Summer at Mount Hope (28 page)

He turned to Phoeba, took her hand and kissed it. ‘And, you have a brother,' he said. ‘He will be an asset, I know.'

In the days he had been away she had forgotten how brown his eyes were, so velvety that their pupils were almost indiscernible. The back of her hand hummed where his soft lips had touched. Hadley hovered after Aunt Margaret, refilling her glass often and discussing the paintings with her, keeping to the fringes of the room: Phoeba knew he was only pretending not to watch her every move, and she was sad to think she was making him behave so. When he went to stand with Mr and Mrs Overton they looked as nonplussed as three Quakers witnessing a bar brawl – but Phoeba decided she must push all these disgruntled people from her mind. This was a happy day, and she was standing between Henrietta and Rudolph Steel.

Robert nudged her aside to talk to Rudolph about landowners planting vineyards across the peninsula to the south. ‘They're put in riesling grapes at Pettavel,' he said, worried about the dangers of the new vignerons and outbreaks of phylloxera like the one in the 1870s. The cake remained uncut and Robert was still talking to Rudolph when Mr and Mrs Overton senior drifted upstairs without a word. It seemed to signal the end of the occasion.

Rudolph leaned close to Phoeba. ‘They don't like me much either.'

As she snuggled deeper under her quilt in her room, Phoeba heard her father walking softly by and saw his lamplight pass as he made his way to his bedroom. Apart from Aunt Margaret snoring in Lilith's bed, she felt all was right with the world. She even allowed the truth that had been incubating at the back of her mind to blossom. She had gone soft on Rudolph Steel. She felt it when she stood next to him and she felt it again now, imagining him in his satin-trimmed coat on one knee at the outcrop in a golden sunset, holding her hand – she could even feel his firm fingers around hers.

It came quickly then, a strange sinking feeling: Lilith was now living at Overton. Phoeba could never live there with Rudolph – she'd be stuck with Lilith forever! She pushed her daydream out. It was silly. Then she thought of a solution: she'd have to build a house on top of the outcrop, halfway between her vines and her husband's work.

There, she had thought the word – husband. But she knew her dream was far-fetched. Anyway, she reminded herself, she was happy on her own. She didn't want anyone interfering with her or with the vines. She wanted to run them. She wanted to be a vigneron. Why didn't the Overtons like Rudolph? Money, of course, she thought. He owned half of them. So he would run Overton and she would run Mount Hope. They would meet somewhere in the middle.

Sunday, February 11, 1894

O
n Sunday, Aunt Margaret arrived at the breakfast table irritable and cranky while Phoeba hummed as she dressed and prepared breakfast. ‘Stop making a din,' Margaret snapped, so fiercely that Robert asked if her gout was acting up.

‘Why would I have gout, Robert? I don't overindulge in wine, like you!' she said, but Phoeba knew her hip flask was empty. She fed her aunt bread and dripping and then her mother arrived, teary and snivelling.

‘For pity's sake, Mother, what's the matter now? Will you never be happy about anything?'

‘You just wait for this time in your life, Phoeba!' said Maude, shakily. ‘I can't control it. And I am concerned that Lilith will move to the city.'

‘Lilith will make sure she's all right no matter where she is but I don't know what's to become of me,' cried Margaret, dramatically.

‘Oh for heaven's sake, Margaret,' said Maude, wiping her eyes, ‘it's just a broken heart. You made your bed. Remember that ridiculous quote? “She who has never loved has never lived.” You have lived.'

‘You are a cruel and selfish sister, Maude.'

‘Me? You sold our home—'

‘Enough!' said Robert, throwing his newspapers aside. ‘All I ever hear is whining and complaining! You are wearing me out and if it weren't for the rabbits I'd be dead from working to feed you all!'

Maude crept back to her bed and Aunt Margaret left, her footfall hard on the back porch. In a fit of pique, she attempted to harness Spot to the sulky. Spot stood patiently while she placed the collar over his head and then found she could not thread the trace straps because the collar was on back-to-front. He lowered his head while she removed it and replaced it properly, then he sighed and looked hopefully to the house while she failed to join the girth strap again and again. Eventually, Phoeba came, and when Spot was correctly attired, Aunt Margaret rebuffed Phoeba's offer to drive. ‘I can drive,' she snapped, and wriggled the reins over Spot's rump. ‘Take me to Mrs Flynn, Spot,' she said with great pathos, and Spot obediently loped out the gate.

