Читать книгу The Hanging of Mary Ann - Angela Badger - Страница 6

“He can’t go all that way on his own,” William muttered. “He’ll have Job with him.”

“Keep your voice down, Elizabeth, his ears are that sharp.”

“I know, I know, Papa, but Dr Morton says he must have some help. He says, if he falls, then how will he be able to get up. Job’s not always there. And even after the surgeon’s done his work, of course he can rest at Hannah’s, but still, on the return he’ll need someone beside him.”

A pall of silence enshrouded the house. Year in and year out, each day had commenced with Grand-père making his way over to the stables, and just as surely the day ended when he nodded off over The Herald. Now he lay tight-lipped and sweating in his bed while the family muttered together, closeted in the parlour.

“He needs help with everything he does. Five days on the road. You’ll have to go with him Papa.”

“Impossible! If only this had happened last week, he could have had Charles for company. Place’ll go to rack and ruin if I’m away more than a couple of days. We are talking about weeks. And I can’t spare any of the lads for that length of time. Job’ll drive him, he’ll have to manage. You know it’s difficult enough to find anyone reliable these days. We need every hand to finish off those last two paddocks and then in two weeks’ time there’s that sale on. I have to be there, After that it’s…”

“And I certainly can’t leave Woodbury for all that time. It’s just the same for all of us these days, but the fact remains, someone has to accompany Grand-père. What about Mary Ann, then?”

William shook his head and frowned at his daughter. “Too young. She’s far too young.”

“Times are changing, Papa, we’ve all grown up a lot faster than you and Uncle Richard did, just as you say yourself, times are harder. Why, she’s sixteen, she’s a strong girl – not given to the vapours and any fancies like that. Only last week I heard Job say she had to help him with one of the ewes, and he considered her as handy as any of the shepherds. Maybe she’s got her share of fancies and high falutin’ ideas but that girl’s got her feet on the ground. He just needs someone who’ll travel with him, keep him company and in good spirits and we know she does that alright. She’s always been his favourite. Mary Ann’s the one to go.”

“Such a long journey! Oh, if only he hadn’t had that fall. Why didn’t he listen to us. Old folks get too stiff for the saddle. If only Sydney wasn’t so far away.”

“We all know that, Papa, but if Dr Morton can’t undertake surgery of that kind then there’s nothing we can do about it. He’s got to take that journey. Mary Ann’ll look after him.”

“It’s dangerous, remember that. If the rain comes then it’s the swollen creeks. Or what if the old coach meets a calamity - that coach wasn’t new when we got it and it’s done us proud, what if we lose a wheel on that road? You can be held up for days. And then of course there’s always the bushrangers. If her dear mamma was still alive I’m sure she’d forbid it.”

“Well, she isn’t, is she?” Elizabeth muttered. Why was it always the women who had to make the decisions? Men were alright for matters on the property but they never seemed to get their thoughts straight when it came to the everyday things. “We have to do what’s best for the family and getting Grand-père to that surgeon’s the most important thing at the moment. And I say Mary Ann can well be spared. She’ll be beside him to fetch and carry and if he has a fall she can call on Job. She’s the obvious one. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll not be plagued with fancies or suffer from migraines or think every moving shadow’s a bushranger or a wild black! Let’s waste no more time. I’ll send a letter by the next mail.”

“Well, I suppose if Job’s with her nothing much can go wrong.”

For more years than the family could remember, Job had worked for the family. Everyone knew he’d lay down his life for them.

He had been assigned to Richard Guise as a lad of seventeen, newly arrived in the Colony and wishing he were dead every minute of the day.

Each night, lying amongst his fellows in the barracks, he tried to shut out the terrible new world where he found himself. Some said that when night blanketed the land in this awful place then it was daytime back in the old country, so he’d lie there screwing up his eyes and willing himself back amongst the spinneys and the hedgerows or on the banks of the stream which flowed through his valley far away in Dorset.

That was exactly where he’d been taken, on the banks of the Tarrant, caught one moonlit night by squire’s gamekeeper, tickling a trout for Old Ma’s supper.

All that had kept him sane was the remembrance of the fields, the cottages, the beechwoods and the river as it flowed past the villages in the valley on its way to the sea. His life had always been lived in the valley.

