Skylark

by Jenny Pattrick

  Luckily Bully was in a good mood. I made conversation for a moment or two, and then passed on the barber’s invitation.

  ‘It’s true,’ I said casually, ‘that Mr Thatcher is looking smart today. A good clean chin and trim locks.’

  Bully passed a greasy hand over his long hair, which was roughly tied behind with a leather thong. He fingered his cheeks and felt the coarseness of several days’ stubble.

  ‘Well, I might go,’ he said, and continued with his eating.

  I left it at that. Dragged my weary bones to the wash-stand where last night’s bedraggled gown waited for a sprucing up. A dab here and there and a brush down was the best I could manage. I possessed but two costumes and both of them tattered. What wouldn’t I give to have the freedom of Mrs Foley’s trunk of silks and satins!

  I didn’t dare go down to the barber’s to watch. Bully must not suspect me. But Annie saw it all.

  ‘I’d heard a whisper that the deed was to be done,’ she said to me that night, before the show, after all hell had broken loose. Though I was still reeling from Bully’s fury, and not to mention black and blue, I was dying to hear the full story.

  ‘Charles and I just happened to be wandering down towards the river,’ said Annie with a wicked grin. ‘Seems quite a few others had the same idea. Oh, Lily, you should have been there!’ Then, remembering that Bully was my husband, ‘Well, perhaps not! That Jones fellow had set up his stool and basin outside his little shack — to allow the customers to enjoy the sun while it shines, so he said. Bully sat there, chatting to a passerby or two, enjoying what he imagined was his popularity, the poor fool. Excuse the term, Lily, but he is not the brightest star in the firmament.’

  I could have put her right there: Bully was as cunning as a rat when it came to his plans. It was his vanity that let him down — or so I had hoped in this case. I urged her on. In the bar room beyond, a noisy crowd was gathering, calling for the lamps to be lit and the entertainment to begin. Soon we would be called on to sing. Bully sulked in our little back room, his head bandaged and a large tot of brandy helping to salve his wounded pride.

  ‘Well,’ Annie continued, me glued to every word, ‘that barber flourished his blade and made a great show of his skill around the chops, taking care to leave the moustache and little beard intact. “Now a little trim of the hair, Sir?” asked Mr Jones, all professional, his face set like jelly, not a hint of what was in store. We all heard Bully instruct him to leave the locks long about the ears, just a little tidy up on top. Oh Lily, it was hard to keep a straight face. My Charles stepped up and asked him a question or two about the evening’s performance, and Bully, pleased to be in the company of a famous man, preened and laughed and left the barber to his snipping. Well, and you have heard of the uproar that followed.’

  We both had to stifle our laughter lest Bully heard.

  Annie whispered the final act in the scene. ‘That giant of a fellow, George Honeywell, you know him, Lily, one of our regulars, steps up and peers at the now smart Bully Hayes, standing proudly beside my Charles. “Oh Bully,” says George Honeywell, “What’s that up there by your ear?” Then he steps back, feigning dismay. “Oh I am so sorry, Bully, I don’t mean to pry.” And turning to the others who are gathering, flies to boiled mutton, he says in a voice that surely reached right down to the Chinese settlement. “Dear-oh-dear, our poor Bully has lost an ear. However did that happen? Was yer born like that Bully, deformed like, or did someone remove it for yer?” Another in the crowd shouted out, “I heard that they chop the ears of cheaters and thieves back in Australie. Maybe that was the sad fact, eh Bully?” And back skips Mr Honeywell, Lily, before your husband can clip him one.’

  Annie did all the accents and speech as if it were a play, and I could just hear the farce that would develop when the Buckingham boys worked it up. Oh, I have to admit that my traitorous heart was singing! I could fill in Annie on the next scene. There was I, fidgeting at home, in a lather — ha ha! — to know if the plan had worked. Soon I was left in no doubt. Bully rushed in, buzzing like an angry hornet. I played my part with words of comfort and shock. Wrapped a bandage around his livid earhole. He could not bear for a soul to see it. Off he charged again into town, threatening to kill Stanley Jones, me waddling behind showing concern like any decent wife. The barber was a good six inches taller than Bully and stood his ground, his flashing razor held high in one hand and the leather strop in the other. A fearsome sight.

