Little Lost Girl

by Graham Wilson

  Alison was delighted and told Jimmy how Tom lived close to her and was like her own grandfather, the same as Jimmy was with Ruthie.

  Jimmy said, “Ruthie tell me she see that Tom McBee, he live near you in big rock house. You tell this to Tom McBee, he good man and I remember dis haxe he make. Maybe one day I bring him nother kangaroo and we have big feast together.”

  That night Alison told the story to Tom and her Dad. They roared laughing, till tears ran down their faces, as they remembered. Her Dad told her about the kangaroo Jimmy brought that day and how Jimmy wanted to give it to Tom in return for the axe, but Tom had told him to eat it with his family, as they needed the food more.

  Alison was touched Tom’s kindness but made them both promise not to tell any others who might laugh at her new friends. After this she told Mary and her housekeeper about Ruthie and they would give her small parcels of food; cakes, biscuits, or sometime a piece of bread and cold meat, for their secret picnics. However, to all the others that lived around there, she said nothing. It was Ruthie’s and her secret, just for them. So many other people seemed unkind to the aborigines, calling them dirty blacks, and cursing them. The thought of someone saying this to little Ruthie filled her with a mixture of shame and rage.

  One day, as she and Ruthie explored together, they discovered a small tunnel which led to a cave, around on Ballast Point. It was a place where the ships gathered large loose rocks along the shoreline for ballast. Only she and Ruthie knew the cave was there, the entrance was hidden behind bushes and so narrow that only a child or small adult could enter it. A sandstone slab, supported by some crumbling rock, was the roof and there was a dry sandy floor, just wide enough for them to both lie stretched out, side by side. To one side was a small crack, leading up through the rocks, which let in just enough light to see.

  This became their own special place, a place Ruthie called Ganing, where they stored their discovered treasures, a piece of rope, a small timber chest, a brass bell, a knife and two coloured glass bottles. Here they would meet to dream, plan and imagine new adventures together.

  One day Alison brought Ruthie to her own house, in the mid-afternoon, looking to collect some cake and other treats for a picnic in the cave. No one was home so she brought Ruthie inside with her. While Alison gathered the food Ruthie looked at the things they had. All at once Ruthie gave a little cry. She was holding a wooden bowl, a thing of ochre colours and strange patterns. Alison remembered Hannah saying it was a gift from the great and famous Mr Leichhardt, however since Hannah’s passing it had been left to gather dust in a corner.

  Now Ruthie was pointing excitedly to the patterns, saying this pattern was one of her clan’s totems and that it must have been made by her father or his brother, both now dead.

  So Alison picked it up and placed it in Ruthie’s hands, saying, “Take it, it is yours now, show it to Jimmy, perhaps he will remember it from before.”

  Next day Ruthie brought it back, saying Jimmy had told her that it was made by her own father. It was Ruthie’s only possession from him. That day Ruthie brought it with her and placed it in the cave alongside their other treasures, tears trickling down her cheeks as she remembered her father. After that, each time they came, she would hold this bowl as her own special treasure. It seemed to Alison that this thing was like her own perfume bottle, a memory keeper for Ruthie to keep her family memories alive.

  One night, as Alison was placing her own happy memories in her perfume bottle, and writing some of them in her diary, she wrote in the story of Ruthie’s special treasure, feeling it belonged there too.

  Archibald resumed his role in the business with John Buller and the business continued to prosper. But, in a way that he could not understand, the Sydney work and his life had lost something from the way it was before. He felt restlessness for something new.

  Perhaps it was that, as yet, he and Helen had no children together. They thought children would come quickly once they were married, but now more than two years had passed and nothing. Their life was good together and Helen had taken the place of mother to his children. But sometimes, deep in the night, he would dream of Hannah and feel an ache for her smile. At odd times, when he looked at Alison and saw Hannah’s eyes looking back, it gave him a jolt, as if Hannah was still there.

