Beyond The Blue Mountains

She went back into the house by way of the kitchen: Margery was still sitting in her chair.

“Ah! You’re soon back!”

But Katharine would not stay where she was not wanted. Margery should not have an opportunity of turning her out twice in one day.

“I am not staying; I am going riding.”

“In the heat of the day?”

“Call this heat?”

“Oh no, me lady, I call it midwinter!”

Katharine skipped upstairs. Even the first floor interested her but fleetingly. She wanted to be away. When she came down she was in her neat and modish riding kit, wearing the straw hat which she herself felt to be u

She went back through the kitchen. Margery softened towards her. Regular little beauty! And of course she wanted to know … Come to think of it, it might be rather fun to tell her.? Take a bit of the tilt out of that head of yours, me love, if you was to hear that your fine Mamma was nothing but a convict when she first come out here.”

“Here …” said Margery.

Katharine paused at the door, one hand on her hip, and in those clothes she looked the dead spit of what her mother must have looked sixteen or so years back.

“I’m in a hurry,” she said.

“Indeed you are, me lady! I tell you it’s too hot to go off riding. Wait till it cools off a bit.”

“I don’t feel hot.”

“Here! Come back and have a talk with old Margery.” But no! Her mind was made up now. She wanted to feel her horse beneath her; she wanted to ride and ride. The time for confidences was past.

“We can talk any time.”

“Oh, can we. Miss? It takes two to have a bit of a conversation.”

“Goodbye, Margery! Goodbye, Poll! Goodbye, Amy!” And she was off. her red hair flying out under the straw hat, her sharp little chin as determined as ever her mother’s was.

She rode out of the town away from the sea. Today she had what Margery would call the wind in her tail. It was all due to waking with that dream of Christmas in her mind. She had thought something really exciting was going to happen when she had hidden behind those bed curtains. She had a feeling that something might have happened, had she not called to Mamma. But then, she could not bear to see Mamma frightened.

It was hot, riding in open country, and when she came to a clump of trees she rested in their shade. Behind her the town lay like a toy town, the buildings all huddled together higgledy-piggledy, an uneven, untidy town; and beyond it the lovely harbour which Papa said was the finest in the world; and Papa ought to know because he had been to the Old Country, and said they had nothing like it there.

It was very lonely out there. There was, she knew, miles and miles of loneliness. She did not feel oppressed by the thought of that, although she did like to have people around her; she liked to watch them, to listen to them, to learn about them. She lay on the grass, musing. She looked, without noticing them, at the scrubby hills and the bush that ran right down to the water’s edge. The silver barks of the gum trees were pretty, she thought vaguely. Far away in the distance she saw a long-legged kangaroo with a baby in her pouch. She watched idly, Kangaroos were good to eat, if you cooked them in their skins; you cooked them in cooking pits. Years and years ago, before Papa and the white men came, there was no township down there. Where did the black men live? She must ask Wando. Mamma did not like her to talk too much to Wando. Young ladies of Sydney did not talk to the natives, did not make friends of them. How could you make friends? Friends were … or weren’t. You didn’t make them. The kangaroo had leaped out of sight. Mamma and Margery told her about animals in the Old Country. There weren’t kangaroos, not koalas. Mamma had never seen those until she came to Sydney; nor had Papa. Fancy never having seen a kangaroo with a baby in her pouch, or two koalas clinging to each other, looking sillier than two babies, sillier than Edward. Fancy never seeing emus on their long fu

She stood up and stretched herself; she was tired of resting. There were hours and hours before dark. So she mounted her horse and rode on. Her thoughts were mixed, flitting from subject to subject. Miss Kelly and her brother; Margery exciting Margery who had been transported for marrying too many men. What an exciting thing to be transported for! She thought of Poll and her baby, and Amy and her highwayman; of Mamma and Papa and the First Wife, and the room which “had been the First Wife’s bedroom that room at night with a moon peeping through the windows… showing what?

She was near enough now to see the outline of the mountains clearly. Beautiful they were, shrouded in blue mystery. She wondered what the time was. She had no idea except that she was getting thirsty. She was not supposed to go too far from home. She had set out. she knew, with some ridiculous idea of trying to make a way through the mountains; but with her thirst growing every minute, and her throat hot and parched, she realized that to dream in one’s bedroom is one thing, and to make those dreams a reality another. The wise thing to do was to go home. She turned her horse away from the mountains. Around ha were miles of bush, clumps of hills on which stood the tall eucalyptus trees. The brush was thicker here; there were few distinguishing features. A sudden fear came to her. Riding beside Papa, she knew now, she had always felt so safe because she had not even thought of safety. Margery said: “By golly, I wouldn’t be the one for staying out after dark in this place. Felons can stay felons even though they may well be free men.”

Loneliness! Alone in a world of bush and scrub and eucalyptus trees; somewhere before one, a mighty ocean; somewhere behind one, the vast impenetrable Blue Mountains. She could not really be lost. She was full of fancies today. She began to canter across the scrub. She had not noticed how rough it had been coming; perhaps it had not been so rough; perhaps she was not going back the way that she had come.

After an hour or so there was no sign of the settlement, and her horse was lagging. There were the mountains, seeming nearer than when she had been going towards them. She seemed to see queer shapes behind that blue curtain; evil spirits who beckoned and laughed to contemplate what they would do to her if she dared set foot in their mountains.

She turned her back on them and rode on. She was hot and tired, and very dirty, and the changelessness of the scene was dispiriting. On and on she went without getting anywhere she recognized. She would be very late home, and Mamma would be cross.

She slipped off her mare, tied her to a tree and lay down under it. She must try to think which way she had come, to work out the way home. She thought now of the people Papa talked of -Bass and Flinders, Torres, Magellan, Dampier. Captain Cook -that glorious band, said Papa, through whose courage our land was founded. She had heard of them, she had read of their exploits; she had imagined herself sailing with them, and she had longed to; but this was different. This was loneliness; this was being lost. If only Papa were here, being lost might be quite an adventure. But that could not be, foe the moment Papa appeared you would cease to be lost.

Lying on the ground, her ear close to the earth, she thought she heard the thump, thump of horses’ hooves far, fat away. She listened again. No doubt at all, but miles away, for they were so faint, and in the bush, so Papa said, you can hear for miles. She stood up and looked around her. There was no sign of a rider, only the interminable scrub and blinding sun. and the quivering curtain of blue on the mountains.