Lyrebird Hill (39 page)

The shock of Carsten’s actions sent waves of unease rippling among us. No one said it aloud, but I knew from the silence that descended on the house that we were all thinking the same thing.

If Carsten had turned his anger on Lucien, whom he loved, then what might he do to any of us?

Lucien went about his duties in the stable yards without a nod or a word to anyone. Later, when I took him some salve I’d mixed from my store of dry herbs, he refused it and retreated to the dark safety of his barnyard lair. His eyes were huge and black in his pale face, his mouth set firm. Blood leaked through his clothes and dried into sweaty crusts, and at the end of the day he was forced to soak himself with water bucketed from the horses’ trough in order to peel off his shirt so he could bathe.

I watched for him constantly.

Always from the corner of my eye, as I dared not let Carsten see me looking. If the occasion arose for me to venture outside, I hurried along with my head bowed, as if finding fascination with the ground. But always, always, watching for him.

Those blunt feelings aroused by my drawings had sharpened with time, honed by our stolen kisses in his barn dwelling, whetted by the feelings I now knew he reciprocated. At first his fractured beauty had inspired a challenge for my brush and pencils; now, upon more intimate acquaintance, I trembled just to see his shadow flit past me; I quaked to glimpse him moving about the distant stables. And on those brief occasions that I caught sight of his face, I ached with remorse, sick at heart to know his pain was my doing.

Carsten’s suffering was clear. He looked suddenly old; his face had taken on a pinched aspect; he wore his mouth downcast, and his eyes had turned small and hard. Since that day in the stable yard when he had destroyed his only true friendship to spite me, he had become a human storm, torn by the black thunderclouds that churned within him. By all appearances he was filled with self loathing, regretting what he had done. And yet knowing Carsten as I now did, I feared that his underlying sentiments were not so noble; rather than reproach himself for what he had done, in truth my husband resented that law had restricted him from doing
more
.

In the weeks that followed Carsten’s attack on Lucien, my husband had no business abroad, and his lingering presence kept us all on edge.

I barely saw Adele. Since Lucien’s flogging, her health had suffered and she spent much of her time in her room.

Quinn had begun to reek of drink. Port wine and cooking sherry, and occasionally of cough syrup. The breakfast eggs
were served half-blackened, the coffee was lukewarm, the milk curdled, the bread stale. Carsten rumbled about throwing her out, but Quinn paid him no mind; she simply turned her deaf ear towards him and made herself scarce.

Deliveries arrived in the early morning and were neglected. Hefty bags of flour and sugar and tea languished near the kitchen door, tripping us as we hurried in and out. Mail piled up on the table, and it wasn’t until late on a Friday afternoon that I found the time to go through it.

One letter was addressed to me.

I hadn’t received any correspondence for weeks, and was anxious to receive word from home. But the writing on the envelope was not that of my father. It had been penned in neat childlike handwriting, which could only mean it had come from my brother, Owen.

Mystified, I tore it open.

19 June 1898

Dear Brenna,

I am sorry to be the bearer of upsetting news. Fa Fa is unwell. The doc says his heart is weak, and fears for him. Please come home.

Always yours,

Owen

I went to Carsten and showed him the letter, but he waved me away.

‘You’ll not be going anywhere.’

‘But my father’s ill. I must go to him.’

‘How can I trust you to return?’

‘Of course I’ll return. We have an agreement,’ I reminded him bitterly. ‘Or have you forgotten?’

Carsten drew up to his full height and glared at me. ‘Your father got to keep his farm. In exchange, I gained a wife, who promised me a son. You’ll stay here, Brenna, until you give me one. After that, you can go to the devil.’

I retreated to my bedroom and curled on the bed. At first I was too angry to cry. Darkness raged inside me, bruising my spirit as it thrashed from side to side. I had never felt hatred before, but suddenly I recognised it in myself.

But as I thought of my father, the rage died. Tears began to leak from my eyes, hot frightened tears that stung my skin and turned my lashes brittle. My father was gravely ill and my brother alone to care for him; it was a long difficult ride for the Clearwater doctor, and I feared my father would not get the care he needed.

Trees lashed outside my window, churned by the wind that shrieked up from the strait. A steady drizzle of icy rain battered the panes.

I went along the hall a little way, then saw that the library door was cracked open; Carsten would be keeping watch, his ears alert, his pistol at the ready. He had included the household in his vigil, too: Adele had been given the order to sleep in my bed, to prevent me creeping out at night; Quinn had set herself up on a straw cot in the parlour, and would slumber, so she warned, with one eye open.

But the flesh is no match for the spirit, as my father was fond of saying; somehow, despite my husband’s refusal to let me go, I resolved to defy him and find a way.

The night of my escape, Adele fussed around in the kitchen while Quinn prepared Carsten’s nightcap; when the housekeeper was distracted by a pan of over-boiling milk, Adele placed a measure of laudanum in Carsten’s drink as we had planned, and then stole back up to my room.

We waited until midnight, when Adele risked a peek into the library. My husband’s snores drifted along the hall; he slept at his desk with his head on his arms, the empty mug at his side.

Before the grandfather clock had finished chiming the hour, I crept down the stairs, past the lump of Quinn’s heavily sleeping body, through the night garden to the stables, where Lucien had prepared a swift black mare. He would ride with me to Launceston and see me safely on the steamer, and from there I would send word to Owen to meet me at the train once I arrived in Armidale.

