smiled gingerly at the older woman. She felt weak from her sickness, yet refused to allow the housekeeper to fulfil Hamish’s request or usurp the consolation of duty. Mrs Stackland looked doubtful, yet released the tray into Claire’s hands. The housekeeper knocked once on the study door, opening it so that Claire could enter, and then closed it behind her.
Claire sat the tray down on the desk. A lone candle gave off a yellowish light that flickered across a desk littered with papers. There was a lump of dirt sitting in the middle of a handkerchief that may once have been white, Hamish’s gold fob watch and an empty cut crystal decanter. The immobile figure of her husband stood vigilant at the window. Beyond him a swathe of stars hung so close that Claire imagined being able to reach out and touch them. ‘Where have you been?’ She lifted the silver food warmer from the dish beneath. Mrs Stackland had prepared jugged wallaby accompanied by fresh damper and black tea. There was the slightest of noises and the sound drew her to the clasping and unclasping of Hamish’s hands behind his back. She cleared her throat. She felt akin to an invader. ‘Hamish?’
‘I asked not to be disturbed,’ he answered tersely. He turned slowly, and Claire caught a shadowy glimpse of his haggard face. The scent of sweat, horses and tobacco wafted across the desk to where she stood; familiar smells grown potent by time, dirt and tiredness.
‘I’ve not seen you these past two days.’ Remembering she still held the silver food warmer, she covered the congealing food. ‘Hamish, I –’
Hamish struck his hand in his fist. ‘That is the dirt from my brother’s grave.’
Claire flinched at his tone and supported herself on the armchair nearest her as he pointed to the filthy handkerchief.
‘Aye, I can feel your examination, Claire. You wonder that I have not mentioned such a keepsake when the closeness of our lives creates a compulsion in you to share, misguided as that may be.’
‘Misguided?’ Claire recalled the innumerable times she’d been unable to draw him away from his ruminations and into conversation, into her world. Had her attempts been considered so trifling? She could feel the sickness seeping into her again, and with it a dulling sensation as if a dense cloud engulfed her.
‘We are so unalike, you and I, yet we coexist. Perhaps it has been the disparity of age between us, perhaps affection.’ His voice faded, sounded unconvinced.
What was he telling her? That he no longer wanted her? While Claire was under no illusion as to the fractured state of their marriage, she was not one to be thrown aside.
He looked at her with the hard stare that would cut through a blanketing dust storm if he so wished. ‘You have grown used to the routine of a respectable husband.’ His words curled with disgust. ‘I tell you now that it is an illusion. It is an illusion that has been carefully cultivated and I myself have tilled the soil. I too wanted respectability, but there are those who will not give it, not to the likes of us at least. And I wonder now at this pandering of ours in the hopes of being accepted by polite society.’
‘Hamish, I don’t –’
‘Lethargy brought on by success has made me forget my reasons for first coming to this new world.’ His filthy forefinger prodded the handkerchief. ‘I did not come here to reach the giddy heights of society, knowing that our acceptance would be determined by the very people who helped destroy Scotland. I will not live by another’s leave and that includes the condescension of those like the Crawfords.’ He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I’m sure you were quite a pretty project for Oscar’s wife. I’m sure that she tutted and tweaked with her friends about your less than admirable beginnings and I’ve no doubt they admire your transformation from settler’s wife to Government House invitee. Tell me, Claire, is it not inane to you? It is to me. I have physically and mentally curtailed my nature in order to be accepted by society. Well, I tell you now I will not have it. I have few years left to make a mark on this world I have created and make a mark I will. There are those who will suffer for their treatment. This is a reckoning I will have.’
Claire was staring at him. Despite his disappointing first marriage, Hamish did believe in