  Now his brother William and Isabella had a second child, and he loved this new niece and felt a pang that he could not see her grow. William had worked with him in the yard for a short time and, at first, he and Isabella had shared their small house, until they found a place of their own.

  However, after a few months, William headed up the coast seeking new opportunities. He found a job in Maitland, the new port for the Hunter River and a good route to the inland, much easier than crossing those sandstone mountains behind Sydney. Maitland kept growing, surrounded by the good farmlands of the Hunter valley.

  William kept encouraging Archibald to come, visit them and see this place. Maitland was now the second largest town in the colonies with more than 7000 people. At the end of the navigable part of the Hunter River, it was the major port to supply settlers moving inland, over the mountains.

  In 1853, after three years of marriage, Helen discovered she was pregnant. She first knew just after Easter but said nothing, to stop raising Archibald’s hopes. She knew that, for them both, a new child would move their own lives on. As the cold winter winds came sweeping up the harbour, she could feel it begin to show.

  One day Mary came visiting Helen and said, “Let us walk together.”

  Mary led her down past the cemetery to the wharf, stopping to place two roses on Hannah and young Archie’s graves as she passed, with just a trace of a tear in her eye.

  Coming to the wharf she pulled Helen to sit alongside her on the rough timber jetty. She said, “I know there is new life coming to you. While I cannot see it yet I have felt it for more than a month now. It is good for you and Archibald to have your own new child. It will help leave Hannah and the past behind when he holds your new baby. It will also bring much joy to James, Alison, Hannah and Alex to have a new life in the house.

  “So it is time for us to become true friends. Nothing can replace my love for Hannah. She was truly the daughter I never had. But, for you and I, that should not come between us. It is in the past. The future is for you and your family. This is something we both care about, so let us become like sisters, or an aunt and niece.”

  So a new friendship was begun, and Helen found that Mary’s wisdom and Tom’s gruff humour brought a solid place to her life.

  For Archibald too, this new bond of extended family gave him more contentment. Coming home, on warm spring and summer afternoons, he loved to watch Helen’s swelling belly as she worked around the house. Then, in the evenings, they would all sit together. As Helen stretched out, resting her legs, she would tell them each time the baby moved, and they would all come over to feel it move too. Hannah and Alex were particularly thrilled about the idea of a new brother or sister and even Alison and James were caught up in the excitement.

  Sunday afternoons now became family picnics, often with Tom and James loading the sailing boat and others taking a row boat, and crossing to Goat Island or one of the northern harbour headlands. The adults would laze on white sandy beaches, or under the large shady fig trees which grew near the water’s edge, while the children swam in the rock pools or in the shallow waters of sheltered inlets, safe from sharks. Helen would sit with her feet in the cool water to ease their swelling, watching fondly over all her family. Sometimes she and Mary would talk together with a mixture of seriousness and humour about each child; their unrealised potential, funny antics, growing abilities and little weaknesses. Other times Mary would make concoctions and infusions to settle Helen’s nausea, ease her back ache or reduce swelling; using knowledge passed from her old Scottish aunts.

  Just before Christmas the baby came, Margaret, they called her, small and not so strong, but otherwise seeming fine. All the children were so happy and
begged to hold their tiny sister. They endlessly told her how beautiful she was, with her dark eyes.

  Then, just two weeks later, it all went wrong. It started like a gripe, with baby Margaret having a pain, then she cried and cried and would not suck and, almost before they had time to realise, she was cold and weak and then it was over.

  So another tiny coffin was laid in a small grave next to the other two; Margaret Rodgers, born December 23rd 1953, died January 10th, 1854.

  A profound melancholy settled over the family. The much wanted and loved child had come, but the visit was too short. Now new life was gone; left behind there was only an empty hole in the family. For Archibald and Helen their shared loss brought them together, but at the same time it left them restless and dissatisfied with life in Balmain.

