Salt Creek Page 19

‘Addie is running wild. I haven’t time to stop her.’

  His face got that soft doting look. ‘She is just lively, as she has always been. No, Hester. We will come to rights, my dear, nothing more certain. We are in God’s hands.’

  I jerked the thread then and it puckered the darn tight and was ruined. I could have screamed with vexation. I rolled the sock about the needle and put it in the workbasket and took it inside, into my empty room. The window was open. I leaned on the sill. It was all sound: insects and lizards in the thatching, the screaming of crickets and cicadas beyond, and the waves repeating against the sea coast. I was not more than any other thing.

  Papa sold the cattle to a Mr Stubbs, who had a profitable run at Lake Albert acquired during the first land release, all of it rich pasture. I do not know what price he got, but there was enough money to purchase three thousand sheep from a gentleman farmer further inland, and he was well pleased for several days together, even going so far as to hum a few jaunty hymns as he went about his tasks. He took Albert and Tull to muster them and left Fred behind with Addie and me. His spirits on their return two weeks later were changed. The sheep were not in quite such good condition as the small flock he had been shown.

  ‘However, a great deal less work than the cows,’ he said, meeting no one’s eyes. ‘The flock will expand soon enough.’ He did not provide further explanation, but we were familiar with his abbreviated sentences and the things he wanted us to believe. There was no need for him to tell us all the words. Signs of doubt or worry were taken as disloyalty. He drove some of the sheep onto the peninsula by the crossing south of the Travellers Rest. ‘Think of the saving,’ Papa said. ‘No need for fencing out there.’ Fred came back from his expeditions complaining about the mess they made. The remainder grazed our side.

  Papa wished for contentment but could not persuade himself of it. There was the unease over the sheep. Occasionally if he were home at midday he looked about at his remaining family, but without pleasure or satisfaction. He began to chafe at Fred, watching him work on his book in the evening. He had filled the first sketch book, and was now using the one Charles had given me. ‘Dost think, Hester, that this is the best use of Fred’s time?’

  ‘What should he be doing, Papa? He finishes his lessons quickly so he can do this. He will work on the run all afternoon. It’s only a little time that he takes.’

  Papa stood on the other side of the table, regarding Fred as he might a sheep or a cow, pondering its value.

  ‘He is not much more than a boy,’ I said.

  ‘When I was his age—’ But he did not continue.

  ‘Were you not at school when you were fifteen?’ I asked.

  He took my point. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fred would like that.’

  He fiddled with his fob chain, following it across his front to the pocket containing his watch. ‘He will have to content himself with the books we have and your teaching.’

  Fred looked up from his work. His air was distracted and he blinked and rubbed his hair. He was just then drawing one of the spike-stemmed plants that grew about the sand hills, and now its stem rested in a little water in the base of a glass and the light from the window sent its toothed shadow across the table. ‘Pardon, Papa?’

  ‘I was speaking to Hester about what you are doing.’

  ‘A drawing for my book.’

  ‘Still? You are grown too old for such things, surely.’

  He looked at his page and the intricate work of shading the leaves. ‘I think, I hope, it might find a publisher one day. See what I have done?’ He turned the pages carefully, one after another, so that we could see his drawings. So many of them. He had made notes too, in his small hand.

  ‘Who would publish such a work?’ Papa said.

  Fred blinked, a nervous habit of his that betrayed him in ways that his voice did not. ‘Grandpapa and Grandmama have connections in London.’

  ‘We will not apply to them for help, Frederick.’

  Fred’s face fell and he shot a glance at me and when I shook my head said, ‘Oh, may I not?’

  ‘And you are too young and without credentials. No one will want a work from someone untrained in drawing and uneducated in botany.’

  ‘These are not so bad, though. I have improved and if no one will want to publish it, they might offer advice.’

  ‘Yes. There is no harm in trying at any rate, Papa, surely,’ I said.

  Addie came in with a basket of eggs, which she set on the table. She poured a cup of water and leaned against the dresser while she drank.

