We returned to Oldbury in the winter of 1846.
It was a miserable homecoming, dictated by necessity. My mother’s income was by this time a mere two hundred pounds per year. She had decided that we could no longer afford a town house, nor the expense of buying most of our food. Circumstances decreed that we pursue a cheaper mode of existence, in accommodation for which no rent would be charged. Oldbury was therefore the only option left to us.
We had no illusions as to what we would find upon our return. The house had stood empty for three years. The insolvency of our former tenant, Thomas Humphery, meant that no repairs had been undertaken since at least 1841. Our pastures and fences were in a slightly better condition, thanks to Mr Alfred Welby; he was a respectable farmer from Sutton Forest, and in 1843 had been entrusted with the task of administering my brother’s inheritance. By letting land and collecting rents, he had ensured that at least a portion of the estate was still productive.
But make no mistake, Oldbury’s days of glory were long past. It stood ‘defaced by time, and tottering in decay’. If you have read Cowanda, you will have some inkling of the pitiful sight that greeted us when we renewed our acquaintance with the old homestead, which, though it belonged to James, was being managed by my father’s executors. Louisa drew from her own experience in describing the typical estate belonging to a youth still in his minority, who is unable to take proper care of his inheritance; like her fictional Aloe Hill, Oldbury was all cracked walls and broken glass, mouldy rooms and untended gardens.
Mr Welby had tried to prepare us. In his letters he had made mention of collapsed huts, stained plaster and unpruned vines. He had urged the need for a species of advance guard to clear and clean, and had supervised the employment of these servants on my mother’s behalf at least three weeks before our arrival. There were other matters to arrange as well: the purchase of feed and livestock; the replacement of items filched by my stepfather; the transportation of furniture, plate and linen. The outlay was enormous, or so it seemed to me. I asked my mother how she could possibly justify such an expense.
‘We will spend far more in removing from Sydney than we would if we stayed,’ I said, pouting. ‘I have never seen such a fine example of false economy in my life. Why, the horses alone will cost as much as our rent! We had much better stay.’
But my mother ignored me. I was not surprised, having grown accustomed to such treatment. Since the end of my engagement we had found ourselves perpetually quarrelling, and were sometimes unable to sit together in the same room. I do not know why we tried each other’s tempers so horribly. Perhaps we were too much alike. Mama complained of my strident manner, but her own was not very different. She expressed her opinions just as forcefully as I did, and spoke no more softly when roused. Our arguments were loud and vicious affairs that must have poisoned the lives of those around us. As the old proverb says, ‘It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman’. Possibly my mother had this in mind when she decreed that we should return to the wild country where I was born. She may have hoped that, free of the city’s constraints, I would wear out my restlessness in long walks, hard rides, and the demanding daily round of a working farm.
She was wrong, however.
It would be impossible to exaggerate the extent of my aversion to Oldbury. My blackest memories were associated with that place; I had no wish to revisit its dark-panelled vestibule, its haunted cellar, or its scarred landings. I shrank from the brooding prospect of Gingenbullen, which had inhabited my dreams for so long that it seemed invested with an almost spectral menace. In the six years that had elapsed since my last glimpse of Oldbury, I had refashioned it into a dark and sinister repository of all that was bad, bloody and Godforsaken.
Besides which, I was eighteen years old. I had no desire to bury myself in the remote ‘back runs’, away from all possibility of civilised amusement. I wanted to dance. I wanted to hear good music, and watch colourful crowds. Even in Sydney the variety of our social intercourse was restricted, but at least there was always hope of a chance meeting, or an unlooked-for introduction. You never knew who might accost you in a milliner’s shop. I was desperate for company, and not only because I was bored. At eighteen, I was beginning to panic. I was beginning to wonder if I would die an old maid.
