Above the Starry Frame

by Helen Townsend

  Mrs Vivian was a handsome woman, around forty, although she had given her age to Sergeant Hamilton as thirty-five. He supposed such vanity was acceptable in a woman. She had a strong face with fine eyes, and thick hair which was pinned up in such a way that he could never imagine it might come down. Jane had worn her hair up, but there were always a few strands which escaped pleasingly. William thought Mrs Vivian’s hair would never escape. But he felt his thought was rather uncharitable, for he had worn his best suit and had brought a fresh shirt all the way to Beechworth, since he did not wish to give an impression of a needy bachelor. And while he did not have a lot of hair left, he had the barber trim it along with his beard the day he left Ballarat.

  Mrs Vivian asked him and Joe to sit down and made enquiries about their journey, and he noticed she had a most pleasing voice, rather low and serious. She spoke sensibly and did not prattle – perhaps a little too sensibly, but that was understandable. She gave them tea from the Bristol teapot, which he presumed she had brought from her hotel, for every hotel had a Bristol teapot. She took note of how they liked their tea and was anxious to provide satisfaction. Joe took a scone, but William refused, for he thought she was probably a woman with a dread fear of crumbs. He felt ill equipped to handle anything more than a teacup, given he could feel everything in his stomach and his hands were a little damp.

  William glanced at the photograph on the wall and noted Mr Vivian had a large moustache, and was surrounded by a mourning frame that was very finely gilded. Mrs Vivian noticed him looking.

  ‘That is a photograph of my dear departed husband,’ she said, ‘to whom I was most devoted.’ Her tone intimated that this devotion could not be supplanted.

  William brought out a gift for her, which he had worried about, thinking it too much if he did not marry her and too little if he did. It was William Bramwell Withers’s History of Ballarat, a fine book with many illustrations and a picture map of the city and another of the mines.

  Mrs Vivian was most appreciative and admired the book and its binding and excellent prints and illustrations, plus the amount of information it contained.

  ‘William Withers is well known to me,’ said William. ‘He was a digger on the field and now he is a journalist, an excellent writer. This book tells you all the wonders of Ballarat, which are considerable and even greater now, since the book was written in 1870 and is therefore a little out of date. Those of us who live there feel it is the equal of Melbourne. Withers is a most learned man, and anxious to spread learning. He writes and he does considerable work with the Mechanics Institute in arranging lectures, which I often attend. And he comes for a meal now and then at the Provincial.’ He thought he was waxing too hot about Withers, and saying too little about himself, but he found Withers a safer man to describe.

  ‘I have heard,’ she said, ‘that the Provincial Hotel is one of Ballarat’s finest hotels.’

  ‘We have a very respectable trade that comes off the railway,’ said William. ‘We accommodate families and commercial men, and some farmers. Since they extended the railway further west, our trade has suffered a little, and there are fewer coaches, but we now get some families coming from the west to see the sights of our great city.’

  ‘I believe it is a very fine city,’ said Mrs Vivian.

  ‘It is the only city I have ever lived in,’ said William, ‘but I would not live anywhere else, since I’ve been there since the beginning.’ He looked at her, but she did not smile. She did not seem much given to smiling. ‘I believe you ran a hotel in this town.’

  ‘Indeed. My departed husband, Mr Henry Vivian, gave up being a digger and went into the hotel business. On a modest scale. But while Beechworth is a pleasant town, it is small and it does not seem to offer the possibility of getting bigger. Had dear Mr Vivian not passed on, we may have moved.’

  ‘Have you thought of moving since?’ William asked, and thought immediately after that it sounded perhaps as if he might be asking if she was thinking of moving to Ballarat with him, which was not part of the question, and which of course she would not think. But in this small room, with so many things, it felt inevitable he would knock something wrong.

  ‘I sold the hotel,’ she said, ‘which was fortunate, for there is, as you would know, often a surplus of hotels in mining towns. The proceeds provide me with a more secure income.’

