The Killing of Louisa

by Janet Lee

  But I kept the five pounds for Herbert.

  Before long, another child was on the way and then my boy Ernest was born. I did not think I could love another child as my heart was so full of love for Herbert, but as a mother you find more and more love for each baby, and that has been the case for me, sir, with all of my children.

  I was kept very busy, with two boys to care for. Ernest was only a little thing when he was born, although he grew well enough.

  24.

  Not long after Ernest was born, Charles heard of a carting business in Muswellbrook being for sale, with a larger cottage into the bargain, so he decided to purchase the business and we moved.

  At the time, I was not sorry to leave Merriwa, for I did not like to see the Missus and her new girl in church and about town, and Cook and Bert did not come and visit the way they had, though we were polite enough when she came into the shop for her meat. I thought that a move to a new town might be just the thing for Charles and me, and my own parents had moved around a great deal, so I was used to it, sir.

  I dug up my rose bush and put it in a tin pot, for I had seen my mother do the same with plants when we had moved from farm to farm.

  In Muswellbrook, things went well for a time and we soon had another baby, my boy Reuben. Charles had plenty of work as a carrier and he and King were kept very busy. I went with him once and the children and I visited my parents for the day, as he was going to be near where they were working at the time.

  But my little Ernest began to be unwell and have fevers and he threw several fits and these were terrible to see. When he was about three he caught the croup, for it were a particularly bad winter for croup and after that, well, I never thought his lungs were quite right, as in the months which followed he seemed to always have a cough or a cold. I tried the rubbing of the camphor and the soaking of his feet, but nothing would seem to bring the boy any relief.

  One morning he simply did not wake. We had heard nothing during the night. We had the habit of taking our little ones into bed with us when they were unwell. He was just lying there when we woke, and for a time I thought he was asleep.

  He looked so peaceful, sir.

  We laid him on the kitchen table and the arrangements were made. I did not have time to get any proper mourning, although we had no money for such things either, as when you go into mourning proper, it is to be new clothes for the whole family.

  He was buried at the church in Muswellbrook, in a little grave up the back. Charles and Herbert and I walked there with the minister and Charles carried the coffin. He had made the coffin from rough timber and he laid the little box in the ground. I held Herbert’s hand and also carried Reuben, who was only a baby, and he wriggled and squirmed as they do at that age, him not knowing what we were about. Herbert, I think, understood, being older.

  When the soil was covered over, I had a single rose off my own bush and I placed that upon the bare soil. Then we stood and looked at the piece of ground.

  I did not know what I should do, without my beautiful child.

  But as we stood there I thought of my little boy, down under the ground, all alone, with no mother to hold him, and I could not bear it. I said to Charles that we should dig up the box and open the lid, that I might hold Ernest one more time, and that I needed to have a lock of his hair, but Charles said it was too late. And I said it was not and I needed this as a remembrance and then he took my arm, very gentle he was, sir, and he patted my back with his other hand and said it was too late, and I began to cry, for I had not really had a good weep until that moment. It was the shock of it all, I suppose.

  And then Charles took hold of Herbert and Reuben and we walked home.

  I thought as my heart would break on account of losing Ernest, for it is a terrible thing to lose a child.

  For a while, I suppose I became a bit like the Missus, because I visited that little patch of soil up the back of the cemetery every chance I could, although it was not every day. And I worried about that lock of hair, as I should have cut it when he was with us and I would have been able to cut it if only my husband had dug up the box when I had asked him. But of course it was too late for such a thing, even a day after.

  Sometimes I would visit the grave at night as well, after I had been to the hotel, and I would sit there after having had a few drinks, and I would talk to my little Ernest. I did so want to have some sort of marker upon the grave, and I used to think of the grand statue that the Missus had for her child and I wanted something like that for mine. Charles made a simple timber cross which we placed into the ground, and it said Ernest Andrews, but I suppose that has rotted away now, as the timber markers do not last.

  This was the beginning of our sad times.

  After working carting for some years, Charles went back to butchering, and we had a shop and the house which came with it. The shop went well in the start and Charles said we would own it outright before too long, for he had borrowed money to buy the shop, sir, although I do not rightly know exactly how much, for he did not discuss our money with me. The house was not attached to the shop, and so it did not have quite the same smell of meat, and the slaughter yard was on the next corner, so King was able to have his stable away from the blood.

  But then business dropped away and we began to lose money, so we moved to a smaller house. And then Charles cut his arm. He was slicing up an old pig and his knife slipped and slid straight up his arm, but it did not make too much of an injury and the cut was so small that it did not even need stitching and so at first he was not too worried. Being a butcher, he often had cuts from his work. But the wound got infected and before long he had great streaks of red creeping up his arm and I needed to apply potato poultices to ease the infection out, and Charles took to his bed. Oh, sir, he was very ill, and stayed abed several days.