No doubt you think me foolish. Eighteen is not such a great age, after all. Yet it seems incredibly advanced when one has been forced to endure the unspeakable shame of being thrown over. I assure you, I hardly set foot outside the house for months after William Cummings rejected me. My life seemed utterly blighted. As for my friends, they offered me no comfort. How could they? Though Fanny Rickards declared herself ‘disgusted’ with Mr Cummings, he nevertheless remained her brother’s confidant. And when Fanny became engaged to Lieutenant Wren, my pride could not endure the contrast between her happy prospects and my own. I felt utterly demoralised, and could see only one remedy: namely, another betrothal. Without an eager swain by my side, I was unable to hold up my head, for it seemed as if I was branded by my own failure. I was sure that people gossiped about me whenever I left the room.
In the circumstances, you might wonder at my reluctance to quit Sydney altogether. It might seem to you that a girl in my position would have been better off abandoning the feverish atmosphere of Sydney’s drawing rooms in favour of more tranquil domestic occupations among the fields and flowers. Why remain, when it meant facing so much whispered speculation and false sympathy?
The answer is simple. Even flawed social intercourse was better than none. Though Sydney offered me little, Oldbury would offer less. I would lose all hope of varied acquaintance if I returned to Oldbury. For the few families worth knowing in its immediate neighbourhood had exhibited no particular interest in knowing us. And the Sunday service at Sutton Forest was not fertile ground for striking up friendships with young men.
It surely cannot surprise you that I dreaded the thought of a rustic existence? That I refused to submit quietly, and was most unhelpful during the tedious process of packing, sorting and cleaning? Fanny promised to write, but I knew that she would not. Miss Rennie raised the possibility of a future visit, but in the vaguest possible way. I was in a state of black despair even before arriving at Oldbury—where a heavy mist, a chilling drizzle and an assortment of unpacked crates occupying the clammy, unaired rooms cast me into such a fit of despondency that my mother ordered me from the house.
‘Out,’ she said, with grim resolution. ‘Get out. I can’t stand your moping any longer.’
‘But it’s raining!’ I said.
‘Precisely. It will suit your mood. If you cannot cheer up and make yourself useful, I want you out there where you belong.’
‘The servants should have done all this!’ I protested. ‘At least they should have seen that the chimneys were cleaned! We’ll all suffocate from breathing this smoke!’
‘Then go and take a turn in the fresh air. Now. Go and don’t come back until you are fit for company.’
‘I suppose you don’t care that I could catch my death?’
‘Not particularly,’ my mother snapped. ‘At least it will stop you from making everyone’s life miserable.’
I must acknowledge that I was at a trying age. All girls can be difficult as they approach womanhood. There is something in the blood that starts to affect them when they enter their fifteenth or sixteenth year. Even my Emily Louisa, the most docile child imaginable, was married at sixteen. As for Eva, by the time she had turned eighteen, she was already the mother of an illegitimate child.
In 1846, I needed a husband. That is the truth of the matter. Somewhere deep inside, I knew that I needed a husband. And I also knew that my chances of finding a suitable one, so deep in the bush, were remote.
Doubtless that is why I stormed from the house, slamming doors behind me.
‘You might as well bury me six feet under, and have done with it!’ I cried.
Had I been of a more amenable nature, I might have repaired to the kitchen. Here I would have found a dry seat and a warm fire. But being in a contrary mood, I decided that I would catch my death—there being nothing much to live for. My first inclination was to march off into the bush. Then it occurred to me that I would ruin my good kid boots if I went walking on such a dirty, wet day.
So I turned into the stables.
Like the house, this building had suffered many sad reverses. Where once it had accommodated all of half a dozen fine horses in style and comfort, it was now a dank and echoing shell, with a leaky roof and many deserted stalls. Nevertheless, it was partially occupied. An estate the size of Oldbury requires at least some horseflesh, no matter how reduced its flocks and herds. My mother had therefore been obliged to purchase a hardy gelding and a rough grey cob, the former as a stockhorse, the latter to pull our gig. The resurrection of the old gig had come as a surprise to me. I had assumed it long gone, with the rest of our more luxurious possessions. Yet Mr Welby had rescued it from some dark, forgotten corner of the barn, and had had its upholstery restored, and its wheels oiled, and its brass polished. With the result that, upon alighting from the mail-coach at Berrima, we had found ourselves confronted by two vehicles: Mr Welby’s gig and our own.
