Salt Creek (41 page)

It was the third day that he came – the third day after the wedding, that is. The dogs leapt from their place by the stove and threw themselves, whining, at the door. I crossed to them and put my hands on the door, and stopped there. There was nothing good on the other side, only more distress. The dogs fell away, waving their tails and panting and looking up at me. It would be Tull. That was his footfall bounding down the stairs, slowing as he looked around. I opened the door. He was so joyous in that moment crossing the walkway beneath the bare vines, the basketwork of their shadows falling on him and about him, and his face alight, smiling at the thought of Addie who must surely be behind me. Seeing my face, he changed in an instant, before I said a word. The dogs leapt at him and he patted them absently, and pushed past them, past me, into the kitchen.

‘Where is she?' he said, looking around.

‘Tull, it could not be worse. I'm so sorry. Come inside now.'

‘Quickly, tell me where she is. What has happened?' He turned grey almost. ‘Is she dead?'

‘No, not dead. Not that. She is married to Mr Stubbs and gone to the lakes.'

He stilled. ‘She would not do that. I don't believe it. It is another lie.'

‘It's true.
I
say it's true.'

He roared at that, and smote the door, which flung back with a squeal of its hinges, and clutched his hair. ‘No.' Tears streamed down his face. He let them. ‘Why did she? I said I would come. She could not wait? I'll get her back. I will.'

I took his arm and drew him into the room. ‘Listen. Let me tell you. Please, Tull. Addie asked me to, so you would understand. It was for you.' I told him everything that Addie had asked, and more, and when I had finished speaking his tears had slowed. He seemed dazed. The dogs lifted their heads and went to the door. Papa and Fred would be home. Tull stood, his face become still. ‘Tull,' I said, but he rounded me, making for the stairs, which I could not immediately understand, since when I went outside Papa and Fred were in plain sight coming down the track. Tull was up the stairs in three bounds and moving along the veranda and I began to comprehend his intention. He went into his room and in seconds came out again, carrying three of his spears, which he held horizontal, feeling the weight of one, bouncing it in his hand, reacquainting himself.

‘Tull, Tull,' I said. ‘Don't.' But he was past me again. Then I screamed as loud as I could, ‘Fred.'

In the distance, Fred's head reared up. He turned to Papa and set his horse to a gallop down the slope towards us. Tull drew a spear back in a smooth arc. It was as if he circumscribed the space around him, cut it clean and made it his own: something profound and alien.

‘Not Fred,' I said.

Tull waited with the same fixed expression of rage and determination. Fred reached the gate and threw himself off the horse. ‘Don't, Tull, he's not worth it,' he said. He faltered at sight of Tull's ferocity.

Papa began to come down on foot. ‘Get the musket,' he bellowed. ‘Get it now.'

‘I will not,' I said.

Fred ran inside, and came out again. ‘Where is it?'

‘Hidden,' I said. ‘You would use it?'

‘To stop Papa. To stop them both.' He leapt down the stairs.

‘You cannot stop me. I don't care,' Tull said.

‘I will finish you,' Papa shouted and kept on. Madness when Tull was poised ready to throw.

‘Why?' Tull screamed. ‘She was promised to me. Her own promise.' He pulled the spear a little further back at his shoulder.

Fred shouted at him. ‘Stop. She did it for you. To save you. Because of you, because she loves you.'

‘I'll kill him. I'll kill him,' Tull sobbed. ‘They can kill me. I don't care. How could you let him? You should have cared for her better.'

‘We tried,' I said. ‘We, all of us, Addie too, wanted you safe.'

‘This is how you do it? Sell your sister?'

‘Not for money; that was Papa. For your life,' I said. ‘Papa is not worth it.'

‘Give it to me,' Fred said. ‘Give me the spear. Don't do this to Addie. Think of Grace. Grace, Tull.' He was shouting in his ear at the last.

Tull threw it to the ground.

‘Hah,' Papa said, reaching us. ‘That's the way. The musket.'

‘Hidden,' I said. ‘I will not tell you where.'

‘Foolish girl. Hold him for me, Fred.'

‘I will not.'

Tull lunged at Papa and grabbed him by the collar and squeezed it tight at his throat until the flesh of his chin wrinkled up and his cheeks turned a choked pink. His arms flailed. Fred took hold of Tull at the shoulder, from behind, and heaved. It was enough to break his grip. Papa pulled at his collar and coughed.

They stood there, three points of a triangle, all panting.

‘Get off my land,' Papa said.

Tull thrust out a long arm and punched him in the chest with the heel of his palm and strode past his sprawling shape in the dirt across the slope.

And that was the last I ever saw of him. He sank back into his life for all I knew, as soft as a whale into the depths, and disappeared and was never more seen by me before I left.

Two letters arrived the following week: one from Mr Stubbs for Papa, which threw Papa into such a state that I thought it best to leave the house, and one for me from Addie, which I read on my old seat by the lagoon, where Charles had found me not so many months ago. I felt closest to him there.

Remember how I once dreamed of pretty things, money to spend, a household to run and a kind gentleman for a husband? Though they are pleasant enough, I would give them up in a minute for Tull.

You must leave, Hester. Papa will never change. There will only be this and he will bend you to his will or you will die resisting. This money is for the journey: a little pocket money that Stubbs gave me, but enough to get you to town. I have no better use for it than this. Only get out. I hope you will see Tull and can tell him what happened. Perhaps he has been to see you already.

Remember what I said. It was for him that I did it. Tell him I will get Grace.

When I judged that enough time had passed I went back to the house. Papa, against the veranda railing, was speaking again before I reached the top of the stairs.

‘He agreed to release me from the debt and now he says he will not. Unforeseen circumstances.'

