I lay claim to some of the fleece strewn about the rough floor and brought out my writing pouch to record this journey. But I much crave some rest …
Close to morn
There is a wild creature tramping along the roof! I have been kept awake and terrified by its heavy snuffling breath. Thin lines of moonlight are sneaking through cracks in the timber walls. The air is stifling. Outside, tree branches creak like old bones.
If Mumma were with me, she would be saying, ‘Steel yourself, girl.’ But she has been settled with her Judge who knows where? And Bridget, with her Master Green-eyes, sent to labour for Master Duriault and his vines, while Meg has been packed off to the Palmers. Did I truly catch a glimpse of Ann Spencer from Newgate?
What is that? Ah! Only a fluttering of night birds.
Dadda would have made me smile, stop me getting down on myself. He always could. Until his accident he had gone through life with the heart of a lion. That same fateful day we had gone to Ball’s Linen Drapers was the last time I ever saw him. I had left him resting on his bed at our lodgings. His crushed chest sounded like a pair of broken bellows. His skin was burning with heat. His lips were chalky and dry. Mumma had told me the signs were grave, that I must steel my heart against a fatal end.
Forgetting it was market day, I had stepped onto the roadway lost in deep worry over him. A strong smell had filled the air. I remember looking up to see a herd of cattle trampling hard over the cobblestones, bearing down upon me. I heard the urging from the drovers, the snarls and yelps of the working dogs. In one reckless dash I had risked my life and crossed the road.
Coming to a sudden stop, I almost knocked Mumma to the ground. Her fingers darted out and landed a firm pinch on my ear. ‘’Bout time you turned up, Mary Beckwith. And stop calling attention to us both!’
Mumma was always so full of fuss and feathers. I tilted my chin, stubborn to the bone. She knew how fast I could be on my feet. Indeed in those days she relied on me outrunning the nightwatchmen.
She had frowned at the hem of my scarlet cloak, splattered with cow muck thrown up from the cobbles. ‘Clean yourself, daughter. No sense in going about our business with you resembling a milkmaid.’ I gave myself a brush down while Mumma continued her chiding, ‘I hope you left out some pudden and gravy for Dadda. You know I would do for him myself if I was not so worn down.’
‘’Course, Mumma,’ I answered dismally. Worn down? My eye! She had always been plucky, with her teeming hair that no bonnet would tame and those eyes all a thunder. Pity Dadda more, I should think! He had been unfit to move since that boat slipped off its scaffold, crushing the breath out of him. It was true though, with his boatyard shut down, Mumma and I had been desperate to make ends meet …
How could I stay in this colony forevermore when I did not know how he was faring? Was he even alive? The truth hit me like cannon shot: I may never know.
16 December 1801
The rollicking laugh of a bird announced dawn. I heard a rooster cheekily crowing: I am free as a bird, free as a bird. Mary Beckwith is not, Mary Beckwith is not! Soon after, drumbeats marked the beginning of our workday.
I have been set to labour under the charge of a convict named Hetty who has a tuft of black hair creeping over her top lip. My job is to clean the wool of burrs and twigs. At first I was all thumbs when pulling the raw sweet wool of its hunks and grass, then drawing apart the fibres. Before too long I ended up in a hair-filled cloud, the oily bits and bobs tickling my nose. Lawdy, I have been sneezing all day!
Hetty chuckled at my efforts. She is such a friendly soul, and cheerily kept up a stream of chatter as she worked the separate strands of wool. ‘This carder,’ she said, ‘boasts more teeth than my own mouth.’ She gave the handle a twist. ‘Our wool makes a passable yarn once you get the knack. We already sent blankets to the orphan school. Before long Governor King wants us to produce all our own woollen goods.’
‘Are we to be put behind prison walls?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘Quaker’s Row will have to do you. Someone set light to our gaol three years ago. Burnt it to the ground. For the time being they scatter whoever is unassigned around different huts. If they get to trust you, they let you find your own room. Don’t get me wrong. Being here is no king’s picnic. They push us hard. But they leave us alone once the work is done.’
