The Well (8 page)

‘I think and have always thought,' Mr Bird added more pain in his meant kindness, ‘that you are a handsome woman Miss Hester and very clever too but there's those I would protect any woman from.'

Thank you, Mr Bird,' Hester said then, ‘I have absolutely no intention of marrying anyone.' Later in the privacy of her bed she had been unable to stop a terrible bitter silent weeping because any tiny hope seemed to have gone completely. She had in her room chests packed with household linen embroidered during the years with Miss Herzfeld. Laughingly in drawn-thread work and with generous smooth stitching, white upon white, the two of them had initialled sheets, table cloths, table napkins, little linen towels and pillow slips with an elaborate monograph designed from a double aitch Hilde Herzfeld and Hester Harper or Harper and Herzfeld. Miss Herzfeld, making her way into the youthful Hester's heart, taught her to wash her neck every day with cold water so that it would be beautiful to receive, when the time came, the necklaces and pendants and jewels some man would want to cherish her with. Both of them had washed their necks religiously even on the coldest mornings with the coldest water.

So Miss Harper did not scream. As she told herself on other occasions, when she managed to dismiss Mr Bird's intimate conversation, she also had a respect for her father's money and needed advice so that she and Katherine could spend and enjoy themselves without reducing themselves to poverty. She needed Mr Bird and, when he now indicated that he had private business to discuss, Hester suggested that Katherine should go and finish machining the new curtains, part of the preparations to make everything clean and pretty for Joanna.

Mr Bird, coming quickly to the reason for his out-of-time visit, explained that Mr Borden wanted to buy Miss Harper's land and he wanted to buy the farmhouse instead of renting it.

‘Borden's place is doing very well.' Mr Bird wiped his tea wet lips on the back of his hand. ‘It's the slope of his place and the movement of moisture,' he said. ‘Funny how you can stand on the ridge out there and see a crop to one side of you and – on the other side – there's – well, there's nothing.' He shook his head. Hester knew what he meant. She had seen this for herself.

Mr Bird went on to say that he thought it would be a good thing if Miss Harper decided to sell. ‘Price is good,' he said. ‘At this stage you can insist on price – on your price. Borden wants to buy in here now. Might change his mind later. He's a good man,' Mr Bird paused and, without looking at Hester's stony face as if he needed to be unaware of her expression in order to be able to go on talking, he told her that he would help her, as always, with investments. ‘You must look at it like this,' he said, his voice was steady not even persuasive. He was telling her plain facts he said. ‘Borden has intentions to sub-divide. No, let me finish,' Mr Bird said quietly as Hester stiffened and was about to say, ‘Never,' in a tone which he knew well. ‘He can pay your price because he's going to get a lot more back. I happen to know. You know, yourself, the trend. It won't last but there it is, strike while the iron's hot, Miss Hester. Prices will drop, like lead they'll drop. Why? Drought.' The question and statement bounced between them. ‘There's families,' he said, ‘have walked off their farms in the past and there's families will be walking off them again. I'm not saying that you're in that position, Miss Hester, but you've the chance now to sail off and remember, your stubble's thin.'

Hester frowned till her dark eyebrows met. This trouble talk annoyed her. The idea of farmlets as they were called bored her.

‘Once you've sold,' Mr Bird seemed to know her thought, ‘what happens to the place is not your concern, you'll have no more say in the dealings, you'll quit but you'll have your own affairs to see to. Your money. Your slopes,' Mr Bird seemed ruthless. ‘Your slopes,' he repeated, ‘don't seem to conserve moisture as they once did. We're not doing as well as we should,' he added. He waited but as Hester made no reply he said, ‘I'm an old man now, Miss Hester, I've nothing else to say. I'll not be able to help you forever. We, none of us, get any younger. There is just this too,' he paused, almost as if he was too shy to speak, ‘there's a change in you, Miss Hester, if I can say this. For a long time now the farm's not been number one in your order of things. To put it plain, it's not a business any more.' He paused and then went on, ‘And Borden, Mr Borden has asked me to make an offer on his behalf. It's a good offer. He's willing for you, if you so wish it, to keep this dog leg and this house, yard and shed buildings and he'll never trouble you at this end except to plough the firebreaks both sides of the fencing. It's a fair offer and open for you to ask more – it's all down here.' He gave Hester a sheet of paper.

