‘That’s all right, Annie. It’s difficult to distinguish these days. But, yes ‒ call them in. Perhaps they’ll be quieter when they’ve had something to eat.’
Annie turned and raised her voice. ‘Bess! Go and bring the children indoors. And see if you can keep them quiet! My ears are fit t’ burst with the noise they’re making.’
Bess came to the doorway, wiping her hands in her apron. ‘I thought one of them other lazy sluts was supposed to keep order. Like a circus ‒ that’s what this house has been like since they all came. It’s not right …’ She went off down the passage, still muttering.
Sara pretended she didn’t hear. She couldn’t blame Bess, or anyone else, for feeling resentful. These other women had descended upon them like locusts, taking food and shelter without a word of thanks, expecting to use Kintyre as if it had been an inn. Sara flushed with irritation to think of their ingratitude. Moving the sheep and cattle had meant a great amount of extra work; the stockades had been hastily improvised, and each man on the place did the work of three to keep the livestock within bounds. Even Michael Sullivan had left his pupils, and was working every daylight hour with the convict labourers. But indoors eight women sat about idly all day, not even making a gesture to help with the cooking. Sara did not dare to voice a protest; the story would be wildly distorted, and, years from now, it would be flung up in her face that she had been chary of hospitality at a time when every house above water along the river had been regarded as a natural refuge. She could only hope, along with Annie, that they would soon be left in peace.
She took a loaf of bread from a side table, and began to cut it. She glanced across at Annie, briskly dishing out meat and vegetables, and envied the speed and energy in her movements. Her own body felt heavy and sluggish; she looked down at it with a frown of distaste, and tried to drape her long shawl more becomingly. The seven weeks ahead of her until the child would be born seemed endless. This pregnancy had been much more irksome than the earlier ones; the time had passed slowly, and yet it had been crowded with the effort of attending to her business affairs, and still meeting Louis’s demands that she should rest. Louis waited patiently for the child’s birth. He was tender to her, considerate, and quiet ‒ not talking much about the child, but she knew that the extra attention he gave to the running of Banon was given with the thought of a son to inherit it. She glanced down again at her ungainly body, and prayed, for Louis’s sake, that it would be a son.
The children came crowding in then, pushing a little in the doorway, and looking expectantly towards the table. Elizabeth was in the middle of them, a flushed, wild expression on her face, a frill torn from her hem. Sara couldn’t help a smile when she saw her; Elizabeth’s prim manners had slipped noticeably, and now she claimed her place at the table without any hanging back, her manner plainly announcing to the others that Kintyre’s wide kitchen belonged to her and her stepbrothers. Her gestures were unmistakably Louis’s.
A slight, red-headed son of Sam Murphy’s smiled up at Sara as she placed a plate before him.
‘We caught a snake, Madame de Bourget. Killed it, too! It was this long …’ His arms stretched to their fullest extent.
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘Horrible things! I’m glad you were quick enough to kill it, anyway. They’re …’ She paused, her tone growing suddenly serious. ‘But where did you find it, Timmy? It didn’t come on to the veranda, surely?’
He hung his head, glancing sideways at David, with a look of appeal.
Sara turned to her eldest son. ‘You didn’t leave the veranda, David?’
‘Well,’ he said contritely, ‘the snake was only a little way off, Mama. We thought it might come up later when it was dark, and get into the house.’
Sara flushed slightly. Her fear made her speak sharply. ‘But I’ve told you you must never go near a snake. This may have been a deadly one. And besides, you promised that none of you would leave the veranda.’
She turned from him, glancing quickly down the table, to where Annie was seating the last arrival, Tim Murphy’s seven-year-old sister.
‘Annie ‒ where’s Sebastian?’
The old woman’s head flew up. Swiftly her eyes skimmed the two rows of children, and then came back to Sara’s face.
‘Well …’ Annie ran her tongue over her lips. ‘He don’t seem to be here …’
Sara said to David, ‘Was he with you when you killed the snake?’
