I stopped eating suddenly, the spoon halfway to my mouth.
He said no more, as though he knew he had crossed a line. Told me something he shouldn’t have. “I think there’s a little bread,” he said, sliding back on his chair to search the shelf. “Would you like some?”
I pushed past his question. It was too late to pretend he hadn’t spoken. “And what’s to be done about it?” I asked.
Blackwell sighed. He met my eyes with a dark, pointed look. Yes, I understood. This conversation was never to go further than this table.
“Nothing,” he said tautly. “It’s the way things have to be. Or else more people will die.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Many of the Irish Convicts are well acquainted with the art of war, and all the secret intrigues that can work on the minds of the ignorant and unwary.”
Rev. Samuel Marsden
A Few Observations on the Toleration of the Catholic Religion in New South Wales
1806
And so it was; the way things had to be. Around the other women, I steered my conversations away from the rebels, from Castle Hill, from Blackwell. Away from anything that might disrupt the sense of solidarity I felt at the spinning wheels. I needed my friendship with Lottie. I would not let Owen take that from us. But at Blackwell’s supper table, I asked questions.
“Why is he untouchable?”
Sometimes the lieutenant kept his thoughts to himself. Other times, he seemed to want to speak.
“The government fears another uprising is imminent,” he told me one night, tossing a log onto the fire. “They fear that if the rebels see their leader strung up it will incite them to violence.”
I felt a flicker of self-satisfaction that things were as I had imagined. That I was beginning to develop an understanding of the world around me.
“And what of Maggie?” I asked, at the table with a cannikin of tea in my hand. “Does she not deserve for her killer to be punished?”
I was careful to keep my voice even, controlled. Though he had stood on Owen’s jury, Blackwell was being open with me now. Allow myself to let my anger loose and I would destroy this precious chance at knowledge.
“Yes. She does.” He jabbed the poker into the fire and made a log break noisily in the grate.
I thought of Jonathan and Henry Wilder. For all his faults, my husband deserved justice just like Maggie did. Deserved for his killer to face to the gallows. And yet I had kept silent out of fear. Let Henry Wilder walk free. I knew my guilt over doing so had fuelled my desire to see Owen punished.
“But it’s like I said,” Blackwell continued, taking the teacup I had nudged across the table, “if Owen is hanged and the rebels retaliate, far more people will die.”
It was the closest I’d come to hearing him acknowledge Owen’s guilt. I wasn’t sure if it felt like a victory or a defeat.
But I was acutely aware that he was sharing far more with me than he ought to. I knew as a factory lass I had no place knowing these things. But sometimes, with the fire burning and cups in our hands, Blackwell and I felt oddly like equals. Strange that we might seem to be standing on such even ground when we were at different ends of the scale of power. It was not just the information about Owen, but the small pieces of himself he would toss out into conversation.
I always dreamt of seeing this place.
My mother died when I was twelve.
I much prefer coffee to tea.
I feared the moment would come when he would realise he had let me too close. Allowed me to step onto ground on which a factory lass was forbidden to stand.
“And what of you?” I asked. “Owen is untouchable. Are you not afraid he’ll come after you again? With a pistol this time?”
Blackwell turned the cup around in his hands. “His immunity goes only so far.”
“So his immunity doesn’t stretch to killing an officer. But it does stretch to killing a factory lass.”
Blackwell took a sip of tea, meeting my eyes. A wordless response. But the words did not need to be said.
“If Owen dares come after me, the other officers will have him on the scaffold,” he told me. But I could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
*
After church that Sunday, I set out for the market. I lifted my face to the sky, letting the spring sun warm my cheeks. The rain had stopped for the first time in days, a dazzling blue emerging from within the clouds. The surrounding bush smelled clean and damp.
I filled my basket with meat and vegetables from the farmers’ stalls set up in the backs of wagons. As I passed the clothes stand, I stopped, my eyes falling on a swathe of violet fabric on the racks of gowns and cloaks.
That colour, I knew it well. I pushed aside the cloaks to reveal my worsted gown. There was the neat pleating at the waist, the single brass button, the delicate scoop of the neckline. Whoever had stolen it from the ship must have sold it for a few pennies.
I ran my finger over the skirts. They were as soft as I remembered, despite their months at sea and subsequent kidnapping by some nameless woman on the ship.
The stall owner caught me looking. “Yours for a crown,” she said. I felt for the coins in my pocket. I knew it was foolish to spend what little I had on something I would never even wear. I could hardly strut into the factory in a pleated gown. But I needed it back. It was my last piece of a life I thought had gone forever.
I handed the coins over before I could change my mind.
I was glad to find the hut empty. The fire was still crackling mutedly from the bread I had baked that morning, and the air was thick and humid. With the fire still lit, I knew Blackwell couldn’t have gone far.
I pulled off my dress and stepped into the gown, fastening the hooks and closing the single button below my throat. I felt the weight of the skirts around my ankles.
I took Blackwell’s small shaving mirror and peered into it. My hair had come loose from its plait and hung over my shoulders. With my free hand I bundled it into a knot on my neck, searching out the gentleman’s wife I had once been.
