Lillipilly Hill (16 page)

The shelf below the headland was an intricate pattern of pools and crevices and tiny caves, each filled with tinted stones and miniature forests of weeds, spotted, striped, and fluted shells, and fish so small and fragile that Harriet had to lie flat on the rock to see them. In the larger crevices, crabs scuttled about with faint rattling sounds—some had bodies as big as saucers, and legs to match.

‘If I had a spear, I could catch some for dinner,' boasted Dinny. ‘Pa brings lots of 'em home with him.
An' fish, too, sometimes—an' once he caught an eel bigger'n Pete.'

‘Don't talk about home now,' said Harriet dreamily. ‘I don't want to think about going back.'

They sat on the rock with their backs to the land, and watched the
Winneroo Star
put out to sea, dipping gracefully and easily past the point, despite her full load.

‘She's much prettier than a steam packet,' said Harriet. ‘I would like to sail on her, a long way, until we came to a desert island with a blue lagoon, and lots of palms, and coloured birds.'

‘She's only going to Sydney,' said Dinny practically. ‘And that'd be far enough for me. When I grow up, I'm going to Sydney to live. I'll get some work there, and ride on the omnibuses, and go to the theatre—Ma told me all about it.'

‘What sort of work will you do?' asked Harriet curiously. She tried hard to imagine a grown-up Dinny, with boots and piled-up hair, and even a hat. It was a real test of her imagination.

‘I dunno,' said Dinny indifferently. ‘I s'pose I'll have to work in someone's house, one of those big houses, like the Bentleys', in Blackhill—an upstairs an' a downstairs, and a little square thing on top, with all
that fancy iron stuff on it. Only Ma says the Sydney houses are even grander than that.'

‘Being grown-up seems such a bother,' lamented Harriet. ‘Then I shall have to look tidy every minute of the day, and never ever run or shout, or play hide-and-seek. I think I shall hate it.'

‘Oh, no, you won't,' said Dinny positively. ‘You'll have lovely clothes, an' little straw hats with flowers on, an' you won't never have to do anything but sit an' wait for some rich man to come an' marry you. I think you're lucky.'

But Harriet could only shudder at this dismal picture of her future, and change the subject.

‘Is it time for dinner yet? I'm hungry.'

‘Dunno what the time is, but the men haven't knocked off for their dinner. So it's not midday. Let's go round the point a bit—the tide doesn't come up this far.'

On the other side of the headland they found a narrow inlet, with a strip of unmarked, deep golden sand, and barriers of rock that shut out all sound except the murmur of the sea.

‘Has this place got a name?' asked Harriet, gazing round in delight.

‘Not that I know of,' answered Dinny. ‘It's too small to be of any use to the mill.'

‘I'm going to call it Harriet Bay, then. I've always wanted to have a place named after me,' said Harriet. ‘It makes me feel like a real explorer. I shall tell Aidan about it as soon as he comes back.'

‘If I called a place after meself, it would be somewhere a lot grander than this,' said Dinny contemptuously. ‘I'd choose one big enough to be on Mr Burnie's globe, an' all the boys an' girls at school would have to learn it.'

But Harriet surveyed her territory with proprietary pride, and set about writing its name with shells in the sand, above the high-tide mark. When this was done, Dinny, who had been watching with an air of amused indulgence, glanced at the position of the sun and declared that it must be dinner-time.

‘I wish I'd asked Polly for twice as much,' sighed Harriet, searching for the last crumbs. ‘I've never been so hungry in my life.'

To take her mind off the subject of food, and the uneasy thought that many hours must pass before she would eat again, Harriet suggested building a sand-castle.

‘What's that?' demanded Dinny, whose busy life held little opportunity for play.

So Harriet showed her, and presently Dinny began to build a castle of her own, becoming so absorbed that
she ignored the passing of time, and let the tide creep up almost to her toes, and then recede again, without noticing. It was Harriet who finally abandoned her elaborate, shell-encrusted towers and looked up to see the sun's rays slanting over the headland.

‘It must be getting late, Dinny. Should we be going?'

At once Dinny ceased to be a child at play, and became her usual self—an overworked girl with a number of responsibilities. She sprang up.

