The Dark Mountain

by Catherine Jinks

  He was hanging from the lowest bough of a nearby gum tree, gutted and cloaked in flies.

  I brought up my breakfast then and there, before hiding in a corner of the stables. It was a while before I could speak. You have to understand the threat implied. I said nothing to my mother. How could I? Though I knew in my heart that she was unaware of Bunny’s dreadful fate, I had nevertheless disobeyed her strict instructions. And it was Bunny who had suffered the punishment due to me.

  I said nothing to George Barton, either. I simply could not find the words. We would meet on the staircase or at the table, and he would tip me a sly wink, or sit chewing slowly, watching me with a glint in his eye. The silence between us grew and grew. It was an exclusive silence, for I had told my brother and sisters nothing about poor Bunny. I had said only that the scraps were being left untouched. ‘Perhaps Bunny has found a lady kangaroo, and married,’ I suggested, for Emily’s benefit. ‘Perhaps he is too busy with his babies to spare us a thought.’

  A horrifying event, you will agree. It made me very wary of my stepfather. But our lives were still not distinguished by unrelieved misery, for in those early days Barton was capable of self-control. I distinctly remember seeing him near the stables once, teaching James how to crack a whip. He repaired the swing near the dairy with his own hands, and dressed one of the dogs in my mother’s leghorn bonnet and lace tucker. Sometimes he would sit in the sun reading a newspaper, and when we children passed would toss a coin at us, to see who could catch it. Sometimes he would open a pot of jam, and eat perhaps half of it with a spoon before passing the rest to James or me, so that we could make ourselves sick.

  It was James who attracted his attention, initially. Before I rose up to challenge him, drawing his fury down upon myself as a conductor draws lightning, George Barton was chiefly interested in James. Not that he was much interested. But when he did pay us any mind, it was James who seemed to catch his notice. There was talk of my brother’s abilities with a firearm, and on horseback. Barton would prod him at dinner about his future role as master of the estate. Would he learn how to brand his own calves? How did he propose to deal with the gully-rakers who preyed on Oldbury’s stray cattle, incorporating the beasts into their own herds? What would he do about the native dogs, and the swarming parrots, and all the other creatures that would strip us naked, given half the chance?

  ‘He will address that problem when he is ready,’ my mother would say. ‘He is young yet, and will make a fine master when he is grown.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ Barton would rejoin, ‘if he does not stuff his head too full of nonsense about Greeks and seashells, he will do well enough.’

  I am convinced that Barton nursed a deeply buried grudge against my brother for being my father’s heir. Though not immediately apparent, it became more obvious as the weeks rolled by. Even as he taught James to crack a whip, and tie a sailor’s knot, he also began to plague him with tormenting little challenges, proposing that he mount a frisky horse, for instance, or climb up onto the roof to ‘view his domain’. My brother (not being a fool) would decline to cooperate, and ignite a slow-burning rage within my stepfather which surfaced once or twice in his complaints that my brother had no ‘bottom’. James, said Barton, was altogether too ladylike.

  Then followed the game of hide and seek.

  It happened early one afternoon. Emily and I had looked everywhere: the dairy, the stables, the kitchen, the piggery, all the rooms in the house except my father’s study, which was kept locked. We had wandered down to the creek and back again. We had even explored the area around the convict huts. But we were unable to find James.

  ‘We surrender!’ I yelled up the staircase—across the yard—into the woodpile. ‘James! You win!’

  There was no reply.

  When he failed to join us for dinner, I became worried. My mother was also concerned. She knew that James would never miss a meal—not even to tease us. So she left her mutton cooling on her plate, and went on a tour of the house and its immediate environs, calling his name. She even enlisted Eliza’s help. After about an hour, more of the staff were instructed to join the search. They did a short sweep of the bush behind their huts, and another of the land beyond the creek. Someone proposed that a message be sent to the police at Bong Bong, who had often enlisted the services of a fine black tracker known as Michael. There were no native men or women working for us at that time, though they often came and went; had there been even a gin about the place, my mother would certainly have appealed to her. By this time the shadows were long, and Mama was becoming quite frantic.