Unschooled and untaught, Job had learnt all he knew from the old’uns, and what else did he need? A strong frame and willing hands which worked their way from year to year following the calendar of the seasons. Spring brought the wood anemones and the first fluttering of the birds from their nests. Summer was ushered in by the lambs skipping along the time-honoured chalk trails cut into the side of the hills by generations of sheep stretching back beyond the Magna Carta. Chestnuts and mushrooms heralded in the coming of autumn, with the apples to pick and the last of the potatoes to dig up, but you had to be quick or Jack Frost would start painting his pictures on the window, the only glazed one in the cottage.

Job had not realised there could be any other world. The horror nearly sent him out of his mind. How would he survive? Where would he find a place in this cursing, bullying, toadying world of thieves, murderers, cutthroats and just the plain shifting mass of unfortunates who’d taken to the wrong side of the law to survive. For he was sharp; he soon realised that many a soldier and sailor had been spewed out when they were no longer needed for good King George’s battles, then added to the huge mass of those who were being put out of their traditional work by machines. Dorchester gaol was overflowing and he was lucky not to have been executed. He’d shivered through many a night as he’d lain in his cell, listening to the whispered stories. Boys as young as fourteen were hanged, even if the gaoler had to tie bricks on their feet for the drop.

Perhaps some kind angel watched out for Job because he weathered the gaol, the hulks and nearly six months crammed below decks,

When Richard Guise came searching for a farm hand and stood in the barracks at Sydney looking at the human debris sent over from the old country he didn’t expect much success and was particularly despondent. Ambitious, strong and forever increasing his acreages, he’d become completely despairing of the labour on offer. Free settlers weren’t prepared to give their time to such as him and the assigned labour often proved little better than a horde of cutthroats and thieves. And if they weren’t criminal in themselves they certainly weren’t versed in the ways of farming life. Petty criminals, miscreants from the city, soldiers and sailors thrown out on the streets. Men who had no idea that cows must be milked on time, sheds cleaned out, hay cut and stooked and all animals fed and watched.

“Mon dieu,” he’d complained to Elizabeth, “half of them don’t know one end of a cow from the other. You could tell, they’d be more trouble than they were worth.”

“So your journey was fruitless?”

“Well, I suppose I just have to settle for what I can get. Finally took this young fellow, I’d trust too young to have learnt any real vice but that’s a vain hope, I daresay.”

“You have to have someone.”

“Well I took a chance. This one was up for poaching, as I said, they’re all thieves. He looks young enough to learn some sense. But he’ll be like the rest, I wager, give satisfaction for a few weeks then lining his pockets whenever he can.”

And there, for once, Richard Guise was completely wrong. And Job never ceased to bless the day that his master took that chance. All the skills of farm life were at his fingertips: milking, shepherding, digging, planting, and everything vital to a property. He began his seven years labour on Richard Guise’s property out at Parramatta and his master soon learnt that Job could be trusted to milk the cows, shut up the fowls at night, watch out for straying sheep, and went about it willingly too. He needed no second bidding, animals had always been part of his life, their routines were as important to him as those of humankind.

And Job in his turn learnt even more. In this contrary new world the trees dropped their bark but not their leaves, huge birds screeched their way amongst the branches and streams dried up and disappeared, nothing like the Tarrant which flowed without ceasing between its grassy banks where old white shells of snails brought over by the Romans could still be found deep amongst the clumps of comfrey.

Quickly he learnt the ways of this new world and when his seven years of servitude were up and the time came for freedom Job could think of no other life than sharing the fortunes of the Guise family. He’d seen the births of so many children, the steady advancement of the family’s fortunes, he’d laboured through flood and fire and he trusted his master as much as Richard, in his turn, relied upon him. He considered himself fortunate and intended to stay with the Guise’s for the rest of his mortal span.

When the old coach rumbled out through the gates of Bywong and started on its long journey to the city, Job held the reins as usual.

Bags and boxes, rugs and canvas were piled up to such an extent that Mary Ann had to be squeezed into a corner so her grandfather could stretch his throbbing leg out to its full extent.

A tediously long journey lay ahead, the roads barely more than beaten tracks. Added to that, who was watching, who was lying in wait to rob and possibly even worse? But when there was no choice in the matter, what could be done? Never once did Job take his eyes off the road. Hawk-like, he noted every hillock and rock, every corner and every clump of trees, and once out on the open road he cracked the whip and they set off at a spanking pace.