I could not find her. The eyes that looked back at me were hardened. The eyes of a woman who did not belong in a worsted gown.
I put down the mirror. I didn’t want to see my reflection. I didn’t want that reminder of who I’d once been, of all I’d squandered with my terrible choices. Nor did I want Blackwell to return and see me in the dress. Perhaps for a fleeting moment, a part of me had wanted him to see that I had once been more than just a factory lass. But that lady in the worsted gown was nothing to be proud of. What pride was there to be felt when I’d let that life unravel so dramatically?
I undid the hooks and let the gown slide from my shoulders. I stood for a moment with it in a pool around my feet, before stepping out of it and tossing it into the fire. It caught with a burst of orange light, and I sat back on my heels to watch. I felt the blaze warm my cheeks.
The door creaked open and I leapt to my feet, suddenly aware I was standing there in searing daylight in nothing but my underskirts.
My eyes caught Blackwell’s for a second and I grabbed my striped dress, holding it to my body. He disappeared again before I could speak.
I dressed hurriedly and stepped out into the street, feeling the need to apologise. It had been wrong for me to strut around the hut indecently in the middle of the afternoon. I couldn’t bear for Blackwell to think I had been parading myself for his benefit.
I called after him, but he didn’t respond; just kept striding out towards the edge of the settlement.
I followed. I wanted to explain myself. But I also wanted to know where he was going.
We climbed into the hills, along a narrow track beaten into the scrub. I stayed some distance behind, not wanting him to know I was following, but close enough to keep track of him as he wove through the trees.
We walked for over an hour, perhaps closer to two. Sun streaked through the trees, insects dancing in the needles of light.
I could see a clearing
up ahead. I hung back, hiding myself among the trees.
I peered out between the gnarled white trunks. Rows of graves, each marked with a crude cross, like Maggie Abbott’s.
Blackwell walked slowly among them, eyes fixed to the crosses. I stood motionless, barely daring to breathe.
My heart lurched. Why had he come here? Who lay beneath his earth?
I darted into the undergrowth so he wouldn’t see me. Held my breath as he walked past, back onto the narrow path.
Once his footsteps had disappeared, I stepped out into the makeshift cemetery. A heaviness hung over the place. A coldness, despite the warmth of the air. There were shallow engravings on the wooden crosses and I bent closer to read them. No names appeared in the inscriptions, but there were snatches of Gaelic, carved in a rough hand. And then English words that made my breath catch.
Castle Hill 1804
Had the battle taken place among these trees? I had learned from some of the men at the river that the site of the main conflict lay further to the north, where the Rum Corps had surrounded the rebels and brought them to their knees. But I also knew there had been men killed in the uprising from Toongabbie to Sydney Town; days of underhand warfare following the main attempted rebellion. I imagined the redcoats storming through these trees, imagined rifle fire shattering the stillness.
How many of these men had been sent to their graves by Blackwell’s bullet? Was it guilt that had brought him here?
Surely it was no easy thing to be a soldier; to shoot to kill on another’s bidding. Could a man still be haunted if he were acting in the name of duty?
I stood suddenly, unable to bear the oppressive atmosphere of the cemetery. I turned back the way I’d come, seeking out the narrow path that snaked back towards civilisation.
When I returned to Parramatta, I detoured to the river so Blackwell wouldn’t ask about my absence.
“Oh,” I said, in the world’s worst attempt at feigning ignorance, “you’re back. Collecting the chocolate flowers?” I set the bucket of water on the ground beside the hearth.
He returned my smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Something like that.”
I had hoped, of course, I might nudge him into speaking of the burial ground. But I could tell today he was to be tight-lipped.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said. “I didn’t mean for you to see me that way. I dirtied my dress and I…”
Blackwell shook his head dismissively. “It’s no matter.” He slid the Bible from the shelf and sat at the table, opening the book in front of him. His message was clear: conversation over.
The weight pressing down on him was almost a physical thing. A part of me longed to ask him outright about the cemetery. I couldn’t bear the thought of him locking all that regret away to be passed over.
“I saw you come from the north,” I said clumsily. “What’s out there?”
Blackwell eyed me. I could tell, even without him saying a word, that he knew I had followed him.
Beneath the table, I saw something slide through the shadows. I shrieked, and bounded onto the empty chair. “Snake!” I yelled, pointing wildly.
Blackwell stood, his chair toppling. He reached down to pick it up.
“Be careful!” I cried. “Did you not hear me? A snake!”
His lips curled into a smile. “I heard you, yes.”
My eyes widened as he bent to straighten the chair. I watched the creature slither out from beneath the table. I couldn’t pull my eyes from it. There was something horribly entrancing about the way it glided across the floor. I glared at Blackwell. “Do something!”
“Stop yelling, Eleanor,” he said, with a calmness I found unfathomable. He took his rifle from where it rested beside the shelf.
“You’re going to shoot it?” I demanded.
He laughed. Brought the butt of the rifle down on the snake, mashing its head into the floor. He picked up its limp body and carried it outside. I found myself peering frantically around the hut, searching for other intruders.
I was still teetering on the chair when Blackwell returned.
