Summer at Mount Hope (15 page)

‘It makes no difference where we starve,' said the foreman, ‘but the squatters are up against time. They think they can have everything their own way.'

Hadley decided to try reason, starting to explain that the banks wanted money they loaned to the squatters to produce wool for prosperity for everyone. But it was no use: the foreman was laughing again. Still, eventually Hadley got them to agree to put their case to Guston, and asked if they would hold their attack for one more night.

‘I'll put it to my men,' said the foreman, ‘but I can't be held responsible for all of them. A few are fairly bloodthirsty.'

Hadley nodded, and made his way back skirting the camp and scuttling along the creek bank. He ducked behind a tree to piss, only too late noticing a shearer watching a string cast into the low amber water nearby. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes set deep in his head.

‘Are they biting?' Hadley called, buttoning his fly.

‘Fished out long ago,' said the man. ‘I'm hoping for a tortoise. An eel would do. I'd make do with a leech.' He shrugged.

They weren't sinister, these men, thought Hadley. They were downcast and desperate, their self-respect eroded.

Voices in the distance came to Phoeba. Men whistled, dogs barked, footfalls came and went on carpeted wood. She even heard the rustle of passing satin and lace, smelled perfume and cigar smoke. In the blackest part of sleep Widow Pearson was in bed with her, prodding her ribs with a knife, her innards spilling like offal tumbling from a bucket. Then she rode Spot all over the outcrop searching for her lost legs, and the vicar followed her, calling, ‘Come with me!'Alarmed, she forced her eyelids open to see the vicar's chins quivering behind plump fingers pressed together in prayer. His shut eyes made two puckers in his fleshy face.

I have been placed in soft sheets under ceiling roses in a grand house with servants to die, she thought.

Then she felt safe because Rudolph Steel came and sat by her, holding her hand. When he left the fear and pain ebbed and swelled and she was helpless again, waiting in the strange room slipping in and out of a soft, dark sleep. At times the dirt rushed up to her and Centaur bellowed. His hoofs thwacked and she flew, catapulted again towards Hadley's outstretched arms. But he didn't catch her and she woke abruptly.

‘I haven't accomplished anything and it is so easy to die.'

Rudolph Steel was there again. He leaned close to her and smiled. ‘But you will, Miss Crupp, you will,' he said and winked. She felt better.

That evening, Hadley put on his new suit, picked up a bundle of novels and flowers to leave for Phoeba and went up to the big house. He waited in the kitchen until the maid summoned him then followed her to the drawing room. Guston, Marius and Rudolph Steel stood waiting. Guston pointed to the chaise longue and Hadley sat, concentrating on his balance, on the backless end next to Marius. He steadied the books and flowers on his lap.

Mr Overton cleared his throat to speak but Hadley blurted, ‘With respect, sir, you won't get anywhere unless you start at sixpence at least – and in the end, I think you'll find you need to give them a shilling and the shearers will probably ask for thirty shillings a hundred for the rams—'

‘Humbug. We'll get the itinerants and swaggies.'

‘They've burned sheds down before this, Father,' said Marius quietly. ‘They've stolen wagon wheels and eat the oxen.'

‘They will eat The General,' said Hadley. ‘They plan to capture and eat your prize ram, tonight …'

The colour drained from Guston's cheeks.

‘They're just fighting for what they deserve, sir,' continued Hadley, amazed that he'd said it. But it was true. He sat up a little straighter.

‘We cannot pay the rouseabouts a shilling more! We cannot afford thirty a hundred for the rams,' bellowed Guston, but he was bellowing at Rudolph. ‘I won't pay it. I won't lose my property because a bunch of shearers and larrikins and ne'er-do-wells have bled me dry.'

Hadley shifted carefully on the couch, wondering if he should be listening to the fiscal secrets of Overton, seeing Guston so desperate, knowing the shearers were more desperate. Very well, he thought, he would solve this, if it ruined him, and he would solve it without bloodshed. It was no one's fault: these were just bad times.

Rudolph Steel moved to the drinks tray and poured four glasses of whisky as if he owned the place. Hadley's nerves jangled with his new resolve. He took the drink.

‘There's thousands of pounds worth of wool on the sheep's back not to mention the bales waiting to go to the siding,' said Rudolph, gently.