  In February another letter came from William, expressing condolences from himself and Isabella and encouraging them to come and visit soon. They had moved to Newcastle, at the Hunter mouth, and business opportunities abounded. William told of its beautiful coastal location and seaside beaches. He wanted them to come, visit, and see this new town.

  Finally, in late summer of 1854, Archibald and Helen caught a coastal steamship to Newcastle. Walking around the flat docklands Archibald felt strangely at home, perhaps it was the name. As a lad he had worked at its namesake in England’s north and gained a taste for the world of ships.

  For Helen, who had grown close to Isabella on the trip to Australia, she found her renewed presence and friendship was wonderful.

  As the week passed, before the ship returned, Archibald started to look for business opportunities. Coal was to be had in plenty; all around the town were outcrops of it, and many pits were being dug to mine it. As well the volume of shipping for freight inland was starting to rival Sydney and ship re-fitters and repairers were few. These few constantly needed to send repairs and bring tools or parts from Sydney, a slow, unproductive business with many delays.

  One day a local business man, William Trindall, came to him and William with a proposition. “I have a haulage business in Maitland which hauls to the inland. However, I see this new town, Newcastle, is booming. It will soon take over from Maitland as the main Hunter town, because the shallow water of the river to get up there limits the big boats. With the new railway just built between the two towns, I can unload here instead of there.

  “I have a piece of land next to town where my haulage business holds unloaded goods. Because ship’s captains know me I am often asked to help with repairing ships and bringing goods for ship servicing. But ships is not what I knows and coming down river to Newcastle takes me away from my work inland. I am a bullocky who knows how to haul across the dry miles. I need ships to bring me the goods, but fixing them is not my skill.

  “So I need a business partner to run shore operations, receive the goods, store them, send them on to me and fix ships that come to port. My proposal is to give you half this land, on a peppercorn rent, if you become my shore agent. William tells me fixing ships and steelwork is what you are good at. So I propose William here runs my storage yard and you run the ship business. I will look after my teams and their haulage up the valley and to the inland.”

  Soon it was agreed; Rodgers Iron Foundry and Shipwrights would be established on one half of the site. The other half would become a storage yard with sheds for holding the goods in transit. Before they returned to Sydney the deal was sealed on a handshake. Archibald agreed to return to start work on building their new premises inside the month.

  Back in Sydney Hannah and Alexander thought the move to Newcastle was an adventure and James, who had become very attached to Helen, saw the promise of the new business. But Alison was dismayed. She loved their simple Balmain cottage and the stone house of her grandparents was just across the way. Most of all she did not want to leave these dear people, Tom and Mary. They had provided a rock of security and love all her remembered life. And the idea of saying goodbye to her little black friend, her best friend, Ruthie, was too terrible to think about.

  But her Dad was firm. She, his oldest daughter, must come and help with their new life. Finally it was agreed, she would come, but each summer she would return to holiday with Gran Mary and Tom, and in the winter they in turn would come to visit in Newcastle and stay for a month or so.

  A few days later the move was made. Archibald could not bring himself to sell the little Balmain cottage, Roisin; it held too many memories. So it was placed in the care of Tom and Mary to use as they saw fit. The family’s goods were loaded on the boat and soon only the empty house remained.

  On the last day Alison took her diary from her bedside locker and found a piece of oilskin and an old tin. Carefully, she wrapped her diary in the oilskin and placed it in the tin. Then she took the tin and placed it into a gap in the rocks, at the edge of the hillside, just behind their house, where the boulders fell away towards the Sydney shore. She placed a loose rock into the hole, in front of the tin, to hide it. Here it would be safe and dry. Perhaps, she would collect it again one day.

  Chapter 8 - 1854 - A new life in Newcastle

  It was in the middle of 1854 when they moved to Newcastle. Archibald founded his engineering works, ‘Iron and Brass Foundry and General Iron Works’, at Honeysuckle Point, in lower Church St. They soon settled in and before long the business was booming.