  ‘Now, Bully,’ growled Mr Jones, ‘I may have trimmed a little too far on that side, but how was I to know those locks hid such a hideous sight?’

  ‘Hideous?’ screeched Bully. ‘I’ll show you hideous!’ He looked around for a weapon.

  But the barber advanced into the street, not one whit afeared, and made to strop his razor on Bully’s face. Bully reared backwards and fell in the mud, humiliated all over again. To be honest I felt sorry then, and went to help him up. But that man, enraged by his impotence, took it out on his own weak wife. With a roar he struck at me. I went sprawling, cumbersome as I was with the child: otherwise I could have turned it into a stunt and flipped over him. My so-called husband, Bully by name, bully by deed, left me struggling there, my one good dress smeared with mud, and blood trickling into my eye where his ring had cut me.

  That was the end of any soft feeling on my part for Captain Bully Hayes.

  The farce was a triumph. The Barberous Barber: Or The Lather and the Shave they called it. I wrote two songs, a bawdy chorus and another sweeter one which Emily performed, playing myself, the pitiful wife knocked down in the street. The Provincial played to full houses every night. You could hear the guffaws ringing across the street and echoing in our empty Prince of Wales.

  [Archivist’s Note: It has been pointed out to me (by my ever-vigilant editor) that orthodox biographers (!) of the celebrated incident with the razor have the Inimitable Thatcher and Annie Vitelli arriving to perform at the Arrow goldfields shortly after Bully’s ear was unmasked, not before, as Lily’s journal suggests. I have checked the records. Unfortunately, copies of advertisements and newspapers of the time are not complete. I believe an assumption has been made by earlier biographers, based on those incomplete records. Lily says they were there. Surely she would know. E. de M.]

  Bully raged about the town in his bandaged head, looking for a culprit, cursing the Buckinghams, drinking himself stupid every night. The Thatchers decided to leave town.

  I walked with Annie and Charles down to the stagecoach. Oh how I wished I was leaving too. Annie was not well that morning — the baby inside giving her some grief — and Charles was the attentive husband, taking her arm and making kind conversation to keep her spirits up, even though he had been up most of the night drinking and was surely feeling the worse for wear. I thought of Maria’s advice back in Auckland: that an entertainer must marry someone of like occupation; that travelling was the way of life for us and could not be denied. Was I only courting disaster to be thinking of Jack?

  ‘Good luck with your baby,’ said Annie sadly as they climbed aboard. ‘I suspect we are both doomed to give birth in the slums of a goldfield.’

  That remark chilled me to the bone. My mother died in childbirth at Bendigo. I determined to escape to a more civilised place before I was due.

  The weather and the dwindling gold assisted my plans rather more than the ridicule directed at Bully. I had thought he would surely leave immediately, but he was a stubborn man, Bully Hayes. He was not of a mind to be thought a coward.

  The winter was bitter. Several diggers died of scurvy and other ailments, others simply froze to death. Those who managed to struggle down to our little township from Macetown told of fearsome conditions up that narrow mountainous valley: snow and ice, searing winds, hunger. One skeleton of a fellow who begged a crust at our back door told how his pan froze solid to the ground each night if he didn’t take it into his tent and sleep with it! A chilly sort of a wife, he said, trying to force the joke through his chapped l
ips. Even the hardiest diggers were losing heart and drifting off to kinder goldfields. Business slumped. The famous farce began to lose its audience.

  Then came the night of the great storm. All day the wind had howled through the valley, picking up any loose dish or piece of washing and whirling it skywards. By evening several tents had torn loose from their moorings, to be chased down the street by their despairing owners. Bully was still sulking, still wrapping his head in a bandage. We had no entertainment that night, which was just as well, as it turned out. Even the toughest of the dancing girls cowered in their accommodation, afraid to walk down the lane for fear of what flying debris might strike them.

