by Julie Janson
‘Well, quite, that is the point. Please think about my position. I can give you silver coat buttons to help you pay for your travels.’
‘You’re going to throw me out?’ Panic rises in her throat. She can hardly breathe. Memories of being given away hit hard.
‘So you will not go, then? Well, just stay away from the church,’ he mutters.
‘I will not.’
‘You will be damned,’ he says.
Henry strokes the baby’s head and walks around the room. He sings nursery rhymes and smiles into her face but something has changed in him. He will not look at Mary.
Another year passes and Mary keeps her distance from Henry, and cares for her baby while working in the laundry. There are few friends but she hopes she will see Mrs Shelley in the Parramatta Street. She doesn’t attend church any more, because Mary is shunned. She hopes that if she runs into Mrs Shelley, she will admire her daughter, but never ask about the father, because she is far too kind.
But there are changes happening in the household of Reverend Henry Smythe. There is a rustle of constant letter writing. Henry is making plans to marry a woman from England who he has not met. He orders a new suit of clothes and some modest jewelry for the wife-to-be.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1830: THE NEW BRIDE
One third of migrants who came to Australia after 1830 paid their own passage. Conditions for settlers and ex-convicts are much better than back in Europe. The Emigration Commission is established to assist females to move to Australia. There is a need for women as domestic servants and agricultural workers. Some come as engaged future wives to men they have never met; one is engaged to Henry Smythe.
Governor Darling has made a decision to invite all the tribes to a meeting and corrobboree at Parramatta. It is time for the twelfth annual Conference of Tribes and the Annual Native Feast.
The chiefs Blang, Dual, Cogie, Boodeny and Nurrugingy arrive in the town. They will receive blankets and clothes for their clans. There are rumours whispered among the native servant girls that the famous warrior Windradyne, the Wiradjuri chief from over the mountains, will be missing from this meeting. He will not pay court to the white-man king despite the promise of gifts of tobacco and rum.
Mary talks with the other servants. ‘Last time Chief Windradyne rode a big horse to that feast. He came with three waibala and walked all over Sydney like he was the king himself,’ says Mary. ‘That other chief, old Bungaree, he is finished up now. Too bad.’
Mary hears about the abundance of food to be had at the party that she cannot attend. There are forty loaves, twenty-two monstrous dishes of roast beef, thirteen plum cakes, a huge hogshead of soup, several tubs of potatoes and a hogshead of three-watered grog. But they are not permitted to attend the annual feast, for they have jobs to do and, what is more, are lectured by Smythe about being civilised Aborigines with no need of interaction with their sable brethren. She groans at the unfairness of being kept indoors away from such a meeting and feast.
The Sydney Gazette reports gleefully about a future war between the Cowpastures tribes and the Liverpool mob, who are clans of the Gundungurra people. Much bloodshed is expected and the serving girls talk about the possibility of inter-clan fighting.
And anyway, there are more important things to talk about: the new bride, who will be Mrs Henry Smythe, is about to arrive and take up her position as mistress of the home. Reverend Henry Smythe is beaming with pride. He has married Susan in a swift service performed by the Reverend Masters which was all hymns and candles. Mary was not invited. She is working in the laundry amongst blue bags and Borax starch.
Leaning against the piano, the tattered red velvet coverlet bunches in Mary’s fists. She sniffs at the sight of the bugg pulling up in the courtyard. She is tired from pacing and not sleeping. Her starched apron scratches and lace frills strangle her. She pleads for the strength to remain controlled, with no outbursts. She will bite her lip and maintain the picture of a docile servant even when it is repellent – all this ridiculous curtsying and bobbing!
Mary holds her hands in prayer and watches out the window at Henry’s nervousness. He looks uncomfortably up at the window as he takes the gloved white fingers to steady his new wife as she climbs down from her carriage. Mary titters to herself as she sees that Smythe has left the Bible page marked: ‘Thou will crawl on your belly and thou shalt eat dust all the days of thy life.’
