Above the Starry Frame

by Helen Townsend

  She had written to William that she did not want money or presents, but still he did not write. She wrote to those in America, and they wrote sometimes, but their letters were tardy, short and generally unsatisfactory. She wrote to others in Australia, and one wrote back saying he heard Mr Irwin was still living. She prayed for his soul, as well as his safety, for she knew now that they would only meet above the starry frame.

  It was painful, such a thought, and she could not sleep with it, but watched the sky till the moon set and the stars faded with the dawn.

  CHAPTER 19

  The city of Ballarat was indeed a wonder – a ‘Golden City’, which was the title given it by its proud citizens. It boasted not only its lake and botanical gardens, its fine city centre, its many benevolent organisations, educational institutions and sporting bodies, but culture also, which made its leading citizens prouder still, for to have culture made the city preeminent and superior. This culture had started in a rough way with the music and theatre on the diggings, but by the time Ballarat was a mature city there were many bands, choirs and street musicians as well as visits by orchestras, singers and opera companies.

  Art followed, a little slower. An exhibition of paintings in 1884 primed the city for it, and then plans were put in place for a gallery; the foundation stone was laid in 1887, on the day of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, for the city was undoubtedly a city of the empire. And there were the statues. After the Stoddart statues were installed in the botanical gardens in 1884, the interest in those twelve marble statues – such a surprising and strange gift for the city to have been given – encouraged a flurry of marble statuary. Funds were raised by the Scots, who erected a statue of the poet Robbie Burns in Sturt Street. The Irish made their reply with an equally expensive statue of Thomas Moore. But the crowning glory was the Italian marbles – the statues bought and housed in a statue house, erected in the botanical gardens in 1888, from a bequest by James Russell Thomson.

  On Julia’s insistence, the family went to admire the new statues. It was a rare family outing, for Lizzie was twenty now and the three older boys almost grown to men. But Julia was determined that Harold, who was only six, would be given every opportunity to experience culture, especially the high culture of Italian marble.

  The centrepiece was called Flight from Pompeii – a group of a father, mother and child, naked but tastefully draped, fleeing from the volcanic ash and lava of Mount Vesuvius. There were four other female statues in the statue house, which the older boys seem fixated by, especially the one called Modesty, whose drapery, William thought, did not disguise her charms at all.

  Harold puzzled at the statues and was most curious about how they were made, which satisfied William, for he was pleased to see the child had the same cast of mind as himself in that regard.

  ‘How do they start, Mother?’ he asked. ‘How do they know where to start when they have the block of stone?’

  ‘It is marble, fine marble, not stone,’ and she explained it to him, but he persisted.

  ‘What if the carver . . .?’

  ‘No, dear, the gentleman is a sculptor.’

  ‘What if the sculptor gets to the end of his carving, right at the end, and he chips the hand off altogether, or someone drops a hammer on the feet? Can it be fixed?’

  ‘That is the skill of the sculptor, dear, not to drop his hammer or chip the fingers. See how beautifully and expressively he has carved the whole thing, how the drapery flows and billows.’

  But William’s mind was elsewhere, going back to that day – the blue sky, the leaves, the band, childish laughter, that cry. He felt the blackness which sometimes rose up and enveloped him, and which Lizzie always seemed to understand. She took his arm and steered him from the sculpture house, calling back, ‘We’re going to look at the ferns.’ She walked him up and down in the dark cool of the fern house. Nothing was said of his agitation, and he did not really know if Lizzie knew, but it calmed him, so the black in him shrunk and he was able to go back to his family and be with others in a way that seemed quite ordinary.

  All the same, when they got back to the hotel, since it was Saturday night, and the bar was busy, he decided to work alongside Danny Phelan, for there was sometimes an Irish fiddler came in on a Saturday night, which gave them both a sense of their hazy dreams of the days of the rush.

  ‘Have you seen the new statues?’ William asked. ‘The Flight from Pompeii?’

