Summer at Mount Hope (4 page)

At the brown mare Hadley turned to Phoeba, his expression serious.

‘My future is set now, Phoeba,' he said.

‘It is.' He seemed oddly nervous so she reassured him: ‘You'll be the best wool classer they've had.'

‘After the season I'll be able to get more work and build the new house at Elm Grove. I can develop my emasculator—'

‘Yes,' said Phoeba.

Hadley adjusted his glasses. ‘—and I can get married and start a family.'

‘Married!' She was amazed, thrilled, delighted for him.

His face lit up. ‘You're pleased then?'

‘Of course,' said Phoeba, picturing a handsome girl with spectacles who liked sheep. Then, suddenly, she wasn't sure how she felt about her childhood friend getting married. After all, she'd saved him once from Mrs Flynn's belligerent rogue gander, charging up to him with Spot at a slow half trot and dragging him off by the back of his coat.

Hadley sank down on one knee and she thought he must be feeling the heat.

She glanced up to the house and saw the parlour curtain move. Inside, Maude reached for a chair; Robert said, ‘Damn,' and Lilith said, ‘Henrietta and I will be attendants. We should wear white. It's all the rage.'

Phoeba looked at Hadley and his eyes shone up at her. A dread, a feeling like having eaten too much fresh bread and jam, grew large in the pit of her stomach.

‘Phoeba, will you be my wife?'

Her immediate impulse was to laugh but Hadley's eyes, burning blue behind his spectacles, stopped her. She turned away and patted the horse. She'd never had any reason to think seriously about marriage for herself. No one had ever entered her world and prompted her to think about it. And, she'd never even had an urge to marry.

‘Phoeba, we both want the same things in life.' Hadley started to panic and reached for her hand but she thrust his string basket at him.

‘I hate sheep. They rot from the bottom up.'

‘Not if you look after them properly!' he said looking truly offended. ‘And anyway, you won't have to go anywhere near a sheep if you don't want to.'

He took the bag from her and got to his feet, round patches of dust on his knees. The yolk pooled onto his shiny, new boots.

‘You must want children, a partner in life? You're a girl, surely …'

It was very strange, Phoeba thought as she watched the sticky yellow mess, to be talking to Hadley about getting married. It seemed … lewd.

‘I don't think I ever wanted those things,' she said, struggling to compose her thoughts.

‘That's just because you've never given it any thought.'

It wasn't supposed to be like this; he'd thought she'd say yes and now he was floundering. He hadn't thought about what to do if she said no. So he put his hat on. He'd give her time, that's what he'd do. ‘Your father said—'

‘You didn't!' she yelled, and he stepped back. ‘Tell me you didn't ask him! Why, Hadley, why did you ask him? It's got nothing to do with him.'

‘Promise me you'll think about it?' he asked, reaching for his horse, wishing he hadn't said anything, wishing he sounded stronger. ‘There are lots of reasons to get married,' he suggested. ‘It's about building a future …'

She shook her head at him, confused. Her eyes had turned grey and she was frowning.

‘Will you at least think about it?' he said.

Phoeba couldn't gather her thoughts at all. And Hadley looked so desperate. She put her finger to her chin as if to ponder.

‘Don't mock me, Phoeba.'

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I will think about it.' She hadn't seen him this upset since she pushed him off the swing and broke his arm.

‘Promise?'

‘I promise.'

Hadley climbed onto his horse and looked down at her. ‘You might find, one day, that marriage is the right thing.'

‘Happy New Year,' she called feebly, watching him ride away. ‘Blast,' she said. She felt irritated, sad and bothered. Nothing would be the same now; Hadley had always been like a brother, and of course she didn't want to hurt him. But she knew he would go home now to sit on his thin, boy's bed in its tiny room of books and plans and dreams. He would sit with his forehead in his hands and tears running down his lovely straight nose. Henrietta would be cross with her and when her mother found out she'd refused a proposal she'd be furious.

Spot whickered long and low from his paddock and she crossed the dry grass to him and rubbed his muzzle, the hot breath from his nose on her hand. Up on the outcrop, smoke wafted down from a swaggie's campfire. Phoeba turned back to the house, hearing three sets of feet rumble hastily up the hall towards the kitchen as she approached.

