Farewell to Lancashire (15 page)

She ripped it from his grasp, tearing it to shreds and laughing shrilly as she did so. ‘When I speak, I expect you to listen to me. I bought you with this shop –’ she waved one hand in a wide gesture, ‘– and you must pay the agreed price, Joseph Blake, which was to abandon your family. You must and shall pay the price.’

‘I’ve paid too dearly already.’

‘So have I. And am still paying. Do you think I don’t know about the food you send them, food paid for with
my
money? I’ve let you do it, let my friends think I approve. But I don’t! It’s stealing from me.’

‘You’d see them starve? My sick brother too?’

‘I’d laugh as I watched them starve to death. Laugh, I tell you.’

As abruptly as she’d started ranting, she sat down, picked up some needlework and gazed down at it. But she didn’t set a stitch, merely stared at it fixedly for the next hour.

And though he cleared up the fragments of newspaper, picked up a book and turned its pages now and then, he had no idea of what he’d read.

Things had reached an impasse between them, he decided. That was the word. One day something would happen to break it – but who would be the winner, himself or his wife, he couldn’t tell. She was cunning as well as vicious.

And he was very tired of dealing with her.

I
n July the
Eena
arrived at Fremantle, which the steward said was the port for Perth, the capital of Western Australia, which lay a few miles up the river Swan. Reece could smell the land long before they reached it. The livestock must also have realised something was different because cocks began to crow, sheep to bleat and cattle to low. This all added to the sense of excitement rising in him.

The first land to come into view was a low-lying island called Rottnest, seen first as a smudge on the horizon.

‘Rat’s nest, that means in Dutch,’ one passenger said.

Reece couldn’t hold back a wry smile. The man had been showing off his knowledge throughout the voyage till people were sick of him.

‘There are animals on that island that look like rats, but they’re not. They’ve got pouches to carry their young, like kangaroos. Quokkas, they’re called.’

‘I don’t believe him,’ another passenger muttered. ‘Who’d call an animal by such a stupid-sounding name?’

Reece stayed near the boaster, wondering if all he said was true.

To the passengers’ surprise there wasn’t a proper harbour at Fremantle and because of a sand bar across the Swan River, the ship dropped anchor in Gage Roads. And there it rested opposite the town, which looked more like a child’s drawing to Reece than a proper town. Houses were dotted here and there as if at random. The largest building to be seen was the prison, a long white building on a hilltop, though it was only a low hill not even as high as the moors back in Lancashire. In fact, there was nothing grand or beautiful about the scenery and he couldn’t help feeling disappointed. When you came so far, you expected ... more than this, something exotic – special.

To add to their disappointment, the ordinary passengers were unable to disembark until the following day and could only crowd at the rail, staring longingly at the land and speculating about what they saw.

Because he was there as a servant of the Southerhams, Reece was one of the earliest of the emigrants to leave the ship. Francis’s cousin Paul had come to meet them and he shook hands with Reece as well as his relatives, which was a surprise. A gentleman wouldn’t do that in England.

They went for a short walk to get used to being on land again. At first it felt as if the ground were still moving beneath them like the deck of a ship, and Livia clung to her husband’s arm, laughing at herself. But that sensation gradually wore off.

A short thoroughfare led up from the water to the main street, where there were a few handsome houses set cheek by jowl with others of a meaner appearance.

‘Most of the bigger houses belong to the government,’ Paul Southerham explained. ‘Or to the few men who’ve made fortunes here or brought money out to the colony. Our own house isn’t nearly as grand as these, I’m afraid. It’s only rented, though fortunately there is a spare bedroom for you and Livia.’ He turned to Reece. ‘There’s a small room at the end of the veranda, which I hope you’ll find comfortable.’

There were a few shops, but Reece noticed Paul called them ‘stores’. Further on they stopped for a moment to study a church, situated where two streets divided. The building wasn’t at all beautiful but was bigger than he’d have expected for such a small town.

‘The other church is Roman Catholic.’ Paul turned up his nose in scorn even as he pointed it out.

Reece hid a smile. Even here, it seemed, people had to stay separate for their religious observances, though they were worshipping the same god.

Fremantle, he decided, looked unfinished more than anything, with unpaved footpaths and streets that had houses here and there, as if waiting for the gaps to be filled in by other buildings.

They strolled back to the Swan River and boarded a small paddle steamer which took them up to Perth, some fourteen miles away by water. The river widened out almost immediately and there were some fine vistas of forested land and then some even wider reaches of water, which could have held a large fleet of ships. This scenery was a pleasure to look at.

Reece left the Southerhams to themselves and got chatting to a man who lived in the Colony. He found out that Perth lay on the north bank of the river and beyond it, further up the river, was a small town called Guildford.

As they approached the city, he saw it was most attractively situated. It contained some large buildings and when he asked about the most imposing of these, he found it was the new Roman Catholic cathedral. He was delighted to have fig trees pointed out to him, as large as the horse chestnuts he’d obtained conkers from as a lad. Some shrubs full of pink blossoms were oleanders.

‘You get flowers everywhere in the spring,’ his companion told him. ‘Just wait till you see it then. There’s nowhere as beautiful. Look! That’s a flock of white-tailed black cockatoos.’

A shrieking cloud of the parrot-like birds wheeled and dived around some trees and then disappeared, sounding as if they were squabbling.

Even the air tasted different here, fresh and untainted by anything other than the occasional drift of woodsmoke. Reece remembered the sooty air of Outham and thought of Cassandra, still breathing that air. What was she doing now? Sleeping probably. It’d be night in Lancashire.

The rest of the capital city seemed little more than a higgledy-piggledy collection of buildings. The street leading up from the river was covered with soft sand, making walking difficult, especially for the ladies of the party.

