Above the Starry Frame

by Helen Townsend

  ‘Ah brother,’ he said. ‘This is a sad blow for you.’

  ‘’Tis indeed,’ said Robert. ‘And I think it is someone who works for me. How else would they know where I keep my takings?’

  ‘Surely keeping your takings under a bale of hay was foolish in the extreme.’

  ‘I think a safe as you have, so everyone knows where your money is, is foolish,’ said Robert. ‘It tells all that you have money and money worth getting.’

  ‘Except they cannot get it, because it is locked away.’

  ‘I cannot afford a safe in any case,’ said Robert. ‘And if I keep it under my mattress they would cut my throat to get it. And as for a safe, they may threaten you and make you open that.’

  William sighed, with pointed exasperation. Robert sat down on a bale. ‘Here, brother, stay and have a pipe with me.’

  ‘I cannot,’ said William, for he felt fidgety in this unkempt yard. ‘I have business up in town.’ He looked around. The house had a burnt-out kitchen and a new one tacked on beside it, badly built, with gaps between the boards. The rest of the house was decrepit, more a shed than a cottage. And the yard itself was disorganised, with timber lying in piles, tools out in the weather, nothing swept. The fence was broken in several places.

  ‘Mending the fence might have kept the thieves out,’ he said crossly.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Robert. ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘I hate to see you brought to this,’ William said. ‘But I must go.’

  Robert walked with him to the gate, looking round the yard, taking in what William was looking at, and how his brother saw it.

  ‘I wish that things went better for you,’ said William, his irritation heightened by his despair at the scene.

  Robert looked at him. ‘’Tis not so bad,’ he said. ‘’Tis not good being robbed, but it’s not a great thing. This business pays my way for the most part. It is my own. I find I do not have to work too hard. It does not require great attention at all.’ He opened the ramshackle gate, which was almost off its hinges, and smiled his big wide smile. ‘I am happy brother, most happy. You’re always good to me, and I myself hate to see you so worn down with your cares. I only wish that you were as happy as myself.’

  It seemed incredible to William, but he realised Robert felt sorry for him. For him, whose yard was always swept, whose business flew four flags and had a stream of guests and drinkers coming through, and which thrived and hummed along, allowing his children to be well fed, well educated, well clothed, allowing him to support those back at Knockaleery, to help Robert himself, to give to charity, to pay for life insurance, to assure his place in that progressive part of Ballarat. But he thought how often over the years, when he himself had fretted over Robert, that Robert himself had been cheerful and sanguine.

  William bade Robert goodbye and walked through the streets of east Ballarat, where he had lived for so many years, first on the field, then on Main Street. Now there were some fine buildings, but for the most part, it was considerably poorer than his own side of town. There were cottages like Robert’s, but also many trim, neat cottages with gardens. There was no doubt that life was harder for the people here, but he thought of Robert saying he was happy, the broad smile on his face. He thought how often he felt burdened by his own cares and responsibilities. He supposed that Robert and others here might think his life was difficult, and that he carried many burdens, which he did. There might also be envy in it for his security, but there might be derision too, for men like him sacrificed many simple pleasures for that security. And there was perhaps a touch of mockery there too, for there was a certain pompousness in having this and that, and doing things only the correct way, and attending church in Sunday best, and the Masons in their robes laying foundation stones, all conscious of their own importance.

  There was pomp in their charity too, for they were attached to the idea of good works, of dispensing charity, while being confident that people such as themselves would never be its recipient.

  He was part of that, he knew. He was drawn to doing and making, to building and creating. He smiled as he remembered his father’s pride in his ability in adding four columns in his head, for in truth, the ability still pleased him. And he saw Robert’s great smile in his mind, and he had a notion that the quality which so puzzled him in Robert, did, after all, make some sense. He could not entirely work it out, but he felt lighter in heart as he walked up Sturt Street towards the Exchange.

