The Dark Mountain Page 3

  Finally, my mother emerged from the house. She was accompanied by Eliza, Louisa, and our overseer, George Barton; she had donned a hat, and was pulling on her gloves. I had eyes for no one else, at that moment. It was my custom to disregard Eliza, who occupied a curious position in my mind, halfway between the family and the household furnishings. Louisa, too, was of little consequence. (She couldn’t really talk, after all.) As for George Barton, if I had noticed him in the past, it was only as a kind of extension of the estate—his barking orders, delivered high over my head, were of a piece with the cracking of stockmens’ whips or the scraping of blades on our grindstone. To me he was little more than a gruff voice and a pair of heavy riding boots.

  Even now, I cannot tell you exactly what he was to my mother, at that time—though I have my suspicions.

  ‘Give me a kiss, my darling,’ Mama said, pressing her lips to Louisa’s cheek. ‘And James, too. You must be a good boy, James.’

  ‘I will do my drawing, Mama.’

  ‘Of course you will. Charlotte will see to it, won’t you, Captain?’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’

  ‘And I have told Bridget that you may have some raspberry tart, today.’

  ‘Hurrah!’

  James threw his arms around Emily, and together they jumped up and down. My mother mounted her horse. George Barton was already in the saddle, silently waiting. It never occurred to me that there should have been other men, on other horses. I rarely questioned anything about my elders’ actions, before that day.

  ‘Step back now, please,’ my mother ordered. ‘Eliza! Get them out of the way.’

  ‘Aye, Mam. Come along, Miss Charlotte, Master James.’

  Herded onto the veranda, we watched our mother turn her horse. Others watched with us. There was a curious lack of movement, in fact: an unusual absence of cheerful cries from the convict huts and busy clatter from nearby outbuildings. Bridget was watching from the kitchen door, with her daughter beside her. Robert was watching from the window of the dairy. Someone watched from the kitchen garden, and someone else from the path near the fence.

  In hindsight, I can only deduce that this general scrutiny stemmed not from a conspiratorial sense of anticipation, but from sheer astonishment. It is evident to me now that my mother had never previously ridden out alone with one of her employees. Had she been making a habit of it, she would not have occasioned such a deal of unspoken surprise among the rest of her staff.

  Why she should have chosen to do so that particular day is a question that will forever remain unanswered.

  ‘Quickly!’ I exclaimed, as my mother blew us a kiss. ‘We can wave from the front door!’

  And this is exactly what we did. With Eliza loping along behind, carrying Louisa, I led Emily and James back through the house and onto the porch. From this vantage point we had a good view of my mother when she came around the side of the main block and headed for the gate. We waved, and cried out. Since Henry was already at the gate, holding it open, we refrained from approaching it ourselves.

  Henry frightened us a little, because of his empty eye-socket.

  ‘Mama! Mama! Goodbye, Mama!’

  My mother waved back at us jauntily. George Barton preceded her through the gate. The trees along the fence were not so well grown, then—the elms, in particular, were only saplings. Nevertheless, the sight of Angel’s glossy rump was soon screened by foliage. When it again became visible, my mother was merely a distant silhouette, riding west towards the Belanglo wilderness.

  ‘I wish she wouldn’t go,’ said Emily, with a sniff.

  Then we all went inside the house again.

  Two

  The rest of the day passed as follows.

  Firstly, I helped Jane to make curd cheese. We tied up the curds tightly in three pieces of old Holland cloth, which we thereafter hung in the dairy to drain. James and Emily also begged to ‘help’, but they were not at all useful, being mostly engaged in hitting each other with the skimmers. After that, Eliza took us for a short walk in search of leaves and seed pods. To do this we were obliged to pass near the convict huts, but I recall nothing untoward about them: no huddled groups of whispering men, nor sidelong glances from the few men who were about. James and I squabbled over a parrot feather. Emily scratched herself on a fallen log. Louisa watched us silently from Eliza’s hip, round-eyed, her thumb wedged firmly in her mouth.

