Jessica

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Instead he runs panic-stricken away from the scene of the crime. And when his panic had subsided sufficiently, we have heard how he made his way to the Bergman homestead to give himself up to the only friend he knew how to find — Miss Jessica Bergman.

  ‘Did he not plead with her, whimper, beg, until she gave him her father’s work hat to cover his head? Is this the way a cold-blooded, callous killer would behave? ‘Or is it what we would expect from a simpleminded child in the body of an adult male? Was not the action Billy Simple took, the terrible crime he committed, the result of a nescient mind driven beyond despair by three women who took great amusement from their cruel tormenting?’

  The court has by this time grown very still. ‘Members of the jury, in the time-honoured manner of British justice, I place the life of Billy Simple in your hands. I ask that you take into consideration the nature of justice itself, which is to balance the scales, to hear both sides, to understand mitigation of circumstance. I ask for your extreme care in deciding this matter. If you should render a verdict of murder you will not be serving the full purpose of the law, which is to deliver a just response after all of the evidence has been taken. I ask now that you deliver your verdict of manslaughter. I ask that William Simon, and those who care about him, if such people there are, know that you have examined both sides and come to your verdict honestly. I thank you for your patience, and I rest my case.’

  After no more than an hour of deliberation the jury renders a verdict of murder. Jessica sits stunned, while George Thomas shakes hands with the prosecution. The judge, in delivering his final summary, compliments the jury on having arrived at a just and fair verdict. He then describes the accused as a vicious killer, whereupon he places the silk square on his head, pulls on the white gloves, and pronounces, ‘William D’arcy Simon of the Parish of Ourendumbee in the CountY of Boyd, I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until dead, the sentence to take place at such time and place as his Excellency the Governor of New South Wales shall determine.’ Much to Joe’s shame, Jessica, upon hearing the verdict, is seen by all within the court to burst into a torrent of tears. ‘No, no, it’s not fair!’ she shrieks at the jury. ‘Billy!’ she cries out to the poor wretch, ‘I tried! Oh Billy — I’ve failed you! Forgive me — forgive us all!’

  The case is widely reported and in the process Jessica’s reputation is destroyed. The Narrandera Argus account of the case concludes:

  It is one thing for a slip of a girl to bring a madman, a killer, to justice and for this Miss Jessica Bergman deserves the highest praise.

  However, it is quite another thing for this young heroine to turn into a hostile witness and to defend the accused in court and, in the process, to sully the reputations of the respectable dead.

  In the judge’s own words, William Simon, alias Billy Simple, is a vicious, cold-blooded killer. His victims, the three murdered women, were ever of chaste behaviour, well known to most people in Boyd County and throughout the Riverina as personages of the most genteel character to be held in the highest esteem.

  They were, mother and daughters, women almost sainted for their good works, veritable pillars of the church and tireless workers for charity, much admired for their selfless deeds, piety and goodwill towards the sick and the poor.

  By seeking to defend William Simon, Miss Bergman has betrayed all that is good in society.

  This correspondent cannot help but wonder whether the ordeals suffered by Miss Bergman during the hazardous and dangerous undertaking have not damaged her nerves, her very sanity. This would seem to be the only possible explanation for her aberrant behaviour.

  Some of the bolder newspapers, led by the Sydney Morning Herald, go so far as to speculate that, in retrospect, such behaviour from a member of the weaker sex was most peculiar in both circumstances — in her overbold capture of Billy Simple and then her subsequent defence of the convicted murderer while under oath. They, too, suggest that William Simon may not be the only person who is of unsound mind. Or is there, they ask, an entirely different motive for Miss Bergman’s apparent affection for the murderer?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Since the incident at Narrandera when Jack defied his father to allow Jessica to deliver Billy Simple to the police magistrate he has grown much closer to the Bergman family. Meg and Hester have welcomed him, though not perhaps with quite the same ardour as they had originally anticipated.

  George Thomas has spoken hardly a word to young Jack since their confrontation in the main street and has insisted his son move out of the homestead and into the cottage usually occupied by the foreman of the shearing shed. Jack is expected to cook and fend for himself and he and George are careful to work on separate runs at Riverview Station.