Hadley slowed his mare to a walk as soon as he was beyond the signpost, then he halted her and sat looking ahead to Elm Grove. Had he ruined everything? He knew Phoeba would think so. No, they would always be friends. And Phoeba would think about it and see sense. He screwed his face in agony. Such a fool. Fool, fool, fool. Obviously it was too sudden for her. Of course she wasn't expecting it; he'd never said anything, never even tried to be affectionate or tender. He should have brought flowers. Presents. He should have given her a book for her birthday last week. He would talk to Henrietta. No, he mustn't tell Henrietta. She might feel she had to take sides. He would keep it all close to his chest.

Maude was humming, ‘I Hear Wedding Bells' as she set the table while Robert sat in the spot at the end of the table that caught the breeze between the front and back door and watched her slice cold meat and arrange pickle jars. Lilith asked her mother to order a yard of plain linen so she could make serviettes for trousseau boxes.

Phoeba ignored them all.

Finally, Maude asked breezily, ‘Did Hadley bring any other news we haven't heard—'

‘No!' said Phoeba, and stood up and went to bed.

The heat throbbed through the weatherboard, the crickets were in full voice. Phoeba opened
Far From the Madding Crowd
. Gabriel had just proposed to Bathsheba and she had refused, telling him he should marry someone with money who could stock his farm. Clearly, thought Phoeba, it was an omen.

It wasn't long before Lilith came in, undressed, chucked her clothes into the corner and flopped onto her bed. She tucked her mosquito net in and fanned herself with
Madame Weigel's Journal of Fashion
: ‘What were you and Hadley talking about today?'

Phoeba ignored her. She'd been trying to ignore Lilith since she was born.

‘I said, what were you—'

‘Sheep.' She closed her book and turned down the lamp.

‘Do you like Hadley?'

‘How can anyone not like Hadley? He's lovely.' And Phoeba pulled the sheet up over her head.

‘He's a dill,' said Robert untying Maude's corset. ‘Fancy wanting to go off and start a sheep career in a drought, with strikers everywhere, squatters going bust left right and centre.' He loosened the strings and Maude's upper body sagged, her breasts pulling down so that her shoulder bones seemed to rise and push up against her skin. She dragged her rouleaux curl from her crown and placed it on the dressing table where it lay like a sleeping rodent.

‘There are still sheep to be shorn, Robert, money to be earned for a wife and for my grandchildren. He's sincere and he's trying,' replied Maude.

‘Trying indeed.' Robert sat gingerly on the edge of the bed as Maude removed her drawers, lifted them with her toe and dropped them into the basket. ‘He can try all he likes but I doubt she'll take him on – and I don't want a son-in-law who thinks my vines are a waste of good sheep country.'

‘Most people think your vines are a waste of good sheep country, Robert, including me. At least sheep eat the grass down.' She gestured at the door with her potty. ‘Now off you go to the shed.'

‘Come on Maudie, old thing, you can't throw me out just because Spot behaved badly. Mosquitoes eat me alive out there—'

‘They could bother the cart horse instead, if we had one.'

Robert sighed, heading forlornly to the shed where he lay on a hard, gritty bed scratching at the mites which crawled into his armpits, slapping at the insects which flew into his ears.

In the dark, Lilith was still talking.

‘You and Hadley are so alike, Phoeba. You're both old-fashioned and you like animals.'

How could they not be alike? They were formed next door to each other. Henrietta, Hadley and Phoeba interpreted the world entirely from a Bay View perspective. From the time Phoeba was ten they had fished, swam, played and gone to school together. They had shared responsibility for a blue tongue lizard, catching insects to feed it, taking it swimming in summer to cool it and warming it in the slow oven in winter until Henrietta left it too long and cooked it. For her eleventh birthday, Henrietta and Hadley had given her a red-back spider, which ran up the twig to the top of its jar for a live fly until she found it on its back, curled like a tomato stem, one day. She still had it, somewhere.

And Maude had spent many evenings teaching all four youngsters to dance, each of the girls taking a turn with Hadley. Phoeba had never thought about marrying Hadley, although it seemed that's what people did. They grew up and married someone suitable when it was time. Then they had babies, worked hard and made do, argued, and died.

Suddenly, Phoeba Crupp felt very tired.

