Chapter 11 - 1872 -Another house in Balmain
Michael Williams was a coal miner from Wales. He had gone down the pit following his Dad before him. But times were hard there and the wage for a day’s work was little enough. His Dad’s wages barely bought food for the table.
For Michael, the idea of him slaving his whole life for a pittance seemed a poor choice. So, five years ago, he had packed his few things and bought a passage to Melbourne with the promise of gold and work and wealth. The gold was hard to find and with it the wealth, but there was work aplenty. Those who had the gold were building their grand new houses, and the docks were bursting with ships to be loaded and unloaded. After a year working on the Melbourne Docks he took a passage to Sydney to see what it had to offer. He soon found work on the Balmain docks, no shortage of need for human brawn. But this was little different from the mines, the labour just as hard, but at least not down in a dirty hole underground.
He had a room in a boarding house just behind the docks. After his long shifts, when his friends went to the tavern for a pint, he often found himself walking up the hills of Balmain and around the streets, pondering the need for something better to do with his life.
Some fine houses were being built and he wondered if this building trade was something he could learn. There seemed to be a real skill in it in making something to last, not what seemed to him as the endless and useless occupation of moving heavy things from one place to another.
One day he came to a building site as the builder was packing his tools for the day. The builder, a fit young man only a few years older, called to him. “Hey you, not looking for work are you? My apprentice got sick on me and I need someone to take his place.”
So Michael found himself with a new job. It was something he seemed to pick up easily. He found the work both easier and more interesting than moving bales and bags around the docks. He found he had a fine eye for detail and skill with his hands; smoothing plaster after they attached it to the lath board, shaping of the cornices, fine cutting and carving of joinery.
After a year he was the site foreman, building his own houses for Master Builder, Jim Roberts. By now he even had some money saved. In 1871, there were new blocks of land for sale on a street called Smith St. He knew this because he was building a house for a rich merchant on the edge of the ridge where the street crested a steep hill. As he worked there he looked out, across the harbour to Cockle Bay. Blocks opposite were for sale and, when he added in his next pay, he reckoned he should have just enough to buy one.
The day his next wages were paid he collected his money and carried it to the courthouse where land sales were recorded. He counted it out, pound by pound. Sure enough the money was just enough and the land was his, a fine level block at the top of the hill on Smith St.
In his mind he gave this land, where soon his house would stand, the name Ardwyn. It was the name of the house of the rich owner of the mine back home, who lived on a hill top above the mine where the air was clean and he could look across the valley with its dirty smoke and the poor houses of the workers below, to the clear mountains beyond.
Michael had always remembered this house and the name on the front door from the day when his father had given him the job of taking a note up the hill from the shift boss the mine owner. He was just eleven on that day and the vision from that house on the hill had stayed burned bright in his mind as something to dream of.
Now he walked around his new land. A big gum tree stood in the back yard. He considered cutting it down, but thought, “What’s the harm of it, it’s been there since long before me and there’s room for it still.” So the tree stayed. Before long, work on his house had begun.
In the tavern, where he sometimes went after work, was a pretty young lass called Rosie, black hair and dark eyes like coals. He soon found out when she was working so he could be there on those days. She always flashed him a bright smile and now, as he walked in, she would have his drink poured and waiting for him. But, whenever he tried to talk to her, his words got in a tangle and he would find himself going red and sounding stupid.
One day she was not there and another girl, Margie, was in her place. He mustered the courage to ask her where Rosie had gone. “Oh, her Ma is sick and she had to stay home and mind her for a couple d ays. So you’re Michael, the one that she likes but says is shy. Why don’t you ask her out sometime? She lives in Montague St you know, number six.”
Michael went bright red, but felt a thrill run through him. He thought, Could she really like me when I act so stupid in front of her? He walked out of the bar when his drink was finished and took a deep breath. It was now or never. He called to the flower shop on the corner of Beatty and Montague Streets and bought a bright coloured bunch. Standing in the front of the house with the number, 6, in fancy brass writing on the front door, he though it looked too grand to visit. He could feel his knees knock and hands shake. Finally he managed to bang on the knocker.
Rosie answered with a bright smile and raised eyebrow “Michael?”
He felt his face flush and stumbled out. “I heard your Mum was sick. I brought these for her,” as he handed over the flowers.
Rosie went bright red too. Almost at once she burst out laughing. “Oh, I thought these were for me and did not know what to do, I was so excited”
Spontaneously she gave him a hug. “Thank you so much, that was such a nice thing to do.”
Again he went red. Now they both laughed. “I was really thinking about you when I bought them” he said.
“I know and I like you too. I told Margie at the bar how nice you were. I hoped you would ask me out or something. Well let’s not stand here, you must come and meet my Mum, Sophia, she’s from Spain you know. That’s where my black hair comes from.”
Sophia was sitting in bed when Rosie came in. “Mama, I have brought you a visitor, Michael Williams, and he has brought you flowers”
Sophia’s face lit up. “Oh so beautiful, bella, bella”
Then she threw back her head and laughed. “Perhaps these flowers are for you Rosie. Such a handsome young man, who I have never met before, would hardly bring flowers for an old lady like me, when there is a beautiful senorita in the house.
“Well do not leave him standing, a glass of sherry for our guest and me”
It was Rosie’s turn to blush as she went off to bring refreshments.
After she left Sophia turned to Michael and said, seriously. “It is good sometimes to flatter the mother, no, though your eyes say Rosie, Rosie. She has already told me she sees you in the bar and likes you, before today. So it is good to meet you at last. You be kind to my girl, she has been sad since her Dad not come back.” With this the pact was sealed.
The Old Balmain House Page 14