  We had a young boy, Thomas his name was, come to work in the shop while Charles was ill and Thomas gave all who would listen updates on the infection. And it was his mouth that was the undoing of us because word spread that Charles was unwell on account of an infection from a pig, and so when Charles went back into the butcher shop there were those who would not buy meat from him. There was another butcher shop and so many of our customers simply went and bought their meat there. Even though Charles had been working for years as a butcher and this was the first time he had been ill.

  And then we struggled to repay the loan we had taken out. Of course it cost us more to live as we now had five children, for we had added Arthur and Frederick and May to Herbert and Reuben. The five were not counting little Ernest, sir, buried in the cemetery.

  I cannot rightly recall all of the details, but Charles came to think that he would be better off working for someone else and that we should move to Sydney.

  So this was what we did, because by then we had lost the business and our home. The man we owed money to was a kind enough man, even though he was rich, and he allowed me and the children to stay in our house while Charles rode to Sydney to see about work.

  Charles came back saying as we should try our hand in the city, for he had been able to get work as a labourer until we could save the money to buy another shop, and he knew Sydney, sir, for he had lived there previously.

  We packed our dray and hitched up King, and brought our few things with us and headed to Sydney. I wrote to my mother to say that we were leaving Muswellbrook and moving to Sydney and that I did not know the address where we would be staying, but that I would let her know just as soon as I did. It was a sad day when we drove out of town, because we’d driven into Muswellbrook with such hopes and we had begun so well.

  But after our time there, nearly some ten years it was, we were leaving and leaving our dear little boy in the cemetery and owing a great deal of money, so it was not at all as we had planned. Charles did not like owing money to anyone, sir, and he worked hard to pay back all he had lost, and so my parents were right about hi
m being a hardworking man, and though it made life hard for us to be repaying what we owed, we did try to repay it. When we left Muswellbrook I remember I was nervous to be leaving the country, for I had never been to Sydney before, although Charles had told me many stories about the city.

  But had I known what was awaiting me here, sir, and that I would be locked up in this place?

  Then surely, I would never have come.

  25.

  We did not exactly move to the middle of Sydney, for I have since learnt the size of this city and the centre is a long tram ride away from where we settled. But to someone from the country the city is all the same.

  We moved about but the area we eventually settled in was called Botany Bay, although you will be no doubt aware of that, sir.

  The trip to Sydney is one of the happiest memories I have of Charles, for even though we had left owing money, we both enjoyed the journey down – camping with the children on the side of the road and making a little fire at night and then sleeping on the dray under the stars. We made steady progress from Muswellbrook to Sydney as we wanted to hurry for his work, because he did not want his new boss to give the work to someone else.

  I said that it would be a nice way to live, like a gypsy, travelling and sleeping by the side of the road, and he said it would at that.

  This was the only time I could remember him not working, and he was a different man, sir, and not so tired.

  Though it was a nice journey, it was only when we were on the road that I perhaps realised how far away Sydney was. I did not like the thought of going away from my parents, even though I did not see them as much as I would have liked. Sydney seemed to be so very far and I wondered if I might ever see them again at all.

  And I never did see my father again, sir.

  And now I think of how I may never see my mother.

  But you may write to her, Louisa, the chaplain says. You may write as many letters as you need, now you are in this situation.

  Situation, I think.

  Tell me more about first coming to Sydney, Louisa, he says.

  Well, sir, I say, apart from this consideration, well, I suppose I began to allow myself to be caught up in the excitement of something new. Mr Andrews told me of some of the sights which could be seen in Sydney. He told stories of the big harbour and the towering buildings and the shops and how many streets had been cobbled. He had lived in Sydney as a younger man, although much later when I learnt how the city had driven his own father to such distraction, I wondered why he should be bringing his family there. But I was a wife and so I followed my husband where he led, and, also, I did not know the details about his father at the time.

  When we came to the outskirts of the city, everyone seemed to be in a hurry. We had stopped at a crossroad and two men approached the wagon and made to take hold of King by the head, on the pretext of taking us where we were wanting to go, but my Charles shooed them away, making it clear that he knew where we were headed, and they left sharply.

  I marvelled at the sights to be seen. All the ladies wore fine dresses and big skirts and carried umbrellas. There seemed to be hundreds of women all over the city, all dressed smartly in black and grey and all busy walking to somewhere else.

  When I first saw the great harbour, well, sir, I could not believe that such a big piece of water could be a bay and I thought it was the sea. I said to Charles that surely England must lie on the other side of all that water, and he laughed, but not unkindly. And when I think back, I am inclined to laugh myself, but you can imagine, sir, what it was like upon first seeing such a large thing.

  My own father had once spoken of coming to Sydney and he said a more beautiful harbour you would never see, and no doubt he was right although I have not seen any to compare.

  Charles’s work was across the other side of the city and we still had a day to travel, and so we pulled over. We camped in a park on the wayside and Charles assured me that the following day’s journey would not be so long and that we would be in our cottage by the next night.

