With all gathered round she held each one for a second and said their name. When it was done her strength failed. She fell back, barely breathing and, in a few minutes, she breathed no more.
Archibald felt a broken sob wrack his body as his children cried with him.
Mary cried too. “O my child, my poor wee child,” she said, over and over again, stroking Hannah’s hair. “How I miss you.”
They buried Hannah in the newly created little cemetery at the bottom of the hill, looking out east up the harbour, the view that Hannah had loved best. A simple sandstone cross was carved to mark the place. Each day over the next month, the family all walked down the hill to put fresh flowers on the grave.
Gradually life moved on. Archibald had much to do with his five children, though Mary was rarely far away. Often James now went with Tom to the yard to help. Little Archibald had become his father’s shadow. Alison and the two small ones would spend much of their days with Mary, who had taken over a mother’s role to them. Although he found he could say little to Mary he knew she understood and he valued her support.
Many people in Sydney town were sick with the new flu that had come in on the boat. The graveyard, in the city, now had two new lines of graves, to mark the grief of many. Worst were the aboriginal camps where many died. Their wails echoed over the still night water. Since Hannah’s death Balmain had been largely spared.
Each day Archibald, now nine, would walk up to the town, to school, with six year old Alison, while Hannah and Alexander stayed over with Mary and her housekeeper. One day, when Archibald and Alison came home from school, they told their father and Mary over supper, “We can’t go to school for the next week. A boy in Archie’s class got the flu. It was very bad, and they are scared it may spread. So we have all been told to stay away until next week.”
Two days later Archie was coughing and his eyes were running. Mary put him to bed. However that night he had a high fever and he coughed and coughed. The doctor was called and for two days it seemed he was improving. But, on the third day, the fever returned and, like Hannah, his breathing became laboured.
Archibald abandoned his work and stayed by his son’s side, talking to him and telling him the stories he knew he loved. Late on the afternoon of the fourth day he said to his father. Tell me about my brother John, the one who stayed in Scotland. Archibald told his son the story of the hard winter, with not enough to eat and that flu, like this, but with two babies only one year old. He said. “You both had it and we feared for you both. But you were stronger and got better, he could not. So we buried him on the hillside which looks out across to the loch, on a cold winter’s day”.
Archie took his father’s hand. “Da, he is calling me and telling me not to be afraid, that we will both be together with Mum soon. Please don’t be sad but promise me that you will go and visit him and see your Ma and Pa to tell them too.”
Archibald could barely see his son through his tears, but he held his son’s hand and stroked his hair like he had done with Hannah. An hour later he was gone, to be with his precious Hannah and wee brother John.
They buried him next to Hannah and the following day Archibald booked a passage on the “Sarah”, back to England, to fulfil his son’s request. He could not take his children for the trip, and they were happiest with Mary and Tom. So, with an aching heart to leave them, he made his plans to sail.
When time came to say goodbye, Archibald had a sudden desire to leave each child with a special memento. For little Hannah he placed her mother Hannah’s gold ring in her small hand. “This will be yours one day, to wear on your wedding day. For now we will keep it safe but you will have it when you are grown”. Then, as he cuddled Alison on his knee, he gave to her the silver blue perfume bottle that had come to Hannah from Mary. “This is your mother’s gift to you, to remember her by. It holds her favourite perfume. It came from your Gran Mary, a gift passed down from her grandmother and others before. It was one of your mother’s most treasured things. One day you will pass it on to your daughter or granddaughter to continue the memory.”
Alison held it in her hand, and kept holding it until long after her father’s ship had sailed out of sight. How beautiful it was, soft green-blue like the ocean with the silver sparkling like light off the water, and a small blue stone like a bright eye, looking inside her. Something in it called to her, pulling her back to her earliest childhood, happy with her mother. She held it against her cheek, drawing a sense of comfort from it. Finally she carefully put it away.
That night she told Mary. “That bottle is something that will always keep our happy memories in it. Every time I open it I smell Mummy, and it makes me sad and happy together. I feel like she has left her happy memories and love for me in there.”
Mary said, “I will tell you the story of that perfume bottle, as was told me by my grandmother, back in Scotland. Her name was Mary too. When I was a little girl, about as old as you, I used to love to visit her house in the next village. Sometimes I would stay with her for a holiday.
“One day, when I was sitting with her as she dressed to go out, I saw her pull out that bottle and dab some perfume on. I asked her about the bottle, as it was very beautiful, and much nicer than her other things. She told me it was given to her by her grandmother, because she had thought it beautiful, when she herself was a little girl.
“The story her grandmother told her was about her great-great-great grandmother, a very long time ago, named Katherine. She had worked as a maid to Mary, Queen of Scots, back when she was a young woman and had first come back to Scotland.
“Queen Mary had much beautiful jewellery made for her by a jeweller in Edinburgh. Queen Mary ordered a new necklace with pearls and diamonds. One day the jeweller’s apprentice brought it to the castle, to make final the adjustments.
