The Dark Mountain

by Catherine Jinks

  ‘The man who acted as leader, told the man with the gun to keep it levelled at the deponent, and to fire directly he gave the order,’ I read. ‘He then took deponent’s handkerchief from his neck, and proceeded to tie him to a tree; this he would not submit to until persuaded by Mrs Atkinson, who was with deponent at the time . . .’

  Who was with deponent at the time. Such innocent-sounding words, are they not? Yet I could have scratched them from the wall.

  The account continued with a description of how Barton’s waistcoat and shirt were torn off his back. Whereupon the leader of the gang proceeded to flog him with an ‘uncommonly thick’ stockman’s whip, very short in the thong, made of green hide and exceedingly heavy. When asked by the deponent how many stripes he was to expect, the flogging bushranger replied, ‘Thirty’, and made good his promise. Apparently it was his declared intention to give Barton ten minutes’ rest after this, followed by ten more minutes of punishment. However, ‘through the intercession of Mrs Atkinson’, this scourging was not inflicted.

  Atkinson’, Instead, the lead bushranger turned on my mother. After directing her to untie Barton, he put a large pistol close to her face, while his companion brandished the whip over her head. Although he had never struck a woman, he announced, he had a good mind to serve her as Barton had been served, because she had allowed the men to be ‘treated so very bad’ in her establishment. According to George Barton, my mother took issue with that. She denied it to the bushranger’s face. She defied him to name any man who could lay a complaint against her.

  A groan escaped me, at this point. Then I covered my mouth and looked around quickly, for fear that I had woken the children. I had groaned because, all at once, the whole scene at Belanglo had come alive in my head. Before that, it had been merely faded words on yellowed paper. But now, through the dry cadences of Mr Throsby’s magisterial style, I could plainly hear my mother’s voice. ‘I defy you to name any man who could lay a complaint against me!’

  She would have said it, without a doubt. Despite the whip, despite the pistol, she would have said it—for all that her lips might have been shaking, and her tongue might have been dry. She would have turned up her dark eyes and swallowed her fear, and she would have demanded that her assailant give a full and thorough account of himself.

  There, beneath the silent, watching eucalypts—with George Barton’s blood soaking into the dusty earth—she would have refused to plead or grovel. Pride and anger would have come to her aid.

  There was truth here. I knew it. But the rest of the report puzzled me. This flogging bushranger had replied that his information came, not from my mother’s servants, but from a gentleman, Mr Munn, who was supposedly ‘the son of the professor of that name in Edinburgh’. Who was Mr Munn? A settler, perhaps? A former Oldbury convict? And why would the flogger go on to say that Barton was not the only one to be served in such a manner, since he (the flogger) considered it his duty to flog all the Gentlemen so that they might know what punishment was? George Barton was not a gentleman. As far as I was aware, he had been a humble miller before arriving in New South Wales. And it was my experience that even the most base convict retained a fine sense of the distinction between real Quality and the kind of common man who rose to colonial prominence through the exercise of wit or cunning.

  Then there was Barton’s vagueness about the men themselves. No descriptions were offered, though there was a long digression about Mrs Atkinson’s sheep stations, which in the past twelve months had been robbed ten times ‘by the same party’. How could Barton have known this? Moreover, according to the report, he felt satisfied that there were other bushrangers in the gang who did not show themselves—‘one of whom was called Simmons’.

  Now what, I asked myself, was this all about?

  If the others did not show themselves, how on earth could George Barton have identified one of them as ‘Simmons’? How would he have been familiar with the name at all? Had Simmons escaped from George Barton’s Belanglo property? (The name certainly struck no chord with me.) Or had this Simmons fellow been identified in the past as one of the bushrangers who had robbed our sheep stations?

