The Dark Mountain

by Catherine Jinks

  Poor Louisa ran and ran. Eventually she must have looked around for sisters, and realised that she was alone. I cannot tell you the exact sequence of events, because Louisa never described them. She never once spoke of her wanderings that night. Her family were left to piece them together as best we could.

  I do not know if she turned back or went on. But with so many large trees and dense thickets separating her from the house, she could not have seen her way back with any certainty. Instead, she would have been forced to rely on distant noises to plot her path—and such noises can be very misleading. They can bounce off hillsides, and bury themselves in scrub. Furthermore, they can be unhelpfully intermittent.

  At any rate, Louisa got lost. I am certain of this, though she would not admit to it. Mr Ash heard her sobbing and moaning as he rode towards our house. And he stopped and called out, and finally told the servant who was lighting his way to follow the sound of Louisa’s voice.

  They came upon my sister halfway between Oldbury and Swanton.

  We were very, very fortunate that Mr Ash was so alert. He had heard faint but suspicious cries in the distance, carrying through the still, dark night from the direction of our house. Perhaps they had awakened him, though I have my doubts; it seems more probable that he had been lying sleepless in bed, pondering the difficulties that lay ahead of him. Whatever the case, on being thus disturbed, he had quickly risen, dressed, and saddled his horse. He had then set off to discover the cause of the commotion—and had encountered my sister along the way.

  It was some time before he reached us. Riding even the most placid horse through bush at night is not something that should be attempted with any haste or impatience. At last, however, he arrived, and was accompanied to the kitchen by some of the men who had been sent to scour the estate with dogs and lanterns.

  News of Mr Ash was conveyed to my mother before her youngest daughter was. Mama had found refuge in the kitchen with myself and Emily and James. (My brother had been discovered hiding under the kitchen table, carving knife in hand.) While her children sat huddled around the hearth, my mother tried to dress her own wounds, quite frantic with worry. My own head was aching, and my ribs as well, but Mama was in a far worse state. Her split lip continued to bleed. Her eye was swollen. She hissed in pain whenever she was obliged to stoop. Yet she would not rest, constantly pacing and fidgeting, fussing with lint and vinegar, moving to the window and back again.

  She had barred the door against her husband, and jumped when she heard Charley’s knock.

  ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Miss Louisa come, Missus,’ Charley replied.

  ‘What?’ My mother ran to the door, unbarred it, and hurried into the dimness. ‘What? Charley? What do you say?’

  But no explanation was required. Even as she spoke, Mr Ash rode out of the shadows, exhausted convicts illuminating his path. Louisa was perched on the saddle in front of him.

  My mother shrieked.

  ‘Louisa!’ she cried. With a foolish disregard for the feelings of his horse, she rushed straight at Mr Ash, her arms outstretched—and received Louisa into them.

  Mr Ash dismounted carefully.

  ‘She was wandering in the woods,’ he said, adjusting his reins. ‘I heard her crying.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Ash . . . oh, thank you,’ my mother sobbed.

  ‘There was a fire, I am told?’

  ‘Yes, but it was put out. Louisa? Do you hear?’ Mama and my sister were by now tightly entwined. ‘The fire is out. We are safe, my love, you must not be afraid.’

  ‘Where is yer husband?’ Mr Ash inquired, and my mother looked around nervously.

  ‘I—I am not entirely sure . . .’ she stammered.

  ‘Was he responsible for yer face, Mrs Barton?’

  This was more direct an inquiry than I would have expected. It certainly affected my mother, who was struck dumb—whether from shock or shame I have no way of knowing.

  As she struggled to reply, Mr Ash surveyed the scene in front of him. Though his eyes were engulfed in shadow, I could feel his gaze travelling over me before it moved on to Emily, and James, and the dark, smoky shape of the house.

  ‘Mrs Barton,’ he said, in reflective tones, ‘this state of affairs cannot continue.’

  ‘No, I—no.’