She watches his face glow red as he looks up again to the window. Mary’s eyes latch onto his and, in this glance, the whole betrayal is before her. He is blushing and sweating and stinking up his suit with nerves. She hears him call out, ‘The serpent beguiled me and I ate … Thou art cursed above all livestock and all wild animals.’
Reverend Masters accompanies Mrs Smythe and Henry as they are ushered into the drawing room. Mary stands by the door waiting for orders. A cool wind blows with Susan Smythe for she has the haughty air of the English gentry and sniffs the room like a wallaby. She is tall and thin and elegant in a fashionable gown.
‘I find it quite shocking. This country is so dry with so many dead trees and crackling leaves. It seems a barren landscape from hell. I miss the verdant pasture of southern England,’ says Mrs Smythe.
Even in this first moment of meeting there is an unspoken friction as the bride looks disdainfully at the furnishings and at the servant. Mrs Henry Smythe’s eyes rest on Mary’s pretty face and a snarl comes from the white woman, for instinct will tell her more than words. Henry shows Susan his home and his nature display.
‘My dearest. I have a superb specimen collection of eucalyptus, the family Mytaceae. You must see them later. I have over a hundred specimens,’ says Henry Smythe.
‘How peculiar you can be, and dull. I prefer the pale pink tea roses I grew in England,’ says Mrs Susan Smythe.
The room has new furnishings including curtains made of dark red damask and there are glass bowls of roses on the oak table. Mary brushes the chair with a duster and shows the bride where to sit. For a moment, she thinks she might place an upturned pincushion on the seat. She decides against it but comforts herself by imagining the bride holding her arse and howling.
Mrs Smythe leans over the pale pink tea roses and inhales, then smiles at the simpering Smythe as he sighs a nervous breath. A perfume of lily of the valley wafts after her and Mary secretly holds her breath for this smell is overpowering, sweet and sinister. It reminds her of vomit. Mrs Smythe wears a dress of purple shot silk. Its huge lace petticoat rustles beneath voluminous layers. Mary wonders if the husband will be able to find his bride’s moondra, her quim, amongst the frills.
The house is gleaming thanks to Mary’s elbow grease and she watches the new bride’s every move. She is unclear how this new person will fit into this house of secret sighs and longings.
She is now summoned to bring in a tea tray and serve her new mistress. Mary places a plate of pink ice candies on the tray before Reverend Masters and the newly married couple. She fantasises about pouring hot tea on the bride. Instead, she retires to her room and sulks.
Mary thinks about Henry’s skin and how it glistens with sweat when he rides above her with clenched teeth. She thinks about his long artistic hands and penetrating, white titillating fingers. She thinks about Boothuri and lying beneath ghost gum trees on a soft grey bed of possum fur. She thinks about Granny Wiring and her supposed wisdom in bringing her here. She might never see that old woman again.
She wonders why she is so easily led and has no steel to leave this ridiculous prison. She wonders what will become of her daughter. His daughter. She wishes she was somewhere else.
She knows she must snap out of this way of thinking – or she will be doomed to misery.
…
That night, a welcome dinner party is hosted by Reverend and Mrs Smythe, with Masters, Woodrow and some other ladies and gentlemen. Mary polishes the silverware and helps prepare the meal. Candles are lit in the candelabra. The party is about to eat golden roast fowls
with potatoes gleaming with butter, accompanied by decanted Spanish wine. Mrs Smythe has supervised the cooking of colonial dishes such as yams and boiled wild spinach with roast mutton, followed by creamed lilly pilly fruit with goat’s milk.
Mary wonders if she should leave before she is thrown out. It would be good not being cooped up in a dark house. She imagines herself walking back to Kurrajong or working on an estate with a good young husband. She collects plates from the table and stands at the side, listening.
‘Mrs Smythe, are you enjoying your new life in the colony? You will no doubt enjoy the availability of meat and grain. In the early days we had little,’ says Masters. ‘You have heard that Old Mr MacArthur is suffering from insanity? Daft as a dill brain. Not meeting his government quota. Half the settlement is dependent on government handouts. Eh, Henry? And that Captain King is regaining his spirits, which have been much depressed owing to the losses of sheep to natives and the wild dogs and dingoes. He also collects botanical specimens.’
