Beneath the Southern Cross Page 7

  ‘But we will be living right beside the natives.’ Richard dropped all pretences, forgetting to choose his words with care. ‘Mary won’t have it.’

  ‘Then Mary can build another new house,’ Thomas replied, ‘somewhere else, where the view will not offend her.’

  For the first time Richard recognised the hurt and anger beneath his father’s resolution. He crossed to Thomas and rested his hand upon the old man’s shoulder. ‘She didn’t mean it, Father. You will never be denied your grandchildren, you have my assurance of that.’

  ‘She meant it.’ Thomas knew that, despite his son’s genuine concern, if Mary decided upon a course of action, there would be little Richard could do about it. He was a pitifully weak man with not a shred of his wife’s strength. Mary had guts and a will of iron, Thomas had to give her that. ‘My decision regarding Wolawara has nothing to do with your wife’s threats, however. It was a decision I made before her ridiculous outburst.’

  ‘Why? Why make such a decision?’

  ‘Because the man is my friend. And if I cannot address the terrible wrongs done to his people, which I obviously cannot, then I can at least help a man to whom I owe my life.’

  Richard realised that he must somehow assuage the old man’s cantankerousness, ‘Father,’ he said gently, ‘I understand and admire your feelings regarding the natives, it is a shocking state to which they have been reduced. Believe me, if there were some practical way of addressing their plight, I would lend my own assistance, I swear I would.’

  In that instant Thomas despised his son. He wanted to call him aliar. He wanted to accuse him of being a shallow man. A spineless man. One with no true human depth whatsoever. But instead, as disappointment overwhelmed him, the old man let his son lead him to his favourite armchair and he sat wordlessly as Richard spoke with all the earnestness of a teacher trying to communicate with a backward ten-year-old.

  ‘You don’t understand, Father. Governor Macquarie himself attempted to settle several of the Aboriginal clans years ago. He provided land for them, and implements, and farming instruction. But it was useless.’

  ‘And you remember that, do you, Richard? Remarkable. You were only a lad at the time.’

  Old Thomas Kendall remembered the experiment clearly. It had been under the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie that Thomas, like so many others, had been granted his pardon, had acquired lands at Parramatta, and had been encouraged, along with other emancipists, to contribute to the colony as farmers, architects and builders of the new Macquarie towns. It was under the governorship of Macquarie that many emancipists had become valued citizens of the colony of New South Wales. But, much as Thomas admired Macquarie’s governorship and humanity, the Aboriginal experiment had been a mistake. The Europeanisation of a nomadic race had been, from the outset, doomed to failure.

  ‘I remember hearing of it, Father,’ Richard replied patiently. He found his father’s sarcasm offensive, but he took pains to hide his annoyance. ‘And it didn’t work. These people will never become farmers.’ Thomas was silent. Richard started again. Patiently. Reasonably. ‘You don’t understand. You see—’

  ‘No, Richard. You don’t understand.’ Thomas heaved himself out of his armchair. Today was one of those rare days when he was feeling his age. ‘If my friend Wolawara did indeed wish to become a farmer I would have chosen to give him arable land. Perhaps the land further to the west which, as you know, is currently being held in trust for your children.’

  It was an unnecessary barb—Thomas had no intention of disinheriting his grandchildren—but he was in the mood to shock. Futility and frustration, he was worn out by both. The futility of finding a true solution to Wolawara’s predicament—certainly, the land would be a salve in old age to both Wolawara and Wiriwa, but it was no solution to the problems of their children and their children’s children—and the frustration of attempting to communicate with the pig-headed, self-righteous members of colonial society, such as his son. ‘But Wolawara does not wish to be a farmer,’ Thomas assured his horrified son, ‘so he will receive the marshy land by the river which will be far more to his liking. I am tired now, my boy, I am going to lie down, excuse me.’

  ‘Parramatta,’ Thomas said, ‘Baramada, the place where the eels lie down.’

  Wolawara smiled and nodded, he knew Baramada well. The fishing was good there.