The first wedding cake

Monday, January 1, 1894

P
hoeba rose through the layers of slumber to hear bird-song in the still morning. It may have been New Year, but it was Monday – washing day. She would get up, milk the goat, light the copper, have breakfast and get to the washhouse before Lilith woke. After the wash she would ride to see Henrietta. Then she remembered: Hadley had proposed and now nothing could ever be the same again. She had hurt him and
the refusal
would always be there, lurking, like a thieving boy behind a hedge. She kicked back the sheet and hurried out, away from it.

It was a scorcher of a day and, and after a morning with boiling sheets, Phoeba sat on the veranda step to take advantage of the breeze from under the house. She removed her stockings, draped them over her boots, unfastened the buttons of her high-necked blouse and yanked her skirt up so high that the white work and ruffles of her drawers showed. Out on the bay a cargo boat with three steam stacks lurched out to sea. She put the looking glass to her eye and studied the flags: Dutch.

A few rabbits were grazing on the fine grass at the dam's edge and Spot stared at her, his bright eyes pleading in his long, black head. ‘It's too hot for a ride,' she called, shaking her own head to rid her mind of Hadley's hurt face. Spot strolled back to the shady trees and gazed at the bay.

Phoeba focused the looking glass on the noon train, a line of square black boxes burning along the rail's thin line, slowing at the siding. Two swaggies tumbled from the guard's van, and scrambled off towards the bay. The mailman leaned out, flinging a mailbag onto the siding. As the train gathered speed again, he disappeared into his van then a square wad of newspapers flew out the door, knocking Freckle who fluttered off the siding into the scrub.

Good, thought Phoeba, papers to read.

While she waited for Freckle, she thought about marriage, as she had promised, but nothing came – apart from the dull brown shape of Freckle on his roan cob moving up Mount Hope Lane. Soon he rode through the gate past Spot and his ankle-height entourage – the ducks, the rooster – and eased up to the front step. Summer's sun ripened Freckle's freckles and they had massed together in one big smear that bridged his nose from cheek to cheek. He sat low in a huge saddle, his bare feet resting loosely in the stirrup irons. A damp cloth sack containing skinned and gutted rabbits hung from the saddle. Mrs Flynn's only child, Freckle was famous for turning up to school with crayfish sandwiches for lunch, much to the envy of everyone. Not that he attended anymore – he said he'd learned the alphabet so knew what the telegraph machine was spelling out. He handed Phoeba the
Geelong Advertiser
and a large hatbox addressed to Robert.

‘Would you like a drink, Freckle?'

‘I'll get tea and a biscuit at Overton,' he boasted. His horse sniffed the wiry, blanched petunias at the base of the front steps, lifting its head abruptly when Maude came out onto the veranda.

‘Keep your animal away from my garden,' said Maude.

‘Call that a garden?'

‘We won't have a rabbit this week since we have lamb from Overton, but I was expecting a peach parer from Lassetters,' she said, frowning at the hatbox.

‘If it had come I'd have brought it, wouldn't I?' said Freckle.

‘Thank you. You can go now.'

‘No, I can't.'

‘Why not?'

‘Your old man gives me a penny for bringing the newspapers from the siding.'

‘He's not here.'

‘His newspapers are.'

‘Well I haven't got any money. Now off you go.'

The mailboy regarded Maude levelly: ‘Your sister's crook. I hope she dies. 'And he handed a post office telegraph to Phoeba and trotted away.

‘Thanks,' called Phoeba.

Aunt Margaret, wisely, had written only three words for Freckle to interpret. ‘Unwell. Arriving tomorrow.'

‘Lovely,' said Phoeba. She would have good company for a few days.

Aunt Margaret came to Mount Hope when she was broke, lonely or starving. She lived in Geelong in the dank, shadowy house she and Maude had been raised in. The weatherboards slanted and the front veranda undulated, but Aunt Margaret spent her days at her easel in the sunny conservatory, a cracked and rusty construction now held together by blackberry bushes. She survived on handouts from Robert and a very, very small allowance from a fund her parents had started – before their tragic and unexpected deaths – as dowries for their two daughters. Every once in a while she sold an oil painting and for a long time she had taken in lodgers, but no one suitable wanted the room anymore. Maude often suggested she seek a position as a companion to someone rich, but Margaret said snappily that she'd rather catch hydatids.

