Loving Daughters (8 page)

14

On his way to the rectory Edwards looked in the shed for gardening tools.

He was supposed to keep the sulky there but, using it fairly regularly, he left it under the big tree, something not approved by St Jude's wardens who were complaining among themselves about the deterioration of paint and leatherwork and were clearing their throats to say something before too long.

Edwards looked hard in the gloomy interior. In a corner there was something shovel shaped with a very short handle and a rake with a very long one and big bent and rusty teeth. Not much could be done with those!

He did not bother examining them but went outside to survey the ground between the back door of the rectory and the lavatory where he decided the vegetable garden should be.

He could not picture any production there. The ground seemed hard, as if it would resist disturbing, and the short grass waving about looked as if it was in charge. There were some tufts of foreign growth. One was a wild rose, thorny and half lost in the grass, and against the fence there was some foliage that he thought would be lilies and there were a few geraniums, not low and thick and studded with blooms as in Enid's garden, but grey-stalked like miniature ragged trees and a smell of rankness hanging about them.

He went inside to find the fire had burned and the kettle singing. This cheered him and he made what he called some decent tea and sat in the warmth and drank it with some bread and parishioner's jam, thinking of a discreet time to go and visit Honeysuckle. The day after tomorrow? That left tomorrow stretching interminably.

His day started early for he rang the bell at seven o'clock for a church service. Only once in the six months he had been in Wyndham did he have a congregation, a traveller staying overnight at the hotel and up and waiting for the mail car long before it was due. He heard the bell and scuttled to the church, slipping into a back pew without a sound so that Edwards going through his swooping motions and bowing at the altar as he did when alone, almost slipped on the altar step when he turned and found him. The fellow turned out to be a nuisance. He followed Edwards into the rectory where the fire was out and made it plain that he expected to eat with him.

Remembering the occasion Edwards fell to thinking what a difference if Una (or Enid) had been there, marvelling that he did not give them a thought at the time. He imagined one of them now (which?) bringing tea and toast to the living room fire. He saw eyes shyly lowered and a mane of thick hair brushing a smooth cheek.

He got up sharply and went into his front room as if drawn there by the image. It was tidy, but cold and lifeless. Mrs Watts kept the brass fender polished and the table dusted but this chilled the room rather than giving it a homely look. He never lit a fire there, the kitchen stove being enough for him to wrestle with.

He raised the blind on one of the front windows. A cold and bleak outlook with only a pale light visible in one of the rooms behind the Post Office. Rachel was there eating a solitary meal and he thought if only he could go and sit with her, instead of allowing the cold road and cold outer walls of their houses to separate them.

But Wyndham would be outraged at a man unrelated to a woman visiting her alone after dark.

It would be no use anyway! He would put Enid or Una's face on hers, and listen through her words for a comparison to theirs.

The cold drove him back to the kitchen stove. How long did winter last in this country where he had been told the sun shone all the time? He lit the lamp and saw the glass chimney was dark with smoke, but the light was not so feeble that it did not show up his dirty cups and drying bread.

He should put his things away, he knew, but he was still not sure where they should go, and when he did wash his crockery he left it for Mrs Watts to deal with.

He never used the dishcloth hemmed by a parishioner good at plain needlework, but flicked crumbs from the table onto the floor and then pushed them out the door with his broom. Why did women (Enid and Una) do all these things with such grace it was good to look at them?

His milk was worrying him too. There were two lots on the table and Wilfred due tomorrow with more. Mrs Watts urged him to make cocoa at bedtime but the fire was usually dead out when he thought of it.

He should get a cat! A small thing with a grey heartshaped innocent face sliding around his legs in the friendliest way. Honeysuckle would have cats to give away! He had seen cats there, he was sure he saw Enid once nursing one while sitting on a garden seat. He immediately gave himself a picture of Una with one on her arm, bending her head for her brown hair to mingle with the cat's fur. A pretty sight!

‘That's an idea!' he said aloud, startled to hear his own voice, silent since he left Violet's. The meowing would please him. It was far too quiet.