  Old man Thomas has also let it be known that by defying him, Jack is no longer considered to be his son. Assuming, with his wife’s death, that he is the sole owner of Riverview, George has announced, not without a certain degree of melodrama, that Jack has been disinherited.

  This comes as a severe blow to Hester and Meg. George Thomas is known for his stubborn and cantankerous nature as well as his ability never to forget a slight. While he is a loud-mouth, a braggart and a mean bastard, no one doubts that his disinheritance of young Jack is fair dinkum. The Narrandera confrontation when Jack threatened to shoot him was a public humiliation he cannot forgive. Moreover, with young Jack’s refusal to back down, it has compounded his determination to disinherit his son.

  Hester has had to make new plans for Meg, for she can no longer regard Jack Thomas as the prime candidate for her daughter’s hand in marriage. Jack with Riverview Station in his saddlebag is one thing, Jack as a penniless station hand is quite another.

  So, while Hester and Meg have remained conscientious in their attentions to young Jack’s healthy appetite over the last two months, cooking roast dinners and baking the day prior to his Sunday visit, Meg’s petticoats have not been lifted quite as high as she comes down the steps of the homestead to meet him, nor do her pretty hands draw downwards to emphasise her trim waist as they once did at every opportunity. To an astute observer, her eyes are not as charmingly averted, her beautiful smile is employed less often and her maidenly expression is not quite as demure. The abandonment of Jack Thomas has been subtle but determined. With the cooling down of Hester’s ardour for Meg’s long-term suitor, her eldest daughter has been instructed to start casting her glances elsewhere.

  For his part, Jack Thomas has seemed hardly to notice the lessening of Meg’s affections. He arrives each Sunday shortly after Hester, Meg and Jessica have attended morning service at St Stephen’s. They can hear the whine of his motor car a good ten minutes before he comes up the rutted road with a fearful clatter and clank of rotating parts. Jessica runs out to meet him with her hands to her ears as he pulls up with a final exhilarated roar of the engine followed by fearful backfiring and a cloud of blue smoke.

  Though she works alongside him often enough, Jessica feels strangely shy when he arrives. It is as though the neat cotton dress with its wide skirt which emphasises her tiny waist makes her more vulnerable and calls for a different expression of her self.

  In moleskins and shirt she might greet him with a casual ‘G’day!’. In her Sunday dress with its neat white lace collar she feels obliged to say, ‘Good morning, Jack.’ Jack, too, regards his Sunday visit as different. ‘Good morning, Jessie,’ he says, greeting her as formally in return. But then he shakes her hand and looks down at her with a little smile on his face arid hangs onto her hand for a moment longer than necessary. There is a look in his eye which always suggests to Jessica that he wants to say something else. But she lacks the courage to keep her hand in his and pulls away laughing. ‘Father will be pouring a stout for you, he won’t want it to lose its head of foam.’ Jessica finds her heart is always beating a good bit faster after this formal Sunday morning greeting.

  She tells herself not to be ridiculous, that wh
at happened in Narrandera was nothing to concern herself about. Jack is her mate and Billy’s too, and he’d done what he did to protect her from the mob trying to get to Billy Simple. It was a mate thing, even when he carried her up the steps of the courthouse. His visits to the Narrandera hospital for the next two days while she recovered were also part of his friendship and concern. She dares not think otherwise, and even now that Meg has abandoned her affections for him and Jack is available, Jessica tells herself she is ugly and flat in front and not the sort of person Jack will choose for his wife.

  Jack, like Joe, seldom goes to church, but on Sundays he’s careful to wear a clean shirt and moleskins, with his boots freshly dubbined, his neck well scrubbed and his face shaved. He wolfs down his food as though he has been starved all week and is careful to extend his appreciation to Hester and Meg, exclaiming loudly and delightedly at the tarts, trifles and cakes they place before him after the Sunday roast.