‘You could have at least buttoned your blouse,' said Maude, taking a newspaper from Phoeba.

‘It's only Freckle.'

They both settled with their pages:
STREETON'S PAINTING, THE RAILWAY STATION, REDFERN, ENJOYS GREAT SUCCESS.

Robert arrived from the vineyard. ‘My new hat,' he said, opening the box.

‘There's nothing wrong with the one you've got on,' said Maude.

‘I could have been blinded,' said Robert, pointing to a red scar on top of his head where a swooping magpie had torn the skin in the spring.

‘If you had we would have moved straight back to Geelong and put you in a home,' spat Maude.

‘I would have got you out, Dad,' said Phoeba. Her mother was always saying cruel things to her father.

Robert settled his new hat onto his head. It was a pith hat and looked very silly.

‘Farmers don't wear pith hats, Robert,' said Maude.

‘I am not a farmer,' said Robert. ‘I am a vigneron.'

Maude put her hand to her temple. ‘You are the cause of my headaches, Robert.' She drifted inside taking the social pages with her.

‘I don't know what I did to deserve my lot in life,' he sighed, settling in his chair.

Yes, thought Phoeba, better keep Hadley as a friend. She didn't want to end up like her mother. She put her boots on and liberated Spot so he could follow her around the vines. At the top of the first one she carefully pulled the thin, rubbery leaves aside and there, at the end of a spindly stem, were the tiny clusters of green pellets, like baby broccoli at the end of pale, green peduncles. Beautiful, evenly spaced and laddering all the way to the end of the stem.

‘Look, Spot, grapes!'

The pellets would be fat berries in a few weeks and then slowly they'd develop a bloom, a powdery coat to keep the water inside and transform them into sacks of dull juicy jelly. Every other farmer might look expectantly and eagerly to the skies to welcome the Autumn rain clouds, but the Crupps implored Pomona, Roman Goddess of fruit, to banish those fluffy pillows and summon them more warm, dry skies. No wonder the vineyard wasn't popular.

Grapes were easier to think about than Hadley.

Tuesday, January 2, 1894

H
adley was Phoeba's first thought on Tuesday morning when she woke. She nudged him gently from her mind and went out into the dry air, shooing birds from the vines just after sunrise. Later, eating breakfast with her father, they heard a floorboard groan under a heavy weight and Maude came down the passage holding her potty carefully in both hands. Robert smiled at his wife but she didn't take her eyes off the pot. Her grey-streaked hair was tied in loose, messy twists that hung down over her bosoms, and her cheeks were flushed. ‘I still have a bit of a head,' she said, on the way to the outhouse. It was the one place outside Maude
had
to go. As much as she could, she stayed indoors.

‘I'll make some fresh tea,' said Phoeba moving the kettle to the hotplate. The headaches had only started lately, but this one wasn't going to stop Maude settling at the kitchen table with Lilith, a box of dressmaking patterns and a stack of fashion magazines.

‘I quite like a feathered aigrette on my bodice although they say the tailored effect is fashionable now in Europe,' said Lilith.

‘And what's new in hats and veils?' asked her mother.

Phoeba headed to the orchard for some peace, but as she picked plums Hadley's hurt face came back to her. There was nothing she could do about it, she decided. Time would have to heal.

Sitting in the grass stoning the plums, she made a list in her head of alternative occupations: nurse, teacher, factory seamstress, librarian or governess. The options didn't seem too bad. But there was a depression, thousands of people were unemployed, she knew, and Bay View was a long way from anywhere.

After lunch she helped her father harness Rocket ready for the sulky.

‘I hope he doesn't kill us. Why didn't you borrow a horse from Overton?'

‘You're starting to sound like your mother,' said Robert looping the strap of his pith helmet under his chin.

‘And you look as if you're about to go off shooting elephants.'

‘Bloody women,' said Robert. ‘Thank God for Rocket.'

Phoeba was smoothing her worn riding gloves over her rough hands when Lilith appeared dressed in her best knife-pleated skirt and jacket. Maude's finest bar brooch was pinned to her lapel and she wore her most sumptuous hat.

