“There’s an inn, near the Bogong Rock,” he grudgingly admitted.
“Is that the place where the bogong moths come from?”
He smiled at his granddaughter. “Bogong moths are everywhere in their millions. The Bogong Rock’s not where they come from, it’s just one of the places where they settle on their journey and where they go to, no one knows. Most of all they are found up in the mountains about now, in fact, that’s why you’ll not have seen any blackfellows at all. They’re all up there.”
“You mean they’ve all moved off?”
“Only for now; they follow the food. It’s said that when the snow melts on the lower ranges of the great mountains, and that’s now, early October, then the first of the men start for the foothills. Then more follow, soon whole families make the journey in search of the moths.”
“But what do they want with moths? Moths are just like butterflies. Just flutter about.” Grand-père was sure to have a story to tell.
“You’ve seen the bogongs. They’re big moths, about an inch long. ‘tis said they’re good eating.”
“Eat moths! Ugh…how revolting.”
“They tell me the Bogong moth is so important to them that they gladly make these great journeys. After the bitter winters of the plains they can feast on those fat bodies and when they return from the mountains their skin is glossy and they are sleek with the nourishment.”
“I cannot see how eating moths can even keep a person alive, let alone make them sleek and glossy! What goodness would there be in a moth to feed a person?”
“Not a bit of it. It’s the quantity that does the trick. Thousands and thousands of moths breed up in the mountains. They hang in great clumps inside caverns and amongst the rocks. The natives creep in with burning switches and smoke them out so they tumble down into the waiting nets, then they cook them in the hot ashes of their fires.”
“Ugh! How disgusting!”
“Not at all. I’ve tasted them, they are quite sweet…like nuts.”
“But to go to all that effort for a few meals seems strange to me.”
“They last for longer than that. The moths’ bodies are fatty and any not eaten then and there are pounded with seeds and made into cakes that can be kept for weeks. These cakes are smoked so they last even longer.”
“Well, I still can’t see why, with so much around in the way of kangaroo and lizards and birds anyone should bother with moths.”
“It is a way of life. You’ve got to take my word for it.”
“It must be miserable up there amongst all those rocks.”
“Not so. There are many caves…good shelter for everyone.” He paused and stared out at the sodden landscape.
Job’s rain streaked face was at the door again. “She’s right,’ he nodded towards the mare, “just a pebble in her shoe, that was all… have you made your mind up, sir?”
“Perhaps one night in an inn would be acceptable. This weather’s not going on for ever. It’ll probably only last one night.”
An inn! Mary Ann had never set foot in such a place. A hint of wild goings-on, drinking and carousing hung about the mere mention of those establishments. There was an inn at Collegdar but even her brother avoided the place, and the only other inn near Gundaroo was owned by a French man rumoured to be in league with the bushrangers. He’d give his accomplices the nod if anyone of substance stopped by. Word travelled fast, there were no secrets on the Wool Road down to the coast or the highway to Sydney.
Disappointment tweaked at her when Job reined in the horses outside the Bogong Inn. Such an ordinary place! Almost snug as it nestled under a forested hill. A horseman must have just arrived as the ostler had started to lead a handsome bay gelding round to the stables.
“I’ll look at the place first.” Pain contorted Grand-père’s features as he struggled to pick up his stick which had fallen to the floor.
“Let me go.” Mary Ann put a hand on his arm. “If it’s really nasty and dirty you’ll have had all the trouble for nothing. Let me go.”
“What could you tell about a place?” retorted her grandfather.
“Papa told me to be a help. How can I help if you won’t let me!”
Her quick reply brought a smile to the old man’s lips. You’d not keep a Guise down, that was for sure. Blood counts.
Mary Ann brushed down her bodice, smoothed her dark curls and motioned Job to follow her. In truth she felt quite nervous, inns on the whole having unsavoury reputations. But now was not the time to be timid. Holding her head up high she nodded to the servant by the door as though visiting wayside inns, and far more salubrious establishments, was an everyday event for her.
This inn proved indeed as snug as its appearance had promised. A fire crackled in the large room serving as entrance, parlour and dining room. From the rear of the building the sound of male voices came loud and clear. That would be the bar, Mary Ann decided. She stood at the table and waited.
She sniffed the air. Wood smoke, lavender and a tantalising hint of roast meat. “That’s nice, Job,” she said over her shoulder without looking round. “I can’t smell a single bug here.”
“And I am sure Mrs McCready, will be most flattered by your recommendation.”
She spun round and found herself facing a tall, broad-shouldered man with a saddlebag clutched in one hand and a pair of boots in the other.
“Sir!” Momentarily shaken from her confident poise she glanced around the room but could see no servant or even any other person than Job who remained respectfully in the background, perhaps the words must have come from him.
“May I introduce myself, Frank de Rossi,” he put down the boots, but not the saddlebag, and gave a slight bow.
“I was looking for the landlady.”
“Ah, the admirable Mrs McCready, our hostess, she’s busy in the kitchen, I believe.” Picking up his boots he smiled at Mary Ann, “I’ll ask one of the maids to send her to you…and may I assure you, this is a most excellent inn. You will not find better this side of the city and you can be assured not a single bedbug has ever crossed its portals.”
