Salt Creek Read online

  ‘Don’t people want to know what news you have and to hear about your travels?’

  ‘You saw how much news we have. When they discover that our ignorance about home is as great as theirs and that we have not discovered new pastures or prospects or gold, they are finished with us, more or less. They don’t wish to hear how poor the country is further inland, about deserts and thin sheep and uncertain water supplies. People prefer to believe in a lie or a dream and do not like the people who wake them. But that’s as they wish and choose.’ He shrugged and set his shoulders square again. ‘They want to know the price of sheep and wheat and how others are faring. No better than they and if possible a little worse, they hope. When they know this we are free to set up camp and the next day to be on our way.’

  ‘How long have you been travelling?’

  ‘Months now. Five? I think it would be five. We return to Adelaide soon, where my family lives.’

  ‘They will miss you.’

  He shrugged again, but also smiled so I didn’t feel I had been too curious.

  Through the doorway I watched Papa and Mr Bagshott amble onto the veranda talking of I know not what, just that they nodded their heads in amity and their mouths moved in cordial conversation, the tour of the house and estate now complete. Mr Bagshott accepted the offer of a pinch or two of Papa’s tobacco and they sat, beards wagging. Charles called out to them and they included him in their conversation, which came in through door and open window.

  ‘And the natives?’ Mr Bagshott said. ‘Do you have much trouble with them? Any unrest?’

  ‘Not to speak of,’ Papa said. ‘They were wont to steal cattle, or so I believe.’

  ‘But you have one working for you?’

  ‘Eh?’ Papa said.

  ‘The black you rode in with. A fine specimen of the local inhabitants I would say.’

  ‘Oh, Tully.’ Papa stopped there as well he might. (I wouldn’t know how to describe him myself. I seldom thought of him as a native these days. He was just Tull, not a foster son or adopted or servant or companion. He was all of these things and yet something beyond, the embodiment of Papa’s hopes, an instrument of civilization. The backward looking eye sees with less distraction.) ‘He is—’

  ‘Our friend,’ Fred said, coming outside.

  ‘Yes, that’s it Fred. Thank you,’ Papa said. ‘We are proud of his progress.’

  ‘Really,’ Mr Bagshott said, surprised. Tull came out then and he spoke to him direct: ‘You are fortunate in knowing this family, and in being on such friendly terms with them.’

  Tull looked around rapidly to see what might be required of him. ‘Good day, sir,’ he said. ‘Thank you, yes. I have learned a great deal.’ Behind Mr Bagshott Fred and Albert grinned at Tull’s predicament and at Mr Bagshott taking in his speech.

  ‘He has lived with us for more than a year, Mr Bagshott,’ Fred explained. ‘On and off. He has his own family too.’

  ‘Really?’ Mr Bagshott said, stretching the word. ‘Well.’ And then to Papa, ‘Very charitable of you.’

  Tull gave a longing glance towards the lagoon and would have left then had Papa not noticed: ‘Come, come now, Tull. No need to be shy.’ He went to stand by Fred.

  The dumplings were ready then and I took the stew inside.

  Mr Bagshott sat next to me at the table. He was very weathered closer to, like paper that has been rained on and has dried again and yellowed in the sun, and seemed to fill more space than was available. His gestures were large and his voice and laugh loud and his tales long. Well-being and satisfaction radiated from him like heat from a stove. Papa’s clothes were shabby.

  Papa took the opportunity to deliver himself of one of his longer graces, finishing with, ‘Let us remember the bountiful riches provided to us by our benevolent Father in heaven. Give us the strength to fulfil your purposes, to offer instruction and hope, provision the natives with food and employment, and teach them that their souls might be saved and eternal salvation will one day be theirs, as it is ours, and that they know you in their hearts as we do. In Lord God our Father’s name we pray. Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ we all intoned.

  Part way through I stole a glance at Charles, who rolled his eyes so that I couldn’t help smiling, and then, feeling disloyal, frowned, which made him smile again. (Papa’s voice flowed on.) He seemed much amused by life.

