‘Shall I tell you something?’ Henny asked. ‘I left my home country because I was unhappy. My brother and I were very close – just a year between us. He married the girl I was in love with, too. I tried to keep it from him, but she knew, yes, she knew. She played us off, one against the other. Maybe it amused her to do so. We had a dreadful quarrel, my brother and I. He asked her to choose between us. She chose me.’
‘But?’
‘I made a choice, too. For his sake. You understand, Molly?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well, then, I want to go back home but I do not know if my brother will welcome that; if he has forgiven me or if I can forgive myself.’
‘Surely it was the girl who was in the wrong?’ she exclaimed.
He fastened the half-door of the stable. ‘Goodnight, my friend. See the lamp moving outside the homestead, Molly? The pastor makes ready to return. Let’s go quietly, eh, and hope we are not seen . . . ’
*
Molly tucked her diary under her pillow. How did one describe a kiss? She couldn’t. She had written instead: Today, I was given a very special Christmas present. And she closed her fingers round the little carved horse, protectively, under the covers, and waited for the dreaming to begin.
FIVE
The shearing was the highlight of the year. A large workforce was recruited and had to be fed and watered. Molly enjoyed hugely her role in all this, taking out tucker to the lean, brown men, bare to the waist and glistening with sweat. Elfie flatly refused to do this chore. ‘They are almost naked, Molly,’ she squeaked, ‘and their language – my dear mother would have fainted if she could have heard them.’
‘I don’t think they intend to blaspheme, Elfie,’ Molly returned, ‘it’s just their normal way of talking. And your mother’s not here, is she?’
‘Little Fay came out with a dreadful word the other day—’
‘Alexa says it’s best to ignore it, and she’ll soon forget it,’ Molly said cheerfully.
As the horse teams moved off with their great loads of pressed wool bales, a rumbling cheer rose from the men. The barrels of beer were rolled out from the barn, and far into the night the roistering went on. Even Frank unbent, and Molly danced her way on tireless feet, almost thrown from partner to partner, with steely arms clapped round her waist. The accordions, soaring fiddles and penny whistles played the wildest, jolliest tunes, and Elfie blushed fiercely again when she caught the words of some of the songs. She retired indoors in haste.
‘But she’s listening, I reckon, through her open window!’ Molly reported with glee to Nancy. Alexa had told Nancy to go off and enjoy herself with Molly, but the girl seemed to prefer to watch her friend dancing; she shook her head when prospective partners approached. ‘Do be careful, Molly,’ she had warned earlier. ‘Drink makes men – eager, and they’re all much bigger and stronger than you. Stay in sight of the house.’
Alexa sat on a rug spread on the ground with the baby asleep in her lap. As she leaned against the rough bark of a tree, her hair, loose for once on her shoulders, gleamed in the flaring lights. Many an admiring, speculative glance was cast in her direction. She rather enjoyed the compliment it seemed. ‘At my age, too!’ as she drily remarked to Molly when she plumped down breathlessly beside her, ‘They obviously haven’t noticed the wrinkles!’
Molly gulped down a tall glass of warm ginger beer – never mind the odd fly floating in it, she thought. She wondered where Henny had got to; she hadn’t seen him all evening. Not that she’d had time to feel disappointed, with so many merry admirers.
‘Nonsense, Alexa, you might get a proposal – I’ve had four so far tonight!’
‘What kind of proposals, Molly?’ Alexa asked keenly.
‘Well, one or two were the sort I can’t repeat! But don’t worry, I haven’t accepted a single one. Nancy saw to that. She’s appointed herself my moral protector!’
There was a piercing shriek: Toby was being pursued, and perhaps hoping to be caught, by a gangly youth with his intentions written all over his face. ‘She’s obviously used to the shearing boys,’ Molly observed. Did Alexa know what Nancy had told her earlier, emphasising her words of caution, that Toby had had a baby as a result of a shearing party the year before last? Her mother had obligingly added the little boy to her own extended family. She also wondered fleetingly if that was why Nancy had declined to join the celebrations: she certainly hadn’t dressed up like Molly. It didn’t occur to her that Nancy hadn’t any decent clothes other than the ones Alexa had bought her for every day.