“I doubt there’s a better inn this side of Sydney,” observed Grand-père later that evening as he sipped at his port and for a few moments forgot the throbbing pain in his knee.
“Just my very words to your daughter earlier this evening,” Frank de Rossi raised his glass and looked across at Mary Ann who had left the table and now sat with her crochet by the fire.
“My granddaughter, sir, granddaughter. My son William’s girl. Not that he doesn’t have plenty of girls. Giddy things that they are…all married off now, excepting young Mary Ann of course. She’s got a head on her shoulders, she’s accompanying me to the city…a trifling operation’s needed…a trifle…then we’ll be home. Tell me, how’s your father…haven’t seen hide nor hair of him in years.”
“Father’s in the best of health. Busy as the day is long. I have had to make the journey home, Corsica that is, as you know, and he says he scarcely missed me! He says his own travelling days are over so I have to attend to matters over there. He’s starting to build our new house at Rossiville.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of that. Talk of the countryside. They say he’s even putting in a ballroom!”
“That’s right, sir. Father’s got an eye for the future. He says one day the Limestone Plains’ll have a society like Sydney. That ballroom’s taking all his time and attention at the moment. Hardly started the house yet, but one day it’ll be there.”
“Can’t see the sense of that. Where are all the people coming from?
“He’ll be hard pressed getting enough for a ball! Half the ladies never live down on our properties they prefer to spend their days in Sydney or Melbourne… like my daughter Hannah where we’re bound. Couldn’t wait to follow her husband to the city life.”
“Ah, times are changing, sir. This is such a new country, give it time.”
“Well, I doubt I’ll see much alter in my lifetime, different for you
young’uns. I’ve seen enough changes already in my day. When we first came to this country this was still a wilderness. Who’d have imagined I could ever travel in my own coach from Gundaroo to Sydney. ’Twas horseback for us and naught else. First sight of the Lake I ever had was from the saddle. Now here we are, spending a night under a decent roof and ready to be on the road again, first thing.”
“And no bedbugs I assure you,” Frank de Rossi glanced across at Mary Ann with the hint of a smile.
She sniffed. He didn’t need to remind her!
“There’s inns and then there are inns!” muttered Grand-père. “You said you’d tell me that story about a man being nearly murdered at an inn. What happened, Grand-père?”
“Oh, another time, remind me again.”
“The evening stretches before us, sir… what better way to spend it than listening to an interesting tale.” Frank de Rossi leant over and filled the old man’s glass.
“Just an incident, something that happened when I was new to the Colony, something which made a great difference to me at the time, but that’s all in the past.”
“Go on, Grand-père, tell us.” Mary Ann put down her crochet hook and joined them at the table. “Grand-père’s stories are famous. No one can tell a story like him and he remembers just about everything.”
Frank topped up his own glass. A log crackled in the fireplace as a piece of wood flared sending a shaft of light across the girl’s face. Her dark curls cascaded over her features as she leant her elbows on the table. Her face was hidden but to Frank it seemed he had known every feature for ever. For the first time in many years his heart beat to a quickening pace. Had they ever met before. Certainly not, but perhaps in another life, another time, another world their paths had crossed. He shook his head at the absurdity of his thoughts… and yet he savoured for a moment the happiness of a lonely man who has wandered and searched and finally stumbled upon all that he had ever longed for.
“New to the Colony, I was. New and green but I soon learnt, same as we all do. Every man for himself. It’s always been so, then sometimes a chance comes that you can’t ignore.”
“Just as my father said, almost the same words,” Frank muttered.
“But old Francis came with a silver spoon in his mouth, didn’t he. Your father had a Government, position, all the rest of it. I came as a private in the New South Wales Corps. At fourteen pounds a year and me and my lovely Elizabeth sleeping twelve families to a room. A pretty big room, but one room all the same with just hessian curtains between us all.
“The New South Wales Corps… surely not. The scum of the land! Why, I heard that in England they took the men from the condemned cell gave them a second chance of life if they would join the Corps.”
“You don’t need to look so shocked, young Frank. Those were hard times. I had served in Flanders before I went to the court of Versailles, all I knew was court life and soldiering. Getting across the Channel to London was the luckiest day of my life. Meeting your grandmother, that was the second most fortunate.”
He paused and sipped at his port. “The king and queen had been taken from Versailles, taken up to the Temple prison in the city and do you know what that mob did? They paraded outside their prison with the head of the Princesse de Lamballes upon a pike. The Queen had to look upon her dearest friend’s white face, that beautiful hair caked with blood. Think of that! I was lucky to escape with my life.”
“Fortunate to have a haven, fortunate to have friends.”
“Friends! I had no friends. I knew no one in that cold unfriendly city… that London. No money, no one to assist…I’d not wish such a predicament on any man. But then Fate smiled… that was then I met your grandmother,” he leant across and patted Mary Ann’s hand…“met her at a wine trader’s house…only person I knew in the whole of London, had once shipped cognac over from the de Guise estates. Only there because of some hope the fellow could find employment for me…and of course some of those English liked to feel they helped the émigrés, as they called us. Ha! Emigrés. Outcasts more likely. I’d been invited for dinner and when I walked into the room – there she was.”
