Benevolence

by Julie Janson

  Mrs Shelley stares at the captain with outrage.

  ‘I note that your civilising of native peoples seems to require that you massacre them, women and children,’ she says.

  ‘‘Tis a shame. But I’ll admit that our towns like Parramatta are abounding in sin and wickedness where the Blacks are victims of crime, prostitution and slavery and countless cruelties,’ says Woodrow.

  ‘We protect our children from these outrages,’ says Mrs Shelley.

  ‘I hope you will allow me to visit more often and protect you all,’ says Captain Woodrow.

  Despite his horrible stories, the captain becomes a regular guest at Mrs Shelley’s house and Mary washes his clothes and starches his shirts. His recent campaign is written on his clothes. She burns his shirts with pleasure. At bedtime, Mary creeps out to the shed and sees him washing his sabre. She wants to grab that sword and run it through him. She watches in horror as he opens his small saddle bag and pull out black ears – benna – strung along native string. There are at least ten of them in different sizes. Full of fear and loathing, Mary takes the brooch he had given her, spits on it and hurls it out the window.

  …

  Cook and Mrs Shelley help the girls hang flapping clothes on the line with wooden pegs. The season of kangaroos, Jenneli, when the young roos are easy to hunt, has begun. Mary is told to remember only the names spring, summer, autumn and winter. Soon it will be the season of quolls, Tugra Gori, when the south wind blows. Mary hears their squealing outside the kitchen door; they are looking for scraps of meat and are not afraid of dogs or men. She imagines that she is growing to be fearless like a quoll because her name Muraging means quoll.

  Out in the yard, Mrs Shelley presses the clean sheets to her face. She tells them that she is dreaming of sailing boats that will take her home to England. Mary asks her when she will go, but she shakes her head.

  Mrs Shelley shows Mary a tiny painting of her dead child. He has blue eyes and yellow curls. Mary remembers her own little bobbina, cousin, and his laughing and playing and sweet little white teeth and how he died of sickness for no reason. She thinks that the spirits of these little children are walking about this house.

  Mary hears little boys calling to her and she listens for them late in the night. They are night wraiths who swim in the air and hover above Mrs Shelley. Mary wonders if she can blame herself for her brother’s death. Her burden is to have so much to eat and she can drink tea from a crockery cup, and he is dead. She had loved him well when he was a baby on her hip. He brushes his face against hers and laughs. She must go on living with the most precious loves gone.

  …

  With strict instructions not to bathe, Mrs Shelley allows the oldest children the privilege of walks along the river. They walk along a track by the swirling water and smell fires coming from across the plains. They know the eels are spawning up river and imagine them eating sucker fish spawn. When the rain comes, Mercy sings an old song to lure the creatures to the bank and Mary waits with her mootin, a spear fashioned from willow. They catch the little eels as they slither from river to pond and roast them in a fire of wood coals.

  …

  Christmas time is here and Mary and Mercy are excited to be going to Government House in Parramatta with Mrs Shelley and Mr Barnes. They will wait on the governor’s table for the first time and they are clothed in black dresses with white aprons. They are scrubbed and preened with their hair pulled into tight pigtails. They are told that the governor likes to share a table at Christmas with a wide selection of people to show his gregarious nature. The governor has shown his appreciation of the progress of the orphan school by inviting the teachers to Christmas lunch. The girls know that being a temporary servant is not so bad, because they can sneak snippets of delicious food. The school lends them out to other houses on occasions in order to gain some remuneration.

  Mr Barnes drives the cart to Government house and hurries the girls into the back of the building to begin work in the kitchen. The kitchen has two large wood fuel stoves and black pots hang from hooks over the cooking plates. Some carcasses of swans and ducks hang above the work tables. Another hook has rabbits and the haunch of a kangaroo that is being skinned by a convict servant. The cook has a red face and her hair tied up in a bun; she pounds the dough for bread. Flour flies into the air and the smell of boiling fish makes the girls hungry. There is a great Christmas pudding to be shared with servants and guests. It has fruit and glacé cherries; Mary and Mercy pick the red fruit out of the pudding when Cook has her back turned.

