The Convict's Daughter Page 20

  As horrific as it was, Mary Ann read on. ‘Here, however, the curtain was compelled to fall,’ Bell’s lightly trilled, ‘for no actors had come forward to provide testimony in support of Joseph Aarons, so the presiding judge had dropped the charges. Nonetheless,’ Bell’s drolly noted, ‘they were quite sure that Captain Innes had made every effort to soothe the injured sire, assuring him that the case could be reopened any time fresh evidence became available.’ ‘The charges have been dropped,’ Mary Ann said dully as she pushed the paper to Will. She walked to the window and leant her cheek against the cool glass. Her mind was racing. She could make no sense of it. She watched Will’s appalled expression as he took up the paper and finished the last sentence in which Bell’s hastened to add that they hoped they might declare ‘this sordid performance finally done’.

  Brother and sister looked at one another and William noticed that the colour had drained from Mary Ann’s face. She was pale, he thought, as pale as she had been on election night when he had been waiting for her in the nursery. He hadn’t meant to shock her, but he had needed to let her know that while he had helped her this time—feeding the children and putting them to bed—he would not be party to such deceit again. She would be on her own, he had told her quite firmly, if she tried such nonsense in the future. Mary Ann had bowed her head as her brother had admonished her. She had been careless in her thoughts and actions, she said quietly and carefully, and, he was correct, she had thought only of herself. She promised she would never embark upon such an undertaking again.

  When, however, she could see that she had appeased him with this promise, Mary Ann had rushed on to explain why she would not need to. ‘I have his promise, Will,’ she had said, triumphantly. ‘He wants nothing more, he said, than for us to marry when he is free.’ Will was not entirely convinced by what he heard, and also doubted that such a union had any hope of improving their family’s circumstances, but he noticed how the glow stole back into his sister’s cheeks as she recounted her adventure and felt such a wave of admiration for her courage that he eventually conceded. ‘Well,’ he said, a little uncertainly, ‘if there can be a happy ending to this, it would be the best for all of us. But,’ he finished, leaning forward in the nursery chair to fix his sister with a stern look, ‘mind yourself, Mary Ann.’

  And now? Will watched his sister struggle with the shock of it. Her face was quite pale. Just once she made a little noise—something between a choke and a whimper. Will could not think of what to do or say, so he simply walked to Mary Ann and squeezed her hand.

  John Kinchela arrived in Sydney and stopped at the Club for a refreshment before heading out to see his mother. He was aghast to see that the tables were strewn with news-sheets no doubt carrying similar reports to the ones he had read in The Maitland. He ordered a double whiskey and asked a waiter to collect all the papers and bring them to him. Then he slid just a little deeper into his sofa so that he was obscured by the large open pages as he scoured them for more of the same dreadful stuff.

  And there it was. In the Hobart Courier. ‘The man had not even finished his first sentence,’ the editor fumed, ‘so how was it that Kinchela could be at large again? Surely the case was much too serious to be discharged by Captain Innes, particularly since Mr Kinchela had been tried and convicted of a similar offence less than a year beforehand. Indeed, wasn’t the man in question still meant to be serving his sentence?’ they asked. ‘With a case this serious, the magistrate should have subpoenaed witnesses,’ another paper fumed. John could imagine that Captain Innes was going to have some difficult questions to answer. But then, as he read on, it also occurred to him that the matter might have consequences even higher up. ‘Some serious breach had clearly been made,’ the Moreton Bay Courier raged, ‘and none but the governor could be expected to explain why this double abductor was worthy of his Excellency’s mercy.’ Well that was that, John thought, taking a very large swig of his drink. The Kinchelas had done their dash with the governor and this time he doubted even he could turn things right.

  James Butler Kinchela was done with Sydney. He had had just about enough of the clever talk he experienced every time he went out. He expected as much in the hotels, but he had hoped there might be a code of gentlemanly conduct elsewhere that would make life tolerable. But no. With the exception of Davidson, the few friends who had maintained their association with him after the first episode had now washed their hands of James Butler Kinchela and he was now also well and truly persona non grata at all the clubs. If not condemned as an outright cad and bounder, the doctor’s second son had been dismissed as nothing more than a fool.