‘I would like very much to share my knowledge of native species,’ says Smythe.
‘No-one wants to talk about botany. But life here is quite entertaining. The mixed company of the colony is sometimes alarming, but some native tribes are tres intéressant n’est ce pas?’ says Masters.
‘Very interesting. And married life, does it suit our previously lonely curate?’ Woodrow leans towards Henry and grins.
‘I was never occasioned to complain of being lonely,’ says Smythe. ‘I have my native plants and I am interested in the tribal languages and of course we have our crops of barley, wheat and maize. I have committed to new crops in spring.’ He is quick in his own defence.
‘Plants. Rather dull. My humble congregation is bursting with merry company, what with the odd praiseworthy mulatto from the Americas and even, for Heaven’s sake, a contingent of Maoris from New Zealand,’ says Masters, ‘full of fulsome praise for their church back home. I thought they would have cannibalised all the English by now. Boiled in a pot! But no, here they are all sitting up in our church, tattooed and respectably dressed. C’est la vie. What next? Asiatic wives in our beds? At it like wet rabbits. That would be a bit exciting, eh? We have all sorts here – an exotic persuasion, eh Henry?’ Masters laughs and slaps Mary’s bottom. She drops a blue and white plate and it smashes into shards.
‘Silly girl! Get a brush and sweep it up,’ says Masters.
Susan and Mary share a look – a moment of shared vulnerability. In some ways, they are both servants to these men.
‘I concede that I, on a few occasions, felt loneliness,’ says Smythe.
‘Oh, here we go!’ says Masters.
Mary feels tension between the married couple. She feels a terrible burden of knowledge.
‘Very lonely but not too hard working, eh? Naturally, Henry had plenty of time for the … um … natives. The pretty lasses are amendable or bendable, what ho?’ says Masters. ‘All those misplaced starving wretches. Pass the bung-head liquor, it is so much more satisfying then weak wine.’ He drinks a glass of the white fiery liquor.
Masters is looking at Henry, who is staring with a pale face at his new wife.
Mary can’t keep quiet in the face of Henry’s ridicule. She steps up to the table and with uncontrollable emotion speaks out, ‘Reverend Smythe cares for us and the orphans and is very kind. He gave the children some sugared ginger from China, yesterday. Without him, we might be all starved,’ says Mary.
‘Mary, ginger indeed. Are you not aware that you are just a servant. Don’t speak of Reverend Smythe. He is not your concern,’ says Susan.
Mary looks at Susan, and she realises that the wife knows everything by sheer feminine intuition. It will be an uneasy atmosphere in the house and a place where whispers will be heard.
Masters laughs loudly and pushes his napkin against his mouth. He is quite taken by the drink.
‘Golly gosh! The Reverend Masters has drunk too much, haven’t you, Sir?’ Henry Smythe helps him to his feet while Mary runs into the corridor.
The new wife is from green England, where the witches and fairies come from. She has brought along a Scottish piper from the old country. He plays a horrid noise on a bagpipe after the dinner party, and the singing goes on until after ten.
Mary is with an Irish maid in the kitchen and as they wash dishes she whispers, ‘I listen to him making love to his wife and I need to escape from this place. He says he will care for us but he lies. If I go, they will send police to get me. I’m indentured. I might get put in gaol; he tells me this,’ says Mary.
‘Leave it alone. You must forget about him. He is a rascal, like they all are,’ says the maid.
…
Susan Smythe begins her life in the Orphan School and starts to take an interest in the experimental corn crop and the new Indian maize and vegetables. She is not a bad mistress, giving orders with a nervous flutter to her black servants. Mary watches Henry behind her back and the tension is terrible. He is terrified that Mary will reveal his sins.
An icy jealousy courses through Mary and she cannot stand the sight of Henry embracing his wife. Mary imagines the new wife caught in the laundry mangle or eaten by dingoes or falling down the stairs. The desire to kill her mistress is a shocking surprise and it makes her sick.
…
One morning Henry Smythe summons Mary to the library as he has some information to share with her. She sees her beloved books now placed on a high shelf, out of her reach. She gazes at the volumes and wishes she could take some with her.