  Mr Bagshott spoke of England, which he did not miss. ‘Yorkshire,’ he said. ‘I have not been there for twenty years, but I will never shake its cold and damp from my bones. No, this country is the future, of that I am sure. Riches for all who will work for it.’

  Papa looked downcast at this – if there’s one thing we had an abundance of it was a lack of riches – but his mood did not last and lunch was almost merry for all it was so plain. Addie, who had appeared the moment she was no longer needed, as usual was bumptious and in need of direction – not that Papa was going to supply it; he looked doting at the mere sight of her. And all Mama murmured at distant intervals was ‘Addie, shh,’ which just made Addie laugh the more.

  She was a great show-off and made much of tossing her head so her black curls danced, and asking Charles questions that could only make her appear foolish: ‘What do you like to draw best, Mr Bagshott? Do you miss your friends at school? I should like to go to school too, though I did not used to like it. In fact I used to think it the dullest thing imaginable. It is just that I miss the company – and dancing. I like to dance. Book learning is dull, don’t you agree, Mr Bagshott?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t find it so. I would like more, in fact.’

  ‘Oh,’ Addie said, looking down at her plate.

  Charles winked at me so fast I thought I was mistaken and grinned so I knew I was not and I couldn’t help smiling and I blushed again. He did not invite her to call him by his name but treated her much as you would a kitten: a funny thing to tease and laugh at.

  ‘You are a notable cook, Mrs Finch,’ Mr Bagshott said, and he did seem to be eating with enthusiasm.

  Papa looked at me so I knew I must not say anything. Mama was startled and glanced from me to Papa and mumbled a thank you and tucked a strand of hair across her ear again and again. She did not think it decent for a woman to show more than the lobe of an ear. I did not see what was so marvellous about an ear that it could inflame passion, but I am not a man.

  Papa cleared his throat and offered Mr Bagshott more wine, what remained of the bottling from our vineyard in Adelaide. It might be that his tongue was loosened by the drink, or unfamiliar company (strange how a confidence is sometimes more forthcoming to a stranger than to a friend), but Papa began to speak more freely then than I had heard from him before.

  ‘My parents thought it foolhardy to come here,’ he said. ‘They were not persuaded and would not support me, which is a matter of regret to me. I hope to show them wrong.’

  His tone made me pity him rather, a feeling I did not recall experiencing towards him before. My thoughts ran over it, as a finger will travel to a scabbed wound, lifting its edges and exploring it.

  ‘Do you see many changes on your travels?’ Papa asked.

  Mr Bagshott mopped his whiskers with his napkin. ‘Oh yes, certainly. Farmland up and down the river. Clearing for crops and sheep of course and some excellent buildings. Places we hardly recognised on the return journey though we had visited them on the way up the river. A little trouble with the natives, as you’d expect, but their cooperation can be bought, and there is less trouble all the time.’ Seeing Tull taking this in he shifted in his seat and busied himself with his food. As for Papa, he had become bleak. His moods swooped like a wagtail in flight.

  We all knew of Papa’s family and the work they had done towards the abolition of slavery; indeed the great William Wilberforce – a saint, Papa said – had been a friend. Quakers – the Finches among them – and Anglicans had worked together for decades to defeat the iniquitous trade. It was something of which we must be proud. When Papa was
a boy there were slaves still, who could be purchased and sold as if they were nothing more than a loaf of bread or a packet of sugar – though I imagine that they were more expensive – and who lived in people’s homes and worked without receiving as much as a penny in pay. All men are created equal, we have been told for as long as I can remember, and deserve the same rights and freedoms, and that is why we must treat the natives with respect despite their poor condition. Papa did not hold with people who believed that natives should first prove themselves worthy of such treatment. ‘How can they know the right way to go about things unless they are entrusted with those tasks?’ Papa would ask. But observing how the natives continued to live, choosing to live as they always had despite seeing a more comfortable manner of living, I was not sure what Papa now thought. He was given to instructing Tull on the art of fence making and animal husbandry and other such things. ‘Remember this now, so you can tell others,’ he would say.

  Mr Bagshott could not know this and it was too late to tell him but he had seen Papa’s fallen spirits. He said, ‘I’ve seen no house finer than that you have planned for this vantage point and all of them of some years’ establishment. Why, I am sure we shall see great developments here on our return to these parts, eh, Charles?’