  Like most young blokes his age, Jack isn’t a big talker. His conversation is polite and agreeable, but largely restricted to matters of cattle and sheep and the working and efficacy of machinery in the shearing shed. Even these contributions are prodded from him as though with the sharp end of a knitting needle. It is only when Jessica asks him a question on irrigation that he replies spontaneously. He is all for the elaborate system of canals and pump stations planned for the Riverina, some of which are already in place. His enthusiasm for what Joe refers to as ‘bloody McCaughey’s harebrained scheme’ seems to know no bounds.

  Joe is too polite to openly show his disdain for this idea, but after Jack’s departure he’ll have a go at him.

  ‘He don’t think practical, you can’t take a flamin’ river where it don’t want to go! The canals will silt up from the dust and the walls will collapse the first rains we get. This is sheep and cattle country when it’s good and good for bugger-all when it ain’t, nothing’S gunna change that. You can’t raise regular crops on soil that grows nothin’ much ‘cept mulga scrub and saltbush. There’s talk of growing rice like China and two crops of wheat a year — I should live to see the day.’

  Jessica points out that Jack is as good a sheep and cattle man as you can get and Joe admits this is true. ‘But them bloody stupid schemes, building canals and pumps, that’ll soon enough take care o’ the wool cheque and then some! You know how I feel about that bastard George Thomas, but it’s probably a good thing he still holds the reins at Riverview, can’t let them young blokes muck about too much, ‘fore you know it they’ve blown the lot and they’re into the bank for a loan.’

  Joe is fond enough of young Jack and reckons he’ll come good in the end. ‘Give him a few more years of being belted about in the bush, he’ll come around.’ He has watched the friendship between Jack and Jessica grow and he is grateful to the boy for accepting his younger daughter as a serious worker and for not taking the pi ss as the other young ringers try to do — until they see her on a horse working cattle or sheep and are forced to show a little respect.

  Now, with Jack’s diminished future, the friendship between Jessica and Jack seems to Joe to be most fortunate. While he is not as sure as Hester that Jack has his eyes on Jessica, he cannot help hoping they might go on with it. He is seventy-two years old and sees the possibility of the disinherited Jack and Jessica taking over the property from him. If he can knock some of the damn fool ideas out of the young man’s head, Joe reckons that Jessica will have found a good man as her partner.

  Hester declares herself just as pleased if such an arrangement may be brought about and sets to work on Jessica, urging her to show more amorous attention to Jack. If Jessica and Jack are regarded by the parish as a courting couple then Meg will not be seen as fickle or changing her affections with the downturn of Jack’s fortunes.

  The story of Jack walking up the steps of the Narrandera courthouse with Jessica in his arms has been romanticised to almost legendary status and the whole county is waiting, wanting to be convinced there is a big romance in the air. If Jessica and Jack can be seen walking out together there won’t be a single discordant. voice in the community.

  All seems to be going well until after the murder trial, when the newspaper talk of Jessica’s strange behaviour in the defence of Billy Simple causes tongues to wag aplenty.

  ‘Will that child never cease in her tormenting of us?’ Hester howls to Joe. ‘We shall never live down the shame.’ ‘She done what she thought was right,’ Joe says in Jessica’s defence. ‘I admit it were stupid, but it come from the heart.’

  ‘Joe Bergman, you don’t understand what she’s done to us!’ Hester screams at her husband. ‘Don’t you see, Meg’s prospects are forever ruined! How shall we face a decent family with an eligible son when your daughter has shamed our name like this?’

  ‘Don’t you talk to me in that voice, Hester,’ Joe warns.

  ‘You were quick enough to use Jessie to get Meg off the hook with Jack Thomas once you knew his prospects were ruined. You reckoned he was a good enough catch for Jessie though, didn’t ya?’

  Hester attempts to calm her voice. ‘You were there, you should not have let her see that drunken lawyer. You should have stopped her. For Godsakes, Joe, you must have known the shame it would bring us, her defending the murderer against Ada Thomas and her two girls? Whatever could have possessed the girl? Doesn’t she ever stop to think what people will say? How can Jack take her for his wife now she’s shown herself to be against his mother and sisters? How will Meg make a decent marriage? How can we ever show our faces in public again?’ To Hester’s surprise, Joe laughs. ‘You should know better. Since when has anyone been able to change Jessie’s mind when it’s made up? You and Meg been trying for years to rein her in and she’s took no notice. She done what she thought was fair and honest. Never mind what the newspapers say, Jessie done a decent thing.’

