Salt Creek (43 page)

CHAPTER 22

Chichester, 1874

THERE ARE TWO PICTURES OF ME
on the Coorong – two in my possession, that is; Charles sketched several, as I recall. One was a watercolour from Charles and Mr Bagshott's first visit. Joss found it in the back of a book when he was a small boy and liked it, so I had a frame made for it and put it on the wall in an out of the way corner of the landing. I do not pass it in the normal way of things, but sometimes go and look at it, at myself, almost despite my conscious inclinations. Mama's old brocade chair holds me within its arms and behind me is the window, a curtain lifting, a smudge of yellow grass and blue sky, and within the room the hulking shapes of the barley twist bureau (gone now, I daresay, bartered in exchange for debt) and the piano. Did I ever look like this? I appear, if this is possible, watchful and also about to jump up or speak although my hands are clasped as ladylike as anyone, even Mama, could wish for. Charles very kindly left out my freckles. I appear young. I was young, with full cheeks, and hair that no one had time to quell. The dress I wore was a favourite: blue with the lace trim afforded by prosperous times in Adelaide. It was faded by then, although this is not apparent in the picture. I appear well bred and contented – or not discontented at any rate. It is as much a lie as Mr Angas's drawings. Clattering around the kitchen or dealing with the chickens or the garden or the children's lessons or walking the pathways of the lagoon or galloping the tracks would have shown a truer likeness. But I did not look at the picture to see myself. As long as I looked at it seldom – no more than once or twice a year – I could surprise from my memory the sight of Charles sitting opposite, concentrating and irritable, his jacket off and shirt-sleeves roughly turned, his hair falling on his face so that he had to push it from his eyes when he looked up, his mouth working as he tried to render what he saw and telling me to be quiet and stop moving.

The other picture I have only now found, tucked in a paper packet in the side compartment of the trunk among a bundle of letters tied with the finest native-made twine. The faded writing on the front of one of these was in Papa's hand: ‘To be paid for in full with interest when the boat comes in!' It had the hopeful sound – almost jaunty – of his voice when we first moved to the run. Within, was a list of things – the piano, three horses, the barley twist bureau and Mama's chaise longue – and a signed note from Grandpapa that the items were a loan to us for the duration of our time on the Coorong. It appeared that he had bought them from us in 1854, the year before we moved to Salt Creek, and lent them back so that we had at least some requisites of civilization; also to prevent Papa selling them again. I suppose Papa would permit the arrangement only if an account was kept. I wished I had known and could thank them. There were also letters to Papa from Mr Stubbs and Mr Baker and the bank, reminding him of payments due. And one more.

The direction on the front of the envelope said: Miss Hester Finch, Salt Creek, Coorong. I could not tell whether the contents had been looked at, the dampness having buckled the envelope and lifted the seal. It had not been cut open at any rate. It contained two slips of paper, one of them a letter dated the 21st of May 1862, which began ‘Dearest Hester'. The hand was untidy – exuberant even. I turned the page over. The final words, smaller, as if they were whispered into my ear, said: ‘I remain yours always, always Charles'. Then, below: ‘P.S. I await your reply, Hester. I cannot stop thinking of you.'

At that, I felt faint and shut my eyes, seeing the words before me still, untouched since Charles wrote them. I opened the other piece of paper, which was a drawing of me lying in the valley of shells on the peninsula. I appear to be sleeping. The wind has blown a strand of hair across my face, my bonnet is in my hand and I am peaceful. ‘Hester, Coorong, 1862', it said beneath. It was a private drawing and it seemed an intrusion to regard it, but it was only of me and would have been drawn from Charles's memory unless I had been asleep for a short while on the last day, when the peninsula was the one place we could be alone and he had drawn it before waking me.

I returned to the letter, which told of his father's explorations for Adelaide's city council further inland, a journey Charles had accompanied him on during the months of April and May, also of his family: mother, sisters and brother. It put me in mind of my own family as it had been before we moved to Salt Creek. He wrote of his wish to return to the Coorong as soon as may be to see me and to talk of ‘various matters and about the future, which I beg you to consider'. But first he had to go on another short trip, no more than a week or two, with his father. And there was his final paragraph:

If you have need of ought in the meantime, I hope that you will let me know. If I have not returned to Adelaide yet, my mother will help you, I am sure, as I have told her what you mean to me and of my future hopes. The direction on the back of the envelope will reach me and you may be sure that any word from you will be welcome. Or you. Nothing could be more welcome than that.

Close to the bottom of the trunk there was a creeping dampness, and a silvering of salt where seawater had wet and dried the lining and crept into bundles of documents. Papers clung to each other and some could be separated only with care: a slender wooden knife inserted between them before they dried completely worked best. Mould had begun its stealthy growth across them; still I persevered. I might have been digging for bones or shards of pottery or arrowheads or fossils, as people did hereabouts, for their amusement only. It was otherwise with me, I was between urgency and reluctance.

