They were, mother and daughters, women almost sainted for their good works, veritable pillars of the church and tireless workers for charity, much admired for their selfless deeds, piety and goodwill towards the sick and the poor.
By seeking to defend William Simon, Miss Bergman has betrayed all that is good in society.
This correspondent cannot help but wonder whether the ordeals suffered by Miss Bergman during the hazardous and dangerous undertaking have not damaged her nerves, her very sanity. This would seem to be the only possible explanation for her aberrant behaviour.
Some of the bolder newspapers, led by the Sydney Morning Herald, go so far as to speculate that, in retrospect, such behaviour from a member of the weaker sex was most peculiar in both circumstances — in her overbold capture of Billy Simple and then her subsequent defence of the convicted murderer while under oath. They, too, suggest that William Simon may not be the only person who is of unsound mind. Or is there, they ask, an entirely different motive for Miss Bergman’s apparent affection for the murderer?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Since the incident at Narrandera when Jack defied his father to allow Jessica to deliver Billy Simple to the police magistrate he has grown much closer to the Bergman family. Meg and Hester have welcomed him, though not perhaps with quite the same ardour as they had originally anticipated.
George Thomas has spoken hardly a word to young Jack since their confrontation in the main street and has insisted his son move out of the homestead and into the cottage usually occupied by the foreman of the shearing shed. Jack is expected to cook and fend for himself and he and George are careful to work on separate runs at Riverview Station.
Old man Thomas has also let it be known that by defying him, Jack is no longer considered to be his son. Assuming, with his wife’s death, that he is the sole owner of Riverview, George has announced, not without a certain degree of melodrama, that Jack has been disinherited.
This comes as a severe blow to Hester and Meg. George Thomas is known for his stubborn and cantankerous nature as well as his ability never to forget a slight. While he is a loud-mouth, a braggart and a mean bastard, no one doubts that his disinheritance of young Jack is fair dinkum. The Narrandera confrontation when Jack threatened to shoot him was a public humiliation he cannot forgive. Moreover, with young Jack’s refusal to back down, it has compounded his determination to disinherit his son.
Hester has had to make new plans for Meg, for she can no longer regard Jack Thomas as the prime candidate for her daughter’s hand in marriage. Jack with Riverview Station in his saddlebag is one thing, Jack as a penniless station hand is quite another.
So, while Hester and Meg have remained conscientious in their attentions to young Jack’s healthy appetite over the last two months, cooking roast dinners and baking the day prior to his Sunday visit, Meg’s petticoats have not been lifted quite as high as she comes down the steps of the homestead to meet him, nor do her pretty hands draw downwards to emphasise her trim waist as they once did at every opportunity. To an astute observer, her eyes are not as charmingly averted, her beautiful smile is employed less often and her maidenly expression is not quite as demure. The abandonment of Jack Thomas has been subtle but determined. With the cooling down of Hester’s ardour for Meg’s long-term suitor, her eldest daughter has been instructed to start casting her glances elsewhere.
For his part, Jack Thomas has seemed hardly to notice the lessening of Meg’s affections. He arrives each Sunday shortly after Hester, Meg and Jessica have attended morning service at St Stephen’s. They can hear the whine of his motor car a good ten minutes before he comes up the rutted road with a fearful clatter and clank of rotating parts. Jessica runs out to meet him with her hands to her ears as he pulls up with a final exhilarated roar of the engine followed by fearful backfiring and a cloud of blue smoke.
Though she works alongside him often enough, Jessica feels strangely shy when he arrives. It is as though the neat cotton dress with its wide skirt which emphasises her tiny waist makes her more vulnerable and calls for a different expression of her self.
In moleskins and shirt she might greet him with a casual ‘G’day!’. In her Sunday dress with its neat white lace collar she feels obliged to say, ‘Good morning, Jack.’ Jack, too, regards his Sunday visit as different. ‘Good morning, Jessie,’ he says, greeting her as formally in return. But then he shakes her hand and looks down at her with a little smile on his face arid hangs onto her hand for a moment longer than necessary. There is a look in his eye which always suggests to Jessica that he wants to say something else. But she lacks the courage to keep her hand in his and pulls away laughing. ‘Father will be pouring a stout for you, he won’t want it to lose its head of foam.’ Jessica finds her heart is always beating a good bit faster after this formal Sunday morning greeting.