“You can come down now,” he said, offering me his hand. I climbed down carefully, before beginning a thorough search of my sleeping pallet. I heard him chuckle.
“It’s not funny,” I said. “What if it had gotten into the blankets?”
“I didn’t imagine you to be afraid of snakes,” he said, sitting at the table and opening the Bible again.
“What kind of madman would not be afraid of snakes? Did not you see the way it moves? It’s completely unnatural.”
Blackwell laughed again, eyes on the book as he turned the page. I straightened my blanket and tried to catch my breath. My heart was still beating fast. But I was glad I had made him smile.
*
In the morning, I awoke to find the brass button from my worsted gown on the floor beside my head. Had Blackwell found it in the fireplace? I stared at it for a long time; that fire-tarnished piece of my old life I couldn’t burn away. His message was clear; I had my past and he had his. They weren’t for each other to know.
I took the button from beside my bed. Stepped out of the hut in the early morning and buried it beside the river.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
On Christmas Day there was no spinning.
After Marsden’s service, we were given the day to ourselves. While the scent of roasting lamb floated from settlers’ houses, we gathered at the river with slabs of mutton and pork, and enough rum to drown a whale.
The men set a bonfire roaring on the riverbank and soon had the meat roasting over the embers.
The sun blazed through the trees, painting long shadows across the earth. Insects swarmed the surface of the water as we languished in the sultry heat that lay over the land.
Two of the factory lasses hacked up the meat and shared it among us; on plates, in wooden bowls, or into bare hands. The men stretched out shirtless on the edge of the water, women with their feet dipped into the swell. The convicts and emancipists took turns telling stories as they passed the liquor bottles between them.
“Helped myself to a side of pork like this from my master’s kitchen,” said one of the lags who worked Marsden’s land. “Woulda got away with it too if it weren’t for the dog. Bloody thing were only six inches high, but it had a bark like pistol fire. Held me up by the back gate.”
An enormous roar of laughter.
“You’ve got a tale or two for us, don’t you, Nell?” asked Lottie, nudging my shoulder with hers. “You can tell us a little about how the toffs live.” There was a playful smile on her face.
I whacked at the giant ant crawling up my ankle. “Nothing as interesting as being held up by a dog.”
Lottie passed me the rum bottle. She’d seemed to have made peace with who I was – or rather, who I had been. I was glad of it.
I ate until my stomach was straining against my bodice; a long-ago, forgotten sensation. I sat with my back up against the great white trunk of a gum tree, a pleasant liquor haze pressing down on me. I could feel the embers of the bonfire warming my cheek.
“Well,” said Hannah, wiping greasy hands on her skirt, “this is a damn sight better than last year, ain’t it.”
I smiled. Our last Christmas had been spent in the depths of the Norfolk. We’d not even been sure of the date until we’d been pulled out onto deck for the church service.
As the afternoon stretched into evening, the gathering grew. Settlers emerged from their meat-scented houses and men I recognised as soldiers sat among us in shirtsleeves. Dark clouds rolled across a blazing sky, the air thick and humid, and scented with rain.
Someone arrived with a fiddle, and Owen, who’d been drinking since before noon, struck up a jagged beat on an empty crate. The music drowned out the birdsong and the constant burble of the river. Songs in Gaelic burst up around us, and everyone was dancing. I felt a smile on my lips. It had been far too long since I’d heard music. Lottie grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet.
“I don’t know the steps,” I said on a laugh.
“It’s easy,” said Lottie, whirling around and pulling us into a circle of other dancers. “Like this. The Fairy Reel… Watch, Nell… Watch!... No, like this, other way!”
I gave up, whirling around in the circle and making up my own steps. I shrieked with laughter as we galloped around the uneven riverbank. I danced until I was breathless and a line of sweat ran down my back. Some blessed soul hurled Owen’s drum crate onto the bonfire.
As the sun slipped away, the fire drew everyone towards it, making cheeks sweat and hair curl. It was no weather for a fire, of course, but this was all we knew. Fire was the centre of the Christmas celebration, no matter if snow was falling or the land was cracked and dry.
I thought of childhood Christmases spent behind ice-speckled windows, candles lighting our dinner table. Father and I working our way through roast meat and pudding, or gingerbread by the fire. For a moment, I missed him deeply.
I looked out towards the water. Patrick Owen had an arm slung around Lottie’s shoulder, as they sat close together on the ground beside the river. I watched her laugh at something I was sure wasn’t funny. I tried to catch her eye across the flames. I hated seeing them together. Lottie turned her back, avoiding my eyes.
I slipped away from the gathering. Stumbled down the road towards Blackwell’s hut. The shrieking cicadas began to take over, pushing the raucous sounds of the party to the background.
I peeked through the gap in the door. I could see the lieutenant at the table, a quill in hand.
Writing to his wife, perhaps? Good wishes for Christmas, dear Sophia, that she would receive some time next September. There was something about him sitting there alone on Christmas night, hunched over his ink pot while the rest of us drank and danced. Something that made my chest ache.
I pushed open the door, making it squeal noisily against the floor. He looked up from his letter in surprise.
One of Us Buried Page 12