  In contrast to his blustery brother, James Butler Kinchela had more of his father’s temperament when it came to matters of reputation. He would not fight for his name in some hot-headed way that, to him, seemed more likely to further incriminate him. Nor was he in a mood to take another serve from his brother. John had completely failed to give James even the slightest benefit of the doubt. Indeed, the moment the doctor’s eldest son had returned to the Liverpool house from his afternoon in the Club, he marched into the parlour and up to his younger brother. Right there, in front of the servants, John had given his younger brother a large and unsolicited piece of his mind. Anne Bourne had put her head down and tended to her stitching in silence but James could see that she was grieved by the force with which John conducted himself in this matter.

  Things were against him, Kinchela knew. It would be best to head up north for a bit, clear his head and see if he could organise the sale of Hawkwood. Once that run was gone his brother would no longer be burdened by their financial partnership and they would be free of each other, once and for all. James was feeling hard-done-by and nursing more than a little ill-will for all the times his brother had assumed the worst of him. He was probably best out of the way, he decided, for he had clearly damaged his brother’s standing and also placed his family upon precarious financial footing.

  Kinchela took Pitt Street towards Circular Quay and the Moreton Bay steamer. It was the most direct route and he was entirely fed up with having to avoid that particular hotel. He had nothing to hide. After all, he had not really done anything of which he should be ashamed. Indeed, the whole business had been a succession of confusions and he should not be held to blame for all of them. He would leave this damn town on his own terms, he decided, and with his head held high. Some part of him was hopeful that he might somehow bump into Mary Ann and be able to find a way of explaining the whole dreadful mess to her.

  It was now the middle of summer and the season was in full force, with the hills and gardens about the harbour pulsing with the heat. It looked superb, he had to admit, the deep blue of the harbour and the white and honey sandstone of the finer buildings about town. All under the vast, humming summer sky. And there was Gill’s hotel, standing squat and confident, the third-storey window reflecting the morning light, catching his attention as he walked by, almost as if it was winking at him. The entire episode had been a poor business, Kinchela sighed, and he had made a mess of it, all round. On top of that he had also broken his promise to Mary Ann—but there it was. He had tried to fix things and he had been stopped at every turn by the cruellest and most peculiar incidents imaginable. He could see no way of fixing it. She could not be expected to believe him after all that had been. Best to be off, Kinchela decided. Leave the poor thing to make do as best she could. He was heavy with the shame of it and wanted nothing more than to be away, out on the land. Free of it all.

  Several weeks later Martin Gill had another of his friends join the family luncheon. This time they served roast beef and it was Mr Lewis Samuel who came to call. Martin Gill had decided to host the meal downstairs in the formal dining room. There were no guests booked for the hotel’s luncheon and Mr Samuel had often expressed his appreciation of that particular room. It had been his uncle’s favourite, he had said, more than once. In such a public environment, Margaret would have to conduct herself with composure and Gill
was pleased with the way he had outsmarted his wife in this matter.

  Mr Samuel arrived in his Sunday best and Gill ushered him into the formal room, sitting the well-connected bachelor opposite his eldest daughter. Margaret was present but clearly seething. So great was her indignation that she had planned to be too unwell to attend but at the last moment decided she best be on hand to watch over proceedings and, in particular, Mary Ann. She was, however, finding it exceedingly difficult to be civil to Mr Samuel, who much to her disdain, was insisting on engaging her about the fittings in the room and the care she had taken with the choice of drapery and the like. Margaret nodded primly and kept her head bowed to discourage further conversation, but Mr Samuel was agonisingly impervious to her discouragement. Again, Mary Ann felt compelled to shield their guest from her mother’s stiff demeanour which she did by asking her father’s guest to describe his own home.