  ‘If I were you, Mrs Barton, I should take my children and go. As soon as possible.’ Mr Ash was standing with one hand wrapped around his horse’s reins. The other he placed on his hip, pushing back his coat to reveal, once again, the butt of his pistol. ‘It will then be my responsibility to deal with Mr Barton.’

  ‘But this is our home! It is our home, Mr Ash!’

  ‘Is it?’ Having thoroughly examined every aspect of his surroundings, Mr Ash brought his wandering regard back to my mother’s face. ‘I do not know how you would define a “home”, Ma’am, but this looks nothing like one to me. This looks like a battlefield, in my opinion. And I’m a-wondering if the battlefield is worth the cost of the battle. All things considered.’

  In response, my mother opened her mouth. But no sound emerged. She simply stared at Mr Ash with her one good eye (the other having practically swollen shut) as Mr Ash returned her stare blandly. Around us, the assigned men shuffled wearily from task to task. A dog barked somewhere nearby. The air was heavy with foul-smelling fumes.

  Suddenly, my mother sighed.

  Two weeks later we packed up our dray and left Oldbury.

  Twenty-two

  An interlude

  Louisa wrote in great detail about my family’s escape to Budgong. She wrote of how we packed our tents and earthenware, and my mother’s writing desk, and made the long trek over Meryla mountain into the Shoalhaven. She described how Maugie, our pet bear, dug his claws into the side of a bullock and caused it to run amok, scattering its fellows, breaking crockery and releasing the bear. (Maugie immediately climbed up a tree, which had to be felled before his retrieval could be effected.) She mentioned Charley, and our three bullock drivers, and the young gentleman who, upon arriving at the Throsbys’ shortly before our departure, had applied to accompany us—since he was heading for a station near Budgong. He was newly out from England, and for the life of me I cannot remember his name. Edwards? Edison? Something of the sort. All I remember about him is that, when we were confronted by a mysterious speck of light at one of the campsites, he was not paralysed by fear, as were his companions. Indeed, he had the presence of mind to throw more dead branches onto the almost expiring fire. The resulting blaze revealed, instead of a bushranger’s smouldering pipe, a small, brown beetle with a glowing spot on its belly.

  I recall that incident very well. So did Louisa, apparently—for she gave an account of it in the Sydney Morning Herald. I cannot tell you the exact date of publication, but I do know that the year was 1861. It was after my husband and I had left Cutaway Hill, you see. We were in Goulburn, and my daughter Emily was just a few months old. Though our financial condition was dire, we were still buying the Herald and selling it on afterwards; I could not seem to give it up, though Louisa’s writing seldom afforded me much pleasure. (She had a regular column by that time, which usually concerned itself with the natural world.) I was especially displeased in 1860, when I read her observations about the month of August, for they seemed to mock all my troubles and futile attempts to forestall disaster. ‘The incessant rain which has fallen during the present winter,’ she wrote, ‘has not been without its effects on vegetable and even animal life. It is probably owing to this cause that many things are earlier in budding and blooming, and the birds in building.’ She made no mention of the hardship that had resulted from so much rain. She ignored the fact that it had continued through summer as well as winter, destroying the livelihoods of countless struggling settlers like my husband. The Hawkesbury flooded. The bridge at Berrima was washed away. Our cattle contracted black leg, and rust appeared in our district’s wheat for the very first time. It was a disastrous year. We lost our small but precious
farm, which my husband and I had worked so diligently. We were obliged to sell almost everything. We were declared bankrupt.

  And what help were we afforded, in this most difficult time? None. None whatsoever. Granted that my mother and sister were by then living up at Kurrajong, miles and miles away, in the foothills of the Blue Mountains; they were consequently not within easy reach. James, however, was still at Oldbury. He himself suffered reverses on account of the rain. But they were not so bad as to prevent him from contributing more than thirty-three pounds to the construction of the new stone church at Sutton Forest. Nor from investing heavily in the Fitzroy Iron Works a couple of years later. He did eventually incur serious losses from the Iron Works, but that was not for at least another decade. In 1860, he would certainly have been in a position to lend us money, had he been so inclined.