  I was deeply troubled as I read the report, for it seemed to throw up more questions than it answered. Of course, George Barton was a liar. I knew that all too well. He had lied to me in the past about Belanglo. He had told the most obscene, disgusting lies. In fact I could sense him in the background of this measured report, struggling to present himself in the best possible light as he blamed others for his misfortunes. His claim was that he had refused to submit to being tied ‘until persuaded by Mrs Atkinson’. The implication was clear: it was my mother’s fault that he had been flogged. And these alleged, mysterious bystanders who had not shown themselves: could they have been placed at the scene by George Barton, lest anyone doubt his manhood? He would have identified an insult in every question put to him by Charles Throsby, I am sure. ‘Were there only two?’ Mr Throsby would have asked—purely in the interests of exactitude—and Barton would have hastened to justify himself. ‘Only two that I saw,’ he would have replied, ‘but there were more, oh yes. Waiting with their guns trained, ready to blow holes in us both if I resisted.’

  I could see it all, just as if I had been there in the room with him.

  I read through the article again and again, with a growing sense of frustration and despair. It told me nothing of importance— certainly nothing that illumined my mother’s part in the incident, though at least it did not confirm Barton’s later accusations against her. There was no suggestion of complicity between any of the parties involved; no proof that a deal had been struck as a life-saving measure. Nor was there any real proof that the flogger had held a personal grudge, since he had spoken of punishing all gentlemen. Nothing had been said about the men themselves—only about their whips and their firearms, which were described in great detail. Did this mean that Barton had no memory for faces? Or did it mean that he was trying to conceal the identity of his attackers, lest it come out that they were former employees, tyrannously used and eager to exact vengeance for the torments he had inflicted on them? Could the two names mentioned—Munn and Simmons—have been invented by Barton? Certainly they were unknown to me.

  As for the infamous John Lynch—who later loomed so large in our imaginations—he made no appearance whatsoever.

  Slowly, carefully, I peeled the strip of paper off the wall. In the public room my husband was laughing. Outside, the rain was beginning to ease, though the wind had picked up. It whistled through cracks and rattled doors. It even disturbed the flame of my lamp, making my task more difficult. But I persevered until the paper came away, torn in parts though still legible. Disappointing as it was, it nevertheless represented to me another precious piece of the puzzle that lay at the centre of my life.

  If there had been other men lurking in the bushes, could one of them have been John Lynch?

  Perhaps. Perhaps not. Years after his ordeal, George Barton would insist that Lynch had been somehow involved—though the extent of this involvement would change according to my stepfather’s state of mind. But if Lynch had been present at Belanglo, then Barton cannot possibly have seen him there. For Barton knew him. Barton could have identified him. And yet John Lynch was still working at Oldbury a month after the event, obscure and unregarded, exhibiting no hint of the unspeakable passions that later distinguished him from the common mass of humanity.

  Poring over the fragile newsprint, straining my eyes in the dim light, I cast my mind back to those dark days of my early youth, when nothing had made sense and everything had conspired to keep me at a disadvantage. George Barton, I was aware, had become more and more obsessed with John Lynch. Progressively, John Lynch had assumed monstrous, almost fantastical proportions in my stepfather’s mind. As his condition deteriorated, George Barton had begun to blame Lynch for countless offences—including the scars etched across his shoulders. And no one had questioned my stepfather’s veracity, because John Ly
nch was easy to blame. You can accuse a mass murderer of just about anything.

  Yet Barton had not accused him. Not four days after the event, at least. No one had been accused, and no one arrested. I knew that well enough. No one has ever been charged with holding a gun to my mother’s head.

  No one has ever been convicted of saving a poisonous seed in my life.

  Seven

  My mother gave us little warning.

  One afternoon she gathered us together in the sitting room: myself, James, Emily and Louisa. It was a wet sort of day, and we had spent most of the morning inside. Consequently, James was restless. He had to be restrained from kicking a chair leg, and from unpicking the loose stitches on his cuff.

  ‘Children,’ my mother said, ‘I have something very important to tell you. James? Are you listening? Because this concerns everyone, and if you have any questions, I want you to ask them now.’

  Obediently, we waited. The gravity of my mother’s tone alarmed me somewhat, as did her slightly forced smile. This news, I could see, was supposed to be good. Yet my mother was concerned about our response to it.

  ‘Children, I have decided to marry Mr Barton,’ she announced. ‘Tomorrow, at Sutton Forest.’