  Fred stroked his fingers across the paper, as if he were trying to calm a frightened creature. The steady touch appeared to soothe him. ‘Mr Bagshott might help.’

  ‘Mr Bagshott? Why would he help? How would he?’

  ‘His father is a friend of Mr Darwin and he might forward it to him. You know that Mr Darwin visited Australia?’

  ‘I have heard you mention it once or twice,’ he said in his old dry way. ‘He did not care for it, as I recollect.’

  ‘No, but think, Papa, if he had come here? I think he might have been interested. Mr Bagshott could send a letter recommending it to his publisher or something of the sort. I do not know exactly.’

  ‘Do you know his direction?’

  ‘Hester does,’ Addie said. ‘She knows Charles. She likes Charles.’ She sounded triumphant almost. I shot her a look of fury before Papa’s attention shifted to me.

  ‘Indeed?’ he said.

  Next to him, unobserved, Addie was smiling. What softness she had, had gone since Mary died.

  ‘As a friend only. And I know where he lives,’ I said. ‘We write to each other occasionally is all. There is nothing untoward.’

  ‘And yet I did not know.’ Papa was not angry precisely, wounded, rather, and shook his head so that I felt I had betrayed him. There had been so few letters, and their contents would be dull to any but me: weather and books, Charles’s family, a visit into the hills; and from me to him only news of Salt Creek, which did not vary a great deal. The letters had not been a secret; if asked, I would not have denied them, yet it was true that I preferred that he did not know. Perhaps we all had things we would rather keep to ourselves.

  I made Addie hang out the washing later and when she let the sheets drag in the dirt I said she would have to wash them again.

  ‘You are a mean cat sometimes, Hettie,’ she said, yanking them off the line.

  ‘I am the mean cat? After what you said?’

  ‘Well, you do like him.’

  ‘I do not, and if I did how would you know?’

  ‘You carry his letter about with you. I saw you touching your pocket and looked.’

  ‘Because of you – that’s why it’s there. You can’t be trusted. We’re only friends.’ I was glad I had hidden the other ones away.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You read it?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I was going to help you, but I won’t now.’

  ‘See,’ she said. ‘You are a mean cat, Hester Finch.’

  Addie became even more wild and wilful, and galloped along the track on whichever horse was free, and if there was not one she melted away anyway. There was no point in asking Papa to remonstrate, not with Addie. I stopped her at the door one afternoon, holding it to prevent her escape. ‘It’s not fair, leaving me to do everything.’

  ‘Don’t do it then. I’m sure I don’t mind,’ she said, shoving at the door, against me. ‘The boys are busy with the sheep, stupid creatures, and you will only clean and stitch and cook. Where is the fun in that? There is nothing here for me.’

  I held the door and would not let her past. ‘It is not my preference. I have no time for fun. If I don’t do it there will be no food and holes in our clothes and we will be like the blacks grubbing around for cockles.’

  ‘They don’t really care for cockles.’

  ‘I don’t wonder at it, though I do wonder how you know such a thing.’ I looked at
her hard but she just folded her arms. I could slap her sometimes – do something to shock her. ‘If you would starve otherwise, I suppose the taste is not so bad.’

  ‘I’ve seen them scraping for them in the sand. I helped one day.’

  ‘Addie.’

  ‘Oh what, Hettie? Don’t pick. I’ve tried them. They are not so bad cooked in a fire. Set them on a stone until they pop in the heat.’

  ‘You will become a savage. Your skin. People will know. Your dresses will be ruined.’

  ‘My frocks are not so fine and pretty these days. I would rather go about naked.’

  ‘Addie.’

  ‘Addie, Addie, Addie. Think, you could do anything. You could run fast as a boy. You could ride like a boy.’

  ‘I do ride like a boy. I ride better than a boy. Bareback. But you mustn’t tell Papa, else he will stop me. We are all of us ruined if something happens to me. Papa cannot manage you all, and you can’t even manage yourself. What would Mama say if she saw you?’

  ‘What would she say if she saw you? Anyway, she’s not here.’ She spun away from me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And even when she was, she was not.’

  ‘Not always.’