  ‘Mrs Vivian is like yourself,’ said Joe Brown. ‘She’s interested in mining.’

  ‘In mining companies?’ asked William.

  ‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘More tea?’

  William nodded and she very graciously poured him another cup, and one for Joe.

  ‘You have shares?’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘I have been fortunate with the Band of Hope and Albion, and Black Hill seems steady. I am inclined to safety, because of my circumstances, and I have done tolerably. Within my means,’ she added.

  William was astounded. His Bridget had had some shares after the days of the rush, when investing in a mine was a more straightforward venture as most mines would pay eventually. Jane had never given the mines of Ballarat a thought. He was still excited by the gold of the city, but mining was a business now, with profit and loss, costs carefully calculated. It seemed amazing that this woman in Beechworth might embark upon and carry out such a thing.

  ‘I myself am an investor,’ he said.

  ‘And on the board of some companies, from what I see in the papers,’ she said, ‘and with a seat on the Exchange. I believe the mining industry will always be one of the chief industries of this colony. It has brought great prosperity for the whole. For investors like myself, making use of such prosperity is a question of being sufficiently informed to choose the correct investments.’

  William relaxed a little in his chair, and when he looked across at her, she had a rather different aspect, and a hint of a smile, as if she knew that she had surprised him. She was a little woman, not delicate, but with a calmness about her he rather liked.

  ‘Tell me about your family,’ she said, reaching forward to offer him a scone, which he now took and found he could manage quite well. ‘I believe you have six children in all.’

  * * *

  ‘Oh Joe, oh Joe, oh Joe,’ William said to Joe Brown. They were in the parlour of the Beechworth Hotel and had stayed up late to talk. ‘Oh women!’ William drained his whisky.

  ‘Do you like her?’

  ‘She’s a most intelligent woman. Not quite like other women. But interesting.’ He shook his head. ‘She asked about my Lizzie very closely – a little like she might be buying shares in her.’

  ‘But she did ask about her. And your boys. And what they like, and what they do not like. And their characters. And their education. I think you could not fault her.’

  ‘I could not fault her. For a woman without children, she asked sensible questions. She did not say she loved children. She did not say what should be done with them. She just asked. As I said, it is like myself when I’m thinking of buying shares in a company.’

  ‘So you think you might marry her?’

  ‘She’s most intriguing, but . . .’

  William got up and looked at the oil painting on the wall of the parlour. It was a picture of a horse, and a very fine horse too, but he wondered who would have a painting done of his horse. He worried he was going about this business of finding a wife as if he was buying a horse. Except he had bought many horses now, and was something of an expert, but he had little experience or confidence with this matter. Mrs Julia Vivian was undoubtedly a fine specimen, except for her stuffed parlour with all those whatnots which he could not understand at all. She kept house well, she was refined in her manners, she had a good deal of sense and had kept her dignity in what was a difficult situation.

  ‘But?’ said Joe.

  ‘Joe, she’s not an Irish girl. She’s . . . she’s . . . buttoned up like all the English. I talk to her and she’s most intelligent. I can see she’d be an asset to the hotel. I think she would do
well with the children, even if not quite the mother they had, but I don’t see how. . . I can’t see how . . .’ He got red and flustered as he tried to explain it, and Joe’s mouth began to twitch with a smile, although his forehead was still set with intelligent concern. William could see that was what he was trying to hold to, although with some difficulty.

  And as William looked at Joe, the twitch round Joe’s mouth got into his own mind, so he fell into it, and felt his own mouth twitching with the thought they were both trying to suppress. And the thought loomed larger and larger and was twitching in him so strong that it burst out, half in laughter, half in embarrassment.

  ‘Joe! I cannot see her in my bed. I cannot . . .’ He could not continue for the laughter was taking him over.

  Joe pulled himself together, but William could see he was struggling to retain his serious face.

  ‘She is so very stiff, so proper . . . I cannot get her there at all, Joe.’ And he started laughing again. ‘I cannot, I cannot.’