  Presented with such little ceremony, this staggering communication was greeted by blank stares. Its full import was not immediately apparent. Louisa was too young to understand. James had no interest in marriage whatsoever; he was immediately distracted by a sharp curse uttered by some frustrated convict at work outside. Emily looked confused. Clearly she found it impossible to reconcile the word ‘Barton’ with the word ‘marriage’.

  I said: ‘Why?’

  ‘Why have I decided to marry Mr Barton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  My mother took a deep breath. ‘Because you need a father,’ was her reply.

  This was the most ridiculous explanation that I had ever heard. ‘But we already have a father,’ I objected. ‘In Heaven.’

  ‘And do you see no need for another on earth?’ was my mother’s response. ‘Someone to look after us all, and work for our comfort, and share our happy life?’

  While I thought about this, Emily spoke.

  ‘How can you marry Mr Barton, Mama?’ she inquired. ‘He is not a gentleman.’

  My mother’s lips tightened. That I do remember—most distinctly. She may even have flushed.

  ‘You are not fit to pass judgement on your elders, Emily,’ she rejoined, and Emily subsided. But I was not so easily overborne.

  ‘If you marry Mr Barton, Mama,’ I said, ‘will you become Mrs Barton?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Oh.’ This I did not like. It seemed disloyal to my father. In fact the marriage itself seemed disloyal to my father. ‘It would be better if you didn’t marry Mr Barton, Mama,’ I declared. ‘He could still visit us, and eat dinner with us. You don’t have to marry him.’

  ‘But I choose to marry him, Charlotte,’ my mother said gently. She put her arm around my shoulder. ‘I still love your father, of course I do. And we shall all be reunited in Heaven. Until that time, however, I must struggle on here as best I can—and Mr Barton will help me. He will help us all.’

  The laughter of the Gods! I can almost hear it as I recall my mother’s words. Perhaps I caught a faint echo of it even then, for I said sceptically: ‘How will he help us?’

  ‘In many ways.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By taking some of the burden from me. So that I may spend more time with you. This farm is too much work for me, Captain.’

  ‘Is it?’ I found that hard to believe. My mother had always seemed a tower of strength, clever, energetic and plain-spoken. For two years she had managed the Oldbury estate without suffering any strain that was at all apparent to me. Why this sudden need for a husband?

  I wondered if the incident at Belanglo had shaken her.

  ‘Are you afraid of the bushrangers, Mama?’ was my next question. ‘Are you afraid that they will come here?’

  ‘Of course not.’ My mother’s tone was sharp. No doubt she had seen James turn his head at the word ‘bushranger’. No doubt she had heard Emily gasp. ‘Don’t be foolish.’

  But it seemed to me a logical conclusion to draw. Of course my mother was afraid. I myself was afraid sometimes, at night, when the creatures of the bush were making strange sounds outside my window. ‘Mr Barton can still sleep in the house with his gun,’ I said. ‘Even if you don’t marry him.’

  ‘Mr Barton has a double-barrelled percussion gun,’ James interrupted brightly. ‘He killed a kangaroo with it.’

  ‘He beat a dog with it,’ Emily added, her brow creasing in dismay. ‘I saw him.’

  ‘Sometimes dogs must be beaten, Emily,’ my mother said. ‘It is a sad fact, but there are wicked dogs in this world who understand no other form of reproof, and are a threat to both man and beast. Now . . .’ She drew Emily closer. ‘You are all to attend the wedding, so you must look your best. I thought that we might take out the silk frocks, and see if they still fit you. If not, then Louisa will wear Emily’s, and Emily will wear Charlotte’s.’

  ‘And what shall I wear, Mama?’ was the question that sprang to my lips.

  ‘You may be obliged to wear your cotton velvet,’ my mother replied. ‘And we must pray that the weather doesn’t turn, or you will be too hot. Now why don’t you fetch your workboxes, and if alterations are required, you can help me to make them.’

  ‘What about me?’ asked James, who had no workbox. ‘What shall I do, Mama?’

  'Why, you must play with Louisa.’

  James stuck out his bottom lip.