Our gig had been driven by one of the new servants, Thomas, whom my mother persisted in calling a ‘coachman’. There being nothing in the least coach-like about our gig, I had privately designated him the ostler. Unlike Henry (our former ostler) he was a young man in possession of both eyes.
I found him in the stables when I entered them.
‘Oh,’ I said, not well pleased. ‘Are you here?’
‘Far as I can make out,’ he replied. He appeared to be attending to our cob, which—in my view—had been a very poor bargain. I am firmly of the belief that mares do not make ideal harness horses, and this cob was a mare. It was furthermore the squattest, thickest, roughest little beast you ever saw, lacking any vestige of quality, and a bad colour. Mama had got it cheap, I suppose. She may even have been intending that it should serve a double role, since we had no pony, and it was small enough for Louisa to ride.
I was determined, however, that I should never be seen on top of such an ugly animal. The stockhorse would do for me.
‘I should like to go for a ride,’ I said. ‘You need not trouble yourself, for I can saddle my own mount.’
In fact, it had been several years since I had saddled my own mount, and even then I had done so only under Henry’s supervision. But I was disinclined to ask favours of an insolent Irishman. I was quite sure that I would manage perfectly well, for all that it was so dark in the stables.
‘Ye’ll not be ridin’ in this weather?’ said Thomas.
‘Why not? I have never yet dissolved in the rain.’ Imperiously, I gestured at the stockhorse. ‘Is this hack temperamental? I have heard that golden chestnuts can be very skittish.’
The ostler raised his brows. They were thick and dark, as was his hair. But his eyes were blue.
‘Sure, and ye’re not lookin’ to wear them boots, are ye?’ he queried. ‘Yer heels are too high for a slipper stirrup, Miss.’
‘Then you can take off the slipper stirrup.’
‘Not with them old-fashioned saddles. There’s only the two pommels on ’em. Ye’ll have a sad time of it wit’out some support to yer left foot.’
He was right, I knew. Yet it irked me to be baulked at every turn.
‘Perhaps you’d care to tell me what else I may not do?’ was my waspish retort, whereupon the ostler tapped his chin and cocked his head.
‘Pitch an egg at t’Queen?’ he suggested.
I turned on my heel, and began to retrace my steps. ‘Well if I may not ride, then I shall walk! Since you are so reluctant to entrust me with one of your precious horses,’ I snapped. But I was on the verge of tears, and he might have heard it in my voice. At any rate, he called after me in far more winning tones.
‘’Tis the horse I don’t trust, Miss,’ he wheedled. ‘This fella’s right hard in the mouth for a lady, never mind his colour. He’s a man’s hack, by my reckonin’, though he’s under fifteen hands. Ye’ll need a good seat to hold him back, and ye’ll never have that wit’out the slipper stirrup.’
‘Then I shall walk,’ I said. For Thomas was right: I could not use our side saddles wearing city heels, nor sit astride in my brown merino. And even if I had been willing to return to the house, my chances of finding a single pair of low-heeled boots among the confusion of crates and trunks and boxes were remote, to say the least.
‘Ah, now, don’t be walkin’ in this weather,’ Thomas protested, as I hunched my shoulders against the rain. ‘Miss! Wait! If ye’re wantin’ to pay a call, I’ll get out t’gig.’
