by Janet Lee
I am not by rights a natural-born storyteller, although when I have had some beer in me, or a swig of gin, or even a little brandy, I have been known to sing, which is like telling a story, I suppose. But there will be no hope of alcohol coming to me in prison and I have little enough to sing about here.
A nip of courage would make it easier for me to speak, although perhaps it is better to have my wits about me, as when I gave my very first statement to the constable I had been sipping beer and could not remember my story.
I realise I have been thinking for some time, and when I look up, the chaplain is quietly watching me. He has his elbows on the table and his chin resting on his hands. Alice is focused on her fingers, examining one of her nails. They are both waiting for my story to commence.
I look down at my chains. Today I have been whipped and now I am tied up as a punishment.
The chaplain gives me a tiny smile and then he begins to talk of his own life and of his own growing up.
He tells me of his parents, and how they came to the colonies for a new start and to provide a warmer climate for his mother, as this had been recommended by the doctors for the bad cough she had at the time.
Did the warmer climate help her? I ask.
He says nothing, but he looks down.
I do not ask more.
But he tells me some of his story regardless and of his childhood after his mother died. This story might be one which he has often told prisoners, as a way of softening them into speaking with him, for there is no faster way to create a companionship with a person than to speak gently of your mother, or so has been my understanding. He probably has this one ready for condemned prisoners. It might not even be a true story – I have no way of knowing – but then, he is a man of God and so would not lie. I feel I should return his story with one of my own.
I think carefully about how much I should tell him, how might the chaplain hurt me with whatever I say to him, and then I decide there might not be more to be done, for being condemned to die is surely one of the worst places a person might find themselves. I perhaps do not have much time to think of what I should tell him. The government will hang me soon if they can and telling him my story might help me. A few lines about his own mother is not worth much, but perhaps they are worth a start.
I am one of those people who can remember their life from when they were very young, sir, I say.
One of my first memories is sitting on the lap of my sister Elizabeth on the bench outside our small cabin, in the dark.
Even as I speak of it I believe I can smell honey, for when the wattle is flowering there is nothing like it for the smell of honey in the air.
My sister was rocking me on her lap, I tell him, and we were looking up to see the stars. Elizabeth was telling me a story about the stars and Heaven, and though she was only five years older than me, she was like a mother to me, as is often the way with big families, for if there is an older girl in the family she cares for the rest of the brood and helps out her own mother, and so it was for Elizabeth.
Do you still visit with your sister Elizabeth?
I shake my head. Oh no, sir, we have not visited with each other for these many years and we have gone our separate ways as grown women, as you do when you get older. But I always think of her fondly. She was the kindest of sisters when we were children.
And even as I tell him this story of my life, I wonder if it is true. I cannot be sure this is the earliest memory I have, because childhood memories can come in layers, and they can trip you up and then when you add something to the story later you think that part of the memory was there all along. And I have seen the layers of memory at work, most recently, with people thinking back upon things and changing their recollections and adding in words. And not all of those people children neither.
There were many times when I was a child that we sat outside on the bench and I was held by Elizabeth and the air smelt of honey, so I cannot be sure that this time was the first, but I tell him it was anyway.
I am given to thinking he understands I am not telling him the whole story.
10.
The other warder does not come to escort me. Perhaps the prison has forgotten me, or is not used to the routine of having a condemned woman in the gaol.
The chaplain prays over me and then it is just Alice and I who walk back to my new cell. I would not be able to run away, regardless; these chains make it hard to even walk. The stars tonight are lovely. They make me think of my father, as he learnt to read the stars, but perhaps I think of him because of the story I have just told.
I walk back to my cell comforted.
Talking of my childhood memories has taken me from the horror of being condemned and flown me to my youth, which I suppose was the chaplain’s intention.
I sleep well, in spite of the events of the day, or perhaps because of them, for there is nothing like hearing your life will soon end to tire you out. I dream of trees flowering and of pastures of wheat and flocks of sheep, and when I wake, I believe I can smell honey again.
It is not honey. It is the smell of the prison.
Alice had been sitting on the chair when I fell asleep, but when I wake there is another warder, one I have not seen before, sitting there.
She has her head leant back against the wall. She is asleep. There must have been a change of guard through the night, although I did not hear the heavy door of the cell opening. This warder is very thin and spare and looks quite severe, even while sleeping. Her thin black hair is parted in the middle and pulled back tightly behind her ears and she has a bony face and a long pointed nose, which curves downwards to a sharp point. In her black warder’s uniform she has the appearance of being a witch.
She is sleeping so soundly that I could hit her on the head with my slop bucket if I wanted.
I don’t.
I stand from the mattress, and lift the skirt of my gown over the slop bucket and relieve my morning water. The sound wakes the warder and she opens her eyes to see her charge pissing into the bucket.
She does not look away.