  You may be asking: where was George Barton, all this time? The fact is, he had gone off into the bush to supervise the felling and splitting of timber. My mother knew this, and was half hoping, I am sure, that James had gone with him. But her husband returned without her son. ‘The young rascal,’ Barton said, when she broke the news, and then disappeared upstairs to wash his face and hands.

  It was my mother who finally found James. She went down to the cellar for some wine to calm her nerves, and discovered him there. He was locked inside. I cannot tell you exactly what she said to James, or what he said to her. I only know that she carried him back upstairs as if he had been Louisa, and spent a long time nursing him on his bed, like an infant.

  Need I point out that only two people at Oldbury possessed the keys to our cellar?

  No one heard what Mama said to her husband afterwards. The discussion did not take place in their bedroom, of that I am sure. But the following day, my mother appeared with a bruise on her cheek—for which Barton was almost certainly responsible. I was not immediately aware of this. If I had any suspicions, they were banished when I saw how helpful and affectionate he was towards my mother in the wake of his offence. I was not then accustomed to the pattern of his moods.

  I knew enough, however, to make my report when Mama was alone.

  ‘Mama,’ I said, ‘James was locked in the cellar. Mr Barton locked him in there.’

  ‘Mr Barton regrets that very much,’ my mother replied. She was sorting through some linen, her head bent over her work. ‘It was a silly accident, and will not happen again.’

  ‘But Mr Barton said something to James,’ I pointed out. ‘James did not call out to us for help because of what Mr Barton said.’

  My mother’s hands stopped moving.

  ‘What did Mr Barton say?’ she asked, without looking up.

  ‘I don’t know, Mama. James will not repeat it.’

  Nor did he ever break his silence. But he was not the same boy subsequently. I can testify to that. Something inside him had withered and died.

  As for the rest of us, we became far more cautious. Wherever Mr Barton went, we did not. Only when he was away could we enjoy the house and its surroundings with impunity. During his visit to Sydney, in August, we were restored to a state of happy carelessness such as we had enjoyed before my mother chained herself to George Barton unto death. And because we were children, we delighted in our freedom without thought for the morrow.

  The morrow came, however—as it always does. Barton returned very late one afternoon, and retired almost immediately to bed. The next morning he eschewed breakfast, but we heard him roundly abusing a convict in the dairy. My mother promptly came to a decision.

  ‘Eliza,’ she said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin, ‘please take the children to Sutton Forest today. They have been so good that they deserve a reward.’

  ‘Aye, Mam,’ said Eliza. ‘Shall we take the gig?’

  ‘No. You must walk.’ As our faces all fell, my mother added: ‘But I shall give you each a few pennies so that you may buy whatever you choose from Mrs Davey’s shop.’

  So we walked to Sutton Forest. Much has been made of my sister Louisa’s indefatigable exploration of the Blue Mountains, and the walks that she took across their escarpments as an adult, through ferny gorges and over wooded ridges, sometimes riding her horse and sometimes leading it, her habit looped up to form trousers a
nd her specially designed plant wallet slung over her shoulder. I have no reason to doubt that her excursions were as wide-ranging as she claimed. But let me tell you now that she was a most unenthusiastic participant in that walk to Sutton Forest. It was a damp sort of trip, because there was mist about, hanging over Gingenbullen and drifting between the lofty boughs of the eucalypts, which were as pale as if recently peeled, their bark hanging like shredded rags, or strewn across the ground in heaps. The track, consequently, was moist, and the branches that we brushed against were unpleasantly clammy. Louisa disliked this. She grew tired quickly. She dragged her feet, and whimpered, and refused to sing songs or play games or watch for birds in the trees. Thanks largely to Louisa, I cannot recall that walk with any delight.