  It had taken Thomas sometime to explain his offer to Wolawara, that the land would truly belong to him and to his clans-people. He had insisted that Wiriwa join them, and together they sat beside the hut in Rushcutters Bay and the men spoke their strange mixture of Dharug and pidgin, Wiriwa concentrating on their every word, her brown eyes darting from face to face, scarcely daring to believe her ears.

  ‘But what am I to do with the land, Thomas? My people do not farm like the English man.’

  ‘I understand this. It is not what is expected of you.

  ‘You will do with the land as you have always done, Wolawara. You will fish and hunt and visit your sacred sites. And when the time comes, you will die in peace on the riverlands of your ancestors.’

  The men embraced upon parting. ‘Gamaradu,’ they said as they swore allegiance.

  ‘When I dream you are there, Thomas.’

  ‘When I dream you are there, Wolawara.’

  Thomas was sad as he walked back to town. A deep sadness, as if a part of his life were over. Something told him he would not see Wolawara again. As he reached the top of the hill and looked down over Sydney, Thomas Kendall felt very alone.

  ‘Your father is deranged,’ Mary insisted. ‘We must enlist the help of the family. Together we must convince him of the insanity of such an act.’

  ‘Matthew is as radical as Father,’ Richard argued. ‘He will approve the old man’s decision, you know he will. He approves of all of Father’s causes. Dear God, they even go to the emancipists’ meetings together!’

  ‘So what exactly do you propose we do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  They were sitting on the upstairs balcony of their grand new sandstone house which overlooked the river, the late afternoon breeze rising, welcome, from the water. Mary stared long and hard at her husband and there was criticism and accusation in her gaze.

  ‘I am not merely giving in to pressure, Mary,’ Richard said defensively. ‘Old as Father may be, he is still very active in business. His connections with both the military and the private quarter are invaluable to us.’

  Mary listened as Richard rambled on about the importance of Thomas in their water transport service, the barges which daily plied their trade between Parramatta and Sydney Town, delivering grain and supplies to the military and the merchants.

  They didn’t need Thomas Kendall at all, she thought. They should sell their share of the business back to the old man and buy into a partnership with Leyland Harvey, the shipping man. Imported quality goods, that was where the future lay.

  Richard was saying something about the loyalty they owed his father for the farmlands and the coach service gifted them upon their wedding. Rubbish, she thought. It was through her social connections that the coach service had become the success it was today. And as for the farmlands, why, they had been barely cultivated! Successful businessman he may be, but Thomas Kendall was no farmer. Had Richard forgotten the invaluable assistance given them by Captain John Macarthur and his wife Elizabeth, perhaps the wealthiest and most successful farmers in the colony? And how had the relationship with the Macarthurs come about? Through none other than Mary’s own father, Captain Robert Farrington.

  She had been about to interrupt but, at the thought of her father, Mary realised, yet again, as she had so many times in the sixteen years of her marriage, how she longed to return to the simple, clear-cut dictates of military life. The ever-changing rules of colonial society, the lack of a clear class structure, the growing power of the emancipists and their democratic beliefs, all were disruptive and threatening.

  She no longer listened to her husband. And R
ichard, without her interruption, convinced that his arguments were making an impact, went on. And on. Whilst Mary’s mind wandered.

  A detachment of the 73rd Regiment had accompanied Lachlan Macquarie, the new governor, to the colony in 1809. Amongst the ranks of the officers was Robert Farrington, and with him his wife Jane and nineteen-year-old daughter Mary. The 73rd Regiment’s specific orders were to quell the military riot in the colony, the New South Wales Rum Corps, so named because of its illegal import of spirits from Calcutta, having rebelled against the previous governorship of William Bligh.

  Amongst the key figures in the Rum Rebellion was one Captain John Macarthur. A warrant had been issued for Macarthur’s arrest, and it was a particular irony that Robert Farrington might well prove to be the arresting officer. He would do his duty, as he always did, but he hoped such duty would not prove necessary, for he and his wife Jane had befriended John and Elizabeth Macarthur many years previously. As young married couples they had shared neighbouring quarters at Chatham Barracks in England, and Macarthur and Farrington still corresponded. Indeed, judging by his friend’s reports, Robert Farrington secretly agreed that Bligh was a tyrant who had deserved the treatment meted out by the Rum Corps. But then Robert had always believed in the power of the military, in his opinion too often restrained by the authority of incompetent governors.