‘We'll shoot them,' shouted Guston. ‘We'll shoot the lot of the ruddy sheep and be done with it.'

Marius stood up and went to his father. ‘Almost everything is riding on this wool, Father. I think we should do as Rudolph suggests.'

Guston thought for a moment, grinding his teeth. Suddenly his eyebrows shot up: ‘They won't get a bloody concert this year, that's for sure.' Each year Mrs Overton played the piano for the shearers but Hadley doubted they'd miss it. Other pastoralists were better thought of anyway, for providing a fiddle and accordion.

Guston turned to the window, his whisky gone in a single swallow. ‘Do as you wish,' he said.

‘We'll go to them in the morning,' said Rudolph,

‘The General,' said Hadley. ‘I don't know if they'll hold off that long.'

They would take turns at the shed in six-hour watches, in pairs, Rudolph announced, with sheep housed in the yards surrounding The General so they would scatter if anyone approached. Hadley and the bookkeeper were allocated first watch; McInness, the other classer, could take the second. And in the morning, Hadley would offer the men a shilling. Hadley declined a second drink and stood up to leave, the books dropping from his lap.

‘You read poetry, Parsons? Not too soft for this are you?'

‘No, sir, these are for Phoeba.'

Guston looked at Marius. ‘Who?'

‘The patient.'

‘Oh shit! The Crupp girl. God, what a bloody mess. It was the plain lass, wasn't it?' Guston held his glass out to Rudolph for a refill. ‘Not the other one.' He smiled salaciously.

‘ “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion”,' quoted Rudolph to himself.

‘She's a strong, smart girl and it'd take more than a bad tempered old rogue to dent her,' said Hadley, firmly, and went to find the maid to give her the books and flowers for Phoeba.

Guston frowned and shook his head. ‘Shame about the horse.'

Hadley's partner, the bookkeeper, did not show up, so he found himself alone on the loading dock in the moon shadow feeling vulnerable, rejected and inadequately armed, with the rifle on his lap. When Guston had handed him the gun he'd said, ‘We don't want a murder on our hands. You can do enough damage with this.'

But it was dark and Hadley's eyes were dry from straining to see movement among the silver and black blotches. The sheepyards stank, the sheep were in poor condition due to the dry season and they'd been housed for days. Some were flyblown and the hot air was thick with the stench and the thrumming of mosquitoes that bred in the puddles of urine and excrement. He couldn't hear well and his thoughts were preoccupied by Phoeba, in her bed, with her brown hair tousled on the pillow and curling about her small, pink lips. He would prove himself, show her, make her admire him. She wouldn't be swayed by an offer of a secure future. He'd have to think of something else.

Suddenly the sheep spooked, pattering in a circle, and he thought he saw the moonlit shoulders of figures skimming from tree to tree.

He stood, his gun raised, and balanced himself on evenly placed feet, although his knees shivered in his trousers and his armpits ran wet. He imagined men driving sharpened sticks into him, belting him with clubs. But it was a lone figure that advanced, strolling, unafraid. ‘This time, I will die,' he thought, but he summoned a menacing voice.

‘Who's that?'

The figure kept coming, boldly, despite the gun at Hadley's eye.

‘Stop!' he cried, his body quaking with fear. Then his finger twitched and a shot cracked loud across the night. Through the ringing in his ears he heard the sheep scattering, bleating, and then someone shoved him and seized his gun, laughing, and the nozzle was at the tip of his nose. Through the silence of Hadley waiting for his life to end he heard the bush behind the shed crackle as shearers retreated – a dozen men scampering over fallen bark and brittle grass. He had frightened them away – all but this one.

He smelled whisky on his murderer's breath and closed his eyes.

‘Damned fool, it's me, the next watch.' It was McInness.

In her sleep, Phoeba had heard the crack, like a thick branch snapping, and she turned over.

Guston, Marius and Rudolph had heard it too, and they raced to Hadley, emerging from the shadows with their arms in the air.

‘Steady-on, it's us,' called Guston.

Hadley lowered his reclaimed gun. In the sheepyard beside the loading dock a figure lay in a thick, green puddle, groaning.

‘Shit, Parsons, is he dead?'

‘No sir, he's … unconscious. Drunk.'

McInness lifted his heavy head from the slime. ‘He hit me.'