  ‘It suffers from the lack of a good woman, I am afraid my dear,’ Mr Samuel replied to Mary Ann with a solemn sigh. ‘It is a fine home—that is true. One might even say, the very finest in the Macquarie River region, with a sweeping vista and a generous staircase, and yet,’ he continued, gesturing with both hands, one of which held a fork skewered with a generous portion of red meat that flapped about as he gestured, ‘there is none of the finer spirit a woman brings to a house,’ he finished, fixing Mary Ann with a particularly melancholy expression.

  Martin Gill looked down at his meal and ignored Mary Ann’s look of bewilderment. But Margaret who had been eating her meal in silent fury had had enough. She put down her knife and fork and stood up from her meal as the entire room turned at her sudden gesture. ‘I will not have it,’ she said, laying her palms square on the table as she prepared for a fight. ‘I will not have you marry my daughter off to such a man, and for no reason but that you like the look of his money, and all because you have lost all your own.’ Margaret was quivering with rage as she stared down her husband at the other end of the table.

  The next minute all hell broke loose. Mr Samuel coughed to spluttering point, choking on some of the beef he had swallowed whole in shock. William jumped up and tried to help by patting the unfortunate gentleman on the back as he called for one of the kitchen staff to help. Meanwhile, at the other end of the dining table, Martin Gill had picked up the carving knife and was waving it in the air in the direction of his wife. But Margaret was not in the least perturbed; she glared back at her husband with an expression that was thick with contempt.

  Mary Ann went and stood beside her mother. She had no idea, really, what to do, but it seemed right to take her mother’s part as she tried to make sense of all that was unfolding. So Mr Samuel had been brought here as a suitor and she was meant to marry him? What about old Alexander Moore? Was he another of her father’s plans, she speculated, her mind racing as she took in the horror of it; her father had these men in mind as her husband, and all because of their money? Then she recalled her father’s curious conduct over the past two months as well as the considerable number of deliverymen who had taken to leaning insolently by the kitchen door, refusing to leave until they had received cash payment for their goods. Two birds with one stone, she thought bitterly. Get rid of a ruined daughter as well as all the hotel debts. How long had her father been planning all this?, she wondered. Then her mind strayed to the dresses. They were not a gift, she realised. Her father had been fattening her up for sale day.

  No sooner had Lewis Samuel managed to reclaim his breath than he wiped his wet brow and retrained his shirt and collar, which had come undone in his choking frenzy. Gill had taken him for a fool, he saw. He had wanted him to marry his daughter so he would quit his debts. The family must be in even deeper trouble than he had assumed by the delay in the last rental quarter. Why hadn’t he thought of that before, Samuel seethed, annoyed with himself for being so gullible. Why would he want a girl like that—reputation spoilt and no substance to bring to the match, he sniffed as he fixed his tie. He was better off as a bachelor than as the husband of a sullied girl with a cunning rat for a father.

  Mr Samuel stood up from the table and brushed William away before straightening his waistcoat and reclaiming his hat from the hall-stand. ‘Mr Gill,’ he said, wagging his index finger at the patriarch who was now fixed upon his wife, as he shifted back and forward on the balls of his feet, the carving knife in his grip, ‘you have made a grave mistake here, you will see,’ Mr Samuel threatened, puffing out his chest as his voice rose an octave. ‘And you will need to prepare for consequences that will no doubt prove most inconvenient to you.’ With that the portly gentleman put his hat on his head and stomped out of the hotel.