‘You’ll grow used to it,’ Paul said. ‘It’s very sandy here but at least that helps the winter rain drain away quickly. Our home is a little out of town and it’s getting late, so I’ve taken rooms at a hotel for tonight.’

‘It’ll be wonderful to sleep in a proper bed again,’ Livia said feelingly. ‘Those bunks on the ship were dreadfully narrow.’

Reece supposed he was lucky that they remembered to include him in their conversations from time to time, but he was very conscious that he was merely a servant.

He felt full of energy – ready to go out and make his own life, not help another man make his.

When they got to the hotel, it looked to Reece more like a house, and not a particularly large one, either, though it had a sign outside saying it was a hotel. There was no comfort of a proper bed for him. He found himself relegated to a dormitory in a shed at the rear. Here were men on their own, both gentlemen and servants, to his surprise.

The roof and walls of the shed were made of tin, rusty in patches. But it was waterproof at least, which was a good thing, because that evening the rain poured down heavily, bouncing up a foot off the ground and misting the world with grey.

‘Does it always rain so hard?’ he asked the man occupying the next bunk.

‘Not always. Don’t worry. It doesn’t usually go on for long, so when it pours down this heavily, just find some cover and wait for it to pass.’

Reece went to bed early because he wasn’t the sort to go out drinking. He found it hard to get to sleep and lay thinking about his situation. He’d promised Francis two years’ work of whatever sort was needed in return for his passage being paid. At least he’d had the sense to include the passage time in that, but still, only three months had passed. It was very frustrating to be tied to another man like this, especially one who didn’t seem very practical, for all his fine words.

Stretching his tired body, Reece grimaced as his head hit the wall at the end of his hard bed. When he turned over carelessly a short time later, he nearly fell out of the narrow bunk. The rain sounded to have stopped now, but the air was still heavy with moisture.

As soon as the Southerhams found a home and he had a proper address, he’d write to Cassandra and tell her all his news. He’d kept a diary of sorts on the ship, just occasional jottings, but it had helped pass the time, and it’d provide him with a record of what had happened. He might even copy some of it out for her.

But it would take so long to communicate. Three months at least to send a letter to England once a ship departed, another three months to get a reply. For the umpteenth time he asked himself why he’d been so stupid as to leave her.

Was Edwin Blake still alive? He didn’t think it likely. But surely the girls’ uncle would look after them if their father died? Perhaps if Cassandra agreed to marry Reece, Joseph would lend his nieces the money for their fares and they could all come out here. That would make her happier, he was sure. Her sisters would soon find husbands. Already, from the men’s talk in this bunkhouse, Reece had found out how short they were of women in this colony. One woman to every ten men, someone said, if you counted the convicts.

They even brought women out to Western Australia on what were jokingly referred to as ‘bride ships’. Imagine that.

He was just starting to feel drowsy when he heard voices outside in the back garden. He’d have ignored them, but came fully awake when he realised it was Francis and Paul Southerham – and they were arguing.

Should he find out what it was about? It was wrong to eavesdrop, but he was on his own in Australia with only his wits to rely on, so he rolled out of the bunk. Creeping across the dirt floor to the door, he opened it quietly and slipped outside on to the rough planks of the veranda, sitting on a bench in one corner, hidden behind a shrub, to listen to what the two gentlemen were saying as they stood nearby on the veranda of the main hotel.

Francis saw his wife up to bed, making the excuse that he wanted a breath of fresh air before he retired. He contained his anger until he and his cousin Paul were outside, standing at the end of the back veranda of the hotel. Then the words would no longer be held back.

‘You lied to us about Western Australia!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know damned well what I mean.’

Paul shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets and kicked out at a black beetle creeping past, missing it but sending it scurrying into a crevice. ‘This colony will be a thriving place one day, I’m sure.’

‘Well, it isn’t thriving now! I don’t even call this a city. How many people are there in Western Australia?’

Silence, then, ‘About 15,000 if you include the convicts.’

‘Dear God! Less than a tenth of the population of Manchester.’

‘The colony will grow, and you and I with it. The convicts have made a big difference to the place, more than doubled the population. I don’t know why they didn’t send convicts to the west from the start, as they did to Sydney.’

‘They’ve stopped sending out convicts to the other parts of Australia now, so it can’t be that much of a good thing. From what I’ve learned talking to others, this colony in the west seems to be behind the times in every way. And there are
as many
convicts as free settlers, if what that man was saying was correct! Don’t you worry about the danger such men may represent?’

‘Many of them are political prisoners, Irish, and quite respectable, though of course no one deals with them
socially
.’

‘You still haven’t said why you lied to me and dragged me out to this god-forsaken place. How can I make my way in the world here? The Swan River Colony doesn’t look or feel at all prosperous.’ He waited, then repeated impatiently, ‘Well, why did you do it?’

‘Charlotte was pining, but I don’t want to go back, don’t dare.’ Paul patted his chest. ‘I’ve felt so much better since I came here. That dreadful wheezing has stopped and I’m getting stronger all the time.’

‘So you brought my wife and me out for company, not caring whether it would be for our own good or not? You always were a selfish devil. I don’t know why I thought you’d have changed.’

‘You can make good money here if you work hard ... if you get allotted good land. And I’ve a friend who’ll advise you about that.’

‘You’d better be right about it, because unlike you, I can’t afford to go back now. I need a warmer climate for my health and besides, I’m not only a younger son with nothing to go back to, but I’ve upset my parents by insisting on coming here. My father gave me some money but says that’s it. He’ll not give me any more to waste, and I’m to consider that my inheritance.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘I’d have gone to Sydney or Canada but for you. Damn you, Paul!’