Summer at Mount Hope (11 page)

‘The campers,' she breathed, and her fear turned to panic. She ran to the front of the house, Spot lolloping after her. The dam gate was open too but the flowery green vines were still in their neat rows, the windmill turning in the breeze, and the bay beyond glistening.

It was then that she heard the faint tinkle of a bell – Maggie – and turning fast saw her father, in his dressing gown and pith hat, leading the goat down the outcrop's slope. She ran to the chicken coop, Spot still hot on her heels: all the eggs had gone.

‘I don't know if they've taken anything from the house,' called Robert, ‘because I couldn't get in past Spot.'

‘You were afraid, weren't you Spot?'

‘And Maggie's already been milked,' said Robert.

The goat bleated indignantly.

Up on the outcrop, smoke rose through the trees and Phoeba imagined the itinerants settling down to their breakfast of eggs and goat's milk.

‘What can we do, Dad?'

‘I've had words about them to Marius and Guston, and the new manager, Mr Steel. I think they'll leave us alone if we leave them alone but Steel seems to think they're up to no good.'

‘What does this Mr Steel do at Overton?'

‘Manager, apparently. He's a bit of a dark horse, but canny.' Robert went to check the pantry and cellar.

Why would the Overtons appoint a manager who was also a bank man unless something was wrong, Phoeba wondered. Pastoralists all over the country were going belly-up every day. She would ask Hadley what it was all about when she saw him. She caught the rooster and took him and Maggie to the dam paddock. Then she poured Spot's breakfast into his bin and left the trio standing together like orphans as they watched her walk to the gate.

‘I think you three should stay here until shearing and the harvest are over, she called back. ‘It's safer, all right?' It didn't make them look any less nervous.

Robert counted the jars of preserved fruit and vegetables, the pickles and apples, the pumpkins and potatoes. Then he took the gate from the vegetable yard and screwed it to the cellar door, securing it with a lock. Not a good sign at the start of the busy season, he thought, and headed to the stables, where Phoeba had begun to harness Centaur. She needed to learn about this horse, she decided, because when she wrapped the girth strap under his stomach he filled himself up with air. It made it difficult for her to buckle the strap, so she walked him in circles until he had to breathe. His ears were small which, people said, indicated he had an ungenerous temperament. He pressed his tail down hard like a lid on a paint tin when she tried to ease it through the crupper and she stood in front of him and looked into his eyes. ‘We will have no trying to race home today, Centaur. You live here now.' Then she rubbed his nose, checked his yoke and hoped she'd at least made one horse feel comfortable that morning.

They dragged the sulky from the shed and Robert backed Centaur easily between the shafts while Phoeba guided them through the tug stops. She attached the trace to the sulky, threaded the reins through the terrets and she and her father circled the horse checking his harness for firmness. She went inside to dress – and to prepare for the arguments about seating for the ride to church.

‘The countryside is such a pretty hue at this time of year, all blue and purple,' said Aunt Margaret from the veranda, admiring the noxious weeds. ‘I'll paint it after church. What crop is it?'

‘Scottish cotton,' said Robert, puffing on his pipe. ‘You haven't made a special effort for the new vicar, Phoeba?'

‘He's a galoot.' It was hot, and she dabbed at her forehead with her handkerchief. ‘Given my druthers,' she said, ‘I'd rather stay at home.' But she should go to say good luck to Hadley for his new job and to see if anything was known about the itinerants, if anyone else had been robbed. Besides, no one else could drive the sulky.

‘Well you can't stay home,' said Maude. ‘You know Lilith has never driven, Aunt Margaret has never owned a horse and I am afraid of them.'

‘That's like being afraid of drinking water,' said Phoeba.

‘I'm afraid of country water,' said Maude, pulling on her gloves. ‘There are creatures in it. Right Robert, while we are away you can cut thistles and Phoeba, that handkerchief is too gay for church. Get another one.' Maude had slept through the eventful morning and had not noticed there was no fresh milk, or eggs, or that the gate was nailed to the cellar door.

Phoeba slipped her handkerchief up her sleeve. Lilith rushed onto the veranda and past her father.

‘You have rouge on your lips Lilith,' he said, without looking up. ‘Rub it off.'