‘Aren't you hot?' asked Phoeba, while Robert stared at the feathers waving about on top of his daughter's head: ‘Ostriches will be cold this winter,' he mused.

‘You never know,' said Lilith. ‘We might meet someone.'

‘Prince Edward is often at Mrs Flynn's shop,' muttered Phoeba.

As they approached the gate, Spot spread his front legs wide and dropped his big black head to the ground, sulkily. His nostrils were crusted with dust and his breath cleared two bare circles in the dirt. The rooster and duck stood supportively by his side.

‘It's your own fault,' called Phoeba, but she made a mental note to give him an apple when she got back. She looked down to Bay View.

Fortunately, there was only one other horse in sight and it was two miles away, tied up outside Flynn's shop: it would have been impossible to stop Rocket at the intersection if there was converging traffic. Galloping pace was his only speed. Phoeba looped the reins between her fingers, squeezed the leather straps tightly and pulled back, restraining the white horse as he danced through the gate.

Lilith held her hat, Phoeba said gee-up and Rocket sprang, pacing all the way down Mount Hope Lane. Grazing rabbits scattered as they sped by and the intersection and the dam went by in a blur as they raced towards Bay View. Phoeba saw a man stride out of Flynn's to the tethered horse. She'd seen neither the horse nor the rider before.

‘Oh no,' she said under her breath. ‘Please let him stay put.'

The man got on his horse and saw Rocket racing towards the siding and, just as Phoeba feared, spurred his horse and rode to meet them. He was broad-shouldered and dark-haired and he turned his horse to ride alongside Rocket as he met up with them.

‘I've got him,' he called to Phoeba and reached for Rocket's cheek piece.

‘He'll stop at the line,' called Phoeba, but the stranger ignored her, tugging at Rocket's bridle.

Rocket charged on, the finish line in his sights, and they raced together, the wind on their faces, the harnesses creaking and tinkling and the horses panting.

Phoeba's grip on the reins was firm; she was in control although her arms were stretched. The rim of her straw hat was pushed back by the wind and the stranger noticed a confident, fearless glint in her eye and a firmly set jaw. Beside her, a fancily dressed lass held tightly to her hat and looked worried.

Rocket stopped dead, his way blocked by the siding, and the rider let him go. He circled on his horse, which was unusually thickset and stocky. ‘Does he always race like that?'

‘Yes,' said Lilith, looking vulnerable and helpless.

The stranger was good-looking, Phoeba noticed, in an unusual way. Not so much handsome as strong. It went through her mind that she should have worn her blue dress, or perhaps thought to borrow Maude's bar brooch before Lilith did.

‘Our horse used to be a pacer,' she said.

‘A very fast one.'

The man smiled and all Phoeba could do was smile back; she could think of nothing to say. His eyes were brown, his moustache shiny and the wax at its ends clean, not dulled like old string or clogged with bits of food. He got off his horse, took the reins from Phoeba and looped them through the wheel. Then he helped them down from the sulky.

‘We're getting a new horse,' said Lilith, ‘from Overton.'

‘Indeed?' said the stranger.

‘But thank you,' Phoeba stammered, and the man tipped his hat and rode away.

‘Do you think that's the new manager, Phoeba?' asked Lilith.

‘Possibly. Hadley says the new manager's name is Mr Steel,' she replied, a little breathless.

‘I wonder if he's married,' said Lilith.

The two girls stood in Flynn's shop, their full skirts filling the room and their hems skimming the worn, flour-dusted floor. The shop smelled of dead mice and rancid butter and Lilith stood uncomfortably in the middle with her elbows pressed to her side, staying small to stop any part of her clothing from touching anything. She tried to summon her pleasant expression but she just looked as if she had a headache.

‘Is there a parcel for us?' she asked, sweetly.

‘Nup,' said Mrs Flynn, and smiled. Mrs Flynn was Irish and cheerful, and she controlled the mail, dry goods and the newspapers with a vengeful hold.

‘It's a peach parer,' said Lilith, ‘but Mother's hoping it'll do apples as well.' She lifted her hem clear of the chalky floor.

Mrs Flynn dumped Robert's papers on the counter:
COLONIES GRIPPED BY DEPRESSION AS LONDON BANKS COLLAPSE, CRISIS PLUNGES PASTORALISTS INTO RUIN.