An image emerged from amidst a few items, pale as a body dragged from the deep. A picture of Tull sitting in the chair he favoured by the kitchen fire. He was oblivious to the artist, reading intently –
A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World
, I had no doubt. The thickness of the book was right, as was its dark cover and the rough rendering of a lengthy title. He preferred it to the bible, which was the other book he studied. He was intent, as if there were a mystery there that he might unravel if he could find the end of it. I must have seen him sitting so one hundred times or more. The lamplight threw his face into relief against the shadowy corner and cast a glow across his cheek and the sweep of eyelash and the fullness of lip. It was a tender portrait – more than that. I did not think it was Charles who had done it. I would have observed that and it was not in his style. No one but Fred could have done it. Still, something in it put me in mind of Charles's drawing of me.

I wrote Fred a letter that very night, to his home in Regent's Park. In it I told him news of Joss and Beecham and the school, mentioning at the end that I had discovered a sketch of his in the trunk, and Papa's journal.

I hoped I would find more. Your drawings were very fine, which I did not know then, when you were working at the big table. They gave you so much trouble – remember? This one at least has survived. There are a few other things of Tull's that you might like to have, since he was a particular friend of yours.

Fred's reply arrived at the end of the week – last week:

As to any drawing of mine that you find, you can keep it or burn it as you wish, dear sister. I have no need of it, or to be reminded of Papa and what he did. There is just one picture I would be pleased to see again. I doubt it will have survived. It is of Tull in the kitchen, a drawing, which came out better than I expected. Happier times. No matter if you cannot find it. I have it well enough in my mind. As for the others that were burned, they were false. They showed nothing of the entirety of that world. I did not see anything there. Understand it, rather. I could not. It was not knowable; nothing is on short acquaintance. I confess that I am curious to see what remains of Tull. Come and see me, Hester. I should be glad of it.

I am seldom in London, but have visited once or twice by train, combining it with my efforts to avail myself of the joys of civilization. I had only previously seen Fred in Chichester; he had been travelling each time I visited London. The hansom cab let me down before a tall, white fine-featured terrace, like a well-bred horse with all its points correct. I could not imagine Fred living here without falling into boredom. There was a restlessness in him that could not be sated. Letters from him might be postmarked Madagascar or Newfoundland or the Azores or Argentina. He wheeled around the world in the way that I had dreamed of once.

I climbed the stairs and rapped the knocker on the gleaming black door, twice, and peered through the window. It was as if I were standing at the lip of the past, unsure of what I might discover. A maid opened the door. I had hardly spoken a word before she was standing aside to let me in, for I was expected, she said.

‘Mr Finch is out for a few minutes, but will be back directly. Mr Alexander is here though.'

‘Mr Alexander?'

‘Yes. A particular friend of Mr Finch's down from Cambridge, doing some work in Mr Finch's collections. Shall I fetch him? And some refreshments. Mr Finch was very particular about that.' She was gone up the carved staircase.

I removed my pelisse and placed it and my reticule and the shield – this wrapped in brown paper – on a chair in the entrance hallway and looked about the walls at paintings and drawings of places I had never seen and never would and at strangely carved masks and engraved metal discs whose purpose I could not guess. A great brass lamp hung overhead, light sieving from it as if sunlight were filtering through leaves. Through a nearby door I glimpsed a wall of books and a chair and table heaped with papers and more books. Curiosity overcame me and with the tip of a forefinger I pushed the door wider and stood at the brink of the room. I had time to gain one more impression, of a painting above a marble fireplace – an orange butterfly with lustrous wings – when the sound of racing footfall came down the stairs and I turned to see a young man jump the last few and land light as a cat. His abundant hair was dark and curly and his eyes bright and his manner merry. Perhaps he improved Fred's spirits when he became low.

‘You are Hester? Miss Finch? Mrs—?' he said, plunging towards me with his hand outstretched.

I couldn't help laughing. ‘Yes. Hester will do very well. Fred's sister.'

‘I shouldn't be so familiar. But I have heard so much of you. Ralph,' he said and shook my hand. ‘Fred will be back in a minute.'

‘Yes, the maid said.'

‘I am staying here just now, cataloguing and so on. His collections are very fine.'

‘I think they always were. Of course we didn't know it then. Fred's rather—' I could not find the word. Secretive, private, wounded, concealed, brilliant?

‘Yes,' Ralph said after a pause. ‘He is, isn't he?' And gave a smile of gentleness, also sympathy, I think. ‘Come, let's have tea and you can tell me of your childhoods running wild with the blacks. I don't like to ask Fred too much. It makes him sad.'

‘Yes,' I said, wondering that he called him Fred and not Mr Finch. They were close friends, then.

The maid brought tea and little oat biscuits. ‘Rather rustic, but Fred insists on them and now I have developed a taste too,' Ralph said.

With the constant noise of horses and cabs passing by I did not hear Fred's return. Suddenly he burst through the door. He had changed so little. He was tall and still narrowly built, and rather careless in his dress. His neck tie was loose, as was his collar, and his jacket was crumpled. When he took it off and threw it on a sofa I began to perceive the cause. ‘Hett,' he said, and kissed my cheek. ‘You've met Ralph then.'

‘I have. You've become terribly respectable, Fred.'

‘Yes. It's not so bad. I have the zoo on my doorstep. The British Museum is not far, and the Science Museum.'

‘Stop. You have convinced me. This is the centre of the world.'