Bettany's Book

by Thomas Keneally

  Phoebe, more like her father than she knew, said to me, ‘He will need to be appeasing indeed to win back my duty.’

  I had time before setting out again to take Phoebe to Mr Loosely’s to see Felix, now some nine years old. Felix was brought into the parlour and seemed both robust and sober, bowing in a genteel manner towards Phoebe. I was filled with sufficient admiration and affection that I was tempted to take him back to Nugan Ganway there and then, and he increased the desire by reading at Mr Loosely’s request from an essay of Praed’s and some Latin verse from Ovid. But it would be criminal of me to foreshorten an education which was proceeding so well.

  Nonetheless, Mr Loosely did not seem as exhilarated by the skill of Felix as he was depressed by what he called in my presence ‘the pervasive oafishness of the colonial children’. We greeted the child Hector, too, who was happily and aimlessly digging up mud in the black soil of the academy yard. I asked Loosely, ‘Does Hector not possess the genius of his cousin Felix?’ The master made a strange gesture as if plucking an invisible apple from the air.

  ‘He is of course of the full blood native strain, and perhaps the light within him has further to travel to reach the surface.’ As if he meant to illustrate this point in mime, Loosely raised both hands close to his face and vibrated them. ‘But the light will emerge from beneath the nomadic overlay, I am sure.’

  I was saddened to see that it was not only in Mr Loosely that a species of desperate wistfulness resided, but – as we rode back to Mandelson’s for our dinner – in Phoebe as well. We ate in the hotel dining room, and her polite near-silence lasted through soup. After I had asked her five times whether she was well, she said that if she told me what was plaguing her peace I would hate her. I insisted that hatred was out of the question; so was displeasure. She said then in a small voice, ‘It has been known for men alone in remote regions to make bushwives out of the native women …’

  That was it: she had wondered whether I had had such a wife and whether Felix was somehow my son! I was able to laugh, and reassure her, but with some guilt burning on my palate, deriving from my association with the woman Cecily.

  ‘Consult the calendar,’ I said jovially, to show I did not feel offended. ‘I have been in New South Wales seven years. Felix is nine or perhaps ten years old.’

  She became confused with shame and incoherent with apology. ‘I didn’t mean to … Any insane fancy will arise and stick in me as if it were a real thing … Any insane fancy … How can you begin to overlook …?’ And so she unnecessarily went on.

  I closed my hand on hers. It was a joy to bring her simple soothing.

  Leaving Phoebe in the Mandelsons’ care, and in the teeth of all the decline recorded by both the Heralds, Goulburn and Sydney, I drove my wool to Sydney. The country was browned by drought, far worse than Nugan Ganway. Boiling-down works mounted on ovens of brick or stone were burning sullenly in every town and, it seemed, littered every dusty pasture. The livestock of New South Wales was being rendered by slow fire: hoof, fleece, bone, hide. The air possessed a leaden taint, and vistas were hidden by malodorous smoke. What would a settler think, travelling this road for the first time, a stench of failure pervading the air?

  Yet an undefeated Mr Barley was reliably waiting for me in his glossy blue phaeton, but in a less crazed and competitive atmosphere, at the Black Huts. He could, because he was able to store for better days, offer me 4 pence per pound. Why were others not availing themselves of his generosity? I asked ironically.

  ‘My friend Bettany,’ he murmured. ‘One more bad year and I will be finished for storage room and up to my rafters. My rudder and spouse says to me, “How can’st thou be sure wool will ever come back, and for that matter, rain will ever come back?” And I say, “Mrs Barley, my dear, there will always be need of worsted.” And I hope to dear Lord I’m right.’

  ‘Amen,’ I supplied. ‘I have been lucky.’

  ‘You have been wise, friend Bettany. You have not spent wild money on overpriced acreage. You have set aside, and banks owe you and not otherwise. You’ve done it exemplary. All shall be creamy with you, I’m sure.’

