Loving Daughters (16 page)

Palmer saw their shoulders shaking.

Now he felt some slight resentment that there was a visitor at the house. Mavis may not be pleased at stretching the meal to fill an extra stomach, a hollow one if he knew Edwards.

A churchman calling unexpectedly was seen as his responsibility. Mavis could take it out on him subtly during the meal and openly afterwards.

He hung his hat on the stand and saw in the mirror there the reflection of her face, absorbed and quite soft as she set the table. She did not look resentful. Thank you, Lord!

Edwards wore a strained look. Something wrong at Wyndham? Of course there would be! He got the dregs appointed to that backwater.

Palmer expanded in his chair feeling that Edwards was shrinking in his. Through the window he could see, beyond Mavis's neat garden, part of the solid old school he had just left. That was over for a week! Candelo, quivering nervously those mornings he went there, seemed settled now, snugly at peace, wearing a small and gentle smile like his.

A good place this! He had done very well. Poor, unhappy Edwards! What fresh trouble was that awful little settlement giving him? Palmer blinked his contentment while Edwards's head was inclined towards the window through which there came a volume of noise. Of course it would startle Edwards, unused as he was to anything but sleepy, silent Wyndham.

A muted roar was in the air, no words distinguishable, an urgent chorus, not from finely tuned instruments, no murmuring liquid background, but the beat of feet on earth, the final crescendo the crash of wood on wood, as a gate slammed to.

What on earth? said Edwards's startled brown eyes. There was Mavis flashing from kitchen to dining room with a bowl of freshly whipped potatoes, and there were other smells, fragrant and stomach stirring.

Palmer rose with patronizing energy. ‘The children out of school for dinner!' he said. ‘They're a high spirited, happy lot! Extremely intelligent as well. I quite enjoy my morning there!' He led the way to the dining room.

There was no point in Edwards making the trip to Bega after all. After dinner, Palmer, remaining politely uncurious during the meal (church matters were never discussed in the presence of wives and children), used the telephone in his study to confirm what he suspected. The archdeacon was away for a week, visiting a married daughter in Goulburn and only the curate was in charge.

Palmer sat with a flourish after clicking the receiver inside its metal holder and moved a blotter tidily before him. The room was neatly furnished, with no dust anywhere and some flowers on a bookcase.

Edwards thought of the table that passed for his desk in his living room, mostly strewn with his writing pad, magazines borrowed from Honeysuckle and socks dropped there after a search for holes, usually found in abundance.

Palmer motioned him to sit on the chair facing his desk, but Edwards remained standing, holding his hat, seeing a little frill developing at the edge, through the sun and rain beating upon it. He dropped it to his side.

There had been canned salmon for dinner. Edwards ate with relish and envy, believing it to be part of abundant delicacies in the larder, unaware that it was a treat kept by Mavis for rare occasions. He had noticed the children eating slowly of the tender moist flesh, giving silent credit to their mother for their good manners.

He did not know the unexpected treat had a soothing effect on their small troubled hearts. As it frequently happened, they had spent most of their playtime pressed together in a corner of the weathershed, sheltering each other from the jibes of classmates, isolating them, punishing them for their father's presence in the schoolroom.

Mavis came in with a tray of tea for the two of them to finish their meal in the intimate and male confines of the study.

Edwards said he could not stay any longer. ‘I must be off before the afternoon closes in,' he said, looking at the sky through the window, as if instructing it to cloud over.

‘Please don't get up,' he said to Palmer.

Stay there and pretend you're the archdeacon for a while longer!

Mavis shook the cushion on the chair he had sat in with a light and tender movement of her large, bony hand. When he took it to shake he liked the supple feel and he may have imagined a curling of her fingers inside his palm. I'd like to sit and talk with her again, he thought, telling himself her face said the same of him.

‘Thank you for all your kindness,' he said in a low voice, for Palmer had come to the study door.

‘Oh no, thank you,' she said, puzzling both of them.

When he was gone she turned her back on Palmer and straightened the doily where the tea tray had been.

‘Did he say what he wanted of the archdeacon?' Palmer said, the letdown putting an irritable edge to his voice.

