Benevolence

by Julie Janson

  Mary is escorted by Reverend Smythe through the back door and into the kitchen. He pinches her chin then leaves to join the party on the front terrace. She is to wait for instructions from the butler and, as she waits, she admires the surroundings and leans down to inspect the Indian carpet with its marvellous patterns of lilies in crimson and blue.

  She tiptoes into the library and runs her fingers down the huge books. She sees The Odyssey and wants to tuck it in her dress. Not stealing exactly, but borrowing, but it is too heavy. Then she sees A Thousand and One Nights, with pictures of princes in purple headbands and queens in sheer dresses and capes with jewels cascading down their breasts. There is gold on the pages. The pictured women kneel on lounges with brown nipples peeking from open blouses. Mary sniffs the pages.

  Reverend Masters assembles the servants. He stands with his hands on his hips; his gold rings gleam on plump fingers. He looks at Mary and remembers her as a child at the Native School.

  ‘So little Mary has grown into a fine young woman. How interesting, is it not?’ he says.

  She finds him repulsive and imagines herself atop a horse, stamping Masters to pieces. He has thinning black hair and a large red nose that peers over a long, black cassock with a starched white collar – kept neat by the slave work of the girls at the Female Factory for wayward convict girls. A small tight leather cudgel hangs from his belt and his black eyes wither her. His reputation for flogging goes before him.

  Masters’ servants are a source of information. They say he marches up and down in the library reciting Shakespeare. They say he sleeps naked with a large porcelain doll dressed in a silk nightshirt, but surely this is a silly rumour. Why, he has a wife! They say he abuses his dark-skinned butler, Rodney the Jamaican, who calls him a beef-eating shitty Protestant behind his back. All the female servants love Rodney.

  Masters raises his twitching white fingers above his head. It is said he likes to whip a face, leaving a red welt across a black or white cheek. Sometimes he uses a switch of willow tree to reveal pink flesh. Afterwards, he is known to cry with remorse, dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief and sighing.

  The older girls are instructed to wait on the long oak table where Reverend Masters sits on a great oak chair. He commands the table with the company of Reverend Smythe, Captain Woodrow and the newly arrived Mrs Masters, who is fat and freshly arrived from London. The captain sits beside Mrs Masters, who wears the latest English fashion with chrysanthemums in her curled hair and a green Empire gown with short puffed sleeves. Mary looks at her with admiration but the lady glances back in annoyance, fingering her necklace of silver and pearls and holding her glass just so to show her golden wedding ring. Mary is conscious of her grey smock and linen apron, but she tosses her proud head upwards. She will not bow down.

  Captain Woodrow smiles at Mary and nods to his fellow diners.

  ‘Mary, come here, let us examine you. This girl was at the Native School. She reads and writes very well,’ he says. Mary stands with her hands pressed stiffly to her sides.

  ‘Her role is to wait on tables, not read Shakespeare or play her confouded violin. Why, it’s an abomination, like a cat playing whist,’ laughs Masters.

  ‘I would like to hear her play,’ laughs Woodrow.

  Mary carries a platter of baked potatoes and waits by the table among laughter and clinking crystal glasses. In the centre of the table is a big roast bush turkey surrounded by onions. The Reverend Masters is gobbling a leg with gluttonous pleasure.

  ‘A wager, Captain – you like a bet? I bet that Mary can play a passable jig on her violin,’ says Masters as he waves the turkey leg.

  ‘Are we to expect a cat to dance as well? A shilling says she can’t,’ says Woodrow.

  ‘No, Smythe here says she can,’ he says as he beckons Mary to the table.

  ‘You, little black lass, play for us. You can show off your white-fellow music skills. Bring an instrument, Rodney,’ Masters commands as he wipes his moustache.

  A violin and bow is placed beside Mary.

  ‘I cannot play well, Sir. I will not play for you,’ says Mary.

  ‘Hush, girl. Play for him,’ says Reverend Smythe.

  ‘You will obey. An Irish jig on the violin. Come. We will clap. Play!’ orders Masters.

  ‘I won’t play,’ says Mary.

  Masters pushes the violin into her hands and drags the bow screeching across the strings. Smythe grimaces at her. At last, she nods and gently places the instrument against her chin. She plays a jig and the music is competent and delightful. The party clap.

  ‘Pay up, Woodrow, or add it to your debts,’ says Masters.

