Stella refused to be baited into another argument. She was beginning to recover from her time out west, and her visits with Brandon were helping to fill in the many holes that pitted her knowledge of her husband’s life. So, why was she keeping her visits to the old man so closely guarded? She may have initially agreed to Harry’s rules out of politeness, however genuflecting to her brother-in-law was no longer a priority. Stella gathered up the plate of spoiled toast. ‘If you need me today, I’ll be at Brandon Ryan’s house.’
‘W-what?’ Tea dribbled down the front of Ann’s navy dress.
‘You’re going to find out sooner or later so I might as well save you the bother and tell you straight. I’ve spoken to him on a number of occasions. If my seeing him offends you then I’m happy to leave earlier. I’m partially packed.’
For the very first time since her arrival on the farm, Stella felt as if she were in charge of her life again. She left her sister-in-law and walked straight from the house through the garden, and its maze of long-ago-cut trees. She paused at the trunk of the sole surviving cedar and then slipped through the fence. Within minutes, she was knocking on Brandon Ryan’s door. She realised immediately that it was far too early to be disturbing an elderly man and she began to back away, however the dog greeted her with a series of barks and Brandon came to the door.
‘Back so soon,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You’re just in time for some tea. At this hour I need to wet my whistle to get things mechanising.’
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t think about the time,’ Stella apologised. ‘I can come back later.’
‘You’re here now.’ Brandon joined her on the veranda and they sat side by side, as they had the first night of their meeting. But they were no longer strangers. In the daylight he appeared almost too frail to withstand the slight morning breeze and she admired the concentration it must have taken when he lifted the pannikin of tea, his grip shaky.
‘I imagine there’s a reason you’re here so early,’ said Brandon.
‘Yes. It was something you said the other night. A name you mentioned. With everything else I forgot until this morning.’ She took the Bible from her apron and opened it, showing him the name Hetty scrawled at the front. Then she passed him the letter. ‘B is for . . . ?’
‘Brandon,’ said the old man, reading the lines.
‘It’s you,’ said Stella. ‘You wrote this.’
‘I did,’ he admitted, carefully folding the letter. In the garden, the dog chased butterflies.
‘I found the Bible and the letter within the first few weeks of moving to Kirooma,’ said Stella.
‘I always wondered if she’d received it. She couldn’t write very well. Few of us could back then. Luckily I was keen to learn and I had a reasonable teacher,’ said Brandon.
‘You mean Hetty. That’s who you were writing to,’ persisted Stella.
‘Hetty. She was a good woman with a solid character. Did you find anything else?’
‘Nothing personal like that, although the Handalays left a lot of furniture. Some of it would be quite valuable now.’
‘Was there a large terrestrial globe? It was about this high.’ He raised his hand a couple of feet from the ground. ‘There was a compass in the bottom of the stand. It’s a very fine example. It would have been in the library.’
‘Yes, there was. I have it with me. It’s one of the few pieces that I took when I left. But how do you know about it?’
‘I remember the last time I saw it,’ replied Brandon.
‘When? Where?’
‘Right here,’ he said. ‘At the front of this house. The day my world fell apart.’
Chapter 49
Richmond Valley, 1867
Maggie sat on a length of fallen timber, locks of chestnut hair whisking about her in the wind, each strand furling and unfurling until she reached for the unruly tendrils and twisted them into a thick knot at the base of her neck. She stared towards the hills, where a setting sun sent out biting rays of orange light. Little Tommy played at her side. The child rolled across the ground, smiling in delight, and then lay on his stomach, poking at the soil. He reached out to pull at her skirt but was ignored so thoroughly that he soon returned to his play.
Maggie’s sadness was reflected in everything she did – in the untidy mending of sheets, in the butter that was over-churned, or the complaints from others of her surly behaviour. The air about her had taken on a brittleness that was difficult to bear. Every evening since they’d returned to Truby’s run, she sat on the fallen timber, her body like a pool of still water. She’d wait until the gathering twilight became night, then she would return to Hetty’s cottage to eat and sleep, before waking to go through the motions of living once again.