He took up the lamp and went to his bedroom. Early as it was he decided he would go to bed and read, not the Bible but a book of poems by Samuel Coleridge which his mother had sent him for his last birthday. He found the sonnet about the Virgin Mary feeding the child Jesus and let the book fall on his own breast, savouring the words ‘She hid it not, she bared her breast' and thinking of Enid and Una with their white blouses ballooning over their breasts and the white lace running into the hollow between them. He often followed that with his eyes, disappointed when it stopped.

He turned his attention back to the sonnet and began to think of Small Henry who had to kiss a rubber teat and not the bless'd breasts. Why could he not kiss the breasts of Enid or Una? It didn't seem fair.

He put the book down and blew out his lamp. He should fall asleep quite quickly after that long drive. The prickly edge of the blanket stroked his mouth. A rough kiss, that! He flung it back and laid a hand in the space beside him running it down what he believed would be the length of a woman's body.

Tomorrow would not be too soon to go to Honeysuckle since there were good reasons for a visit. There was his kitchen garden, the cat, and another he just thought of – Small Henry's christening! It would not be out of order for him to introduce the subject to his closest relatives, Enid and Una, since Violet was not a churchgoer. Neither were the Herbert men, Jack showing him the most courtesy the day of the funeral, glad, Edwards suspected, to have him on hand to do the job, instead of bringing a man from Candelo.

Suddenly Edwards sprang out of bed and knelt on the floor. Never in his life before had he gone to bed without kneeling by it at prayer. He needed to punish himself and he would too by delaying the visit to Honeysuckle for a day. Tomorrow he would take the opposite direction. He would walk four miles along the Candelo road to visit the Grubb family. He was reminded today that he had only called on them once since coming to Wyndham, when he passed their little house close to the road with pot plants lining the verandah.

The Grubbs had many yellow-legged children and on that first visit one had come close enough to him to lean against his thigh.

The contact with bone and flesh that seemed no thicker than woollen cloth had startled him at first. It felt alien and he waited for her to move. But she stayed and he found his flesh melting into hers and growing warmer, and he put an arm out and held her there, conscious of her slight waist moving a little for she had sunk her chin into the side of her neck and was giggling, with her eyes on a line of her sisters and brothers against the wall.

Mrs Grubb, a stout woman in dirty clothes she was ashamed of, frowned on their behaviour, telling them with her eyes to go outside and play.

He regretted now that he didn't lift the child onto his knee. I will tomorrow, he thought, warming himself by rubbing his body between the blankets, for his sheets as usual were nowhere to be found. He forgot it was a weekday and the Grubbs children would be at school.

He thought of flesh on flesh, and whichever way he turned he saw a female shape slipping down the road out of sight, and even with eyes shut he strained them trying to decide which it was.

Dear God, don't let them slip out of my life forever, he thought, remembering the archdeacon. He gripped his knees hard through his nightshirt, raising them high against his stomach, and was that way until he fell asleep.

Next day was warm and unseasonable and Mrs Watts said she thought it would rain because the cats' saucers at home were black with ants.

These strange Australians! Edwards thought. In England the rain fell gently without surprise, as if doing what was expected of it, and dozens of times opening the door in Kensington to walk to the gardens he had found the street moist and black and the people amazingly in mackintoshes, although it had been fine only hours earlier. Nothing told you it was going to rain in England!

As if he were still there he told Mrs Watts he was visiting a parishioner, and when her eyes went round for information on the identity Edwards turned to get into his short jacket, as if he was off to see someone in the thick of Notting Hill who would remain nameless. I simply will not fall into the habit of telling everyone everything, he said to himself going off. He turned his back on the road to Honeysuckle (he knew Mrs Watts had an eye behind the window blind) and strode out, the sky clear above him with only a crow flying across it. Aaah, aaah it called, and Edwards thought aaah yourself!

The day was already part gone and he was bound to fall asleep quickly tonight after his long walk. Nine o'clock would not be too early to set out in the morning. He would not go too fast, detour a little down the Burragate turn-off and stand on the little bridge watching the creek, winter brown and silent among the reeds. It would be hard to waste time though!