He wrinkled his brow in an effort to remember. ‘Yes … I think he was.’
‘How long ago was this?’
David bit his lower lip. ‘I’m not sure, Mama ‒ not long before Bess came out.’
Annie called to the two convict servants in the little adjoining room, all her anxiety in her voice.
‘Bess! Kate! Have you seen Master Sebastian?’
They came into the kitchen; they shook their heads solemnly. Sebastian was a favourite with them both, and the concern on their faces was real and unassumed.
‘Lor’, ma’am,’ Kate began. ‘I ain’t seen Master Sebastian since he was in here at midday. One of them others,’ she nodded in the direction of the six women in the sitting-room, ‘was supposed to be keeping an eye to the children.’
Sara looked about wildly. ‘But he must be somewhere! Kate … run outside again and call him. Take a lamp with you. Annie, we’ll go through the rooms. He’s probably in the sitting-room with the others. Quickly …!’
Ten minutes later they were all back in the kitchen. Susan Matthews and Emily Bains had now joined them, and the convict women stood together in a nervous group. Sara and Annie had given up their futile search of the rooms; Sebastian was not anywhere in the house. They turned expectantly as Bess and Kate came in, having completed a tour of the outside of the building.
‘Well …?’ Sara demanded.
Her hands twisted and gripped each other. The children had stopped eating, and they also turned to stare at Bess and Kate. In that slight pause, with every sense straining for their answer, Sara noticed absently, as if part of her mind functioned quite separately from her anguish, that a small boy, no older than Sebastian himself, whose name she couldn’t remember, hadn’t been given his supper yet. He had no eyes for what was going on, but stared at the plates of the others with an aggrieved air.
Kate spoke. ‘It was no good, ma’am. We called and called. He’s nowhere around the house.’
Sara let out a sharp breath. ‘Oh …!’
Annie touched her arm. ‘There …! Don’t you take on, ma’am! He’ll be with the men ‒ yes, that’s where he’ll be. I’ll just take a lantern, and step across to the stables. And Bess and Kate can find their way down to the men’s huts. Without doubt he’s there ‒ with all he’s told not to go near them. The men, ma’am, they encourage him to come. We’ll find him yet somewhere down there, hand in hand with Mister Sullivan. And if he’s still not about, Mister Sullivan and Trigg will organize the men with lanterns. You’ll see, they’ll have him in no time.’
While she was speaking, Annie gathered up her shawl, and took a lantern. Bess and Kate prepared to follow her. By this time the short dusk had deepened into night. With the fading light, except for a few jobs in the stables, the men would have finished their work. The convicts’ huts stood behind the house, also on high ground, and well above water. The emergency stock-pens had been erected in the space between.
Sara went to the doorway with Annie. They could see a dim light in the stables, but the rain curtained out everything else. With a sick terror Sara faced the emptiness of that black space before her. The restless livestock were moving about unseen; she could hear their stamping, and the shifting of their bodies. The light from the stables was friendly, but, down the slope from the house, the water was rising steadily. She could only think of Sebastian’s ceaseless curiosity; day after day, he had questioned her about other floods on the Hawkesbury, begging to be allowed to venture out as far as the water had advanced. He was only six years old, and to him the flood was a
great adventure ‒ never a danger. She shivered in apprehension. ‘Hurry, Annie! Bess, Kate, hurry …!’
When the bobbing lanterns disappeared into the darkness, Sara turned back dispiritedly to the kitchen. She walked to the table and began to attend to the children. A plate was handed to her to be refilled; she poured milk from a jug into two mugs. Surprisingly, Susan Matthews and Emily Bains had fallen to their share of the serving. They both wore frightened expressions, and seemed to walk lightly on their toes, as if any noise on their part was out of place. The twisting, nodding heads of the children were a blur before Sara’s eyes; she heard nothing that they said. Sebastian’s dark little face, his eager voice, seemed to be all around her. Already the bread was gone from the platter she had filled; she reached for the knife and began cutting again, but her thoughts were with Annie, and Bess, and Kate, as they made their way towards the huts. If they didn’t find Sebastian there … In her heart she didn’t believe they would. When he left the veranda he would have wandered, not towards the back of the house, as they suggested, but down the slope in the direction of the water which had held his fascinated attention for the past week. She thought of him, tall for his six years, but with a slight, wiry body that used its energy in quick bursts. If he should have fallen and hurt himself, out of earshot of the house … She flung the knife down with a clatter; she knew she couldn’t endure another five minutes of inactivity.