Briefly they called at a wayside inn. The old man insisted on getting out for his own comfort and to see if the accommodation was acceptable but he limped back to the coach shaking his head.

“One of those blood houses. We’ll not spend a night under that woman’s roof, my oath we’ll not.”

“What’s a blood house, Grand-père?” Mary Ann asked as she propped a cushion under his painful leg.

“Place where you’d wake up covered in blood. I can tell, I know, I can smell ‘em. Remind me to tell you a story about that sometime… saved a man’s life that night… never forget it. Get eaten alive by bugs you can be, eaten alive. Soon as I put my nose inside that door I smelt ‘em. Anyhow, we’re not sleeping anywhere like that. We’re better under the stars.”

“But what if it’s raining?” She regarded him with a questioning look.

“But what if you stopped quizzing me?” he snapped. His leg hurt and he dreaded five days of jolting and jarring. He secretly wondered if he’d have been better accepting that he might be lame for the rest of his life and not started on this painful journey. “Confounded horse, confounded rock… everything’s a confounded mess,” he groused as he shifted and tried to make himself comfortable.

Mary Ann said no more but contented herself with looking at the passing scenery. Everything was so new, so different from Bywong. In all her life she’d never once been beyond Goulburn, now every inch of the way enticed her as they creaked and lurched on towards that far off enchanted place called Sydney.

Even if she had never been there she knew all about it. Sydney had cobbled streets and fashionable carriages spinning along the highways and byways. Afternoon teas and evening conversaziones, balls and race meetings filled the days of all who lived in that far-off city. Though whether her sister might consider her old enough to attend any of those wonderful events remained another matter. Poor Grand-père’s predicament had been a blessing for her. Not many girls of her age would be taking the road to Sydney.

Camping out under the stars proved to be yet another enchantment, in spite of Job’s grumbles as he hobbled the horses and set up the tent, dragged the tarpaulin out and made the fire. “There you are Missy, I’ll see to yer grandpa. Now the fire’s sparked up real nice, them chops’ll be real good if you don’t let ‘em burn.”

The novelty of cooking over the campfire, boiling the billy and mixing up damper preluded a night when the world changed from a hot, dusty succession of forest and plain to a mysterious place filled with the cries of the owl, the rustle of possums above them and the distant howl of the hunting dingo. Not for one moment was Mary Ann apprehensive as she lay looking up at the myriad stars gleaming through the branches of the gum trees; instead her whole being rejoiced that she’d been allowed to make such a journey. Travellers often spoke of the magic of sleeping under the stars. Well it was more than magic. It was a revelation.

But banks of storm clouds ushered in the next day, and as she helped Job pack up the camp and listened to his grumbles the first hint of concern about the journey niggled at her.

“Change in the weather.” Job took up the reins and urged the horses back onto the road. Little more than a potholed track, in some places so narrow the trees brushed the windows, in others widening out enough for two carts or coaches to pass. On the next occasion when they stopped, his pessimism had increased as he complained about his rheumaticky joints.

“Rain’s not far off, me screws tell me that. Mark my words we’ll have rain before long.”

All day they travelled under an overcast sky, the first drops of rain falling before light began to fade from above. Soon it slid like teardrops down the windows. Mary Ann stared out at the darkening landscape and the teeming downpour.

“What’s he stopped for now?” Grand-père demanded.

“P’haps we’ve shed a shoe?”

“What we gonna do, sir?” Job’s face appeared at the door. “Can’t see no sense in setting up our camp tonight.”

“We’ve the tent and the tarpaulin.”

“And what we do for kindling, eh? Bin raining hereabouts all day, I’d say. Ground’s soaked and that last creek we passed is rising fast.”

“Haven’t you ever camped in the rain before, man?” Grand-père snapped.

“Not with a young lady in the party and a gent as ain’t in the best of health…not ever.” Job replied with the familiarity of a long-time retainer. “We’ll be soaked to the skin afore we get’s anything up. There’ll be no meal tonight, only what’s left of last night’s damper. It may be alright for some,” and he sniffed loudly, “some as may be sittin’ up inside like, but for others…well it’ll be the worst. Gotta take a look at what’s troublin’ the mare. She’s made heavy weather of that last mile or more…”

Grand-père stared obstinately out of the window. All his life he had travelled this road up to the city. Whenever business demanded his presence or family matters needed attention he’d saddle up and take off. How easy everything had been when strength and health were on his side. Reluctantly he admitted to himself that now there were other considerations.

