Jessica (29 page)

It would be best for all concerned if you will see your way to state in your letter simply that Meg is expecting, so that we may use this confirmation to its greatest effect when my husband and I visit the father of the young man.

I would be so very grateful if you will oblige us with this preference, as, at your own suggestion, we are anxious to put right this matter as soon as possible so that the child may be born within wedlock. I beg you to destroy this letter so that it may not prove a future source of suffering to us should it ever come into the possession of other interested parties.

Yours sincerely,

Hester Bergman (Mrs) nee Heathwood.

Joe leaves in the morning, riding all day, and is ushered into the old doctor's surgery in the late afternoon, carrying the flitch of bacon carefully wrapped in cheesecloth. ‘Sit down, Mr Bergman, I had not expected you back so soon,' Nathaniel Merrick invites.

Joe tries to conceal his nervous state. He places the bacon down, leaning it against the desk. ‘Doctor, a nice bit o' bacon, Hester thought you might fancy a slice or two for yer breakfast,' Joe begins. Then, lost for further words, he adds quickly, ‘Cured with a bit o' red gum honey, like they done in Denmark.'

‘Thank you, very kind of you.' Nathaniel Merrick clears his throat. ‘What was it you wanted to see me about, Joe?'

Joe immediately feels more comfortable. ‘Doctor, you remember my wife, Hester Heathwood?'

The old man hesitates. Joe fears suddenly that he doesn't remember Hester and the letter will come to naught. ‘Heathwood, ah yes, an old name around these parts. The Heathwoods have always been with me. There were a few of them, still a few around.'

‘Yes, well she gimme this letter to give to you.' Joe takes Hester's letter from his coat pocket and hands it to the doctor.

The physician places the envelope down in front of him, then realises Joe is still standing. ‘Sit, Joe, please.'

Joe sits facing the doctor and watches as he fusses with his eyeglasses and then turns his attention to the opening of Hester's letter. He uses a silver and enamel paper-knife and his hands shake something terrible, so that he makes several attempts to insert the knife into the corner of the envelope. Joe notices how very old the physician is. He is feeling old himself and his back hurts from the long ride into town. Not too long for this world, that one, he thinks to himself, immediately feeling a little better.

After a while Nathaniel Merrick looks up and Joe sees that he is amused. ‘Well, well, boys will be boys, Joe Bergman. I can't say anything's changed in the fifty years I've been in practice.' He looks up at the ceiling as if he is trying to recall something. ‘Oh, yes,' he says, chuckling to himself, and recites:

‘When apples are red

and nuts are brown

skirts come up

and trousers down'

The old doctor doesn't look to see if Joe is amused, it's enough that he has remembered the rhyme. ‘She's a fine-looking young filly as I recall. Bit narrow in the hips, though — she'll need a midwife when her time comes.'

He places Hester's letter to one side and reaches for a writing tablet before smiling at Joe. ‘Happy to oblige, Joe Bergman. There's no sense in making unnecessary trouble for your lass.' He reaches for his pen, briefly rubs his thumb and forefinger across the surface of the steel nib and then further tests its point with his thumb. Then he dips it into the ink-pot and says, ‘Meg, was it?'

Joe swallows and nods. ‘Meg Charlotte Bergman, doctor.'

The old physician begins to write, then pauses. ‘I seem to recall the name “Jessie” when I attended her?'

Joe has been primed by Hester in case this should happen. ‘It's what we calls her, you know, her nickname, like.'

The doctor sighs and then continues writing, the steel nib of his pen scratching Joe's lie across the width of the snowy white paper.

Joe is elated, but doesn't show it, careful to keep his face without expression. ‘Thank you, doctor. Most grateful for yer help.'

Merrick chuckles. ‘I'm too old to make judgements, Joe Bergman. But if I was younger with a more inquisitive mind I'd say your wife is up to something, eh? A very clever letter, worthy of her old aunt.' He thinks for a moment. ‘Agnes Heathwood — a fine-looking but most mischievous and interfering woman, always up to something. Clever and complicated as a cat's cradle.'