‘It's strawberry water,' said Maude, lifting her skirts to negotiate the front steps in her Sunday shoes. ‘Now, where shall we all fit in this miserable sulky?'

The argument threatened to last all morning, until finally Aunt Margaret nervously took the reins and Phoeba saddled Rocket. She stood firm about riding astride, insisting it was better than being seen on Spot in the dam.

‘You vex me, Phoeba Crupp,' scolded Maude. ‘You deserve to get a nasty rash.'

Spot followed them along the fence as far as he could.

‘I'll take you out tomorrow,' called Phoeba, leaning over Rocket and digging her heels in. She loved to ride Rocket – the speed of him – but her legs would ache because she had to stand all the way, or else have her teeth shattered. Spot turned his back and let his head drop. The rooster jerked his way over and stood supportively at the horse's heel.

Robert was kneeling between his vines, inspecting bunches of grape berries in case the nocturnal visitors had stolen any, when something dark caught the corner of his eye. A severe woman in a black dress with great circles of sweat under her arms stomped towards him looking uncannily like a koala. Two smaller creatures trailed behind her, firm-jawed and hostile, with black cotton-canvas hats perched on their foreheads, like birds. As they walked they snapped branches from the vines and threw them on the ground. The blood drained from Robert's face as the biggest one shook a green bouquet of plump berries at him, screaming, ‘God has destroyed this evil industry once and he'll do it again!'

‘It was bad weather and grape louse,' Robert shot back, advancing as fast as his roundness would allow. He felt his feet swelling and stinging with the speed. ‘Now get to church,' he yelled, ‘you're compacting the soil structure around my roots.'

‘Alcohol is a sin,' said the koala, its voice rising. ‘It corrupts good men, causes fathers to lose their jobs and abuse their wives and children.'

‘Shoo,' yelled Robert, rattling a bunch of shade leaves at them.

‘Total abstinence—'

‘You don't approve of alcohol for medicinal use either?'

‘No.'

‘You know, if you drink it, it can actually cause smiling,' said Robert, ‘and that would benefit your marriage prospects with the vicar a great deal.'

The women didn't move. The koala-like one broke another branch from its trunk, freeing it from the wire trellis, and threw it on the ground. Robert reached down into his mulch and selected a clod of Spot's best manure from the edge of a thin irrigation groove. He heaved it at them and it landed on the woman's skirt with a soft phfft.

‘Shoo,' he said again. ‘Leave before you turn my grapes sour.'

The leader pointed a finger at him. ‘Evil is within you,' she sneered. ‘Punishment will be yours.' And they marched back to their buggy and climbed into the cabin, the springs flattening under their weight.

The vicar had left his horse in the sun again but a swaggie from a group waiting outside the church led it over to the shade between Rocket and Centaur. The swaggies kept their swags across their backs and stood in a hazy group, like people who'd travelled a long way for a banquet only to be told the food was eaten.

Hadley wasn't waiting to tether the Crupps' horses. He was just inside the door and he pounced on Phoeba when she came in. The pews were filled with the Crupps' new neighbours – the grubby but now well-fed seasonal workers – and the air smelled like campfires, bad teeth and pig flesh that hadn't stayed long enough in brine. Henrietta wiggled her fingers at Phoeba from the middle of the crowded pews. She was squeezed in on one side of her mother; Mr Titterton sat on the other side. It was the first statement of their relationship to the whole district. No wonder Henrietta looked so crestfallen.

‘Stay here with me,' whispered Hadley.

‘These itinerants,' she whispered back furiously, ‘have violated my goat, stolen my eggs and half my vegetables, and now they have come to church for free wine!'

Hadley nodded. ‘They're desperate.'

‘They could ask for food, or cut thistles, or something.'

She could feel his anxiety, could tell by his nervousness that he wanted to ask if she'd considered his proposal. But she wanted to ask him about Rudolph Steel – only to find out what was happening at Overton, she assured herself.

Lilith wriggled into a seat directly behind Marius and tapped his shoulder with her fan. He glanced warily at his mother before nodding to her. Phoeba, watching, smiled. Her sister really was very pretty. It was impossible not to take notice of her, especially if you were vulnerable.

