My mother did not appoint an overseer when we returned to Oldbury. We had no real need of one, because our permanent staff was so small. We kept a housemaid, a cook, an ostler (Thomas), a gardener and a black boy. My mother had to supervise the cook in the dairy, while my sisters and I helped the housemaid with our washing, ironing and mending. Occasionally we hired a ploughman or carpenter, or even a team of bullocks. But we no longer ran a dray or bred up heifers. We could not afford to. Especially in view of the fact that not one of our servants had been assigned to us.
They were free men and women, who required fair wages.
I know that there were land-owners in New South Wales who regretted the passing of the old assignment system. But my mother was not among them. Though cheap labour is all very well, it can come at a hidden cost; under the assignment system one was generally obliged to take what was given, no matter how raw and unrepentant, while at the same time enduring the constant scrutiny of Government officials. Living out in the bush, my mother felt more secure surrounded by staff who could be dismissed for bad service, rather than flogged for it. She once confessed herself well pleased to be ‘relieved of the job of a turnkey’.
Not that our servants were all of stainless character. The boy was, naturally; he was hardly old enough to have committed a multitude of sins. Our cook had never faced a magistrate’s bench either. She had simply followed her husband to Australia upon his emancipation, displaying the truest and most devoted conjugal attachment. Her husband was Richard Prince, our gardener. He had been transported for theft, but was not corrupted by the experience, and had quickly won himself a ticket-of-leave. Though diligent and hard-working, however, he was not quick-witted. His attempt to farm land of his own had been a failure; he had run up debts, and bad weather had finally sunk him. You could say that his ill luck had been our good fortune, because he was a reliable gardener without a vicious bone in his body. His wife, on the other hand, had not her husband’s happy temperament, so their presence was a mixed blessing. Her nerves had been overthrown by the loss of three children on the voyage out. She also pined, I think, for undisputed ascendency in her very own kitchen. Of all the servants, Sarah Prince gave Mama the most trouble.
Our housemaid, in contrast, was a treasure. Her name was Mary Ann, and she seemed to view Oldbury as a safe harbour in an uncertain world. As far as I am aware, her history was one of great misfortune. Having been seduced by a rascal and cast out by her parents, she had subsisted on the streets until arrested and transported for theft. Upon arriving in Australia, she had been most unfortunate in her assignments, which had exposed her to the kind of attention that played upon her undoubted weaknesses. Twice she was confined, once in the Female Factory and once under the aegis of the Dorcas Society. The first child died at birth; the second was raised chiefly at the Orphan School. I believe that Mary Ann contributed as best she could to the expenses of raising this little girl, and might have done more had the child survived her twelfth birthday. But this was not the case, and Mary Ann had fled the city soon afterwards. She preferred the country, she said. And the country around Sutton Forest reminded her of her own home in Oxfordshire.
She was a short, sturdy, middle-aged woman, plain-faced but sweet-voiced. While not as highly skilled as she might have been, she took instruction with the utmost goodwill, and always worked steadily. I do not think that I have ever met with such a good-hearted soul. Louisa was her particular favourite. No doubt my sister reminded Mary Ann of her own daughter, who had died at exactly Louisa’s age. There was a definite bond between the two. If you consult the book Cowanda, you will find a portrait of Mary Ann, disguised as one ‘Aunt Nancy’. According to Louisa, Aunt Nancy was ‘such an everyday character, only unusual in the excess of her homely worth—not the remotest selfishness or unkindness in her composition. A peculiarly square, flat face, of a pale hue, and a pair of small, quiet grey eyes, were indexes of her abundant goodness, but utter absence of imagination: her house was her world, and all her honest, steady principles led her to an unaffected and sincere Christian faith in life.’
This description touched me. It surprised me too, for I had no idea that Louisa was so attached to Mary Ann. But my sister’s affections always ran quiet and deep. It was just like her to remember our housemaid in her book. Mr James Calvert was a lucky man to win such a heart as Louisa’s.
By now you must be wondering at my own lengthy portrayal of the Oldbury servants. Why these detailed descriptions? Why have I lavished so much time and attention on my mother’s domestic staff?
The answer is simple. My account of them is so thorough because I knew them so well. And I knew them so well because I mixed with almost no one else. Day in and day out, I was confined to the society of family and servants. Mr Welby was an occasional visitor, but he generally came on business, and never brought his wife. At church we exchanged platitudes with our more respectable neighbours, but nothing came of that. The Throsbys were still busily breeding, and far too preoccupied to waste any time on us. The same was true of the Badgerys. The Morrices, being Presbyterian, were rather exclusive. As for the Wilmots, my mother preferred not to communicate with them at all. It was said that Mr Thomas Wilmot had been transported for horse-stealing, though he was a generous benefactor of the church, and had acquired a large property not far from our own. Indeed, Mama would not even attend his funeral in the spring, for all that it was practically the event of the season, with two hundred people paying their respects and an account of it appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald. ‘A whited sepulchre’ was how my mother described Thomas Wilmot. Certainly he was a bigamist—though it was not until after his death that we learned of his first wife, still living in England. She tried to claim his property, you see.