  And Joe’s face collapsed into laughter and he could not stop, but laughed so much that he wiped his eyes.

  And they laughed and laughed like boys till they were weak with laughter. Finally Joe broke away and poured two glasses of whisky and straightened himself up, and that pulled William up with him, although both were still smirking. Joe handed William the whisky.

  ‘What will you do?’ he asked, deliberately not looking at William.

  ‘I think I will marry her,’ said William, and they clinked their glasses together without catching the other’s eye and downed the spirits.

  William Irwin, widower, aged forty-eight, married Julia Vivian, widow, who gave her age as thirty-three, in the Church of England at Beechworth on 28 January 1879. That night in the bedroom he discovered that while she was nervous and proper and modest as a bride should be, she was not entirely different from an Irish girl, so he felt assured of a degree of marital happiness. He felt, moreover, that his life was back where it should be: that he had a wife, his children had a mother, and they could go forward. He would no longer be lost in grief as he had been.

  The new Mrs William Irwin did not care to reflect on the bridal night, but she found her new marriage most satisfactory. She had had a very happy marriage to Mr Henry Vivian. They had been a devoted couple, perfectly content except for their failure to produce a child. This failure, Julia had governed herself to regard as a small misfortune in an otherwise fortunate marriage, although she had strongly wished it otherwise. She was older than she had written in the wedding register in both her marriages, although on neither occasion did the adjustment of her age feel anything other than completely natural.

  As the new Mrs William Irwin, she was aware she had risen in the world, and this pleased her very much, for with the death of Henry Vivian, she had found that she had gone down in the world considerably. Her only defence against moving down further had been her small income and her tight respectability, both of which she had guarded most carefully. She had not panicked, but she had been anxious to keep her place in the world. So when her friend Sergeant Richard Hamilton had approached her about a possible suitor, she had recognised the possibility of rising once again, which was a very great thing indeed.

  She had, however, been by no means set on the marriage. Having experienced a happy union, she decided that Mr William Irwin must be a refined and pleasant man, not a rough hotel keeper, however large and grand the Provincial Hotel at Ballarat might be. She had heard a few tales of Billy Irwin in the early days of the goldfields that had made her circumspect. But on meeting Mr Irwin she had been more than pleased, for he spoke well, was intelligent, and she felt that he was seeking the very degree of the refinement and respectability which she possessed.

  Whereas the first Mrs William Irwin had read Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, the third Mrs William Irwin, although she had never read the book, demonstrated Charles Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest, albeit in a most refined and respectable fashion.

  CHAPTER 17

  1882

  Knockaleery

  County Tyrone

  Dear Brother,

  Our Brother and Sisters in America ere all well when last I hear. America is doung beter now and Englang is improved a litle.

  Mr John Brown and daugther ere well. Mr Egelson and famely ere well. Mr Norris is living yet. Jane’s sister Eliza is going to America.

  My kind love to Mary Jane Irwin. Let’s not fear, God’s Will be Father and Mother to them on condithion, but they look to Him, for we have promes to do your duty to them and shown them the right path to walk in. I know Mrs Irwin will do her endavours telling her right way.

  I would like a leter from her and do tell her write, as you was luckey in geting nise woman.

  Write soon and never be so long again Eliza Irwin

  * * *

  After three years of marriage, Julia Irwin felt very satisfied with her married state. While she bowed to the demands of female decorum and modesty, she did not hide her intelligence. She had known that when she married William Irwin, she would have to make many adjustments in her life, and she was determined that the marriage would be of advantage both to herself and to William.

