The Hanging of Mary Ann. Angela Badger
hung heavily on their hands.
Grand-père rarely spoke of the past when the rest of the family were around, though. Perhaps the day-to-day problems took precedence over reminiscences, perhaps the bored looks that passed around the table whenever the conversation drifted back towards that distant time put him off. Alone amongst the grandchildren Mary Ann pounced upon every snippet the old man dropped.
“Filling the child’s head with all those fancies,” his son grumbled that evening when Mary Ann was telling her sister about the Ball of the Yew Trees. “Any daughter of mine needs to know her alphabet. If she’s not at her lessons she should be out helping in the dairy, not having her head filled with all those fancies. Don’t you agree, Charles?” More and more frequently William asked the opinion of his eldest son. He had become his father’s right-hand man.
“I’m sure you’re right, Father.”
“We should remember. No one should forget.” Richard Guise persisted.
“Now, son.” William wasn’t going to be distracted by the old man. “We’ve got to decide about whether we need that new harrow this year or can scrape by till next. Can you call by…”
“Father, I’m off tomorrow, off to Gundagai. I’ll think about it. Remember, you wanted me to look over that stock down the river.” Charles spent most of his time away, overseeing the scattered properties of the Guise family.
“Well, I still say we should not forget. It’s wrong to let everyday matters cloud our memories.” Richard was like a dog with a bone.
William gave an exasperated sigh. “Of course we ought to forget. What does our family need to know about those Frenchified ways. Think, Papa! You may have been Richard de Guise all that time ago, and you’ve told us often enough about the Duke de Guise and the family and so on, but soon it was plain Richard Guise and sometimes they even called you Richard Guys, remember? Times change.”
“Possibly. But the past is always with us. Remembering the past is what separates us from the animals, isn’t it? That is what makes us human beings.” He shrugged and looked down at his plate.
Mary Ann’s eyes sparkled as she stared at the old man. Grand-père was the only person she knew who said things like that. When everyone else talked about crops and cattle and the weather, and the latest gossip from Gundaroo fizzed around the table, he could be relied on to say something that made a person think.
Mary Ann liked to think. The great world outside their property enthralled her with its mystery. Why, where and when were the most used words in her vocabulary and she yearned to know more about that enthralling place. Much as she loved her family, her quicksilver mind wove circles around their placid contentment.
Each night the Guise family gathered round the large table in the kitchen for their evening meal. Ever since she could remember there had been sisters, brothers, cousins, and many a guest rubbed shoulders down its length. With the passing of the years, the marriages and some sad absences, there were no longer so many under the roof of Bywong. Her father, William, sat at the head of the table with her brother Charles on his right hand, Grand-père presided over the far end and in between she sat with her sister.
Every evening Mary Ann basked in the contented glow which marked this precious moment in their hard-working days when the family came together. As knives and forks scraped upon plates and the tea cups chattered to the saucers she looked around the table and knew she loved every one of them.
“And I just hope Mr Sowerby doesn’t take the opportunity to give us all one of his sermons,” her sister Elizabeth grumbled, her approaching wedding being the topic on everyone’s lips. “He never knows when to stop!”
“Well, my dear, it’ll be the last for a long while. There won’t be another wedding till our Mary Ann’s turn. You won’t have to sit and listen to him when you’ve moved to Woodbury.” Grand-père firmly sliced the last of his mutton into neat pieces and regarded his granddaughter with a hint of disapproval.
“He never stopped rabbiting on at our Hannah’s wedding, didn’t he? Went on and on he did, telling us how wicked we were not to be there regular every Sunday.”
“He’s a good man. Many a wise word I’ve heard him speak.”
“Well, as you say, it’ll be the last time... till our Mary Ann.”
“And coming back to that, have you decided if you’ll use Hannah’s veil or…”
As Mary Ann’s thoughts drifted and conversation flowed all around the table her fancy took flight and their faces gleamed with the transient glow of fish rising to the surface of the river, leaping for insects, snapping at any particle floating upon the water, as they snatched at every topic of conversation and bandied words around the table. All the while her grandfather sat nodding and listening, just like the wise old cod who lurked in the deep pool under the shade of the willow tree down by the river. Years and years of survival, eluding the hooks of the fishermen had honed that ancient fish to perfection. He had escaped the lures, he’d survived the droughts in the depths of the river and never allowed himself to be swept out when the deluges came and the waters spilled over every bank and spread across the countryside.
Grand-père had survived so much, he’d escaped from the guillotine and come to this place and prospered. What was his secret? How had he turned the disaster of his life into such success?
Mary Ann caught his gaze and they exchanged glances, the bond she shared with him was enduring and deep. Alone amongst the family she had inherited his spare features, the aristocratic bones and the dark, searching eyes. When she looked around at her siblings she knew she’d also inherited that fierce pride which they did not even begin to understand.
“Well, it’s different for us,” her father muttered. “We don’t want to hear all about that… that King Louis, Queen Marie Antoinette and all that, it’s past. It’s gone for ever. Some things are best laid aside and forgotten.”
“Forgotten! I tell you this my lad, no one is forgotten until the last person on earth no longer speaks his name.” Grand-père laid down his knife and fork and glared disapprovingly at his son.
CHAPTER 3
“He can’t go all that way on his own,” William muttered. “He’ll have Job with him.”
“Keep your voice down, Elizabeth, his ears are that sharp.”
“I know, I know, Papa, but Dr Morton says he must have some help. He says, if he falls, then how will he be able to get up. Job’s not always there. And even after the surgeon’s done his work, of course he can rest at Hannah’s, but still, on the return he’ll need someone beside him.”
A pall of silence enshrouded the house. Year in and year out, each day had commenced with Grand-père making his way over to the stables, and just as surely the day ended when he nodded off over The Herald. Now he lay tight-lipped and sweating in his bed while the family muttered together, closeted in the parlour.
“He needs help with everything he does. Five days on the road. You’ll have to go with him Papa.”
“Impossible! If only this had happened last week, he could have had Charles for company. Place’ll go to rack and ruin if I’m away more than a couple of days. We are talking about weeks. And I can’t spare any of the lads for that length of time. Job’ll drive him, he’ll have to manage. You know it’s difficult enough to find anyone reliable these days. We need every hand to finish off those last two paddocks and then in two weeks’ time there’s that sale on. I have to be there, After that it’s…”
“And I certainly can’t leave Woodbury for all that time. It’s just the same for all of us these days, but the fact remains, someone has to accompany Grand-père. What about Mary Ann, then?”
William shook his head and frowned