  Red wine dribbles down Masters’ immense chin as Captain Woodrow tosses him a shilling. Mary can smell the delicous meat and imagines that she is sucking the bones. She waits for the guests to finish eating and then helps to clear the table.

  In the kitchen, Mary sips the wine dregs and sniffs the dessert plates. She runs her fingers in the cream.

  A crashing of plates in the outhouse draws Mary’s attention. To Mary’s surprise, Mercy comes through the door carrying a great plate of golden wild birds and pigeons. She is all grown up, her face glowing with health and her hair dressed in a white lace cap. Mary is astounded by Mercy’s stature, the majesty in her buxom frame. She makes signs trying to find out when she came here and how is she treated, but Mercy lowers her head. She hands Mary a dish and they both wait in the dining room, Mercy pretending not to understand her friend’s silent inquiries. The pair see Reverend Masters watching them with a scowling face and Mercy sticks her tongue out at him. Mary laughs, then mimics her friend.

  Rodney grabs and admonishes Mercy but she wriggles out of his grasp and flirts with the young, handsome butler and he flirts back.

  ‘Wirawi, yellun yanna weh? Nalla yun? Want to come and run away?’ Mary whispers to Mercy.

  Rodney smacks Mercy across her backside and she laughs, then she is gone. Mary moves to the side of the polished dresser, out of the butler’s way.

  ‘Come, Mary, are you stupid as well as savage? No yabba yabba, ooga booga here,’ says Masters.

  Captain Woodrow shakes his head at the insolence and motions with a finger against his lips for her to be quiet.

  ‘I feel it is an excessive burden for us white men to have to tolerate such behaviour. You are insolent and loud, Mary James,’ says Masters. ‘Do you believe in the Lord our Saviour? Has your precious Reverend taught you your catechism yet? Do you honour the Sabbath? Perhaps you have sold your soul to the devil? Oh, don’t fret. Learn your prayers. Rodney, give her some lemonade. In a tin cup, not a glass. No, in fact, she shall have wine. Now, where is that saucy girl, Mercy?’

  Mercy steps up to the side of the table.

  ‘Yes, Sir. What do you want?’

  ‘A drink of wine for the cheeky fiddle-playing girl,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t drink wine,’ says Mary.

  ‘You do today,’ says Masters as he offers a cup of wine. Mary shakes her head but he pushes it at her.

  ‘She must learn compliance. Mercy, do you remember her?’ asks Masters.

  ‘She was at the Parramatta School with Mary. They can read!’ says Smythe.

  ‘Tell us if this Mary is to be trusted.’ Masters stares at Mercy, who looks defiantly into his face.

  ‘I don’t know nothing, but she been to our Native School,’ says Mercy.

  ‘Know anything, for God’s sake. Grammar is everything. Without it, and manners, we are all savages,’ says Masters.

  ‘She might be a thief. But just fowls,’ Mercy mumbles, and Mary looks at her as if she might punch her.

  ‘Oh no. One cannot tolerate dishonesty in servants,’ says Mrs Masters.

  ‘I did not steal anything,’ says Mary.

  ‘Yes, but she is not a common garden thief. She did steal food from her generous Mistress Shelley,’ says Masters. ‘Thou shalt not steal?’

  ‘Not a thief,’ says Mary.

  ‘No, I suspect she i
s a liar. Someone who denies the good education given to her, then takes off to be a black concubine,’ Masters continues. ‘A woman who sells her quim for money. The Irish lasses are the worst, or best trollop quims, depending on your point of view. What say, eh Woodrow? You would know – a lusty young man such as you?’

  ‘Never,’ says Woodrow.

  ‘Scared of pox, I’ll wager.’

  Masters licks his lips and leans under the table and puts his hand up his wife’s skirt. She screeches, and hits him with her fan.

  ‘Really, Mr Masters! Decorum,’ she says.

  ‘This is polite society, please Reverend,’ says Smythe.

  ‘Polite be damned, I began my work here preaching in an Irish convict hut when it was full of rats. Stinking of gas and worms. Fornication, buggery, quim and twat for sale all about,’ says Masters.

  ‘The Irish have a lot to answer for,’ says Woodrow. ‘The English commanders in Ireland flogged Liam Duggan for three hours and still he did not give up his O’Connell comrades who had burnt a Protestant manor house. He rotted for six months in solitary. They called him the Pride of the Land.’