‘How long have you been unassigned?’ I asked.
‘Quaker’s Row and me are old friends. I often land back. Suits me. Those of us who can work wool are few and far between. Wore out my welcome with the last master over this chattering tongue of mine. One time I was sent to an old codger with rum breath who tried to haul me up Coal River to do his chores, but I was quick smart to absent myself from those prospects.’ She sighed. ‘I had to wear an iron collar around my neck and have a turn in the pillory on account of that misconduct. Daresay sometime soon I shall be reassigned.’
Hetty’s mention of Coal River made me shudder. I thought of Poor Sal who was headed there. ‘Ain’t Coal River where girls go missing?’
‘You don’t want to be sent to those parts,’ she declared. ‘They put the most desperate out to mine coal, with the worst of the soldiers to guard them.’
‘Is that where those three convicts escaped from?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Them lads went from Government Farm, over Toongabbie way. Plenty of redcoats been around the river looking for them, peeping and thrusting their bayonets into hidey-holes. But no luck yet. Truth is no one knows if they are heading for the Blue Mountains, or whether they have stowed away on a ship. If you want my humble advice it does not pay to stray too far.’
I felt the chill in her warning. I thought about them stringy dark-skinned people meeting together under the trees at the cove. ‘Are the natives a danger?’
She shrugged. ‘No, mostly they are shy. But there’s been plenty of unrest. The Governor’s put a bounty on the head of one of their warriors because the troops have failed to catch him. Our lads have orders to drive the rest further out, with permission to fire on them anytime. Only not the ones from Port Jackson or on the Parramatta Road. They’s allowed to hang around if they want.’
She seemed deep in thought. ‘It is the men rampaging around like colts you need worry about most. Street rogues who will rob you for a tot of rum or a sniff of tobacca. Sailors who been at sea overlong. On no account go clashing with the Corps neither. Swaggerers, the lot of ’em.’
I put on a brave face. ‘No types I ain’t come across before.’
‘Be that as it may. There are too few of us girls around. We lot are fair game.’
‘My mumma has been sent out too,’ I confided. ‘She is housekeeping for Judge Atkins. Do you know anything about him?’
‘Has she now? His Honour lives mainly here in Parramatta, although he is often away in Port Jackson.’
‘Hetty,’ I ventured to ask a favour, ‘can you get hold of some writing pages for me?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘You can write? By glory, you do have some airs and graces. Daresay I can,’ she finally answered. ‘Now, stop plaguing me with your questions. We best settle to our work.’
18 December 1801
‘Are his sermons always so grim and unforgiving?’ I asked Hetty as we filed out of the temporary church this morning, having been made to listen for over an hour to the Reverend scolding us for being “idle creatures”.
‘He takes great joy in saving our souls,’ she answered scornfully. ‘Best keep him on side though. It is not only his words that have a bite.’ Her eyes darkened. ‘He serves as a magistrate as well and favours the lash. Let’s hope once the new church is finished his manner towards us will improve.’ She pointed in the direction of the stone work that we were already calling St John’s and chuckled. ‘If only he could get them “idle creature” convicts building it to move along in double-quick time!’
19 December 1801
Today has been fearful hot. Hetty said I should be grateful for the dry, bu
t I swear I began to wilt like a flower head.
‘This heat is nothing,’ she warned, ‘the blaze can go on and on. Ten years ago everything dried up. Folk near starved to death. Blame lay on those who sent us out. Hardly anyone was skilled in farm work. You should think yourself fortunate those hunger years have passed by.’
She settled into a long bout of chatter. ‘Then there’s the floods. Last year most of the harvest washed away. Still the Governor has been doing his best to feed us in spite of the wet or the dry. Merchant ships come all the way from China, India and the Americas. If only them Corps would keep their thieving hands off their goods—’
‘Nothing could be worse than this,’ I moaned.
My head was beginning to pound and I found it hard to attend to Hetty’s droning voice. ‘Governor King has been trying to stop—.’ Thump. ‘their sly trading—.’ Thump. ‘Rum—.’ Thump. ‘And brandy—.’ Thump. Thump.