The visit to the Grubbs was not successful. The house was deserted although the front door was open and there were cats on the chairs inside. A dog rose from the verandah and barked savagely. When it stopped and lay down with head on paws, it growled in a way that was even more terrifying. Edwards was afraid to move lest the thing leap on him, and stood riveted to the top step until Mrs Grubb came through the house with something that looked like scraps of hay in her hair and a long fork in her hands.

She seemed as frightened to see him as he was of the dog, which got to its feet and circled and barked and lowered its hindquarters and shook them, throwing its head about until Mrs Grubb flung a foot in its direction and it went growling over the edge of the verandah and towards the back of the house. Inside, Mrs Grubb sat with the fork between her knees and tried to make conversation with Edwards, who tried not to stare at her hair and make a game of distinguishing hair from hay, surprisingly alike in colour and texture.

In a very shot while there was a voice from the back door of the kitchen which was down a step from the front room, obviously that of the elder Grubb boy at home from school that day.

‘Dad said get rid of who it is and come and help before it rains,' called the voice, and Edwards got to his feet so suddenly the chair scraped the floor and the dog, fearful of an attack on Mrs Grubb, raced into the room barking around Edwards's knees. Above the noise Mrs Grubb explained that the hay stacks had been left uncovered during the dry spell and they had to be covered now that it appeared rain was coming.

Edwards got himself away quickly, sorrier for Mrs Grubb, who he expected would receive the rough end of Mr Grubb's tongue when she returned to the hay.

He would not let the incident trouble him, he told himself, hearing the dog's bark become fainter. By the time he reached the rectory he was in a cheerful frame of mind, especially when the stove, left warm by Mrs Watts, burned up obligingly with the wood he selected for it. He was improving, he thought. By jove he'd get the hang of things yet! He went out in the still afternoon to pray in the church, kneeling in a pew like an ordinary parishioner. ‘And make life easier for the Grubb woman,' he finished up, not quite ready yet to include the husband and the boy.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, he thought, his head on a clean pillowship. He slept so soundly he did not hear the rain.

15

Una, on the Honeysuckle verandah next morning, frowned on the rain splashing on the road. Her hands behind her back beat angrily on her rump. Enid was bustling about the living room getting it in order, trying through her noisy movements to get Una to come and do her share. Una's remote profile seemed to be looking through the rain expecting something to emerge. Enid, smacking cushions and putting them out of reach of Alex's head (which he had lately taken to liberally smearing with hair cream), felt a lightness of spirits not entirely due to the beneficial rain on her young oleanders. She's looking out for him but he won't be coming in this rain!

‘It would be a good day to rearrange Henry's room,' she called out.

‘Rearrange Henry's room,' Una muttered. She had taken lately to repeating Enid's sentences in a low voice with her face turned from her. She sat suddenly on the step, drawing her knees up under her skirt and fondling the tips of her shoes.

‘Put your legs down there, someone might go past!' Enid said.

‘Someone might go past,' Una muttered with her mouth on her knees.

‘I thought of making a little sewing room and studio of it! Asking Father first, of course!'

Una laid a cheek on her knees and closed her eyes. ‘Asking Father first, of course,' she murmured.

‘Well?' said Enid in the doorway, looking at Una's curved back. How sad and dejected a back can look! Una's closed eyes were seeing a studio, but not of Henry's room. She could feel his hands on her waist, for he stood with her before a painting – of Small Henry! She sprang to her feet and turned with her back to the rail. ‘I'm going to paint Small Henry!' she said.

‘Well, then have a nice little studio to do it in!' Enid said.

She transferred Small Henry's frog-like shape from the couch where she had last seen it to Una's canvas. Blast the rain! She could have gone to see him if the day was fine. Una went yesterday!

Behind her was the disordered living room, vases together emptied of the funeral flowers and waiting to be refilled. She had planned to arrange pieces from her shrubs, as shown in the women's pages of the
Sydney Mail
, the editor concerned at the housewife missing the blooms of summer. Massed red and orange berries and green ferns. She intended gathering an armful when the rain eased a little. If it didn't she would have to put the vases in the pantry until tomorrow.

