‘Thank you. I should like that very much.’
‘Tea, perhaps? It’s a fresh pot.’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Milk or lemon?’
I allowed her to press on me all kinds of dainties, some of which I secretly pocketed for the children—it having been many months since they had enjoyed orange cake or almond biscuits. Meanwhile, talk had turned to Berrima Gaol. Dr Salter was then the visiting surgeon, and he was concerned at the number of prisoners who had recently contracted inflammation of the lungs. ‘Conditions are not what they should be,’ he opined, dipping an almond biscuit into his tea. ‘The solitary confinement cells are very damp, and there is no circulation of air whatsoever, since the only opening is a small grate in each door.’
‘Ah, but you can’t be too careful,’ Mr Harper pointed out. ‘There’s some hard men among ’em would use any little hole to break free. I recall those two bushrangers who escaped through the sewer. Now there was a desperate couple.’
‘Indeed?’ said Mr Halls. ‘And when did that occur?’
‘Oh—a while since.’ Mr Harper glanced at Dr Salter. ‘I cannot recall—my father spoke of it, God rest him. My father had his regulars among the Berrima police, so he knew all the stories of all the great cases: John Lynch, Lucretia Dunkley—’
‘Ah!’ said Mr Halls. ‘Now, I have heard mention of these people, but never a full account. The children refer to John Lynch as a kind of ogre, whose ghost haunts the gaol, axe in hand. And Lucretia Dunkley—she was hanged, was she not?’
‘For murder,’ Mr Harper confirmed. ‘And Lynch too. My father was there. He told me it’s true what they say—that Lynch danced a jig on the scaffold before the trap was dropped.’
Mrs Hassall opened her mouth at this point, perhaps to change the subject. But the doctor was too quick.
‘Lynch is much admired for that, you know,’ he said. ‘They still talk about him in the gaol, even twenty years after the fact. I gather that he had a sharp wit about him, and defended himself with aplomb: to most of the prisoners, this seems of much greater moment than his devilish crimes. Though I am convinced that much of what I hear about Lynch is fabricated. He has become larger than life, over time.’
Mr Harper, however, was shaking his head.
‘Not Lynch,’ he said firmly. ‘My old Dad swore blind that man was the Devil Incarnate. There’s things that never came out in the papers, things which George Bowen told him. Bowen was Police Magistrate; he took down Lynch’s confession the day before he was hanged. Dad used to say, when Bowen finished, he headed straight for the bar at the Surveyor-General, as white as snow and shaking like a newborn lamb. It turned old Bowen off his job, Dad said, and he was back in England within the year.’
‘But what did he say?’ Mr Halls asked curiously. I was glad that this question had been put to Mr Harper, for I could not speak myself. Yet I desperately needed an answer.
‘About Lynch?’ Mr Harper replied. ‘Oh, well, there was all those other killings. The ones at Bargo Brush, and so forth, that would never have been laid at his door save that he confessed to ’em. But there were more, too, and they happened long before he escaped from Hyde Park barracks. Bowen told my dad, when Lynch was in the chain gang at Newcastle, he blamed three other lags for stabbing him in the chest, and they were hanged for it. Well— according to Lynch, it was all a lie. He stabbed himself, so as to bring down punishment on the others. And very pleased he was that the ruse had carried.’
‘Oh, Mr Harper,’ said Mrs Hassall, turning pale, ‘what dreadful wickedness!’
‘We’ll never see his like again, Mrs Hassall, God be praised. Why, he boasted of his tally. There was another killing he confessed to which he was never convicted of, though they charged him with it—a fellow convict down this way . . .’
All at once, Mr Harper stopped. I believe that his memory may have caught up with his tongue, and he had suddenly recalled the circumstances of Lynch’s first trial, and the name of the man whose drunkenness had caused Lynch to be acquitted. At any rate, his gaze veered towards me, and he coloured, and fell silent. For although our acquaintance was slight, he knew whose daughter I was.
Both publicans and rectors are generally well versed in local affairs, I have found.
‘There will always be incorrigibles among us,’ Mrs Hassall remarked smoothly, after an awkward silence, ‘for all that we might work with tireless hope to rescue them. More tea, Mr Harper? I see that your cup needs filling.’