  William was waiting outside the bedroom, watching Willy and Johnny playing out in the yard. He felt many things about this new baby – fear that the birth would kill his dear Jane, worry that this baby would not feel so much his own as his children with Bridget, hope that this would bind him and Jane together more intimately, and joy that his boys might have a bigger family, for two children seemed a very small number indeed.

  He could hear Jane in labour, first moaning, then screaming, then begging. He paced the corridor very nervously until he could stand it no longer and then went out into the stables and taught the boys the art of cleaning the horses’ hooves, with his patient old horse Napoleon. He got them working and himself sweeping until everything round the stables was extremely tidy indeed.

  ‘Mr Irwin, Mr Irwin!’ The scullery maid ran into the stables. ‘The babe is born. The missus wants you.’

  His heart in his mouth, he ran across the yard followed by his two boys and along the hotel hallway, where he was stopped by the midwife.

  ‘She done a beautiful job, Mr Irwin.’ She smiled at him, pleased. ‘She’s cleaned up and you have a healthy little daughter.’ She shepherded the boys down the corridor. ‘You go in a little later, dears. Your daddy must go first.’

  William felt his eyes fill with tears as he went in. Jane sat up in bed, looking tired but neat and pretty as always, the baby wrapped in a knitted shawl in her arms. She smiled at him, and he looked down at the baby, who looked just like a baby of his and Jane’s should look. He kissed Jane and gently took the baby.

  ‘A lovely babe,’ he said, for he could barely speak for his tears. ‘Oh Jane.’

  ‘What do you wish to call her?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I was thinking you may wish to call her Bridget, after your first wife,’ she said. ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘That is past. What would you call her?’

  ‘I thought Eliza,’ she said. ‘For it’s a fine Irish name, and the name of your dear sister, and my sister too.’

  He kissed the baby. ‘Hullo, Lizzie,’ he whispered. ‘Our little Lizzie.’

  CHAPTER 16

  It was a long trudge to the cemetery, a hot day with a fierce north wind. The gravel crunched under William’s boots as he tramped up Lydiard Street to the cemetery on the outskirts of the town. A fierce glare bounced off the white road, the gusts of wind adding to the discomfort of the mourners in their heavy suits. The white quartz dust from the road coated their boots as they walked. The road, like many Ballarat thoroughfares, was wide, and the further it was from the town centre, the sparser the settlement. Two gleaming black horses with feather plumes pulled the ornate black hearse with its gold curlicues, and the procession of men following it seemed insignificant in the harsh, bright light, almost swallowed by the expanse of road.

  The hearse contained the coffin, and this, William thought, was a more expensive resting place than his brother Robert had ever enjoyed in life. He felt overcome with sadness at the loss of his brother, and he thought the horses and the fancy hearse showed up what a ragged procession the mourners were. A year earlier, he’d paid for a fine funeral for Robert’s wife, Birdie. Now Birdie’s sister had pleaded with him for all the fineries and trimmings for Robert. At first he’d resisted, for he felt these to be ostentatious and unseemly, but she had invoked the poor orphans, so he’d given way. Then, it cost some more for the priest to say a special mass. He did not begrudge the money, but he thought how these days people in Ballarat seemed much absorb
ed by the grandeur of funerals, as if such things were a measure of the life of the departed. The loss of his brother felt beyond measure.

  Here he was, tramping up Lydiard Street, thinking to himself that he could no longer be regarded as the luckiest of men, for there had been too much death, too many losses. The death of his parents, of course, had been in the natural order of things, but when his father had died, he had grieved greatly. It had removed him entirely from his early life, for he could no longer imagine the life at Knockaleery without his dear parents. Then there had been his first child, who had become a little smudged in his memory, then dear Bridget, then, two years ago, Jane, mother of his four youngest children. Jane’s death had left a painful hole within him, for their life together had had a calmness and ordered pleasure to it. Jane had had great warmth and affection, and he returned it till it was deep within him. To have it wrenched away had been a hard blow.