  Reverend Henry Smythe finds his voice despite being among his superiors.

  ‘Please, I can’t abide these stories. They will distress the ladies. I implore you, Captain, to desist,’ says Smythe.

  ‘The ladies don’t mind. This is the colony! We draw and quarter anyone who stands against the lawful English government, including Blacks,’ says Woodrow.

  ‘Jolly good. Plenty of ‘em here. Observe the Irish in the prisons, all rebellious scum. If there is ever a mixing of Irish and the natives, what an insolent lot they would be,’ says Masters.

  ‘I want some cake,’ says Mercy as she sticks her finger in a gleaming sponge cake on the gold-rimmed plate.

  Mary cannot take her eyes off Mercy. She cannot believe that her school friend has become so obedient. How has the young woman’s face bloomed into radiant beauty in the face of such servitude? The pursed full lips, the hair piled and pinned like a lady with her shapely figure revealed by her maid’s dress and tiny lace apron. In comparison, Mary’s wide linen bonnet hangs around her ears.

  ‘Really, we have not trained her at all,’ says Masters, ‘no speakee unless spoken to. I suppose you can have cake. But first you must dance for the captain, to show that you are a good lass. I will tap a tune on my glass. Come now, entertain us. Tu vas au bal ce soir?’

  He clinks his stemmed glass with a silver fork and Mercy wiggles and prances like a ballet dancer. Mary is astonished. Then Mercy turns her back and lifts her skirt to show her round bare bottom and the whole room laughs, except Mrs Masters, who shudders.

  ‘Oh ho, ho! That’s how we like ‘em. Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry. You could do well at old Drury Lane Theatre,’ says Masters. ‘We will need entertainment at the Governor’s costume ball next month. What do you all think? Mercy, you had better have some cake. And some for Mary because she has earnt her repatriation to the Orphan School where she is learning to respectfully hold her tongue, eh Smythe? Don’t hold back on whipping her. Or whatever you fancy, what ho?’

  He takes a slice of cake and licks the icing before giving it to Mercy. He holds up a finger that has been dipped in cream; she licks it like a cat then gobbles the cake like a starving child. Mary shakes her head. Doesn’t Mercy see that this yellow cake could choke her. Like rat poison. Mary hides her piece of cake in a potted palm.

  The Reverend Masters keeps drinking while speaking loudly and banging drunkenly on the table. At every slam of his fist, the glasses shake. Mary stands frozen to the spot.

  Reverend Smythe turns to Mrs Masters, ‘Your journey was not too distressing, madam?’

  ‘It was such a relief to arrive in this colony and travel down the river to this fine village. Well, at least it was until I had to be carried through the mud and mangroves on a sailor’s back,’ says Mrs Masters.

  ‘Thank heavens for your laudanum, Madam,’ says Captain Woodrow.

  ‘But then I stepped onto dry ground and beheld a new and delightful country. I was delighted to see wild flowers in great abundance. The yellow wattle trees are like the English mimosa with the same almondy smell,’ says Mrs Masters.

  ‘There are evildoers all around us in your Garden of Eden, murderers at every turn. Evil walks this land, believe me,’ says Masters. ‘We have a blind benevolence that drives us to save and indeed my kindness has saved many a tribal person from starvation. I would not deny your countrymen bread, eh Mary?’

  ‘I don’t know. Only they are hungry,’ says Mary.

  ‘Bread, of course. But we need to save souls and instil morality. God will save you all,’ says Smythe. ‘But really, Mrs Masters, this place is not as bad as people say. Many people are very civilised. Some natives come to my church wearing garments such as pantaloons. Look at our lovely Mary here. She will eventually become a willing servant of God and master.’

  ‘I want to improve my situation, Sir,’ says Mary, but she is ignored.

  ‘On one occasion I was made conscious of some natives along the riverbank,’ says Mrs Masters, ‘but they were not numerous. They seemed to have short curly hair, no doubt crawling with vermin. But what is peculiar is that they had white teeth.’ She looks at Mary’s teeth as she rubs them with her apron.

  Mary wants to tip gravy over their heads.

  ‘We fixed ‘em, didn’t we?’ Masters jokes.

  ‘They are by no means as ugly as one had expected from my husband’s letters. I also hear that if you give the native one thing, they will always expect to be given things,’ says Mrs Masters.