What was said thereafter can be of no great interest. The conversation moved on to other topics: the wet winter, the dreadful condition of the roads, the survey of the proposed village of Wingecarribee (later known as Bowral). I played almost no part in it, being far too shaken. All at once I was cast back to that day at Oldbury, when John Lynch had winked at me across the yard.
Upon Mr Harper’s rising to leave, I rose with him.
‘Oh, but Mrs McNeilly—will you not stay until my husband returns?’ Mrs Hassall protested, very much surprised. ‘He is coming directly, I assure you.’
‘No, I—I had best return later,’ was my inadequate response. ‘Forgive me. I must be getting home.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Mrs Hassall. But she would follow me to the door, and load my arms with fruit, and delay me with her good wishes until I was forced to run after Mr Harper, lest he escape before I could question him. He was almost at the Great South Road when I caught up—and seemed greatly surprised at my suddenly addressing him in a most urgent and breathless manner.
‘Mr Harper! Mr Harper!’ I panted.
‘Why, Mrs McNeilly,’ he said, turning with a start. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Nothing. I merely—I wished to ask you—excuse me.’ I placed a hand to my breast and strove to recover myself, my lungs labouring pitifully. ‘You were speaking of John Lynch,’ I gasped at last. ‘Of the murder at Oldbury. It happened when I was a little girl.’
Mr Harper’s expression immediately became hunted. His gaze slid sideways, and he cleared his throat.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I know that Lynch confessed to it—the newspapers said so—but there was no suggestion as to why he might have committed the murder. Indeed, no one seems to have asked him. Can you shed any light on this, Mr Harper? Did Mr Bowen ever tell your father why Thomas Smith had to die? Was it because Smith had decided to report certain information about an attack on my stepfather?’
‘Mrs McNeilly . . .’ Nervously, Mr Harper adjusted his necktie. ‘I never even knew that his name was Smith. My father died when I was very young. He told me some things, and my Ma told me others. The rest came to me later, in the public bar—people told me what my father had told them. I’m not what you would call a witness, Mrs McNeilly. All I know is that some around here blamed Barton for Lynch’s killing spree, because Barton was drunk, and couldn’t testify at the first trial.’
‘But John Lynch mentioned Smith’s murder to Mr Bowen.’
‘So they say.’
‘And revealed nothing about his motive in committing it?’
Mr Harper spread his hands.
‘It was a long time ago, Mrs McNeilly,’ he said. ‘I doubt there’s anyone left to remember, even if they were informed. Least said, soonest mended, in my opinion.’
‘The newspaper reports were wrong,’ I insisted, determined to wring him dry. ‘They stated that the murder took place in 1835, yet it happened in 1836. Do you know if that was Lynch’s mistake, or their own? Did your father ever remark on it?’
‘Mrs McNeilly . . .’ The publican retreated a step, shaking his head in a rueful yet determined manner. ‘I cannot help you, Ma’am. Indeed, I cannot help you.’
And he went off to tend his grandfather’s hotel, which did not merit such faithful service. It seems to me quite frightful that generation after generation should be shackled to the same licence, shouldering a heavy burden of guilt for the corruption of countless men and the ruin of their families.
I have heard tell that the Harpers are still to be found at the Surveyor-General even today. And it saddens me to think that they none of them saw the light in all those long, regrettable years.
For every inordinate cup is unbless’d, and its ingredient is a devil.
Twenty-three
1842
I was in Sydney when John Lynch finally met his Maker.
By that time it was 1842, and my family was somewhat acclimatised to life in town. Not that we were ever denizens of Liverpool Street, or any other bustling metropolitan address. From Oldbury and Budgong we moved first to Rose Bay and then to Darlinghurst, which in those days was a little outpost on the ridge above a bushy, uninhabited Woolloomooloo. My mother paid ninety pounds a year for a house not far from the residence of Bishop Broughton and his wife. Our neighbours included the Griffiths, the Macleays and the O’Connells, so we were very respectably placed. Our home was not a large one. Nor was it lavishly furnished. But it was in a high and healthy position, with grounds enough to keep hens and a cow.
I regret to say that our native bear had died before reaching Sydney.