  After that, there was Robert’s wife, Birdie, and now he was tramping the road to the cemetery behind the coffin of his own dear brother Robert, for whom he was the chief mourner. William headed the funeral procession. Joe Brown, who had come to Ballarat for the funeral, walked beside him with Danny Phelan, and behind them, Robert’s family.

  Danny Phelan had always liked Robert and been very kind to him during his illness. William was most grateful to Danny for telling him what was to be done in the Roman Catholic religion, the mass that was to be said, the candles lit, and the correct payment to the priest.

  He remembered how Robert had always said he loved the sunshine of this country, but he thought on this day, wearing his heavy black suit, that he himself could have done without the oppressive heat. He felt so bowed down by sadness that he could barely walk the distance and was glad of the friendship of Joe and Danny. He felt pushed to the very limit of his endurance for grieving.

  Robert had been sick since Birdie died, and he had come to live at the hotel. He had needed considerable doctoring, and the cost of his illness and supporting his family was heavy. William had not grudged him. Rather, it made him feel even more attached to Robert, for Robert had accepted the misfortune of his impending early death much as he had accepted the misfortunes of his life – that is, with strange cheerfulness. It made William think considerably, for he himself had never been sanguine about the prospect of his own demise.

  ‘’Tis this Roman Catholic religion,’ Robert had said to him. ‘I know you don’t like it, but they seem somewhat more certain of a heavenly destination than the Protestants, provided you live right. They set out such things more clearly. I gave to the church and the school, within my means at least, so I believe that’s to my credit. And I went to mass regular and confessed my sins, so I believe my slate is clean. It’s a fine religion that way. With the Protestants, or at least for myself, I forever felt I was failing one way or another.’

  William thought this seemed to have an element of truth in it, for he found at the Presbyterian church the sermons generally demanded such measures of faith and good works that one could never be sure how much was enough. In the Protestant religion, there was an endless struggle for salvation. In the Catholic Church, to attend the mass and obey the rules seemed a sufficient thing.

  When Robert had come to live in the hotel, many nights he and William, and sometimes Danny Phelan, had sat up talking of old Ireland, and how different their lives were in this country. It made Robert very happy, for by his accounting, he had lived a fine life in the colony. Danny, it seemed, felt much the same, but William had felt a nostalgia for the dreams of his youth, when he had thought of seeing more of the world. This was now not possible with six children, a hotel and no wife. He felt somewhat bowed down by this loss of dreams as well as by the loss of so many whom he had loved. He did not clearly remember those airy dreams of his youth, except that he had expected something which life had not delivered.

  When Robert had come to live in the hotel he left his two younger children in the care of their aunt, and brought his eldest girl, Mary Jane, to the hotel with him. William was impressed by the way Mary Jane rose above the disorganisation and dishevelment of the rest of her family. Whoever had taught her at the convent school had supplied her with grace, good manners and good sense. She was quietly attentive to Robert, who drank a good deal, and she nursed him very tenderly.

  William paid Mary Jane to be a maid and to care for his children, which she did with much kindness, although with less attention to detail than their mother had lavished upon them. For a girl of just seventeen, she did very well indeed with Lizzie and his younger boys, Walter, Herbert and Robert. Willy and Johnny, being older, certainly did not need Mary Jane’s attention, although they liked their cousin there.

  As William stood at the grave and listened to the prayers of the priest, it took him back to the first Catholic funeral he had ever attended, that of Michael O’Connell, his friend on the diggings. He thought that he was probably the only man alive who ever thought of Michael now. He could still see his young face with its blue eyes and dark circles of sadness, and hear his laughter, which also had a hint of the tragedy of life, of which Michael had known plenty. William could not suppress the same feeling he’d had when Michael died, that however he might think about eternal life, and whatever might be preached of its glories, to lose this life was the greatest loss, and eternity did not seem like a substitute. Indeed, as Robert’s coffin was lowered into the grave, he had the passing thought that he was not sure of eternal life at all.