Eventually I could bear to listen no more and drifted off to a place where snowflakes were fluttering down from a silvery sky. They settled on my aching head, soothing the heat on my skin. I imagined I was untying my boots and tiptoeing barefoot on ice covered cobblestones. My toes were becoming cool white icicles …
Hetty broke in, ‘Can only pity that poor mite dressed in such a dark heavy frock on a day like today—’
I perked up. ‘Who did you say?’
‘Ann someone or other.’
‘What does she look like?’
‘Tiny. Bird-boned. Has suffered the smallpox.’
‘Assigned where?’
‘There you go, firing off your questions again.’ She chuckled. ‘The Ann I am talking about can be found at the Cleaters, not far from here. Samuel Cleater is doing very well in business since he gained his pardon. Taken his entire household off the stores, including those assigned to him. Has that answered all your questions, Mistress Stickybeak?’
I nodded my head gratefully, feeling sure this Ann was my dearest friend from Newgate Gaol.
20 December 1801
Because it has continued so hot, during the middle of the day we were given a break to fend for ourselves. Hetty told me to make the most of the time because as soon as the days turn cooler we will be back working from sunrise to sunset, without even a break to swat away the flies.
Following her directions, I headed for the Cleaters. Lawdy, I could so do with seeing Ann Spencer again, with her shrewd way of lifting my spirits. She had kept me calm when we faced transportation. I remember her reassuring me: ‘Let us see what it is like in New South Wales before we decide to do anything rash. Things may not be so bad there.’ Well, she must know by now.
I reached a small timber cottage fringed by trees. Someone had been intent on sprucing up the place, slapping the walls with green paint and adding a verandah, while geraniums and China rose flowered among the cooking herbs.
The Cleater’s workshop was a three-sided lean to, a wheelwright’s, where the same someone appeared to have made orderly work of stacking wheels and cut timber. I suspected that person was the lad with his back to me, sawing wood with a steely resolve.
I cleared my throat and called over, ‘Is Ann Spencer hereabouts?’
He turned, pulling up the brim of his hat and swiping beads of sweat from his forehead. I noticed his body lolled dangerously to the side. Poor lad must be addled because he stood there all wobbly and grinning, without uttering a single word.
I wandered over. Up close his shirt gave out a honeyed smell of beeswax and wood shavings. ‘Cat got your tongue?’ I asked, screwing up my nose. ‘Only I have to be on my way soon.’
A door slammed. I heard the pad-pad rush of bare feet. ‘Shame on you, to be so wicked towards Tibs!’ came a voice I recognised well. Ann clasped me in a tight hug. She smelt of oversweet flowers. ‘At last we are reunited! I did so pray for your safe arrival.’
‘Look at you, dressed like a raven!’ I exclaimed, at the sight of her morbid dress and her tightly coiled hair pushed under a dark bonnet. ‘Who are you mourning?’
‘Oh, you mean these?’ She tugged at the cheerless clothes. ‘They are so stifling, I just want to rip them off. Master Cleater is making me wear them hail or shine in case we are called out.’ She gave a sigh. ‘Ah, well! Suppose we all got to die from something.’ At my confused expression, she explained, ‘Master Cleater is trading as more than a wheelwright these days. He has his mind set on funerals. I dress this way because I am the Weeper.’
‘You are part of the service?’
She smiled broadly. ‘I walk behind the coffin. Becoming rather good at all the wailing too. Listen.’ She creased her face and graciously sobbed into her hands. ‘Tibs is the Mute. Right, Tibs?’ He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Walks in front, silent as a lamb.’
I whispered in Ann’s ear, ‘Can the poor lad not speak?’
‘Course he can! He is only training at being a Mute. Though he is quite shy. Watch how he does his splendid walk. Go on, show her, Tibs.’
He obliged by stepping out at a slow and stately pace. To my amazement his tilted wobble transformed him into an angel of utter sorrow. He turned around and held a grave pose. His eyes had turned dewy and golden. ‘Catches the heart, don’t he?’ Ann said admiringly. ‘Everyone says so.’