Molly smiled, reached down and tousled Fay’s curls. ‘Lovely, her hair, isn’t it? Just the same as—’ She was going to add: ‘yours’.
‘Lucy’s,’ Alexa finished for her. ‘Don’t worry, Molly, I can say that now. I love this little one dearly, so it’s going to be a real wrench when I have to part with her. I probably shouldn’t have taken her on – should have left things as they were. Though I’m grateful to have found such an excellent nursemaid in Nancy, and, of course, you more than pull your weight on that score. You remind me very much of my daughter – not in looks, but in spirit. I hope we won’t lose touch with each other, Molly, when we return to England?’
‘I feel the same. Don’t worry, I won’t disappear,’ she said with a grin.
‘Thank you. I must admit, I wondered at the start if we would actually get on – like each other – when I asked you to travel here with me. If later you need a job, and would like to move to London, well, don’t be afraid to apply to me.’
‘Oh, I won’t! But there is something else I’d like to try, first.’
‘Would you care to dance, Molly?’ Henny was standing there. Unlike some of the other men, he had obviously bathed and changed his clothes. He wore a new shirt, with a neat cravat, drill trousers and shoes, instead of the usual boots.
Molly was glad that she was wearing her light, full skirt and flame-coloured silk blouse with puffed sleeves.
Alexa gave her a little nudge. ‘Yes, go along, Molly, enjoy yourself! Here’s Nancy – oh, good, with more ginger beer. She can keep me company. We’ll put Fay to bed later . . . ’
Henny helped Molly to her feet, smiled at the others, then led her away. Nancy’s warnings went unheeded. They went past the crowd to a patch of scrubby grass ringed by eucalypts where they danced by themselves in their own private space. Her face was pressed to his broad chest, against the smooth cotton of his shirt; she was vibrantly aware of their closeness, of his fast-beating heart. His hands were firm round her slender back. They seemed to burn her skin through the thin stuff of her blouse and petticoat. She stretched up, resting her own hands on his shoulders. ‘I thought you’d never come,’ she murmured. ‘I was so hoping you would, though . . . ’
‘I wasn’t sure I could trust myself.’
‘Can you?’ she asked daringly. His hands slipped to her waist, holding her even more tightly.
‘I must,’ he told her, his voice muffled by her hair. ‘But you are not making it easy. Anyway, I really brought you here because I have something to tell you, Molly. I am leaving tomorrow, joining up with the shearing team.’
She pushed him away, folding her arms. ‘Why?’ she cried.
‘The pay is good, I can soon earn enough to return home. I heard from my brother at last. His wife left him two years ago. He wants me back to run the farm together; for us to be good friends once more.’
‘And that will make you happy, Henny?’ she asked, blinking rapidly to stop the treacherous tears from falling.
‘Yes, I think it will. I am sorry, Molly, if you—’ He paused, trying to put it tactfully.
‘If I imagined I was falling in love with you? That’s all it was, just imagining . . . ’
‘You wish me well, then?’
‘Yes, I wish you well, Henny.’ She turned. ‘Let’s go back or people will be imagining there is something between us.’ She tried to say this lightly, as if she really didn’t care. ‘Have you told Frank?’
Then she was back in his arms, hugging him convulsively, and the kissing was bittersweet this time because it was just how she wanted it to be, except it was the end, not the beginning of what might have been a love affair.
Nancy, hurrying towards them, saw it all. Her voice rang out hoarsely: ‘Molly! Mrs Nagel was worried – we couldn’t see you. Will you come back now, please?’
*
Alexa, still holding the baby, looked at Molly searchingly but said only: ‘I didn’t think you would be back so soon. Uh-oh, here comes Frank. D’you know, I believe he’s had one too many . . . ’
He lurched uncertainly towards them, almost falling down beside Alexa, who recoiled from his proximity. It was the first time she had seen Frank merry, if you could call it that, and it was no improvement as far as she was concerned, she thought.
‘Want to know what the old girl just let slip when I caught up with her lurking indoors?’ he roared.
‘If you are referring to your sister,’ Alexa told him disdainfully, passing the drowsy Fay to Nancy on her other side. She didn’t want him breathing all over her granddaughter.
