The Dark Mountain

by Catherine Jinks

  ‘Really, Charlotte!’ My mother sounded frankly cross. ‘I would not have believed it of you! Running away in such a foolish, irresponsible manner! Have you no consideration for Miss Rudd’s feelings? I am disappointed in you. These are the actions of an hysterical child, not a sensible young lady.’

  ‘But anything could have happened!’ I wailed. ‘You could have been dead!’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said my mother.

  And that was all the thanks I received for my pains. Mama scolded me on the way home, and punished me when we arrived. Perhaps she did it as much out of fear as anything else—fear of my wayward habits, and where they might lead me—but I must also attribute her unsympathetic stance to a fatal lack of imagination. Had she really no notion of how afraid I had been? Did she not realise how hard it would be to forgive her, after such a betrayal?

  I never did—not entirely. Although I might have been foolish, my intentions had been good. My mother did not seem to recognise this. She preferred to believe that my actions had been dictated, not by an overwhelming sense of dread (which, God knows, was a common enough affliction at Oldbury), but by my own perverse and wilful character.

  Consequently, for the first time, a rift opened up between us: a rift that was to become wider and wider as the years passed. It was never the same again between my mother and me.

  In one sense, the battle lines were drawn that day in the summer of ’38.

  Seventeen

  An interlude

  I last spoke to my mother in the winter of 1854. We exchanged harsh words. I regret them now, but the fault was not entirely mine. There were many factors contributing to our quarrel, not least of them the distressing event that brought us together.

  It was the occasion of Emily’s funeral, you see.

  Emily was buried at All Saints, Sutton Forest, by the Reverend William Stone. There was hardly room enough to accommodate all the mourners. Among them were her husband of less than one year, Mr James Warren, and her newborn son Henry. I was also present, as were my own husband and children. We were living at Cutaway Hill, to the north of Berrima, where we had bought a small property just three months before—so the trip to Sutton Forest had not been very taxing.

  The funeral, however, was a perfectly dreadful affair. Except where I have buried my own children, no other internment has so shaken me. The afflictions of poor Warren were terrible to behold. My mother, though she presented an expressionless face to the world, could hardly stand. She had to be helped to her feet by my brother, who kept breaking into sobs throughout the service. It must be remembered that my mother had never before lost even one of her offspring. I know now that the age of the child in these cases is immaterial, for I have laid to rest as many grown children as I have little ones, and language refuses to utter the pain experienced at every loss. At the time, however, I looked at my mother with a dull and wicked resentment. I thought to myself: ‘At least you had Emily for twenty-four years.’

  It was wrong of me, I admit. But consider the circumstances. I was still in mourning when Emily’s death had inflicted a fresh wound on my already savaged heart; though my darling little Thomas had been dead for more than a year, I had not yet recovered. I was also stricken with guilt, owing to the estrangement that followed close on Emily’s marriage. I felt that I had wronged her, although I was not solely culpable. My mother’s overwhelming delight at the match, her eager desire to welcome so respectable a man as James Warren into our family, contrasted far too cruelly with her behaviour to my husband. My husband was not the son of an officer of the Royal Navy. My husband was not the new master of Mereworth. Therefore my husband did not elicit anywhere near the same degree of flattering attention as James Warren, who was as much feted and praised as my own husband was ignored and condemned.

  In the circumstances, is it any wonder that I did not attend my sister’s wedding? I had a perfectly valid excuse—for I was seven months’ gone at the time, and perpetually tired—but my mother was not impressed. To her, it was irrelevant that I was hardly fit for decent company; that I would be stared at and whispered about and patronised as the bedraggled, ne’er-do-well sister of the radiant bride. To my mother, I was being rude and selfish. And as a consequence, she did not visit me when I was confined in December of ’53. Nor did she send me a gift for Charles James, or acknowledge his existence.

