All this could have been avoided from the very start, Kinchela thought to point out. If from the start, Gill had just given him a moment instead of assuming the worst. Various phrases passed through Kinchela’s mind about the cost to all concerned, particularly the shame to Mary Ann and the loss of his family’s name, but each sentence seemed to fall short. John was dead and life had irrevocably changed. The whiskey continued to warm his innards and as it did Kinchela found it harder to think why he would want to waste his time, particularly given the purpose of his visit. He also thought of Mary Ann standing in the threshold of the hotel kitchen. She was no longer some young thing with whom he had whiled away a few hours. Just to look at her—it was clear that she now had accomplishments. He recalled that afternoon at Keck’s gaol when she had surprised him with a visit, holding herself with the right portion of reserve and wit, looking so smart in her bonnet. That look in her eye. He could see that whatever agreement he might come to with her father, it would prove no substitute for that which he was truly seeking. ‘The episode has been extremely costly, sir, for your daughter,’ Kinchela began after several moments, ‘and I sense she no longer harbours any good will towards me.’ Gill flurried his hand through the air with a gesture of impatience. ‘Well, Mr Kinchela, I have heard it said that some members of my family are in the fashion of blowing a little hot and cold,’ he gave a rather disarming smile before adding, rather matter-of-factly, ‘but you know, Mary Ann is my daughter and the point I have been insisting upon all along is that she is bound to marry who I choose.’
‘No, sir,’ Kinchela firmly shook his head, ‘I will not have it thus.’ The two men stared at one another for some time until eventually Kinchela continued, this time a little more lightly, ‘You know, I cannot help but think, sir, that over the past year your daughter has been striving to make a similar matter apparent to you. It seems to me that your Mary Ann will have her own head regardless of what either of us might seek to say or do.’ The two men locked eyes and then after a rather uncomfortable minute, Martin Gill allowed a wry smile. ‘Aye, Mr Kinchela, you might have it there,’ he agreed, shaking his head as he finally resigned himself to the fact that he might end up with an Irish son-in-law after all.
Gill scratched behind his ear and considered Kinchela, trying to imagine what sort of life his daughter might have with such a gentleman. What accomplishments his eldest daughter might hold for a country settler like Kinchela he did not care to guess at, but it seemed that the matter might work to his advantage if he let it go its own way. ‘Well,’ he said in a perfunctory tone, ‘if you can secure her consent,’ Gill said, ‘in whatever time you have before you leave this colony, I would ask that you also buy a passage for her and her brother to ensure she travels the right way.’ And then in an act that took Kinchela entirely by surprise, Martin Gill got up from his chair and presented the gentleman his hand. ‘And on those terms,’ he finished with a curt nod, ‘I would be pleased to see the matter settled.’
The following Monday, Margaret Gill closed the door on Gill’s Family Hotel and locked it for the last time, placing the key inside a small velveteen bag. William watched his mother climb into the coach piled high with the last of their possessions. She took her seat and put the heavy-looking mortar and pestle firmly in her lap. They were heading to the weatherboard cottage Thomas McCormick had taken on Kent Street. That humble worker’s cottage would give the family a place to sleep while they worked out what to do next. Old McCormick had organised the entire thing and was also keeping a room for himself and Mary Riley just in case the creditors came looking for Margaret’s keepings as payment for her husband’s debts.
No sooner were Margaret and William Gill halfway up the street than Martin Gill slipped back inside the Pitt Street hotel via the cellar door. An hour or so later he and George Page the dray man had hauled out the most expensive furniture from the superior guestrooms. If Mr Samuel thought he could set the town against Martin Gill then he didn’t know who he was dealing with, Gill muttered as he unloaded the solid bedheads and side tables into the back storage area of Moore’s auction rooms. The long-awaited plan had finally come to him that morning and when it did it was almost too good to be true. He was still delighting at the sheer chicanery of it. Poor old Moore would not be able to help himself, he knew. The moment he saw all the elegant bedsteads and good quality possessions, the old auctioneer would be so keen for the commission that he would push hell and high water to get the furniture moved as quickly as he could. And then, with the proceeds Gill made from the sales of Mr Samuel’s furniture to Alexander Moore, Martin Gill was going to buy himself a passage out of this rotten place and have the last laugh—all the way to California.
