.

Turning her attention to the vegetable garden and orchard surrounding the house in Murray Street, Catherine led the girls outside. She’d planted the garden when Teddy bought the house and tended to it while he set himself up in the flour mill. She was teaching the girls how to differentiate between weeds and food plants, and to know when fruit and vegetables were ready to pick. Watching the children picking peas from the vines for supper, Catherine admired the way Margaret pinched each pod causing no damage to the vine itself. Margaret gave each handful of pods to Sadie for her to put in a bucket.

‘How many peas will we pick, Mama?’ Margaret asked, ‘Will Papa be home for supper?’

A small fragment of Catherine’s heart chipped off each time the girls call James Jr “Papa”.

‘I don’t know if he will be home for supper. We will prepare, just in case. Pick enough peas to include him.’ Catherine couldn’t bring herself to say “Papa” when referring to James Jr.

‘When you’ve picked the peas, girls, get another bucket and dig up enough potatoes for supper.’

Watching with pride as Margaret supervised Sadie, showing her which plants would yield potatoes ready to take from the ground, Catherine realised her eldest daughter should soon start school. She didn’t want the girls struggling to read and write the way she did.

Back inside, Margaret set herself up at the kitchen table with the bucket of peas. With expert precision, she relieved the little green balls from the constraints of their outer covering, feeding the occasional one to Sadie.

Closing her hand into a tight fist, Catherine used the part of her hand below the thumb and above the wrist, to massage her right temple for a few minutes’ relief. She peeled and sliced potatoes, layered them in a big baking pan, covered them with herbs from the garden and put pork fat in the corners.

Margaret didn’t have to be asked, she handed the bucket of freshly shelled peas to her mother and watched them become a blanket for the sliced potatoes.

‘Margaret, get the dried pork from the pantry, please,’

The five-year-old produced the pork and watched again as her mother sliced it thinly and layered it over the peas. ‘The pork fat will cook the potatoes, and the salted pork will soften the peas.’ Catherine explained

The pan of delights was balanced on the fire’s coals, and another pan placed on top as a lid. Mouths watered.

‘Papa is home,’ squealed Sadie as James Jr opened the door and stepped into the cottage. Holding out his arms to her, she ran, jumped into them, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

‘I missed you, Papa, where have you been all this time?’ she asked.

‘It’s only been two days, little one,’ he whispered, ‘Papa’s been busy working.’

The child clambered down from James’ arms, grasped his hand with hers, and led him to the fire. ‘We’ve made supper. Margaret and I picked the peas and the potatoes, and I helped Margaret shell the peas, and we made supper.’ She looked up at him grinning, waiting for approval.

‘Well done, Sadie, that’s wonderful. How are you today, Margaret?’ he asked the older girl.

She beamed ‘I am well, Papa. We’ve been busy. Mama wants me to go to school.’

Glaring at Catherine with the contempt a man saves for an adversary, he spoke to the child, ‘That will depend on how much money we have. We’ll talk about it another day.’

Margaret shrugged her shoulders, took Sadie by the hand, and went outside to look for lizards until supper.

Ignoring the snarl on her husband’s face, Catherine spoke about Margaret’s education. ‘Margaret is almost six years old, James, she should start school to learn to read and write. I don’t want her relying on others all her life as I have had to.’