  ‘At the end. What good did all her work for us do? What life did she have of her own? Where is the fun in that? And you wish me to follow her example. I will not.’ The words just ran out of her.

  ‘You’ll leave it for me? Addie.’

  She turned back to me. ‘You know how it was. Do not pretend otherwise.’

  I said, ‘What is to become of us? I cannot do everything. You need to mind your lessons or you will be here forever. You will never be fit for town life.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘A minute ago you were dull here. Remember what Mama said. A woman of learning can make a sensible contribution in any room she enters.’

  ‘Oh yes, in the fine rooms of the Coorong.’

  ‘In any situation in which she finds herself.’

  ‘A sensible person would look at this and advise us to leave.’

  ‘A sensible person wouldn’t have come, or would have left years ago, gone to Grandmama and Grandpapa.’ I let the door go. I shoved it for her. Let her leave if she wanted to.

  Addie felt the door and pushed it in and out, twice. ‘I wish he had let us.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll do the dining room. Show me what I must do.’ Her voice had lost its quick girlishness, and her face became serious. ‘I am not as silly as I seem, Hester. Truly, I am not. But Papa likes me to be lively. It lifts his spirits. I do it for him. It’s hard to stop, and it’s dull when everyone is sad.’

  ‘Poor Addie.’

  ‘You are a little like Mama sometimes, how she used to be. Calm. You know the right thing to do and say, how to go about things. And you are clever.’

  ‘I am calm because Mama liked me so and Papa needs me so. Inside I boil. This place.’

  ‘Tull says the land doesn’t like us. Is that possible?’

  ‘We have moved beyond the age of witches I hope. It was God’s will, everything that happened.’

  ‘It was not. Stupid God.’

  ‘Addie! Do not say so.’

  ‘I will. Why would he will such a thing? Why would he wish that on us? On Mary. What harm did Mary ever do? You are not Mama to tell me what I may say.’

  ‘I am not. Yet you must mind me. And the boys. Or all is lost.’

  She did more about the house after that conversation, while continuing her solitary explorations. She would not obey me as she had Mama – I was only her sister, after all – but understanding her better, I was kinder.

  In the autumn Grandmama sent us a parcel containing a new sketch book and watercolours for Fred, a telescope for Albert, and cloth for dresses and shirts, which Papa with the greatest reluctance and only after Addie’s pleading allowed us to keep. They were presents such as grandparents like to give rather than charity, she said. She was kept busy for the next while making them up. She was a better seamstress than I, and the occupation suited her. It was a comfortable feeling to be presentable again, which lesson I have always remembered. (All the girls in my school are well and warmly dressed and it makes a great difference to their spirits and demeanour and habits of learning.) When Addie called from the balcony early in the winter to let me know that we had visitors I didn’t feel as bad as I might have, knowing that we were respectable.

  She was leaning on the veranda rails, at the end by the steps, when I went outside, Skipper aquiver at her feet, watching two troopers coming down the track through glittering morning. What would they think of her, resting on her elbows?

  ‘Addie,’ I said to her back. ‘Adelaide.’

  She gave a lazy turn of her head over one shoulder with a look that was not impatience or boredom or amusement, but all of these things. I had learned to see the parts of her that she concealed. I might raise an eyebrow at her teasing and she would give a fleeting smile and suddenly she was a little like the imaginary Sal of those years ago: a friend. I poked her in the back, half in teasing, and would have again but for her quiet look, as if she saw right through me and pitied me for my tired habits, bones picked clean of meaning, when once they had been a way of keeping Mama close. A year now since she had died. They were nothing that would hold up life out here. Addie patted the railing at her side. It did not seem so terrible to join her, our shoulders touching warm on a cold day. Who would ever know that once we rested our chins on our hands and our elbows on a wooden rail and regarded two strange men with such frank interest?

  They slowed at the sight of us – females being a rarity thereabouts – and in lifting their faces into the sun we saw that they were not strangers but the two police who had come by searching for Mr Robinson. Sergeant Wells’s mutton chop whiskers had continued to flourish, becoming fascinating topiary work. He wiped his sunburnt face with a grey rag and tucked it away in a pocket.

