The shop buzzed with the chatter of women.
“ ’Ain’t she a little love.” Lizzie stared wide-eyed from the security of her shawl as customer after customer paused to pass the time of day with Mary Ann and give the baby a gentle pat. “And how’s your big sister? You helping your ma these days, young Cathy. Always got to help yer ma.”
Compounded of a whiff of this and a sniff of that, the atmosphere in the shop was heavy and yet subtly satisfying. Liquorice, ginger, soap, the sharp clean scent of paper from a pile advertising a sale and the faintly chemical odour from some cotton sheets. The sunshine slanted down upon the busy women as they touched and felt and added up the pennies and the shillings. Chatter filled the air while neighbours caught up with the news and bandied words.
Mary Ann was watching her sugar being weighed out when the door flew open. Immediately the hubbub ceased as every head turned.
Amongst the sober clothes of wives and mothers, Brigid O’Rourke’s green and yellow flounced skirt and tasselled shawl glowed artfully. Not too showy, yet not to be passed over, everything about her spoke of style. Long black curls framing her delicately boned face, highlighting the sparkle in her eyes and certainly drawing attention from the faint lines around them. So fine was the arch of her eyebrows and the Cupid’s bow of her lips that they might have been drawn by an artist. From the tilt of her nose to the determined set of her chin she exuded health and vigour.
“Them ribbons come in yet?” she demanded across the counter.
Gone was the uncertain woman who’d come calling at Mary Ann’s door. Gone and never to return was that Brigid who had no place in the world. The new Brigid had arrived. Her eyes gleamed as she caught sight of Mary Ann and her red lips curved in a faint smile showing evenly-spaced perfect teeth which, for some unknown reason, reminded Mary Ann of a ferret. She did not speak a greeting, instead she nodded with the casual acknowledgement of equals.
There are nods… and there are nods. This nod was not a polite acknowledgement of another’s presence nor a familiar greeting between neighbours. This nod was a dismissive gesture of one who scarcely has the time and certainly not the inclination to further any aquaintance.
“I said, have you got them ribbons in yet?”
The storekeeper’s hand faltered, he spilled some sugar on the counter, then fumbled for a piece of paper amongst a pile of receipts and notes. “Lookin’ for the invoice.” Slip after slip went through his fingers, no one moved.
“Ain’t got all day, you know.” She glanced around the shop.
Conversation ceased. Expectancy quivered in the air, triggered by furtive glances between customers. The muttered exchanges of woman to woman took the place of the easy banter and an uneasy shifting of feet marked the distinct turning around of several women, continuing their conversations with their backs to the newcomer.
“If they ain’t in, don’t trouble yerself,” Brigid called across. “Won’t waste me time stoppin’ by.”
“Sorry, Miss, sorry. When’s the latest… I’ll send one of the boys up.”
“Friday. Early, mind you. Be on me way to Bungendore Friday night.”
“That’ll be the races, eh?”
Not bothering to answer Brigid spun round and slammed the door shut.
Eyes that had been rivetted upon the girl now wavered, some eyebrows were raised, some lips mimed mild disgust, those that had turned their glances away now faced each other again and within seconds those same glances fell on Mary Ann.
And why are they staring at me? Every pair of eyes focused on her, Mary Ann shifted uncomfortably and turned away. Why were they so curious? Some watched covertly with their hands busy feeling or lifting or weighing up the value of a purchase, some steadfastly observed her.
She looked down at her cotton dress and pulled the crocheted shawl closer round herself and the baby. Surreptitiously she rubbed one dusty boot against the other and smoothed the wrinkles in her bodice. A wave of regret swept over her. Once her eyes had sparkled like that, once she’d had no more thought in the world than some new ribbons for her bonnet. Brigid O’Rourke didn’t look a day older than herself and yet there must be at least five years between them, maybe more.
Why were they still staring? Certainly they looked their fill! How they had all stared at Brigid, a pretty woman always sets the old chooks clucking, she told herself. Well, perhaps they’d seen too that marriage and motherhood made a big difference. Perhaps they would enjoy a gossip at her expense. She turned and asked for another pound of sugar.