Tomorrow! It was too far away! The desolate room silently begged her to restore it to order.

Oh, blow you! She turned her back on it and went to the kitchen to stoke the stove and take bread from the crock for sandwiches. The men would be in for tea as usual in a few minutes, Jack having found something for them to do in spite of the rain. The bread was getting down and there was only one teacake left. Where did yesterday get to?

Suddenly she cried ‘Una!' surprised and frightened at the small scream edging her voice. Una came with a curious face. Enid's flushed cheeks and cold and red-tipped nose were bowed over her cutting knife. Una took cups from the dresser quietly and with a grace Enid saw and envied. She wanted to sniff and use a handkerchief but avoided both.

‘I can't do everything on my own!'

‘If I go to Uncle Percy's that's what you'll be doing!' Una said.

‘You said you weren't going!'

‘You're making me a little studio instead!'

‘I'm trying to make you happy, Una!'

‘You are?' Una threw the words over her shoulder as she sauntered with a tray into the living room.

Enid felt a trembling inside her throat. This will never do! She must say nothing, nothing at all.

But Una returning said that Jack would not be too happy with the state of the living room.

‘Then help me as you are supposed to!' Enid flared. She flung the knife down and ran to the bedroom, needing courage to look at herself in the mirror. If he saw her like this!

The rain slanted down past her window, but she didn't see it now as a deterrent. He would come if he wanted to!

She took the pins out of her hair and did it, and poured water into the wash basin, but it looked too cold and uninviting to wash, so she dabbed at her face with the towel trying to take the redness away. She stroked some cream around her nose and dusted on a little powder. That was better!

Outside the window the rain fell hard enough to part the clumps of violets and send the pebbles on the footpath to gather under the gate. It really was too wet for an open sulky.

She looked back at the mirror standing erect and arranging her hands along the bedhead. She was not as tall as Una but elegant and fine looking, as she believed people said.

She saw herself as a portrait hanging. On the rectory wall looking down on him at his desk. She lowered her eyes as if this was how she would look in the picture. My sister-in-law painted my wife, she heard him say, his brown eyes proud. The archdeacon was visiting, very pleased with what she had done to the rectory.

More suitable, much, much more suitable. (Of course I am!)

She moved her lips, wondering if she dared redden them a little as Una was doing.

Una put her head suddenly through the door and Enid jumped, caught out. She shook some hand cream from a bottle onto her hands and began to slide them up and down as if this was what she was there for.

‘Please knock!' she said.

‘Why?' Una said, leaving her face there for a moment before withdrawing it.

When Enid went to the living room, Alex was there in his motoring cap and leather gloves and George was finishing off the teacake alone at the little table. Jack with his jowls showing reddish displeasure was stoking the fire. His teacup was on the mantelpiece. Una, having taken her blue cape from the back verandah where she had had it airing since the funeral, was fastening it over her breasts.

‘Alex hasn't had the car out in the rain yet,' she said. ‘We are going to see how it goes.' Enid poured herself some tea, keeping her flushed face from them. Were they going Wyndham way? She put the pot down with a trembling hand.

Una's eyes were watching her hands, smoothing and straightening her cape. ‘If we went Wyndham way we could call and see Violet and Small Henry!'

Enid had no appetite for her tea. But he wouldn't come out of the rectory in this rain!

Alex pretended not to hear. He was going Pambula way. There was a hotel two miles this side where he could stop and show the Barretts the car. Una could sit in the parlour while he had a drink. The Barretts had the first wireless in the district, a feeble thing compared to his machine! There it was by the front gate waiting for them, defying the rain, crouched there with the water rushing under its wheels and down the side curtains. Not a drop inside! He couldn't wait to get in warm and dry with the chance of passing open sulkies and partly exposed buggies with bleak, damp figures angrily slapping at horses as if blaming them for the conditions.

