The Convict's Daughter Read online

  The town was thrumming with New Year festivities and Kinchela had a feeling there was fun to be had. The races, he thought. There would be a few good horses out at Shaw’s and there was no reason why he couldn’t clean himself up and make a day of it. He thought of sending a note to Mary Ann informing her of the governor’s benevolence and asking if there might be some way for them to meet in the next week or so, but then he recalled his conversations with John. He was, in truth, a little torn. What could he say to her?, he wondered, particularly now he could no longer ignore his brother’s strident opposition. He would think on it a while longer, he decided, before dashing off a quick note to Somerville requesting that he call by his mother’s Liverpool property and collect a summer jacket as well as a few clean shirts for the races.

  Next Kinchela busied himself with a number of man-about-town errands. He couldn’t believe a shave at the barbers could yield so much satisfaction, he told the man at the Market Street store as he flipped him an extra coin in thanks. Everyday liberties, he thought happily, as he made his way back to the hotel. Halfway back to the hotel he realised he was out of snuff, so he turned about and headed towards the George Street tobacconist.

  The bell over the door of the store announced Kinchela’s arrival with a vigorous clang that was quite at odds with its shrouded interior and the curious figure of Joseph Aarons sitting in the almost-dark, crouched over a small set of iron scales, carefully balancing a pile of brown snuff against a set of dull-looking weights. ‘How d’you do on this fine day, good man?’ Kinchela asked in excellent spirits. Aarons acknowledged his customer with a grunt and barely looked up. ‘I’ll have an ounce of what is in your scales,’ Kinchela said casting an eye about the store. As his back was turned a young girl, perhaps fourteen years old, slipped out from behind the back curtains and began speaking loudly to the old man. ‘The gentleman would like some snuff, Father,’ she said as sweetly as she could, but the old man scowled at her. ‘I heard,’ he grumbled, ‘but I can’t do much when I am in the middle of something else.’

  The young girl gave Kinchela an apologetic smile before returning to her father. ‘Shall I help, then?’ she asked, but perhaps a little too brightly. ‘You will not, girl, indeed you will not,’ Aarons snapped tetchily, clutching his scales to his chest before scurrying under the bench and fossicking about for something, only to emerge several minutes later with a small tin scoop, a roll of brown paper and some string. ‘Now what was it that you were after?’ the shopkeeper asked, craning his neck and squinting at his customer. The girl interjected, repeating Kinchela’s request before standing back with her hands clasped in front of her as she struggled to resist the desire to take control of her father’s shaky transference of the powdery substance onto the sheet of paper. Smatterings of the rich-smelling stuff fell this way and that onto the bench and floor, just about anywhere, in fact, but on the paper itself.

  Kinchela watched and waited and remembered what it was like. His own father’s infirmity and the thick lump he would get in his throat after spending time with him—watching the once fine man fumbling for words and sometimes even thoughts. James felt sorry for the poor girl stuck inside on such a pretty day with very little chance of any fun. He tried to lift the moment with a little light talk, and turned to the shopkeeper’s daughter with what he hoped was an amiable disposition. ‘And will you be going to the races today, lass?’ he asked. The young freckled girl blushed and shook her head. ‘No, sir, just another trade day for my father and I,’ she replied rather wistfully, and for a moment Kinchela considered asking her to join him at Shaw’s.

  But before he could open his mouth, Aarons peered at Kinchela from under his spectacles and then, with an agility that surprised James, bounded from his bench towards the door. ‘You are still meant to be in gaol, are you not, Mr Kinchela?’ he barked at his shocked customer as he flung open the store door. ‘I will not have you in my store, sir,’ the small man proclaimed indignantly, and he seemed to rise miraculously in stature, ‘thinking you can take my daughter as you did to that other fool of a fellow.’