‘Who else?’ Frank mocked her. ‘She reckons she’s going to leave me in the lurch – says she’s going to keep house for old Ernst!’ He gave a great, belching laugh.
‘Good for her. I didn’t think she had it in her, eh, Molly?’ Alexa removed Frank’s damp hand very firmly from where it had slipped on to her knee.
‘I shall have to get myself a wife after all.’
‘If you’re implying that you have me in mind, Frank, you can forget it.’ She rose, dusting her skirt down. ‘We shan’t be here much longer in any case. I promised to visit a friend in Queensland, and this seems the right timing. Come on, girls, let’s take Fay indoors, shall we? Goodnight, Frank.’
‘Can I – can I go home now, Mrs Nagel? Ma’ll be wondering why I’m so late.’ Nancy didn’t want to discuss with Molly what had happened tonight.
‘Of course. You heard what I said to Mr Wills? You can warn your mother we’ll be leaving for Brisbane shortly.’
‘Drunk as a lord,’ Alexa said crossly to Molly as they weaved round the dancers towards the house. ‘I suppose he has made us at home here, in his funny way, so I won’t ask him for any money back – I fear I was much too generous – but I intend to telegraph Cicely tomorrow. We’ll start packing in the morning. She and her husband have done splendidly in Australia, it seems.’
‘We’ll all be deserting him,’ Molly said, clearing her throat. She opened the nets, turned down the sheet, which was the only covering on the bed, and laid Fay down. ‘It’ll wake her if we undress her, I think.’ She crossed to the window to pull the blinds. With her back to Alexa, she went on: ‘Frank doesn’t know it yet, but Henny is leaving tomorrow. He’s going off with the shearers.’
Unexpectedly, Alexa’s arm went round her shoulders. ‘Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry,’ she said, and hugged the girl, feeling pain at the thought that she should have hugged Lucy this way but now it was too late . . .
‘I do hope Nancy’s ma will let her come with us to Queensland,’ Molly said.
‘I’ll make sure she does. You can’t lose both your new friends in one fell swoop, can you? That would be too much. I’ll leave you for a bit, if you don’t mind. I want to ask Elfie what’s what while Frank’s not around.’
‘Thank you, Alexa.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘For not asking me what’s what.’
*
In Cicely’s house in Brisbane Molly was pleased to find that she had a big, airy bedroom all to herself – although the communal sleeping arrangements both on the boat and at Frank’s had not worried her as much as her companions, because, after all, it was not so long since she had slept in a dormitory at the convent.
Alexa expressed satisfaction with her own room. It had fine furniture and, at the tug of a bell-pull, servants ready to scurry about at her every whim. ‘I shall at last get a decent night’s sleep,’ she stated confidently.
‘It’s parry-dise, Molly!’ Nancy breathed rapturously in her turn. She obviously felt equal, in her smart new powder-blue ‘Universally Provided’ frock, to those below stairs in this grand colonial house, with its sweep of broad steps under white columns to the massive front door. ‘I never thought I’d have a bedroom to meself, and a nursery off for Fay. Eh – and what about all that lovely hot water gushing from real gold taps in a proper bathroom . . . ’
‘Wonderful!’ Molly agreed. She was pleased to hear later from Alexa that Nancy was to be allowed to accompany them on most of their daytime excursions, for Cicely, childless herself, was eager to show off the pretty baby to her circle. They smiled at Nancy’s bemused face, her artless exclamations at each new discovery, but then, they didn’t realise just how glad she was to be away from her own home.
An icehouse in the terraced garden, with its exotic jacaranda and flame trees, ensured that food was always fresh.
‘How nice to taste roast beef once more,’ Alexa remarked appreciatively the first evening. Cicely, who had been rather in awe of her at school, for Alexa had been a dominant personality even then, was delighted to show her old friend just how much she had improved her status in the new country. The many courses were all served on gold rimmed dishes and the table setting was perfect. Nancy watched anxiously over her charge as she banged her spoon on her plate.
No wonder, Molly thought, smiling to herself because she had really taken to Alexa’s bubbly, kind friend, Cicely was like a small, round butterball, if she ate like this every day!