  They stood in the blazing sun while the priest said more in Latin and sprinkled holy water into the grave. William thought of the body in the coffin. That body had been his brother who had been so close to him in many ways, having slept in the same bed for so many years, having come to join him in this country, having lived in this town together, having eaten so often at his table, but so different in the way he lived his life. That had troubled him, but now, it seemed a proper thing, for it would not do for all men to live alike. He wished he had said so to Robert, for sometimes in the early days in Ballarat, he had been harsh with him for the time and trouble he had cost him. He bent down and threw a handful of dirt into the grave on top of the coffin, and felt tears start to his eyes.

  ‘My dear brother,’ he said, and Joe took his arm, which he was glad of, for he was shaking and could feel the tears on his cheeks. Joe steadied him for a minute, and then, with Danny, they walked to the cemetery gate and caught a hansom cab. Back at the Provincial, he went to see Mary Jane, who he was surprised to find making pies in the kitchen. She looked up at him as he came in.

  ‘It was a fine funeral for your daddy,’ he told her, for though women did not attend a funeral, of course, Mary Jane would wish to know it had been done well. ‘Most respectful. And plenty came to farewell him.’ This was not exactly true, but he thought it might give her comfort. ‘And the priest said the prayers for the repose of his soul. There was nothing at all lacking in it.’

  Mary Jane leaned over the table and cut the pastry out into circles.

  ‘You needn’t be working today, Mary Jane. Not on the day of your dear father’s funeral. I thought I’d said that to you.’

  ‘You did indeed, Uncle,’ she said. ‘When you were all putting him in the ground up there at the cemetery, I was saying my prayers, but they did not take me long enough, and I found it better to be doing something useful.’

  ‘Do what you need, but don’t think I expect it. Not on this day.’ He said it very gently to her, for he could see she had tears in her eyes.

  ‘My daddy was a very kind man,’ she said. ‘And you’re very kind, Uncle William, to give him such a fine funeral.’

  Robert, William’s youngest boy, ran into the kitchen, chased by his brothers Herbert and Wattie. William pulled them up quickly and cuffed them.

  ‘You must not be running inside,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you. There is plenty of room for running outside. But today is the day your Uncle Robert was buried, and you must show some respect to him and your dear c
ousin here by being quiet and not running around at all. Wattie, you are old enough to know so. It is a sad day. Go along to Lizzie, and she might read to you.’ They went meekly to find Lizzie, but it put him out of sorts to find them behaving so. Mary Jane was good to them, but she did not remind them how they must and must not behave. Perhaps, coming from a less orderly house, she did not know.

  ‘He was my own dear brother,’ he continued after the boys left, ‘and your dear father, so we will both miss him.’ He looked down at the pies she was pinching the pastry around and suddenly felt very hungry. ‘You might bring me and Mr Brown and Mr Phelan a pie in the parlour when they’re cooked.’ He felt apologetic, for it sounded crass, but he recognised that appetite for living after death that always asserted itself and was such a strong tradition of the Irish, but perhaps not quite understandable for a young girl. ‘You might want to go to your aunt’s later, Mary Jane, or to your church. If you’re so inclined.’

  ‘I’m glad to have work here today,’ she said, ‘for I’m otherwise thinking of my mother and father both in the ground.’

  ‘That’s our earthly view,’ he said. ‘But your priest tells me they’re bound for the joys of heaven.’

  ‘I went to church and lit a candle for Daddy early this morning,’ she said. ‘And I may slip out and light another tonight and one in my brother and sister’s name, if I can leave the children with the little maid.’

  ‘You can indeed,’ said William. ‘I know this is most hard, but I will always help you and your brother and sister.’ He picked a piece of pastry from the floured table and popped it into his mouth. ‘Are you happy to stay here? You know I depend on you to help me with the little ones.’

  ‘I’ll stay here as long as you need me,’ Mary Jane said. ‘But in time, I’d like to get a job in a shop, and then help my aunt with my sister and brother. For I think she lets them run a little wild.’