The Convict's Daughter

by Kiera Lindsey

  Stepping lithely back and forth along the length of the jury box, Lowe presented the court with his concluding remarks. The only real difficulty in this case, Lowe advised, was that ‘the esteemed jurymen must divest from their minds the grievous wrong that had been inflicted upon the prisoner, which, as men with fathers’ hearts might be a natural and noble response to such a wicked grievance’. This final flourish did the trick. After less than five minutes the jurors returned their verdict. Despite the evidence of the blacksmith, several witnesses testifying to seeing Gill shoot at Kinchela point blank—and the powder on the pistol—the Pitt Street hotelier was found innocent of both charges.

  No sooner was the verdict announced than the court audience erupted in a ‘most unequivocal demonstration of applause’, which continued, the papers said, until the judge finally ordered ‘the restoration of decorum’. Quick as a wink, the defendant was up, bouncing about the court with a tight grin on his face, shaking hands with his legal team and even one or two of the jurors.

  What a farce, Kinchela noted with a measure of dry contempt as he stepped outside the court and leant against one of the columns waiting for his coach and driver. He watched as Gill and his team bundled out of the courtroom boisterous with triumph, then watched, shocked, as Gill turned back from his party, caught Kinchela’s eye and spat at the ground. The settler sucked in his breath and shook his head but said nothing. Lowe saw it all and looked aghast, before he quickly recovered and set off down the steps of the court with a great bundle of papers under one arm and that damn crop in the other. The whole thing was beyond the pale, Kinchela thought, taking his seat in the coach and feeling in his pocket for his snuffbox. And there was probably worse to come, he thought, for it was clear that Gill had the bit between his teeth, and there was no saying if he could be pulled back from the brink.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Deposition

  Business continued at Gill’s Family Hotel in the final weeks of May and throughout June 1848 because Margaret Gill made it so. If Martin had showmanship, and, with it, a lot of hot and bluster, Margaret had craft and common sense. She was generally sensible, although a little tetchy if pushed. When her husband failed to return home after he galloped off to the Homebush racecourse in pursuit of his daughter and that man, Margaret sent a messenger out to the track and before lunch she knew what was what. She sent the same boy off to Punchbowl and asked him to come back with Mary Riley, who would need to supervise the kitchen while she took over the dining room.

  Just after lunchtime a rather pleasant looking policeman called to the servant door of the hotel and asked to speak with the mistress of the house. Mary Ann was in the cabin of the wagon and watched as her mother, hands clasped in front of her, stood and listened to what the young constable had to say. Their conversation was economical, for that was how Margaret Gill preferred words, and shortly after that Mary Ann was escorted inside. Margaret followed her through the kitchen, up the back stairs of the house and then directed her into the room where mother and daughter took tea most afternoons. Then Margaret bade her daughter sit and asked their girl Rebecca to bring some tea.

  Mary Ann was pale and the sight of her looking so tense made Margaret feel grave. This was a bad business and there was worse to come, no doubt. Margaret sat down in her usual seat opposite Mary Ann and both women looked at their laps then out the window, not knowing what to do. Tea came, and with it all the comfort of fond familiars. The old silver tray Margaret had picked up on the cheap when she first married Gill, the pot that her father and Mary Riley had gifted her one birthday—a sweet, floral thing with a rather prim spout. Family things, Mary Ann thought, looking about the table and noticing that even though she was home again there was a sense that somehow, perhaps, it would never be in the same way again. As she did every day, Mary Ann picked up the pot and poured the brew into her mother’s cup and then her own. Only this time her hands were unsteady. Her mother added milk to her own cup and placed the jug just where it had been when she picked it up, so that Mary Ann would have no choice but to ask for it.