By the time the trap bowled into the yard she’d thrown off the regrets. They had trotted along leaving a cloud of dust, while Job chattered unceasingly. Sitting beside him, with the reins in his hands, the years rolled back. Laughing at his same old jokes, listening to his pungent comments about the carelessness of the younger generation and the selfishness of the older one, nothing had changed, had it? This was her life, a fine farm, a handsome husband, beautiful daughters. How could she feel inferior to an older woman who most likely owned nothing but the clothes she stood up in?
I’ve everything to be grateful for, she told herself as she helped Job unload the bags and boxes. The same happy mood lingered when George came in for his supper.
Cheerfully he had pulled up a bucket from the well and whistled to himself as he came in and sat down at the table. Lately he’d not grumbled about much at all, the baby no longer woke him. Well, she’d taken his hint and moved out on those nights when Lizzie was restless. A man needs his sleep, after all.
She watched his sunburnt hands cutting the bread with a yearning that was becoming more and more frequent. She hungered for his touch and the pleasure of his closeness, but since Lizzie had come he turned away from her on many a night.
“Can you get one of the lads to kill one of the cockerels for me? We’ll have it roasted tomorrow. What do you think?”
“Hmm … hot weather comin’.”
“Well, that doesn’t matter.”
“Won’t be here for a couple of days. You won’t eat up cold chicken all on your own, it’ll go off, this weather.”
Disappointment flitted across her face as George laid down his knife.
“You’re going away again? You were in Goulburn not two weeks gone.”
“Not going to Goulburn. ’Tis Bungendore, me and the lads might pick up some yearlings…”
CHAPTER 14
Smoke! The merest inkling but enough to warn Mary Ann.
“Did you put out that bonfire like I said, Job?”
“Two buckets of water I used, Missus, two buckets like what you said.”
Even so Mary Ann hurried down past the homestead to the orchard. Apples and plums glowed upon the trees and in the far corner were the blackened remains of diseased crab-apple branches. She picked up the few remaining twigs. They needed to be completely destroyed so as not to spread the mould.
Certainly the fire had been put out, yet the bite of wood smoke tainted the air. She shrugged, that smoke must have drifted along on the breeze from some other property.
Back in the kitchen she moved quietly, snapping the crab-apple twigs and filling up the kindling box. She tucked it back underneath the black belly of the stove where it would remain perpetually dry – for damp kindling was a disaster if the fire ever went out. She swept up the few ashes into a heap. Soon the fire glowed and the gruel began to bubble. Lizzie was on to her first solids now; soon it would be time for her feed. Then the neck of mutton in the meat-safe must be stewed up, there’d be the pan she’d left soaking from last night’s meal to scour, the hens to feed, scraps to go out for the swill and she’d have to check on the dairy - couldn’t trust Job to have cleaned out the pans properly. One speck of sour milk and the cream would be ruined.
Hearing Lizzie’s cries, she went in and pulled aside the curtains. She stripped off the wet binder, wiped her dry and swiftly tied on a fresh one. Then holding her tiny daughter to her breast as she walked back to the kitchen she was soon spooning out t
he gruel to let it cool. She’d been careful not to lose her milk; wasn’t it said if you were feeding a baby you couldn’t fall for another, and at the moment Mary Ann did not want a third child. In a short while of course it would be fine, but she guessed George would not be too pleased. Let him get used to the second baby, then there’d be time for others.
“Missus! Missus!”
Draping a shawl around herself she went to the door.
“See there!”
Job pointed across the paddocks to the line of hills rising from the plain.
The merest hint of smoke smudged a faint trail amongst the hollows at the base of the ridge but even as they watched, it swirled into a more distinct form and spiralled up into the sky.
“ ’Tis the smoke you caught.”
“A long way off.”
The whites of Job’s eyes showed up against his leathery face as he stared into the distance. “Don’ like it, Missus. There ain’t nothin’ ’twixt that there fire and back o’ Murrays. Nothin’.”