‘Gracious, yes—it must be at least four o'clock. We'll go up the cliff—it's quicker.'

Each gave a backward glance as they began to climb—Dinny at her sand-castle, and Harriet at the brave row of shells, claiming the tiny bay as her own. Scrambling over the prickly grass and the sharp rocks of the cliff, she wondered if she would ever come here again, or whether her territory would be left to the seagulls and the waves.

Dinny did not wait to say good-bye to her father, who had gone back to the mill, but set off immediately towards the track, at a pace which Harriet found rather trying. In the shady hollow beyond the headland, Harriet suddenly stopped and wailed.

‘Dinny! My boots!'

Dinny groaned.

‘You
are
stupid! Oh, well, we'll just have to go
back for them—you'd never walk five miles without them.'

But Harriet's forgetfulness for once proved to be fortunate. As she and Dinny returned from the beach with the recovered footwear, a horse and buggy appeared on the road coming down from the mill. It was a very smart turn-out, the buggy shining with newness and plenty of polish, and the young chestnut horse fairly bursting with energy and spirit. The driver was a well-dressed, elderly man with thick, white hair and a trim, pointed beard.

‘It's old Bentley,' said Dinny, stepping to the side of the road. ‘That's the buggy he uses to drive himself around. When he's at home in Blackhill, he has the biggest carriage you've ever seen.'

To their surprise, Mr Bentley reined in his horse just as he was passing the girls, and peered intently at Dinny.

‘You're an O'Brien, aren't you? I can take you part of the way home, if that's where you're going.'

Dinny needed no further invitation. She climbed nimbly up on to the seat, followed more diffidently by Harriet.

‘Who is the other little girl?' asked Mr Bentley, as they set off at a brisk trot along the ridge. ‘I haven't seen her out here before.'

Matthew Bentley, although nearly seventy, knew not only each of his many employees, but their wives and children as well. When money was scarce, or illness came, gifts were apt to arrive anonymously in a mill-worker's cottage, and everyone knew who was responsible. Not one of the workers' wives would have spoken a harsh word about Mr Bentley.

Encouraged by the old man's friendliness, Harriet explained who she was, and where she lived. Mr Bentley looked at her with keen interest.

‘It you're one of the Wilmots, then what are you doing journeying round the countryside like this? Don't you have a governess?'

‘We did, but she left,' said Harriet. ‘And now we go to the Barley Creek school, and Father thinks we shall stay at Lillipilly Hill, instead of going back to London. He wasn't sure, at first.'

‘Bit of a change for you all, I dare say,' remarked Mr Bentley. ‘But it would have been even more of a change if you had come here forty-five years ago, as I did. Winneroo was just a camping-place for the blacks, and there wasn't a house between here and Blackhill. I started up my mill with a gang of convicts, and my own bare hands. All the timber was carried by bullock-dray to Blackhill Point, and then shipped. The mail came by horseback to Pittwater, and then by
boat across to Blackhill Bay. And now there's to be a railway through Blackhill before the end of the year.'

‘Then all your timber will go by rail, won't it?' asked Harriet, who was deeply interested in all these details.

‘Well, yes, I suppose so, but you know, now that everything is made easy for us, we don't have the trade we used to have. People don't need shingles when they can get sheet iron—it's much better for roofing, you see, because the new shingles can taint the water that runs off them into the tanks. Once we used to supply a lot of cedar for floors and furniture, but that's all gone now. I believe that in another ten years Bentley's might have to close down, or else start all over again as another business.'

‘But what will my Pa do then?' demanded Dinny, pouncing on the one feature of the story that had any interest for her.

‘Oh, there will be work enough for everyone, I'm sure,' said Mr Bentley. ‘Blackhill will be an important town with the railway coming, and one day this is going to be a great farming district—you mark my words. And tell your father, young lady,' he added, turning to Harriet, ‘if he wants any help in planning his farm, to come to me. That hill would support a magnificent orchard.'

