The Hanging of Mary Ann

by Angela Badger

  “Oh, look, the time for niceties and fine words is long gone. I have to thank you for so much. Sit down, at least there’s a chair. Sit down and let me speak.”

  Amazed, he did as she said. This is how she would have welcomed him to Bywong. She was speaking to him in language of the hostess, not in the tongue of a prisoner awaiting… his mind refused to go there.

  “You’ve nothing to thank me for,” he mumbled. The tables had been turned. He was expecting to talk and console and it was she who took the matter into her own hands.

  “Oh yes, I have. Elizabeth’s told me it was you who found Mr Fawcett for us. We are quite unversed in legal matters.”

  “He’s not been much help,” he muttered bitterly.

  “You can’t blame him. Sir Alfred’s a powerful speaker. The point he made was very convincing. Anything that appears to have any forethought is criminal… or so it seems.”

  “How can you be so matter of fact, Mary Ann? How can you just take it like this?” he blurted out.

  “I’m not matter of fact. Don’t think I don’t pick over every word that’s been spoken every minute of the day and most of the night but don’t let’s dwell there. I was thanking you, wasn’t I? For finding Mr Fawcett, for standing by my family. I believe you suggested so much… the petition, the letters…”

  “This should never have happened.”

  “Never have happened! Why did I pick up that knife? Why did I follow him? Of course it should never have happened.”

  “No, I mean our lives should have been so different.”

  Silence hung heavily between them. She clutched the prayer book and held it to her breast like a talisman. “I think you’d better leave,” she whispered.

  “May I come again tomorrow?”

  For a moment he thought she would refuse for she frowned slightly, she did not look at him; instead, she pushed the hair back from her forehead and smiled to herself. “Please come.” Just two words but he knew he’d found the key to her heart.

  Each day that the mail coach sped into town a crowd awaited it anxiously. “Of course nothing could be expected so soon” was the comforting phrase on everyone’s lips as the days passed by. After the second week still no word had come.

  “A reprieve, that’s what she’ll get. Takes time though, takes time for those high-ups to come together and make up their minds.”

  Mary Ann never asked. Her world had disappeared, she existed in an alien place. Four bare walls, a bed, a table, a chair and the glimpse of a patch of blue sky high up in the window. Memories flooded back, days of haymaking, months of riding down to the river or up to the mountains and years of watching the seasons roll by. The crows would be winging their way across the Bywong paddocks, the frogs croaking down in the dam and the cows shifting impatiently in their stalls waiting to be milked.

  Each memory spanned so much time. By comparison she had been in this wretched place for only a moment. What did that count against those years of freedom?

  What of that other cell where the Widow Capet had waited? Were the walls as bare, the sky as far away, and did she listen just as anxiously to every footstep in the passage outside? Did her thoughts fly away from the straw, the rough boards and the dusty bricks of her cell? Instead, did she once again take a proffered arm and make her way to the dining table? Did she gather her skirts together and join the dancers, did she walk the paths in Versailles and once again look upon the fountains and the statues?

  A strange tranquillity took hold of Mary Ann; others mistook her silence for despair. They eagerly told her of the letters that had been written, the hopeful remarks of those in power, the certainty that decisions could be overturned, mercy would be shown. Her ears rang with their protestations, she smiled and listened but all she wanted was for them to be gone - to leave her with her thoughts.

  Day followed day and she looked forward to Frank’s visits ever more keenly. He’d ridden to the city, he’d petitioned every person of note he could approach. He’d knocked on every door where help could be sought and he’d finally returned to spend time at her side.

  Mary Ann would have liked to lose count of the days but instead each one came and went with a finality she could not ignore but there was always hope. Just as she’d hoped that night of the fire, and hadn’t she been proved right?

  Each time he came she could not help herself searching his face for an answer. If anyone could turn the world around it would be Frank. The Lintotts, Dr Morton and Mr Sowerby came and went from her cell and she could only wish them all to be gone. With Frank she felt peace and hope return when the door clanged shut behind him.

  “What is that noise?”

  “Noise?” Frank did not want to answer.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you so much.” She took the mug of coffee he held out for her and put it on the table. He hoped she would not ask again.

  “That hammering. They started this morning and they just keep on and on.”

  The words did not come but when she looked more closely the answer was in his eyes.

  “Oh yes, I understand. How foolish of me.”

  He took her hands in his and felt the tremor which passed through her body.“Mary Ann…I…”

  “Oh, please don’t say anything Frank. I haven’t lived twenty-three years without learning something of the ways of the world. I should have realised, I should not have had to ask.”

  He sat down beside her, still holding her hands.

  “There is still time, Mary Ann. No one has given up hope. There is…”

  “Don’t let us keep going down that road. Only this morning Mr Sowerby came and spoke of so much. Let us talk, Frank, don’t let’s worry about the morrow.”

  “Talk!” he exclaimed bitterly, “I should have spoken at the right time, I should have spoken years ago. I was a fool, I should have talked!”

  “Ah, but would I have listened?” A faint smile passed over her features.

  “What can I say?”

  “You can tell me if the Canberri and the Ngunawal men have gone off up to the mountains yet I fancy it’s a little too early for the bogongs but who knows? You can tell me if the spring leaves are shooting on the apple trees and whether it’s been a good year for the lambing, there is so much you can tell me.” She smiled at him, gently let go of his hands and rose. Slowly she paced up and down.