‘Did he sign anything?'

‘Word of a gentleman.' He paced up and down and wheeled around. ‘The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, Hester, as you know. But it does fall and sometimes the just do get it. I try to remember that.'

‘It does not fall on us. You should not have treated Addie so.' My voice was so hard that it surprised me. ‘It was wicked.'

Papa stared. ‘I was looking after her.' He fumbled along his fob chain. ‘I thought that good would come to me because I believed and acted with faith in all that I did. But what if there is no pattern or principle in the world? Have you thought of that, Hester?'

‘People prefer to ignore those things when it suits them,' I said. I looked at his hand, a thin dried up brown thing. I did not see how it could wield anything, much less power. ‘You're cold. Come inside where it's warmer.' He followed me in and watched as I made a pot of tea.

‘There is nothing now,' he said. ‘I do not see the way out.' He glanced at me from the corner of his eye as if I might approve this remark. I did not give him the look that he wanted: warmth about the eyes, understanding, complicity. I could do it no longer. And then he faced me straight and unguarded, the glimmer in his mind sudden and visible, and was like the child Fred presenting Mama with a special shell:
See, Mama, see what I found
. He touched the cuff of my faded muslin. ‘There
is
one more thing. Where is Frederick? Fetch him to me please.'

I called up the hallway, and Fred came down, stopping in the doorway to take in Papa's mood and unroll his sleeves and button his cuffs. Papa settled into his chair.

He said, ‘There is no avoiding it this time, Fred. It is your turn to leave and to work.'

With equal calm, Fred said, ‘No, Papa. I will not.'

‘Let me explain. We do not live on air, Fred. Our property is mortgaged. If we do not pay the interest on the mortgage we lose Salt Creek. We must hold on until the values increase. It is not difficult to understand.'

‘No, I tell you. I am almost done and will leave then. I will even send you money. But a station or a farm? No, that will not be my life. What interest do I have in sheep or cows? Sell the horses. Sell the boat. My work on the peninsula is finished.'

‘We cannot sell the horses.'

‘Why not?'

Papa raised a hand to silence him. ‘Never mind that; we cannot. No one wishes to buy the boat. It is a shame that this is not the country for gentlemen scholars.'

‘I work on the run, I always have. It's never enough for you.'

‘Show me your work now, Frederick. Your books. Let me see what you have done.'

Fred looked from Papa to me and when I did nothing but return his gaze and perhaps also his confusion he turned and went slowly to his room and came back carrying his three thick sketch books, which he relinquished into Papa's hand. Papa held the books very gentle and turned the pages, each of them, giving them their own attention and pausing at some. ‘Well,' he said, ‘they are something. Some fine work here and your work has progressed, of that there is no doubt.'

‘Thank you, Papa.'

He bent his head with deliberation, as I have seen an axe fall at a troublesome knot of wood. ‘I think you can write another book one day when you are done here. Now we will walk the fences. We will go, Fred, we two, men, and remind ourselves of all that we have created and we will contemplate our futures. Let us do that now, eh? What say you, my son?'

I do not know how a voice can be at once ringing and quiet, but so it was. He stood and moved almost leisurely. There were just his strange words and the horror on Fred's face and the sound of wood crackling and snapping in the fire – the good hard wood that Tull said was forbidden. No matter. Soon it would all be gone and that would be one less rule that we were breaking. A small mercy. Papa pulled the stove lid aside and put the kettle on and opened the fire door, and as if they were no more than twigs and without rush dropped Fred's drawing books in and shut the door.

Fred lunged forward.

I leapt up. ‘No, no, no. Stop it.'

Papa stood against the stove door. He said, ‘“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Sometimes we need help to put away childish things.'

I began to cry. ‘What would Mama say?'

‘But she is not here to say it, is she?' Papa said. ‘There is no choice now, not this time. It makes it easier, do you see?'

‘I do see,' Fred said. ‘I can see what you have become, very well.' His skin never took the sun, but it became deathly pale now and his chest heaved as if he could not draw breath. His gaze fixed on the musket over the door. He seemed almost dazed. He shook his head as if to clear it, as I have seen a beast do after a blow to its skull. ‘Who are you? Who would do such a thing – to his child? I see that you were trying to save Addie, but this— You did this to destroy me. And yet you demand obedience.' His eyes were wet. He smudged a hand across them and turned away, almost stumbling from the room.

‘One day he will understand the difficult situation we are in. Fred's money will tide us over and Hugh and Stanton will be back and then we need only hang on. You know there's talk of an inland canal system to transport, oh, everything. Stock and crops, anything you could want. And land values …'

‘No,' I said. ‘I did not know that.'

‘It will be like England. If your Mama could have seen it.'

‘She hated it here.'

‘Hester, dear,' he said plaintively, as if it were we who had failed to understand him.

I went to get one of Mama's handkerchiefs. I kept one, ironed and starched by her hand, in one of my drawers and held and stroked it sometimes for the comfort of it; the others were soft and worn these days. Folding them smooth was the most I did for them. I chose one and tucked it into my bodice and went into Fred's room. He was stuffing his possessions into his old duffle bag.

‘You're leaving,' I said.

Fred rubbed the heel of his palm over one cheek and the other. ‘Why would I stay?' He could not make his voice run smooth. ‘He wished to bind me, but he has cut me loose. Will you come with me?'

‘Walking?'

‘How else?'

I took a moment to consider. ‘I will write to Charles first. He will come for me. No need for you to wait. I'll only slow you down.' I had been so tired of late, as Mama had been when she was with child. I felt that secret deep inside me, and how it was changing me already, and although I did not know what would become of me as a consequence, I would do anything to keep it safe.