  We dined at the Dangling Man, less than a feverish place now, barely discernible as the scene of my earlier folly. We were the only ones that evening in the dining room, and had it not been for the raucousness of the wagoners in the taproom the place would have utterly lacked liveliness. I had the supreme excuse of Phoebe not to linger there more than a night, but turned back with my own two wagons the next morning, allowing my chartered ones to bear the wool clip on to Barley’s warehouses.

  I drove the four-wheeler hard for Goulburn and was delighted to enter Mandelson’s and find Phoebe, plumper and looking healthy on Mrs Mandelson’s cuisine and playing the piano like one of the family. She had had another visit from her mother, but was delighted to board the phaeton again and roll home.

  Some acts of hostility from the Moth people occurred that summer. One morning a hutkeeper arrived with the news that during the night there had been some sort of hecatomb of animals. O’Dallow and I rode out and found at an open plain we had named Ten Mile, an aggrieved convict shepherd standing watch over a wattle-fenced fold in which some hundreds of sheep lay massed in death from spear wounds and clubbing. There appeared to be no purpose of sustenance – a few tails had been cut off as a delicacy, it seemed, but only as an afterthought.

  On journeys to my sundry outposts I took a few of my men on a swing into the ranges, in the hope of meeting Durra. By this time he had been the recipient of an especially engraved chain ordered from Goulburn, with his name on it, a chain which he had accepted with laughter but also with solemnity – a symbol of the pictographic pact I had shown him and which he gave every evidence of understanding.

  Phoebe often rode with me on these journeys. One day when we were riding north-west, to the shepherding station we called Presscart’s, some younger native men approached gesturing with spears and clubs, and screaming something akin to ‘Mallah! Mallah!’ at us.

  Long cried, ‘Speared sheep, you blackguards! Not good! Not good at all!’

  But I did wonder whether Shegog’s disease was running in their women, fouling their families, and it was for that they had made a wanton slaughter of sheep.

  Phoebe, splendidly brave, soothed her horse, and seemed to bring curiosity rather than dread to her first sighting of the natives.

  No other molestations occurred that summer.

  It was a delight to wake one morning in March and hear a thunder of rain and detect, through the threads of water pouring on the floor, the weak points in our bark roof. In my joy I stood directly under one such shower-bath, still wearing my nightdress, while Phoebe laughed like a bell, and then, the merriment still in her voice, told me that she believed herself with child. Thus, she went on solemnly, as if I might be disappointed, she could not ride out with me for the time being.

  My delight was tempered by the fact she proposed to give birth at Nugan Ganway without any help except the assistance of nature. I had other plans – perhaps she could be with her friends the Parslows near Braidwood, or she could take a lodging at Cooma Creek where the young Scots physician, Alladair, had opened his surgery. I returned to the subject of female servants for Phoebe.

  I asked Long one day, ‘You know a reliable convict woman, haven’t I heard you say?’

  ‘She is a solid girl,’ he said, ‘and no trouble-maker. Since they found the Matron and Steward of the Factory to be dishonest she’s been at work at a magistrate’s house but says she would prefer a remoter post.’

  I asked him did he have the woman’s address, and it appeared he had received a letter from her. He had not brought it to me to be read. Perhaps he found tedious the counsels which had attended my earlier reading of his letter from his family, and had gone to one of the literate stockmen like Presscart. Her post with a magistrate westwards of Sydney was a temporary one, and she would soon be advertised in the Government Gazette, said Long, and may even have been alre
ady applied for. After all, she could read and write fluently.

  I questioned him about her character, since he did not seem to make mistakes in these matters. Could she be trusted to take up a firearm if that became necessary for the protection of my wife? He was sure the woman would be a true companion to Mrs Bettany.

  I thought it best to write directly to the Parramatta magistrate for whom this woman, Sarah Bernard, was presently in service. But first I must persuade Phoebe.

  I broached the subject over tea one afternoon, as the air was full of curlew and currawong cries which seemed no more than the voice of a wistful earth on the edge of our particular high pasture winter. She must have a companion, I insisted. Surely she did not wish to go on cooking and maintaining our hut throughout the hardships of motherhood.

  ‘I would be happy to,’ she told me.