  Mother and daughter sat in this awkward silence for a time, Margaret sipping her tea and Mary Ann not yet able to form words. Eventually Margaret realised she needed to help her daughter just a little. She poured a slip of the thick milk into her daughter’s cup and then, as the girl stirred the blend into a soft brown steaming liquid, she finally spoke. ‘You will need to collect yourself, my girl.’ Mary Ann carefully took the cup and saucer and brought the cup to her lips. Thirsty. It was the first thing she’d had since she was at Mrs Beaton’s much earlier that morning. The warm tea travelled down into her hollow centre. It made her feel empty and sick. She wondered if she would ever feel right again.

  ‘Your father is in the goal house now,’ Margaret Gill continued, ‘and I will need you in the kitchen with Mary Riley.’ Mary Ann’s mind began to race. What had her father done to be imprisoned? Was James dead? Was that why James hadn’t come to her? Mary Ann tried to make sense of it. What on earth had she unleashed? Margaret watched her daughter’s face. She wanted the girl to take in the full measure of her actions and to be apprised of the consequences therein. The girl’s breathing increased and her skin seemed to drop another shade of pale. ‘You will need to mind yourself,’ Margaret said, drawing her body up and making sure she sounded stern, ‘you have stirred up a lot of trouble for us, and worse is to come, if I am not mistaken.’ She fixed her daughter with a look. ‘You must be on your wits, Mary Ann, and keep out of your father’s way when he gets home.’

  ‘When he gets home’ echoed in Mary Ann’s mind. So it can’t be murder if they are going to let him out, she thought. Perhaps, then, James is safe. But as soon as she considered this, Mary Ann was filled with foreboding. Her father would no doubt flog her, and probably within an inch of her life this time. At least they would have taken the guns off him in gaol. ‘Keep in the nursery,’ Margaret instructed, ‘out of the way. And for all our sakes,’ she finished tersely, ‘do what you are told from here on.’

  Mary Ann nodded. Every part of her was done. She knew she was going to pay a price for her boldness and for what? All the courage she had shown scrambling down the drainpipe, and then the shock of Mrs Kelly’s front parlour, those few fleeting encounters with James, followed by their frustrating meeting at the Sportsman’s Arms and that dreadful flogging she had received from her father after they returned home that night. And then, despite all this, she had the courage to slip away a second time—in the early dawn—only to receive a note that spoke of still further disappointment and delays and that also carried in it her downfall. It had all been too much. She was exhausted. Tears came and the young woman let them roll thick and fast down her cheeks as mother and daughter said nothing. Eventually Margaret started again, this time a little softer, ‘Now girl, go and clean up, for goodness’ sakes. I need you in the kitchen before your father gets home. We must push past this business and keep it from the servants if we can.’

  But by the time Margaret had gone out to her father’s farm to ask for £200 in sureties so that she could bail out her husband, it was clear to everyone concerned that any hope of discretion was lost. The story of Mary Ann’s Parramatta Romance was in The Sydney Morning Herald the very next day and the day after that and then just about every day thereafter one colonial newspaper or another seemed to find some fresh tidbit to report regarding this incident. Much of it was fantasy, but it fed the public’s appetite and ensured that news-sheets otherwise devoted to the forthcoming election or the mayhem in Europe had a little more colour to them. Despite the fact that both Margaret and Mary Ann came to loathe those papers, the girl was still grateful for the few morsels of information she could glean about James. It had been a job to get her hands on one of the papers, but the few times she could she was able to learn that even before her father’s trial was done, James Butler Kinchela had been asked to attend an interview behind closed doors at the Parramatta Police Office, where he had been summoned to an
swer a charge of abduction.

  It was then determined that her sometime suitor should be committed to take his trial at the next sitting of the Supreme Court after the trial at which her own father was made to answer the charge of shooting with intent. Kinchela, she realised, had not been charged directly by the Crown, but by Martin Gill. Mary Ann was not at all surprised when she read that. She knew her father well enough to believe that he would take this to the end. Hell or high water, as he often muttered under his breath when someone tried to cross him. She registered even more alarm when she read that the man who was heading up the prosecution was the same man who had been all over the papers: ‘the Loathsome Lowe’, she remembered James calling him one time when he had talked about the need to push north because of the change in tone about land grants and such. This was news, but in no way was the news of Lowe coming after Kinchela good.