  Kinchela hastily put two good coins on the bench, took the not-quite-wrapped package from the bench and left the shop. He heard the door slam behind him and the sound of the clanging bell seemed to follow him halfway down George Street. The old shopkeeper had put the wind up him that was for sure. He had been foolish enough to assume that things would return to normal. He would need to keep himself to himself, he realised. If that was a taste of the way things would be now, he was best not to be too friendly, particularly towards the local girls. He would need to play a straight bat, he determined, heading back to the Adelphi and downing two good tall glasses of Indian ale while waiting for Somerville to take him out to the New Year’s races.

  But the moment he caught sight of all the tilburies and such lined along the road to Shaw’s Racecourse, Kinchela forgot the morning’s unpleasantness. No sooner did he have the smell of horses in his nostrils, than he began to think about which horses would be running and what he had to bet with. They had already run one heat by the time he paid and got through the gate. He gave Somerville a few shillings to enjoy himself for the afternoon and went off in the direction of the Gentleman’s Green where he thought he might find Davidson having a crack at the bowls in between race heats.

  He ambled through the crowd, pleased to be reacquainted with his cane and also enjoying the feel of the top hat Somerville had brought back from Liverpool along with his shirts. It was a fine afternoon and half of Sydney looked to be out and about delighting in the Christmas season and the sunshine. There were children running around the back hedges and a group of slightly raucous girls entertaining themselves with a game of quoits, while already one or two less fortunate sorts lay slumped against a canvas marquee, having already succumbed, he suspected, to one swizzler too many.

  Kinchela saw Jim Davidson with three other men and was thinking twice about approaching the group when his friend spied him from a distance and beckoned him over. Kinchela stepped forward and shook hands with the various well-to-do fellows and then joined them, drink in hand, as they chatted about who they liked for what. It was hard to go past Old Jorrocks, everyone knew, but you didn’t stand to win much on him these days. A fellow with flushed cheeks and fly-away blond hair fancied putting money on the Drapers’ Purse and he liked Mr Patrick’s Moustache for a place at least. Others were talking up the merits of Creeping Jane in the Union Plate, while Davidson was sure that Mr Lucas’s Ratcatcher would win the day. There was a lot of talk, too, about the Timor ponies, and Kinchela was keen to see how they would run.

  He felt rather grateful to Davidson for not making a fuss. He shouted his friend more than a few shandygaffs and the two were having quite a jolly time when he spied young Healy, who he hadn’t seen since that night back in late May the year before when he had asked his young friend to keep an eye out for Mary Ann when she arrived at the Sportsman’s Arms. Kinchela was not so keen to see Healy, who, in his opinion, had hardly lifted a finger to help him. He ducked behind a party of carousers at the back of a rather rowdy tent, but the stout little fellow had seen Kinchela and began pushing towards him. He greeted Kinchela with a slap on the back and asked how he had been getting on. He had been reading the papers and thought the whole thing a very sorry affair. Not done at all, he said, knocking back a whiskey and ordering another two. Healy was halfway through some excited talk about how the colony had gone mad for the middling men, when one of Davidson’s chums looked Kinchela up and down and tapped himself on the forehead, ‘Of course, that is who you are, isn’t it, old boy?’ the young gent said with a mixture of amusement and admiration. ‘You are that fellow who took that girl from the hotel,’ he chuckled to himself as he knocked back his Jenny Lind. ‘What a lark, eh,’ he said sizing up Kinchela. ‘Well I hope you got some pleasure for your suffering,’ he snorted with a lecherous grin.

  Davidson looked away. Kinchela said nothing but carefully studied his race guide for a moment bef
ore stepping away to place a bet. Such talk. Try as he might he could think of no suitable reply. It was best to bow out as quickly as he could. Still he was sorry not to bid Davidson farewell. Kinchela wove his way through the crowd until he finally got to the railing. He was keen to lose himself in the thunder of the ponies, so he found a prime position near the bookies and spent the rest of the afternoon moving back and forth between his spot close to the track and the betting circle. When, several hours later, he found Somerville it was quite late in the day and both men were worse for wear. The day had had its pleasures but it had not been entirely pleasant, Kinchela realised as the coach trundled back to the Adelphi. Still he was glad to have seen Davidson and also greatly relieved that he had not come across any luncheon booths proudly displaying ‘Mr Gill’s Best Produce from Home’.