  ‘But I don’t wish you to become a drudge.’

  ‘Do you think I look a drudge? Is that the news you attempt to break to me by talking about housekeepers?’

  But she was not serious.

  ‘You are a rose,’ I told her. ‘You are a rose and you are aware you are. That is not the matter of argument.’

  ‘What is this woman’s name?’

  ‘Her name is Sarah Bernard. She is known to Long from his days as a constable.’

  I knew she trusted Long.

  ‘So Long thinks her nice and wants her here. It is not my place in life to accommodate Eros for Long’s sake.’

  ‘Is that how lowly you think of Long? Long and Eros have nothing to do with the question.’

  So blithely do we make pronouncements which later recoil and grind our flesh.

  Phoebe said, ‘Well, I am reconciled to try her for three months. If I do not like her, I shall return her to the depot without prejudice and without any debate.’

  And it was, I knew, futile to enter into debate – she brought to everything the same mental rigour she had brought to achieving our marriage. For example, I often thought of vain and obdurate Mr Finlay with flinches of regret, but not – it seemed – Phoebe, who had the courage to lead a ruthless life. I was delighted to have wed such a woman warrior.

  SARAH BERNARD HAD BEEN QUICKLY DISENCHANTED by her friend’s presence in the Factory, and Alice Adread seemed to spark a series of rapid changes there.

  Letter No 8, SARAH BERNARD

  Friend Alice

  I write because such is my shock. I cannot tell you the horror of seeing you appear at the Pallmire table when you were meant to be safe from them in your cell. It is my fault that Matron Pallmire saw you and set out to sully things. So now you live in two places: the house of the Matron and Steward on one side and on the other your little Category 3 cell. I ever wished to release you from the cells by my means not theirs.

  It does not seem right of you to drink rum at their breakfast table. Oh my friend you seemed to drink it in delight and were winking and smiling at him. I know women in our position lack a choice. But should the choice be winking and smiling at the beast? Oh I confess that I am not in such a pure condition as to make any hard judgements on the matter. And perhaps your seeming jollity was despair with a grin.

  I can give no counsel but to say: Do not sink to smile and chortle with them. My mind races on your behalf. You must understand that if you are discovered by Surgeon or Magistrate to be out of your cell you will be blamed and the Pallmires will explain it away and keep their power. They have all the world under a spell.

  I notice how you cough when the rum hits your throat. Are you sickening? How I hope not!

  For I am still your friend named

  Sarah

  Alice Aldread was quick and heated with a reply.

  Sarah

  Well they have me back in my cell now since Visiting Surgeon is coming and Mr Pallmire absent! And you are right to say you cannot judge my laughing and seeming jolly. You may keep a long face and think there is nothing worse than the company of Mr and Mrs. So you want a long face from me too. But to me the worse thing is the cell we Class 3 women have to sit in with knees to chin. You know well I was never a girl to be shut in. Confined. I would have gone mad on old Whisper but for you with me.

  But that Class 3 cell where I now spend two nights and should spend seven is worse to me than Mr Pallmire. So there is no sense in you writing a letter saying Mr Pallmire is worse when I know to be shut in is worse. In this world all is use! And I would rather be used in a clean house than in a dirty little cell of seven feet length.

  I am not a girl for crying out Alas and Woe is me. So do not take time to be shocked or to be a judge!

  You say in every letter: friend – good friend – best friend. And I tell you that all these thoughts of defeating this man Pallmire and this woman are a mad thing. You will not do it. For it cannot be done. You must wait and be reconciled. You cannot rescue yourself. You cannot rescue me. And better not to try.

  And my cough. I have been coughing since Whisper so nothing new. It is improved not harmed by kitchen warmth and rum. For I like rum. It is a poison I admire. What is to be said then? What is to be done? The asylum was one room in hell and this another and we move about them. That is the story. The story of Sarah and her dear friend

  Alice

  And so a reply from Sarah.