  Mr Samuel’s departure broke the trance in the dining room. Martin Gill suddenly threw the knife onto the dining room rug and slunk off. Next minute horse hooves clattered across the yard and up along Pitt Street. Martin Gill was gone. At least for now. A moment later Rebecca hurried into the room; several of the children had woken during the commotion and little Martin needed help. Margaret was still standing, legs set a distance apart, knees slightly bent, arms up in front of her when she woke from her curious stance. She wiped her hands on a napkin and made her way upstairs to the nursery. And then, there was only Mary Ann and William looking at one another across the dining-room table in a state of utter bewilderment.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Thwarted Plot

  No sooner had the Moreton Bay steamer made its way out through the Heads than the disgraced gentleman settler began to breathe more easily. He found a decent seat up on the deck and settled in with the various papers he had purchased for his journey north. As always he started with Charlie Nichols’ paper as it most suited his interests and humour. There was the regular exchange between Betsy Pumpkin and Kitty Cucumber as well as an interesting piece concerning plans to commence building railroads in the interior. In among the racing pages there was a more serious article concerned with Earl Grey’s ‘absurd scheme’ to resume transportation. Even Bell’s, who typically sided with the governor, could not brook the arrival of such a boat.

  Next, Kinchela was drawn to a long piece dedicated to the ‘talented and enterprising Mr Kennedy’, who had sailed to Cape York with the hope of finding an interior route back to Sydney. Kennedy had been in the company of eight or so men including his trusted Aboriginal companion, Jackey Jackey, who he had to thank for surviving previous expeditions. From the beginning of this particular voyage, however, ‘the nature of the country’ had presented the exploration party ‘startling presage of the dangers’ that lay ahead. Kinchela nodded to himself. He had not been to the Cape himself but he had pushed north far enough to have a sense of things. Few would know the heavy humidity in those districts or the dense green that closed in before the rains. No doubt there were all sorts of vile swamps and lurid snakes as well as insects as big as your fist. Bell’s account of the tragic expedition concluded by recognising how Mr Kennedy had set an ‘unrivalled’ example of ‘determination, perseverance and self-sacrifice’. ‘Mmmm,’ Kinchela mused, ‘the northern districts would make heroes or corpses of us all.’ Still he was glad to be heading back. After the froth and folly of the past year, the Upper Darling seemed more straightforward. At least you knew who your enemies were, or where their fires were, at any rate.

  Kinchela was musing over this when he came upon a lively piece of prosody in Bell’s entitled ‘A Chapter of Whens’. It was full of cryptic allusions and seemed to be a satirical challenge from Bell’s to The Atlas, which was now struggling under Mackay’s moralising editorials. Kinchela was pleased to see The Atlas getting a serve, so he read on. ‘When battered puddings grow on trees and civil counsels learn to please,’ the poem began before making a sly aside about that Justice Stephens, who had invited Manning to preside over his abduction trial last year. There was also a reference to Bob Nichols, the new member for Northumberland. The poem was all wit and sly fun and Kinchela was greatly enjoying himself identifying all the well-known personalities being su
bjected to satirical scrutiny, until he came to the final stanza. ‘When bushmen shall come bouncing in,’ he read, ‘without a hair on lip or chin, or cease to kick up any ruction, with sires about their girl’s abduction’. He read the lines again. There could be no doubt, he thought, particularly incensed by the reference to the shaven appearance he maintained while residing in town. They had made him sound a foolish boy, he fumed. But it was also clear—after the Louisa Aarons affair he was damned in Sydney, innocent or not.

  Kinchela stood up and walked about the deck until he found a wastebasket in which he energetically stuffed the offending news-sheet. Clearly he was a laughing stock, something to finish a stanza. Sydney smugness, he thought grimly, it left a nasty taste in his mouth. In this foul mood he made his way to the salon within the steamer, nudging in among two heavily tattooed Maori sawyers already ‘liquoring’ themselves. He signalled for a rum and knocked it back quickly before pushing his glass forward for another.

  A day or so later the Raven took Kinchela up river and into the small township of Moreton Bay. An air of menace seemed to hang over the northern settlement. There were a few new architectural statements of civility—that was true—the site for a customs house had been pegged out and what looked to be the foundations of a church, but even so a sullen rage pulsed within the thick wet January heat. Kinchela decided to give himself a week in town to get provisions and catch up on the local news before starting out for Hawkwood.