Salt Creek (22 page)

Papa gave no sign of noticing. All through that summer the house felt empty and I wondered what difference there was between our current state and being orphans. I wrote to Charles about our year, only the facts, but they spoke well for themselves, I think. A little later I heard from him, a letter of sorrow, and a book,
Jane Eyre
. I took it down, away, to my own seat by the lagoon, and read a little, and cried for the people lost to me, and at the thought that the only person who knew me at all was so far from this shore.

Tull saw me one day in the vegetable garden, doing what I could to encourage the peas to climb their house of sticks. ‘Who has cursed you?' he asked.

‘Cursed? No one.' That word – the weight of it, as if the word itself carried the darkness of its meaning. I could feel it almost, as close as the salt air touching my skin. ‘No one,' I said again, louder. ‘Do not say so again, Tull.' I knew he was wrong. I wished I knew I was right.

CHAPTER 13

The Coorong, February 1859

I THOUGHT TO TRY TO REASON WITH PAPA
, or at least to find out whether his intentions for us had changed with so much having gone wrong, and sat outside with him in the warm evenings – he on his driftwood chair above his watery kingdom, I on the wooden settee. The wind was coming in hot breaths from the north, slower than during the day and not less dry, wind that was thick and had travelled a long way and was heading away from the land. It was not dark yet, and I watched it ruffling and stroking its way across the water, and the plumes of Papa's pipe smoke travelled with it. It reminded me of our old drawing room, of Papa in his smoking jacket of silk and velvet and his tasselled pumps, enthroned in his brocade chair, tsking at
The Register
and passing on such information as he felt a woman of Mama's standing and breeding and education might be interested in hearing: another school being opened, a new shipment of goods having arrived and the like. Now his sleeves were rolled up roughly and his shirt had no collar. He had not troubled to polish his boots since Mama died, just stamped the dirt off if it got too bad.

He waved his pipe about at distant islands in the lagoon. ‘It always puts me in mind of whales breaching. See them about to leap from the water? Fascinating creatures. A gift from God. The bounty of them.' His excitement fell. The bountiful times were over when he bought the whaling station. An old gamble.

Darkness became a shroud. I set a lamp on the table between us and its light bloomed a little way out. I pulled my chair closer and began to weave a darn into a sock, tilting it to the light. I said, because I had wondered, and because his presence appeared so neutral that such a question might not be remarkable, ‘Why are we here, Papa?'

He looked at me and drew sharp on his pipe once or twice before allowing the smoke to escape in quick clouds. ‘Why, to make our living; to recover what we lost; to do justice to our family; to bring glory to God; to bring God and sow civilization among the natives.' He measured his phrases out in thoughtful puffs and small nods of his head. ‘You know that.'

‘I mean now, still. Now that the cattle have—' I steadied the darning mushroom within the sock and smoothed the sock over its curve. ‘Not done as well as expected,' I finished, weaving the wool in and out of the warp I had made, in and out. ‘I wondered perhaps—'

‘I have thought a great deal,' Papa said.

‘Yes?' I finished a thread and cut a new length, pinching it over the eye of the needle and threading it. He watched as I doubled it back in the sock so it would not pull loose.

‘You are like your mother sometimes,' he said. ‘It is hard to see, but it is a comfort too.'

‘I've been thinking too, Papa, that we could make a life in town. Addie needs society, and Fred needs school. Albert too. There must be something there, people who would help, who would find you a position.' I did not dare mention Grandmama and Grandpapa who would lend us funds at a moment's notice and likely not call in the debt, but Papa's stern stare told me he knew what was in my mind. ‘Perhaps I could teach,' I said.

‘You should not speak of things you do not understand, my dear. I have borrowed before on good terms and am sure I can do so again, if needed.' He rocked back on his chair legs, kicking off with his toes until he was up against the house. He puffed again and came down with the thud of an axe into wood.

‘From whom?' I said.