When I finish, I go to the water bucket to drink and wash my face. Then I return to my bed, lie down and roll over to face the wall.
Later, I hear the women of the prison with their slop buckets, clattering down the stairs.
A warder comes to empty mine.
I find the procession of piss strangely comforting.
The Catholic prisoners would be heading to church this morning, it being Sunday.
Would they know, I wonder, that I have been convicted, that the jury said I done it? Or might they think that I am released, that another jury could not make up their mind and so this time the court set me free? Flora would know I have gone somewhere, as I was not in her cell. If she does not yet know the details, she will hear soon enough, as the warders will gossip in the laundry tomorrow.
Over the clink of the buckets and the sound of the footsteps upon the stairs, I hear a call from within the walls of the cell block: Chin up, dearie.
Flora.
The warder still has not spoken. There is noise outside and the door is unlocked and Alice comes into the cell, carrying a small chair with her.
Good day to you, Warder Bryce, she says and nods.
I am here to relieve you of your duties, she says, so that you may bring the prisoner some food.
Then Alice turns to me. And I am bringing you a chair, Mrs Collins, she says, that you may have somewhere to sit instead of being required to be on your bed all day, and she gives me a small smile, just a tiny lifting of the corner of her lips, but I see it all the same.
I am grateful as there is something undignified about lying near to the floor while another person sits on a chair, although perhaps it is the fact they sit in a higher position to you, like a king upon a throne, or a judge upon his bench.
And, of course, on the
floor, there are always the rats to consider.
Alice places the chair down and I get up from the bed and sit upon it.
I feel much improved.
Warder Bryce brings me my breakfast. Watery porridge and a cup of strong tepid tea. New tea leaves for Sunday, I think. I am not allowed to go and listen to the do-gooder read. From my cell, I hear the noise she makes, but I cannot make out the words.
All that effort to hold myself tight in court, like her. I might as well have howled and screamed and fainted.
Being tight did me no good. The newspapers said I was cold and heartless.
Sunday afternoon is the time when visitors are allowed to come to the gaol, and though I wait and hope in earnest, that afternoon none come. I am bitterly disappointed, for I desire to see the children, even more so after my terrible sentence. And if they are to come and visit, they will come on a Sunday.
I say this to Alice and she says I should not fret, as she has been told by the Female Governor herself that I will be allowed to have prisoners to visit at any time, because of my conviction. She says the Female Governor is merely waiting for this to be approved by the Prison Governor, and that this will not occur until the next day.
Darlinghurst Gaol has never hung a woman and the gaol does not have specific rules for how to do it, is what Alice means, I think. The government and the gaol do not know how to manage my hanging, now that the judge has told them to do it.
In the meantime, Alice says, I have obtained the Female Governor’s permission to bring you this chair to sit upon, with her compliments.
And so I say, Thank you.
In the evening, I am again taken to visit Canon Rich. I am surprised when the warders take me there, as I had thought he would go home for Sunday evening. But perhaps he does not live very far from the gaol.
It would not be proper for me to ask him where he lives.
As I enter the vestry, he greets me and says he has obtained a Bible for me, which I may take back to my cell later and read. Then he asks me how my day has been.
I sit on the chair and clank my irons onto the table. The Bible is there beside my shackles.
I have not spent a happy day, sir, I say to him, for there have been no visitors for me. I have just sat in my cell and had very sad thoughts.
He sits in the chair opposite me. Sad thoughts? In what way, Mrs Collins? he says gently.
I look at him with some amazement. Has he forgotten I am condemned to hang?
I have had no conversation all day, and have just thought of the day I had yesterday, and so I am feeling very down in spirits. The words burst out of me.
The cruel way the judge spoke to me, sir. I have been thinking of it, the way he seemed pleased that the jury found me guilty after so many trials. When he sentenced me, the judge gave me no hope and said I should find myself a clergyman.
Canon Rich looks at me and nods. And I hope I am going to be able to assist you, Mrs Collins, he says.
But the judge is assuming I done it, I say.
The jury found you guilty, the chaplain says. The judge is saying that you were found guilty by the jury in your trial and because of that, the judge has given you a sentence.
But I was only found guilty at one trial, sir, and there were three other trials before where they could not agree that I done it. So perhaps they should need to find me guilty three more times over to make up for the times they did not find me guilty.
The chaplain answers slowly. I understand why you might think that, he says, but the one guilty verdict is enough.
But after he told me I was found guilty by the jury, the judge asked me if I had anything to say about the law and I told him I did not, because how could I? I am a woman and I do not know what I might say. I cannot pretend to know the law if these men, with all their learning, do not. The law is rules made by men and given out by men and judged by men. A woman has no say in the law, as I understand it.
I said nothing, sir, through all the jury trials. They never asked me the questions they asked everyone else. They never asked me if I done it.
I see the chaplain look at me intently now.