  The leaves that we found were quite diverse: a length of Settler’s Flax, a sprig of casuarina, and something we thought to be of the pea family. Our seed-pod search was not particularly successful, since we found only one that was strange to us. On our way back to the house, on the flats, we stopped to watch a team of bullocks dragging a grating roller over some clods. I knew the ploughman by sight, though not by name; there were at least a dozen convicts assigned to Oldbury, and I had little truck with those not engaged around the house. The men who yoked and drove the bullocks, who cleared the fields and ploughed them, who roped and branded the cattle, who worked as shepherds on our far-flung sheep stations—these men, on the whole, were strangers to me.

  Upon returning home, we ate a mouthful of bread with cheese, and some raspberry tart. Then Louisa was put to bed for a few hours, while the rest of us toiled over our books at the breakfast table. Having arranged his leaves, James began laboriously to sketch them. Emily plodded through lesson five of A First Book of English Grammar. I made a plan of my essay on batter pudding, carefully numbering and briefly summarising each of the points that I wanted to make. My mother, in teaching me the art of composition, had always stressed the importance of preparing one’s ground before building one’s edifice. ‘Picture yourself setting out on a journey,’ she had said to me. ‘If you don’t draw a map first, how can you be sure that you will reach your intended destination?’

  1. The grain, I wrote. Ploughing, sowing, harvesting, grinding.

  ‘Eliza,’ I said (for she was sitting nearby, mending a Guernsey shirt), ‘how do you make batter pudding?’

  ‘Why, Miss, ’tis aisy enough,’ she replied. ‘You must take batter, and bile it at a gallop in a floured cloth.’

  ‘Yes, but what is in the batter?’

  ‘Flour,’ she answered. ‘Salt. Eggs and milk.’

  ‘Thank you.’ 2. Eggs, I wrote. Laying, collecting, breaking.

  James completed his drawings long before I had finished my essay, and went to help Jane clean the lamps. Then Emily came to the end of her lesson; I saw her through the window shortly afterwards, throwing a stick to an old collie. Louisa woke at about two o’clock, her cries filtering down to the breakfast room, whereupon Eliza immediately got up to fetch her.

  I was left alone for some time.

  It was Emily who came to me at last, and said: ‘Is Mama home yet?’ She was very dirty. I told her, ‘No’, then glanced into the dining room—where a mosaic of sunlight lay on the floor, having fallen through the little panes of glass in the window. ‘Mama will not come back until tomorrow. Have you forgotten?’

  ‘I wish she was home,’ Emily whined. ‘I’m so hot.’

  ‘You should go down to the cellar,’ was my advice, but she shook her head.

  ‘The cellar is locked.’

  ‘Oh.’ Of course. Mama had taken the keys.

  ‘Will you play with me, Charlotte?’

  ‘All right.’ I was glad of an excuse to leave my employment, which was proving rather dull. ‘Let us play Shipwreck.’

  So we played Shipwreck for a while in the front garden. I filled the role of the Captain, Emily was the Captain’s Wife, and James was the Bloodthirsty Savage. We played until we heard the pounding of hooves on dry soil, and looked up to see a foam-flecked stockhorse canter past us, heading for the house.

  Its rider was unknown to me.

  ‘Who is that?’ said Emily, in wondering tones. ‘Is it Mr Barton?’

  ‘No,’ said I. ‘James, wait!’

  But James had already hurried after the new arrival, who was vanishing around the side o
f the house. This fact in itself seemed strange to me. Why not dismount at the front door, like a proper visitor? Taking Emily by the hand, I followed my brother, suddenly aware of how late it was. Shadows were creeping across the parched front lawn. It was breathlessly warm, and unbearably sticky. Big clouds were building in one corner of the sky.

  ‘There will be a storm soon,’ I observed, as we passed between the main house and the kitchen. But when we reached the veranda, the scene unfolding in front of it drove every other consideration from my mind.

  Eliza was there, with Bridget and Robert and Henry the ostler. There was also a man pouring sweat, dressed rather like a drayman in a round blue woollen frock and cabbage-tree hat. I recognised him as our visitor, and wondered who he could be. Not a gentleman, at any rate. That much was apparent.