  To and fro she walked as Frank talked on. Each time he paused she urged him on - his voice shut out the hammering. Up and down she paced as though in time to the distant beat of a drum which only she could hear. Her feet were treading a path which had been trod before. With each step a certainty grew inside her, a feeling of slotting into place with time and becoming part of the cycle of life.

  She did not feel frightened, she did not even feel alone. Warmth spread through her, soft fingers entwined in hers.

  Another led the way, looking over her shoulder and smiling at Mary Ann… “Fear not, I have trodden this path before you.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Elizabeth put little George on her shoulder and took her first steps along the hallway. Up and down she walked each day, just as she’d walked with her own babies. Soon he’d be sleepy, soon he’d be ready to drop off.

  So occupied was she that she did not notice Henry slipping into his study, but when she passed the open door the crackling of the newspaper betrayed his presence.

  The execution of this unfortunate young woman for the murder of her husband took place at 4 o’clock on Thursday afternoon on the scaffold erected for the purpose within the precincts of the prison.

  Momentarily he put The Herald down. There were several columns to come. He’d have to make sure Elizabeth did not see it… set her off again, more than likely!

  “The time appointed for her sentence to be carried out was 9 o’clock in the morning and on the previous evening the anxiety for the arrival of the mail from Sydney and to obtain intelligence of the arrival of the reprieve became intense. But Alas! No such reprieve arrived.

  �
�One of her sisters a respectable married female named Lintott had been frequently to visit her and her distress of mind can more easily be conceived than described. Another sister also married and in respectable circumstances arrived in Goulburn by the Sydney Mail on Tuesday but so exceedingly overwhelming was her grief and distraction on entering her condemned sister’s cell that she fell into violent hysterical fits which succeeded each other.

  “On the night preceding her execution the deceased seemed to continue in a sort of half slumber and in the morning sparingly partook of some coffee brought to her by Mr Rossi. The Rev Mr Sowerby was constant in his attendance upon her and although weak in body she expressed herself resigned to meet her fate with becoming submission.

  “She was too feeble to mount the ladder without assistance and when she had reached the platform she turned round and with a graceful inclination of the head said Goodbye.

  “At the moment when the dreadful rope was being adjusted round her neck a trial which might have unnerved the stoutest frame unless perfectly submissive awaited her, some of the females confined in the prison (probably beholding the proceeding through the windows) commenced loudly shrieking and wailing but her fortitude never forsook her; the cap was drawn over her features, the bolt withdraw; she fell through the aperture and died instantly…without a single struggle.”

  “What have you got there?”

  His wife peered round the door, little Georgy’s head resting on her shoulder.

  “Nothing dear, nothing!”

  “Since when was The Herald just nothing? No good keeping things from me. It’ll be about our … our girl, won’t it?

  Henry Lintott laid the paper aside. “Perhaps one day, dear, perhaps one day you’ll want to know what they said.”

  “Makes no difference now, does it? Nothing can ever bring her back, I’m not a simpleton, Henry, I know that. You’re right, though. Too many people poked their noses in, just made it worse, like that last day. Should have been first thing in the morning, and what did they do? Delay it till four in the afternoon well, admittedly they were hoping the mail would bring a last minute reprieve. But, think how she must have felt, waiting all day, poor love. Go on, tell me what they’re saying.”

  Reluctantly Henry picked up the paper again.

  “Go on…what do they say?”

  “The Herald says … a body of police were under arms and stationed around the foot of the scaffold, ten householders had been summoned to witness and certify to carrying out of the sentence and a number of other respectable persons were allowed admittance by the deputy sheriff.”

  “Respectable persons! Our Mary Ann so brave, so very brave.”

  “That’s true, brave to the end. I heard Mr Sowerby say as how her dress caught on something, when… when you know she was going up… and she stumbled. And how she spoke up and said she wasn’t frightened, her dress had just caught on a nail.”

  Elizabeth Lintott gasped. “What happened? Tell me again!”

  When her husband had finished she remained silent for a moment. “You know what Grand-père told us once…that when the Queen went up to the steps to that, that, you know… well, her foot caught and she stumbled. She begged the executioner’s pardon for standing on his foot. She turned and faced them to show she wasn’t flinching. ‘My slipper caught on a nail,’ she said.”

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The description of the fire is based on Dame Mary Gilmour’s short story FIRE.

  Excerpts covering the execution are from The Goulburn Herald.

  Photography by Daphne Salt

  REVIEWS OF ANGELA’S FIRST NOVEL, CHARLOTTE BADGER - BUCCANEER

  Dislocation, cultural fear, alienation amid landscape, and the abuse of authority come together in (this) novel…The vivid imagining of Charlotte’s adventures makes this a lively narrative.

  - Sydney Morning Herald

  We know a happy ending is impossible and Badger does an excellent job of portraying the horror of the convicts’ lot, the desperation of life in the 19th century, and the cruelty of the social and political system in which they were enmeshed.

  - The New Zealand Herald

  Euan Rose wrote a play about Charlotte Badger. Angela collaborated on both the musical, and the film script by Euan Rose commissioned by Screen West Midlands.

  MORE TITLES BY ANGELA BADGER

  The River’s Revenge (junior fiction)

  Poles Apart (junior fiction)

  The Boy from Buninyong

  Charlotte Badger – Buccaneer

  The Water People