Cicely’s excited pink face was topped with a plaited false crown, the severity of which failed to repress her own fluffy golden hair. ‘She hasn’t changed a bit,’ Alexa confided in Molly, when Cicely excused herself to answer the telephone in the hall: ‘She’s just as sweet as ever she was! We nicknamed her Cherub at school. She was married for the first time when she was very young, an older man who had already made his pile, but it was a happy marriage, I believe, though cut short by her husband’s death. She remarried rather on the rebound, so I thought, but I suppose she was looking for someone younger and more—’
‘Virile?’ Molly suggested cheerfully.
‘Shush!’ Alexa reproved, as Cicely returned, beaming.
‘That was my husband. I’m so glad to have you with me just now,’ she confided: ‘Ran – that’s what I call Randolph – has already been away over a month on business. I do get lonely at times, despite the social whirl . . . ’
*
This was an enchanting place, they all decided, with its elegant, fresh-coloured painted wooden houses standing on piles – to avoid the invasion of ants, Cicely said with a shudder; the way the long streets climbed upwards seemingly to disappear in the misty hills and the cargo boats smartly navigated the great river which curved around the city terraces. The shopping parades contrasted sharply with the unsophisticated general stores back in Bodenflower. This was very obviously the domicile of wealthy and advantaged people, like Cicely and her husband.
The Gold Coast was even more beautiful. Cicely sent them out very early in her carriage with a picnic basket on the day she expected her husband home. ‘I didn’t get time to tell him, when I spoke to him the other night, that we have company. I must break it to him gently!’ she said. For some reason, she sounded rather agitated, not her usual cheerful self. Both Molly and Alexa experienced a feeling of disquiet at this, but neither spoke of it to the other. But Molly thought: I hope he won’t turn out to be another Frank. Still, he looked very handsome in all the photographs Cicely had placed adoringly in every room.
On the Coast they walked for the first time across great stretches of pale sand – almost like hot, powder
ed snow, Molly imagined – towards the rolling, sparkling sea. Fay paddled and splashed in the water with enormous delight, and got her drawers well and truly soaked, as did Molly and Nancy, larking about like two year olds themselves. Alexa said not a word about that.
‘I admire Australian women very much. They were awarded the vote in 1902, you know,’ she told Molly. ‘They are way ahead of the women at home: it’s disgraceful that we are still waiting.’ She put up her parasol, leaning back under its shade in her deck chair. The sun was really hot today, even though summer was almost over, but the sea air was intoxicating. However, Alexa was covered from top to toe. She wasn’t going to risk her complexion turning to the texture of an old boot, she said.
‘You’ll be the perfect candidate if women ever get into Parliament back home,’ Molly said, and meant it. She removed Fay’s wet underwear, spreading it out to dry. ‘Here, darling, you must cover up or you’ll soon burn. Put on these funny trousers Elfie made you.’
‘Funny’s the word,’ Alexa sniffed. ‘With those ruffles round the ankles, and that rather perished elastic holding them up under her armpits.’
‘I think she looks like a dear little clown in her baggy pants, Mrs Nagel,’ Nancy said proudly. ‘And what lovely bright material.’ She was trying to coax Fay into the matching, floppy sun hat with the fluted curtain at the back to screen her neck against harmful rays.
Fay struggled out of Nancy’s restraining hands. ‘Don’t like Elfie hat,’ she insisted, but Alexa caught hold of her and tied the ribbon very firmly under her chin.
‘They seem to go in for bold colours at those sewing parties; I’d call this bilious green, not emerald as Elfie fancied it was.’
Alexa gave Fay a reproving tap on her bottom. ‘Take that off at your peril, child!’ But she didn’t look cross.
‘You should be glad Elfie hasn’t found time to finish off her knitting anyway!’ Molly grinned.
Alexa shuddered. ‘I thought I might be unwrapping that at Christmas. But you’ve reminded me of something, Nancy, with your allusion to clowns. Mrs Colton mentioned that the circus is in town. She thought you girls might like to take Fay along one afternoon this week. You needn’t stay for the whole performance if she becomes restless. What d’you think?’
Molly's Journey Page 5