Did you have something you wanted to say, Mrs Collins?
I know what he is asking.
The Bible is sitting on the table between us.
I calm myself.
He waits.
All I am saying, sir, is that the time the judge asked me if I wanted to say anything, I said nothing.
11.
I have no visitors again on Monday.
I sit in the cell with the warder on her chair, looking at me.
I have so much time and nothing to fill it, and I think the days will drag. I want them to be long as that will give me more time upon this Earth if I am not reprieved, but I do not want to spend that time anxious, as I feel today.
Several times through the day I have opened the Bible the chaplain has given me, to try to read a few passages.
My mind wanders. I try not to think of my sentence, as I do not want to spend my days in such a sad way as I was yesterday. I think of my childhood, and I find thinking of this calms me, just as the chaplain said it might. I sit on my chair or lie upon the bed and close my eyes and imagine I am young again. I try to take comfort in the smallest details from my youth.
The chaplain has said I might go to the vestry that evening, so late in the afternoon Warder Anderson and Warder Bryce place my shackles on me and escort me there.
Once we are settled into the chairs, Canon Rich prays.
Then, when he looks up, I do not give him the opportunity to ask me how I had spent my day. I do not give myself the chance to complain about my sentence.
I begin with the story which I have prepared.
I grew up in some lovely places, sir, I say, and my children have often heard me talk of them. My pa would call the earliest property we lived on the land of milk and honey, which is in the Bible, sir.
The chaplain nods, Indeed it is, Mrs Collins, he says.
When I think of it, I picture a place that is always green and lush, with tall trees and the fattest sheep and the best wool. I have no recollections myself, but my father would always speak of the property in this way and so I think of it in my mind as the best of farms.
We moved around to a great many large properties and we lived all over: at Scone, Kayuga, Muswellbrook and Owen’s Gap. My mother would say that my father tended us as though we were sheep in need of new pasture and a move to new paddocks with the change of the season, and she would laugh – she meant it kindly.
When I was a girl, I did not know of Sydney and all its people, or the troubles my life would bring and I was happier for it.
My mother would also say my pa was a good man who was treated ill in his youth, and while she never said how he was treated ill, my father himself would sometimes speak of his troubles, but only to her, you understand. Although children may hear anything that is said between parents.
I stop here, thinking perhaps this is not the time to speak of children and what they will hear. He does not seem to notice.
And your mother? Canon Rich asks.
My mother. I think if I wanted to, perhaps I could blame her for leading me to the current circumstances in which I find myself, for she had wanted me to marry all those years ago, when I was happy at my work. But I do not tell him this.
My mother was a kind mother, sir, and hardworking, and I think I look very much like her, though I have not seen her for many years, and I do not have a photograph.
An early memory I have of my mother is of her dancing – she was sweeping the floor, and I was sitting upon it. I believe I have told you, sir, I am one of those people who has memories from an early age, for I could have been no more than perhaps two years old. One of my sisters was sitting on the floor with me, and we watched as our mother swept, then she sang and beg
an to dance. I remember watching the skirts swing across the floor and she kept singing and dancing. She was swinging the broom and there was the swaying of her skirts and I still think of this memory and smile.
It is a happy memory, he says.
Oh yes, I say, I have many happy memories from when I was a child. And my mother she was a happy person – strict though, never you mind – but happy with her lot in life.
By the time I came along there were already three girls and I made the fourth. Even when we were old enough to help with the housework our mother was very fair, for she would say if we all helped, it would be done quicker. She said we would be a long time grown up and we should play while we might. And I remember happy times in my childhood, which is a nice memory to have, for there are those who cannot remember anything but work from the time they were very young. I was always mindful that my own children had some time to run wild when I became a mother myself.
I pause here and I am thinking of my children and what they might be doing and if they have heard of my being found guilty, for who will have told them? Perhaps the older boys will have read it in the paper, but I do not know if it would be written in there by now. I suppose it must be. I am glad that I was not convicted of killing their father, for that would have been a terrible thing – to have your own mother found a murderess for the killing of your father.
The chaplain prompts me. You were talking of your mother, Mrs Collins, he says. Tell me more of what she was like.
Well, I say, my mother wore her hair parted in the middle, and pulled back into a bun, as was the style. She would brush it out at night and there would be a cascade of black down her back, and she would let us girls brush it for her. I used to think her hair so beautiful, for it was long and lush, and my pa would say it was her crowning glory, and it was, sir. Oh, but she had beautiful hair, although it would be grey now, for it was turning so when I last saw her some years past. I wear a similar pulled-back style since I have been in this place, and I tuck it firmly under the bonnet, for to have my hair out will encourage all the vermin to be welcome, and they already feel welcome enough. And here, there is no way to remove them. I would treat my own children with kerosene and it always made me think of home, on account of the smell, for my parents had the legs of their bed dipped in kerosene.