He ignored the sharpness in my voice and took his pipe from his mouth and poked about in the bowl. It had gone out. He tapped it empty and drew his leather pouch from his pocket. ‘Why, from one or two gentlemen farmers of my acquaintance,' he said, his attention to his pipe unwavering. With finnicking movements he pinched some tobacco and filled the pipe's bowl, pressing it down carefully and nipping off any tendrils that were too long and putting them back in the pouch. (He had a thrifty streak that came out in little ways.) He struck a match against the sole of his boot and lit the pipe, pulling in with his mouth until the filaments of tobacco burned red and the smoke rose sweet as any other old comfort. He closed his eyes; he felt it too, I think, how habits made things timeless and thereby restored for a moment things that had passed absolutely. His fingers moved and stroked the curved bowl of the pipe. Albert had a tortoiseshell button from Mama's town coat that he kept about him and liked to hold. It was a secret of his. Papa was as tender with his pipe as he had been with Mama.

He leaned forward in his chair and his pipe hung down in his slack hands and the smoke drifted up in the lamplight. ‘I intend to do what is right for you all. You were not aware. The folly of town life, its vapid pleasures.'

‘Just people being sociable.'

‘But when our fortunes changed, people did also.'

‘I don't remember.'

‘You wouldn't have known. I cannot forget some of the things people said. Which I would not trouble you with.'

‘It's just I think, I wonder, if this is the land for our purposes. Could land turn on us? I have heard that said.'

‘Who would say such a thing?' And when I didn't answer, he said, ‘That's superstitious talk, Hester, which I will not have in a Christian home. You should know better. I would hope that you had been taught better.'

I did not say that of course I had not been taught better since Mama was dead and I was the one who was teaching and the people we lived among believed us to be cursed and I couldn't help wondering if that was the only thing that explained our circumstances. It seemed common sense rather than superstition. My darning needle began to jerk in the wool. I couldn't stop it.

‘No, we will bide a while longer. We are not finished yet. We are not what we were and I have sworn that we will be.'

‘But the children,' I said.

‘They appear quite well to me.'

‘Addie is running wild. I haven't time to stop her.'

His face got that soft doting look. ‘She is just lively, as she has always been. No, Hester. We will come to rights, my dear, nothing more certain. We are in God's hands.'

I jerked the thread then and it puckered the darn tight and was ruined. I could have screamed with vexation. I rolled the sock about the needle and put it in the workbasket and took it inside, into my empty room. The window was open. I leaned on the sill. It was all sound: insects and lizards in the thatching, the screaming of crickets and cicadas beyond, and the waves repeating against the sea coast. I was not more than any other thing.

Papa sold the cattle to a Mr Stubbs, who had a profitable run at Lake Albert acquired during the first land release, all of it rich pasture. I do not know what price he got, but there was enough money to purchase three thousand sheep from a gentleman farmer further inland, and he was well pleased for several days together, even going so far as to hum a few jaunty hymns as he went about his tasks. He took Albert and Tull to muster them and left Fred behind with Addie and me. His spirits on their return two weeks later were changed. The sheep were not in quite such good condition as the small flock he had been shown.

‘However, a great deal less work than the cows,' he said, meeting no one's eyes. ‘The flock will expand soon enough.' He did not provide further explanation, but we were familiar with his abbreviated sentences and the things he wanted us to believe. There was no need for him to tell us all the words. Signs of doubt or worry were taken as disloyalty. He drove some of the sheep onto the peninsula by the crossing south of the Travellers Rest. ‘Think of the saving,' Papa said. ‘No need for fencing out there.' Fred came back from his expeditions complaining about the mess they made. The remainder grazed our side.

Papa wished for contentment but could not persuade himself of it. There was the unease over the sheep. Occasionally if he were home at midday he looked about at his remaining family, but without pleasure or satisfaction. He began to chafe at Fred, watching him work on his book in the evening. He had filled the first sketch book, and was now using the one Charles had given me. ‘Dost think, Hester, that this is the best use of Fred's time?'