  They are to work hard serving a roasted black swan at the table, its head still intact, along with Indian pickle, chicken, eggs, salt beef stew, kangaroo tail, potatoes and fish. When the Governor arrives the girls stand at attention at the side of the formal dining room and murmur as he enters and removes a cockaded hat with white feathers. Mary notes that he has gold braid all over his coat of red wool. So many buttons! She is a fancier of buttons since coming to the town.

  ‘Oh Lord, bless this Christmas and this colony. Take us to your bosom. Oh, let us hear heavenly voices of thunderous angels, and let all the brethren, both white and black, gather at this Governor’s table to partake of your benevolence. Amen,’ prays Mrs Shelley.

  ‘Mrs Shelley, you seem to have achieved a remarkable feat after your husband was taken from you,’ says the Governor. ‘The children can speak English and, lo and behold, some can read and write. I also hear of murder on the roads, the rush of prostitution in the new towns. The settlers wish to give a love of liquor to the natives so they can be rendered helpless and become the victims of tyranny and plunder. You, Mrs Shelley, have achieved a miracle in civilising these dear children.’ He smiles at Mary and Mercy and they curtsy.

  ‘We have achieved this with the continued hindrance of insufficient funds and the ongoing visits from unwanted black fellows who claim to be parents,’ says Mrs Shelley. ‘One such man, Nurrugingy, took his little child back and will not be coerced into giving it up.’

  ‘The way of a noble savage, is it not?’ The Governor looks at Mary and touches her shoulder. ‘Who is this pretty servant? She is familiar.’

  ‘Mary James, Sir. A promising – and sometimes outspoken – student brought into the Parramatta Native Institution at a tender age. She is now a young woman who can recite her catechism and has a remarkable vocabulary, and she loves her dictionary and music,’ says Mrs Shelly.

  ‘Excellent. I remember her. She will make a fine maid.’

  Lady Macquarie’s hand flutters towards Mary. She looks into Mary’s eyes and smiles as she asks, ‘And what will become of her after she has completed her education at your school?’

  ‘That is a problem, Madam. Many of the girls elope into the wilds,’ says Mr Barnes.

  ‘Soon we are to depart for England, but I believe we should celebrate our early days of relative harmony with the Aborigines,’ says the Governor. ‘They are British subjects, plain and honest. The Aboriginal females exhibit virtues of modesty and bashfulness. In time you will find them suitable tame native husbands.’

  ‘I shall endeavour to carry out that task. I also hope, Sir, tha you can send me some books from London for my instruction. I wish to explore relationships between privilege and education, natural birth rights and its connection to property; moral work. Individualism,’ says Mrs Shelley.

  ‘Madam, Rousseau says males are active and strong, while females are passive and weak. Your role is the teaching of your charges, and not encouraging simmering revolution,’ says the Governor.

  ‘Thank you, Sir. At school, we are endeavouring to teach our charges about the human soul,’ says Mrs Shelley. ‘They are under the misapprehension that the souls of their deceased relatives pass into the bodies of living humans, such as our own race. They believe in transmigration of souls, like the Brahmins. I asked Mary to kill a snake for me. Mary, tell them what you said.’

  Mary bows and speaks, ‘I cannot kill it because he’s my brother, my bobbina,’ says M
ary.

  ‘Quite so,’ says the Governor. ‘When other natives visit the school, be ever vigilant – no free flour is to be given without labour. Anyway, they are suspicious of our flour, which is the inevitable consequence of the poisonings at the river branch near Colo. They call it green seed flour.’

  ‘Hear, hear. We agree. Deplorable action, but effective. They don’t realise what we can do to our enemies; after all, the wild tribes wish to eat our hearts,’ Mr Barnes mutters.

  Mary and Mercy are stunned to hear this information. Who would want to eat their greasy cheese-smelling hearts? They nudge each other and mime eating a heart.

  …

  Mary and all the school children climb into carts to travel the long journey to Sydney Town. They travel in an open cart that has carried grain, and the chaff bags are placed on planks to give the children seats. It is a rough but joyful ride. The children sing and choose which horses are best of those they see along the road. The sun shines, it is warm and the road has countless people on horseback or in carriages. The road is all mud and holes but the rough jerking of their cart fills the children with laughter, especially when the horses fart!