  At last, however, it ended. We came to Sutton Forest and crowded into Mrs Davey’s shop, which was hardly big enough to contain us all. If you have read Tom Hellicar’s Children, you will already be familiar with this shop. Like the one belonging to Mrs Susannah Page, it was in the front room of a wooden cottage, stacked with bottles of castor oil, tins of fish, bundles of tobacco, bags of sugar, jars of sweets. Even the open cask of treacle was there, though I never saw any letters being fished out of it. That was just Louisa’s fancy. Mrs Davey was always very efficient when it came to mail, whether claimed or unclaimed. And she also took delivery of newspapers.

  As you may imagine, the difficult task of selecting a treat was not accomplished with any haste. There was much on offer: lozenges, lollipops, sugarplums, marbles, almonds, currants, silk ribbons . . . My own eye immediately fell on a sheaf of lavender writing paper, which ravished me; I bought it at once, before anyone else could snatch it away. I was then free to entertain myself while my siblings tried to decide between the liquorice and the lollipops. After drifting about for a few minutes, I noticed a fairly recent edition of the Sydney Gazette. It was dated August the thirteenth. With real interest I surveyed the advertisements on the front page, before flipping over to the second and third.

  Mr Barton’s name leapt out at me from the court reports.

  ‘A gentleman named Barton,’ I read, ‘from the neighbourhood of Bong Bong was called as a witness yesterday in a case of murder, before Mr Justice Burton. When in the box, such was his appearance, that his Honor felt it necessary to call in the assistance of a medical practitioner in order to ascertain whether or not he was sober'.

  The doctor then took Mr Barton into a private room for a long consultation, before returning to be sworn. He declared that Mr Barton had been drinking, and was not in a fit state to give evidence. ‘Mr B. himself,’ the report continued, ‘by way of confirming his idea of sobriety, appealed to the prisoners to say how they thought he was.

  He was finally placed in the custody of the Sheriff, and ordered to stay in prison until he had paid a fifty-pound fine for contempt of court. John Lynch was not named.

  You may imagine my feelings when I read all this. I was shocked and disgusted—and also alarmed. It seemed to me that George Barton would not take kindly to such public disgrace. I already had some inkling of his inflamed pride, which would brook no challenge or insult. I dreaded what we would encounter when we returned to Oldbury. Had Barton read this newspaper or not? Almost certainly he had. On the thirteenth of August, he would still have been in Sydney.

  He had probably travelled back to Bong Bong in the same coach as the Gazette.

  I said nothing to the others. But you may be sure that I did not rush home with any eagerness. How I dragged my feet on the return journey! How I lingered over every rivulet and insect that we passed! All to no avail, though; at last we arrived, and were greeted by an eerie silence.

  It was still damp and misty. No one would have been inclined to linger outside, except to do a job of work. Moisture dripped from the eaves. Smoke drifted from the chimney. A dairy pan lay in the mud near the veranda, shot full of holes.

  It was a promise of things to come.

  Ten

  You may be wondering if I asked my mother about the article that I had read. The answer is yes—and no. I did go to her with that express intention. I said to her: ‘Mama? I saw a newspaper at Mrs Davey’s, and I read something in it.’

  Before I could continue, however, she looked up from her desk and interrupted. She declared firmly: ‘You should not be reading newspapers at your age, Charlotte. They are very rarely accurate, and they will take away your peace of mind. I want you to ignore the newspapers. Is that clear? I want you to disregard everything in them, unless I approve the text first.’

  What could I say to that? ‘No, Mama’? It is a fine irony, when you consider that my sister became a newspaper correspondent. But it was ever so, with my mother.

  Did she really believe that she could protect us, by keeping us shut away from the truth? Or was it her own shame that dictated her actions? Even now, I am not absolutely sure. All I can tell you is what I discovered on my own, without her assistance. She would not even tell us about the dairy pan.

  It was Bridget who provided that information. She informed us that George Barton had ‘taken against the set o’ the cream’, and had attacked the offending receptacle as if it had been a mortal foe. Afterwards, he became reclusive. Having retired to my father’s study, he chose to spend most of the next three days there, putting my mother in a difficult position. She had to assume many of Barton’s duties, directing the men and making decisions about a sick cow. Her children’s education was much neglected, during this time.