Pay a call! I would have laughed a bitter laugh, had I not been afraid that it might turn into a sob. In whose house would my family be welcome? I was quite sure that our return would be viewed as an embarrassment by all those who had, in the past, been pleased to entertain my father—but whose relations with my stepfather had been less than cordial. They would not want to mix with us. So what did it matter that the yard was dirty? What did it matter that my boots would soon be spoiled beyond redemption? No one would ever see them. No one who mattered.
I squelched along, dragging my skirts through the mud, determined to find a lonely place where I could mope and mourn in private. Remembering the high rock on Gingenbullen, where I had many times sat pondering the mysteries of my fraught existence, I turned towards the old convict huts. I had a vague idea of punishing my mother with a prolonged absence. If I stayed out very late, she might even organise a search party.
‘Ye’ll not find nothin’ up that way, Miss,’ the ostler remarked behind me. ‘Lessen ye’re plannin’ to walk back to Berrima.’
He had followed me into the yard, and now had the gall to read me a lecture on the geography of the estate. It enraged me, for some reason. I swung around and upbraided him with quite unnecessary venom.
‘I know where I’m going! I grew up here! I know every inch of this wretched place, and could draw you a map if I chose to!’
‘Oh, aye?’ He seemed impervious to my fury. ‘Well, now, that’d be right helpful. If it could be managed.’
‘What?’ I was confused. ‘If what could be managed?’
‘A map.’ He stood with his hands in his pockets, his coat hanging open and his eyes screwed up against the misty rain. ‘See, it seems to me there’s folks hereabouts like to run their stock through yer fields—since no one’s bin around to stop ’em. And the fences not bein’ what they should be, it’s hard for the likes o’ me to know when to take a stand. I’d not be wantin’ to throw stones at any strange beast unless I knew’t were on yer land, Miss.’
Trespass! This was news. ‘You mean someone has been using Oldbury as a back run?’ I asked, my interest piqued.
‘Aye. ’
‘Who?’
The ostler shook his head. ‘That I cannot say,’ he replied, ‘not bein’ well acquainted with yer neighbours’ stock.’
‘One of the tenants, perhaps?’
He shrugged. ‘Thing is, Miss, I cannot be sure they’ve strayed— not wit’ so many fences gone.’
‘Gone? Completely gone? Or just collapsed?’
‘Taken away.’ His lip curled at the expression on my face. ‘Oh, aye. Some folks’ll stoop so low, ye’d have to dig to find ’em.’
‘But this is unacceptable.’ As much as I loathed Oldbury, it was still my family’s estate. It offended me to think that low-bred neighbours were taking advantage of my mother’s absence to plunder our meagre property. ‘This must be stopped. Have you told my mother?’
‘No, Miss. Though I mentioned it to Mr Welby.’
‘Then I shall tell Mama. And she will take you on a tour of the estate, and show you where the boundaries lie.’ These words were barely out of my mouth before a picture leapt into my head: a picture of my mother, riding out beside George Barton on that January day in 1836. She was ten years older now, and greyer, and heavier—but her spirit was still high. I was sure that, given the opportunity, she would have no hesitation in ruining her reputation all over again.
A flush rose to my cheeks as I looked at the ostler. For suddenly it had become apparent to me that he was just the sort of man who might easily give rise to gossip, what with his trim waist and broad, white smile.
The thought was hugely unpalatable.
‘I must go,’ I said, and found myself walking back to the house. Though my mother had evicted me, I felt that I should acquaint her with the facts as soon as I could. Or would it be better to wait until she was less preoccupied?
I hesitated, one foot on the back veranda.
‘Go on, Miss,’ said Thomas. ‘This is no weather for walkin’. Ye’ll spoil yer clothes and ruin yer health, and Mrs Barton’ll tear strips off me.’ He was still standing bare-headed in the middle of the yard, hands buried deep in his trouser-pockets. ‘Go on back inside, and I’ll saddle up a horse when t’rain clears.’
So I went inside. Only much later did I realise how clever he had been, in distracting me from my purpose.
It was not the last time he would do so, by any means.