Dorothy Eden (44 page)

Your devoted son, Kit.

P.S. Actually, I confess to liking rum better than wine, so how could I be a success as a vigneron?

It was a blow too deep for words. Gilbert, it seemed, had no objection whatever to Kit marrying Rosie. She would be too good for the young rascal if she took after her mother. But that his son did not intend to carry on the vineyard he found unbelievable and completely shattering.

His eyes were bleak and hard. When Eugenia suggested that surely Kit would come to his senses, that when he found what life on the goldfields was like he would want to come hurrying home, Gilbert shook his head.

‘No. I won’t have him back. I’ve put up with his laziness and disobedience and indifference for long enough. I’m finished with him as far as the vineyard is concerned. When a vine gets a blight it is cut out. It is a painful but necessary operation. And when something attacks it at the roots it begins to wither.’ He abruptly straightened himself, as if realizing the too personal truth of his allegory. ‘I’ll run my vineyard myself until I drop. Then Jem can take over. Tom Sloan, too, only Tom’s older than me. My God, Eugenia, I feel old today.’

‘Surely Kit will come back,’ Eugenia said again. But Gilbert didn’t hear her, or pretended not to.

‘Yarrabee will always be here for you and the girls. Perhaps Adelaide will have a son. My own son a rum drinker!’ He shook his head incredulously. ‘It’s beyond belief.’

At least Eugenia had the diversion of planning for the long-awaited trip to England. There were wardrobes for herself and the two girls to be made. She wouldn’t have them arriving looking dowdy and out of fashion. Emmy, and the dressmaker from Parramatta, were kept constantly sewing and cutting out, while the sun shone and the grapes ripened, and the record vintage Gilbert had hoped for looked like being a reality.

Kit’s name was seldom mentioned. Mrs Jarvis had expressed remorse for her daughter’s high-handed behaviour, but it had seemed to Eugenia that there was triumph in her eyes. She wouldn’t be human if she wasn’t pleased to have Rosie make such a catch. However, she could not be held to blame. Eugenia struggled hard to be fair.

But she could hardly bear to see Gilbert without the optimism in his face. It had so long been a part of him that this quiet quenched face was almost that of a stranger. Even the ripening grapes, swollen with sweetness, did not cheer him this autumn.

He said he was tired. When vintage was over he intended to have a rest. He would escort Eugenia and the girls to Sydney, see them aboard their ship, and then have three or four weeks of relaxation. Jem and Tom Sloan could attend to the pruning of the stripped vines, and the manuring. After all, one day Yarrabee would have to manage without him. He had never before made such an admission.

On a clear brilliant morning that gave promise of being a hot day, the first of the pickers began arriving from Parramatta. There were more women than usual, and a number of children, the result of the man of the family having gone off to the goldfields, leaving his wife and children to get along as well as possible until he returned with a fortune in his knapsack.

Gilbert cast an experienced eye over the gathering in the courtyard. He knew at once which women would work well, which would easily tire, which of the children, ranging in ages from six to sixteen years, would be of help and which nothing but a hindrance.

It was a pity that there was a lack of labour this particular year, when the vines were so heavily laden with such luscious sugar-filled fruit.

But they would manage. There had been worse problems.

Gilbert called for volunteers in his own household. Ellen, Emmy (although Eugenia was reluctant to spare her from her sewing), and Mrs Jarvis offered their services. Emmy would be working beside Obadiah, her husband. Miss Higgins said she would like to help but she couldn’t stand the sun. She was like the mistress, too much heat made her feel faint. Lucy, also, was too fair-skinned and fragile.

But Adelaide, a scarf knotted over her head, an apron over her cotton dress, stood beside Jem McDougal waiting eagerly to begin.

‘Adelaide, you must put gloves on,’ Eugenia cried. ‘Your hands will be ruined.’

‘Oh, Mamma, don’t fuss.’ Adelaide’s quick impatient frown was her father’s. So were her dazzling blue eyes. Gilbert grinned with pleasure. He looked happy for the first time since Kit’s departure.

‘Let’s be off,’ he ordered.

The little procession set off, carrying wicker baskets or pulling handcarts, followed by Tom Sloan with the drayload of provisions, gallons of oatmeal water, hunks of bread and cheese, baskets of scones and biscuits which Mrs Jarvis had been up long before dawn to bake.