Their sober act was cut short by the sound of the Cleaters’ cart. ‘Tibs and I better be about our duties,’ Ann said, steering me across to where the land fell away wild down to a stream, ‘though the Cleaters are not harsh. Not at all.’ The scrub was thick, the hard leaves of the bushes turning up silvery claws to the sunlight. Ann pointed out a rough track, worn bare by tramping feet. ‘Take this short cut back to town, but mind the creek and watch out for black snakes. You can be bitten and dead by nightfall. Don’t want you needing our services sooner rather than later.’
22 December 1801
No word has come from Mumma. Somehow I had expected to hear from her. I can only guess she is in Port Jackson.
Ann and I found a slip of time to meet today. We ended up in the burial ground, an open stretch of land not far from where St John’s is being built. Ann bent down to dust away some twigs and loose stones from a headstone. ‘Here lies the body of Henry Edward Dodd,’ she told me, ‘oldest grave here, yet they only buried him ten years ago.’
I thought to show Ann how my reading had improved through Meg’s help on the Nile. Slowly I read aloud the writing on Master Dodd’s tombstone.
‘You have turned into a most able reader, Mary,’ she said admiringly. ‘And it is true, Master Dodd came out as a personal servant to the first governor, but ended up being put in charge of growing the first crops. He once grew a giant cabbage and delivered it to the Governor for his Christmas lunch. They gave him a very respectable send off. Apparently all the free settlers and convicts came. Every single one.’
‘Do you like being the town’s Weeper?’ I asked, curious to know.
Ann shrugged. ‘Over Newgate? Of course! Master Cleater says a township like Parramatta needs a respectable coffin maker. The wealthier families are already starting to ask for us to attend their services. Here, and in Port Jackson.’
‘I saw you at the cove when I arrived.’
She smiled warmly. ‘If ever a transport ship arrived when we were there, I always ran to Cattle Point to wave a welcome, in the hope you would be on one of the boats coming ashore and would see me. And you did! I told Tibs it was bound to happen one day.’
‘The poor lad has suffered greatly.’
‘Struck down lame as an infant. The bones in his legs grew weak. Tibs may draw pity, but those who know him well see his affliction as no hindrance. He has picked up most there is to know about being a wheelwright. He can build and repair carts and barrows of all sizes. Why he can make a wheel out of a square! Anything that needs knocking together he can lend a hand to. All the improvements to the Cleater’s house he has done. And you should see him fashion a coffin.’
‘Sounds like he is your sweetheart!’
I w
as only teasing, but when she said virtuously, ‘Thomas Isaiah Booth is the dearest of friends,’ I saw from the telltale flush in her cheeks that she had already had her heart stolen away.
23 December 1801
The yuletide season is here but still no word from Mumma. However, Ann came by today and accompanied me to the stores, while I queued for my weekly victuals. How fortunate she is, to be free of such meagre rations.
There was much chatter around us about where the three absconders were hiding, for they are still on the run. ‘Hetty believes there may be a settlement beyond the Blue Mountains and they are heading there,’ I said.
Ann shook her head at my remark. ‘No convict has ever crossed the range and lived to tell.’
‘Someday soon, someone is bound to make their way across.’ A thought occurred to me and I said half in jest, ‘I reckon you and I could.’
‘Hush!’ Ann looked around, making sure no one had heard. ‘What are you thinking?’
I felt my teasing grow bolder. ‘We could try! All we have to do is set up a clue, let the soldiers think we have been taken by natives, then scarper.’
‘You cannot go blaming the natives!’
‘Why not? Everyone else does! Hetty says if a pig or a sack of vegetables go missing the natives always get the blame.’
‘Mary, why ever would you wish to bring more misfortune on their people?’
What started out as a jest had become serious between us. ‘Sorry, but I ain’t staying here for life.’ I realised with a start that I meant it. An escape was worth considering. ‘Didn’t you ever want to just throw yourself upon the world and take a chance?’ I asked Ann.
Convict Girl Page 2