  She had decided in the first place that she would be a conscientious mother to her six new children from William’s first two marriages. Young William, the oldest, she judged rather wild and headstrong. She observed in him a passion for the activities of a colonial boy, passions which, to date, she had only been dimly aware existed. He played football with a wild enthusiasm, and he and his younger brother John watched other teams play football, with a partisan passion she did not understand at all. On occasion, young William had arguments with his father over money he had lost at the races, but both he and John also belonged to clubs that rowed on the lake, and this, to their new mother, seemed a more civilised pastime. Both boys went out shooting with their father, taking the terrible mongrel inexplicably named Henary Black, to which both the William Irwins were most attached. They brought home rabbits, which she disliked, but which she instructed Cook to prepare in the Irish manner. These things she judged to be part of the masculine life, but they seemed coarse to her, and she felt relieved when young Willy moved to Melbourne to work in a cartage business there. Whenever he came home, the hotel seemed much noisier and more crowded than could be accounted for by the presence of one young man.

  His younger brother John was quieter and suffered considerable ill-health. John was very studious, and paid attention to his religious duties, which Willy had not. He was engaged in the study of chemistry at the Ballarat School of Mines. His father was proud of him and held out great hopes for the boy. John sometimes came and sat with Julia in her sitting room and talked to her. She found this touching, although she did not encourage too much of it.

  Eliza was the only girl in the family and her father’s darling. He called her Lizzie, which Julia resisted as sounding rather common, but it stuck. She was Julia’s favourite too, and being hungry for a mother’s care, was most amenable, as well as sweet-natured and intelligent. She did well at school and she loved to sing in the Sunday school choir. Julia thought she showed much promise.

  The three younger boys, Walter, Herbert and Robert, Julia treated as a single entity, having them get up, wash themselves, do chores, go to school, church and Sunday school, have their meals, say prayers and go to bed, all together. This economical method of child-rearing seemed to work well for the boys.

  Julia was surprised how contrary and forgetful the children were at times, but she was a woman with patience and determination, and saw no reason why they would not eventually be moulded to her ways. She rose to all the challenges posed. She had the respect of the children, and had them in order, breaking some of the less refined habits that their cousin Mary Jane had allowed them to fall into. She had accommodated Mary Jane’s desire to return to her aunt’s place, for she detected a touch of the Irish in Mary Jane, which was not quite agreeable to her.

&nb
sp; Julia had divested herself of some of her china at William’s request, and he gave her a small sitting room where she might keep the rest and have a writing desk and two ladies’ chairs.

  She sat at the writing desk now, looking at a letter from Eliza Irwin in Ireland. The writing was poor; the spelling was atrocious; it was badly written, with sentences left hanging; it had no refinements; and she disliked the reference to herself as a ‘nise’ woman, whom William had been ‘luckey’ to get.

  William had handed the letter to her casually after breakfast. ‘Jane used to write to my family, and Bridget before her,’ he said. ‘I write sometimes and Lizzie has written some, and Willy too, but I thought that you might care to follow on now, as a way of getting to know them. Jane, of course, was known to them, and had a woman’s knack of putting in the small details, which they liked. This one is from my dear sister Eliza. She writes most often to me and to those in America, so all the family news goes round.’ And with that, he rushed out, for he had business down at the Share Exchange, then business with the liquor merchant, and had to talk to a man about a horse he was interested in, for he thought that he might buy his wife a phaeton, so she could drive round town in style.

  Julia felt she had done many things to accommodate herself to this marriage. She had joined the Presbyterian Church, when all her life she had worshipped as an Anglican. She had moved away from friends and connections; she had taken on responsibility for six children; she had put herself into the improvement of the hotel, adding many touches which the guests appreciated. She had spoken to William about employing a new barman – the present barman was an Irishman with a brogue so thick she could barely understand a word he said – but William had insisted that Danny Phelan had always worked for him and would continue to do so, and she had accepted this. She had joined the ladies’ circle at the church, and had made the acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Humffray, for she thought it excellent to know a man who had been a minister for the Crown. She offered her services to the wives of the lodge members in arranging the Freemasons’ ball. She met the wives of men who worked with her husband at the Licensed Victuallers Association. At church, she avoided getting too friendly with the temperance members, while maintaining pleasant acquaintanceship. She took the children to hear the band play in Sturt Street on Saturdays.