Harriet nodded eagerly, thinking that her encounter with Mr Bentley had indeed been doubly fortunate. She leant back luxuriously against the well-padded seat, and gazed up at the treetops as they seemed to flash across the fading sky. The track she and Dinny had followed that morning would have been impossible for any vehicle—instead, they took a less direct route that eventually brought them on to the Deacon's Flat road about a mile from Dinny's house.

‘I'm afraid you'll have to get down here,' said Mr Bentley. ‘I'm going on to Deacon's Flat to spend the night with my son. Good luck to you, and don't forget to tell your father about my offer, Miss Harriet.'

The steady clip-clop of the horse's hooves died away into the quiet distance, and Dinny and Harriet began to run.

‘I do hope you don't catch it too hard,' panted Dinny. ‘I s'pose I shouldn't have asked you to come, but I'm glad you did.'

‘So am I,' said Harriet fervently. ‘I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I shall see you again when school starts.'

They parted outside the O'Briens' shack, and Harriet scrambled up the hill, suddenly conscious of her torn pinafore, her sandy boots, and a lost hair-ribbon. Once within the boundary of home, she began
to realize the enormity of what she had done. The sun was already dipping out of sight behind the bluegums as she crossed the silent yard and crept into the kitchen.

Turning from the stove, Polly, gave a startled jump, and almost dropped the huge, steaming kettle.

‘Mercy, you gave me a fright! What a day you've given us—your poor mother
has
been in a state!'

‘Have you had tea?' asked Harriet, not very hopefully.

‘'Course we have—hours ago. I'm just gettin' your sister's bath. You'd better go and see your mother. It's as well for you your father ain't home.'

Mrs Wilmot was in the sitting-room, doing nothing, apparently, except waiting for Harriet. And Harriet could only hang her guilty head and let the storm break—though in a secret part of her mind the vision of blue and gold shores still shone bright and clear.

10

Harriet's Bushranger

It was her father who finally made Harriet understand the seriousness of her escapade. He returned home on the following Monday to find Harriet confined to the house in deepest disgrace, awaiting his verdict. Harriet was by this time feeling rather sorry for herself, having decided that her mother was making a somewhat unnecessary fuss about the whole thing.

‘You see, Harriet,' explained Mr Wilmot, ‘you've almost spoilt all our plans—and they were
your
plans, you remember.'

‘What do you mean?' asked Harriet, forgetting the attitude of noble and dignified suffering that she had decided to adopt.

‘You wanted us all to stay here, and to make this our home. And to do that, you had to prove to your mother that you could still grow up in the way she wanted—in fact, that you would not turn into a little savage, through living in the bush. I believe you promised to do just as she asked.'

Harriet thought back to the March day when her father had told her of his decision to stay on at Lillipilly Hill. It seemed quite remote now—she had taken it for granted in the past weeks that they would always remain here.

‘I think I did,' she muttered.

‘I'm sure you did. You expected Aidan to help you with your plans, and he very obligingly did so. Rose-Ann has done her best, too, although she has had to give up a great many things that she likes, by staying here. But what have
you
done, Harriet, to show us that you deserve to have your way?'

‘I did try,' protested Harriet. ‘I practised my music, and I sewed ever so many seams, and I've learnt to do my own hair. I've never run away before—it was because I had nothing to do, and Dinny wanted me to go with her. I know Mother doesn't like Dinny—'

‘Your mother has no objection to Dinny at all,' said Mr Wilmot firmly. ‘From what we hear, she's an extremely hard-working child, and the family is
perfectly respectable. But that does not alter the fact that you deceived your mother, and worried her to such an extent that she is now seriously considering returning to London, taking you and Rose-Ann with her.'

Harriet stared at him in horrified surprise.

‘She won't really, will she? Is it just because of me?'

‘Mostly because of you, yes,' answered Mr Wilmot. ‘She is afraid that either you will do yourself some physical harm if you wander off again, or that you will turn into a creature little better than a gipsy. So you see, Harriet, you've almost ruined your own plan—and I think it was quite a good one. I should much prefer all of us to stay here together.'

‘I won't run away again, I promise—I won't even leave the garden, except to go to school. Truly I won't!' cried Harriet despairingly. ‘Please tell Mother that, and ask her not to take us back to London!'