  ‘Rubbish. They are given weekly rations or, like your native girl here, have suitable employment,’ says Masters. ‘And I see to it that the native servants learn an appropriate demeanour.’

  ‘Quite. One’s race, colour or birth has little consequence in the eyes of God. Shepherds are butchered by Blacks and then they, in turn, are butchered,’ says Smythe.

  ‘But no gratitude. The settlers and the military all together go in search of the felons who shout about choking darkies, shooting black crows,’ says Masters. ‘All spitting speeches about hangings to find retribution for the outrages against innocent white women, which gives them the reason to commit outrage and torture the natives. As if our evil has not already been passed on in pestilence, syphilis and smallpox.’

  ‘I saw it when I arrived in 1789. Natives call it gal gal, all covered in yellow oozing pustules brought by La Perouse’s ship in a cordial. Sadly they died like flies,’ says Captain Woodrow.

  ‘Oh my, how terrible!’ Mrs Masters cries, reaching for her napkin.

  ‘As Pater would exclaim, “Truth is admirable”. More Madiera wine, anyone? I will myself. Good for my health. No cases of smallpox on the First Fleet, clean as a whistle. The natives abandoned those that demonstrated disease and fled into the bush. But wherever we British travelled, the natives rolled over and died,’ says Masters.

  ‘It was like the Indian slums pestilence,’ says Captain Woodrow.

  ‘After a while, we saw no bark canoes fishing in the harbour. It had been alive with natives, then silent,’ says Masters.

  ‘Piles of bones in caves. Oh dear, look at little Mary’s face. Sorry, dear. She has a great heart, I am informed, great compassion towards others, especially Smythe’s pet orphans. All those dying whore babies. That right, Mary dear?’ asks Masters.

  Mary does not lift her head. She wants to feed him to the dogs. He enjoys watching her face when he speaks his venom. There is much she could say to these pieces of evil coming from his mouth but the chasm of ignorance is too deep. She imagines him chewed up, in mud.

  ‘David Collins has written about it: the dead left to bury the dead. No need for military action; nature took care of it all,’ says Woodrow. ‘That old Chief Berringingy also died with a small boy at his side; not sure why. He was found with his weapons all laid out as though he expected it.’

  ‘Influenza, I suspect
. A shame,’ says Masters.

  ‘Who, sir?’ says Mary.

  ‘Berringingy and a boy.’

  Mary is stiff. She shudders and tries to recall the last time she saw her father. She tries to conjure him up from the mist. Her head pounds. She falls to the floor in a faint.

  The party stops and stares.

  ‘Whatever is the matter with the girl? So impulsive and headstrong. Mary! Stand up straight! Say a prayer for our Lord,’ says Masters as she stands. Mary’s eyes flutter open and she lifts her head.

  ‘He’s not dead. You liar! You tell lies! He’s alive! He will come for me. He loves me. Not dead!’ Mary hisses, and sobs.

  ‘Calm yourself! All will be well. We will find out the truth about this Berringingy. No crying,’ says Henry Smythe. He waves his hand like a flag of truce.

  Masters watches Henry Smythe, who is clearly resisting his desire to hold Mary. Smythe wants to say that he suspects the dead man is her father and is sorry for it. Old Granny Wiring had given him this story of Mary’s family. But he stays at the table and holds his head in his hands and prays. Finally he pushes back his chair and takes a handkerchief to Mary. He mops her face as the room watches with curiosity. She has become their entertainment.

  She silently begs to leave the room. Her father’s face smiles at her. She closes her eyes, breathes him in, for he will never leave her waking and dreaming thoughts.

  ‘Does she conjure devils? I hear they speak to spirits, and dance naked for abominable purpose,’ says Mrs Masters.

  ‘Perhaps she flies at night?’ says Masters.

  ‘They burn them at the stake back home,’ says Mrs Masters.

  Mary’s rage and sorrow becomes intolerable and she reaches for the table cloth. She wants to make glasses break and plates shatter. But she cannot move. She holds her arms tight, her anger imploding.

  Smythe returns to his seat and they ignore Mary now, and carry on their conversation.

  ‘I hope that he who fed Elijah in the wilderness will not let us feel that calamity of famine,’ says Masters. ‘Then the natives might get the upper hand with murder and rape. I have been partial to a little rape of the Sabine women myself … Pass the salt.’