The notion of confronting Maggie to try to draw her free of self-pity entered Brandon’s thoughts hourly. He knew she hurt, and he longed to break through the remoteness that separated them. And yet every time he saw her, words failed him. By trying to save her, in doing his best to give her a better life, he’d caused her to drift further away, and he feared losing her forever.
He too had his own place for watching and remembering as the light dwindled. A single grey-barked eucalypt with a tangle of leaves for shelter and, this afternoon, a laughing kookaburra, whose song appeared to be written especially for him.
The bird gave a final chortle and flew from the branch. Hetty arrived and he was pleased at her coming. Here was someone who was not past forgiving. She had accepted Maggie’s return with little comment, knowing that Mr Truby played a part, and she’d been wise enough not to ask questions. At least not yet. What domestic would query Brandon, when he’d ridden in and out of the property with the squatter at his side?
Together they observed the changing colour staining the countryside gold. There was comfort in having Hetty at his side.
‘She must sense me standing here, but she never turns. Not once. What is she gazing at?’ said Brandon.
Hetty shaded herself from the glare. ‘Everything. Nothing,’ she replied, the two words conjuring up the mystery of women’s business. ‘Maggie told me last night that she wants to return to Ireland.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Brandon, turning to face her.
‘You can’t save someone if they don’t want to be saved,’ replied Hetty, in her practical manner. She squeezed his arm as he guessed a mother might and took a series of small steps away from him to kick at a tangle of fallen twigs and leaves. ‘She’s unhappy. Maggie and I aren’t friends, don’t suppose we are, but her pining hasn’t eased. You don’t have to like a person to see they’re hurting.’
‘It’s been a month,’ Brandon reminded her. ‘A whole month.’
‘Only a month,’ she corrected, ‘during which she’s lost the child she was carrying, and learnt that the man she hoped to marry is in a barred cell. And yet you sit here wondering why she’s so distant. Why she’s so sad. It’s no small thing for a woman to lose a baby, Brandon, no small thing at all, and she blames you for everything.’
‘Regardless of whether I’d brought her here in the first place or not, Niall Hackett still would have been arrested.’
‘Let her go. Let Maggie make her own way in the world. Niall might take her back after he’s released in a few years. If he did, it would be for the best.’
‘It’s not for the best, and anyway, I made a promise.’
‘Not to her, I’m betting.’ Hetty broke the slender branch she held so that the pieces fell in even lengths to the ground. ‘Such an agreement means nothing, at least not to her.’
‘It’s for her benefit,’ replied Brandon, growing angry.
‘Is it?’ queried Hetty. ‘I wonder about that. I’ve seen the way you watch her.’
‘She’s family.’ He’d forgotten what Hetty could be like. There was a quick-wittedness to the girl, which had helped her survive as a famine orphan, although that same cunning could be used as a weapon. He hadn’t forgotten that she enjoyed the favour of Mr Truby and his niec
e. But now he did, too.
Hetty gave a little scowl. ‘I wonder about you, Brandon. Haven’t you ever wanted someone? Been in love so much that it feels as if your heart’s twisting from the force of it.’
‘No,’ he replied.
‘Yes you have,’ continued Hetty. ‘Please, Brandon. It’s just us. I have fed you and housed Maggie, and I know what I’ve seen. I saw it clearly the night she came to our cottage. You were devastated when Maggie saw us together. Guilty. As if what we might have together was unnatural. You try to conceal it, probably even from yourself, but you’re a man who loves and wants what he can’t have.’
It was one thing for Sean to speculate on his feelings for Maggie, but Hetty’s words stripped him bare. Brandon didn’t know what to say.
‘You only see me as a stupid, ugly girl, the little beauty I possessed ruined by Miss Schaefer’s bird, but I see and feel just as you do and I’m telling you that if you care for Maggie, then you’ll let her be with the man she loves, for there is no future for the two of you. You must understand that.’
His face flushed. ‘She can’t be with Hackett’s son. They’re Fenians. They’ll ruin her life. I couldn’t let her go to him, not after what happened in Ireland.’