She decided not to tell him. She should, if she wanted him to take the side of Edwards in the matter of an early marriage.

She didn't want an early marriage for Colin Edwards! She remembered suddenly she did not learn from him which Herbert girl he wanted to marry. Let it be neither!

‘Perhaps his church roof is leaking,' she said.

30

He might well leave the church. He would make a new attempt to see the archdeacon and tell him he could no longer bear the confines of his appointment to Wyndham. He was in the prime of life, he wanted marriage, he would not spend the next eighteen months celibate! He would find other work. He tried to see himself in an occupation of which Enid would approve. Una would not mind anything. But for Enid he would need to be a teacher, a bookkeeper, or a farmer although he could scarcely manage any of these.

The sulky bowled along the road towards Wyndham, dust flying around his horse's feet, the harness on the brown back tapping it gently, now and again a shake and a snort, a dipping of the head as if to say, this is more like it, be a sensible fellow and go home and forget all that nonsense.

Just ahead of him the Grubb children lined the road, let out of the little school a half mile down one of the turn-offs, their classmates taking other tracks into the hills where there were three or four other farms.

The heart of Edwards softened at the sight of them, particularly the little girl he had nursed in the house during his first visit. There she was yards behind the others with the neck of her dress undone at the back, appearing too big for her, perhaps one handed down from an older sister. The hem brushed her naked calves and he saw her little feet were bare. Edwards thought of the road scraped with frost of a morning.

He pulled the horse up alongside her. She turned her face and there it was as he remembered it, under thick brown hair like Una's, remembering their intimacy with a sly, shy twinkle in eyes as brown as Una's were.

‘Come up,' he said, and she was on the sulky stirrup in a moment and the others, an older girl and two big boys came together in a little bunch, one of the boys embarrassed at the memory of delivering his father's message to the house and hastening Edwards's departure.

‘Climb in, all of you,' Edwards said, and they did, the guilty one keeping his eyes down and feeling obliged to take the worst place in the sulky, on the floor among feet, huddled there with a face pressed to scarred knees.

The sulky shafts tipped, and the horse's back broadened as both adjusted to the load, and after a few strained steps the horse settled into a trot, and the swaying sulky sent the little brown-haired one close against Edwards's arms, where she remained gripped to his flesh to avoid slipping down the sloping seat on top of her brother. The warm little kitten of a thing! He did not want to shake the reins in case his arm disturbed her, the chill of separation more than he could bear.

She pressed her chin into his shoulder to whisper: ‘Where is your baby today?'

The others heard and expected to be tipped from the sulky there and then. The boy next to her dug an elbow into her side, the girl next to him turned her head to give all her attention to the spinning sulky wheel, the boy on the floor pinned his head between his knees so he wouldn't hear if something more terrible was to come.

Edwards laughed, he couldn't help it, which in the children's view was worse than a rebuke.

The little thing had him confused in a relationship with Small Henry! There was gossip about Small Henry's future and this little sweet, innocent thing, knowing Small Henry was somewhere near him, associated him with fatherhood. The tongues that were long and moved freely in this place were coupling him with Enid or Una and this little one had added Small Henry. The little thing with her pink, shamed face crushed to his shoulder might well have spoken what could become a fact.

Small Henry should not grow up in the house of Ned and Violet, him with his neurosis and her with resentment against the role thrust upon her. And if the hospital came to pass, that was no place for a child. Women moaning in childbirth in a terrifying way. Once he visited the maternity hospital in Bega soon after his arrival from England, filling in for the curate who was ill with influenza. He walked in on a moaning woman the nurse did not have time to get out of his way. He never forgot the woman's eyes begging him to do something. He looked down on the swirl of hair on the crown of the little girl's head, so like Una's. Una loved Small Henry, holding him as she did as if he were moulded to her own body.

He would take that baby in his arms and see what it felt like next time he was at Violet's. This very afternoon! He moved an arm a little sharply to hurry his horse along and the little girl looked up, thinking it a rebuff.

No, little one, I love you too. All soft, innocent things, I love. Una I love!