Joe leaves for home that same evening, crossing the river and continuing on for two hours before making camp for the night to allow his horse to rest. Shortly before dawn he sets out again, knowing that they'll have to set off for Narrandera in a few days to catch the train for Sydney.

They will have to leave Jessica behind to care for the selection and take their chances that no one will see her.

Joe wonders to himself how wise it is to tell her about Meg's pregnancy to Jack Thomas, but he can think of no other explanation for their going to Sydney. He's not silly enough to think his youngest daughter has gone ratty in the head. He wonders if he should stay behind and allow Hester and Meg to confront Jack with Dr Merrick's letter.

Joe sighs heavily. Hester will know what to do, and anyway he is too tired these days to think for himself. Lately he's been getting pains in the chest and down his left arm. He finds himself panting after the least exertion. ‘I'm losing me wits,' he mutters to himself. ‘A man's goin' out backwards.'

Hester and Meg are excited when, on Joe's return, they hear the news. ‘There's no time to be lost, we must leave for Sydney in the morning,' Hester declares.

‘Who's gunna tell Jessie?' Joe asks.

‘You should, Joe,' Hester answers.

Joe looks down, examining his fingernails. ‘Nah, I don't think so,' he says softly, though he knows it is weak. ‘It's women's business.'

Hester gives a long-suffering sigh, though she is secretly pleased. More and more she is taking charge. ‘As usual I have to do the dirty work,' she says mournfully to cover her satisfaction.

At tea that night, Hester breaks her silence to Jessica. ‘Jessica, we have some news,' she announces.

Jessica jumps at the sound of her mother's voice directed at her. So surprised is she to hear her name that her eyes glisten with tears of relief. ‘Yes, Mama,' she manages in no more than a whisper.

‘Your father, Meg and I are going to Sydney tomorrow.'

Jessica wipes away her tears. ‘Sydney? But that's where Jack is!'

‘Yes, well, as a matter of fact, we're going to see Jack.' Jessica cannot at first comprehend what her mother is saying. ‘But why?' she asks finally. ‘Meg is pregnant to him.'

‘Pregnant? Meg? To Jack?' Now Jessica simply cannot believe her ears and her hand goes to her heart. ‘But how, Mama?'

‘Oh you stupid girl! You of all people!
How!'
Jessica bites her lower lip, her eyes brimming. ‘Please, Mama, can I come too?'

Joe, who has his head bowed and seems to be examining his fingernails, now looks up. ‘No, girlie. Yiz'll stay here and take care o' things.'

‘And stay out of sight,' Hester adds, her voice hard. Jessica rises from the table, unable to see for the tears that blind her. She brushes roughly past Meg, who draws away from her, pulling her arms up against her breasts as if repulsed by her touch. Jessica runs to her room, where she can contain her emotions no longer and begins to howl.

Her grieving can be heard in the kitchen and Meg looks at her mother and shakes her head.

‘Oh, God, will we never be rid of the trouble she causes?' Hester cries.

‘Jesus Christ, what have we done?' Joe cries. ‘A man ought to be ashamed of hisself.'

Hester turns and admonishes him. ‘Joe Bergman, don't you back down now!'

They leave just before sunrise, with the winter morning bitterly cold and the frost white on the ground. Jessica can hear a crow cawing in the cow paddock, though it's still too early for the other birds. There has been a fall of rain overnight, too little to matter much, but the early morning air is sharp and sweet and the dust dampened down under a clear blue sky.

Neither Hester nor Meg speaks to Jessica as they step up into the sulky and cover their knees with a rug. Joe stops to give her instructions, though he knows Jessica can manage on her own well enough and it is only an excuse to speak with his younger daughter.

‘It'll be better when we're back, you'll see,' Joe says, touching his daughter's arm. ‘There's a lamb fresh slaughtered in the cool house, and after that there's bacon.' He stands awkwardly, looking down at his boots, then says slowly, ‘We'll be gone a fortnight, less I hope, certainly no more. Look after yerself then, eh, girlie.'

Jessica's teeth are chattering from the early morning cold and she hugs her chest. ‘Father, will you give Jack a message for me?' she asks quietly.

‘Now Jessie, you know I can't do that. What have you done? Wrote a letter?'