“There’s an inn, near the Bogong Rock,” he grudgingly admitted.

“Is that the place where the bogong moths come from?”

He smiled at his granddaughter. “Bogong moths are everywhere in their millions. The Bogong Rock’s not where they come from, it’s just one of the places where they settle on their journey and where they go to, no one knows. Most of all they are found up in the mountains about now, in fact, that’s why you’ll not have seen any blackfellows at all. They’re all up there.”

“You mean they’ve all moved off?”

“Only for now; they follow the food. It’s said that when the snow melts on the lower ranges of the great mountains, and that’s now, early October, then the first of the men start for the foothills. Then more follow, soon whole families make the journey in search of the moths.”

“But what do they want with moths? Moths are just like butterflies. Just flutter about.” Grand-père was sure to have a story to tell.

“You’ve seen the bogongs. They’re big moths, about an inch long. ‘tis said they’re good eating.”

“Eat moths! Ugh…how revolting.”

“They tell me the Bogong moth is so important to them that they gladly make these great journeys. After the bitter winters of the plains they can feast on those fat bodies and when they return from the mountains their skin is glossy and they are sleek with the nourishment.”

“I cannot see how eating moths can even keep a person alive, let alone make them sleek and glossy! What goodness would there be in a moth to feed a person?”

“Not a bit of it. It’s the quantity that does the trick. Thousands and thousands of moths breed up in the mountains. They hang in great clumps inside caverns and amongst the rocks. The natives creep in with burning switches and smoke them out so they tumble down into the waiting nets, then they cook them in the hot ashes of their fires.”

“Ugh! How disgusting!”

“Not at all. I’ve tasted them, they are quite sweet…like nuts.”

“But to go to all that effort for a few meals seems strange to me.”

“They last for longer than that. The moths’ bodies are fatty and any not eaten then and there are pounded with seeds and made into cakes that can be kept for weeks. These cakes are smoked so they last even longer.”

“Well, I still can’t see why, with so much around in the way of kangaroo and lizards and birds anyone should bother with moths.”

“It is a way of life. You’ve got to take my word for it.”

“It must be miserable up there amongst all those rocks.”

“Not so. There are many caves…good shelter for everyone.” He paused and stared out at the sodden landscape.

Job’s rain streaked face was at the door again. “She’s right,’ he nodded towards the mare, “just a pebble in her shoe, that was all… have you made your mind up, sir?”

“Perhaps one night in an inn would be acceptable. This weather’s not going on for ever. It’ll probably only last one night.”

An inn! Mary Ann had never set foot in such a place. A hint of wild goings-on, drinking and carousing hung about the mere mention of those establishments. There was an inn at Collegdar but even her brother avoided the place, and the only other inn near Gundaroo was owned by a French man rumoured to be in league with the bushrangers. He’d give his accomplices the nod if anyone of substance stopped by. Word travelled fast, there were no secrets on the Wool Road down to the coast or the highway to Sydney.

Disappointment tweaked at her when Job reined in the horses outside the Bogong Inn. Such an ordinary place! Almost snug as it nestled under a forested hill. A horseman must have just arrived as the ostler had started to lead a handsome bay gelding round to the stables.

“I’ll look at the place first.” Pain contorted Grand-père’s features as he struggled to pick up his stick which had fallen to the floor.

“Let me go.” Mary Ann put a hand on his arm. “If it’s really nasty and dirty you’ll have had all the trouble for nothing. Let me go.”

“What could you tell about a place?” retorted her grandfather.

“Papa told me to be a help. How can I help if you won’t let me!”

Her quick reply brought a smile to the old man’s lips. You’d not keep a Guise down, that was for sure. Blood counts.

Mary Ann brushed down her bodice, smoothed her dark curls and motioned Job to follow her. In truth she felt quite nervous, inns on the whole having unsavoury reputations. But now was not the time to be timid. Holding her head up high she nodded to the servant by the door as though visiting wayside inns, and far more salubrious establishments, was an everyday event for her.

This inn proved indeed as snug as its appearance had promised. A fire crackled in the large room serving as entrance, parlour and dining room. From the rear of the building the sound of male voices came loud and clear. That would be the bar, Mary Ann decided. She stood at the table and waited.

