Short Story 2 - 1876 - Off You go Now! - Margaret Mackintosh (1824-1911)

1876 – “OFF YOU GO NOW!” 

(Short Story written by Warren Maloney in October 2015)

Margaret Chaplin[2] stood by the freshly painted verandah pole and, as her eyes drifted over the long vision of the departing neighbours and guests, her mind, her frustrated angry mind, was dominating what she saw.

 There is a life moment for some when the sweetness of personal happiness can no longer be tasted – when you have to realise that whoever controls the reins has decided that you will always be a stock horse and never run free.

 Margaret was fifty one years old and it seemed that the reinsman had controlled her, every one of those years.

 She had been born a bastard, the result of the occasional coupling of her weak Ma[3], Mary Nairn, with either of the Mackintosh men on the Cawdor farms. Margaret was never sure whether her father was the married one or his nephew, the soldier. The village muttered about the nephew, John[4], who left for India but her Ma, Mary, was always scared of Mr. William Mackintosh[5]. It didn’t matter now or then as the only thing she got from her father was a surname, which, because it was different from her Ma, meant that everyone knew she was a bastard.  Everyone knew her as Margaret Mackintosh.

 And what a stubborn, querulous bastard she was or had to be! The three of them just had to survive – her Ma and Mary’s only sister, Catherine[6], and herself.

 It was never more than survival in their crofter’s cottage so that by the winter of Margaret’s thirteenth year the three women had been reduced to nothing but opportunity.

Typical Crofter's Hut - Nairnshire

 No work - Margaret had been dismissed as a child house servant on the Clark farm just before Christmas 1837 for a younger, prettier child. Her Aunt Catherine, at 28, was too old and “untrustworthy” for local farm needs and her Ma, Mary, had started coughing blood.

  The reinsman flicked the leather and an idea became an action – Catherine and Margaret herded five ewes from the nearby Mackintosh farm into the kitchen of their hut. The throats were cut and, awkwardly and as best they could that cold February night, they skinned, slashed, and chopped up the sheep, storing what they could in salt for preserving or maybe even selling.

Typical of the black-faced sheep

The lack of planning, their inexperience and the dumping of the unwanted bits meant that before the next nightfall the three women were inside the cold stone walls of the four-cell Nairn Jail.

 Margaret now could never remember much in time or process about the next year or so.  In the Nairn jail, they experienced the mid-year of 1838 where the cold north winds on most days leave the ocean and quickly test the Nairn walls. No one was in a hurry to do anything judicially with the women and they did what they had to do to stay sane and have food in their bellies.

 She did remember looking up at the Judicial Bench at Inverness Court to see her Da, William Mackintosh, in an ill-fitting soldier’s uniform officially witnessing the details of his loss and never smiling at her.

 Margaret and Catherine pleaded guilty and attempted to deny any knowledge or involvement by Mary. This seemed to work in part as Mary was sentenced to nine more months in Nairn Jail, whilst the 28 and 14 year olds silently heard “transportation to Van Diemen’s Land for a period of seven years.”

 Margaret now stared out at her little bit of Van Diemen’s Land - eighty acres or so of good grasslands that fed sheep (ten times the number they stole), some dairy cows and her eight surviving children. Sure, it was not the green of Cawdor but there was a creek and there was sunshine for most of the year; and she owned and controlled it now that Edward[1] had died.

 The prison hulk, the voyage out, the survival fights with everyone, the things you chose to do and had to do, the learning about men, and the hunger – none of this did she relate to her children. They knew she had been a convict as was their father; but it didn’t matter here as all the old ones had been convicts – the McShanes, the Goodwins, the Partingtons and the Maloneys.

 Ah yes, the Maloneys! Irish and Catholics like the McShanes – they tended to stick together, marry each other, worship their roaming priests, and insist on strict adherence to their Irish Sunday rituals.

 Edward Chaplin had never really been religious unless it brought opportunity for more land; but he did like to appear observant and punctual, god-fearing and benevolent. So Margaret had played the game with him and made sure that St Augustine’s Anglican Church at Broadmarsh had a pew at the front for the Chaplins.