  Mary has never seen teeming Sydney Town before; the small dwellings are crowded together near the Rocks and the stench of sewage is everywhere. She sees Koories fishing by the harbour and some sing to the settlers and receive payment. The children are herded into two longboats with a sailor on the oars. It is thrilling to see coloured pennants from tall-masted ships flutter in the air along the dock of Port Jackson Harbour. Mary and Mercy cuddle up to each other in delight. But there are pitiful sights as well. A line of shackled convicts staggers past them and the girls are shocked to see women and children in irons with their ragged clothes unable to conceal their nakedness.

  On their arrival, they travel in boats behind the government barge around Garden Island then to Elizabeth Bay. Mrs Macquarie and Governor Macquarie are their hosts. Today is a celebration for the governor’s son who is turning six. His name is Lachlan, after his father, and he is dressed as a highlander in tartan dress.

  The students of the Parramatta Native School are special favourites of Governor Macquarie and he is keen to show them off to his great friend Chief Bungaree, who is living in a village at Georges Head overlooking the harbour. This village has been built to house sixteen Guringai families. These families travelled from across Broken Bay to take up the Governor’s offer to replace the Aboriginal clans that have perished from the terrible scourge of smallpox. Few of the Borogegal, Gamaraigal or Gadigal people who live on both sides of the harbour are to be found.

  The village has been built by convict servants for Bungaree; one of these servants is a Prussian ex-soldier called Ferdinand who is famous for having been at the battle of Waterloo.

  A big mob of local Guringai people are feasting on damper and beef when the children are rowed to Georges Head to meet the great explorer Chief Bungaree, his two wives Aunty Queen Matora and Queen Gooseberry, and Mary’s cousin Bowen. This young man has gleaming black eyes and throws a spear with great skill before the giggling girls.

  Chief Bungaree strides towards them wearing a cockaded hat that was gift from the Governor. He, however, is not wearing trousers and the girls squeal with shock. The Governor chats amiably with his friend and they seem to exchange jokes. Mary is astounded to see such friendship between men of high degree.

  The chief proudly shows the children a pathway down a steep incline to his longboat anchored below. They reach up to the young apricot trees to grab green fruit, but are scolded by one of Bungaree’s wives, Queen Cora Gooseberry; the apricots are not ripe.

  Mary cannot put the chief’s son, Bowen, from her mind; he is eighteen years or so, a little older than the children and has strong muscled arms. He seems so confident, and his English is as clear as an Englishman’s. Mary looks at him with admiration and, while clutching Mercy’s hand, she dares to speak to him, ‘You go walkabout a lot; have you seen my daddy? You hear about him from your mob?’

  ‘No, he might be finished up now. We have not seen him long time,’ he tells her.

  ‘Sorry for that news,’ says Bowen as he walks off to the men’s camp.

  Mary sobs a little but looks away so no-one can see this.

  They eat peaches in Bungaree’s orchard and drink some bool which makes their heads ache. Mrs Macquarie gives Queen Matora a breeding sow, seven pigs and a pair of Muscovy ducks. Mary knows that she will eat those ducks quick smart. She remembers swimming underneath wild ducks and pulling them under the water then later roasting them on a fire.

  On their return from the excursion, Mary sleeps deeply and dreams that her father has something in his hand. She reaches out from her bed. He gives her a present of a downy bird’s nest with a tiny blue wren’s egg. He tells her that he only ever takes one because the Jenny wrens wouldn’t like to lose all their eggs.

  …

  Mary and Mercy are growing into courageous and reckless young women. They are often scolded by Cook for climbing out the schoolhouse window in the night to find trouble in the town. They walk amongst the young Darug people who congregate beneath bridges and by fires along the riverbank.

  Every Koori they meet claims to be a cousin of some distant kind. Intermarriage of Darug clans is causing a mix that will not allow them to follow kinship rules for marriage; it’s all very mixed up. But they are mostly from old Grandfather Gomboree’s mob. Polly and Betty meet their boyfriends, Yarringguy and young Nurrugingy, under the trees. Mary and Mercy are becoming wild in their expeditions.

