The music dwindled, then stopped.

Mathinna opened her eyes.

The entire party, it seemed, was staring at her. As her senses sharpened, she heard the tinkle of silver on china. A shrill laugh. Ladies huddled in groups, whispering behind fans. Eleanor stood alone, her face a rictus of disbelief.

Mathinna smelled rose water, and under it the tang of vinegar. The strong perfume of the golden wattle. The raisiny whiff of liquor on her own breath.

Lady Franklin was marching toward her, a smile frozen on her face, spots of red high on her cheeks, like a painted doll. Coming to a halt, she leaned down and hissed, “What—on earth—was that?”

Mathinna looked into her eyes. “I was dancing.”

“Are you trying to humiliate us?”

“No,” she said.

“You are clearly intoxicated. And have . . . I don’t know”—Lady Franklin was so close that Mathinna could feel her vibrating with rage—“reverted to your natural savage state.”

“Perhaps, my dear,” Sir John said, coming up behind his wife, “it’s best to let the wretched girl be.”

Mathinna looked at Lady Franklin, with her wattlebird neck and red-rimmed eyes, and Sir John, moist and disheveled in his too-tight tuxedo. The two of them seemed like strangers to her, both terrifying and grotesque. She blinked swiftly to keep from crying. “Peut-être,” she said.

Lady Franklin sighed. She raised her fan, motioning for Mrs. Crain. “Tell the band to begin again, and take this girl to her room,” she told the scowling housekeeper. “The sooner we forget this unfortunate incident, the better.”

Government House, Hobart Town, 1841–1842

But nobody forgot.

Almost imperceptibly, at first, things were different. The next morning Sir John did not summon Mathinna for his morning constitutional. From the schoolroom window, she watched him stroll through the gardens, his hands behind his back and head down, Eleanor by his side.

The tea-drinking ladies came and went; Mathinna was not asked to join them in the parlor. Eleanor left for a six-week trip to Sydney without saying goodbye.

Mrs. Crain informed Mathinna that from now on, especially with Eleanor away, she would no longer be served breakfast in the nursery but would instead take all her meals in the kitchen outbuilding with the cook.

“I hear ye caused quite a scandal,” Mrs. Wilson said to Mathinna as she ladled cooked oats into a bowl. “Dancing like a primitive, were ye?” She looked around to be sure no one else was listening, then whispered, “Well, I think it’s grand. They thought they’d mold ye in their likeness, didn’t they, with a few French lessons and some fancy petticoats. But ye are who ye are. They can build their fancy houses and import their china teacups and dress in silks from London, but they don’t really belong here, and deep down they know it. They don’t understand a damn thing about this place, or you. And they never will.”

One day Mathinna awoke to find that Sir John and Lady Franklin had departed for a holiday in the riverside town of Launceston, a two-day journey, and that she would be staying at Government House in the care of a houseguest, a Mr. Hogsmead, from Sussex.