  Robert soon discovered, however, that John Macarthur had fled to England with his two young sons, so Robert was saved the embarrassment of arresting his friend. But he and Jane visited the Macarthurs’ farm at Parramatta which, during her husband’s absence, Elizabeth administered with great success.

  Two years after their arrival in the colony, young Mary Farrington met and fell instantly in love with Richard Kendall. It was impossible not to, he was dashingly handsome. Furthermore, he possessed a mischievous wit and charm which Mary had not previously encountered. Compared to Richard Kendall, the serious young officers with whom she had been encouraged to socialise suddenly seemed sadly lacklustre.

  Her parents’ disappointment knew no bounds. Young Kendall was good-looking certainly; it was understandable that he could set a young girl’s pulse racing. But he was the son of an emancipated convict. They tried to talk sense to their daughter, they cajoled, and finally they threatened, but to no avail.

  Three years later Richard and Mary wed, and there was little the good captain and his wife could do but give their blessing. At least the young man had land and monies, they acceded, albeit land in poor condition.

  Help was needed, and once again Robert Farrington visited Elizabeth Macarthur at Parramatta, this time with his daughter and new son-in-law. In the years during her husband’s exile, Elizabeth’s introduction of agricultural improvements had earned the respect of Governor Macquarie himself who, in recognition of her services to the colony, had granted her six hundred acres near Elizabeth Farm.

  Slender-necked, fine-boned and well bred, Elizabeth Macarthur impressed young Mary Kendall. And, strangely enough, young Mary Kendall impressed Elizabeth Macarthur.

  Elizabeth was a good woman. Kind, strong, intelligent and, above all, unswerving in her loyalty. Perhaps she recognised a kindred spirit in the girl. She certainly recognised strength and loyalty. And Mary would need all of that to overcome the weakness of her husband, Elizabeth thought, seeing immediately the flawed character beneath Richard Kendall’s charm. She also saw that Mary loved him deeply. Elizabeth herself was married to a difficult man. A brilliant man, but one of black moods and aggression and, although there appeared no blackness in Richard, his young wife could well find herself alone when it came to doing battle. Elizabeth knew only too well what it was like to do battle on one’s own.

  Elizabeth Macarthur’s advice on the growing of wheat, barley and oats, and her practical assistance, most important of which was the appointment of an expert overseer, were invaluable to the Kendalls. But, to Mary, during those awkward years as one of the few free settlers in rural Parramatta, most of which was farmed by emancipated convicts, it was Elizabeth’s friendship and commonsense which was most valuable of all, particularly when Mary’s parents returned to England.

  When, in 1817, John Macarthur was finally permitted to return to the colony after an exile of eight years, Mary discovered a hero. Like her father, Macarthur strongly disapproved of Governor Macquarie’s emancipist programme and the offers of government assistance to convicts who had served their sentences. The convicts should be kept landless, Macarthur maintained. They should be assigned to the settlers who would feed and clothe them in exchange for free labour. Thus the government would be saved the expense of maintaining and providing for the criminal classes. Macarthur’s vision of New South Wales as a colonial aristocracy fitted perfectly with Mary’s own.

  Macarthur himself, a vain, handsome man of vast egocentric proportions, found it only fitting that his wife’s young friend should see in him a figure of heroic proportions. Charmed by her obvious admiration, he even presented Mary with two olive plants and several vine cuttings from amongst the supply he had brought back from Europe. Years later, the greatest pride on Mary Kendle’s property was the olive grove in the eastern corner, ‘Macarthur’s Grove’, she called it.

  It was John Macarthur who suggested Mary change her family name to ‘Kendle’. ‘No offence to your father-in-law, my dear,’ he said, although the disdain in his voice and the curl of his lip spoke otherwise. ‘It is simply far wiser from a business standpoint.’ Mary was in thorough agreement.

  Sadly, these days Mary Kendle saw little of John Macarthur. Over the past years the man had become unbalanced, given to violent displays of rage in public, and to boastings of megalomaniacal proportions. He had even been quoted as saying that he had the means of sending home every governor of the colony, having indeed been the instigating force behind the removal of Lachlan Macquarie.