  You may imagine how I felt about that. It is one thing to punish your daughter for her perceived failings—it is quite another to deprive your innocent grandchild. My mother did not even attend Charles’s christening in March, for all that it was an Anglican service. (Flora’s, being Catholic, had displeased her very much.) And although my sisters were kind enough to dispatch to me a small bundle of hand-worked garments when my time came, neither Emily nor Louisa made the journey to our humble abode. No doubt they were unwell. Louisa’s heart had always been weak, and Emily, who would have been expecting by then, may have suffered greatly in her first few months.

  Nevertheless, I was in no condition to be reasonable. It seemed to me that I was being snubbed, and therefore I behaved accordingly. None of my siblings received any birthday greetings from me, that year. I sent my mother no news of my family’s various little triumphs. When Louisa’s first published writing appeared in the Illustrated Sydney News (her ‘Notes on the months: October’), I had written her a short letter of congratulation. By early 1854, however, I was disinclined to trouble myself. I was busy enough without the additional inconvenience of family correspondence. Had Louisa been half so busy, I thought, she would never have had the time to discourse at such length on the native arts, or the habits of magpies.

  As for Emily, I had once encountered her in Berrima, where we were both provisioning ourselves. But she was with her husband, and I had felt constrained by his presence. While she chattered happily, her face all aglow and her adoring gaze for the most part fixed on his benign countenance, I had remained stubbornly reserved. It must be confessed that I begrudged her some of that overflowing joy. Shamefully, I found comfort in the thought that disillusionment was inevitable—after the baby was born, perhaps?

  Poor Emily. My poor sister. There was no time for disillusionment; she died so soon after the birth of her son that I wonder if she was given the chance to suckle him. What a terrible shock it was to all of us. I remember weeping over the little cambric muslin frock that I had made for my nephew, because his mother would never see what pains I had taken with the scallop embroidery. She would never know how deeply I regretted my own stupid pride and cruel intransigence, which contrasted so sharply with her own sweet, modest, amiable nature. In many ways, she was the best of us all. Though she never raised a strapping family, nor achieved general recognition as a writer or a naturalist, she deserved all the praise that was lavished upon her at the funeral. For she was good, and kind, and gentle, and clever. She had the prettiest face you have ever seen, so pale and delicate, with soft eyes that were a mixture of grey and hazel, like the mist when it lay across Gingenbullen. And she had such a graceful way about her, too; no wonder James Warren had fallen in love. It must have been immediately apparent to him that she would make a perfect wife. As she did, I am sure—for the little time that she was given.

  How I mourned her. How we all mourned her. Yet after the funeral, when we made our way back to Oldbury, there was a dreadful scene. I regret it exceedingly, even now, though nothing could have prevented it. Our nerves were in shreds. Everyone was exhausted. The babies had been crying lustily throughout the entire morning, and the weather was miserable: wet, frigid, blowy. At one point on the trip from Sutton Forest we had to endure a quick shower of sleet, which made me fear for the children. Charles, after all, was barely six months old. As for poor Henry, it seemed to me that he should never have been exposed to such weather in the first place. Most unwise, in my opinion. And his father wanted to take him straight home from Oldbury!

  ‘Oh no!’ was the general response. ‘No, it will be the death of him!’ My mother insisted
that there would be room enough for all the children, and the Warrens’ nurse too, but James Warren was adamant. ‘We cannot be sure that there will be any improvement tomorrow,’ he declared, and set off for Mereworth after the most modest refreshment imaginable: a cup of tea and a slice of bread and butter. I think it quite probable that he could not endure company—any company—and one can only sympathise. Nevertheless, it was a dangerous decision. The fact that poor little Henry’s life was so short indicates to me that he was never a robust infant, and children like that should not be forced to breathe chilling winter air.

  After James Warren and his son had departed, the other children were taken upstairs to rest. I did this myself, with Louisa’s assistance. Not having set foot in the place for a couple of years, I was mildly curious to see what changes had been effected on the first floor—and was surprised at how few there were. My mother still occupied her old bedroom. Louisa was still sleeping in the nursery. James was now in possession of a back bedroom, though not the one formerly damaged by fire.