The only neighbours who made even a token effort on our behalf were the Nicholsons. The reason, I believe, is that they were very intimate with the Reverend Stone and his family. Owing to Reverend Stone’s sense of pastoral duty, we were invited to the parsonage a number of times, and to Newbury twice. I remember how it pained me to see the flourishing condition of Newbury, in contrast to Oldbury’s decrepit state. Perhaps my mother felt the same, and quietly turned down any subsequent invitations that may have been extended to her. Or perhaps there were no invitations. Though Captain Nicholson was a bluff old sailor with a heart of gold, and his wife an agreeable lady of no pretensions whatsoever, they were not the type of people to fret themselves over matters outside their immediate purview. Energetic and cheerful, they were dutiful landlords, generous parishioners and loving parents. They were even sporadically kind neighbours, sending us the occasional new book or basket of produce. But they were not of a temper to feel the weight of tenuous moral obligations, and would have been nagged by no feelings of guilt at the thought of my family, alone on our isolated farm. Since they got through their own days easily enough, they probably expected that we were of a similar disposition.
They were wrong, however. We were not content. How could we be? My mother was perpetually short-tempered. She was struggling with the lawyers for money, while at the same time labouring over the sort of domestic tasks that should rightfully have been entrusted to a housekeeper, a laundress, or a dairywoman. I know how I used to feel at the beginning of my married life, when I looked up from my washboard to see grubby infants playing in a dirty yard. Mama must have felt the same. She must have wondered how a fifty-year-old matron of gentle birth, once the mistress of a score of servants and a flourishing estate, had been reduced to ironing flounces or plucking fowl.
James was not much happier. At fourteen, he was of an age to begin his apprenticeship as a country squire, though he had only my mother to instruct him. It was rather an abrupt transition. From a schoolboy excelling at geography and mathematics, among peers whose interests tended toward the naval and mercantile, he was abruptly cast into a strange world of tillers and reaping hooks, draught cattle and hurdle-making. Where once he had been pleased to pore over Latin epics, his evenings were now given over to what remained of my father’s library of farming works, which included an encyclopaedia of horticulture and a book on agricultural chemistry. I believe that his strengths lay more in the field of abstract thought than in the practical application of theoretical knowledge. At any rate, he must have felt the full weight of his inherited responsibility, for it showed in his face. His brow acquired an almost permanent pucker of concern. I would see him questioning the gardener, or receiving instruction from our ostler, and always that slight contraction of the forehead would be present.
He sought advice from other quarters as well. Sometimes he would shut himself away with Mr Welby. Sometimes he would ride to Newbury, unannounced, and make inquiries of Captain Nicholson. Sometimes he would corner Mr Throsby after church. I think that, of all our family, he was the member most sympathetically received. For there was something especially poignant about an earnest stripling made prematurely old by the manifold cares of proprietorship.
Louisa seemed far more satisfied with her lot. She had always been the keenest student of Nature among us, and pursued her interest with zeal when we returned to Oldbury. She discovered the nest of a wedge-tailed eagle on the crest of Gingenbullen, and made pets of two curlews, whose antics were a perpetual delight to her. Emily enjoyed them too, though not with such wholehearted enthusiasm. Indeed, poor Emily became more and more subdued. Rural life should have suited her very well, for she was naturally amenable, and shy of company. But she was also an impressionable soul, as sensitive to the feelings of others as she was to the atmosphere engendered by memories of past distress. She could not forget George Barton—not in that place where he had once reigned supreme. Nor could she disregard the short tempers and weary impatience that characterised our home. Discord was an absolute punishment to Emily. It gave her headaches, and made her cry. When I picture this period of my life, and turn my thoughts to the sitting room at Oldbury, I see James scowling at an essay on drainage, Mama sighing fretfully over a begging-letter, Louisa shelling peas in a cloud of abstraction, and Emily snivelling beside a great heap of darning, which was as much my burden as it was hers.
I need hardly add that my own presence at this scene would not have improved it. I was miserable during the latter part of 1846. Though spring came, and the buds opened, and the cows calved, and the fruit trees flowered, I took no solace from any of this. Wherever I looked, I saw evidence of fertility and a promise of rich abundance. Yet I remained barren stock. I regarded myself as a flower ‘born to blush unseen,/and waste its sweetness on the desert air’. News of Fanny’s wedding reinforced this view. I felt cast aside, like a seed fallen upon stony places.
My mother sympathised, but only to a degree. She had no patience with my ‘tragic airs’, as she called them. ‘You are more fortunate than many,’ she would say. ‘Look how ill Louisa has been.’ Then she would add something to the effect that hard work was the cure for low spirits, and send me to milk the cow or bring in the laundry. At eighteen, I could no longer excuse myself from domestic tasks by claiming that I had to finish my lessons. Mama had decided that my formal education was complete. Though I might read, write and draw for my own amusement, henceforth such pursuits must always yield to more pressing demands.