Hester, receiving the letter with the written offer and the named price, sat silent, her eyes trying to read the formal words. She felt a pounding in her head as if all the blood vessels she had were filling and about to burst.

‘Well think quick if you will please, Miss Hester,' Mr Bird said. He lowered his voice, ‘And if I might advise you to hold your tongue about it before everyone, including little Miss Whatsaname in there.' He jerked his head towards the whirring sound of the sewing machine. Hester could not think of anything acid enough to say so she said nothing, managing, without any difficulty, to look like an advertisement for vinegar. Mr Bird stood up.

‘Thank you, Miss Hester, for my tea. It would be better,' he said, ‘to accept before Borden puts his fistful some place else.' With a final reminder that her stubble could be thicker and that they could both be younger he left.

During the night Hester, sitting in the moonlit window while Katherine brushed her hair gently, forgave Mr Bird his insult about her stubble. Never, she thought while the hairbrush steadily pressed the long sweeps of her strong hair downwards, had her paddocks looked so beautiful. From where they sat they looked across fold after fold of silent silvered stubble. In the moonlight the land seemed to be lifted up, raised as if held in offering towards the moon and the stars. Every stalk seemed clear and separate as if made of precious metal.

‘Perhaps,' Hester said dreamily, ‘perhaps I had better go to town tomorrow and sell and sign and do whatever has to be done. Perhaps,' she added, having told Katherine word for word Mr Bird's confidential conversation, ‘if we had some ready cash instead of it all being tied up in the property we could do a bit of travelling. See Europe. I'd like to take you to the places where I went when I was a girl. Beautiful! I remember,' she continued as if to herself, ‘the swan waitress.' She laughed. ‘You'd like to go wouldn't you Kathy, wouldn't you? eh?'

‘Oh Miss Harper, dear, you will know best what should be done,' Katherine said, making a prim little mouth as she spoke. She told Hester to turn her head, ‘A bit more Miss Harper, dear, so as I can brush the other side. Your hair's beautiful, Miss Harper, dear,' she purred. At the convent, she went on to remind Miss Harper, they all had to have their hair cut off, ‘real short. Oh it was terribly ugly, you can have no idea.' She brought into her voice an American accent from
Saturday Night Fever
revived for the fourth time at the west-end drive-in cinema. ‘So short and ugly,' she mourned, ‘you reely can have no idea. We were all perfect frights!' Hester, having heard this lamentation more times than she could count, had her reply ready.

‘Well yours has grown very well over the years,' she repeated comfortably in a voice reserved for remarks like this. She took the hairbrush. ‘Sit down, Kathy, in front of me, like this and I'll do yours now. It's very soft and pretty, your hair, very fine and pretty.' Gently she began to brush Katherine's pale hair. The idea of travelling appealed very much. Suddenly it seemed possible that they would skim through the week of Joanna's visit and then deposit the guest at the railway station, perhaps even a day early; there would be a great deal of planning and arranging to do. Hester as she saw Katherine's hair shine in the moonlight under the steady brush began to think of charming little hotels in the Swiss Alps, in Paris and in Vienna. Yes, she thought, money would make all this possible.

The transaction, the agreement, all the decisions and the drawing up of documents for the sale took several weeks.

Mr Borden, to celebrate and to make his new ownership known, announced that he was giving a party and it would be held at the hotel. As Rosalie Borden said, it was a combination party as several people in the agreement were taking up small parcels of land immediately and it was also a way for Miss Harper to say farewell to her land. Quite an occasion really when you thought about it as the property had been Harpers since kingdom come. The hotel, she said, was to be taken over entirely for the night as anyone who was anyone in the township and the surrounding districts was to be invited. A great many friends and acquaintances of the Bordens lived in the city and would be coming. Some of these people, looking towards a leisured life on the land, had put down large sums of money to secure a small corner of Mother Nature.

The preparations went forward quickly. All the women with any pretence at being dressmakers were busy making and remaking dresses. There was to be a buffet supper (with caterers), laid out in both dining rooms. Seafoods and snacks would be served in the bars. And, in the yard there was to be a three-piece band and a specially laid and chalked dance floor. There was talk too of a disc jockey, records and coloured flashing lights.

Katherine was unable to sleep or to eat because of the excitement and the pleasure of anticipation. She talked of Joanna more and more. The letter still lay on the dresser.

‘You know, Miss Harper, dear, Joanna's favourite song?'

