by Sonya Heaney
‘I like her enormously. Which is why I mentioned her. She seems—er—vastly interesting to me.’
‘Yes, well.’ She clearly didn’t appreciate having her outrage dismantled so swiftly.
He laughed at her and stretched out a leg. ‘You’ve nothing to reply with, do you.’
‘You did make it a little difficult,’ she grumbled and he angled himself to face her.
‘You and Mrs Farrer were deep in conversation when I arrived.’
Her attention immediately switched to the blanket they sat on.
‘Lozenge,’ she whispered, and traced the diamond pattern. It was a sorry excuse for a distraction.
‘I take it by that response that you’ll not be telling me.’ She didn’t owe him her secrets, and he ought to let it go.
Peter was about to release her hand when she squeezed again, gently, a silent request to stay exactly as he was.
‘I was telling her about Edward.’
Chapter 14
Something changed as Elizabeth shared her story yet again. Now she’d begun telling it to others she supposed she might as well talk about Edward another time. Secrets caused too much tension, too much hurt.
However it wasn’t she who changed as the words came out another time. It was Peter.
She’d said something wrong. Very wrong. Even as she prattled on against his silence, Elizabeth knew she’d taken the conversation somewhere that stirred tension in him—anger. Even if he’d not said a thing, the atmosphere had changed.
‘From what I understand it was quite the adventure to go to Africa. A person is willing to overlook a lot of discomfort on the journey across if they expect excitement at the end of it, I think.’
What had seemed like such a fine afternoon moments earlier now felt dark and shadowed. Peter smiled slightly; it wasn’t his real smile.
Another ant made an attempt to scale Elizabeth’s foot. She watched it a little desperately, too tense suddenly to move and brush it away.
Scrambling for a distraction from the dark mood that had so clearly struck him, she did what any floundering person would do then, and gave the sky her attention. Those clouds were moving across the mountains, ominously grey.
‘It’s such a nice day, but too warm. The last picnic I—we—Alice and Miss Wright and I attempted was interrupted. We went out to that place west, near the estuary. There’s an old graveyard there. I’m not sure if you know it. The McCoys have begun to clear their land out that way.’
The story went on and on. She was blabbering again, but she’d seen the unexpected whiteness of the knuckles of his free hand.
‘Clearing their land,’ he repeated when she ran out of words.
A sensible person would have reacted to that tone by shutting up, but Elizabeth was desperate.
‘Yes. Well, it’s her father’s land, but he’s an invalid now and doesn’t want it. It’s not the best soil out that way, and there’s nobody else around laying claim to it.’
Again, that tight little smile of his was all wrong.
He released her hand and drew back so far he nearly sat in the dirt. Elizabeth nearly warned him that he’d have ants biting his bum, but it registered then that he was angry. He was really, truly angry.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Your Edward went to the Sudan.’ He repeated her earlier words. ‘To fight for the Empire’s cause.’
‘Edward? Yes, he did, but …’ The man was jumping about everywhere; the swift change left her dizzy.
Peter’s knuckles whitened again.
‘And he was part of the New South Wales Contingent you mentioned? Off to do their part for Britain?’
‘Yes,’ she said finally, voice small, not sure why it felt like an admission of guilt.
He pressed his lips together and watched the horizon for long, terrible seconds as the cicadas carried on their song. When he spoke again he’d visibly regained his control.
‘Your family came here some twenty years ago, didn’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the town was founded some thirty years earlier?’
‘Yes. This year will be our golden jubilee.’ How did he know?
‘And, before everyone started celebrating jubilees, who was here?’
It was a rhetorical question, and Elizabeth met his eyes, and found she’d lost her voice. She knew. She knew then everything he implied but wouldn’t say.
It was astounding how large the blanket had grown in the past few minutes. There had to be a mile between them now, perhaps more.
Peter’s jaw was set as he got to his feet and made a show of dusting himself off.
Elizabeth climbed up too, scrambling back when his manners gave in, his hand twitching and then extending to steady her. She did not need his help to stand. What she needed was an explanation. She’d said something dreadful and hadn’t even realised.
‘Where are your mother’s people from?’ she asked, raising the topic every single person at Endmoor had been avoiding from the first day. Why had a company in Sydney been so keen to send a man as qualified as he was so far out into the country at such short notice? Why had the original man they’d offered employment to been swapped for Mr Rowe?
He regarded her a long, excruciating moment before he spoke.
‘I think you already know.’
***
The rain would not stop. What had been the promise of an afternoon shower at Epiphany quickly became something far more ruthless. Unprepared for the onslaught, the countryside sagged under the intensity of it, as did every structure on Endmoor’s grounds.