Mr Jessop, a thin man with bandy legs far enough apart to drive a phaeton through, gave up his seat to Maude and Margaret. They squashed in next to Mrs Jessop, displacing her eldest boy at the other end of the pew. He joined his father to stand at the back of the church.

The itinerants murmured, fidgeted, dropped things and laughed at the birds bathing in the altar cup. They stayed seated during the hymns and murmured throughout the sermon. The vicar pressed on with a strong sermon on loving one's neighbours. Then he filled the communion cup and they flocked to him like seagulls to a picnic basket. It was then that Hadley took Phoeba's hand and dragged her outside.

‘Hadley, please, people will think—'

‘Bother people.'

Jamming his hat on his head, he led her to his horse and they stood between the carriages.

‘Now, Phoeba …' he said and found himself lost for words.

Her heart sank. Hadley was staring so earnestly at her and today was the day she knew she must really hurt him, put an end to all this. And it was the first day of his new career.

‘I'm going straight to Overton now. We start in the morning, as you know.' His kitbag was tied behind his saddle. He straightened, held his lapels and looked her in the eye.

‘Hadley, please—'

‘Can't we just get engaged, Phoeba? We can be engaged for a long time if you like.'

But she couldn't say yes. She didn't feel love; she didn't feel that sort of attraction. Hadley was just a friend. She couldn't make him anything else. And the idea of marrying Hadley seemed to her like taking the highest paid job at the abattoirs. ‘I can't,' she said at last. ‘I think it would be … unethical.'

He gritted his teeth, looked up at the sky and rubbed his forehead. ‘No it wouldn't, Phoeba. It would fix everything.'

‘You'll meet a very lovely, very suitable squatter's daughter. Your whole future is ahead of you.' She wished it was night so she couldn't see his hurt. He took his spectacles off and rubbed them with his nice, ironed handkerchief. It was one of his father's.

‘It's logical and not at all surprising that we should be a couple. And if we get engaged I can lay claim to what's mine.'

‘Hadley! I'm not yours.' She spun around, shocked.

‘No, I didn't mean … you misunderstand.' He sounded beaten then and his voice was wobbly.

‘I can't, Hadley,' she said, miserably. ‘It's not honest.'

She was right, he knew, it wasn't honest. And it wasn't honest to try to sway her by telling her if they were engaged he could claim Elm Grove, secure a place for a wife, for children, for the heirs to his father's dream. He could keep control of his farm away from old Mr Tit. But if she couldn't marry him, there was nothing he could do. He wanted to cry.

Phoeba felt wretched. Hadley was lovely, and she did love him standing there next to his brown mare in his new wool suit, and she loved his gallant moustache. He was funny and he was kind and she hated hurting him. But he had changed everything by persisting with this. It would always be there.

‘It wouldn't be right,' she said, again.

He put his hands either end of the saddle and his foot in the stirrup and then suddenly stopped. ‘We don't have to get married.'

‘You'd expect that we would one day, wouldn't you?'

Hadley couldn't lie but nor could he tell her the truth. He got on his horse and pulled his hat down firmly. ‘If you change your mind …'

‘I'll let you know.' Perhaps she shouldn't have said that, she thought, he might think she would marry him one day. It was all so wrenching and confusing. She would please almost everyone if she married Hadley – except Hadley's mother. Hadley would need a strong, plucky wife to cope with his mother. Phoeba didn't think she wanted to take that on.

The church doors flung open and the congregation rushed out as if a nest of bees had swarmed.

‘Good luck for tomorrow, Hadley,' she called, but he was already riding on to Overton, his shoulders round and his feet limp in the stirrups.

‘We're going to Pearsons' for tea,' said Maude, rushing across the yard and shooing her towards the horses. ‘The vicar is coming so you'd better get going.' Her mother didn't want the vicar to know she rode astride.

Phoeba walked Rocket ahead of the small convoy – the Hampden, the sulky and the vicar's buggy – in the hot sun all the way to Pearsons' and rode up the drive under the gentle elm shade. At the end of the grand arch of trees, she tethered Rocket in the stables and looked across the property: Hadley's inheritance.