  Letter No 9, SARAH BERNARD

  Friend Alice

  You say to me I cannot bring about a rescue! And I tell you I shall not cease to try. As to you playing up so to Mr and Mrs I can only agree that women are mysterious creatures and cannot be easily read or judged by any other soul. I mean with a greater fervour than ever to liberate you and I have started to take measure of all that Mr and Mrs Pallmire hold in their house. Do you know that in a side room intended for children some two hundred pounds of soap is stored in wax paper? Where children should sing dumb soap sits.

  Lady Gipps the wife of the Governor has asked for some well-behaved women to be sent to her – the list to be made up by Mrs Matron. The good Lady Gipps wishes these women to visit Government House for needlework lessons. Says Mrs Matron: It is lovely! Wait until you see it! So from the way she talks it seems my name is to go on the list. Is this the opening of the cell door for us unhappy girls? Being your true friend who does not judge but now signs herself

  Sarah

  It seemed that Sarah Bernard was daily moved to prove to Alice that useful efforts might be made against the Pallmires’ interests.

  Letter No 10, SARAH BERNARD

  My dearest Alice

  I have learned sewing on the verandah and in the parlours of Government House. This is a habitation of grace and light as Mrs Matron has said. The wife of the Governor walks from one to another of us. She is very lean and very pale and I think not so well. Her scent is of a coldness and a holiness. When my old papa the Jew decided I must be shown the good order of the Christian faith and how it was all white linen and calmness and no ranting Hassids he took me to St Anne Tib Street. There was a cold and calm came down in the second after the candles were snuffed. To my ear and nose Lady Gipps has this same calm and holy coldness. It is only when we leave her house and start off back to the Factory that the heat rises up off the clay pan and flies crawl without a by your leave into our eyes – as if we were already dead. Only then do we feel the state of bondage reach out and take us in again.

  This Lady Gipps is the woman to hope in though – when they are finished it is to her I must hand over my lists of what Mr and Mrs Matron retain in their house. Then I would hope we – you and I Alice – will have a proper reward and dignity. But how can a person be sure that they and not you are punished? That is the pause on all I do.

  And one other thing is true. I understand your laughter yet every time I hear it I am sapped of will and find reason for delay where I should find reason for daring. But I shall look for the opening to be brave and be clever for the sake of my dear friend despite all.

  You might destroy me with this letter but I trust you not to. As for your most loving friend it is st
ill

  Sarah

  A firm answer came from Alice.

  Sar

  For now we must be content I think with what we see of each other in Tory and at the house of Mrs Matron! You should not write letters since it is dangerous to us both. I know not where you keep safe your letters and lists and other guff you write. You tell me you make out copies of all you write to me. It is as if you wish to show God what you have written, or at least some gentleman somewhere. Well that is you! That is your nature Sar – that you write and copy and I do not quarrel with it!

  Let us just exchange a word when we can rather than the letters. I am sick of eating paper since there is no hiding place for me whether in the Class 3 cell or in the house. And what is the use? You say Sar that you want to do this and dream of doing that but all you have done till now is enjoy the smell of Mrs Governor. Until there is something done there is nothing to write.

  I am still your friend.

  Alice

  Driven by such scorn, Sarah Bernard took her extreme risk.

  Letter No 11, SARAH BERNARD

  Marked by her hand: THIS MUST BE DESTROYED

  Dearest Alice

  I am still – as you see from this – in ownership of some of the blue government paper which Mrs Pallmire hoards. But despite my supply I had recently heeded your call not to write about helpless intentions of mine which never come to ought. Well things have come to more than ought now for I have done what I proposed to do. It was when I saw he had given you a blue kerchief for round your neck. It was a mark of such a special favour and when Mrs Matron saw it I could see in her eyes that she was lost – she looked like a girl who is snubbed by a boy.

  And now we shall see what our friendship is because if you were to show this letter to Mr Pallmire or pass on the news of my purpose then I would know your constant friendship has been altered for the worse by Mr Pallmire. But you are not to be angry to hear me say I am willing to be sunk in a hole in the earth or drowned or strangled or sent to the Hunter River or Norfolk Island or whatever Mr Pallmire might do to protect his place in the earth.