  Mary Ann had spent the first day back home shrouded in shame and terrified of her father’s imminent return. But when he eventually did step back across the threshold of his establishment the next morning, Martin Gill said nothing. In fact, he refused to even see his daughter. He simply looked around, checked that the pantry was provisioned and the front rooms prepared, and then after sharpening several carving knives in the kitchen he took himself upstairs.

  Gill was no stranger to a prison cell but it had been a while. Time in the Parramatta lock-up had reminded him of other places he had long put away. He had forgotten the squalor. Or perhaps back then he had been so brutish he hadn’t noticed it. Could it have been that his filthy desperation had transformed the bucket in the corner and the fetid lay of hay on the floor into some kind of a reprieve? Now, however, Martin Gill was completely repulsed by it all. It also made him realise how far he had come since his childhood on the bitter streets of North Dublin. He would not let anyone take away all that he had since achieved. Not his daughter and certainly not that so-called gentleman.

  He had been about the girl’s age when he had been hauled into the Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin and he thought, for a moment, that a day or two cooling her heels in a cell would probably do his daughter the world of good. If not for the shame it would bring upon them all, he might even have seen to it himself. He suspected, however, that his new plan for Mary Ann would probably be just as good and not bring the family down. But for now he really didn’t want to think about her anymore. He had simply wanted the grime of the entire episode gone. And so, while his wife managed the lunch crowd, Martin Gill took possession of the second-floor suite of his hotel and ordered himself a bath. He was going to soak in it all day if he had to, or at least until he worked out what he needed to do. There was a way to turn things to his advantage, he was sure, he just had to think it all through.

  Meanwhile, Gill decided that he would invest more in his eldest boy, William. He had been so caught up with the girl and that way she had of agitating him that he had passed over his eldest son. William could be useful, he decided, and he would speak with the boy about what was required. A son, after all, stood to benefit more. First, he would get his son to keep an eye on Mary Ann, in the interests of them all, of course, and see how he handled that. William was close to fourteen now and old enough to take on some manly tasks. Gill would build him up and make him useful. He would also need to get a gauge of the mood from his customers this evening, too. He had to assume a clear position as soon as possible and act as though he was on top and in the right from the start. He had The Herald in his pocket, just where he needed them. They liked his money too much to turn on him, he reckoned. His wife was tricky, though. He couldn’t quite work out her play although he would make sure he did soon enough. Meanwhile Martin Gill needed to make sure that public opinion favoured him for he had absolutely no intention of going back to gaol.

  He was also prepared to expend considerable energy to ensure that Kinchela met with justice. The thought came to him initially as an amusement, but once it had caught his imagination it began to shape itself into a distinct possibility. Over the years he had heard stories from home about men who had hanged for taking a wife without asking for her hand in the right way. There were quite a few too who had come on the boats lucky to avoid the swing for such a crime. After all it was just another form of property theft in the eyes of the law. One such felon was a blacksmith who went by the name of Captain Rock. Gill had heard many an Irishman speak of the Captain with hushed admiration. Around the time that Gill was finishing his sentence, the Captain and a gang of twelve Limerick boys had ripped a fifteen-year-old Protestant heiress from her bed and held her captive for nigh on three weeks. All that time had hidden her in the mountains while they tried to force her to marry some lazy squireen so that he could take her land. But the girl wouldn’t have it and eventually the Captain lost his nerve, abandoning the wretched creature in an empty cabin, but only once the squireen had well and truly ruined her. Gill had a mind Kinchela was not far from those sorts—a squireen who thought nothing of taking what wasn’t his.

  He had been something, that Captain Rock. Smart enough to disappear after the legal officials had rounded up the rest of his gang. No one could catch him for months, even with men scouring the mountains and trying to bring him in on charges of arson, stolen arms, secret oaths, threatening notices and eventually even murder. In the end, Captain Rock surrendered on his own terms and pleaded guilty but only to the charge of abducting Honourah Goold. He was set to swing for this when for some mysterious reason his sentence was suddenly commuted to transportation. No one knew why but some suspected the blacksmith had friends in high places. Next thing, the great Captain was working at a forge somewhere in Campbelltown, only a few miles from Sydney.