  ‘Indeed I have,’ said Danny, and he put his arms over his head and cowered behind the bar. ‘Oh! I quaked in fear, it being so lifelike that I thought the ash and lava might swallow me entirely!’ The drinkers laughed and he got up from behind the bar. ‘And I thought the statue of Modesty was not quite modest enough, but mighty pleasing for that very reason.’ And he winked at the Irishman he was serving.

  ‘’Tis a vanity, I think meself,’ said the Irishman, ‘for there’s parts of this city that’s full of poverty and misery that no statues will fix.’

  And while William was cheered by the warm and companionable temper of the bar, the thought of the statues stayed with him. He dreamed of them that night, but as so many gravestones. He dreamed of the many men of his time who were now dead or decaying.

  In the morning, he thought again that the statue of people running from death perhaps signified what so many of the pioneers of the city were now doing, himself included. They had their golden city. They had had their day.

  * * *

  January 31, 1891

  Knockaleery

  My Dearest Brother & Sister and famely all,

  I again write to you after long absence as I canot hear from you exept from som friends to say that they heard of Mr Irwin being living. I do wish to hear from all your childern and how they are situate or are they all living, or has any of them got maried, or how is Robert childern?

  How did you get through the world this last 10 years? How many ups and downs has been this 42 years past.

  Thanks be to God we are all well exept James, he has a severe Cold at preasent, this last 3 weeks. But I think he is improving now. How often I have thought about you, and John woud tell me to write. But I was still waiting that I woud get a leter from youself.

  I know we are all geting old and venerable looking and the time will soon be up that we will be called away, one by one, to meet our Lord and Savour. Let all be ready for that call.

  Br Joseph is well and has 6 grand childen living and 2 dead. The eldest boy John, 18 years old has goed to America this last fall and is stoping with our sister Annjane. She is a widow now; her husband Robert Adams died more than year ago.

  Sister Mary and husband and famely are well, two daugthers maried. I get no leters from brother James. But he was living more than a year ago and as for ourselves we are as usual.

  John has midily good heath and eable to work a litle yeat. As for Robert son James, he is maried and lives with us with two children, a boy and girl.

  Now for myself, I have good heath. I can do a litle work yeat in house keeping and atending the milking and such like.

  Now My Dear Brother write to us. How is William and Johny coming on? Elizzy and all the rest? How is Mrs Irwin and youself above the rest.

  I remain your loving Sister Eliza Irwin

  * * *

  Eliza’s eyes had gone weak again, but it troubled her little for they were not sticky or painful, but merely blurred the world a little. She knew her favourite parts of the Good Book by heart, as Mother had always said she should. The newspapers still came from Ballarat, and she got James to read them. He did not read them as she had done, but she did not mind, for she thought she had the town in her head by now. It had been five or six years since she had heard from dear William or one of his children. She thought he must have a reason not to write, but she could not fathom it.

  Now, as she sat writing to him, she could not see what she was writing, because of her eyes, but she made fine large marks across the page and did not trouble herself too much. She could not be
sure of what she had written or what she hadn’t, but it did not matter. Had she asked of Johnny and Willy? Of Lizzie? Had she told of James’s marriage? Did she tell of Joseph? She did not know, and sometimes she thought she wrote twice of the same thing in one letter. She had to write, as she wrote to those in America. For it was now she alone that would write to them all and tell them the news and let them know how things were. The details mattered less for they would not know the neighbours and the friends, especially with so many gone.

  She wrote, she wrote, she wrote to send out those lines across the seas, to stretch out to them all: Dear brothers and sisters and famely all, My dear brother, My dear Mrs Irwin, My dear Nephew, Dear Ann Jane, Brother James, Dear William, My brother dear, I remain your loving sister, your sister to death, your loving aunt, kind love to all, kind blessings, Eliza Irwin, Knockaleery, Parish of Kildress, Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland. She thought it was an act of faith, almost of piety, for the good Lord had made families. He most likely expected that a person might care to keep such families together. And that person, it was herself, and that was her purpose. She could see that now. It made her easier in herself.