She sniffed the air. Wood smoke, lavender and a tantalising hint of roast meat. “That’s nice, Job,” she said over her shoulder without looking round. “I can’t smell a single bug here.”

“And I am sure Mrs McCready, will be most flattered by your recommendation.”

She spun round and found herself facing a tall, broad-shouldered man with a saddlebag clutched in one hand and a pair of boots in the other.

“Sir!” Momentarily shaken from her confident poise she glanced around the room but could see no servant or even any other person than Job who remained respectfully in the background, perhaps the words must have come from him.

“May I introduce myself, Frank de Rossi,” he put down the boots, but not the saddlebag, and gave a slight bow.

“I was looking for the landlady.”

“Ah, the admirable Mrs McCready, our hostess, she’s busy in the kitchen, I believe.” Picking up his boots he smiled at Mary Ann, “I’ll ask one of the maids to send her to you…and may I assure you, this is a most excellent inn. You will not find better this side of the city and you can be assured not a single bedbug has ever crossed its portals.”

“I doubt there’s a better inn this side of Sydney,” observed Grand-père later that evening as he sipped at his port and for a few moments forgot the throbbing pain in his knee.

“Just my very words to your daughter earlier this evening,” Frank de Rossi raised his glass and looked across at Mary Ann who had left the table and now sat with her crochet by the fire.

“My granddaughter, sir, granddaughter. My son William’s girl. Not that he doesn’t have plenty of girls. Giddy things that they are…all married off now, excepting young Mary Ann of course. She’s got a head on her shoulders, she’s accompanying me to the city…a trifling operation’s needed…a trifle…then we’ll be home. Tell me, how’s your father…haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in years.”

“Father’s in the best of health. Busy as the day is long. I have had to make the journey home, Corsica that is, as you know, and he says he scarcely missed me! He says his own travelling days are over so I have to attend to matters over there. He’s starting to build our new house at Rossiville.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of that. Talk of the countryside. They say he’s even putting in a ballroom!”

“That’s right, sir. Father’s got an eye for the future. He says one day the Limestone Plains’ll have a society like Sydney. That ballroom’s taking all his time and attention at the moment. Hardly started the house yet, but one day it’ll be there.”

“Can’t see the sense of that. Where are all the people coming from?

“He’ll be hard pressed getting enough for a ball! Half the ladies never live down on our properties they prefer to spend their days in Sydney or Melbourne… like my daughter Hannah where we’re bound. Couldn’t wait to follow her husband to the city life.”

“Ah, times are changing, sir. This is such a new country, give it time.”

“Well, I doubt I’ll see much alter in my lifetime, different for you young’uns. I’ve seen enough changes already in my day. When we first came to this country this was still a wilderness. Who’d have imagined I could ever travel in my own coach from Gundaroo to Sydney. ’Twas horseback for us and naught else. First sight of the Lake I ever had was from the saddle. Now here we are, spending a night under a decent roof and ready to be on the road again, first thing.”

“And no bedbugs I assure you,” Frank de Rossi glanced across at Mary Ann with the hint of a smile.

She sniffed. He didn’t need to remind her!

“There’s inns and then there are inns!” muttered Grand-père. “You said you’d tell me that story about a man being nearly murdered at an inn. What happened, Grand-père?”

“Oh, another time, remind me again.”

“The evening stretches before us, sir… what better way to spend it than listening to an interesting tale.” Frank de Rossi leant over and filled the old man’s glass.

“Just an incident, something that happened when I was new to the Colony, something which made a great difference to me at the time, but that’s all in the past.”

“Go on, Grand-père, tell us.” Mary Ann put down her crochet hook and joined them at the table. “Grand-père’s stories are famous. No one can tell a story like him and he remembers just about everything.”

Frank topped up his own glass. A log crackled in the fireplace as a piece of wood flared sending a shaft of light across the girl’s face. Her dark curls cascaded over her features as she leant her elbows on the table. Her face was hidden but to Frank it seemed he had known every feature for ever. For the first time in many years his heart beat to a quickening pace. Had they ever met before. Certainly not, but perhaps in another life, another time, another world their paths had crossed. He shook his head at the absurdity of his thoughts… and yet he savoured for a moment the happiness of a lonely man who has wandered and searched and finally stumbled upon all that he had ever longed for.

“New to the Colony, I was. New and green but I soon learnt, same as we all do. Every man for himself. It’s always been so, then sometimes a chance comes that you can’t ignore.”