An hour later, he strolled back up the lane again. Behind him, Aunt Margaret was up to her waist in her dusty paintings while at the shop, Mrs Flynn leaned on the counter and wondered what to do about the square patches on her wall where the green paint had not faded under the canvasses. It all looked very bare.

Spot stood respectfully on the dam bank while Aunt Margaret constructed a clumsy pyramid of oil paintings in their cheap frames and threw a lit match at them. As each one grilled and melted she took another from the sulky and placed it on top. She took every canvas from the walls of the house and burned them, and finally chucked her sketchpad onto the blaze.

Phoeba was reorganising the bedroom, spreading her garments evenly through the drawers and shelves vacated by Lilith when her aunt came in and shoved all her things into her carpetbag.

‘I am, once again, extraneous,' she spluttered, tugging her bowler hat on and stomped off down the passage. She kicked the screen door open, thumped down the front steps and out the front gate leaving a small wake of curling dust.

Phoeba and Spot followed her.

‘No one is ever extraneous, Aunt Margaret. Everyone has a place,' she called. Of course her aunt must stay at Mount Hope – it was obvious, Phoeba knew, even though she was compromised again. She'd still have to share a room, and she'd have to cook and wash for one more person – chauffeur one more around. She invited her to stay anyway.

‘I'd rather eat a sundowner's toenails,' spat her aunt and threw her carpetbag into the back of the sulky. They drove silently to meet the twelve o'clocker, her aunt glaring out at the bay.

Mrs Flynn asked as she wrote out the ticket, ‘Where's your flash friend?'

‘Probably with one of his other friends,' said Aunt Margaret, her voice like wire grating on tin.

The shopkeeper nodded knowingly. ‘If you want your back scratched use a doorjamb I say.'

‘Hear hear,' said Margaret.

‘Have you heard from Freckle?' asked Phoeba.

‘It's a secret,' said his mother, looking about in case there were vengeful itinerants behind her flour bins. ‘He's seeing the whole of Victoria way up to the border. A lightning-squirter's job isn't easy but it was the snake in the mailbag that finally made up his mind.' Mrs Flynn studied the floor around her feet. ‘It had twelve little babies and they all crawled off in here somewhere.'

‘You won't ever tell Mother that, will you?' said Phoeba.

‘Not unless I need to – for some reason.'

As they waited on the siding for the train, Aunt Margaret said grandly, ‘I will not be ruined by some fickle, capricious man, Phoeba. It isn't dignified. What every woman requires is a loyal friend to bury you when you're dead, bring you a cup of tea when you're ill and scratch your back when you're without a suitable doorjamb. Romantic love, what humbug.' She thought for a moment then added, ‘Mind you, the intimate thing was something I'm glad I didn't miss out on.' And she shivered, still delighted.

‘Good,' said Phoeba, ‘but one man shouldn't dash your hopes. As the suffragettes would say, “Men should protect your freedom, not make you a slave to their whims”.'

The light in her aunt's green eyes switched back on, ‘The suffragettes, of course!'

Phoeba tried to read late that night, tried to relish having her room to herself, but she was soon asleep, exhausted. Her dreams brought rain, thunder, weddings and Rudolph Steel.

Monday, February 12, 1894

S
he woke feeling tense. A cold air eased up under her skirt as she walked along the hall. She kicked the cloth snake against the gap and stood at the window in its squares of brittle morning sun to eat her porridge, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Robert came in from the outhouse, threw a slice of bread on the hot plate, poured himself tea, and then moved his chair to the other end of the table by the stove.

‘Place is dull without Lil, isn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Phoeba, cheerfully, not missing her at all. ‘But we'll have grapes, Dad, fat pale grapes. And next season will be a bumper crop and we'll make wine.' She would make it herself, all going according to plan. She put her bowl in the sink and said, ‘I think I'll ride to see Henrietta.'

She had decided to confront Rudolph, to find out about the crop, and find out what would happen to Marius and Lilith if it went bad.