‘What should he be doing, Papa? He finishes his lessons quickly so he can do this. He will work on the run all afternoon. It's only a little time that he takes.'

Papa stood on the other side of the table, regarding Fred as he might a sheep or a cow, pondering its value.

‘He is not much more than a boy,' I said.

‘When I was his age—' But he did not continue.

‘Were you not at school when you were fifteen?' I asked.

He took my point. ‘Yes.'

‘Fred would like that.'

He fiddled with his fob chain, following it across his front to the pocket containing his watch. ‘He will have to content himself with the books we have and your teaching.'

Fred looked up from his work. His air was distracted and he blinked and rubbed his hair. He was just then drawing one of the spike-stemmed plants that grew about the sand hills, and now its stem rested in a little water in the base of a glass and the light from the window sent its toothed shadow across the table. ‘Pardon, Papa?'

‘I was speaking to Hester about what you are doing.'

‘A drawing for my book.'

‘Still? You are grown too old for such things, surely.'

He looked at his page and the intricate work of shading the leaves. ‘I think, I hope, it might find a publisher one day. See what I have done?' He turned the pages carefully, one after another, so that we could see his drawings. So many of them. He had made notes too, in his small hand.

‘Who would publish such a work?' Papa said.

Fred blinked, a nervous habit of his that betrayed him in ways that his voice did not. ‘Grandpapa and Grandmama have connections in London.'

‘We will not apply to them for help, Frederick.'

Fred's face fell and he shot a glance at me and when I shook my head said, ‘Oh, may I not?'

‘And you are too young and without credentials. No one will want a work from someone untrained in drawing and uneducated in botany.'

‘These are not so bad, though. I have improved and if no one will want to publish it, they might offer advice.'

‘Yes. There is no harm in trying at any rate, Papa, surely,' I said.

Addie came in with a basket of eggs, which she set on the table. She poured a cup of water and leaned against the dresser while she drank.

Fred stroked his fingers across the paper, as if he were trying to calm a frightened creature. The steady touch appeared to soothe him. ‘Mr Bagshott might help.'

‘Mr Bagshott? Why would he help? How would he?'

‘His father is a friend of Mr Darwin and he might forward it to him. You know that Mr Darwin visited Australia?'

‘I have heard you mention it once or twice,' he said in his old dry way. ‘He did not care for it, as I recollect.'

‘No, but think, Papa, if he had come here? I think he might have been interested. Mr Bagshott could send a letter recommending it to his publisher or something of the sort. I do not know exactly.'

‘Do you know his direction?'

‘Hester does,' Addie said. ‘She knows Charles. She likes Charles.' She sounded triumphant almost. I shot her a look of fury before Papa's attention shifted to me.

‘Indeed?' he said.

Next to him, unobserved, Addie was smiling. What softness she had, had gone since Mary died.

‘As a friend only. And I know where he lives,' I said. ‘We write to each other occasionally is all. There is nothing untoward.'

‘And yet I did not know.' Papa was not angry precisely, wounded, rather, and shook his head so that I felt I had betrayed him. There had been so few letters, and their contents would be dull to any but me: weather and books, Charles's family, a visit into the hills; and from me to him only news of Salt Creek, which did not vary a great deal. The letters had not been a secret; if asked, I would not have denied them, yet it was true that I preferred that he did not know. Perhaps we all had things we would rather keep to ourselves.

I made Addie hang out the washing later and when she let the sheets drag in the dirt I said she would have to wash them again.

‘You are a mean cat sometimes, Hettie,' she said, yanking them off the line.

‘
I
am the mean cat? After what you said?'

‘Well, you do like him.'

‘I do not, and if I did how would you know?'

‘You carry his letter about with you. I saw you touching your pocket and looked.'

‘Because of you – that's why it's there. You can't be trusted. We're only friends.' I was glad I had hidden the other ones away.

‘I know.'

‘You read it?'

‘Wouldn't you?'

‘I was going to help you, but I won't now.'

‘See,' she said. ‘You are a mean cat, Hester Finch.'