“Grand-mère’s never told me this.”
“Perhaps one day she would have done, if she’d been spared long enough. There’s tales you don’t tell children,” he paused and smiled to himself. “Well, I’m telling you now. Seems you are ready for it.”
“Ready for it?”
“It was love my girl. Love at first sight. You aren’t the age to know about love…but when you do then you’ll understand. Love at first sight they call it and there is no going back, not in a lifetime.”
Amazed, Mary Ann stared at her grandfather. Never before had she heard him speak so intimately of his past.
Surprisingly confused she gave a laugh. “Oh Grand-père, such things only happen in stories!”
“One smile, one look and that’s enough. Sometimes you look straight into another’s soul.”
“Sir…you are quite the poet.” Frank de Rossi stared down at the table, his expression shielded by shadow.
“But then those were hard times…my dear Elizabeth preferred not to remember the hardship but believe me she went through the mill… we both did.”
“You had a long and happy life together.” Frank leant over and refilled the other man’s glass.
“The best. The very best. You hear about such things but you don’t believe them do you? One look, one glance and you know that you have found all you ever need in life.”
“Yes, that can happen, indeed it can.” Frank suddenly found a thread unravelling on his sleeve and doggedly set about tucking it in and smoothing the stitches.
“You were going to tell us about the inn Grand-père.”
“Indeed. The inn which changed my life! All things happen in threes don’t they, think of the fairy tales. The princess has three wishes, the king has three sons, the suitor has to perform three tasks. Well going to that inn was the third thing for me, it changed my life. My first piece of luck was escaping across the Channel, my second was meeting dear Elizabeth, the third was walking into that inn.” Sipping his port the old man’s gaze drifted into that middle distance when memory picks up the brush and paints once again those enduring pictures of the past.
“We were stationed up beyond Parramatta, a wild and lonely place but travellers passed that way on many occasions and Seamus 0’Reilly’s inn was all they could hope for. You could smell the bugs the moment you stepped over the threshold, that’s what brought it to mind. Bless me I’d nearly forgotten about that inn, and the captain, and those murderin’ Irish and what happened.”
“Was he murdered then, was that what you meant.”
“He came as close as any man, the knife was on his throat.”
“And what happened?”
“I’m telling you, child… stop being so impatient, listen for once, Always skimming around, wanting to know this or that or hurry folk along. Listen.”
Frank de Rossi smiled. “Your grandfather is right, he’ll tell the story in his own time.”
Not another person telling her what to do! Mary Ann scornfully half turned her back on him. What was the matter with old people. First grandfather never seemed to keep up with things. And now this man, old enough to be her father trying, to tell her what to do.
“Our Captain Corrigan had been visiting a young woman for quite some time. She was the daughter of this inn keeper, Seamus 0’Reilly. Now his inn was not a place you’d want to spend the night in, I can tell you that.
“That Seamus was a good enough fellow but like all the Irish he couldn’t keep his inn clean, neither did he keep his nose clean. Got himself mixed up with every shady deal in the place and in particular he’d taken to helping out many another Irishman. You know the Irish, forever rebelling or escaping. Well his inn was a haven for anyone on the run from the road gangs and such.
“Of course we didn’t know what was going on under our noses, typical of the military I’d say,
and certainly Captain Corrigan didn’t realise he was keeping company with the daughter of a traitor.
“That evening a messenger had galloped over from Parramatta with a message, an order more likely. Governor Hunter would be arriving that night. Quite unexpected, I might say. Well, if the governor arrived and our commanding officer was nowhere in sight there would be hell to pay. I knew very well where he would be.
The door of the inn was unlocked and as I stood there that stink of bugs made my guts heave. A filthy place, and that smell! Well, I’ve spoken about the smell of bugs before. I might have shouted out for the landlord or a maid, I could have called out for the potboy or anyone but I didn’t want to set foot in the place. Could not face the stink of those bugs. So I walked round to the kitchen, which as you know, would be quite separate as they always were for fear of fire. It lay out the back behind that establishment. Unexpected, unannounced, I got the shock of my life.
“I’ll never forget the sight of those men, and our poor Captain lying, spread eagled on the floor. Later he told me he’d never suspected there were any such goings-on. Usually he visited his lady-love late at night, this time he arrived unusually early, no one expected him at the inn. When he went round to the kitchen and walked in as usual six desperate men confronted him. They never meant him to get away and tell the tale.
“As I said when I came looking in that kitchen, the knife was already at his throat and it didn’t take much to make me realise they’d do for me next. No one must know and believe me there’s miles and miles of wild country stretching on for ever. Two bodies could be disposed of in a trice.
“‘Let the captain go lads, let him go. No more will be spoken of this.’ I knew how weak that sounded as I mouthed those words, ‘This began as a matter of the heart, let’s not make more of it.’
“That’s all fine speaking, sorr’, said Seamus ‘but I’ve a livin’ to make. One word blabbed and I’ll be hanging from that tree outside. Never trust an Englishman.’”
The Hanging of Mary Ann Page 3