Once he had finished with the last of the hotel furniture he could take from the guestrooms Martin Gill went back into the hotel alone. The evening was closing in and the light gradually dissolving. He lit a candle and began looking about. He was sure that there would be items his wife and children had overlooked. He still needed more ready cash, not just for his passage but also to ensure that he was able to start his new life according to the standing to which he was now accustomed. He walked into the bedroom he once shared with Margaret and picked up an old washstand and a small looking glass that he knew were dear to his wife. Well, if she was fool enough to leave them here, he thought, they are good for the taking.
In William’s room there were papers, some with his writing scrawled over them but others blank. There is a market for paper, too, Gill noted as he added these to the pile. There were a few wooden toys that must have come from the Hunter Street shop. The children had left them scattered across the nursery floor and Gill decided they might fetch a few shillings, so he bundled these under his arm, too. In Mary Ann’s room he found a feather mattress, which he dragged out onto the landing. She wouldn’t need these where she was going. As he was heading out of this room, Martin Gill spied the wardrobe door ajar and noticed the two dresses he had purchased for his eldest daughter—one lilac, the other deep red. He took the rich, heavy fabrics and slung them over his shoulder, struggling to carry the rest of the objects downstairs into the empty hotel. Those dresses, he thought, they would fetch a sufficient price to get him a good cabin. Even if he had to get his hands dirty, Martin Gill was going to leave the colony on his own terms and in the appropriate style.
On the first morning of their stay in the Kent Street cottage, William Gill was woken suddenly by a sharp rapping on the front door. He was still in his nightshirt when he opened the door and found himself face-to-face with a furious-looking Mr Samuel and several of his associates. ‘Where is your father?’ the irate gentleman asked, shoving the young man to one side before marching down the corridor and into the kitchen where Margaret and Mary Ann were preparing a breakfast of johnnycakes with warm ham. ‘It has come to my attention, Mrs Gill,’ Samuel began, fairly frothing at the mouth, ‘that certain items belonging to my brother and I have disappeared from the hotel.’
Margaret gave her accuser an irritable look. She was in no mood for this sort of bluster. She rose slowly from the table, and looked her unwelcome visitor firmly in the eye. ‘Are you asking to inspect my father’s home, Mr Samuel?’ she asked. ‘If so, perhaps you would like to try some more of my cooking, first?’ There was a snort of indignation from one of Mr Samuel’s men followed by a snigger from Thomas McCormick, who was sitting in the corner drinking his tea. Next thing the old man was up and standing beside his daughter Margaret. He raised himself to his full height as he addressed the group of gentlemen who had crammed into the small cottage kitchen. ‘What precisely do you mean by coming into my home and disturbing my peace at such an hour?’ McCormick asked, voice full of thunder. Several of the associates looked about nervously and Mr Samuel took a step back. McCormick was still a big man and looked as though he would know how to wield a fire poker if it came to that. Samuel adjusted his tie. ‘I am looking for your husband, Madam,’ he said, preferring to address Margaret. ‘I believe he may hav
e confused some of my personal items for his own.’ Margaret looked at William, who was standing in the doorway. ‘Do you know where your father is, then?’ she asked dully.
An hour later, the entire party was making their way towards W.G. Moore’s auction rooms where William had a feeling he might find his father. William took them on the most circuitous route he could think of, hoping that his father’s business might be done by the time they arrived. When, however, the irate group finally appeared in the grand foyer of the George Street auction rooms, it was clear that an auction was in progress and that many of the goods displayed on the front stage were associated with the sinewy Dublin businessman in the front row. Samuel’s party forced their way through the auction crowd and down the aisle, making such a commotion that Martin Gill turned to see what was what. He was immediately confronted by the image of his wife and two eldest children storming towards him. His father-in-law was fast behind them and right on their heels were a party of serious-looking men in suits. ‘The auction must be stopped,’ Lewis Samuel bellowed, waving his walking stick at the podium where a brightly clad gentleman was calling items numbered 22 to 58.