  She finished writing the letter and stretched herself, for part of being old and venerable-looking was that her joints were often cramped. She thought of the afternoon ahead. She could perhaps sit in the armchair in front of the fire and later help James’s wife, Annabelle, with the milking. There were four armchairs now, which was curious, for they used to only have one, then two. Back then, a person had to wait for another to die to have the armchair. But it was not so now. People bought armchairs for the young almost without thinking of it. She remembered Uncle Cander, who would not go visiting without his armchair, so he always had to have two of his sons with him to carry it.

  She gave up the idea of the armchair for this afternoon, since Lysander had seen that she had stopped writing and was dancing round her feet. He himself was old and venerable and had pain in his joints, so he could not dance so well as he once did, but now he made his intention clear, which was to go down to the bog as they did most afternoons. Lysander had developed a fancy for sitting in the stream, watching for fish and snapping at them, although he had never caught one. But that was his pleasure, and she thought it a fine one.

  The sky was blue, with racing clouds, which was the sky she loved best. And the stream was full, so Lysander went in very carefully, but when he saw the fingerlings darting this way and that, he snapped and pawed at them with great excitement.

  Eliza wrapped her red shawl around her, and thought it was a grand life indeed.

  * * *

  When Eliza’s letter arrived at the Provincial Hotel, it was placed on the table for the post, where it remained for a week or two. Then William had taken it into his office, where it had lain on his desk. Now he picked it up and slit the envelope with his letter opener. He skimmed it and put it down. Then he rifled around under the desk for his box, and put it with his other letters from home. Although some had been misplaced and two boxes had been lost in fires, the letters stretched back to his days of coming to the colony as a young man, and for that reason he liked to keep them.

  He thought he should write, but he knew he would not. There were many sticking points, he thought, going back to the early days of the rush. Sometimes he had indulged himself, or made finds which he had frittered away when he knew how much the money would have meant back in Ireland. There were times when he bought a shawl for Bridget, who had a number already, when he knew the ragged shawl Eliza wore – although for the most part he knew he had been both dutiful and generous. He had not told them how he dined on oysters brought to Ballarat on ice from the American lakes, or how he felt set on fire by the ideas of democracy at the time of the Stockade. He had only sent the newspapers about Eureka, for democracy was a very different thing in Knockaleery.

  The fault had been on their side too. His father had written so often about coming, about sending Eliza, or those in America, but only Robert had come, and they had sent him grudgingly. Eliza had been put off time and again with promises that were halfmade then broken and never explained.

  He knew his own family here ate better, lived better and spoke better than those back at Knockaleery, and as he looked at Eliza’s poor writing, he thought even Harold wrote better. And although Eliza was his sister, he hardly knew her now, nor she him.

  There were other things too. He could not tell them of his poor health, for he suffered diabetes now, and knew the thing would kill him in time, as it had killed dear John Humffray. But in Knockaleery, they were so ignorant of disease and the workings of the body that he could never explain such a thing to them. But the biggest sticking point was the deaths of Willy and Johnny, so he could not ask Lizzie to write, or Wattie, Herbert, Robert or even little Harold. Back home they had not known his dear boys, and that had stopped him from writing. He could not do it; he could not. And so he kept the letter but did not write.

  It was Sunday morning and he was cleaning up odds and ends, one of which was what should be done about the temperance men, who had gained control of the parliament, and had brought in a measure to reduce the number of public houses. The measure was called the local option and the community could vote for how many public houses they wished to have in their borough. The poll in east Ballarat had reduced the number of hotels from sixty-eight to twenty-eight, with some compensation for those forced to close. In west Ballarat, the fight was just warming up, and William was still thinking how it should be fought.