  ‘Heavens,’ Addie drawled low. ‘Those whiskers can’t be real. Whatever are they made of? Possum tail?’

  ‘Shh,’ I said.

  The troopers tethered their horses at the yard gate and fastened their jacket buttons, slicking their hair back before settling their hats again and coming to stand beneath us. Their dark uniforms were mud spattered and beneath that faded wherever the sun had struck most directly, on shoulders and forearms. The younger one, Trooper O’Grady, was not much older than Hugh I would have said and regarded Addie with the liveliest interest, setting his thumbs in his belt and his feet apart to look more impressive. He need not have troubled himself; Addie would flirt with any man regardless of dirty clothing and untidy whiskers.

  ‘Well, the Finch girls. You have grown up,’ Sergeant Wells said.

  I didn’t think that I had changed very much since last we saw them; and if Addie had in her appearance, she had not in her demeanour. ‘You ought really to call us Miss Finch and Miss Adelaide,’ she said. ‘That would be the polite thing to do.’

  ‘Addie,’ I said, but she just tossed her head.

  ‘Is that right?’ he said with a slow smile. ‘Miss Adelaide, I presume.’

  ‘Papa and the boys are out with the stock,’ I said.

  ‘So you are on your own?’

  ‘Yes. I mean no, not exactly. We have Skipper here to mind us’ – it was unfortunate that Skipper chose that moment to look her least intimidating, scratching at one side and falling over when coordination failed her – ‘and Fred and Tull and Albert will be back soon. It is only for a little while and we are quite used to it,’ I said.

  ‘And the blacks?’

  ‘They are no trouble if that is what you mean.’

  They went on to tell us their business, which was a search for some missing travellers who had last been seen passing down the Coorong.

  ‘I would not know them if I saw them. No one comes down here,’ I said and then, ‘Hardly anyone. Musicians, and an explorer and an artist.’

  ‘And the police,’
Addie said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What a dangerous place we live in,’ Addie said languidly.

  ‘I’m not saying it’s dangerous now, leastways not as dangerous as some say. I’m just saying keep your wits about you, don’t be rash,’ Sergeant Wells said.

  ‘Was Mr Robinson rash?’ I asked. ‘Did you find out what befell him? Did he really take his own life?’

  ‘That was the finding and who am I to say otherwise? But if you’re asking me was it likely, well I think you know the answer to that. Who’s to know what really happened, eh, girls?’ He leaned in towards us and spoke in a confiding way, as if his hints were a sort of enticement.

  We had to ask them to stop for tea after their days of travel from Wellington and their nights camping out, which offer they accepted with alacrity. I must have been poor company. Addie made up for it. Fred and Tull returned before they departed with news of their own. Something was ailing the sheep: their feet were rotting and cracked and bleeding.

  ‘I’ve heard the same further up,’ Trooper O’Grady said. ‘I’m sorry for it, for your sakes. Not easy testing new land. I expect Mr Finch was aware.’ They left not long after.

  ‘And watch out for strangers, lassies,’ Sergeant Wells said.

  ‘As if we would not otherwise,’ Addie said watching them depart.

  We dreaded telling Papa about the sheep, but in the end we were merely confirming what Papa had discovered himself. Something in the land here was harming them, and there was nothing for it but to lease another run, inland, and to employ a native shepherd. Since the inland run, Tinlinyara, was not large enough for all the sheep, Papa’s life thenceforth was punctuated by the tides of moving the sheep inland and then back to our shore. They all had to take their turn in suffering.

  Poor Papa. He pitted himself against the land, yet it was impervious to all his learning and effort and incantatory prayers. The land had its own drives and they ran against Papa’s, blunting all his purposes.

  When the time for lambing came, there were fewer lambs than expected. Papa rode the run each day in diminishing hope. Finally he and the boys rounded the sheep up and penned them so he could inspect them properly. He was grim at the end of their several days of hard work. He sat on the veranda in his sock feet, his hand about the glass of barley water I had brought him.