“Just as my father said, almost the same words,” Frank muttered.

“But old Francis came with a silver spoon in his mouth, didn’t he. Your father had a Government, position, all the rest of it. I came as a private in the New South Wales Corps. At fourteen pounds a year and me and my lovely Elizabeth sleeping twelve families to a room. A pretty big room, but one room all the same with just hessian curtains between us all.

“The New South Wales Corps… surely not. The scum of the land! Why, I heard that in England they took the men from the condemned cell gave them a second chance of life if they would join the Corps.”

“You don’t need to look so shocked, young Frank. Those were hard times. I had served in Flanders before I went to the court of Versailles, all I knew was court life and soldiering. Getting across the Channel to London was the luckiest day of my life. Meeting your grandmother, that was the second most fortunate.”

He paused and sipped at his port. “The king and queen had been taken from Versailles, taken up to the Temple prison in the city and do you know what that mob did? They paraded outside their prison with the head of the Princesse de Lamballes upon a pike. The Queen had to look upon her dearest friend’s white face, that beautiful hair caked with blood. Think of that! I was lucky to escape with my life.”

“Fortunate to have a haven, fortunate to have friends.”

“Friends! I had no friends. I knew no one in that cold unfriendly city… that London. No money, no one to assist…I’d not wish such a predicament on any man. But then Fate smiled… that was then I met your grandmother,” he leant across and patted Mary Ann’s hand…“met her at a wine trader’s house…only person I knew in the whole of London, had once shipped cognac over from the de Guise estates. Only there because of some hope the fellow could find employment for me…and of course some of those English liked to feel they helped the émigrés, as they called us. Ha! Emigrés. Outcasts more likely. I’d been invited for dinner and when I walked into the room – there she was.”

“Grand-mère’s never told me this.”

“Perhaps one day she would have done, if she’d been spared long enough. There’s tales you don’t tell children,” he paused and smiled to himself. “Well, I’m telling you now. Seems you are ready for it.”

“Ready for it?”

“It was love my girl. Love at first sight. You aren’t the age to know about love…but when you do then you’ll understand. Love at first sight they call it and there is no going back, not in a lifetime.”

Amazed, Mary Ann stared at her grandfather. Never before had she heard him speak so intimately of his past.

Surprisingly confused she gave a laugh. “Oh Grand-père, such things only happen in stories!”

“One smile, one look and that’s enough. Sometimes you look straight into another’s soul.”

“Sir…you are quite the poet.” Frank de Rossi stared down at the table, his expression shielded by shadow.

“But then those were hard times…my dear Elizabeth preferred not to remember the hardship but believe me she went through the mill… we both did.”

“You had a long and happy life together.” Frank leant over and refilled the other man’s glass.

“The best. The very best. You hear about such things but you don’t believe them do you? One look, one glance and you know that you have found all you ever need in life.”

“Yes, that can happen, indeed it can.” Frank suddenly found a thread unravelling on his sleeve and doggedly set about tucking it in and smoothing the stitches.

“You were going to tell us about the inn Grand-père.”

“Indeed. The inn which changed my life! All things happen in threes don’t they, think of the fairy tales. The princess has three wishes, the king has three sons, the suitor has to perform three tasks. Well going to that inn was the third thing for me, it changed my life. My first piece of luck was escaping across the Channel, my second was meeting dear Elizabeth, the third was walking into that inn.” Sipping his port the old man’s gaze drifted into that middle distance when memory picks up the brush and paints once again those enduring pictures of the past.

“We were stationed up beyond Parramatta, a wild and lonely place but travellers passed that way on many occasions and Seamus 0’Reilly’s inn was all they could hope for. You could smell the bugs the moment you stepped over the threshold, that’s what brought it to mind. Bless me I’d nearly forgotten about that inn, and the captain, and those murderin’ Irish and what happened.”

“Was he murdered then, was that what you meant.”

“He came as close as any man, the knife was on his throat.”

“And what happened?”

“I’m telling you, child… stop being so impatient, listen for once, Always skimming around, wanting to know this or that or hurry folk along. Listen.”

Frank de Rossi smiled. “Your grandfather is right, he’ll tell the story in his own time.”

Not another person telling her what to do! Mary Ann scornfully half turned her back on him. What was the matter with old people. First grandfather never seemed to keep up with things. And now this man, old enough to be her father trying, to tell her what to do.

