"I am glad you like me.”
"Does that mean you like me?”
"You are different from other people.”
"Different from your father?”
"Oh, yes! Very different from him.”
"Yet you do not dislike me? You must be very fond of him.”
"Why, yes. He is very clever, you know. And very important.”
"And he amuses you... as I did last night?”
"Oh ... Papa is not like that. He does not talk... very mud Except about the First Fleet and Mr. Bass and Mr. Flinders... and then only a little. He does not talk like you do.”
"And you liked the way I talked, did you not?" She was puzzled. She did not know what he wanted her to say, but had stopped thinking solely about him because her thoughts had switched to Papa and Mamma. She hoped they had not been frightened.
She said: "He is the best father in the world.”
"How do you know?" he said, just like Martin might have said Mamma says so.”
Then he dropped the subject, and she was glad.
She said goodbye to Henry, who intimated very definitely that she must come again. She said goodbye to Esther and Mr. Blake ' and all the children. Then she rode back with Marcus.
He talked fascinatingly as they rode, pointing out landmarks; he explained the difference in the grasses and the trees, and compared them with those of the Old Country. He sang songs he had known in the Old Country, and she was sorry when they came into Sydney.
Mamma came out into the yard. She was very white, and there were dark shadows under her eyes, and she stared at them as though they were ghosts.
"Hello, Mamma!" she called uneasily.
"I was lost.”
"Katharine!" said Carolan stonily, looking at the man. Katharine slipped off her horse; she stood there holding the bridle nervously.
Marcus said: "Carolan, your little daughter was rescued by my son. Do you not think that a rather charming sequel to ... everything?”
Mamma called to one of the men to take Katharine's horse. Mamma was white and haughty. Margery appeared; she had been crying. She screamed out when she saw Katharine: "Oh, my little love! My own little love!" And Katherine, frightened for some reason of which she was only partly aware, ran to Margery as if for protection, and Margery knelt on the stones of the yard and put her arms about her.
"Scared out of me wits, lovey. Why, you scared me out of me natural...
Why, whatever was you up to?”
"I was lost, and Henry found me. and..." Margery's body had gone taut; she was no longer thinking of Katharine; she was staring over Katharine's head at Marcus.
Papa appeared. His face shone with sudden joy when he saw Katharine, and Katharine knew then that they had had no message, and had been very frightened.
She ran to Papa; he lifted her up; she kissed him and went on kissing to try to explain by kisses that she would rather have given up her exciting evening than that he and Mamma should be worried like this.
Then Mamma turned her head and said: "It is all right now. She was lost. This... gentleman brought her home.”
Papa hugged Katharine and said: "Bring him in! Bring him in!”
They went into the house, and when they were inside. Mamma took Katharine from Papa's arms, and her eyes were cold and very angry.
"Go to your room at once, Katharine!" she said, and her voice was like ice, and sharp like the edge of a knife; and Katharine went in shame because she knew she ought to have insisted on coming home, and that Esther had been right; that that jaunty, exciting, lovely man Marcus had not kept his word about sending a message.
She went to her room and waited there, feeling that something awful was going to happen. It was not very long before she heard Marcus ride away. She hoped they had been nice to him, for he had been very nice to her. She hoped they had given him refreshment; it would be awful if Mamma were not nice to him just because he had forgotten to send that message.
James and Martin came in.
"Where have you been?" demanded James.
"I was lost." What a glorious account of her adventure she had imagined herself giving James. And now she had nothing to say except "I was lost." which they knew already.
"We had a search party I' cried James excitedly.
"Lanthorns and flaming torches!" screeched Martin.
"We thought you'd been murdered, you see," said James cheerfully.
"I might have been," she said.
"Yes," said James with unnecessary melancholy, 'but you weren't.”
Miss Kelly came in.
"I wonder you're not ashamed," she said.
"I never saw such a fuss. I think what you deserve is a thorough good whipping.”
Miss Kelly bustled the boys out and turned the key in the lock.
It was some time before Mamma came in. Katharine threw herself against her.
"Mammal Why am I locked up here? It wasn't my fault; I was lost ...
Anybody might get lost... And then I heard Henry's horse. It was exciting; I coo-eed and he coo-eed, and then he came and took me to his home.”
"Yes?" said Mamma in an odd, stony voice.
"And then it was such fun, Mamma. Oh, he has been every-where. And he told us, Mamma. He told us all about it. All about London and the Old Country. He talks differently from anyone else different from Margery or Papa, or even you. He tells you things, and you see them, and oh.
Mamma, don't you like him?
Can he come here? He would like to. It's nicer here than there ... and I think they quarrel a lot. She looks at him as if she hates him. and he doesn't care a bit when she cries, and he kisses the servant, and there's an Elizabeth. Henry says he's got half-brothers and sisters. Henry's nice. Oh. Mamma, can they come?”
"Really, Katharine, I haven't the faintest notion of what you're saying. You are most incoherent. And it was very, very naughty of you to go off like that; and I am going to punish you for being so thoughtless. Your father and I were very worried.”
"Oh, but Mamma, the man came. She said you would be worried; he said he would send a man to tell you where I was.”
"Who is she?”
The one they call Esther.”
"Esther." said Mamma faintly. And then: "Of course, no man was sent.”
"Oh. but he said ...". "He is a liar," said Mamma.
"Oh, but Mamma, I'm sure there is a mistake. I know he said I must ask him...”
"He has gone now.”
"I am going there again, Mamma. They asked me. He and Henry said I must go again.”
"You will never see them again," said Mamma. Katharine was incredulous. She could find nothing to say.
"And," said Mamma, 'you will stay here for the rest of the day alone.”
Mamma went out then. She had been pale, but now her face was flushed, her eyes hard as the glittering stones in the pendant she wore round her neck.
Katharine heard the key turn in the lock. She was angry with Mamma, angry with Papa even, poor Papa who had done nothing but be very pleased because she was home again. Still, she was angry with the whole world, for more than anything she wanted to see Marcus and Henry again.
"And I will!" she said. She went over to the Bible on the chest of drawers, the Bible which Miss Kelly had given her last Christmas. She laid her hands on it and swore as she did when she and James played Judge and Prisoners. But there was no jest this; it was a solemn vow.
"With God's help, so I will," she said. Her eyes were resolute, her mind made up.
Carolan was dressing for her dinner-party. It was a very important dinner-party, a sort of coming out for Katharine. She was seventeen.
Carolan's thoughts must go back to a similar occasion nearly twenty years ago, when she was going to her first ball. A green dress she had worn; she was wearing a green dress now. How different though, this rather plump and still beautiful woman, poised and confident, the mother of five sons and one daughter, Mrs. Masterman of Sydney. How different from that slender girl who had gone down to the hall at Haredon to dance with Everard.