  A few weeks after their visit to Bungaree’s village, Mary and Mercy meet up with another one of Mary’s cousins in Parramatta, for there are countless – every native is somehow related to Mary or Mercy. Everyone is a cousin or uncle or aunt, for the numbers are dwindling and each person in a clan is precious. They walk to the end of the town where the vineyards grow, with the smell of sticky grapes in the air. Wasps, bees and flies rush past them looking for the dung around the vines.

  Before Mary has a chance to say ‘No’, they are all climbing over the fence and into a white woman’s yard. Mercy has a look of pure glee as they get under the wire chook house and into the nesting boxes where the hens are nesting on fresh-laid eggs. Mary is hungry, so she stops to crack an egg and swallow it down. She knows that the whole thing is a bad idea. As she eats another egg, Magistrate Masters arrives in his buggy and – to her horror – stares at Mary with outraged comprehension. She pretends to be feeding the chickens but she knows she has been seen. Mary feels like punching her cousin for his wildness – he will certainly end up in the asylum and she will probably go to Parramatta Gaol, but it is too late now to change her mind. She quickly stuffs five fowl in her shift while the mother hen pecks at her. She hurls herself over the fence to find her cousin waiting with an open hessian bag and they all run back to town where they sell the fowls to a farmer. Mary and Mercy race home while the cousin saunters back to join his fellow crooks.

  Mary knows Masters saw her and that it will come back to haunt her.

  …

  The native schoolgirls have been invited to dance at the Parramatta Government House. They crowd into an outhouse to dress in Tahitian grass skirts and are given feathers to hold. The music comes from boomerangs clattered by old Nurrugingy and a possum skin drum played by his son Bobby. This Koori man has been granted thirty acres of land with Colebee along the Richmond road and has a small farm but makes some money playing music for the governor. The girls are sent in to dance. At first they are shy and awkward but, as they warm up, boldness takes over and the girls twitch their bottoms, wiggle and prance. Mary enjoys running and stopping, sweeping her feathers in the air, while Mercy flirts outrageously with the audience and sticks her cheeky tongue out at them. Mrs Shelley bends her head in mortification; her instructions in physical culture are all but forgotten – the girls show no ‘decorum’ and they are creating a scene, a shameful spectacle. But when they meet his lordship, the G
overnor, he bows to them and claps his hands.

  They shuffle into the kitchen to be given jam tarts and tea, only to be given a lecture by an Irish ex-convict man-servant: ‘You are much used by these so-called Lords of the Land, the landed gentry. They take your land and you Aboriginal natives become lackeys of the upper classes,’ says the Irishman. Mary knows he is right but, for now, she stuffs her mouth with another jam tart.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1821: BOOTHURI

  Parramatta has grown and has many solid white-washed houses with thatched roofs. The stumps of once-great trees are scattered about the surrounding fields. Sir Thomas Brisbane arrives in the colony to replace Governor Macquarie who has sailed back home to his beloved England. The new governor takes up residence.

  A young, shy Aboriginal man, Boothuri, has been given a week’s employment in the Native School garden. He has come from the mountain people and speaks little English. The girls peer at him through windows and the school overflows with giggling.

  Mary, now nearly sixteen years old, is collecting eggs in the chicken pen when suddenly Boothuri appears beside her. He is a tall, muscled young man, handsome in his grey opossum skin cloak, and when he laughs he shows his shining white teeth. Mary cannot stop looking at him and feeling the energy that pours out of him. She is fascinated. They laugh at each other and she gives him all the eggs. He carefully covers them with his cloak and bounds away over the fence. He appears again, just as suddenly, in the orchard where he eats an apple, standing close, right in front of her.

  As the days go by, Mary is enchanted by his ability to turn up anywhere. He has feather-feet so Mary never hears him approach: he is the perfect thief.

  One day she is in the paddock milking the cow when he appears. He puts his head under the cow and sucks on a teat. It is warm and he is near naked, and close. Mary is bursting with excitement.