  So too was the general feeling of alarm. Though our visitor spoke quietly, to a tight-packed cluster, I could see clearly from a distance the effect of his words: the wide eyes, the pursed lips, the furrowed brows. Robert was shaking his head, in concern or disbelief.

  I started forward, dropping Emily’s hand.

  ‘What is it?’ I demanded, in a loud voice. ‘Has something happened?’

  They all turned as one, but only Eliza responded. She broke away from the main group, moving towards me and blocking my path.

  ‘No naid to fret,’ she assured me, though her expression was troubled. ‘Why not take the little ones to wash their hands, now?’

  ‘Is Mama all right?’

  ‘As right as ninepence.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because your Mam is at Mereworth, Miss. We have heard it from this lad they sent.’

  ‘But how can that be?’ I was amazed. ‘How can she be at Mereworth, when Uncle John will not speak to her anymore?’

  ‘Oh, Miss,’ said Eliza, as she cast a distracted eye towards the steel-grey clouds rolling over us, ‘there might be strong faylings, but Mr Atkinson would never turn a lost soul from his door, let alone his own brother’s wife.’

  And with this assurance I had to be satisfied, for Eliza would not discuss the matter at any length. She said only that Mr Barton had been taken ill, and was resting at my uncle’s property a few miles away. No doubt he and my mother would both return in the morning.

  ‘But what if Mr Barton is still sick in the morning?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘Now, now,’ Eliza said maddeningly. ‘Don’t fret your head, Miss. George Barton can take care of hisself, and there’s no call to afright the little ones. Go now, and wash your hands for dinner.’

  I looked towards the other servants, but their faces wore the habitual blank expression that I had often encountered among the assigned staff. Facing it, one was often put in mind of sheep or cattle; there were some who took it as a manifestation of intense stupidity. Even at that age, however, I realised that it was a symptom of concealment. Having lost almost everything else—including their freedom—most convicts were anxious to keep their thoughts (at least) well sequestered.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  ‘Is my mother ill too?’ I asked. ‘Is that why she went to Mereworth?’

  ‘Bless you, Miss, there’s nowt to fear for the leddy,’ our visitor declared, removing his grimy hat. ‘Not a scratch on her, I swear.’

  ‘Not a scratch?’

  ‘Mr Barton had an accident,’ Eliza explained quickly. ‘And is ill on account of it. Go now, Miss, afore them chops get cold.’

  So I went. Though uneasy, I could see no point in staying—and as Eliza said, I did not want to ‘afright’ the little ones, who were too young to be burdened by any fears that I might have entertained. My mother, I knew, was relying on me; she called me ‘the Captain’, and I staunchly lived up to this cognomen, shepherding James and Emily to the kitchen, seeing that they washed their hands, and dragging them off to the dining room—all in a bluff and encouraging manner that concealed my inner qualms. It must have been all of five o’clock, by then, and we were accustomed to dining a good deal earlier. James, especially, was in a snappish and querulous mood.

  He would not eat his stewed onions.

  ‘But you liked them last time,’ I pointed out.

  ‘No I did not.’

  ‘Yes you did. I remember.’

  ‘Did not!’

  ‘Ah, let him bay, poor lad,’ said Eliza, with an exaggerated sympathy that chilled me to the bone. She had brought Louisa to the table, and was trying to persuade my youngest sister that a little potato mush might be to her taste. ‘Would you care for some tart, Master James?’

  I was not at all sure that my mother would have allowed two servings of tart in one day, but I remained silent. While the others enjoyed their treat wholeheartedly, I was barely able to swallow a mouthful of mine; it had exactly the same effect on my spirits as baked funeral meats. After we had finished, Emily begged to feed our little kangaroo friend, Bunny. But by this time the thunder was very loud, and a few heavy drops of rain were falling. Eliza would not let us out of the house again.

  ‘When the storm hits,’ she said, ‘you’ll want to be safe inside. Just like your Mam.’