“It looks closer than it is. That fire’s miles and miles away. There’s a lot of space between us. Change of wind, change of weather. Too far off to worry about.”
With the confidence of youth she dismissed the possibility of any trouble and, reassured, Mary Ann returned indoors to finish feeding Lizzie.
Two days more on her own. George and the men would be back on Wednesday. A smile spread across her features; another two days and then he’d be home. Forty-eight hours and she could be holding him in her arms again. Perhaps absence would have made the heart grow fonder?
The shadows were beginning to lengthen on the beaten earth of the yard by the time Mary Ann took an afternoon stroll down to the dam. Ducks dabbled amongst the reeds and dragonflies hovered over the water.
The column of smoke was barely visible. By the time she’d circled the dam and walked down towards the next paddock she had reassured herself once again and turned back towards the homestead.
Home. No doubt about it, home is where the heart is. From the front verandah to the covered walkway joining the kitchen to the back door, security enfolded her.
Time to get some mending done and maybe even a few moments to pluck that chicken she’d had killed for the table.
Job puffed away at his clay pipe, sitting on the bench outside his hut. As she went indoors he called out, “Wind’s a-freshen’, Missus, caught a sniff of that there smoke again.”
“Miles away, miles away.” Job certainly lived up to his name. He saw nothing but disaster all around.
But yes, the wind had freshened. What had been an almost airless morning had gusted into a windy afternoon. A baking breeze snatched at the saplings not long planted around the fence, the upper branches of the big elm by the gate twisted and its leaves shook as dust flew in all directions.
It wasn’t till dusk when she put the children to bed and walked out to make sure of the henhouse door that any real danger became apparent. Shadows had gathered around the homestead, candlelight glowed from the kitchen, and the chimes of the grandfather clock heralded the fast approaching night.
Had Job made sure that the henhouse was locked as well as latched? A clever dingo or a persistent fox could nudge open any carelessly closed door. Was the barn securely padlocked?
She walked out of the yard into the home paddock. Not a sound came from Job’s hut. The old man must be dog-tired, or perhaps he had some secret supply of grog, what did it matter? The smell of burning had become stronger. Where there had been a wavering hint of smoke a line of fire now glimmered. No longer was the question: ‘How far away?’ Suddenly she found herself asking: ‘How close?’
Mary Ann leant against a fencepost and stared at the fiery line. With that common refusal to accept that the worst can happen she tried to reassure herself. Surely it wasn’t coming in their direction? But the wind grazed her cheeks, full in the face she could feel its touch.
Denial after denial flitted through her mind. Night time often brought about a change of wind direction, perhaps even a brief shower might fall. Something would surely come between the farm and the fire. By the time she dragged herself indoors the myriad pinpoints of the Milky Way glimmered overhead - and the distant flames gleamed brighter.
Unwilling to get undressed and go to bed she dozed the hours away on the settle in the parlour, every few hours going to the door and peering out. Now the smell of burning came on the gusting wind.
Before first light she hurried down to the best vantage point, the knoll by the dam. The fire had leapt many miles during the hours of darkness. Now it menaced her neighbour’s land. The Palmers scarcely ever came down from the city, those acres had been bought with an eye to the future. The dry waist-high grass would be devoured in a trice.
Previously the fire had seemed quite separate from them. A great conflagration way across the foothills, searing a path through distant plains. Now the vast firefront devoured paddocks, fences, trees and the clumps of bush which had always made up their world around Bywong. Flaring up into the sky, spreading ever more greedily, the monster gulped and glowed and ravaged all that stood in its path.
During that restless night fear had driven sleep from her mind. Crossing and uncrossing her legs she had fidgeted the night away. Twisting and turning, the hours had chimed by. Terrible possibilities had surfaced. In the small hours all the worries of the world had descended; she faced each one. Destroyed stock. Ruined pasture. Dairy, sheds, sties and home razed to the ground.