But before she could finish her chores, Henrietta rode down from the outcrop astride Liberty, her skirt screwed under her thighs and her shins exposed where her stockings had come adrift from her garters. She flopped at the kitchen table.

‘Have you run away?' asked Phoeba, pouring her a cup of tea.

‘You can always have the shed, Henri,' said Robert removing his shoe to inspect his gout toe.

‘I won't need it,' she said. ‘Mr and Mrs Overton left on the ten o'clocker to Melbourne. Lilith is in a state because …' Henrietta was having problems getting the words out. ‘… I'm happy to go home. But I don't know what Hadley will do. He may stay at Elm Grove now ...'

‘Tell me, Henrietta,' said Phoeba, her knuckles white around the teapot's handle.

‘Guston Overton has gone bust. Rudolph Steel has bought them out.'

The teapot dropped with a wet crack and several, brown-stained ceramic slices skidded across the floor leaving a starburst of tea-leaves. Phoeba gathered the mess into the tea-cozy.

Spot cantered as fast he could to Overton, so fast that Henrietta was left far behind. She tied Spot to the back gate and ran into the house, bursting through the back door to the cavernous kitchen. Rudolph Steel was at the stove in his shirt and trousers and knee-length boots, a cup of tea in one hand and a slice of bread in the other. He didn't look surprised to see her.

‘Tell me what's happening,' she gasped.

‘Would you like some bread? I've been dreading this scene for days, Phoeba,' he said, sitting down slowly. ‘And I'm sorry about this. I believe you will make your vineyard viable.' He watched her carefully – he liked her particularly now, standing in the kitchen after a fast ride, vibrant, a little breathless. She was pretty, he thought, but there was something else in her, a substance that would grow with age and knowledge, and he admired that. Sometimes he'd seen her eyes blue and sometimes grey. Today they were dark and challenging.

She sat down in front of him, folded her hands on the table. ‘Go on.'

‘The London Bank of Australia foreclosed on Overton's liens. I have paid them out—'

‘You've bought Guston Overton out?'

He didn't pause. ‘Mr Titterton has been let go and is packing up as we speak. I'm sorry it's come to this but your sister and Marius can stay in the manager's house for as long as they need …'

For as long as they need – until they find somewhere else. Marius had been dispossessed.

In the short, piercing silence dread sank Phoeba's heart then hope lifted it just as quickly. So Lilith and Marius would go to Melbourne. And Rudolph would take over Overton. Which would keep him next door to her.

‘But Marius has refused,' she heard him say. He took a breath and she held hers. ‘They say they will go to Mount Hope.'

Very quietly, her ambitions, her plans for her whole life flaked into pieces on the floor around her like paint falling from an old ceiling. Rudolph drummed his fingers on the table next to the slice of bread in which his single bite had left a small bay. She looked at him squarely. He could have warned her.

‘You didn't tell me.'

‘I wasn't sure—'

‘You knew though. You knew and you let Marius marry Lilith.'

‘What could I do about it? They had to marry, didn't they?'

He was right.

‘You can save me now,' said Phoeba desperately. ‘Let them stay as manager.'

‘I am the manager. He has been manager.'

‘And he managed to ruin Overton.'

‘To be fair, a lot has to do with his father—'

‘And the banks,' she spat.

‘And the banks and workers, the dry season. Marius could stay as caretaker, but he won't.'

‘He'll manage Mount Hope though. He was happy to marry Lilith for the grapes,' Phoeba shrugged. ‘What about me?'

He gestured helplessly to the ruined crop, the sheep in their poor condition, the low green water in the dams. She knew that he had seen it all coming. ‘You will need help …' she remembered him saying.

‘You knew.'

‘I hoped it would come right.' He turned his teacup on the table and she reached and put her hand over his wrist, stopping him.

‘Rudolph, they'll move in over there and I'll be … I don't know what will happen to me. I'm like you. I don't want to be anyone's possession.'

‘I thought, like me, you had someone … a commitment.'

She took a moment to catch her breath. ‘Hadley wants a wife who's devoted, homely, who likes children – and sheep. I'm not right for him; I'm the same as you.'

‘I have a wife in England—'

‘No!' she screamed, startling herself. She stood up, the chair behind her tipping over. ‘But I thought …'