  ‘Decent thing! Defending that brute! You call that decent? She’s ruined Meg’s chances and blown her own forever. You may be sure there’ll be no Jack Thomas over for Sunday dinner from now on!’

  Joe grins. ‘Pity that, best tucker I’ve eaten in years. I’m not so sure Jessie ever thought she had a chance. Nor does he seem too interested. They ain’t exactly lovey-dovey. Like I said before, it were you and Meg that were playing matchmakers, thinking it were a great opportunity to get Meg off the hook with young Jack. Meg, the loving sister, giving up Jack Thomas to brave little Jessie who brought the mad bloke to justice. Christ, yiz make me sick!’

  Hester brings her fingers up to her lips, trying to calm down. ‘Joe, can’t you see, people think Jessica’s gone crazy! Wrong in the head. Where does that leave us?’

  ‘Us? Meg, you mean?’ Joe laughs again. ‘Up shit creek for the time being, I reckon.’ Joe lights his pipe and takes a couple of puffs. ‘But Jessie’s not crazy and there’s enough folk around here who’ll soon enough notice that. It’ll sort itself out. Never mind about Meg, she’s too pretty to stay on the shelf for too long. Anyway, the pair of yiz is too fussy, perhaps you should settle for less than the landed bloody gentry?’

  ‘That I’ll not do, Joe Bergman!’ Hester pronounces.

  ‘Meg’s not been born to be some scrub farmer’s wife. She deserves the best and I’ll see she gets it, despite Jessica’s every effort to destroy her,’ Hester sniffs.

  ‘Good onya, in the meantime, let’s just get on with our lives. Jessica’s never done nothing to harm Meg, nor would she ever. Meg will survive and Jessie’s no worse off but for a bit of idle newspaper gossip. You and Meg have got rid of Jack now he’s broke. I dare say the Bergman family will survive the shame,’ Joe grins, ‘though I can’t speak for the Heathwood side.’

  Hester is wrong about Jack Thomas who, after the trial is over, turns up as usual for Sunday dinner. The furore caused by the newspapers about Jessica’s behaviour at Billy Simple’s trial is soon enough forgotten by the local gossips, or more likely tucked away for a rainy d
ay when a bit of malicious tattle might come in useful. Country folk have their own way of making up their minds about people and, while Jessica has always been thought of as a bit of a tomboy, there’s many a settler who’d like a daughter like her around to help him. The rumour of the romance started publicly on the steps of the Narrandera courthouse proves much the superior topic among the tongue-waggers. If Jessica has gone a bit strange there’s plenty more in the district to join her. They’ll soon enough make up their own minds, thank you very much.

  Nor does Jessica’s defence of Billy Simple seem to have affected Meg’s chances with the better families, who are showing more than their usual cordiality towards Hester and her older daughter. Though Hester has decided to take her husband’s advice and lie low for a while, she is much encouraged by their reception at St Stephen’s. It is almost as though everyone has breathed a sigh of relief at the passing of the interfering and self-righteous Ada Thomas and her two nosy daughters.

  Meg lives to see another day and to find someone befitting her beauty and intelligence, while Jessica — poor, plain Jessie — fulfils the romantic dreams of every lonely, work-worn farmer’s wife hungry for a bit of romance and affection. Such is the nature of romantic illusion that Jack’s apparent lack of outward affection for Jessica is simply put down by everyone to his grief and the need for an appropriate and seemly period of mourning for his mother and sisters to pass.

  Then one Sunday, a few weeks after the drama of the trial has passed, Jack, in a casual remark, tells the Bergman family he has just spent two days with the Thomas family lawyer in Narrandera, where he attended the reading of his mother’s last will and testament.

  Hester and Meg immediately assume conciliatory expressions. Then Jack announces that Ada Thomas has left the bulk of her considerable fortune to him, as well as the deeds to Riverview Station which, it turns out, had always been in her name.