Free Destiny's Path by Anna Jacobs Page B

she didn’t know what she’d do with herself. She wasn’t going to live permanently with Conn, never that.
    But where could she go back to? What could she do with her life when no one would even speak to her once they found out her husband was a convict?
    She realised everyone had stopped moving, so paused to look at the building to which the lads had brought them. It was another colonial hovel, a rambling, two-storey structure made of wood, with a sagging veranda on each level.
    ‘Is there nothing better than this?’ she asked Ronan.
    ‘Apparently not. It’ll do for one night, surely?’
    When they were shown to their rooms, she pointed out to the owner that the floor needed sweeping. He rolled his eyes but sent up a skinny maid with a broom, who proceeded to whisk it round, making little difference to the corners or the dust and light sprinkling of sand under the beds. Once again, she’d have to share the room with her maid.
    ‘I’ll unpack your nightclothes and a towel, shall I, Mrs Kathleen?’ Orla asked quietly. ‘They said they’d send up some hot water when we needed it.’
    ‘Yes. All right.’ Feeling exhausted and miserable, Kathleen sat down on the narrow bed for a moment, closing her eyes to shut everything out.
    Conn had better agree to let his mother come back to England with her, or she’d be driven to desperation, and she never knew what she’d do when her temper took over. She’d been trained in self-control by a very strict governess and a strap wielded with all her mother’s strength, but even so she sometimes couldn’t help letting go of her temper and lashing out at the world.
    She couldn’t cry herself to sleep with a maid in the same room, wouldn’t demean herself. But she ached to weep.
    How long would this nightmare continue? she wondered. How long could she cope on her own? She’d never had to do that before. There had always been someone to tell her what to do.
    There was only Conn left now to turn to. Oh, how she wished she’d never come!
    In the morning Ronan and Bram went out to make enquiries about getting transport to where Conn lived. They found it was over a day’s journey south of Perth so ended up hiring two men and two carts, which would take them first to the south bank of the River Swan, where they’d stay overnight at an inn the men knew, then on to Conn’s homestead, as the men called it, a journey of three days in all, probably, ‘barring accidents’.
    ‘What sort of accidents?’ Ronan asked.
    ‘Could lose a wheel or break an axle but we don’t do that as often nowadays because the roads have been improved. They aren’t bad that way, what with the mail going down from Perth to Albany in the south. It’s a made road, you see, that one, which means the convicts worked on clearing it properly, so it doesn’t have to wind its way round obstacles like big trees.’ He grinned. ‘But it’s still just a dirt track, when all’s said and done.’
    ‘Where shall we stay the second night?’
    ‘We’ll see if we can find a farm or else we’ll have to sleep in the wagons.’
    Ronan almost laughed to see the indignation on Kathleen’s face, but managed to hold back his amusement, because he didn’t want to upset her. She was difficult enough without that.
    A moment or two later she pulled him aside. ‘Can you make no better arrangements than these for my travel?’
    He noticed she only said ‘my’. It was as if she lived in a world of her own and couldn’t see other people’s needs or feelings. ‘No, I can’t make better arrangements. I did ask around in Fremantle and these men were highly recommended for their reliability.’
    ‘They’re impudent wretches!’
    ‘The lower classes are different here, Kathleen. Haven’t you noticed that? Freer, more independent.’
    ‘They don’t know their place and should be soundly whipped. As for the Swan River Colony, it’s not what I would call civilised at all.’
    ‘They’d not send convicts