‘What is all this about then?’ Gill asked, rising from his chair and making his way over to the stage with the intention of concealing a number of things he hoped to hide from his wife. But Margaret shoved her husband to one side and quickly took possession of certain goods she knew to be her own. ‘You can’t prove a thing, Samuel,’ Gill growled, ‘and I am in no mood to be wasting my time with you again.’ Mr Samuel’s eyes grew wider and his face turned a pinkish colour. His mutton-chop whiskers bristled and he wagged his finger at Martin Gill, as he struggled to catch his breath. ‘You are trying to sell my hotel goods from under me,’ he finally exploded. Martin Gill simply raised his eyebrows and smugly crossed his arms. ‘But these objects are no longer in my possession, Mr Samuel,’ he explained coolly. ‘They belong to the auctioneer and his customers, most of whom have already left with their purchases.’
The next moment Alexander Moore burst onto the stage with a wad of papers in his hand. ‘I will not be accused of misconduct,’ he flamed at Mr Samuel with whom he felt no little grudge regarding certain rumours that the latter had put about in relation to himself and Gill’s eldest girl. He shook a fist of sheets in Samuel’s face. ‘I have all my records, each certificate of purchase right here,’ he said, slapping bits of paper onto a host of objects displayed on the stage.
At that moment, Mary Ann saw her two dresses upon the stage where they had been draped over a velvet chaise longue. ‘Mr Moore,’ she said, stepping forward to address the unfortunate auctioneer who was now dabbing his sweaty brow with a giant handkerchief. ‘The two dresses on your stage, you may recall that these belong to me,’ she darted a disgusted look at her father before turning calmly to her one-time suitor. ‘I am sure my father would want the proceeds from their sale to come directly to me,’ she said, opening her gloved palm. Moore looked from Mary Ann to the dresses and then to Martin Gill with an increasingly perplexed expression.
With that, Mr Samuel seized his chance, ‘We will take you for every penny,’ he threatened, ‘every penny, sir. You and your wife.’ But Martin Gill simply appraised them all with a satisfied expression as he slowly surveyed the scene. There was his wife and father-in-law loaded up with looking glasses, cushions and washstands, Alexander Moore still clenching his papers, and Mr Samuel brandishing his walking stick about him in a most unwieldy manner. The Dublin emancipist gathered himself and addressed the party with an insolent smile. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you may all go to hell and find your money there, for all I care.’ With that the bold entrepreneur folded the wad of pound notes he had secured from his day’s efforts and stuffed them into his waistcoat pocket, before sauntering down the aisle of the auction rooms and out its front doors.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
All That Glitters
What with the wretched drought and all that followed in its wake there were now hundreds, even thousands of colonists desperate to leave New South Wales. Smart elites and old hands, as well as artisans and mechanics, were all considering their options. Would they leave by sea or take their chances along one of the ramshackle roads that led out of the colony?
No sooner had the Legislative Council nominated Dr William Bland, rather than Robert Lowe, to a seat on the senate of the University of Sydney, than the People’s Idol promptly resigned from his elected seat. Days later the industrious Georgina Lowe began sorting through their pretty home beside the cliffs of Bronte, preparing goods for auction as she eagerly envisaged her life as the wife of the future Viscount of Sherbrook. The years she and Robert had dwelt among the colonists of New South Wales had been lucrative but lonely and the Lowes were eager to return home. News that Robert’s older brother had secured an excellent inheritance with a peerage also signalled that it was time for them to return to England and resume their rightful position. By early November 1849, the Lowes’ departure had become a matter of when, not if, and few in New South Wales were sorry to hear of it.