City life being notoriously busy and distracted, and not at all conducive to peace, we found ourselves much fretted and troubled during this time. For all its primitive comforts, Budgong had supplied us with many a long, drowsy day by the river, and many a quiet, cosy night around the hearth. At Budgong we were not continually pestered by lawyers, nor beset by ceaseless tumult, nor tormented by the slovenly, unreliable servants who seem to populate any metropolis. The noise of the city was particularly trying. We had no objection to the church bells, but the distant thunder of artillery practice in the Domain, and the ‘clip-clop’ of horses’ hooves, and the cries of peddlars and knife-grinders, were very grating to the ear of those accustomed to birdsong and cattle lowing. So was the drunken singing of our servants, who were all of them partial to a ‘drop of the creature’ at any time of the day or night. And while a drunken servant is bearable on the spacious grounds of a country estate, he or she is not so easily endured within the confines of a very small town house. All I can say in favour of our various housemaids, with their fatal weakness for strong liquor and maudlin shanties, is that they were not George Barton. Though we endured much, we no longer had to endure George Barton. We made a concerted effort to expunge him from our lives—something that is evident from my mother’s book.
It is a curious thing to be the stuff of literature. Believe me when I say that, while aware of my mother’s undertaking, I had no idea that I was to figure so prominently in the work entitled A Mother’s Offering to Her Children. Not that I appear under my own name, of course. Since Mama published the book anonymously, she could hardly have used real names. But when at last A Mother’s Offering appeared—delivered to our house in a brown-paper parcel—and we all crowded about, snatching at the modest pile of volumes that was scarcely large enough to furnish each member of the family with his or her own copy, I saw at once what my mother had done. She had taken scenes from our childhood, and had set them down as moral or botanical lessons. ‘Emma’, obviously, was Emily. ‘Julius’ was James. ‘Lucy’ was Louisa, and I was ‘Clara’. On one page I read what was practically an extract from my essay on the Booroowang. On another was the description of an incident at Bondi Bay, when I had tried to catch a cuttlefish. All of our favourite shipwreck stories were there: the wreck of the Charles Easton, the loss of the Stirling Castle, the sad affair of the Joseph Forbes. There was even an account of one of our black servants, Jenny, whose three infants apparently perished in the bush, and who was herself later killed by another native.
I remember exclaiming over all this, and being more pleased than offended. I was also impressed by the attention received by A Mother’s Offering in the newspapers. Glancing through the yellowed clippings that I placed inside the back cover of my own copy, I see that mention was made of it in The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald. There was even a full-length review in the Sydney Gazette, which began with the words: ‘In these dull monotonous days, when we hear of nothing but Jeremiads on the state of the times, long-winded yarns on the Debenture Bill, scarcity of cash, failures, scrip, Loan Companies, Coolies, Banks, and impending ruin to every man, woman and child throughout the length and breadth of the Colony—we say, in these cut-throat days it is a relief to forget, for a moment, the harassing details of everyday life. We venture to say that this unpretending little volume before us will assuredly have that effect . . .'
Not the most elegant of recommendations, but heartfelt. It even concluded with the hope that A Mother’s Offering would obtain a ‘cordial welcome in the house of every colonist in New South Wales’ and remarked that my mother, through her commendable work, was entitled to the ‘best wishes and patronage’ of the public. By actually naming my mother, the review simultaneously ensured that she would in all likelihood lose the best wishes of half the public, since there were many persons in the colony who deplored the fact that a lady should lower herself to the point of pursuing a literary career. This slip of the pen, however, was not deliberate. The review was kindly meant. For the book itself was printed at the office of the Sydney Gazette, whose editors would have had no compelling reason to ruin its prospects. And in case you might be questioning the degree to which such a notice could be entirely disinterested, in light of its provenance, let me assure you that the book’s publisher, Mr Evans, had nothing much to do with the paper otherwise. He was a bookseller on George Street; we used to frequent his bookstall, which lay south of the new marketplace not far from the emporium of Mr David Jones. Despite the fact that we rarely had enough money to make a purchase, Mr Evans and my mother were in the way of being friends. And when my mother mentioned to him her idea for a children’s book of amusement and instruction, Mr Evans promised to ‘consider it’.