  I tried to comfort myself with thoughts of my mother at Mereworth. As rain drummed on the shingles above our heads, Jane filled the nursery basin, and we all washed—with varying degrees of enthusiasm. James simply dabbed at his dirt. Louisa nearly overturned the basin. Emily was so attentive to her hands and feet that her face was wholly neglected, until Eliza attacked it.

  As for me, I was of an independent disposition, and would not let Eliza touch me—not, at least, until it was time to roll up my hair. I had no choice then.

  ‘What time will Mama be back tomorrow?’ I asked her, grimacing at every tweak.

  ‘That I can’t say, Miss.’

  ‘In the morning?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I wish Mama was here now,’ Emily piped up. ‘To read us a story.’

  ‘Not tonight, Miss.’

  ‘But I want a story!’ James’s bottom lip began to tremble. ‘I want Mama to read us a story!’

  ‘Be quiet, James!’ My nerves, at this point, were sorely tried. ‘You know that Mama is not here, so how can she possibly read you a story?’

  ‘But I wa-a-ant one!’ he wailed.

  ‘Then I will tell you one,’ said Eliza, and launched into the tale of a certain English highwayman, renowned for his brutal crimes, who was cursed by one of his dying victims. Shortly afterwards, one dark and stormy night, he accosted a jet-black coach drawn by four jet-black horses. ‘Bail up!’ cried he, all unaware that beneath the coachman’s huge, three-cornered hat, no face was visible.

  ‘And when Blunderbuss Jack threw open the door of the coach, he saw the Devil a-sitting there,’ Eliza finished matter-of-factly, tugging James’s nightshirt over his head. ‘And the Devil rayched out his hand—which was all bone, no flesh—and grabbed Blunderbuss Jack by his wicked throat, and pulled him inside. And the door slammed shut, and the coachman’s whip cracked, and away went the coach. And that was the end of Blunderbuss Jack the Highwayman. Only sometimes, late at night along that same stretch of road, you can still hear him scrayming.’

  If Eliza was meaning to subdue us with this fable, then she succeeded—for we said our prayers very quietly, and went to bed without protest. But I do not believe for one moment that this was her intention. To formulate such a plan would have required some imagination, and Eliza had none.

  ‘Eliza,’ said James, as she made to withdraw, ‘was Blunderbuss Jack in the Bargo Brush?’

  ‘No, no,’ I answered, before Eliza could. ‘He was in England, silly.’

  ‘And England is a very long way away,’ Emily added, from behind her bed-curtains.

  ‘Aye, Miss,’ said Eliza. ‘A very long way.’

  Then she left the room, shutting the door behind her.

  I remember lying there, listening to the birds calling each other home, and waiting for James to speak. I knew exactly what thoughts we
re churning around in his head. At last he murmured: ‘There are highwaymen at the Bargo Brush.’

  ‘Not highwaymen. Bushrangers,’ I replied. ‘Bushrangers are different.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they are.’ I had decided that there must be a distinction of some sort, though I had no idea what it might be. ‘Now go to sleep.’

  He promptly obeyed me, for he was very tired. Emily began to snore soon afterwards. But my own mind was unsettled; I tossed and turned. Though I make no claim to any great perspicacity, all this talk of bushrangers had filled me with dread. Unlike James, I knew that bushrangers did not confine themselves to Razorback and the Bargo Brush. My mother had spoken of bushrangers. I had heard her talking to some of the other settlers after church: she had spoken of cattle killed, and huts plundered, and men roaming through the forests like packs of wolves.

  I could imagine a yellow-eyed bushranger creeping up to our house with his pistols cocked, while all inside were sleeping. Try as I might, I was unable to expunge this picture from my thoughts. Even while I slept it haunted me—for my dreams that night were frightening.

  Not for one moment, however, did I entertain the idea that the bushrangers had already struck.

  Three

  Our dray was sent to Mereworth the next morning, to collect my mother.

  I did not understand why a dray should be necessary, until it was explained to me that Mr Barton’s injuries prevented him from riding—or from sitting up in the gig. When I asked what those injuries might be, I received no firm reply. ‘Mebbe it’s his back,’ said Eliza, vaguely.