She tells herself not to be ridiculous, that wh
at happened in Narrandera was nothing to concern herself about. Jack is her mate and Billy’s too, and he’d done what he did to protect her from the mob trying to get to Billy Simple. It was a mate thing, even when he carried her up the steps of the courthouse. His visits to the Narrandera hospital for the next two days while she recovered were also part of his friendship and concern. She dares not think otherwise, and even now that Meg has abandoned her affections for him and Jack is available, Jessica tells herself she is ugly and flat in front and not the sort of person Jack will choose for his wife.
Jack, like Joe, seldom goes to church, but on Sundays he’s careful to wear a clean shirt and moleskins, with his boots freshly dubbined, his neck well scrubbed and his face shaved. He wolfs down his food as though he has been starved all week and is careful to extend his appreciation to Hester and Meg, exclaiming loudly and delightedly at the tarts, trifles and cakes they place before him after the Sunday roast.
Like most young blokes his age, Jack isn’t a big talker. His conversation is polite and agreeable, but largely restricted to matters of cattle and sheep and the working and efficacy of machinery in the shearing shed. Even these contributions are prodded from him as though with the sharp end of a knitting needle. It is only when Jessica asks him a question on irrigation that he replies spontaneously. He is all for the elaborate system of canals and pump stations planned for the Riverina, some of which are already in place. His enthusiasm for what Joe refers to as ‘bloody McCaughey’s harebrained scheme’ seems to know no bounds.
Joe is too polite to openly show his disdain for this idea, but after Jack’s departure he’ll have a go at him.
‘He don’t think practical, you can’t take a flamin’ river where it don’t want to go! The canals will silt up from the dust and the walls will collapse the first rains we get. This is sheep and cattle country when it’s good and good for bugger-all when it ain’t, nothing’S gunna change that. You can’t raise regular crops on soil that grows nothin’ much ‘cept mulga scrub and saltbush. There’s talk of growing rice like China and two crops of wheat a year — I should live to see the day.’
Jessica points out that Jack is as good a sheep and cattle man as you can get and Joe admits this is true. ‘But them bloody stupid schemes, building canals and pumps, that’ll soon enough take care o’ the wool cheque and then some! You know how I feel about that bastard George Thomas, but it’s probably a good thing he still holds the reins at Riverview, can’t let them young blokes muck about too much, ‘fore you know it they’ve blown the lot and they’re into the bank for a loan.’
Joe is fond enough of young Jack and reckons he’ll come good in the end. ‘Give him a few more years of being belted about in the bush, he’ll come around.’ He has watched the friendship between Jack and Jessica grow and he is grateful to the boy for accepting his younger daughter as a serious worker and for not taking the pi ss as the other young ringers try to do — until they see her on a horse working cattle or sheep and are forced to show a little respect.
Now, with Jack’s diminished future, the friendship between Jessica and Jack seems to Joe to be most fortunate. While he is not as sure as Hester that Jack has his eyes on Jessica, he cannot help hoping they might go on with it. He is seventy-two years old and sees the possibility of the disinherited Jack and Jessica taking over the property from him. If he can knock some of the damn fool ideas out of the young man’s head, Joe reckons that Jessica will have found a good man as her partner.
Hester declares herself just as pleased if such an arrangement may be brought about and sets to work on Jessica, urging her to show more amorous attention to Jack. If Jessica and Jack are regarded by the parish as a courting couple then Meg will not be seen as fickle or changing her affections with the downturn of Jack’s fortunes.
The story of Jack walking up the steps of the Narrandera courthouse with Jessica in his arms has been romanticised to almost legendary status and the whole county is waiting, wanting to be convinced there is a big romance in the air. If Jessica and Jack can be seen walking out together there won’t be a single discordant. voice in the community.
All seems to be going well until after the murder trial, when the newspaper talk of Jessica’s strange behaviour in the defence of Billy Simple causes tongues to wag aplenty.
‘Will that child never cease in her tormenting of us?’ Hester howls to Joe. ‘We shall never live down the shame.’ ‘She done what she thought was right,’ Joe says in Jessica’s defence. ‘I admit it were stupid, but it come from the heart.’
‘Joe Bergman, you don’t understand what she’s done to us!’ Hester screams at her husband. ‘Don’t you see, Meg’s prospects are forever ruined! How shall we face a decent family with an eligible son when your daughter has shamed our name like this?’
‘Don’t you talk to me in that voice, Hester,’ Joe warns.
‘You were quick enough to use Jessie to get Meg off the hook with Jack Thomas once you knew his prospects were ruined. You reckoned he was a good enough catch for Jessie though, didn’t ya?’