Hester Waring's Marriage Read Free

‘I must go, too, my own dinner will be growing cold.’ Oh, dear, what a dreadful lie that was! She seemed to be telling more and more of them these days, but to let Lucy know the truth of what was waiting for her was impossible. Lying was inevitable.
    The pang which she felt on seeing Frank and Lucy move away to rejoin the others was made all the more sharp when she heard, floating through the clear spring air, Jack Cameron’s unkind comment, ‘Thought you was stuck for ever with Fred Waring’s plain piece, Luce. Haw! Haw!’
    Fred Waring’s plain piece! Hester’s ears burned at the horrid sound, but her fierce pride kept her tears from falling. Better to be alone than be exposed to such insults. She quickened her pace to get away from them all—even going in the opposite direction from her own poor lodgings so that she might avoid their pity and their derision.
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    Mrs Cooke’s house where Hester lodged was of two-storied brick and stood in a lane off Bridge Street which was still unpaved. Like most houses in Sydney it boasted a veranda, and hanging in it a cage containing Mrs Cooke’s brilliantly feathered red-and-yellow parrot. It was larger and noisier than most.
    Hester could hear it squawking as she neared home. Her father had rented the top floor from Mrs Cooke, an armywidow who preferred to remain in New South Wales rather than return home to England.
    After his death, Hester, burdened with her father’s debts, had asked to keep only one room and to feed herself. She had a little ready money, most of which she had realised from selling the last of the few bits of her mother’s jewellery which had escaped Fred Waring’s greedy fingers. He had parted with everything he possessed in order to continue drinking and gambling in the vain hope that he might recoup his lost fortune.
    Hester was thinking of her father when she mounted the steps to the veranda and stopped to pet the bird which seemed to be as rapacious as most of the parrots in Sydney. At least, she thought, handing the noisy creature a large nut, parrots were properly fed.
    She pushed the front door open to find that the house was full of the pleasant smells of a good dinner. She tried not to let her mouth water, only to find her thoughts wandering again. If she were a parrot, she presumably would not want stew, but would prefer nuts. Did nuts smell sweet to parrots?
    â€˜Oh, there you are, Miss Waring,’ said Mrs Cooke, coming out of her small kitchen. ‘I thought as how I heard you. Was there many at church today?’
    â€˜Yes,’ replied Hester, removing her bonnet. ‘Mrs Wright was there. She said that her baby was well.’ She made for the stairs, hoping that Mrs Cooke would not offer her any stew. In her present famished state she did not think that she could refuse it, but she would not take charity from Mrs Cooke, no, never!
    With a sigh Mrs Cooke, who had already decided to offer Hester some stew, watched her whisk away to her room. Miss Waring looked right poorly these days, which was no surprise seeing that she was not getting enough toeat. Pity that all her fine friends never thought to offer her dinner, or even a little something.
    Sitting on her bed in her room, Hester was wondering what she would have said to Lucy if she had asked her to dinner. She thought that for one moment Lucy had been on the verge of doing so, but Frank had soon put paid to that.
    Well, she hadn’t, and Hester had learned not to waste time thinking about remote possibilities, particularly those which were never going to happen. Her dinner would be the heel of a loaf of bread scraped with some rancid butter which the grocer at Tom’s Emporium had let her buy cheap, and a withered apple which had just managed to survive to spring. Her drink would be water.
    She had just finished buttering the bread when Mrs Cooke put her head around the door.
    â€˜I’ve made some stew today, Miss