  Suddenly I heard an enormous ripping sound as if a giant were tearing old sheets for bandages. At the same time a splintering crash set my teeth on edge. Our entire canvas roof came loose on one side and flew up into the whirling air, waving for a while as if in surrender, before tearing loose from its last nails and flying away — God knows where, for we never saw it again. I imagined that whole great roof, stitched together from the sails of an old clipper, whirling and flapping through the night like the ghost of a giant, terrifying the diggers upriver, and finally landing — a precious gift or perhaps a smothering curse — in some farmer’s field, or bush-clad hilltop. The mud floor of the bar room, the stage where we sang and our sorry bedroom were all exposed to the elements. I screamed as hailstones rained down. For a moment the whole terrible scene was lit by lightning, the hailstones glowing eerily before the room went black again. The clap of thunder that followed felt like a physical blow. The baby inside me jerked and kicked. Surely he experienced it all even inside the womb. I felt a hand on my shoulder. The next flash lit Bully standing beside me, his hair plastered flat, the bandage fallen loose and his eyes staring, shocked out of his usual drunken stupor.

  ‘Come into the shed,’ he shouted over the uproar. ‘That roof is still holding.’

  So together we stumbled through the ruins of the Prince of Wales to cower among the barrels and hogsheads until morning.

  The crash I had heard earlier was the roof of the Provincial. Both establishments were demolished by the same gust. I have never known such a storm, nor ever want to experience one like it again.

  That night spelt the end of our enterprise on the Arrow, thank goodness. Bully lost his interest in provisioning and entertaining the goldfields and turned his face towards the sea again.

  I was desperate to find a way of escaping him. Desperate to hear from Jack Lacey. Oh, it was a wretched time altogether for me. I feared Bully would hold on to me no matter how much he despised me, in the hope that my belly held his son and heir.

  I begged George Buckingham to take me back into his troupe, but he would not.

  ‘Bully is not so bad a husband,’ he said with a kind pat. ‘At least he is taking you away from this hell-hole.’

  What did George know? The success of the farce had mellowed him, made him blind, perhaps, to Bully’s nature. I saw them laughing together the day we left. George was somehow drawn to the man: he could not see beyond the thin veneer of charm. I warned his brothers.

  ‘Bully will not forget the way you injured his pride,’ I said, as Walter and Conrad strapped their waterlogged scenery to a dray. ‘He will plot some way to get even until the day he dies.’

  Walter paused in his buckling to look over at me, his face sober. Walter was ever the serious one. ‘Well, we are warned,’ he said, ‘but I doubt our paths will cross again.’

  Young Conrad paid no attention to my words. He reached for his trumpet, which was never far from his hand, and blew a fanfare. ‘Goodbye to the Arrow,’ he sang, grinning. ‘Good riddance to Fox’s Camp. Rest in peace, the Provincial! And farewell Rosa Hayes, who was a Buckingham for a while.’ He gave me a quick peck on the cheek and turned back to his task. Conrad was sweet on me. I sometimes wonder how my life might have gone if we had wed.

  South we travelled, me large as a pumpkin, Bully with his hat crammed low, jolting along in the coach with few possessions and less money, heading for the seaside town of Riverton.

  SCENE: A humble boarding house in Riverton, west of Invercargill. Wintertime.

  Adelaida

  Riverton was a pretty town, more settled and civilised than any I saw in that cold southern land. The houses sat among fruit trees and gardens; there was a peaceful walk beside a wide estuary teeming with fish; shops were well stocked and their proprietors polite. There was even a little hospital: the first, locals proudly told me, in all the south. What a contrast to Fox’s Camp on the Arrow!

  Our boarding house was owned by Mrs Elizabeth Stevens, a kind and knowledgeable lady admired in the settlement both for her good deeds, and because she was sister to the most important man in town: Mr John Howell.

  Mrs Stevens tut-tutted over the state of my health, for I was thin, coughing and suffering from sores on my body and around my mouth. ‘You have been in the goldfields, I’ll warrant,’ she said with a frown. ‘We must get some fresh fruit and green vegetables into you.’

  She explained about scurvy, which was an ailment suffered by seamen and whalers, she said, and now by those in the goldfields who had little access to fresh food. I thought of the kind Chinese miner and his vegetable patch. Perhaps he had saved my life! And oh, what a joy to cram my mouth with apples and pears, chard and cabbage, and fresh, sweet carrots! I could not get enough of them and I swear the baby inside me kicked for joy when I drank the lemonade prepared by our kind landlady.