They must be saved. The work of three generations of her family was not to be extinguished in a couple of hours.
Mary Ann summed up all the possibilities and knew how she could save the farm.
Just as she’d watched her father poring over the old ledger, just so she summed up the credits and debits of the situation.
An unrelenting west wind. A dam half empty. A well creaking up meagre amounts by the mere bucketful. A husband many miles away, one old man, two little children, the sheep, the cows, the pig, the horses, the carts and the plough. There was the dairy, the cowshed, the stalls and the barn. All wood, wood, wood - fodder for that devouring monster. These made up a whole host of debits.
The credits? The wind could change, clouds could bring rain. There was always the last resort of flight for Job and her little family.
But in her mind’s eye only too clearly she saw the blackened trunks of the trees, the leafless skeletons of a thousand branches. Henhouse, verandahs and huts crackling into flame would spit their sparks into the air until posts, rails, hay bales, barrels and boxes raged and shrivelled and sank to piles of ash. Worse, far worse, all around would lie the tortured carcasses of the animals.
Unthinkable. This must not happen.
Surely there was more to the credit side of life.
Hope. Hope burned bright in Mary Ann’s mind. Hope burned more brightly than the approaching flames.
Aren’t all our lives lived in hope? Mary Ann asked herself. Hope of a better understanding of others, hope of prosperity, hope of good health and happiness? And hope had always been so good for her… a fine husband, her own farm, for hadn’t her father bequeathed her a life of security? All that her father had accomplished and Grand-père Guise before him, could not, must not, be relinquished to the flames.
Walk away from all that? The house, the orchard, the majestic grandfather clock, her three brothers’ portraits painted by a travelling artist – so very precious now – the nodding rows of peas and beans in the vegetable garden, the roses, Grand-mère’s precious roses…
And what of the Percheron mare, the shorthorns and the Dorsets? Then there were the Spanish sheep. No, nothing must be allowed to menace this inheritance, this home, this haven. Out of the ravelled turmoil of those small hours hope had come, sheer determination spawned by logic pointed the way.
Mary Ann knew she had only one chance.
One loophole remained - time. Time to prepare for the onslaught.
Standing on the knoll she knew what she
had to do. Nearby half a dozen bullocks regarded her with the curiosity of their kind, their soft brown eyes wide and innocent. She could not see them terrified and burned. Gathering up her skirts she hurried into the yard.
“Missus! Missus!” Job called to her from the doorway of the cowshed. “’Tis the wind, gettin’ worse by the minute. Right from the west, blowin’ fit for a gale. I’ll get the mare out. Cart’s near the gate. We’d best be gone.”
“Gone! Have you lost your senses, man?”
“Well, I ain’t stayin’ not to catch this lot. Give it an hour or so and it’ll be ’pon us. I’ll get her in the shafts, we’ll take what you want. The little ‘uns’ll be safe. We’ll be gone in no time.”
“Gone! What about the house? What about the animals? What about the orchard?”
He looked at her as though she’d lost her senses.
“Missus, this ain’t goin’ to go away. This ’ere fire’s goin’ to take us with it if we stays.”
“We’re staying.”
“’Twill be the death of us.” As though to underline his words a few ashes fell upon his outstretched hands. “I’ll get that there cart and…”
“And I forbid you. We stay here. We don’t leave the farm.” She looked back at the house. How small and defenceless it appeared against the approaching conflagration. The cowshed and barn were only a stone’s throw away from the house with the well close by. For a moment it looked no more substantial than the toy farmyard that Cathy played with.
‘Bywong,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Bywong,’ she repeated as though the ancient name of the property could conjure up the strength and wisdom to ward off this threat. The old Canberri would have understood, the Ngunawal would have known how to save themselves. This had been her home as a child, she knew every inch of the ground – the flames would never reach it.
So much happiness, so much hard work, so much endeavour and so many smiles and laughs and tears had gone into this world of hers. It would not be relinquished without a fight.
She knew how she was going to save it.
The Hanging of Mary Ann Page 17