Henry Parkes was contemplating Geelong, a populous portside town about a day’s ride south-west of Melbourne. His Hunter Street business was looking grim, although not quite as grim as his overworked and neglected wife. Parkes would do well to devote less time to the affairs of the colony and more to his family and business. But he could not quite bring himself to shift his focus. One of his remaining associates, Angus Mackay, had dropped The Atlas and was trying to convince Parkes to open a general store down south. Only, Parkes felt rudderless. The discreet departure of the Hashemy had taken the wind out of his sails and Robert Lowe’s recent conduct had also left a nasty taste in his mouth. The rocking horse vendor had risen to the challenge of a good campaign and experienced the thrill of bringing the people with him. Indeed he was now recognised as the most effective campaigner in the entire colony, but where had that got him? Thanks in large part to his efforts, there was now legislation before the British parliament concerned with granting New South Wales responsible government. This had been what he had wanted, but that only made the infernal new Bill even more vexatious. By the look of the draft, this new Act would give the squatters even greater power and could well cost the middling set more than if they had left the colony in the care of a remote Home Office and an indifferent governor. No wonder the idea of running a successful business and owning a newspaper was starting to look like his best path forward, even if that path did lead Parkes down the Great South Road to Port Phillip for a time.
Since news of gold had come to the colony last Christmas, close to three thousand colonists had tossed their bags upon their shoulders and boarded a boat bound for California. It had not been a full-scale rush, however, and departures to the American west coast had occurred in fits and starts during the first six months of 1849 with only fourteen vessels leaving from Sydney for San Francisco. In fact, most of the boats undertaking the voyage across the Pacific during that time carried stock rather than humans, thanks to a few canny businessmen who recognised that a burgeoning township like San Francisco would need everything from candles to canvas, bully meat to brandy.
It was only after an official United States Army Report confirmed the sort of finds that were being made around Sacramento that a veritable exodus began among those colonists who had been contemplating the new ‘Gold Land’. Suddenly men, for it was mostly men, and mainly from the middling set—skilled labourers and urban artisans, generally between the ages of fourteen and sixty—were leaving New South Wales in such numbers that the Legislative Council began grumbling that the colony was little more than a ‘halfway house for California’. Concerns about the ‘pecuniary loss’ to the local labour market had become such that the governor commissioned a report about this ‘growing and serious evil’. Now officials were stationed about the harbour determined to deter the departure of anyone with legal constraints or other pressing financial obligations. Some said it was like shutting the gate after the horse had long b
olted for, already, the flamboyant Ben Boyd had sailed out of Port Jackson on his private schooner, the aptly named Wanderer. In his wake Boyd had left at least £80,000 of debt, a collapsed bank, and a string of flabbergasted shareholders and spoiled speculators, not to mention the 20,000 sheep and 10,000 cattle he had abandoned on his vast, drought stricken pastoral holdings. If the authorities were unable to stop a prominent colonist like Ben Boyd, surely Martin Gill also stood a chance of slipping through the net? Or so he was hoping.
Seventeen-year-old Mary Ann had been in a state of considerable agitation since she and her brother had eavesdropped at the door of their father’s office and overheard his conversation with Kinchela. Her heart burned with the knowledge that the affection, which had been so frequently thwarted over the past year or so, was in fact reciprocated. What she had heard was enough for her to put aside her concerns and decide that her future lay with Kinchela. And yet. Mary Ann could think of no way to act upon this new understanding. From that conversation she had learnt that James would be leaving within days and despite her brother making discreet enquiries, neither had secured any idea as to Kinchela’s whereabouts. Nor could she work out how he might find her since the family had taken up their modest Kent Street cottage.
Will was also feeling desperate. The same conversation had filled his head with all sorts of glittering possibilities. He now wanted nothing more than to get on any one of the blasted boats out in the harbour and join the great flight of forty-niners. He wanted freedom and fortune. He also wanted to see his eldest sister happy, although he couldn’t see how this was going to happen with Kinchela likely to depart any day now, and nobody knowing where that gentleman was residing, let alone what boat he was going to take out of Sydney. But with the hotel closing and the extraordinary events at the auction rooms less than a week ago, William Gill was sufficiently fed up with his family’s circumstances to take matters into his own hands. He had, after all, been serving as a go-between for his parents since their ‘rupture’ in early June, and was one of the very few who knew his father’s current whereabouts.
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