  ‘And I shall tell you a story while I sew,’ my mother went on. ‘The story of a terrible shipwreck, and the poor little girl who survived it.’

  My mother had a huge fund of shipwreck stories, which we greatly enjoyed—perhaps because we had never ourselves put to sea. In later years, our particular favourites were the wreck of the Joseph Forbes and the wreck of the Stirling Castle, complete with bloodthirsty natives, dangling skulls, and the torture of poor Captain Fraser. (The suspended hand never failed to thrill us: I remember Louisa asking if it was the hand of a white person, and the thrill of horror we all experienced when my mother replied, in grave tones, ‘They could not tell, my dear. For the sun had completely blackened it.’) On reflection, however, I am not sure whether these maritime tragedies preceded 1836. If not, then the tale we heard as we let down our silk frocks was probably something like the wreck of the General Boyd, which was not so much a wreck as an ambush. We were particularly interested in this story because one of the four survivors of the dreadful massacre was a little girl called Elizabeth, who was later rescued by Mr Alexander Berry, my mother’s co-executor, and grew up to marry Mr Charles Throsby.

  I had always envied the Throsby children their mother’s adventurous past. Still, I found it hard to believe that placid Mrs Throsby had once spent three weeks among the savage inhabitants of New Zealand. And I could never quite bring myself to share Mama’s low opinion of Mr Alexander Berry. For all his misguided persecution of my mother, he was also the man who, with a bold party of sailors, had captured two Maori chieftains and kept one of them as hostage while sending the other off to retrieve the suffering infant Elizabeth.

  You may be sure that my mother stopped telling this story soon after Mr Berry began to make himself disagreeable. Nevertheless, the damage had already been done. I am sure that we were none of us as rude to Mr Berry as our mother may have wanted us to be.

  In any event, the day before the wedding was spent in quiet pursuits: sewing, singing, story-telling. I saw Mr Barton only twice—at dinner and shortly before bedtime, when I was sent with Emily to make my curtsey to him as he smoked his pipe on the veranda. He was also nursing a small flask, and I recognised the smell that hung around him. Some of the assigned men would go about smelling the same when they were in a particularly loud or cheerful mood.

  Mr Barton certainly seemed happy. He greet
ed us with a broad grin that remained plastered all over his face as we said good night, one after the other.

  ‘And are you going to be good little daughters for yer new Pa?’ he asked jauntily.

  ‘We shall be stepdaughters,’ I replied in a dignified manner. ‘Not daughters.’

  ‘True enough.’

  ‘And we always try to be good,’ Emily added. ‘Because God expects it of us.’

  ‘I don’t know about God,’ said Mr Barton, ‘but I’ll be expecting it, right enough. I’ll not take kindly to scamps in my house, and will deal with them directly.’

  ‘Your house?’ I was confused. ‘You mean Swanton?’

  Mr Barton uttered a short bark of laughter.

  ‘Swanton? Not likely. I mean this house.’ His eyes narrowed to slits as his grin widened. ‘This will be my house tomorrow. Once I marry yer Ma.’

  ‘Oh no, Mr Barton.’ I could contradict him on this point with utter confidence. ‘This house belongs to James. Mama has said so.’

  ‘Not until he comes of age, lass.’ Mr Barton leaned back and stretched out his legs, as if disposed to settle himself comfortably before explaining to us a tricky point of law. ‘Until then, it will be my house. To manage as I think best.’

  ‘And Mama’s too,’ I hastened to remind him.

  ‘Oh, aye. And yer Ma’s too.’

  His tone had become dreamy. When he lapsed into silence, Emily and I took our leave. I seem to recall that we included him in our prayers that night. But he occupied far less space in my mind than my silk frock, which Mama had lengthened by adding several insets of pink ribbon at the hem. Truly, I considered his role a minor one—as if the wedding would have continued whether he was present or not. Perhaps it was a failure of imagination. Not being able to envisage how he would insert himself into our little family, I took it for granted that he would not. Not, at least, in any noticeable way. I assumed that life would continue as before, with Mr Barton making occasional appearances at dinner.