  As a democrat, he was all for having both sides heard, and having the people make up their minds. If people wanted fewer public houses, he himself would certainly not suffer, for the Provincial, which was a leading house, would not be closed. He would benefit from reduction in the competition. But as a businessman, and a democrat also, he objected to people taking away a man’s living, for although there was compensation, it was never quite enough.

  He thought the temperance men exaggerated the perils of drink, frightening people and impugning the morality of the trade. Nevertheless, he was aware of the growing tide of temperance and was looking for a coffee house as an investment, an insurance against the rise of wowserism. However, he could not seriously believe that coffee could provide the pleasure and relaxation of alcohol for, while some men imbibed too much, a well-run bar was the most companionable and pleasant place he knew of. As a leading member of the Licensed Victuallers, he needed to straighten his thoughts and find a way to defend the rights of the members.

  Julia rang the dinner bell. Sunday lunch, which was a roast, was a family ritual. It came with a white starched damask tablecloth and starched napkins, polished silver, the good dinner set and a special gravy boat. The entire family sat down every Sunday to this meal. This ritual was as rigorously observed as church and Sunday school. Lizzie, Walter, Herbert, Robert, Harold and Robert’s children, Mary Jane, Alice and John, sat at the table in their allotted places.

  ‘What did you do at Sunday school this week?’ William asked Harold, once grace had been said and the food served.

  ‘I am to sign the pledge next week,’ Harold told his father proudly. ‘And I’ll get a certificate which is blue and gold and very nice indeed.’

  ‘And who,’ asked William, taking a sip of his beer, which he always drank with the roast, ‘who suggested that you sign the pledge?’

  ‘The Sunday school teacher, Miss McIntosh, for we are all to do it.’

  ‘And what does this pledge mean? Do you know?’

  Harold squirmed uneasily on the dining chairs which had come so many years ago from the brothel on Main Street. He seemed to realise now that there was a little more to this than the innocent pleasure of a blue and gold certificate. ‘It says, “I hereby promise to abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors including wine, beer and cider, from the use of tobacco in any form, and from all profanity.”’

  ‘And why would a person be doing that?’

  ‘So they could lead a good and
clean life,’ said Harold. ‘That is what Miss McIntosh says.’

  ‘Ah,’ said William to Julia. ‘I can imagine this Miss McIntosh. I have her clearly in my mind.’ He thought Miss McIntosh dry, a little desiccated. He turned to Harold and held up his glass. ‘And what is this?’

  ‘It is beer.’

  ‘And if you look over there, what do you see? On the little table?’

  ‘That is your pipe stand, and your pipe cleaners.’ Harold spoke enthusiastically, for he loved the pipe stand, which had a tobacco jar at one end, with the tobacco in a leather pouch, and a fine picture of a soldier on the jar. He very much liked the smell of the tobacco jar and his father’s pipe.

  ‘And you know your dear father leads a good and clean life? And quite naturally abstains from most profanity?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And so do many other men, who enjoy beer, whisky and a pipe.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you must tell Miss McIntosh that you won’t be signing the pledge. For you are the son of a hotel keeper. We run a respectable house here, and no son of mine will grow up having pledged when he was nine years old to eschew the innocent and healthful pleasures of manhood. Such a thing would be foolish indeed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  But he could see the child was somewhat cast down by the loss of the promised blue and gold certificate, given that his future enjoyment of spirits, wine, beer and tobacco were some way off.

  The incident mobilised William for the fight against the wowsers in the local option poll, and while he was always moderate and well spoken in his arguments, he did not draw back, for he saw that the Miss McIntoshes of the world had taken respectability and propriety as theirs to impose, and did not see that men needed drink, tobacco, the company of other men, and that freedom he had so enjoyed in the days of the rush and which had been so much of his life since. At times, admittedly, there had been profanities uttered and a lack of moderation in the consumption of strong drink. But he felt it wrong that the enjoyment and freedom of so many could be snuffed by the few who held that they knew best. The fight was fought cleanly, but effectively, so while they lost a good many hotels in west Ballarat, the loss was far less than it had been in the east of the city.