‘Tell me,’ said Hetty as she grew close again and plied his arm.
‘She’s the reason we ran from Tipperary. My father promised her to our landlord. But I couldn’t let Maggie be married to him. She was a child. If Sean hadn’t done what he did, I probably would have killed him myself,’ said Brandon. He listened to the tread of Hetty’s feet in the dry grass.
‘Sean killed your landlord?’ Hetty said, with admiration. ‘Still, I have to wonder at you two boys. A landlord for a husband, whether good or bad, has benefits that few right-thinking people would turn away from.’
‘Maggie doesn’t know what happened. It would be too much of a burden for her.’ Brandon couldn’t believe he’d told Hetty of their past, but there was nobody else he could talk to. Somehow, this outspoken woman with her practical manner had wormed her way into his confidence.
‘Well, she isn’t a child anymore. Maggie’s a grown woman. And your dislike of Niall isn’t a good enough reason to ruin her life for a second time.’
Brandon flinched at her accusation. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t I?’
Tommy left Maggie’s side, ran to his mother and then continued towards the cottage. Hetty called after the boy, shrugging when he tripped and fell and began to cry.
‘I hear you’re to build your own cottage on the river and that new cutters are to take over the felling of the cedars at the back of the homestead. You’re to learn about sugar cane and play the landlord of a fair holding,’ said Hetty with a knowledgeable air.
‘Who told you that?’ asked Brandon.
‘I heard Miss Schaefer discussing it with Mr Truby the day after her return from Ballina. She’s not impressed with your foothold, as she called it.’
Brandon decided he might as well continue to confide in Hetty. The bitter disagreement with Sean had made him feel unbalanced, as if he were the rickety chair on Hetty’s sloping veranda and one push might send him over the edge.
‘It’s only for three years and then it reverts to him. Don’t say anything about it, will you, Hetty? There’ll be trouble aplenty if word gets out.’
She gave a shrill laugh. ‘You can’t hide your doings in this district. Anyway, you did it for her, didn’t you?’ Hetty gestured to Maggie, still keeping vigil on the fallen timber. ‘I hope she’s worth it. For God is watching us all.’
After Hetty left, Brandon waited as the sky dimmed. The hilltops were smudged with yellow and then the colour gradually dissipated, replaced by a deep blue. He thought of leaving before Maggie saw him, however as the trees and outbuildings darkened in the fading light, he noticed her move. She was walking towards him, her skirts swishing through the grass.
He toyed with a fraying shirt cuff, and then stiffened his body, gathering in all the anger and sadness and frustration that hovered like a starving cat at a cook’s door. She came to stand directly before him, her face solemn. Her eyes were puffy and wet.
‘Why are you so cruel to me?’ she asked.
The question winded him. ‘I’m not cruel to you, Maggie.’
‘I’ve done my best, Brandon. I never wanted to leave Ireland. I’m not like you and Sean. I would have been content there, even if I was starving. You’ll probably think me silly for saying that, but it’s true. Ireland is in my bones.’
‘There’s nothing there for us now,’ he said gently, not wanting to upset her further.
‘And there’s nothing here for me either, so what should I do? Live my life as a spinster cooking your meals and keeping house, while you marry and have children, or is there something more of me that you’re asking?’ She took hold of his shoulders and he felt the weight of her as she tipped her face up towards his. ‘You have to let me go.’
‘I can’t,’ said Brandon softly.
She dropped her arms. ‘You were always so good to me when I was little. You used to hold my hand. Help me with my chores. We’ve always argued, but it’s been far worse since we arrived in Australia. You know why, don’t you?’
‘It’s been difficult for everyone,’ he said tentatively.
‘That’s not the reason. Over there, we were part of a family. We were bound by rules and common sense. But here, we’ve been forced to grow up without them and I think that’s been the hardest for you. I know you feel responsible, that Father would have made you promise to keep me safe, but somehow that care has altered what was between us. I’ve been wondering why that is. Maybe it’s because everything is upside down here. Like the fiery sun that was so weak and miserly at home, or maybe it’s because the stars hang so heavy and unrecognisable. But what’s different is also the same. The sun and the stars are unchangeable and so are we.’ Maggie wrapped her arms about him. Her head resting against his chest. ‘You love me,’ she said quietly.