  When, however, he stepped inside the Adelphi Hotel, the manager informed Kinchela that Captain Joseph Long Innes was waiting for him in the back parlour. The impatient-looking magistrate gave James an imperious stare as the convicted felon sat down. Before he could so much as order a drink, Innes asked if he had seen the girl. ‘Eh?’ Kinchela replied, as he looked at the Captain with an expression of confusion, ‘Which girl?’ He had seen a lot of girls that day. Fetching ones and plump ones as well as a few rather coarse and overdressed creatures, too. Which girl was Innes on about, Kinchela wondered, and what was it to him? He stumbled through his slightly inebriated thoughts and then realised who the man must be talking about. ‘I’ve no intention of causing any trouble down that end of Pitt Street, if that is what you mean,’ Kinchela asserted indignantly.

  But that was not what the Captain meant. ‘The Aarons girl,’ he interrupted. ‘Mr Kinchela, do you know where she is?’ James was vexed. ‘I don’t even know who she is,’ he blurted out. The Captain opened his notebook and began recounting Kinchela’s morning activities with such a degree of detail that the gentleman settler was rather taken aback. ‘You went to a tobacconist on George Street this morning,’ the Police Magistrate started, ‘and you asked the young girl there to accompany you to the races.’ He scrutinised Kinchela’s response as the man in question rubbed the back of his neck, trying to make sense of it all. ‘The girl has not been seen at the store since,’ Innes continued, ‘and her father is now determined to have you.’ Kinchela slumped into a chair. He had not seen the girl, had not thought of her since that morning and had certainly not stepped out with her anywhere, he insisted. ‘I was friendly and that was all,’ he told the Captain and explained how old Aarons had sent him packing with a flea in his ear.

  The Police Magistrate began to suspect that there was probably not much to the whole thing. Indeed, it was entirely possible that the episode had been orchestrated by a well-known hotelier from the harbour end of Pitt Street. Nonetheless, ‘Given the circumstances of the past year,’ he explained, ‘and the gravity with which the public considers such matters, I must give this matter its due, Mr Kinchela. I trust you understand my obligation,’ he said, ‘especially since you are out early, on the governor’s mercy and all that.’ James Butler shook his head in disbelief. It had been a long day and he had been looking forward to his first good night’s sleep in months.

  The Captain stood up and asked Kinchela to walk with him to the police station. Old Aarons had been insistent, Innes explained, and when he visited him that afternoon, he had thumped the police desk and demanded that someone find his daughter. Kinchela nodded. He felt a little sorry for Innes, having to respond to every bark and shadow that happened in the colony. However, as he stood before the town magistrate and listened to the now familiar charges relating to the crime of abduction—for the second time in less than a year—Kinchela realised that he was feeling a good deal sorrier for himself.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A Gross Breach

  The Colonial Secretary was persisting with his madness. He had decided to ignore the stream of assertive, private correspondence and public epistles that continued to arrive from New South Wales, all of which were clearly aimed at discouraging the resumption of transportation. And, for the first time in almost a decade, Earl Grey, second Baronet and only son of Sir George Grey, had dispatched a boat with over two hundred British felons on board, bound for New South Wales. Only, cholera was delaying the ship’s departure and all through January the Hashemy lay idle in the cold winter docks as each day yet another young corpse was dragged from the vessel.

  But Grey had no intention of stepping back. He had many concerns that were much more pressing than a group of pushy radicals and working men from that far-flung colony in the south. Trying to find food for the survivors of the Irish famine was one thing; keeping a handle on the treason-felony trial of the Ballingarry boys was another. All last year he had to look on as France toppled this way and that, and then a bunch of mad Chartists and other unstable sorts had organised a rally right under his nose, in the heart of London. 1848 had been horrendous. But the New Year had finally come and Grey was intent upon fixing his position and staying the course. He would not be put in his place by anyone.

