Rose learned English quickly, speaking with an accent that was so worthy of the ‘Upper 600 of British society’ that Clancy grinned each time he heard it till at last he and the rest of the household were used to the clarity of her vowels and perfect enunciation.

Indeed, if one shut one’s eyes, Rose might have been an English girl of good birth. She even accepted washing herself in the basin each morning, brushing her hair and, by the end of the first week, ate with a spoon and fork, at least when Flora was watching. She was not yet trusted with a knife.

But she soon seemed truly docile. The natives had moved — or been moved — further away. Perhaps the girl knew they were no longer within easy reach, for when Flora tentatively left her unchained one night, the doors bolted and a bell attached to them, to wake them if she tried to escape, she was still on her mattress in the morning.

By then Clancy had finally objected to a third occupant in their bedroom. A wattle and stringbark skillion was constructed next to the kitchen, and a bed of poles and rope, a ticking mattress and a chest in which to keep her clothes, the dresses Sarah had worn altered for the maid Rose had become: black dress, white cap, black shoes, white apron, so you hardly saw the darkness of the skin.

Rose learned how to brush and plait Flora’s hair at night. She might not contribute to the decision of what dress was suitable each morning — indeed, at Overflow that hardly mattered — but she understood when Flora asked, ‘Please lay out my green dress, Rose,’ or held out her foot for her shoes to be buttoned.

It was all, Flora thought, working extremely well. In a few years’ time, perhaps, the girl might even be as excellent a maid as Sarah, once she’d had lessons in hairdressing and other skills in Sydney. Flora imagined Rose, in twenty years’ time, or forty, a loyal retainer, who knew how much she owed to her employer, her rescuer, who would stay with her and tend her with more loyalty than Sarah, who deserted her for higher wages and the comfort of town.

Flora taught the girl English, table manners, courtesy, as well as reading and writing. She learned those skills swiftly too, and as a reward was allowed to take a crust of damper out to the black stallion. She still seemed fascinated by it. The horse tolerated her too — possibly, Flora thought, because the horse instinctively knew the native girl was the only person there who could not ride a horse, and so would never threaten it by trying to make it obey.