  That chamber, Louisa told me, would be put at my disposal for the night.

  ‘And you?’ I queried. ‘Where will you sleep, now that the children are in the nursery?’

  ‘I shall sleep in Emily’s old room,’ Louisa replied, before pausing on the stairs to place a hand over her mouth. Tears pricked my own eyes as I watched her struggle for composure; having shut the door on my fretful children, we were once again left to contemplate our awful loss. Louisa, I should acknowledge, was always very good with my children. Though hesitant around babies, she had won Flora’s heart by gravely attending to everything my daughter cared to say about chickens, mud-forts and puddings. It was Louisa, as well, who had unearthed some old illustrated books for Flora’s amusement, and who had generously allowed Flora to use her colour-box and paint-brushes.

  I was too busy with the baby to worry about Flora.

  ‘Has James done much, since coming into possession?’ I asked, in an attempt to direct our thoughts away from Emily. ‘I see there has not been any painting or papering done.’

  ‘It has been difficult, with so few funds to draw on,’ Louisa responded, much to my sour amusement. So few funds! My own family was living in a slab hut, glazed but not shingled, its whitewash already stained with damp and its floor uncovered even by Indian matting. We shared one hairbrush between us, and ate treacle on our bread instead of butter. Yet Louisa was lamenting my brother’s want of money!

  ‘Oh yes,’ I drawled. ‘What a trial it is, when one cannot afford to have the carpets replaced!’

  Almost immediately, I regretted these words. While they were not unkind, my tone certainly was: it implied that my brother was dreadfully spoilt. And Louisa responded as she often did, withdrawing into herself as she detached her thoughts from the unpleasant bickering of our family circle and fixed them on Nature, or Art, or perhaps the Life Beyond. You could see the shift in her gaze, which suddenly lost its bright intensity, becoming distant and abstracted.

  I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself as I followed her small, slight figure downstairs. In fact I was about to apologise. But upon reaching the vestibule, I overheard my mother talking in the sitting room. She was addressing my husband, who could expect nothing from my mother but an attitude of the most extreme condescension. ‘Indeed, Mr McNeilly,’ she was saying, ‘I think it a very good thing that Flora should be learning her alphabet. To be thoroughly literate is the proper desire of every respectable person, and a good grounding in literature is far more important than the acquisition of so-called “accomplishments” that enable a girl to do little more than thump on a piano at Christmastide, and perhaps crochet a few antimacassars. I could not be more proud of dear Louisa, who as you know has distinguished herself in several well-regarded journals. There are some who might regard such work as demeaning to a lady, but I say: Nonsense! What can be demeaning about literature? Did not Thomas Carlyle say “of the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful and worthy are the things that we call Books”? My greatest achievement (aside from my children) has been the publication of that modest little work you see on yonder shelf. For civilisation has been built on the written word, and there is no greater human endeavour than its mastery.’

  Need I add that my husband could do little more than spell out the sign over a hotel door? He was virtually illiterate.

  My mother knew this quite well, of course.

  ‘Speaking of newspapers,’ I snapped, upon entering the room, ‘did you read the Sydney Morning Herald in March?’

  My mother looked up. She had aged a good deal; her hair was almost entirely grey, and her face was haggard. ‘Why, Charlotte . . .’ she murmured, and trailed off. Sitting before the fire, in a low chair, she was at something of a disadvantage.

  I crossed to the hearthside, and stood over her.

  ‘Did you read about George Barton’s trial in Bathurst?’ I went on, causing James to wince.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Not now.’

  ‘If not now, when?’ I rejoined, before once again addressing my mother. ‘Are you aware that he was convicted of manslaughter?’

  My mother turned her face away. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I read of it.’

  ‘And sentenced to two years’ hard labour at Parramatta gaol,’ I continued. ‘Quite a paltry sentence, in my opinion. But then, I always considered him a murderous fiend.’

  ‘Hardly that,’ Louisa interjected quietly. ‘Hardly murderous, Charlotte.’