“Young Katherine, then 15, was serving her lady. She was smitten by this young handsome apprentice and started to secretly meet him. After meeting him several times, one day he brought her a beautiful gift, this perfume bottle, covered in the finest delicate silverwork. He told her he had made it in his spare time in the jewellery shop, when the master jeweller was away, using little pieces of silver he had saved. The beautiful sea-blue bottle he had bought in the markets, from a sailor just returned from the Far East, and he had put in the blue stone because it matched the colour of her smiling eyes.
“Soon after this her mistress had to flee from Edinburgh to northern England with her retinue. So Katherine was forced to leave suddenly before she could even say goodbye to the apprentice. She had cried and cried. She never saw him again, but she still remembered him with great fondness, even after she married and had children of her own.
“She always kept the bottle, to keep the memory alive of her first and happy love. Over time she would take it out when anything special happened, to help her remember. So it became a treasure for her to hold her special and happy memories.
“Then when she was very old she gave this perfume bottle to her own grand-daughter telling her to use it to keep her special happy memories in, just as she had done for all these years since it had been given to her. Since then it had been handed from grandmothers to grand-daughters and sometime to daughters to keep the memory alive.
“I gave it to Hannah when you were a baby and I told her the story. She was like a daughter to me and you my first grand-daughter. She said that in time she would pass it to you and that would keep the memory alive.
Perhaps one day you will give it to a grand-daughter of your own, after you have put all your happy memories into it, to add to all the happy memories that I, your mother and many others have put in there. That way we can pass our love and joy down through the years to come.”
Before she went to bed that night Alison wrote this special story into the diary that she kept in the locker next to her bed. After this she pulled out the bottle almost every night when she went to bed, to put her happy memories into it. Sometimes she wrote them in her diary too, to help remem
ber them.
Chapter 7 - Return to Balmain
Since Archibald had gone away James no longer went to the yard. He was often seen walking, slowly and disconsolately, around the headland. He was a steady serious lad, but had always been bright and happy before. Clearly he greatly missed his Mum and his younger brother Archie, who had loyally followed him like a puppy. Now without his Dad to share the burden and give direction he was lost. Whenever he saw Mary watching him he would pull himself up, square his shoulders and pretend all was fine. But, once her observation passed, the melancholy returned.
Tom, since Archie’s departure, would occasionally visit the yard, but mostly he left this to John Buller and pottered around at home, carrying his own sadness. After a month of thinking on this and James’ melancholy, one day Mary said to Tom.
“It is time for you to get that young lad, James, out and active. You were a keen sailor on the lochs when first I met you, and you still live for the ships. Why don’t you get an old sail boat and teach the lad how to sail. It will be good for the lad and it will get you out from under my feet. You’re well and truly recovered from your turn. It’s time for you to be more active.”
So, next day, after school, Tom collected James and they rowed across to Sydney town. An hour of haggling with a small boat builder saw them with an 18 foot yacht and a selection of canvass. Leaving the row boat in the yard, they hoisted a sail and caught the late afternoon sea breeze as it swept them up the harbour. Soon the boat was heeled over and James was flushed with the exertion of steering, trimming sails and changing tack.
That night he ate the best dinner since his Dad left. From then on it was a regular thing; after school and at weekends they would head off, sometimes out towards the open ocean at the heads, other times up different creeks and inlets. Soon James was a better sailor than old Tom.
It would be Christmas in two weeks. Tom hung a lantern with coloured glass to decorate the front yard, and Mary had been baking Christmas cakes and treats. The children were excited, but missing their Dad, hoping against hope that he would be home for Christmas.
As the hot December afternoon cooled with the sea-breeze, Tom and James set sail for the heads. Soon they were skimming over waves, flushed and laughing with exuberance.
A mile from the heads, a dark shape came into view, a new sailing ship coming in after a long voyage. Something seemed familiar. Tom looked hard and let out a shout. “Ahoy James, that be the ship your Da left on, tis the ‘Sarah’, back from England. Could it be returned so soon?
“Let’s sail alongside and hail them. Perhaps they have news of your Dad.”
As they came close they saw people standing in the bow, straining for a first look at Sydney. Suddenly James let out a shout. “Dad, Dad.”
Tom pulled out his telescope and looked closely. “You’re right my lad. It’s Arch, it’s your father.”
Tom steered their boat in close enough to see clearly while James stood in the bow and waved frantically. Suddenly Archibald’s face split into a huge grin. “James, my boy, Tom – how I missed you all.”
Tom shouted out. “Come aboard, we’ll speed you home long before this old lady gets there”.
A quick conversation with the captain and next thing Archibald was lowered onto the deck of their yacht. They flew across the water, all sails up, racing home. They all talked at once but James was determined to show his sailing skills, trimming sails here, tightening ropes there.
Archibald looked with pride at James. “What a fine sailor you are.”
Rounding Dawes Point it was straight across to Balmain.
Mary often walked to the wharf, bringing Hannah and Alexander and, at times Alison, to meet the boat, looking out for it as it returned in the softness of evening. Today, as she came to the top of the path, all the children walking with her, she spied the familiar sail boat rounding the point. She thought, It is early and flying, so much canvass up. She peered intently, her eyes no longer sharp as before.
She said to Alison, “Have a good look dearie, seems they have an extra one on board”.