In a few days, I would be home.

At Launceston, there was no time for a lingering goodbye.

‘Look after Adele,’ I told Lucien. ‘Don’t let her fret. I will return once I know my father is all right.’

Lucien took my hand and kissed it. ‘Don’t despair,’ he whispered. ‘Our love has the power to create miracles. I will wait for you.’

The cry came to board, and passengers began to migrate up the gangway, jostling and calling, their voices disembodied in the early mist. I felt myself tugged along, and a moment later Lucien was lost to me. I held him in my sights as long as I was able, and when the ship began to ease away from the pier, I watched his black-clad figure recede until it was a speck. And when the speck finally winked from my view, a sensation of loss folded over me.

Going below deck, I unpacked my journal and turned to a new page.

Tonight,
I wrote,
I had hoped to find solace in writing, but the words refuse to flow and the ink has dried on the nib of my pen. I find myself turning back through these pages, rereading the entry I made after meeting Lucien that sunny afternoon in the glade. If there is ever a moment of a person’s life that brings shelter in a time of inner storm, then that bright island of a day is mine.

I took my black queen from my pocket and held her in my hand. She had never failed to soothe me; at least, not until now. But as the steamer forged across the reeling ocean, bringing distance between Lucien and me, the dark heaviness of loss did not abate. And as the day wore on, the burden of it became so leaden I thought I would die.

Forgiveness is not something you do for others; rather, it is your most powerful gift to yourself.

– ROB THISTLETON,
EMOTIONAL RESCUE

Ruby, May 2013

M
y mother regarded me from the dimness of her hallway, shielding herself behind the front door. She hesitated, then swung the door open to let me in.

‘I wish you’d let Jamie rest in peace,’ she said by way of a greeting. ‘You weren’t the only one devastated by her death. Why can’t you simply let it go?’

‘I haven’t come to talk about Jamie.’

Mum looked surprised, then relieved. ‘Good. Then this is a social call?’

‘Actually, I was hoping we could talk about Dad.’

Even in a casual outfit of cropped jeans and rumpled linen shirt, with her dark auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked dazzling. But at the mention of my father, she seemed to fade.

‘Come on then,’ she said, resigned, and ushered me along the hall. We bypassed the kitchen and went out to a pergola-
covered courtyard at the back of the house. There was no lawn, just concrete pavers and mondo grass edgings, and elegant palm trees in pots. A hedge of compact lemon trees grew along the pergola’s perimeter, filling the courtyard with a citrusy scent. I must have interrupted Mum in the middle of pruning the lemons, because a bucket of leaves and pair of secateurs sat on the pavement nearby.

‘Well,’ she said, sitting at the big teak table and motioning me to take the seat opposite. ‘Spit it out.’

At sixty, she had never looked lovelier. There was hardly a wrinkle on her face and her hair was threaded only lightly with silver. But as she waited for me to speak, she seemed inwardly drawn, smaller, as if battening down her hatches in preparation for bad news.

I took a breath. ‘Last time I was here, we talked about Brenna’s letters, and how the idea of bad genes had crossed your mind.’

‘I remember.’

‘You said how finding the letters made you question yourself and everyone around you, and that all the old guilt had bubbled up over Dad’s death. I guess I’m just trying to fit all the pieces together.’

Mum stood suddenly and went inside, returning a minute later with two glasses and a decanter. At first I thought it was brandy, but it turned out to be iced tea. She splashed the amber liquid into each glass, then pushed mine towards me and downed her own.

‘You were such a bright little girl, Ruby. So curious about everything. Jamie used to love dressing you up like a doll. And you
were
a doll, with your mop of curly brown hair and big caramel eyes. But after the dog attack, you changed. Became more withdrawn, less certain of yourself. As the months wore on and your wounds began to heal, I realised that my chirpy little daughter had been replaced by a girl who was terribly shy and apprehensive.’

She fiddled with her empty glass, then finally poured more tea. ‘How much do you remember about what happened?’ she asked carefully. ‘About how your father died?’

‘Bits of it.’ Those weeks and months following the dog attack were a jumble of disjointed events, a jigsaw puzzle with most of its pieces still rattling around in the box.

‘Maybe I’d better start at the beginning, then. It might help you understand. Not just about your father, but about why I felt compelled to hide your great-grandmother’s letters.’

She let her gaze roam across the courtyard, and dragged in a deep breath.

‘Late one Sunday afternoon I was cleaning up after a barbecue. Your father had been entertaining some of his bikie friends.’ Mum’s voice turned hard with disapproval. ‘They’d been drinking all day, but no one seemed to care about that as they got on their bikes and rode away, least of all your father. He was drunkest of them all. They’d been teasing Boozo—’ Mum looked at me. ‘Henry didn’t believe in chaining dogs, so he kept Boozo in a large enclosure in the backyard, only taking him out to go hunting. Anyway, Henry and I had words. I’d gone off my head about him getting drunk around you children. You see, Ruby, your father changed when he hit the bottle. It made him pigheaded and stupid. That day was no different. He told me to stop nagging, and so I did. I knew better than to cause a row, especially when you girls were playing so happily in the garden. There was no point spoiling the day.’

Mum got to her feet and collected her secateurs. She began to clip random leaves off the nearest lemon tree, and I saw that her hands were trembling.