  Charles lifted his head from the plate and glanced at my father’s face, hopeful and expectant just then. ‘Indeed yes. A fine place for a fine family.’

  I feared sometimes that Papa was rather vain, not of himself, but of his family. Perhaps proud was a truer word. He had an eye to how we appeared to those outside and liked his family to reflect well on him and his means as well as on all the things that he believed. Levity was not always something that he cared for, or only in moderation. He liked us to appear to advantage that we might set an example. He sat up straighter, he swelled a little at Charles’s words as if he were sitting upon a carved oak throne in a stately home (which were in short supply in this country) and his supplicant tenants had come to pay a visit. Looking at Charles and his slow gaze at Papa and its sweep about the room I wondered if this had been his intention. I looked too at the clutter of things, seeing it through his eyes, at the layering of outer garments festooned from the door hooks, and the kettle steaming at the back of the stove, the overflowing wood box, the dresser in need of putting to rights – nails and twine and shears and a hammer and I know not what else piled up with the Spode. Our home was not much more than a shack in a desolate part of the world forsaken by all but a few blacks and people who did not have money to pay for proved land, but must gamble all on the possibility of a return. Whatever would Grandmama have said? Charles noticed and gave a look of what I suppose he meant as sympathy but I loosed a ferocious stare before I could stop it, at which his face lit up. It was plain that his family had never fallen on hard times.

  ‘Are you too warm, Hester?’ he asked.

  ‘I am warm enough,’ I said, and got up to remove the plates. ‘Addie?’

  She flounced about, using clearing the table as an excuse to swish her skirts, which had grown quite full.

  ‘Did you put on every petticoat you possess?’ I hissed at her, crossing the walkway to the kitchen. ‘You look completely ridiculous.’

  ‘You’re only cross because you didn’t think of it first.’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘You are. Charles,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘I do not say that.’

  ‘You do a bit.’ She darted ahead and clattered the dishes on the kitchen table and came skipping back past me. She was growing too and what was to be done about that? Her bodice was too tight. Perhaps a gusset could be inserted under the arm or one of Mama’s dresses could be cut down.

  Mr Bagshott was holding forth when I came back. ‘I have found it to be a healthy environment here in general,’ Mr Bagshott said, and he went on to speak of a visit he had made for the General Board of Health to a small town called Haworth in North Yorkshire, where almost half of all the children died before the age of six. ‘Typhoid, consumption, smallpox, scarlet fever. Terrible. It was my unhappy task to determine the sources of the infection and to give advice. I tell you that it did not cease to rain or snow or mizzle or mist from one week to the next. And the wind: I thought I would be blown off those moors. All was damp, houses, animals, people alike. There was a family there who offered me lodging, but I declined when I heard of the recent loss of one of the daughters of the household. But she had died elsewhere, I discovered. The Brontës – perhaps you’ve heard of them. Writers they were. They wrote under other names.’

  ‘Bell? Currer Bell, do you mean? And Ellis Bell?’ I said.

  ‘That’s it. They both died, I heard. The last of them not so long ago – Currer, I think. Another sister was dead already. Quiet little things. They became quite gay after tasting from the cup. Their brother now, was another matter. Oh, a hard life. They were gently bred and reared and spent all their hours writing, or so I heard. But I did not meet them often. You know of them?’

  ‘Of course! I should think everyone must know of them. I had their books in Adelaide. Grandmama gave me them.’ I almost leapt up; I could not help my excitement. Of all the strange things, that this man in the wilds of the Coorong had met the author of Jane Eyre: An Autobiography.

  ‘You have read them? A girl your age?’ he said.

  Papa cleared his throat.

  ‘You did not think them rather intense, rather exciting for a young girl?’ Mr Bagshott said. ‘I do not myself hold with fiction.’

  ‘I will not say I was easy,’ Papa said. ‘But my mother in law thought them full of common sense—’

  ‘And true feeling,’ Mama said and they both laughed as if this were a favourite joke between them. It was the old Mama and we all turned to see her smiling so free, as if she might keep smiling for a while after, and the Bagshotts looked about the table in confusion.