Elizabeth couldn’t remember seeing anything like it before, at least not in Australia. It was merciless enough it dominated every discussion that night and into the next day, no matter what the topic had been when conversation began.
On the second day Mr Rowe was at last convinced to move into a guestroom in the homestead, and on the second night they sat around all but shouting mundane things at each other over the sound of the storm.
‘We need to stop this. We must be boring you senseless.’ How they’d been talking about the Rhineland one moment and blocked gutters the next was a mystery. Elizabeth had directed the apology at Mr Rowe. It was about the only thing she’d found the courage to say to him since their conversation across the picnic blanket had disintegrated into a quarrel.
He held her eyes long enough to convey something she didn’t quite understand, and then relaxed back into his chair.
‘I’m not worried. Gutters are a much more interesting topic than grey mould.’
Mending done, newspapers read, everyone wandered off to bed earlier than they usually would. Even the cranky cat who wished to go prowling but disliked wet paws. Elizabeth lingered just a little longer than the others, watching Peter’s tall form as he disappeared around the corner, whatever he said to her brother as he left disguised by the endless drumming on the roof.
Nothing had been said between her and Peter about their conversation at the picnic. They’d instead drifted into infuriating politeness. She’d not called him by his Christian name since, not aloud at any rate. It felt too much like they’d become strangers once more, like she knew him no better than she had the day they’d first met.
Worst of all was that she hadn’t any idea how to mend the rift between them.
When the shadows of the men in the hall disappeared, she rose and crept to the door, waiting another minute or so just in case before making her way to her own bed. She didn’t hear a thing from Peter’s room as she passed.
‘This rain’ll be bringin’ out the spiders,’ Alice had pointed out after the evening meal, and naturally all Elizabeth thought of as she poked around in her room was arachnids crawling out from every nook and cranny, from the shadows around the fireplace to the curves and crevices of the ceiling rose directly above her, to the tangle of bedsheets brushing at her feet.
It wasn’t a thought conducive to a good night’s rest, but whenever she turned her mind away f
rom creepy-crawlies all she could think of was grey mould. Botrytis cinerea—noble rot, Peter had informed her. He mightn’t be the most romantic of men, but surely he was better that way.
She began her valiant attempt at sleep curled on her side, face in the direction of the window. The brute force of the pounding on the rooftop was impressive, if annoying.
When the wind changed, sending hard sheets of water whacking repeatedly against the windowpane, she rolled onto her back, and then her other side, pulling the blankets over her head, trying her best to drown out the sound.
Lightning struck, throwing the room in stark relief, followed only half a moment later by thunder so loud she jumped and the dog began barking. In the next instant something—probably a branch from one of the trees surrounding the house—clattered onto the roof. It was going to be a very long night.
‘Hutton, hush,’ she ordered, but of course he couldn’t hear her. The next flash of light drew her attention to the dark outline of her dresser. Edward’s pendant sat there amongst the other clutter, teasing her even though she couldn’t tell exactly which of the shadowy lumps it was.
The name Victoria Abraham drifted through her thoughts again. Groaning, she rolled back the other way, closing her eyes as the dog finally tired and ceased his commotion.
Naturally, the instant sleep took hold the ceiling began to drip.
Her paintings! The thought got her out of bed faster than any spider could have, hand-sized or otherwise. Hurrying always made a person clumsy and slow and it was no different then. She all but tripped over her shawl in her haste, and then bumped into the bed while she went to the lamp. She ought to have dressed properly, but if her room was capable of dripping, so was any other in the house.
After what felt like an hour to get herself sorted she hurried to the door and flung it open, rushing to the linen closet for something—anything—to cover her work with in case the rest of the house got any funny ideas and began to leak.
Something crashed outside, and Hutton barked once, and then a second time, before giving up. Elizabeth smoothed a sheet over an easel and gave the ceiling a warning glare. Crisis over for the moment, she headed back to her room but changed course when she found a light on in the nursery.
‘Dunno how I got him off to sleep in this blood—in this racket,’ Alice whispered when Elizabeth joined her at the cot. Duncan was sound asleep on his back, one arm up by his face, legs frog-like beneath the blanket.
Elizabeth chose not to point out that if a storm wouldn’t wake the baby, there probably wasn’t much need to whisper.
‘I envy his talent for sleep,’ she whispered back. ‘This storm is awful.’
Her sister-in-law snorted and moved away from her son, towards the door.
‘There’s not a word I know good enough for what this storm is. I bet I’ll be up the rest of the night. So much for that drought we’ve moaned about for months.’
‘So will I. Alice— did you hear that branch fall on the roof just now?’