“Our Captain Corrigan had been visiting a young woman for quite some time. She was the daughter of this inn keeper, Seamus 0’Reilly. Now his inn was not a place you’d want to spend the night in, I can tell you that.

“That Seamus was a good enough fellow but like all the Irish he couldn’t keep his inn clean, neither did he keep his nose clean. Got himself mixed up with every shady deal in the place and in particular he’d taken to helping out many another Irishman. You know the Irish, forever rebelling or escaping. Well his inn was a haven for anyone on the run from the road gangs and such.

“Of course we didn’t know what was going on under our noses, typical of the military I’d say, and certainly Captain Corrigan didn’t realise he was keeping company with the daughter of a traitor.

“That evening a messenger had galloped over from Parramatta with a message, an order more likely. Governor Hunter would be arriving that night. Quite unexpected, I might say. Well, if the governor arrived and our commanding officer was nowhere in sight there would be hell to pay. I knew very well where he would be.

The door of the inn was unlocked and as I stood there that stink of bugs made my guts heave. A filthy place, and that smell! Well, I’ve spoken about the smell of bugs before. I might have shouted out for the landlord or a maid, I could have called out for the potboy or anyone but I didn’t want to set foot in the place. Could not face the stink of those bugs. So I walked round to the kitchen, which as you know, would be quite separate as they always were for fear of fire. It lay out the back behind that establishment. Unexpected, unannounced, I got the shock of my life.

“I’ll never forget the sight of those men, and our poor Captain lying, spread eagled on the floor. Later he told me he’d never suspected there were any such goings-on. Usually he visited his lady-love late at night, this time he arrived unusually early, no one expected him at the inn. When he went round to the kitchen and walked in as usual six desperate men confronted him. They never meant him to get away and tell the tale.

“As I said when I came looking in that kitchen, the knife was already at his throat and it didn’t take much to make me realise they’d do for me next. No one must know and believe me there’s miles and miles of wild country stretching on for ever. Two bodies could be disposed of in a trice.

“‘Let the captain go lads, let him go. No more will be spoken of this.’ I knew how weak that sounded as I mouthed those words, ‘This began as a matter of the heart, let’s not make more of it.’

“That’s all fine speaking, sorr’, said Seamus ‘but I’ve a livin’ to make. One word blabbed and I’ll be hanging from that tree outside. Never trust an Englishman.’”

“That single word saved my life I am sure. ‘I am not an Englishman,’ I said. “I am a Frenchman, baptized in the faith, and in the name of the Holy Mother I swear this shall be the end of the matter. Have you thought what will happen if an officer of King George disappears? The country hereabouts will be turned upside down and even if they have no evidence, plenty could be found about your other activities…” I gestured to the ragged men who watched every movement I made.

I took another step forward and leant over the captain whose eyes rolled with fear. “No more will be spoken of this. Will it?” I repeated and he just shook his head. He was so scared he couldn’t even speak.

“So that night when the governor arrived at the post he found his captain and everything as it should be.” Grand-père sat back and closed his eyes for a moment.

“How could that change your life, Grand-père? You haven’t explained that.”

“As I’ve said before, the pay of a private in the New South Wales Corps was fourteen pounds a year but grants were often made for services rendered. You could be rewarded by money or land. The very next day the good Major made it clear that my lips must be sealed and I’d not go unrewarded. Well, I was wise enough to have understood that. He was as good as his word. A grant of land came my way, my first piece of property, those acres out beyond Liverpool, we still have them in the family. And now so much besides sir. The Guise lands stretch for thousands of acres, Up to the mountains and down to the lake. The holdings around Sydney are well known, too.”

“And it all happened because of that night at the inn and your going round to the kitchen because of the stink of the bugs!”

“Well, that was the beginning: a piece of land, cattle, some good years when you sell at a good price, bad years when drought stifles you… good… bad. “The old man’s head nodded upon his chest.

“Your grandfather’s very tired.”

“I’ll ask them to find Job to help him to his room.”

“Let me do that, Miss Mary Ann.”

“We have our servant with us Sir.”

“Perhaps for one moment I can be your servant?”

Mary Ann busied herself winding up her wool and putting her work away in her tapestry bag. She did not look up. So much that was new had happened in the last twenty-four hours, not least the uneasy sensation of treading upon completely unknown territory when she caught Frank’s glance.