  ‘No? But he shot a man in cold blood, did he not?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I should call that murder.’

  Before continuing, I must perhaps explain—for it is unlikely that you are familiar with the case. It occurred at the Yarrows, on Winburndale Rivulet near Bathurst, early in 1854. Having been summoned to the Yarrows one evening at about eleven o’clock, District Constable Waller of Kelso discovered William Rogers—a reaper employed by George Barton—with a large hole torn through the lower portion of his belly. Barton himself was in bed, ‘evidently suffering from the effects of overindulgence’. According to evidence given by Barton later at the trial, Rogers had entered his bedroom with an axe in his hand, threatening to cut him down. Rogers’s version of the affair was very different, however; it conveyed ‘the irresistible impression that the deed was committed either under strongly excited feelings or temporary delirium or both’. According to the Bathurst Free Press, every witness save one had been drunk at the time of the shooting.

  You may imagine what my feelings were, upon encountering this report. It was the sheerest accident, I assure you. At the time, we did not have the funds to subscribe to the Bathurst Free Press, and I might have remained wholly ignorant had I not one day accompanied my husband into the Crown Inn at Berrima, which was then the change house for coaching teams on the Camden– Berrima–Goulburn run. It was the day of Charles’s christening, and we had just come from the church at Bong Bong. My husband, in his customary style, had decided to celebrate the event with a few festive drams, while at the same time arranging some kind of delivery. So I had consented to stop at the Crown. Though not a particularly respectable hostelry, there were far worse in the vicinity of Berrima. And the proprietor’s wife, if rather coarse in her speech, was at least not a former convict.

  As I recall, everyone at the Crown was talking of poor Isabella Osborne’s suicide, which had occurred that very morning—the morning of her wedding day—at nearby Eling Forest. It was on account of her proposed wedding, in fact, that we had been unable to secure the Reverend Hassall for Charles’s baptism. But there you are: ‘who thinks that fortune cannot change her mind/prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind’. Though Charles was christened, the wedding was never performed. Instead James Hassall conducted Miss Osborne’s funeral the very next day.

  I often find myself dwelling on what Miss Osborne’s final thoughts might have been, as she tied the rope with which she hanged herself. What was it about t
he marriage that had caused her such fatal distress? I wish that I could have spoken to her. While my own marriage was in many ways a terrible mistake, it was not without its redeeming features. And if that were true in my case, how much more so would it have been in hers? For she was engaged to a man of good birth and ample property.

  However, this is irrelevant. The fact is, I was at the Crown Inn on the twenty-first of March, and it was here, while nursing Charles in a dark corner, that I found myself glancing through a pile of discarded newspapers. An inn like the Crown was always a repository of newsprint from all over the colony, since there were carriers perpetually passing through on their way from one town to another. I remember flicking through the Goulburn Herald and the Illustrated Sydney News, as well as the Bathurst Free Press. But it was the Bathurst Free Press that held my attention. In the January 14th edition, I read of Barton’s crime: at the time of publication, his victim was still living, and Barton had been ‘remanded for further evidence’.

  I tore out the article, and have it with me still.

  It need hardly be said that I cast around frantically for more copies of the Bathurst Free Press. But the only other reference to Barton that I could locate at the Crown was in a Sydney Morning Herald of the previous week. It stated that Barton had been sentenced for the crime of manslaughter in Bathurst. The presiding judge, Mr Justice Therry, had referred to ‘the monster Lynch’ in doing so. With increasing consternation, I read an account of Therry’s moralising on the effects of strong liquor. He had used the occasion of Barton’s sentencing to remind the court of another trial, at which Barton had been an important witness and he, Therry, had been the assistant Crown Prosecutor. At that trial, John Lynch had been accused of his first murder, but had been acquitted owing to the fact that Barton was ‘grossly intoxicated’. Now Barton’s career of intemperance had put him in the dock, and would have earned him a far more severe sentence had he not been of such advanced age and infirm health.