  But the next edition of the Sydney Gazette broke the uneasy calm that had settled over Oldbury. This became evident to me only because I had been watching keenly for the latest delivery of newspapers. I had some notion of examining them myself, though I was never given the opportunity. George Barton seized both publications before I even realised that they were on the premises. I saw him clutching them under his arm as he made his way through the vestibule into my father’s study. I saw him drop one as he tripped while crossing the threshold.

  I then braced myself for some kind of reaction, which was not long in coming.

  My father had left many fine and valuable items in his study. There were oil paintings and leather-bound books behind glass. There were two magnifying glasses framed with silver, and a quill-knife inlaid with ivory. There was an embroidered cedar pole screen, and a German clock.

  When I heard a crashing sound from the study, I feared very much for all these wonderful things.

  ‘Mama! Mama!’ I cried—but she was already beside me, hastening towards the study door. It was locked, alas. Though she twisted the handle, it would not yield.

  ‘Mr Barton!’ she cried. ‘Mr Barton! Let me in!’

  There followed another, louder crash. Without a word, my mother turned and ran towards the front door. I followed her. We hurried down the steps and around the side of the house until we reached the study window. My mother peered through it. She tapped on a pane with her little clenched fist.

  ‘George!’ she said.

  All at once she flinched back. The window exploded an instant later, showering her with glass. We both screamed.

  ‘Mama!’

  Fortunately, she was not much hurt. Though she sustained many nicks to the left side of her face, and along one forearm, there were no bad cuts or contusions, and hardly any blood. The window itself suffered far worse. Its leadings were badly damaged and many of its panes were shattered, for it had been hit by a marble bust.

  My mother quickly recovered from the shock of the broken window. George Barton was still flinging ledgers around the study when Mama told Eliza to take us (that is to say, my siblings and me) out into the bush for a ‘botanical walk’. I protested, but in vain. Together with my brother and sisters, I was forced into mittens, loaded up with specimen jars, and packed off to wander the slopes of Gingenbullen with Eliza until dinner-time.

  It was winter, as I have said, and very cold. There was a lowering sky and a piercing wind. In those days, the Oldbury acres were still heavily
wooded. From the top of Gingenbullen the view was one of almost unrelieved olive drab, rolling hill after rolling hill, each bearing a thick, woolly green coat. Much of the cedar had already been cut, but native oaks abounded. In the more sheltered gullies, gum trees were hung with silvery lichen, which we called ‘faery-tassels’. Some of these trees were of a monstrous size, the base of their trunks so broad that they could easily have accommodated a couple of bullocks. In drier spots, we sometimes came upon specimens of the grass tree, from which we plucked the long, light spears to use as shepherd’s crooks and walking sticks. There were also rare examples of the Booroowang plant, which fruited in winter; I remember having to write an essay on the method by which native women prepared the nuts of this plant for ingestion, by roasting them and pounding them on flattened stones.

  It was my mother who had originally pointed out to us the Booroowang, speculating that it must provide winter food for those animals which otherwise would have been sorely in want. She had examined with us many a choice example of lepidopteron, and had warned us against the perils of digging up fresh mounds of earth. (‘For there was a little boy residing in Wingelo who did just that,’ she once related, ‘and found buried there the body of a poor black infant. The silly child ran home with it, saying, “Look, mother, I have found a little black baby!” Whereupon he was told to take it back at once.’) Whenever my mother accompanied us on such an excursion, it was always replete with colour and interest. She would bring my father’s magnifying glass, and tell stories of his explorations around the Shoalhaven, and discuss the habits of those natives still remaining in the area.

  Eliza was different. She exhibited almost no interest in her surroundings. Rather she would nag at us about tearing our skirts, or dirtying our stockings. Indeed, she was so deficient in enthusiasm that she affected us with the same malaise, and we trudged along quite dully that winter afternoon until we were fortunate enough to encounter my cousin John.