Brandon stayed quite still, scared that the slightest movement might cause her to let go. He could feel the gentle beat of her heart, recognised the hint of grain she’d been pounding for bread and from beneath the calico she wore, unfamiliar womanly scents made rich by the heat of her body. He drew her closer. Their bodies matched like two pieces of a puzzle and a rawness seared his chest, sending his mind soaring like a bird on the wing. He saw everything, the simple crofter’s house of his youth, the sheep he once tended, the waters sailed and every tree he’d ever felled. All of it had led him here to this single moment under an ancient eucalypt tree. Sean and Hetty were right. He wanted Maggie for his very own.
Brandon took her face in his palms, feeling her skull beneath his fingers and kissed her cheeks, tasting the salt of her tears, tangy and warm. He could not tell what might be between them. But he felt something elusive. And fragile. He drew away, suddenly fearful of admitting to a desire that, far from lessening with age, had grown deeper and fuller over time. It couldn’t be kept secret anymore. Maggie was staring at him with a beatific smile. It centred him and made him strong and he thought of where they might run to. Of the forest with its trailing vines, thick undergrowth and mountain streams. He leant towards her, conscious only of her lips.
Maggie quickly pulled free of his embrace.
He reached for her. ‘Maggie—’
She placed a finger to his mouth, silencing him.
Words stuck in his throat. He was still in the place she’d taken him to. A lost room, an entire universe comprehensible only to them, filled with infinite possibilities.
‘I love you as a brother, nothing more,’ she said.
Brandon felt first the petulance of a schoolchild rise within him, and then mortification at being rejected. He stalked a few feet away to stand with his back to her. The hope that had lodged within him subsided. Everything had changed.
‘We’re not related by blood,’ he said firmly.
&nb
sp; ‘I’m sorry, but you’ll always be my brother. Nothing more,’ she replied. ‘Brandon, don’t be like this. It always was easier when you were angry with me.’ Her attempt at playfulness changed to sadness. ‘Mr Truby has agreed to find me another position.’
Brandon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He turned to face her, fearing her loss more than the refusal of his love. ‘You don’t have to leave, Maggie.’
‘It’s for the best.’
‘But we’re family. We promised Father that we’d stay together,’ he argued.
‘And we have, but at some stage we all have to grow up.’
‘I won’t let you go.’
‘Yes you will, for I’m not yours to keep,’ said Maggie.
She left him alone, her confident stride more telling than anything else she might have said. He thought of running after her, of putting an end to the plans she’d made. A scheme made in secret that would separate them forever. But the connection between them had been broken and he could see no way of recovering what was now lost.
Chapter 50
Construction had begun on the second storey of Mr Truby’s house. Men were erecting the frame; the sawing of wood and the striking of nails echoing through the garden. Brandon had expected to assist but was instead relegated to marking Xs on the tallest cedar tree stumps at the back of the property with a piece of chalk, so that the timbermen could cut the remains closer to the ground. Mr Truby had the entire stand of cedars felled except one, and deemed the truncated wood unsightly, an unwanted addition to what would eventually be a much larger garden.
Brandon completed the chalking of the trees and looked out from the rise across the now-cleared slope towards the outbuildings. The mill was throbbing due to the increased demand for wood. Men carted timber to the homestead and scaled ladders. The carpenters were concentrating their efforts on the far end of the homestead, where part of the roof had already been removed. Beyond the house, he could see the blacksmith shoeing a horse out the front of the stables and Miss Schaefer walking with her dog. His gaze took in the soft green of the landscape, the pale yellow fields of slashed grain and the line of cattle grazing into the wind. He walked to the lone cedar tree left standing and noticed men carrying crates out from the back of the house. Then Mr Truby appeared, a blanket thrown over a shoulder and the terrestrial globe in his arms.
The Cedar Tree Page 31