Hadley's chin went up and his hands straightened at his sides. ‘I repelled them, sir. I heard them run when I fired the shot. I saved The General.'

Wednesday, January 17, 1894

W
hile Maude prepared the dried fruit again, Robert nailed jute scraps over the holes in the tin walls of his room: this time he knew his banishment to the shed would be a long one. When the cake was in the oven, Maude settled on the front veranda with the looking glass trained on the brougham. Her head ached and it felt like a barbed wire fist pressed down in her pelvis, but the intensity of her pain dulled as long as she watched the two chestnut Hackneys circling around the island of thistles in the middle of the intersection. Marius sat on the box seat with his arm around Lilith's waist; Lilith held the reins in her hands. Maude watched, delighted when her coquettish girl threw her head back laughing and the Hackneys shot off across the reserve. Lilith steered them around the dam and then around and around the dented Sunshine harvester that had been abandoned on the stock reserve. It was missing its nuts and bolts now and was therefore useless. The brougham turned towards Overton and sped towards the pass.

Maude flushed pink under her gown. She felt full of hope for her daughter and the gentleman beside her. Then she remembered her own gay youth, dancing with Robert when they were young and slim, and she felt fond for a moment before a searing rush of envy enveloped her and she was suddenly teary. ‘This wretched change,' she said, suddenly craving something sweet to eat. She went inside for a comforting slice of the second plum cake, still warm from the oven.

Clean linen, wet roses and dusty sheep-manure floated on a summer breeze towards Phoeba, then the smell of lunch wafted in – roast lamb. Her head still seemed unevenly balanced and she had trouble lifting it. Her neck felt too weak and her body seemed to have been cast in barbed wire. At least she could wiggle her toes. ‘Welcome back legs … thank you.' She blinked away tears of relief and tried to sit up but her back wouldn't let her. She flopped down and told the ceiling, ‘At least I am alive.'

On the bedside table a bunch of chrysanthemums from Mr Titterton's garden and the mauve flowers from the jacarandas by the sheep yards sat in a vase, a note from her mother leaned against the lamp. The note assured her that the doctor had told them she would ‘mend all right'. Her father had added, ‘Mind when you first catch your reflection. You look worse than a flattened pomegranate.'

Behind the vase, leaning against the lampshade, was the photograph from the ploughing match – a brown and cream image of Hadley in his new wool suit and boots, a young and smooth-skinned youth with very round spectacles; Henrietta, ramrod straight, bonny, big-boned and grinning like a well-fed cat, her coat incorrectly buttoned; and a straight-backed, firm-jawed girl in her best skirt and jacket staring away from the camera, as if it was not to be trusted. Herself. Both girls had their arms looped through Hadley's; all three wore skin-tight leather riding gloves and there was not a frill, flower or ribbon between them.

A lazy-eyed maid appeared and Phoeba said, ‘I'd like to go to the toilet and I'd like to clean my teeth, please.' They struggled together to the bathroom, its mirror reflecting a girl with a mess of lanky straight hair and one side of her face, as her father had said, like a flattened pomegranate. She looked away quickly and sat for a very long time on the commode, dabbing tears from her eyes and feeling sorry for herself. Life seemed so very precious – one chance, one time to live. Imagine if she'd been born an itinerant, she thought suddenly. No wonder they were upset. Their already sorry lives looked like they were getting worse.

Back in bed she pondered the things that were most important to her life. She was alive – there was nothing beyond that – and now she would stay in her safe home, her corner of the world at Mount Hope, away from floods or drought, the recession, strikers and rebels. Some stolen eggs and a milked goat were not such a threat, just a means of survival for the sundowners. Mount Hope would be her future. She would grow hectares of grapes and have the same, faithful travellers return every year for the harvest. Her wines would win awards and Henrietta, whose mother would die tragically – and soon – would come to live with her in a new, small house that she'd build up near the spring. They would stay together forever. Friends were, after all, essential.

Things were in perspective, thought Phoeba contentedly. Time would heal Hadley and he would marry a squatter's daughter with a generous dowry and they would breed champion ewes and rams at Elm Grove. He would see to the Crupps' grain crop, as he always had, and partner her for the progressive barn-dance at the harvest dance. Lilith would marry someone rich and live somewhere in the Yukon, or England. Even Melbourne would be far enough.