  Mary convinced herself that such bouts of madness were proof of Macarthur’s genius—all great men were touched with insanity—but she no longer visited him for fear of finding him in one of his demented moods.

  Now, as Mary listened to her husband’s ineffectual arguments as to why they needed Thomas Kendall, she found herself becoming irritated.

  ‘No Richard, we have no need of your father,’ she finally interrupted. ‘Our achievements have been our own doing, and they shall continue to be ours.’ Ours? she thought. Mine. But she did not say it. Mary would never knowingly humiliate her husband. For all of his weaknesses, perhaps because of them, Mary still loved Richard Kendle.

  ‘But what of his threat to disinherit us?’ Richard countered. ‘Both us and the children. You surely cannot ignore that.’

  ‘He would not dare, he cares too much for James and Phoebe.’ Mary was a little uncertain, however. Would he dare? Thomas Kendall was tough. In fact, if he were not so pig-headed in his erroneous beliefs, she could admire his strength. Well, if Thomas was tough, so was she, Mary decided.

  When Wolawara and his extended family, twenty in all, took over the adjoining land and built their huts down by the riverbanks, Mary watched them from her front balcony convinced that the old man was waiting for her outrage, for her to rant and rave like a fish wife and threaten him with the denial of his grandchildren. Well, she would not. She would do and say nothing. She would not give Thomas the satisfaction.

  But, as the weeks passed, it became more and more difficult for Mary to remain silent. At night she watched the Aborigines gather around the campfire and listened to the men’s corroborees; by day she watched the women, half naked, feeding their babies; and all the while she seethed at the fact that, through no fault of her own, she found herself, and her home and her family, neighbours to a tribe of natives. It was intolerable. But still she would not give in.

  ‘Gran’sun James!’ Turumbah yelled up to James one sunny Saturday morning.

  James was standing on the balcony, looking longingly at the Aboriginal camp. He and Phoebe had been ordered to keep well away from the camp, to have no contact with t
he natives and to invite no exchange from the children amongst the clan. The rule presented no hardship to Phoebe who was instinctively intimidated by the strangeness of the black people, but to James, normally an obedient boy, the sight of Turumbah was a constant temptation.

  ‘Gran’sun James! Come!’ Turumbah stood directly below the big balcony of the grand house, ignoring his grandfather’s orders not to intrude upon the Kendle property. He waved the hat as a symbol of his bond with James and held aloft a length of fishing twine. ‘Come! Catch him eel towsan this place!’

  James’s heart lurched painfully. The hat! Grimy, bedraggled, but still recognisable. If his mother were to see it now, she would know the truth of that day James had spent with his grandfather.

  ‘Turumbah,’ he hissed, ‘ssshh.’ He pressed a finger to his lips and gestured for the boy to hide in the bushes.

  Assuming it was some kind of game, Turumbah did as he was told and crouched amongst the mangroves near the riverbanks, watching whilst James ran from the balcony to join him.

  Downstairs, James checked that his mother was still out in the backyard with Peg and Timothy O’Shaugnessy, the Irish ticket-of-leave couple who served as housekeeper, gardener and general dogsbodies for free board and very little remuneration. Mary worked them mercilessly.

  Phoebe, who was at her mother’s side, sorting out the kerchiefs and undergarments destined for Peg’s laundry tub, looked up and saw James at the back door. She was about to say something, but James shook his head. Phoebe watched silently as he crept towards the front door.

  Once outside James sprinted down to the riverbank where, amongst the mangroves, Turumbah was waving the battered hat about in wild enthusiastic greeting.

  ‘Aah,’ he said as James took it from him, ‘Turumbah hat go way.’ He patted his head, crestfallen at his loss, but apparently accepting the fact that James was demanding a return of the precious gift.

  ‘No, it’s yours, Turumbah.’ James thrust the hat back into the boy’s hands. ‘I gave it to you, it is a gift.’ As Turumbah jumped about, once again waving the hat, James shushed him, finger to lips, and mimed hiding the offensive hat behind his back or stuffing it down the front of his baggy shorts. ‘But it is a secret. You must hide the hat, no-one must see it.’