  I did not sleep so well when we were close to the city, for it is one thing to be sleeping under the stars in the bush, where you must only worry over snakes and bandicoots, but quite another when you are in the city and must worry over thieves, for we had little enough and I did not want it stolen.

  The next day, we still seemed to go a long way, and I recall thinking there could never be a place with so many streets. But we came to the place they call Berry’s Paddock and Charles took the work he had arranged. He worked for a bone dust factory, which made fertilisers, and he worked there several times over the years as the work required.

  And it was while we were living there that I had my seventh child, my boy Edwin. A woman from Berry’s Paddock helped me with the birth.

  We did not stay in Berry’s Paddock long on that occasion as Charles soon found better work.

  We moved to Botany, to an area called Frog’s Hollow. I believe it is called this on account of the many frogs who live there, for they do make such a noise.

  At Frog’s Hollow, we had to leave the wagon and horse and walk across a small footbridge to the cottage. I left one of the older boys, although I cannot remember which one, standing with the horse, with instructions to call out if anyone was to try to steal our cart.

  There were a few cottages around, a row of neat little buildings, and I learnt one of these was to be ours. Pople’s Terrace the cottage row was called.

  The address of our cottage was number one and we were very pleased with what we found. It was only small, just the two bedrooms, but it was well built and it had glass windows.

  There was a front room, and then a bedroom off to the side, and then a back room that led to the kitchen. Behind the kitchen there was a yard which had a little washhouse and an area for the privy. Beyond that was scrub and swamp, and you could head down a little path to a type of beach area, or a swampy ground, where the children set to playing.

  Charles said there would be milk deliveries, and the baker would come and bring his bread on the back of his old cart.

  And the night soil man came, which we had not had before, although he was not one with whom you would socialise, sir, but someone you were always glad to see, nonetheless.

  There was a hotel and a grocer, Mr Sayers, who was just up the road from the cottages, and later that day his worker came down as we settled in with our furniture and gave us a loaf of bread and a small pot of jam, saying this was with the compliments of the grocer and asking if we could return the pot when we had finished the jam.

  Charles was quick to say how friendly the grocer was, and I suppose because I was tired and the baby was fussing and irritable, I said they had sent the bread and jam to ensure I bought more from their shop when I took back the pot. He said that was unkind and I snapped at him and we quarrelled some, as husbands and wives do. I thought better of my words later and so I said he had done well to find us such a comfortable home, and I would be sure to go to the grocer shop and thank them directly.

  Perhaps it was our quarrel, I do not know, but I found it hard to sleep that first night in Pople’s Terrace. There was the strangeness of having new people right upon your doorstep and I could hear noise coming from the various sleeping quarters in the cottage row.

  Charles slept out on the dray that night, for it filled the whole of the laneway and he was feared someone might steal it. He hobbled King nearby.

  Before dawn, I got up and gave Charles some tea and bread and jam, which was some of the jam from the grocer, before he went off to the fellmongers where he was to work. He was to take the dray and King with him, for he had arranged to sell them to his new boss as part of the deal for his position as we had found King hard to keep in the short time we had been in the city.

  I stood and patted the old horse, for he was quite old by then, sir, and I told him that he was a good horse and had served us
well and that as I may not see him for a while I would miss him. I stood for quite some time rubbing the nose of the horse, while Charles had his tea and ate his bread. I hope whoever took King treated him well, but I suspect he went to the knackers.

  The children were still sleeping as Charles turned the wagon to go to his new employment and the first rays of the sun were smearing the sky. It was as though blood washed upon the black on account of the great streaks of red, not yellow as normally greets the morning, and I shivered. I remember standing in the road, watching my husband walk away our horse and dray, and I recalled the saying.

  You know the one, sir?

  Red sky in the morning … shepherd’s sure warning.

  My father was a shepherd, sir, and so I knew what that sky meant.

  26.

  In the first few weeks that we came to Pople’s Terrace, we were a great novelty in the road, as any new family moving into a street always is. The children made friends with the children of the neighbours and the boys, particularly being of the age to do so, played cricket with the other boys, and they would be out on the road playing for most of the day. I had no concerns about them being on the road, for the trams did not come that far and no horses or carts ever came up the street as they couldn’t cross the footbridge.

  Now, as I have said, the cottages were close to each other, and we all shared walls and these were thin, so all of our stories were known to each other for there are no secrets in such places. If one couple is rowing, well, you can hear it all over. We all lived in each other’s pockets. And so we soon knew each other’s most intimate business and we were in and out of each other’s houses and the children played together, but I had experience of this, from living in the country, and so I knew about gossip.

  Charles settled into a routine there at Pople’s Terrace and found plenty of work.

  And as for me, well, by that time, I seemed to spend all my days cooking and cleaning and tending the little ones and so in many ways it did not matter whether I was in Sydney or Merriwa or Muswellbrook. But I did find the noise of so many families all jammed in together very tiresome and so I tried to get out of the house each day, and at Frog’s Hollow I would often go to walk along the track on the other side of the woolwashers and the tannery to the little swampy area, taking the children with me.