  Gill knew all this because when he was still working on the roads, some fellow working beside him had pointed to a boy who could not have been more than fifteen, ‘That’s Daniel Doody’, he whispered, ‘the youngest of Captain Rock’s men’. ‘The devil in his eyes,’ someone else had muttered and when Gill took a look at the stunted thing and saw the gleam about his visage, he had to agree. There was something bold and bloody to the boy. For weeks after there was talk among Gill’s crew of nothing else—how the Captain had one of Napoleon’s war coats as well as a white feather in his hat; how the Captain’s crew had been within a breath of taking Southern Ireland in the winter of 1822. ‘Held the whole country on a knife’s blade,’ one of Gill’s mates had said.

  At the time Gill had thought the Captain a great lark. But now that he was a man with property of his own as well as a father he didn’t feel the same. The thing was, Gill mused as he lowered himself into the bath he usually reserved for his guests, it wasn’t just squireens taking maydens, or old knights stealing spinsters, but sometimes a gentlemen of real standing would also try his hand at taking a wealthy widow who he wanted for no reason other than her easy fortune. Only a few ever found themselves before the law, although those who did sometimes left all sorts of tales for others to tell: the popular gent who got hanged twice after the rope snapped the first time and the two half-mounts who took the Kennedy sisters and were hanged when they were caught. How the town divided over that particular abduction, and one side so hated the girls that they dumped the corpses of their two dead boys at the Kennedys’ door.

  Everyone knew about Sir Henry Hayes, too, the old knight from Cork who had been one of the first to come to Sydney at a time when the colony comprised little more than a church and a few half-finished drinking inns. Sir Henry should have hanged, too, it was said, and probably would have but for the fact that the ‘cock would not stand’ as one of the London papers said, when he tried to consummate his marriage with the rich spinster Mary Pike. Well, Gill thought, if court was good enough for Sir Henry, it was certainly good enough for Kinchela.

  Less than a week from the wet evening that Mary Ann had scrambled down the drainpipe and onto Pitt Street, Martin Gill was in a coach travelling out along the Parramatta road in the company of his wife and daughter. They were going to the Police Office to gi
ve evidence in the forthcoming trial of James Butler Kinchela, who had now been officially charged with the crime of abduction.

  Mary Ann had not left the house since she had returned the previous Sunday. While her father was in the lock-up, she assumed kitchen duties, which entailed her standing mutely in the corner until ordered to do otherwise by her grandmother who remained tight-lipped throughout it all. After her father returned home, Mary Ann was confined to the nursery. There would be no more school for her, no more needlework lessons, no more books, and, of course, no chance of running errands about the town let alone visiting the hotel dining room. From now on Mary Ann would be the family nursemaid and perform these tasks with a meek countenance. Her penance would be the care of Isabella, Thomas, John and little Martin but there would be more. After several days of waiting for her father’s wrath to erupt Mary Ann began to wonder if, perhaps, his silence was crueller. She longed for some word, anything that might release all the pent up forces pulsing within the upstairs floor of the hotel where the family resided. But instead there was stony silence.

  The girl Rebecca was the only exception to this cool indifference, but she was careful. She said nothing directly to Mary Ann. One evening, however, just before bed, the awkward servant girl came into the young woman’s room and quickly laid a comb and a ribbon on her pillow. They were from the carpetbag Mary Ann had taken from her mother and given to Rebecca to pass on to Kinchela with the note, the day before she had slipped away. Somehow Rebecca had salvaged them. The two girls exchanged the briefest nod and then Rebecca left Mary Ann to her bed. No sooner was the girl alone than she picked up the ribbon and began to weep. It was a mawkish, sentimental thing to do—the action of a girl from one of those books—but it gave Mary Ann some sort of release and she eventually fell asleep on top of her bedclothes.