31

He went straight to Violet's to apologize for going off to Candelo without asking if there was any errand he could do for her.

‘But I'm not troubled about any apology,' he said to his honest eyes in the mirror, as he brushed himself up for the visit. ‘It's Small Henry I must see.'

He knocked for several minutes, seeing no sign of life through the open door down to the back where the fowls were picking in desultory fashion at the wire enclosure.

A little wind swirled the dust inside, ruffling the feathers of those crouched waiting near the dry troughs. Edwards waited too in the creeping silence for footsteps or a flash of Violet's dress in the bush or on the track made by feet, mainly Ned's, into the gully.

A great gully of silence there, the gums and the shivery grass and the blackened stumps waiting like the fowls, as if they too had a spirit locked up inside them, and eyes that blinked without expression, and voices that had no sound, but a power to deepen the menacing quiet.

Edwards glanced behind him across to the Post Office, closed against the cold, then along to the verandah of the store which no one crossed, and where the windows, hung with the hurricane lanterns, held the dusty china and garden forks and spades that were there when he came to Wyndham.

But it was less frightening than Violet's empty hallway and what lay beyond, so he kept half turned in that direction while he knocked some more.

He was about to give up and leave for the rectory when he heard the cry of Small Henry.

Three grunts came first, then a small wail that was more of a question. Is someone there to get me? There was no cry following for a moment, then some more grunts, angry and peevish, then a vibrant yelling that told even Edwards's inexperienced ears there was no way he was going to stop unless someone came.

Edwards felt he was hung there, caught by some invisible thread, permitted to squeeze through the skylight if this were possible, but with no licence to open the door and stride in.

Just when he thought Small Henry's last cry was a death choke, there was a flutter of a heliotrope skirt through the gums and he saw Violet's head and waist attached to it, and when she was a little closer he saw her largish face pinched to a smaller size and her mouth anxious. Edwards, feeling partly responsible for her distress, had to be stern with some fluttering in his chest, and fold his arms and tip his head sideways, as was his habit when he combined meekness with authority.

Violet saw his shape in the doorway and beckoned him in.

‘Ned's been gone all day!' she said, shouting above Small Henry's screams, which she appeared to be ignoring. Edwards felt it safe to do the same and sat by the dresser.

‘Close that door!' she said and he obediently closed the hall door, reducing the volume of sound, but hating the miserable hand that performed the act.

‘He's gone off to die like their old Phoebe did!' Violet said, to Edwards's astonishment, for he had not heard the story of the Herbert ancestor.

‘They haven't told you that!' she said with a glance at his face, triumph erasing some of the concern from hers. ‘Well, there's madness in them, I can tell you and it's well for you to know!' She went to the stove and stuffed it with wood.

‘You can tell how long he's been gone, since the place is not roaring like a furnace!'

She shut the stove door with a shoe scarred and damp from her long tramping. Edwards saw the dead leaves and fragments of bark clinging to her ankles.

All your body speaks, he said to himself, seeing the wrinkles of worry on Violet's stockings, more vocal than the wrinkles on her brow.

‘Yes, he might be dead! Already dead!' she said, snapping teacups on the table. ‘But I'm having a cup of tea!'

She went, however, and raised the blind on the window behind the couch, giving her a view of the bush while she made the tea. Small Henry's cries grew shrill.

‘I could perhaps –' Edwards said, standing and putting out a hand towards the door.

‘You can!' said Violet, taking milk from the safe so violently it slapped over the edge of the jug like an angry white wave.

Edwards went into Small Henry's room. There he lay the covers off him and his soaked napkin, which was so carelessly fastened that his navel, shedding moisture, was exposed on his rounded belly. His toes curled and his legs thrashed and Edwards saw an ear like a pink shell in wet sand. He mopped it dry with the edge of the blanket and the touch stopped Small Henry's wailing and stilled his limbs and he appeared to focus swimming eyes on Edwards for a moment, then squeezed them shut and pulled his mouth into a piteous shape to renew his wailing.