‘David, I want you to come with me,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have just another look around the outside of the house.’ Nodding, David slipped from his chair.
Susan Matthews threw Sara a startled glance. ‘Mercy, Madame de Bourget! You’re never thinking of going out! Why, the men will be here in a few minutes, and they’ll spread around and find him. He can’t have got far.’
With steady hands Sara lit another lantern. ‘I’ll be quite safe, Mrs. Matthews. I won’t go more than a few yards from the house. When Mr. Sullivan gets here, tell him to come out to me.’
‘Yes … but …’ Susan Matthews clucked her tongue despairingly. ‘I think you shouldn’t go. Your husband wouldn’t like it ‒ not as you are now …’
Sara took no notice. ‘Come, David ‒ we’ll go out by the front. You can show me where you killed the snake.’
As she made for the door, Duncan stopped her.
‘Mama …’
‘Yes …?’
‘Can I come with you? I know where we left the snake.’ She shook her head, giving him a swift smile. ‘No, darling. You stay with Elizabeth.’
Then she took David’s arm. Together they left the kitchen and walked along the passage to the front door. On the way Sara stopped to collect a coat for David, and to pull a warm cloak about her own shoulders. The sound of the rain greeted them more strongly than ever when they opened the door, the pelting monotonous sound that had hardly ceased for the past week. In the lamp-light the boy’s face was serious. He stared into the darkness ahead, with a bewildered, fearful air. Suddenly she bent to look at him more closely.
‘What is it, my love?’
His lips quivered, and then straightened. ‘Sebastian … He’s the youngest, and you always said that I must look after him. He’s only a baby … and if he’s lost, it’s my fault.’
She put the lantern down on the veranda, and squatted ‒ awkwardly, because of the heaviness of her body ‒ before him. She placed her hands on his shoulders, and looked into his eyes.
‘Darling … it’s no one’s fault. One of Mrs. Matthews’ women was to have stayed with you on the veranda. If she’d done as she was told, this would never have happened. No one expected you to … Oh, Davie, don’t look like that! We’ll find him, pet!’
Then she leaned forward and brushed his cheek with her lips. She rose, taking up the lamp again, and pulling her hood into position. On the top of the steps she paused, reaching to take David’s hand in her own.
The ground was churned into soft mud. She carried the lantern low, and placed her feet carefully, feeling them sink with each step. The night was as black as pitch; the rays from the lamp only revealed endless pools of water lying on soil already too saturated to absorb any more. Farther down they could hear the roar of the swollen river.
David tugged at Sara’s hand. ‘Over here, Mama!’
They found the snake, half-embedded in the mud. For a few moments Sara stared at it, then looked around her helplessly. The lights of the house, dimmed by the curtain of rain, gave her her bearings. From here, the carriageway followed the slope sharply down to join the road that linked Kintyre with the neighbouring farms. She hesitated, remembering how close the water had come to the road when she had last seen it. She drew the cloak closer about her, and took a tighter grip on David’s arm.
‘We’ll just go a little way farther. He may be quite close. He may have fallen and hurt himself.’
Suddenly she swung the lantern high, flashing it over the sodden ground.
‘Sebastian! Sebastian!’
Her voice was weak against the noise of the rushing water and the rain. She moved forward as quickly as the soft mud would allow, zig-zagging across the width of the carriageway, swinging the lantern to see as far beyond it as the rays of the lantern penetrated.
‘He’ll never hear me!’ she cried despairingly. ‘Call with me, David. Now ‒ together!’
‘Sebastian …!’