  Of course, I did not ask him. I could not bring myself to make the request, in light of our strained relations. Nevertheless, I do think that he might have offered. I certainly would have, had our positions been reversed. But James took his orders from my mother, and my mother seemed determined to forget my very existence. Having ignored poor little Ernest’s birth in 1858, she proceeded to ignore Emily Louisa’s as well. And though my sister was permitted to correspond, my mother never set pen to paper herself. Evidently, she was reluctant to communicate with me until I had apologised for my behaviour at that ill-fated funeral in 1854. Never mind that she had committed certain offences—oh, no. There could be no question of a shared culpability. For my mother was rarely disposed to acknowledge her own faults.

  Through Louisa, she went as far as conveying to me her best wishes. But she would unbend no further.

  Do not mistake me—I will freely acknowledge my own guilt in this sorry state of affairs. The fact is, I made no great effort to mend bridges. Certain dire events having occurred just a couple of years previously, I had become quite desperate to banish from my thoughts all trace of my early life, as well as the people associated with it. Louisa’s correspondence prevented me from doing this. Though her letters rarely referred to anything but domestic pursuits, they would set me thinking about my mother, and from there my reflections would inevitably lead me down black paths towards Oldbury, and George Barton. Without fail, I would find myself once again confronting George Barton.

  So I did not encourage Louisa to write. And when we moved to Goulburn, she lost track of me. I did not lose track of her. No literate colonial could have avoided her in those days, even if her identity was not always clear. ‘An Australian Lady’ is what she called herself—or ‘L.A.’, or ‘L.A. Fernhurst’ (Fernhurst being the name of my mother’s house in Kurrajong). Louisa was publishing all over the place: in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Sydney Mail, the Illustrated Sydney News, the Band of Hope Journal. And there were her novels, too. Her second, Cowanda, was published approximately a year before I left Cutaway Hill. It angered me no end, though I scoured it for news of the family almost against my own inclinations. There was one particular scene that I thought directed at me. Captain Dell, the gruff old grandfather of Rachel (Cowanda’s heroine), was fond of engravings. Among the many that he owned was a picture of Christ and the Magdalene: according to my sister, it portrayed perfectly the Saviour’s power and will to forgive. ‘Even in that hour of bitterness,’ Louisa narrated, ‘Rachel’s eye wandered up to the place suspended on the wall above her, and the lesson it conveyed smote heavily upon her soul: the noble qualities of that old man who had just left her were blotted by a want of mercy, and in his sense of untarnished honour he judged harshly, and in opposition to Him who in His perfect purity yet said, “Neither do I condemn thee”.'

  I pondered over this extract from time to time, puzzled as to how much I should read into it. Was it addressed to me or to my mother? To both or to neither of us? I could not decide. I did, however, instantly recognise the character ‘Elice’, whose nature, like her ‘fair, refined countenance’, grew in beauty with familiarity, and ‘unfolded a peculiar sweetness, which at first was entirely overlooked’.

  This, I need hardly say, was a perfect portrait of Emily. I wept when I read it. And I honour Louisa for her tender memorial, though it was no more than Emily deserved. My own memorial died long ago. She lived exactly as many years as did her aunt, and might have been her aunt resurrected, they were so alike. The death of both my Emilys has quite turned me off the name, I must confess—though my children will not be warned, and continue to use it regardless. Flora has her own Emily now. And Edwin has his. Even the wretched Eva has employed it, in an attempt to curry favour. She named her fourth illegitimate child Charlotte Emily, no doubt because I had welcomed the child’s prodigal mother back to Orange. After Eva’s first transgression, I could not abide to have her anywhere near me—to contemplate the ruin of her prospects and character, which had been so promising. But by the time Charlotte Emily was born, I could not afford to be so profligate with my children. I did not have many left, by then. So Eva returned from Sydney, dragging her bastard brood with her, and delivered herself of Charlotte Emily here in Orange.