  Meanwhile, rumours of an epidemic on board that loathsome convict ship had reached Sydney and the papers were frothing at the mouth about how Grey was daring to infect the good people of Sydney with the vile contagions of the old world. Hadn’t the colonists of New South Wales resolutely strived to purge themselves of all those foul diseases?, Mackay and Hawkesley asked in the numerous columns they devoted to what they were now referring to as Grey’s ‘Gross Breach of Faith’. It was time to say no, Parkes and others insisted, as they went about the Sydney taverns, preparing the working men of the colony to take a stand against the greatest insult they had yet experienced from the Colonial Office. They would stop the authorities in their tracks, Parkes promised, playing up to the men in the docklands, and the government would learn they best not take the loyalty of their so-called underlings for granted.

  John Kinchela had never read such ripe stuff. He preferred to read the better press, but had been advised by some of his friends, in particular two conservative magistrates from the Bathurst district, that he should apprise himself of the inflammatory tracts coming out of the town papers so he could make up his own mind. Some of these papers were sounding decidedly American, John thought, as if they might tip the convicts into the harbour, as had been done in Boston during that tea and taxes affair. But while these men were going about it in the wrong way, John could not entirely disagree with their sentiments. The colony would be better without convicts, he had decided. He had done his time as a magistrate out in those parts of the valley when he was a good deal younger and other men had refused to share the bench with him because of his youth. He had seen, first hand, how wily government men could be. Many were little better than pustular lesions that required lancing, and he had never regretted the reputation he earned for licking the worst of them with his lash. It was what had earned him the loyalty of the landowners as well as other magistrates. Some might quibble, he had told his father when the old man had raised the matter, but he had no qualms in treating a man like a dog if he behaved as one. So yes, John would be happy to see an end to convicts in the colony, particularly when they were capable of producing children like the creature who had recently caused his family so much trouble.

  John was pushing through the January papers on the verandah of a rather pretty widow’s property near Blackman’s Swamp, where he boarded while in the Orange district, when a story in The Maitland caught his eye. It was impossible. No, he thought, turning the page back and scanning the sheet until he found what he thought he had seen. John read it again and again. It could not be. But after the fourth reading, he saw that it was and once he had digested the extremely unpalatable facts the Superintendent of Schools stood up, and, in a state of considerable irritation, went to pack his bags.

  But nothing matched the shock Mary Ann experienced a few days later when she stumbled across the same story. With the election gone, she was no longer required to read the papers
to her father. Nonetheless, Mary Ann maintained an interest in the local news-sheets. She and William would often spend a few hours each week reading the key stories to one another while her parents were distracted with hotel business. Will was particularly interested in anything to do with gold, while Mary Ann looked for news of Europe, specifically France.

  They had been scanning over the weekly copy of Bell’s Sporting Life when William suddenly fell silent. Mary Ann could see from his expression that something had floored him, so she snatched the sheets out of his hands before he could stop her. Looking over the page for the source of his expression, Mary Ann thought she saw Kinchela’s name and when she found it again she read the title of the article in puzzlement: ‘The Love Chase’. Mary Ann could not understand what would compel the papers to return to the events of last year, but as she read on she discovered that the report concerned a more recent ‘melodrama’, which, Bell’s teased, ‘had opened on George Street in the new year with the principal parts being played by none other than James Kinchela, Esquire, of high extraction, and the young Louisa Aarons, in a role,’ they hoped, ‘that would be her first and last appearance in this character.’

  William watched Mary Ann in dread. He had not had time to read the entire piece but had gleaned enough to see that the story was as bad as it could be. ‘The curtain rose,’ Mary Ann read, ‘to the monotonous tones of the deposition clerk, who recounted how “the lordly James” had asked “the gentle Louisa” to decorate his arm at the Drapers’ Races and afterwards deposited her in a most notorious house of ill-fame from whence her desperate father had eventually fetched her.’ Mary Ann gasped. James had been released from gaol and made no effort to contact her, she realised with a sinking heart. After all that had been he had preferred the races to her own company. She put an involuntary hand to her stomach where she suddenly felt that she had been whacked hard. The parallels with this absurd event and their own thwarted elopement were too similar to be ignored, even if the girl was a little younger.