No answer came back to them from the rainy distance. They moved on a few yards.
‘Sebastian …!’
Sara could feel a tight dryness in her throat, that made it difficult to produce any kind of sound. Gusts of wind swept the rain into their faces, and the lamp flickered uncertainly. Quite desperate now, she noted the force of the wind. It would increase the strength of the currents; trees that had weathered other floods would go if it continued; houses would move off their foundations. The thought of that rushing, swirling water, choked with debris, made her frantic. She clutched David’s hand for comfort.
‘Oh, Davie …! We’ve got to find him!’
They reached the boundary of Kintyre’s land, the place where the carriageway joined the road. Sara peered ahead, but could see nothing. Here, the rush of water was unusually loud and close. She hesitated fearfully, and then plunged forward a few steps, holding the lantern high.
Suddenly David stopped still. He pulled hard at her hand.
‘Mind, Mama! The water … It’s covered the road!’
Cautiously she took another step, and David advanced to keep pace with her. The swaying light revealed the edge of the water, a black, ominous line, that eddied and lapped almost at their feet ‒ its constant movement hinted at the force of the currents building up behind it. Sara stood dejectedly. On both sides of this point the road dipped lower, one part of it running through a group of boulders, which had been blasted with gunpowder to let the road pass. The land rose again a little farther along, the beginning of the high ground on which Kintyre stood. The road wound about its base, and there, she knew, it would be several feet under water. The realization of this frightened her badly. Never before had the flood waters reached this level; for the first time she began to fear that the house itself might be threatened.
‘Just a little farther, David, and then we’ll go back. There may be news of him at the house.’ She had to shout to be heard above the wind.
They began to trace their way carefully along the edge of the water, their feet finding precarious holds on the slope. They continued for about a hundred yards, until they were among the scattering of stones that marked the beginning of the group of boulders. They climbed a little higher, and the noise of the water carving a path through the boulders was much louder. At last she stopped.
‘We must turn back,’ she said. ‘They’ll have to know that the water is much higher. We should be ready to leave the house.’
As she swung round, the light fell on a vividly white object, lying against a stone. They both saw it at the same instant, and moved forward with a rush. David bent and picked it up.
‘It’s Sebastian’s wooden horse!’ he shouted.
He handed it to his mother. Taking it from him, her feelings were a mixture of fear and relief. It was Sebastian’s favourite plaything ‒ a wooden horse, painted white, and splashed with irregular patches of black, carved for him by one of Kintyre’s convict labourers. A frayed piece of red cord served for a bridle, giving it the gay, jaunty appearance which had so attracted Sebastian.
Clutching the little horse to her, Sara lifted the lantern again. ‘He must be somewhere about! We can’t leave now … If we go back the water may rise farther. Sebastian. Sebastian!’
David’s voice echoed hers. ‘Sebastian!’
He lunged ahead of her. With a furious energy he skirted around the boulders, shaking the tufts of scrub that grew between them. Sara struggled to keep up with him, lest he should disappear beyond the arc of the light she carried. They pushed their way steadily up the rising ground. Sara’s breath was soon short with the effort; she drew in great gulps of air, steadying herself with her free hand against the rounded stones.
‘Sebastian …!’
They were beginning the descent of the other side, when she felt the first pain. It went through her body like fire, and then was gone. She took a further few steps before she fully realized what was happening; she shivered with fear at the thought. The pains were starting ‒ a full seven weeks before the time. A choked little cry came from her lips, and she stumbled against a boulder.
‘David … wait! I can’t go any farther,’ she panted, as he returned to her side. ‘I must go back to the house.’
‘But, Sebastian …?’
She shook her head. ‘It isn’t any use. I can’t search any more. The others will have to come back. Let me lean on your shoulder, David.’
A vague comprehension dawned on him. He took the lamp from her hand, and raised it higher, peering into her face.
‘Mama, you’re ill! Mama …?’
‘Yes, darling ‒ but I’ll be all right. We must go back now.’
Sara Dane Page 42