‘No, Father, just a message, for you to tell him.' She looks at Joe, her eyes appealing to him. ‘It can't do no harm, Father. Tell him, “Tea Leaf will be here when you get back.'”

‘Tea Leaf? Tea Leaf will be here when he gets back?' Joe smiles. ‘Don't see no harm can come from saying that,' he says, happy to be able to do something for his sad little daughter.

‘No Father, tell it exact. “Tea Leaf will be here when
you
get back.” , ‘Tea Leaf, eh? That what he calls yiz?'

It takes all day to get to Narrandera, where they put up for the night at the home of Hester's ageing father and Dolly, his second wife twenty years his junior. Dolly is the widow Auntie Agnes sent Henry Heathwood down to Sydney to find at the Easter Show. She was to be Hester's replacement behind the counter and in the kitchen, in order that her spinster niece might marry big, silent Joe Bergman.

Dolly is a cheerful soul who now runs the shop with the help of a young female assistant. She makes them feel most welcome and thoroughly at home. Henry Heathwood, always of a morbid disposition and now in his dotage, continues in his cheerless ways. His mind has taken to wandering of late and he no longer works in his haberdashery shop. Instead he spends most days seated in an old wicker chair under the grapevine in the backyard, mumbling to himself and dribbling down his chin. He is too feeble even to follow in the tradition of the Heathwood men. Most of them spent their old age as colourful local identities, which, among the town's middle-class tradesmen, is the euphemism for one of their kind being in a constant state of inebriation.

The express train for Sydney is due to leave at 9.45 a.m. and Joe has only just enough time to get to the recruitment office to obtain the papers he will need in order to visit Jack Thomas at the Victoria Barracks in Sydney.

Dolly packs them a splendid hamper and gives Meg a new bonnet. She proudly claims, ‘It came up unadorned from Melbourne and I've titivated it a bit — it's wonderful what a bit of ribbon and a bow or two can do. I made the red velvet roses myself,' she adds proudly. Dolly then tells them she is of a mind to branch into hats as she feels she has a flair for decoration. Meg says she fears it is a little ostentatious with her plain brown dress and its white Chinese lace collar. ‘Nonsense, child,' Aunt Dolly insists, ‘hats bright as peacock birds are all the rage in Sydney and Melbourne.'

Apart from coming into Sydney by boat as a young boy from Denmark, Joe has only ever visited the town on two other occasions, both towards the end of the last century when old Queen Victoria was still on the throne. His memory is of a busy place, too many people, all of them talking at the same time. Of shoulders bumped in the street without so much as an apologetic grunt. Of smoke-filled pubs with tiled walls and floors, their polished hardwood counters awash with spilled ale and the approach to them three rowdy drinkers deep. And ever more noise, the clatter and clanging of the cable and electric trams, of coaches and traps, sulkies and wagons of every description and every cross-street jammed with people hurrying somewhere, like a colony of ants on the march.

But the Sydney they come into seems to have taken on a different dimension. They've seen a good many young men on the train wearing the bush on their faces like a weary smile, some dressed in patched trousers and broken stockmen's boots, others neat as squatters' sons at a picnic dance, and all of them coming in to enlist even before there has been an official call to arms. War has not yet been declared but the rumour of its coming has swept through the bush to flush out the young bucks who have been weaned to a rifle and are eager to the fray. Word has it that the city blokes will go first and these young bushmen don't want to miss out on the grand adventure which some of the punters are betting will be over in just a few months.

The whistles of the self-important, black-uniformed, peak-capped conductors, the hiss and spit of steam, the yells and squeals, laughter, babble and shouted commands, quite take their breath away.

‘A regular Sodom and Gomorrah and Tower of Babel all at once!' Hester shouts, cupping her hand against Meg's ear. Meg,for her part, stands wide-eyed. She has never seen so many young blokes together and she tries to imagine them in uniform, with a band blaring and them marching off to war, rifle over one shoulder, free arm swinging, their jaws clamped tight with pride. She can feel the pounding of her heart as she observes how the young men look at her in Aunt Dolly's hat. Their eyes hungry, devouring her breasts and trim waist, darting away shyly when she dares a glance at them.