  The family’s life rolled along and, over the next five years, Archibald and Helen had three more daughters; Helen, Agnes and Anne.

  Archibald life grew increasingly busy. He was active as a business man in the city with many interests. He assisted in the formation of the Newcastle Gas Company and was an alderman of Newcastle Council and an elder at the Presbyterian Church which has family attended each Sunday.

  He and Helen were happy together with all their children. Alison, their oldest daughter, now had four mischievous younger sisters to contend with. All wanted to do things with her and seek her advice on their clothes, finery and the boys they liked. Hannah looked like her mother with straw gold coloured hair and the fair complexion, but her eyes were light blue whereas her mother’s eyes had been dark hazel-green, almost the same colour as Alison’s and those of her dead brother Archibald, as her Da and Mary had told her when she was little.

  Of her three small half-sisters, children of Helen, the oldest, also named Helen, was good with her books and lessons. The other two were not much interested in learning, but full of mischief with a love for play and dressing up in fine clothes. Sometimes all five girls would sit in the drawing room by themselves, laugh, giggle and tell each other funny stories. If someone came to disturb them they would band together to shoo the intruder away, this was girl time together. Mostly these were happy times, but Alison often felt different from the rest of her sisters. It seemed her childhood, with so many memories, had been left behind in Balmain.

  The family shared a love of music, coming from Hannah with her singing. Early in their Balmain life Hannah and Archibald bought a piano, which the family had sat around while Hannah played and sang. Helen, while not such a singer, was an accomplished pianist and continued this ritual. She arranged piano lessons for all the children and music remained at the centre of family activities, sometimes with shared songs, at other times impromptu piano recitals where each child would play a favourite piece, to the applause of others. Archibald, not a pianist, was at times persuaded to play a piece on the bagpipes, tunes passed to him from his uncle in Scotland.

  Sundays, with church attendance, followed by an expansive lunch were at the centre of family life. William, Isabella and their children were almost an invariable part of these. Visitors, guests from around the town and foundry workers also often shared these meals and the good company.

  Alison and her stepmother, Helen, were close friends. But it was more a friendship of sisters than that of a mother and daughter, having begun with their first shared confidence; this serious little girl who had grown up too young, with the loss of her own mother. Helen felt this lonely ho
le inside Alison that she was unable to fill She knew that, instead, in part, Gran Mary had taken over this mother’s role.

  Alison gradually forgot her life in Balmain. For the first six years she visited the McVey’s Balmain house each summer and in the winter Tom and Mary came and stayed in Newcastle. But gradually these visits fell away and, as she settled into Newcastle life, her memories of that life faded. She was busy in a house with five younger brothers and sisters to be cared for. As time went by she also started to do the bookwork in the business.

  She was now a beautiful, petite woman, already past 21, with ringlets of long brown hair which flashed with highlights of gold and red. Most of her school friends were married with children of their own. But she remained aloof. She seemed to take simple but complete pleasure teaching her brother and sisters and caring for her Da.

  Men from the foundry often came around, hoping to gain her attention. While she was always polite her lack of interest was soon clear. Her one true love was for small beautiful things, small trinkets, coloured seashells and stones, miniature paintings, oddments of jewellery.

  She collected them from ships that came to port and local merchants. As time went by she began to buy and sell these items, only to people she liked, and always at a good profit. People found that, when they needed something for that special, beautiful gift, then, perhaps, Alison could help. It was her way to give and receive joy and helped fill an empty space.

  James was increasingly taking over parts of the business. He had his father’s build, tough stamina and also a sharp business brain, which people said came as much from Hannah. While Alison and James were not as close as the others, both had about them a sort of steady reliability. What Alison most liked about James was the way he had taken Helen as his own mother and made her feel a full part of their first family.

  James still found time to sail. When Tom occasionally came to town the two would go off sailing for an afternoon, heading out amongst the islands and around the Hunter mouth.