I had played the housemaid in Sydney, of course. We had none of us lived like aristocrats there, either. But in Sydney we had bought most of our food. We had sent our laundry out, and had had our fuel delivered. The Sydney winters had also been much warmer, and the streets not so dirty as the yards and roads that turned to mire with every heavy rain at Oldbury. In the country, moreover, one seems surrounded by dung. It must be swept continuously from the yard and stables. It must be collected and distributed over the crops, though not before it has become ‘well-rotted’ after a lengthy sojourn against a wall in the sun.
As for the flies, they are never as bad on the coast as they are inland.
When I look back now, I am grateful that I was so well prepared for my married life. Had I but known it, Mama was continuing my education in the most practical way, and did me no disservice with her scoldings and demands. At the time, however, I was full of resentment. I considered my home a dreary cage, staffed by despondent gaolers.
Is it any wonder that I tried to escape?
To flee! To lose myself! That is what I most desired. Sometimes I thought that I should burst with all my pent-up longings and fettered fury. Yet I did not seek freedom in an acceptable way, as my sisters did. Emily found hers in the pages of her books. Louisa used her paints and brushes, carrying them with her on walks up to the heights of Gingenbullen. My own technique was more dangerous. I found my escape on horseback.
I had always been fond of riding. As a child I had played on my father’s ponies, and at Budgong had begun to learn the proper technique of riding side-saddle. We had all of us improved our horsemanship at Budgong—James in particular. But our removal to Sydney had put paid to any further study of equestrian matters. In town, wherever we did not walk, we took an omnibus.
So it was both strange and invigorating to find myself once again mounted, and mistress of an almost limitless space. I do not know if I can convey to you the pleasure of a good, hard, unhampered bush ride. It is so utterly absorbing, for one thing. When you are going pretty sharp, and your way is blocked here by a fallen tree, or there by a rivulet—when you must dodge encroaching boughs and descend a hill plentifully scattered with loose stones—then your arms and legs and eyes must be constantly active. There is no time for mournful reflection. Your mind becomes wonderfully concentrated, and all other thoughts simply fly out of your head. Nor do they return very quickly, since after the ride you are generally much too tired to mope. I remember dozing at the dinner table more than once, during this period. Two or three hours in the saddle would leave me so thoroughly exhausted that I had not even the energy to argue with my mother. No doubt this pleased her, though she did complain about the horses. She felt that I was too greedy with them.
‘A little exertion is all very well,’ she said, ‘but if you ride those horses into the ground, how will Ida draw the gig, or Sovereign bear a trip to the Post Office? They are not hunters, Charlotte. They are not being kept for your personal amusement. You should be more sparing with them.’
‘But they must be exercised,’ I pointed out. ‘Thomas says so.’
‘Exercising a horse does not mean exhausting it.’
‘I never tire Sovereign. He tires me. He drags like an ox. He is a man’s hack, Thomas says, though he’s barely fifteen hands.’
‘That’s true,’ said James, looking up from his mutton. ‘He may not be all that big, Mama, but he has hocks down to the ground.’
‘Then perhaps you should be using Ida, Charlotte, in that case.’
‘Ida!’
‘She is a perfectly useful little horse, and if it weren’t for your silly prejudice—’
‘It is not prejudice, Mama!’ (Though of course it was.) ‘Thomas says that a lady should always ride a gelding in preference to a mare.’
‘Oh, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas!’ My mother spoke crossly. ‘Is Thomas such an oracle, that he must be quoted at every turn?’
‘You have told me that I should mind what Thomas says, lest I take a tumble. Have I permission to ignore him now?’
‘Don’t be clever. You know perfectly well what I mean.’
‘Really, Mama, I do not.’
‘These days you talk about nothing but cruppers and galls and pole-straps and suchlike. It is immensely tedious, and not the least bit useful. You sound like a stockman, Charlotte. And you know how I feel about stockmen. They might be sturdy fellows, but you would hardly call them intellectually developed. If you’re not careful, you will find yourself unable to make cultured conversation at all.’
‘Cultured conversation!’ I cried. ‘What purpose will that serve, when we never see any cultured people?’
‘Do not raise your voice at me.’
‘It is your fault, Mama, if I talk about nothing but galls and pole-straps! In Sydney there were books and fashions and lectures to discuss, and people to discuss them with! What have we to remark on here, except manure and milk-veins?’
‘Once again, you are grossly exaggerating your plight—’
‘Once again, you are grossly exaggerating your plight—’ ‘I am not! I am not! What would you have me do, converse about the Linnean Society with Mary Ann?’
‘It would be better than conversing about snaffle bits with Thomas McNeilly. You spend too much time in the stables, Charlotte, it is a dreadful waste of a perfectly good education. Thomas is an excellent coachman, I appreciate his talents, but they are not wide ranging. There is more to life than horses. Rather than frittering away your time in Thomas’s company, you should apply yourself to an improving book. Historical and Miscellaneous Questions, perhaps. Emily has just finished with it.’
She was no fool, my mother. Nor was she inexperienced. She must have sensed that all was not as it should have been in the stables.
But her warnings came far too late.