Everything about vintage Adelaide found exciting and stimulating. She loved the hot sun on her head and her bare arms as she cut the bunches of bloomy black grapes. When the wicker baskets were full, they were emptied into the handcarts which were pushed to the winery where their load was tossed on to the presses, and the rich juice and skin (bearing the precious yeast pores) run off into the great vats.

The morning’s picking, the cold lunch in the shade of a clump of gum trees, and then picking again until the sudden fiery sunset was the greatest fun, the physical exhaustion a pleasure. But much more exciting was the winery where, after three or four days, the vats began their dark mysterious bubbling and seething.

It was the first time Adelaide had been allowed to watch this process from start to finish. Jem was the master here. In the dim low-ceilinged odorous room he moved about silently, watching, testing, sniffing. It had got that Papa relied on him absolutely to predict the result of each vat of seething liquid. Almost by tasting the grapes beforehand, he could say whether the wine would be sweet enough or too bitter with tannin, or thin and vinegary.

If Adelaide wanted to remain in here, she mustn’t prattle in her usual way. She must be silent, observant, intelligent. She could help to work a press, if she wished, seeing the juice squirt from the lush bunches of grapes. She could make a guess which vats had fermented long enough, and were ready for running off into casks. And which casks should be rolled away to stand for six months, a year, five years, before bottling.

She was even allowed to sip a little of the raw wine, rolling it round her mouth, deciding how good it would be on maturity.

But all the time Jem was the maestro, the wizard. Even Papa admitted that.

‘He has a better nose than me, Addie. Or perhaps I’m getting too old. Losing my sense of smell. My palate, too. Jem says this year’s claret will be a great wine in thirty years’ time. I’m sorry I won’t be here to prove him right.’

‘Oh, you will, Papa.’

‘No. But you and Jem will.’

Colour suddenly rose in Adelaide’s cheeks. Her eyes followed the stocky figure of Jem, the broad shoulders and muscular arms, the tightly curled black hair over the sunburned forehead. Her childhood friend. There had never been a time when he wasn’t there. Papa had said she must go on this silly trip to England to please Mamma, but she regarded it as a complete waste of time. A whole year out of her life at Yarrabee, and what for? That nonsense of being presented at Court, of making inane conversation with a lot of cissy pale-faced Englishmen. Couldn’t Mamma just take Lucy who would love the languid English drawing-rooms?

It was a promise that she should be back by next vintage, but imagine not knowing what was happening to the vines during the winter and spring. Or to Papa left alone with the servants. Or to Jem who, not having her to talk to, might well begin riding into Parramatta to find other female company. He had always had her. He was bound to miss her. At least, he had better dare to say he wouldn’t!

‘You will miss me, won’t you, Jem?’ she said, over the noise of the cellar.

He looked at her with his bright brown eyes.

‘You don’t need to remind me of that, Miss Addie.’

He went to pass her, and accidentally his bare forearm brushed against hers. He stopped, and his gaze went back to her, burning suddenly right down into the depths of her heart. For a moment neither of them could speak. Then Jem gave a laugh and said:

‘There’ll be no more bottles hidden inside the school gates. I promise you that.’

They both began to laugh hilariously, something released in them.

Adelaide deliberately let herself touch his bare arm again.

‘Jem, if you don’t dance with me on vintage night, I won’t come back from England. I swear it.’

‘I’ll dance with you, Miss Addie. From first to last.’

Dearest Sarah [Eugenia wrote],

I can scarcely believe that for once nothing threatens our trip. The vintage, as Gilbert expected, has been a splendid one, and I am so happy for his sake as well as my own. He has been more deeply hurt by Kit’s departure than he has admitted, and this good harvest of grapes seems like a compensation to him.

We have had a letter from Kit saying that he and Rosie were married by a Scots minister in Bathurst. Very correctly he said, although to me it still sounds like a runaway Gretna Green marriage.

Gilbert says I must be tolerant, but something hard and unforgiving rises in me whenever I think of that girl. I admit that I have never been fond of her. She was a sly child, always lurking in passages. Perhaps she felt shut out and perhaps it was my fault. I don’t know.

Anyway, that is past history, and I must accept the unhappy present as best I can. But I grieve for Gilbert’s crushing disappointment. There is, after all, nothing to replace a son.

