Suddenly a burst of jeering and laughter came from outdoors. Flora peered out the bedroom window. A woman — Rose’s mother, presumably, or even aunt — stood, eyes on the ground, pleading with Clancy in what must be an incomprehensible tongue, though her meaning was clear. Clancy gestured towards the house, then walked swiftly up the steps. The woman waited, still looking down. One of the men — Rogers — laughed again and made a joke that luckily she couldn’t hear.

Clancy looked uncomfortable. ‘Flora, the child’s mother is here. Or I think she is her mother. The girl isn’t lost or abandoned. Her family clearly want her back.’

Flora gazed at him, puzzled, this badly shaved man who had once seemed a well-informed gentleman. ‘But she will be far better off away from the natives, learning how to be civilised, even to earn her own living.’

‘But that woman is her mother.’

‘That is neither here nor there. We must think of what is good for the child, Clancy.’ How could he possibly think a native’s wishes could counter those of the Honourable Flora of Buccleuch? Or that he knew better than her, who had been patron of so many commitees in Sydney for the advancement of the unfortunate.

Flora would have liked to assure the woman that she was giving Rose the most splendid opportunity. But the native woman of course would not speak English, nor indeed have any inkling of just how lucky the girl was.

Flora turned away just as the woman screamed. Fred Four Fingers had his arm about her waist and was trying to drag her to a shed as the woman kicked and yelled. Over by the men’s quarters Taylor and Rogers laughed.

Flora leaned out the window and cried, ‘Let her go!’ just as Clancy strode back into the yard. She heard his voice, sharp and in command. No woman would be made sport of while her husband was around. She watched as the woman scrambled to her feet, took one last angry glance at the house and yards and ran into the trees.

The girl sat perfectly still during the commotion, refusing to look up. Only her fingers fumbled urgently as she worked at the knots in the rope.

‘You mustn’t be scared,’ Flora told her gently.

Still the girl did not look up. Flora relaxed. The child probably had no idea of what had happened out there. The native families she knew in Sydney — the civilised ones — cared for their children. But people who wore only string — a woman like this girl’s mother, who would display herself naked to men, who lived like an animal with neither house nor proper social order — probably felt little more than animals do. The woman would have forgotten the girl by the next day.