Alison stared hard. “Yes three people.” She stared harder, something so familiar, the shape, the movement, the face.
All at once she knew, even though they were little more than dots. It was her Dad, he had come home. “Dad” she screamed pointing to Mary. Her baby brother and sister took up the chant and they raced down to the wharf. It was all they could do to wait until he stepped ashore. They flung themselves, all together, into his arms.
Next day they all went to the ship to collect his luggage and meet his on-board friends and family. Arch had brought out his younger brother William, William’s wife Isabella and their baby son, just older than Alexander. He also introduced them to a pretty, smiling lady in the next cabin, Helen. She was wearing a black dress.
Alison, ever curious, said to her. “Why is your dress black?”
Helen sat down next to Alison and put her arms around her. “Just like you my lovely child. Your Mum died a few months ago. I was coming out to Australia to live with my husband, Colin. But half way here he got very sick and he died too. You miss your Mum and I miss my husband. So I wear a black dress to show that, behind my bright smile, I have a sad place.”
Alison took her hand. “I don’t want you to be sad. Perhaps we will both try not to be sad together.”
Helen looked at this little girl of seven years, with her sheen of bronze-copper coloured hair, and sad, steady eyes. There was something about her, such a wise soul, as if she had lived for a hundred years and seen the worst of what life had to offer. And here she was, offering her comfort.
Soon Helen was a regular guest at their little Balmain House. A month later, one day, Archibald and Helen gathered all the children and sat down with them at the kitchen table.
Archibald said to them, “Helen and I have decided to get married, we wanted to tell you all first”.
Hannah, a bouncing three year old gave a bright smile and said. “I want you to be our new Mummy.”
Alison gave a shy smile and put one arm through her new Mum’s and one through her Dad’s arm. She was glad for her Dad that he could be happy again, even though the hole from her real Mum would never go away.
The only ones less sure were Tom and Mary. It was not that they did not like Helen; she was kind and good for Archibald. It was just they still missed and grieved for Hannah, with her daughter like closeness; and the children had become so much part of their family that they hated any idea of seeing them less.
However life continued on, they still saw the children often. Helen was always polite and friendly, it was just that the spark of their love for Hannah was missing. Two things remained constant, Alison and her love for Tom and especially Mary, and James, as Tom’s sailing companion.
Alison had found a new friend, a small dark scrap of a girl, whose aunt lived in the aboriginal camp near Blackwattle Bay. She called herself Ruthie, and was about Alison’s age but smaller and skinny. Alison met her scouring the rock pools around the point, gathering shellfish to take home. Soon they arranged a regular afternoon rendezvous. Together they explored all the little bays and hillsides, discovering rock caves and treasures, places where only small people like themselves could go.
Twice Ruthie brought her to meet her family. The first time began when Ruthie and Alison were collecting shellfish and other things on the rocky shores at the place where the point of Balmain came closest to the island that her father called Goat Island.
As they traipsed along the shore, scanning for things the tide had brought ashore, they heard a voice hail them in an unfamiliar tongue. Ruthie jumped up from where she was squatting and waved frantically, calling out a stream of unknown words. A man, paddling a light bark canoe, a thing that Ruthie called a ‘nawi’, came up to them. He carried a short spear with two barbs, Ruthie called it a ‘duwal’. In the bottom of the canoe lay four large shiny fish, one still with the spear barbs embedded.
Ruthie explained that this m
an was her uncle, her aunt’s younger brother, and he had speared these fish off the point of the island, a place he called Memel. He was offering to bring her back to their gunyah or camp to share in the meal.
After some more unknown talking Ruthie indicated that Alison and she should both go with the man in the canoe, to share this meal of fresh fish, cooked in the fire coals. So the man lifted them both in and showed them how to balance as he skilfully paddled along, close to shore, until they came to where Ruthie lived. There she met Ruthie’s clan as they all sat around the fire in a circle, sharing mouthfuls of delicious succulent white fish flesh.
Ruthie told Alison how her mother, father, two sisters and a brother, along with her father’s brother and two cousins had all died in the bad flu that had come before, when the white people died too. Now she lived with her aunty, her aunt’s own child, this uncle and her grandfather, a grey haired man called Jimmy. Of more than 30 people who had lived here when Ruthie was little now more than half were gone and her aunt, grandfather, uncle and cousin were all that remained of her own family. She could feel the warmth that this family had for Ruthie, but also the pain of such a loss, even greater than her own. She told them how her mother and brother had died too, and she knew they understood and grieved like her.
After that day it was like they were sisters, two little scraps of humanity who shared their world of memory, pain and understanding.
Alison came once more to visit them. It was a special celebration to which she was invited, by the old man, or so Ruthie said. Old Jimmy had speared a kangaroo and there was food enough for a feast for all. As she and Ruthie sat side by side on the ground, eating the roast meat, Jimmy came to sit with Ruthie, his clear favourite. He showed them an old rusted axe and told them how a strong man named Tom McBee, who worked in a ship yard made it for him, and how it was red like the fire, with sparks everywhere, as he made it. Now, after his best kangaroo spear, it was his most valued possession.
Little Lost Girl Page 5