Una was holding the car rug she had chosen in big green checks to match the paint and leather. Jack's face said plainly he had no intention of joining the motoring party. George's watery, bulbous eyes were on the back of Alex's neck, asking if he was going Violet's way. Not that it would be much good to him. He would be lucky to have a chance to whisper to Violet about the Skinner woman above Alex wanting them to talk about the car and Una losing her head over that baby. Alex stood in the doorway with his back to them, which might have been inscribed with the words: ‘Come, if you're coming!'

‘I certainly can't go gallivanting off,' Enid said, throwing her eyes around the room and resting them longest on Una's bent head. Jack's face grew ruddier with pleasure. She would put the living room in order and he would look on as he liked to, seeing her hands moving among the vases and ornaments as Nellie's used to. ‘Feet up, Father,' she would say cheerfully as she brushed the linoleum around the hearth then laid the rug back in place. Those were Nellie's words, for she often did housework after the children were in bed, when the two of them did the milking alone.

Times were better now! The sound of the Austin moving off brought this sharply to him, going in the direction of Pambula. Enid lifted her head to listen and when she went back to her work he thought her face was soft and much happier. She was glad to have them out of the way, for George was in the lumber room working on her closet and the two of them were cosy together! She liked nothing better than making the place nice for him.

She wrapped her arms around her vases now. ‘I'm getting some ferns and things for the garden,' she said. ‘And I'll bring us a pot of fresh tea. That was awful.'

Of course it was. The flibbertigibbet was too fond of pleasure to attend properly to her work. The room brightened and he saw through the window that the rain had eased to a misty drizzle. Rain at the right time, just before spring ploughing! After his tea he would take Horse (a foolish name given by Una to the bay he bought as a foal that seemed to have been born over-developed) and ride to Halloween.

Ned was going there less and less lately and he had kept away too, what with Henry coming and going and the girl dying, there had been no time. He was a little uncomfortable about Ned, the only Herbert to volunteer for service at the front. But Nellie had wept on his chest one night and begged him not to let their boys go. Alex might have done quite well for himself, but George, unable to slit the throat of a pig, would have been less successful. He would have thought Ned would have picked himself up by now, but he seemed sometimes to barely know where he was.

He would talk to the Hoopers about their plans for the spring. He would do that much for old Ned, fourteen years younger than himself and not likely to weather the years as he was doing. The Hoopers were a strong pair, a bit elderly but there was the advantage of their not springing children out every other year.

Enid was back with his fresh tea, and she had toasted some bun just to his liking. He could watch her finishing off her flower arranging, a pretty sight with a mist of rain on her brown hair.

The rain had almost stopped. Nellie used to say if it stopped before twelve o'clock it would be fine for the rest of the day. His Nellie sleeping so close to that girl!

Enid there putting her head to one side to make sure the vases looked right. He and Nellie had worked hard and Nellie hadn't lived long enough to enjoy the better life, but it was good for Enid. Agitated he stood and took up his hat from the fender where he had dropped it. He would like to hold her hard against him, moving a leg up her hip and down again, hinting at more when the day was over. It was what he did with Nellie!

He was about to call to her, for what foolish reason he did not know, but her attention was taken by something visible at the edge of the window blind. He saw her straighten and hold herself upright with the tips of her fingers on the couch back. He strode to the window to see.

That minister fellow striding down the road! A bit bedraggled, his black clothes looking blacker in the wet and making for Honeysuckle it appeared. The fellow was here two days ago! That funeral job was done. What call was there to come traipsing back?

Enid was smoothing at her cushions in a distracted way. She had no time to entertain him. She had mutton to roast for dinner, she told him so! Jack's jowls grew very heavy seeing the fellow steer towards Honeysuckle gate.

‘Don't worry, Father,' Enid said, gently tipping her head towards him and closing her eyes, almost leaning upon him. ‘George is here. You can go off as you planned to!'

Her gentle voice concerned for him, her body nearly upon his! Confused, happy, angry he crushed his hat on and made his way across the linoleum to the back hall. Rest assured she would get rid of the fellow quickly!

Enid waited for the back door to slam, then smoothed her hair and her nose, brushed briefly at her skirt, glad she was without an apron, and waited half a minute – so long she was afraid he might turn and go! – before opening the door to his knock.