  Mrs Stevens also set me to walk a mile every day to strengthen my body ‘for the ordeal ahead’. I had another ordeal in mind — escape — so followed her regime faithfully. Gradually I could feel my old strength return.

  In great secrecy I sent a letter to Jack. Doctor Ingram was the contact I had suddenly thought of: the man who once mended my foot, and whom Jack used to work for. Perhaps he would know of Jack’s whereabouts and forward my letter. I told Mrs Stevens I was expecting a letter from ‘an old friend’ and, since Bully was a jealous man, I would rather he didn’t see it. Mrs Stevens frowned a little but I thought I could trust her.

  At last a letter arrived from Jack! I memorised every word as if conning lines for a drama, kissed the dear pages, and burned them.

  Dear Lily, he wrote, I have been so sad and lost. Where have we gone wrong to be so separated? You say the marriage between you and Captain Hayes is not legal. What a dastardly blackguard that man is! If this means that you are free to come to me, I will happily forgive and forget and pray that you will do the same for me.

  I have left Auckland. It is a quiet, sad town now the military have left for the war in the interior. My little farm in the Waitotara Valley is a pleasant place where I raise horses. It is near to Whanganui, that lovely settlement where we first met. Will you join me there? I now supply horses to the military and many others, including Bill Foley. He is a good fellow and an excellent horseman and continues to do excellent business with his circus. His wife has left him for good it seems. Good riddance, I say. She led both him and you astray. I, too, was sadly led astray but will explain all when we meet.

  Let me know your plans and I will endeavour to assist you. Letters sent to Doctor Ingram will reach me.

  Your ever faithful

  Jack Lacey

  My spirits rose. Now I could begin to make plans. I had not told Jack about the baby, thinking it better to take one step at a time.

  In truth, the problem of the baby was too hard a knot to unravel. Its arrival was weighing on my mind considerably. Bully was convinced it would be a boy. His good humour had returned now that we were at a seaport again and he was full of mad schemes about sailing the south seas together, teaching ‘young Billy’ the ropes and creating an empire for him to inherit. The child was not even born! I was praying for a girl, for I believed that Bully would lose interest in me and the child if this was so.

  Meanwhile, Bully spent all his time at the port, chatting to sea captains and traders. Mr Howell had made
sure Riverton was a prosperous town. He was the far-sighted fellow who had argued for Riverton’s port and a road up to Kingston. Supplies for the goldfields were unloaded at the port on Jacobs River and carted inland. But Bully was no longer interested in any trading business that led to Wakatip, Queenstown or the Arrow, where the story of his ear was still a topic of amusement. Bully wanted a ship. And what Bully wanted, Bully got, it seemed. How could those hard-headed traders of Riverton be fooled by his smooth talk of backers, capital invested and his captain’s ticket? He had none of these. Large reserves of confidence and smooth talk were his only riches. You could see him striding easily about the town, laughing with town elders, voicing his opinions gravely with traders and charming their wives. I went along with it all but was always on the alert for a change of mood. How right I was to be wary!

  He came into our little room one day, beaming and full of himself. This was a rare enough occurrence, for by this time he had another woman in town, with whom he spent most nights. ‘Well now, Rosa,’ he said. ‘Good news. We are off to Australia to pick up my ship.’

  ‘Whatever are you talking about, Bully Hayes?’ I said, quite sharp, for I could see all my plans going awry. ‘I am about to give birth to your precious son. I am travelling nowhere.’

  ‘Many’s the child born shipboard,’ he said, but I could see a worried little frown appear. ‘We will take a wet-nurse with us, or midwife, or what have you.’

  Nothing I could say would deter the stubborn man. I was to pack and be prepared to leave within the week.

  Well, the prospect of giving birth on a wild, bucking ship was enough to frighten the baby out of me. I gave birth next day. Ordeal indeed: I will say no more! Thank goodness for Mrs Stevens and gentle, clean, civilised Riverton. But after all that suffering and screaming, the baby turned out quite beautiful. A girl, as I had hoped. The tiny sweetheart, swaddled in clean linen, looked at me with Bully’s dark eyes. Or were they mine? I had only thought of the baby either as a means to escape from my ‘husband’, or a reason to be cruelly tied to him: but here she was, completely adorable, a tiny person in her own right.