The Hindostan Convict Ship

It was now over a year since Edward had died and Margaret still felt young and so wanted to be attractive again – well if not attractive, then successful as she was on the ship. What had that ship doctor written about her – “the richest on the ship …….connexions doubtful”. Well he was right on both scores.

 You learn. You try out. You do. When she landed here at Hobart Town in September 1839, she was a month shy of fifteen. She had some experience, some influence and she had a plan; and before she was seventeen she had met, wooed and married the thirty-one year old discharged convict, widower and farm owner, Edward Chaplin. She became step-mother to his five daughters, then aged 2 to 11 years, and over the next 33 years gave him 11 more children.

He could ask for nothing more. On his death bed, he was surrounded by 12 surviving children and 8 grandchildren.

 Margaret had in her own mind paid her dues to the reinsman so she was now open to the flirting of the neighbouring scallywag, Martin Maloney. Martin was half her age but he had travelled. He had worked his way across to the mainland and as far north as the Murray. In the first four years of his adult life he had worked on farms, in saw mills, behind bars, shearing, farming and probably everywhere flashing his lovely wild Irish smile.

 Sure she knew she was not the only woman, single or married, that had day dreamed or more about Martin. But he had focused on her since before Christmas and the physical attraction was very serious. 

 They had also day dreamed together about what was possible to do with the farm, “Rosebud” – maybe a dam by the road, maybe try out some crops. Martin had boundless energy and ideas and she knew about business. If she could keep him away from a drink during the week, they could just build something really big for the grandchildren. And that was the other good thing; she didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant again!

But the reinsman flicked the leather again and her quiet, dutiful 19 years old, her second youngest, her Florence Amelia[7], had sat across the kitchen table saying “Sorry Ma, I think I’m pregnant”.

Florence Amelia Chaplin - 1911

 Margaret stared at her for some time in silence. She did not want the answer but she had to ask. It seemed that Martin had also been enjoying summer dreams with Flo - stupid, naïve, virginal Flo!

 “Rosebud” would, she thought, probably never have a dam by the road. But it would be hers and hers alone – No Edward, No Martin.

She had taken Flo by the arm and together they walked in silence, an hour’s silence, from the Chaplin farm to the Maloney farm.  There the two widows, Margaret and Elizabeth Maloney[8], confronted the “silly boy”, Martin, expressing all their public thoughts and then together they organised the wedding – a Catholic one for Sunday, April 24^th 1876. Margaret didn’t want it in the Chaplin Church as that had been part of her daydream.

 Florence and Margaret spoke little more than was necessary over the next 6 weeks as the wedding was developed by Elizabeth and the baby grew in Florence.

 Martin and Florence understood. They could have their wedding today. Then they had to leave. They were not to come back – not next year, not ever.

“Go to Victoria or someplace else but not here. Go have your babies, but don’t bring them back to me when Martin finds someone else as he will. Men always do.”

 Margaret couldn’t remember hugging Flo as she left. She just remembered saying to her “Off you go now.”

 She turned back from watching the last wedding guests leave and walked into her bedroom. She sat on the bed and cried. Best to get it over and done with.

Margaret Chaplin - 1860

 P.S. Margaret lived for another 35 years and died at her Tasmanian homestead, “Rosebud”. She never saw Florence again. Nor did she ever meet any of Florence’s 8 children - Five by Martin who died in 1888 and Three more by a “Mr. Barker”. 

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[1] My 2^nd great granddad, Edward Chaplin (1801 – 1874). 

[2] My 2^nd great grandma, Margaret Chaplin (nee Mackintosh) (1824 – 1911)

[3] My 3^rd great grandma, Mary Nairn (1805- ?)

[4] John Mackintosh of Ardlach, Nairnshire, Scotland (1800 – 1880)

[5] William Mackintosh of Cawdor, Nairnshire, Scotland (1777 – 1862)

[6] Catherine McCloud Nairn (1810 – 1893)

7] My great grandma, Florence Amelia Maloney (aka  Barker) (nee Chaplin) ( 1856 – 1936)

[8] My 2^nd great grandma, Elizabeth Maloney (nee McShane) (1812 – 1899)