“OFF YOU GO
NOW!”
(Written by
Warren Maloney – October 2015)
Margaret
Chaplin
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 must 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,
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,
who left for India but her Ma, Mary, was always scared of Mr. William
Mackintosh.
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.
Typical Crofter's Cottage Nairnshire
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,
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.
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.
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-old 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
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.
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.
Hindostan Convict Ship
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.
Edward Chaplin 1860
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,
had sat across the kitchen table saying, “Sorry Ma, I think I’m pregnant”.
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.
Florence Chaplin 1911
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,
confronted the “silly boy”, Martin, expressing all their public thoughts and
then together they organised the wedding – a Catholic one for Sunday, April 24th,
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 1900
Postscript - 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 - 5 by Martin who died in 1888 and 3 more by a “Mr.
Barker”.
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