  ‘Well,’ Mr Bagshott said.

  ‘We believe that educating females is proper,’ Papa said.

  ‘As do I and my wife.’

  ‘Including mathematics and the other branches of higher learning,’ Papa said.

  ‘Indeed?’ Mr Bagshott said.

  I said, ‘Grandmama says, “Men know fools make the best slaves.” Her mother was fond of saying it.’

  Mr Bagshott turned his head very slow. ‘Really.’

  Papa cleared his throat, ‘But those books – we were glad to leave them behind.’

  ‘I was not,’ I said. ‘Tell us, Mr Bagshott, what were they like – the ladies, that is?’

  All I got in response was a look of reproof so that I saw that I had appeared forward or outspoken or something of the sort. I could no more get information or knowledge out of Mr Bagshott than I could lift a limpet with my bare hands and I was so disgusted with him that I hardly knew what to say. Charles caught my eye as if he understood my feelings though I do not see how he could.

  ‘Nothing could have saved them,’ Mr Bagshott said. ‘I decided then that I would not willingly pass further time in such inclement climes and resolved to find a new world, a real one, not of the imagination such as they wove in their fictions. I would not have children as pale and frail and stunted. The Americas beckoned but as luck would have it I attended a lecture given by the South Australia Company in London and was persuaded that Australia represented the best prospects. Soon enough my good wife and I had set our course for the Antipodes. Your children are as fine looking as ever I saw.’ From this I deduced that he believed his own children to be finer looking as I have observed that people praise where they are conscious of being in a state of comfortable superiority.

  ‘All but Hugh born here. And your son is an excellent young fellow. You must be proud,’ Papa said, from which I deduced that he felt us to be superior. It is true that Stanton was larger and more muscular, doubtless from the physical work that he was obliged to do, yet his consciousness of his looks and stature made him less attractive, not only to me, but I felt absolutely.

  Tull had
been quiet at first but became at ease while talking to Fred, and after lunch they found the chessboard and sat playing on the veranda with Addie for company. She had given up hope of captivating Charles.

  Mr Bagshott came out with his pipe and lit and drew in and blew out several quick, thick clouds of smoke across them, making a sucking crackling sound at each breath. Fred and Tull played on.

  ‘Chess – an excellent game, which may be played with enjoyment regardless of the level of skill,’ Mr Bagshott said to no one. ‘Impressive that you have taught him the moves, Frederick.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Fred said. ‘Do you play, sir?’

  ‘I do, I do. I might be able to teach you a trick or two, young man.’ He rocked onto his toes and back. ‘Young men,’ he amended, nodding at Tull.

  ‘Why not play Tull, since he hasn’t been playing as long? Some suggestions for a new player perhaps?’

  Tull glared at Fred.

  ‘Of course. I’d be delighted.’

  ‘Very well,’ Tull said. He sounded calm enough but I thought he was uneasy at the prospect.

  Fred swept the board, which was a pity. The game had been poised with interesting traps about to be sprung. Perhaps Mr Bagshott hadn’t noticed that. I would not say we were skilled players, rather that it was a diversion in the evenings and on Sunday afternoons. They reset the board and Fred moved aside and they settled themselves.

  Poor Mr Bagshott. Stanton and Albert had long since given up playing against Tull. Hugh pretended he wasn’t trying, but humouring Tull. It was the opposite; Tull did not play his best game with Hugh, leaving open enticing routes that might have helped him had he perceived them. He had bested me more than once of late. He played the game most originally – to us, that is. It was mathematical to me, a weighing up of lines of power and the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes it was as if Tull was exploring the limits of a single piece’s strength, or the ways it might react to threat. Then he would appear to forget about it, luring his opponent on another front before circling back. I was not so aware of this then, but have thought of it often in the intervening years and come to this conclusion, replaying moves while lying awake in darkness. (I sleep rather poorly.) Then, all I knew was that the game became new once more. Fred felt it too, I think. We seldom played each other. The paths our minds moved along were too similar to be of interest.