‘I have made inquiries and it seems that the tribe from which you were taken has dispersed. They were close to Windsor on the creek near Riverstone, which is of course the old Reverend’s land. So I have asked about your release from your indenture and the suitability for you to join the Windsor Burruberongal mob, however I hear that they have walked off too, and no-one knows where they are. So, what to do now? It must be the Liverpool tribe, after all,’ says Smythe.
‘Don’t worry. We’ll go in the summer. You won’t need to worry about us,’ says Mary.
Mary folds the linen clothes, stroking the cleanliness, inhaling the smell of lemon and lavender. She places dresses in her basket and thinks of a time in the future when she will carry them on her head with Eleanor walking beside her. Mary dreams of the path to Liverpool and has heard that Chief Gilbert and King Geoffrey might welcome her. She is their distant kin from her mother’s side.
Her beloved aunts might be there. They would love her and not despise her for being enslaved by waibala. But she finds it hard to leave, despite her thoughts. She is forced to watch the new loving couple and aches with wanting her lover. The anger inside her grows. She scratches at insect bites, and is distracted and fierce with anyone she speaks to. She hides in corners listening to the married couple’s banter so she can find some torment to inflict on him. She puts a poisonous funnel-web spider in their bed, but the Irish maid finds it, takes it in a pot and empties the spider outside. She squashes it and gently leads Mary back to her work in the laundry.
One night, Mary slips up to Henry’s bedroom to listen at the door. The lovely marriage room is no longer a single curate’s room and is still hung with the wedding garlands of wild flowers.
She can hear his familiar sighing as a hot pulse of love runs through her body. She feels sure the embracing couple will hear her heavy breathing.
Mary looks through the keyhole and sees the wife lying as still as death with her body rigid, her hands pressed against the sheet and her teeth clenched. This must be a shocking event for an English lady. Mary presses her hands between her legs and a sigh escapes, then a sudden quiet.
‘Is someone there, Henry? Outside our door?’ says Susan.
‘Nothing, my love. A mouse.’
A mouse? Mary will give him ‘mouse’! She crashes the stairs with a broom. She wants to shout but nothing comes out.
The days grow colder and Mary is usually in the kitchen cutting up salt beef or making porrid
ge with her daughter by her side, learning as little children do. Eleanor grows into a headstrong and excitable girl and Cook often has her by the wrist to punish her for stealing or spitting in the flour bowl. Eleanor runs about the house and she jumps from couch to couch and the maids chase her with brooms.
…
A year later, Mary has still not left the house and a change is in the air. Henry has become less vigilant, and he now admires Mary openly when his wife is absent. Mary has accepted the role of wife number two – for the moment. Mary’s violin playing is beautiful and Henry lies on the settee in the sunlight, listening to the music and conducting with his finger. He holds Eleanor in his lap and plays horsey with her. It is a scene of domestic bliss.
Mary indulges Henry’s irresistible longings as he touches her when she brushes past. One day in darkness, he finds Mary in the pantry.
‘I am so sorry, Mary. I love you and know I have committed crimes. I am a bastard son,’ says Henry Smythe. ‘Have compassion for a poor sinner. I will protect the little one and you. I can love two women equally.’
‘You might have married me. Other white men marry native women,’ says Mary.
‘As a respected minister of the Church of England, I must lead the way in respectability and moral order.’
Suddenly, they realise that Susan is at the door looking hard at the two of them.
‘Henry, may I have a word with you?’ Susan’s voice is crisp.
‘Of course, my dearest. What is it?’ asks Henry.
‘What is it? You must know what I am about to say! It pains me, I can barely speak,’ she says.
‘I have no idea! Are you ill? I am not a mind reader. Speak!’ he demands.
She stands stock-still and stares at Mary. Henry reaches out his fingers and touches her arm, but Susan brushes him away and snaps at him.
‘I will not tolerate your harlot in my home,’ says Susan.
‘You are going quite mad; it’s the heat, my dearest. Why don’t you lie down and we will get some tea,’ says Henry.