  Whether the child will survive with such an ill-fated name is questionable, though at twelve she seems quite hardy, not to say foolhardy. A chip off the old block, in fact.

  But I digress. My concern is not with the future; it is with the past. Specifically, with the year 1860, when my husband and I were forced off our land. I shall not dwell on all the painful stratagems to which we were reduced, nor on the details of our rapid decline. I shall only say that my visits to Berrima became more frequent as we undertook various measures to stave off ruin. I found myself often at the Post Office, and on the premises of a certain stock and station agent, and in those shops whose proprietors were willing to extend us credit. I also entered negotiations with Mr James Powell, Berrima’s first banker. How I disliked that man! He gave himself such airs, though he was really nothing more than a successful storekeeper. But some people perceive money as an ennobling force, and think themselves superior because they are in possession of it.

  I have never shared this view.

  In desperately pursuing every avenue open to us, I was asked to provide a letter testifying to my good character, and to that of my husband. It was an insolent request, and never did us any good at all that I could see. Nevertheless, I secured just such a letter from the Reverend Hassall. He was always a loyal friend to me, and to the rest of the town also. Never have I encountered such a noble and generous man of the cloth. As Chaplain of Berrima Gaol, he attended those prisoners sentenced to solitary confinement, and taught many to read, even supplying them with books. He fought for the wrongly convicted, and visited the poor. When the National Board school closed in 1862, he opened a school in his own stables and coach house. I therefore decided to approach him, despite the fact that I was not the most faithful member of his congregation. Cutaway Hill is quite a distance from Berrima, you see, and my husband, being Roman Catholic, was not always eager to spare me on a Sunday morning.

  At that time, the Hassalls were living in Berrima’s new rectory. It was a handsome stone house of Gothic design which overlooked the Wingecarribee River; though slightly out of town, it attracted a steady stream of visitors, even at odd hours of the day and night. I myself was careful to call when Mrs Hassall was receiving her morning guests. I did not bring my children, either—partly out of politeness and partly because I wished to shield them from our woes. Flora was twelve, then, and old enough to mind her brothers.

  I remember that I wore my Sunday gown, which was of dark blue silk, with stripes. I also donned my best shawl and bonnet. And I was glad that I had made the effort, because when I arrived, Mrs Hassall was already entertaining a handful of other guests, all of them tricked out in their most respectable garments. Mr Harper was dressed in a black coat, a waistcoat and a white spotted silk necktie. Someone (Mr Halls, perhaps?) had divested himself of a black chimney chapeau. And Dr Salter was clutching the most dandified pair of lavender kid gloves that I have eve
r seen.

  I knew these men, naturally. Mr Halls was the local schoolteacher. He went often to the rectory, no doubt in search of Mrs Hassall’s delicious cakes and sandwiches—for he was a bachelor, poor fellow, and looked perpetually underfed. Mr Harper was the licensee of the Surveyor-General Inn, and may have been consulting the Hassalls about a baptism. Dr Salter was a good friend of the Reverend Hassall. They had worked together frequently, sometimes at the gaol, sometimes in the town or surrounding parish. Wherever Dr Salter pronounced a death, the Reverend Hassall—as often as not—would have been the one who had called him in.

  All three men rose when I entered the parlour. To my disappointment, I saw at once that the Reverend was not himself present. Mrs Hassall, however, made me very welcome, inquiring at once into the health of my family. I mumbled something inane about colds and wet weather, whereupon Dr Salter took pity on me. He immediately raised the subject of croup, clearly touching a chord with the schoolmaster. They began to discuss the prevalence of croup among Mr Halls’s students, and whether the appalling condition of the school (which was practically without a roof, and had to be closed during heavy rains) could perhaps be contributing to the number of sick children. As they talked, Mrs Hassall came close to me.

  ‘May I ask, Mrs McNeilly, if all is well with you?’ she said in a low voice. ‘Or were you wishing to consult my husband on any particular matter? For if that is the case, he will be returning in an hour or so, and you are welcome to take your ease at our fireside.’