At first, as I said, the book pleased me. It won my mother some small fame, which proved more useful that otherwise when I began to attend school. It was also a source of extra funds, which were badly needed, since the ladies of Sydney dressed so very well. I myself was becoming quite conscious of the deficiencies of my wardrobe, and was anxious to present a stylish figure.
But as my relations with Mama became more strained, A Mother’s Offering began to irritate me. I noticed certain aspects of the book that I had previously ignored—for example, the fact that ‘Clara’ is portrayed as such an overbearing child. (‘Julius,’ she scolds, ‘let Mamma tell it without interrupting her so often: we shall understand it much better.’) It is ‘little Lucy’, moreover, who seems to express most frequently the wisest and prettiest opinions. She will not laugh at ‘naughty, bad people’ as Julius does. She commends kindness, and longs to rescue people in distress from their terrible condition. She is the only child shown kissing her mother— whereupon ‘Mrs S.’ warmly returns her fond embrace.
No one else in the narrative exchanges so much as a lingering glance. Indeed, the impression I receive from the work even now is that no one is as favoured as ‘Lucy’, nor as worthy of regard. Perhaps I am prejudiced. No doubt I am overly sensitive. But I gradually came to reject the book, and was embarrassed when any acquaintance chanced to read it. For I felt that, however subtly, it portrayed me in a poor light. And I resented my mother for using me in such a fashion.
Nevertheless, I do acknowledge that she had good reason to publish it. Firstly, as I said, it brought us a little income. Secondly, it demonstrated beyond all doubt that Mama was an excellent mother. The children in the book are happy and well informed. There is no suggestion that ‘Mrs S.’ is in any way neglectful, immodest or unfit. My mother, in recreating many of our happier family moments (with George Barton noticeably absent from every single one of them), intended to make a point. She was proving to Messrs Berry and Coghill that she did not deserve to be parted from her children.
For this is the exact task that they had set themselves: to deprive my mother of her offspring. After she left Oldbury for Budgong, relations between Mama and
my father’s executors deteriorated rapidly. The result was a drawn-out legal contest that I will not describe in great detail, it being so very tedious and deplorable. Besides, I was never permitted to read about it in the newspapers, and therefore do not have a full and proper understanding of the case.
Suffice it to say that Atkinson Versus Barton and Others continued for six years, absorbing in the process nearly two thousand pounds of my father’s money. It began in 1840, when my mother petitioned the Chief Justice. She blamed Berry and Coghill for her own impoverished state, because they had mismanaged Oldbury, letting it first to George Barton and then to an insolvent, Thomas Humphery, who from July of the following year stopped paying rent at all. She declared that she was in desperate need of funds. From the date of her departure from Oldbury she had received no allowance, and had been forced to sell furniture and obtain loans to support her family. I can testify to the truth of all this. There were times when we could not afford to buy tea, nor to keep the candles lit at nightfall. And Mr Berry was most unsympathetic when my mother appealed to him for assistance. I believe he felt that she had brought down her woes upon her own head. (And who is to say that he was entirely wrong?)
The Master in Equity was also unhelpful. Rather than proving himself a friend to all destitute widows and orphans, he was the exact opposite, and held an inquiry into whether my mother was a fit guardian. Messrs Berry and Coghill thought not. In a statement to the court, they accused her of imprudent conduct ‘since her intermarriage with George Bruce Barton’. According to the executors, my mother was an improper guardian because she lived apart from her husband, and because she had been obstructive in her dealings with them. George Barton’s vicious attack on her morals was presented to the court at this point.
I recall weeks of anguish, as it was decided who should best be appointed guardian to myself and my siblings. My uncle refused. So did various solicitors. For a short time, James was placed in the custody of the Reverend George Turner, of Hunters Hill parish. But he did not remain there long, for my mother fought back, denying all the claims made by Messrs Berry, Coghill and Barton. Another of her petitions came before the Supreme Court in July of ’41; it was described as ‘impertinent and scandalous’, and she was ordered to pay costs for that reason. Nevertheless, in an interim judgement, she was appointed guardian of her own children.
The Dark Mountain Page 24