‘No I'm afraid I don't,' Hester counted the stitches in her knitting.

‘Guess, Miss Harper, guess!'

‘Oh no Kathy, I couldn't possibly.' Hester lost count and started again.

‘Well,' Katherine said, It's one we might have at the dance. It's
Daddy don't you walk so fast
, it's not a new one now but I'm thinking of way back. Joanna was always singing it. She used to say she thought she could remember her father, his legs in a crowd of legs, trying to get away from her. She tried to go after him and kept seeing his legs through all the other legs and when she did get through, it wasn't him at all but another man who didn't want her. He was someone else's dad and he didn't want her.
Daddy don't you walk so fast. Daddy don't you walk so fast
,' Katherine sang in her American accent. It was a plaintive song and the words and the meaning touched Hester.

Accustomed to self examination and acts of contrition, Hester suffered more and felt that she ought to await Joanna's arrival with optimism and affection. She wished every minute of the day that she could get away with Katherine to some safe and harmless place. This thought was ridiculous as her place on the edge of the property was quite without harm. She had always felt perfectly safe once on the property as though nothing could touch her there. She told herself several times that she should not allow fear to enter her life like this.

‘If only Joanna could be here sooner,' Katherine started the next morning with her chatter. She wished, she said, for Joanna to come at once. ‘And then we could have twin matching dresses,' she said. ‘Matching styles,' she added, ‘but different colours, Miss Harper, dear. Joanna and me don't wear the same colours. Her hair is ever so much lighter than mine. She's real blonde! Ash blonde.'

Hester ignored the ‘real' and corrected Katherine. ‘Joanna and I,' she said, patience deserting her, ‘Joanna and I.' She almost shouted the pedantic phrase. How could Katherine, after all this time, continue to make these mistakes.

‘Oh no, Miss Harper, dear, it's me and Joanna I'm talking about. I wasn't suggesting for one minute that you should wear our styles. I mean, country and western wouldn't be yew? It wouldn't be right on yew, reelly it wouldn't.'

‘Oh, never mind!' Hester snapped.

In spite of the smoothness of the sale and the feeling of relief and security at having money invested and money to spend she felt depressed. Mr Bird thought she would inevitably regret keeping so much money for spending. He was annoyed and tried not to show it.

‘It's not the way, to live on your capital,' he said on his next visit and as if it came to him suddenly that Miss Harper was now no longer the land owner, he suddenly said quite rudely, ‘If you go on the way you have been these last few years you'll be in the poor house.' He even shook a gnarled finger at her and she knew that he was refraining from making a coarse remark.

‘Rubbish Mr Bird,' she said, ‘there's no such thing nowadays as the poor house as you call it, and please, as before, mind your own business. I do not wish for advice. I am quite agreeable as I have always for you to continue to be an agent for me for certain investment but you will act on my instructions. Please remember this.'

‘Very well, Miss Hester, if that's the way you want it,' Mr Bird said, and looking at the ground, he said, as if unable to resist the words of more advice, ‘I do not think it right or wise, Miss Hester that you keep cash the way you do in the house. In your father's time it was different. You're asking to be robbed.'

‘Nonsense Mr Bird, no one even knows the house is here.' Hester twitched her sleeves on the shoulders, first one and then the other, looking at each in turn.

‘Times are different Miss Hester,' Mr Bird persisted. ‘All kinds of people get to all kinds of places now. You could get a visitor, an unwelcome one, not invited, down that track any day.'

Hester, purposely misunderstanding, said, ‘Nonsense I've been here for years and no one except yourself and, a few times, Mr Borden, has come to the cottage.' In the back of her mind though she was nervous and worried. She knew that was why she was being rude to Mr Bird. She seemed to see Joanna, the unknown threat; perhaps the vulgar creature would come in her own car, a panel van. Hester could see it, a white neglected panel van, dented and rusted with the remains of a picture, probably mountains, stencilled on one side. Joanna would arrive in her own cloud of dust. She would make her own skid marks, wiping out Miss Harper's at the sudden bend where the track turned by some rocks. The rocks marked the way in to the hidden yard. Unless a turn was made at the rocks a visitor would be likely to go on and miss the cottage altogether. The track itself disappeared into an old firebreak now overgrown with scrub and merging with a dried-out creek bed, an old water course which never ran with water. Hester thought there were salt lakes further on. Eerie places she said to Katherine once. They never went to investigate.