Edwards gathered him up, not too efficiently, unable to arrange the blanket between his arm and Small Henry's rear, to save a spread of moisture on the thin stuff of his jacket. He held him away from his body to bind the blanket, as he had seen Una do, and when he drew him close, Small Henry was tight and still and at peace in his cocoon. Edwards smelled some faint odour from his hair, and the urine, not unpleasant, and shut his own eyes to feel his way to the door, rather than lose anything of the ecstasy. In the kitchen he sat and Small Henry at once gave his succession of warning grunts.

Edwards got to his feet and swayed back and forth, and Violet gave an odd little burst of laughter.

‘You're his next victim! Thanks to that Una he thinks he can rule like a king. Well, I'm not one of his subjects!'

She went to the window and looked out, then turned her back sharply on it and sat down at the table. Edwards sat too, gingerly holding his body stiff in an effort to deceive Small Henry into thinking he was standing. Violet had dumped his teacup with a round dryish cake studded with currants on the dresser by him.

She sipped her tea, allowing herself some small pleasure in Edwards's predicament. Small Henry, worn out with weeping, had fallen asleep. Edwards dared not loosen his grip of the tiny body to his chest, and red in the face with effort, he brought his right arm close to his cup. No, he would not drink the tea! He sweated with horror at the thought of a splash on the tiny, tender head.

Instead he took the cake, ducking his head to take a mouthful and showering crumbs into a fold of the blanket. He brushed at them and Small Henry leapt in protest and expelled a long, warning breath.

‘I'll drink my tea cold,' Edwards whispered to Violet. ‘I often do.' Violet got up noisily, causing Edwards to rock Small Henry to ward off the disturbance and he kept this up during the clatter she made mixing his bottle.

Parting is close, he thought, understanding the ache so often in Una's arms. But Violet dumped the bottle by the cold cup of tea.

‘You feed it,' she said. ‘I'll walk to the Burragate turn-off. My legs will carry me without effort, since they've had a solid morning's practice!'

The gate had banged on Violet almost before Edwards realized what was happening. He watched, half believing she might turn back. Then he sat and Small Henry, rather than disturbed by the movement, used it to sink more comfortably against Edwards and sleep on.

Edwards looked at the cooling bottle and back to the fine streaks of damp hair on Small Henry's forehead, and under his nose a reddish purple around the nostrils, as if someone had painted a deeper colour there to distinguish the nose from the rest of the face. His lips, thin and purplish too, were pressed together. Those two small nostrils were all that allowed air into Small Henry's body. That was not enough.

Perhaps he had died!

Edwards moved him gently, but his weight settled back heavier. A dead weight, people said. Small Henry dead in his arms! He had cried himself to death.

Reckless now, Edwards removed an arm and tapped Small Henry on the cheek. He was still warm, thank God, but his head remained where it fell sideways and he did not close his lips after they had fallen open.

Edwards laid an ear to his mouth but heard no breath. He put his cheek there but felt nothing. He shook Small Henry who settled back after wobbling like a loosely stuffed doll. He pulled at Small Henry's blanket until he found his gown and raised it to lay an ear on a part of his chest where he thought his heart would be.

He heard no beat.

He had died.

Good God in heaven he had died! He stood and snatched up the bottle, now barely warm, and thrust the teat between Small Henry's lips. They flapped about lifelessly and Edwards pulled the teat away and held the bottle in shocked fashion in the air. Then he thrust the teat back between Small Henry's lips. He shuddered, a contented shudder and pushed his legs down so that Edwards, back on his chair, felt their miraculous movement at his groin.

Small Henry swung his head and moved his mouth a little tiredly at the teat. Then he opened his eyes, blinked once or twice, squeezed them shut while his mouth came greedily to life, and gripping the teat he sucked with his tiny neck throbbing and his knees moving up and down as if there had been a long march and here was the end of it.

Edwards loosened his grip on the bottle and, tilting it, allowed Small Henry to draw gently upon it. He settled his own body and raised his thighs so that Small Henry's flesh flowed warmly into his as the milk flowed warmly into Small Henry.

Edwards too closed his eyes and breathed the most fervent prayer of thanksgiving of all his life.