The dance after vintage was pronounced the merriest Yarrabee has yet seen. A young Irishman played the fiddle, and the couples danced in the courtyard, and drank a great deal of raw wine. Lucy and I watched from the verandah. Lucy could not be persuaded to join in, though Adelaide, I scarcely need to tell you, danced with untiring enthusiasm. Everyone loves her because she puts on no airs. But she is still far too much of a hoyden in spite of her expensive school. The trip to England comes at a very important time in her life…

Much more important than she could tell Sarah, Eugenia thought sadly, laying down her pen. It was true that Adelaide had danced untiringly on vintage night, but almost exclusively with one person. The burly vigorous figure of Jem McDougal.

‘What of it?’ said Gilbert, flinging himself into a chair beside Eugenia and mopping his brow. ‘She’s doing what’s expected of her. Her sister should be doing the same.’

Lucy crouched back, trying to make herself invisible. Nothing would have induced her to mingle with that noisy sweaty mob. Eugenia said,

‘But not all the time with one man.’

‘Jem? He’s a good chap. She’s only teaching him the polka. Deuced amusing, really. Jem’s talent is for wine-making, not dancing.’

And for kissing. When Adelaide at last came upstairs she unceremoniously shook the drowsy Lucy awake.

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to talk to someone or I’ll burst. Lucy, I’ve been kissed!’

Lucy eyed Adelaide’s flushed face and brilliant eyes half with envy, half with shocked disapproval.

‘Not by Jem?’

‘How did you guess?

‘I would need to be pretty stupid not to. Even Mamma and Papa talked about how often you danced with him. You were making a spectacle of yourself, Mamma said.’

‘Mamma will say that about me until her dying day. I shall never be able to please her. But Papa?’

Adelaide’s eyes were suddenly so anxious that Lucy could not bear to hurt her.

‘He didn’t mind. He likes Jem. As a workman, of course.’

‘What’s wrong with being a workman? It’s better than being a waster like our dear brother. Rosie will have got more than she bargained for with him.’

Lucy shot up.

‘Addie! You say that as if you’re serious about Jem!’

‘Well, he kissed me,’ said Adelaide, dropping her eyes. A small soft smile curved her lips. ‘In the vegetable garden, among the cabbages. It doesn’t sound very romantic, does it? But it was. We’d only walked away to get cool. And then he kissed me, unexpectedly.’

‘It can’t be the first time you’ve been kissed,’ Lucy said, trying to sound cynical.

‘No, it isn’t, but I’ve only had pecks before.’ The smile deepened on Adelaide’s lips which seemed mysteriously to have grown fuller and redder. ‘This wasn’t a peck. Lucy, I think I’m in love.’

Lucy lay back, gathering the sheets round her face.

‘With Jem?’ she whispered. Now she was not only shocked but afraid. Mamma would never allow this. Never! There would be endless rows and unpleasantness, and Addie was headstrong enough to do—goodness knew what.

‘I think I always have been. Like Kit with Rosie. Aren’t we funny loyal people, we Massinghams. Very permanent in our affections. Except you, of course. Or are you still dreaming of George Fitzroy?’

Adelaide’s voice was not scathing any longer. It was gentle, kind, full of wonder. As if she had discovered another dimension to life, which made her tolerant of everybody, even her silly timid sister.

Oh, Addie,’ Lucy said, tears spilling over her eyelids.

Adelaide let her dress fall to the floor and stood in her bodice, stretching her arms, sighing deeply.

‘But keep it a secret, Lu. I want time to think.’

‘You mean—he’s asked you?’

‘No. And I don’t suppose he will. He knows his place, darling good Jem. I expect it will end in my asking him.’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’

Adelaide sighed again, still smiling that infuriating smile.

‘Oh, it’s been a wonderful vintage. Every minute of it. I’ve felt as if I’ve been bubbling like the must. I never wanted it to end.’ Suddenly she leaped across the room, landing with one spring on her bed. ‘Of course I will ask him if I have to.’

‘He didn’t know his place enough not to kiss you,’ Lucy said, and Adelaide began to giggle.

‘No. Thank heaven for that.’

In the morning, it seemed as if Adelaide had forgotten her late night confidences. She was a little too quiet, however. Mamma thought she had been working too hard, and dancing too much, and had perhaps drunk more than was good for her of the sour new wine which Papa foolishly permitted on vintage night. Lucy watched her with intense anxiety, but her decorum was perfect and, for Addie, quite unfamiliar.