‘I sure did. I reckoned if anythin’ was goin’ to wake Duncan up, it would’ve been that. He’s a strange baby.’
They moved out to the hall, Alice pulling the door mostly, but not entirely, to.
Elizabeth paused, struck by a thought. ‘I wonder if the roof has any damage. My room’s already dripping a bit.’ Right on cue something else clattered onto the corrugated iron.
‘Well,’ Alice said, and changed directions, ‘we’d better go and check that out.’
***
Peter supposed he was more used to rain and storms than the Farrers were living out on a dusty station, but halfway through the night even he had to admit the weather had become ridiculous.
He managed to drift off twice, only to be startled awake both times by the clap of thunder. Whomever was up there in the sky was in a bloody bad mood, and determined to make it known to each and every one of them.
The third time he’d managed to fall into a doze the sound of something scraping across the floor outside stirred him out of it. Immediately alert, he cast his senses outward, anticipating the next sound—which came almost immediately.
He winced at a loud bang. It was immediately followed by a hastily cut-off exclamation.
All right, that was it.
He was out of the bed, robed, and edging into the hallway in moments, and just in time to catch a flash of movement at the other end of the corridor. He was quite sure that long, dark braid did not belong to a burglar.
Curious rather than cautious now, he approached with soft steps. Behind him another door opened, and Robert Farrer stepped into the hall, a question on his shadowed face.
Peter shrugged, and both men set off. Inside the room he found a sight he was not expecting.
‘I wish you’d let me do it,’ Mrs Farrer was saying as he arrived in the doorway. She sounded defeated, but it was not the fairer woman who made him jolt in surprise.
‘You’re not tall enough, Alice,’ Elizabeth said as—good Christ—she stretched higher than she already was on the top of a ladder. ‘I’ve almost reached it, and—’
And she broke off without concluding her sentence as she wobbled a little and then continued with ruthless determination. The too-short Alice Farrer gripped the ladder with even more determination. She’d admirable strength for one so small, but any second now this whole debacle was going to turn dangerous.
Both men strode forwards. Peter reached her first.
It wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had; once he’d more or less steadied her he realised he’d gripped her by the thighs, and that nobody in the room was dressed in any way respectably. And, judging by the way she only wobbled more in reaction, she’d definitely noticed which parts of her he held.
Her brother stirred. ‘No, don’t move. Don’t wobble. Stay just as you are.’ Then in a deceptively even tone, he asked, ‘Elizabeth, would you mind explaining what you’re up to?’
‘Ceiling’s leakin,’ Mrs Farrer answered for her. ‘Somethin’ fell on it outside a while ago, and then somethin’ else just now. We thought we’d better fix it. There’s a spot here we thought we might block until we can see better in the mornin’.’
She finally found the sense to give up her post when her husband slid into her place, taking the bottom of the ladder in a steady grip.
‘And it didn’t occur to you to come and wake me for assistance?’
She shrugged. ‘We were both already up.’
With a shake of his head, a barely concealed snicker, and a sigh of long-suffering acceptance, Farrer looked up at his sister.
‘Elizabeth, if you wouldn’t mind coming down? Giantess that Alice seems to think you are, I’m significantly taller, and more likely to deal with the issue without breaking my neck.’
Farrer afforded his wife an amused glance at her loud scoff and then gave the situation a closer inspection.
‘If the roof’s leaking, shouldn’t you be finding buckets, rather than stuffing scraps of fabric into the hole?’
Lighting gleamed through the curtains, bringing on the predictable thunder seconds later.
‘Yes, that’d make sense if …’ Mrs Farrer began just as Elizabeth threw all concern for her safety to the winds and stretched up onto the tips of her toes.
Peter’s hands flexed.
‘This ceiling rose is made in the old style, and irreplaceable. I need to save it.’ She wobbled; straightened herself instantaneously.
‘The ceiling rose doesn’t matter if—oh, never mind. Hurry and finish and then come down,’ Farrer said. He lifted a palm in defeat as the woman on the ground handed the one atop the ladder another tattered, torn piece of cloth.
‘One moment.’ The voice from above them was muffled as Elizabeth reached up higher, fussing with the cloth, but only seconds later she relented. Peter stepped up and held onto her as she summoned the courage to lower her hands from the ceiling, reaching down tentatively, hands stretching blindly in search of something to hold as she descended.
She was not lacking in coordination or courage, and was on the ground in no time, springing off the last step, and then looking up into his face when she’d landed. That she hadn’t known he was there—that it had been him holding her—was held in the shock on her face. That they’d still not discussed what had happened at Epiphany was in the way she immediately looked away, a murmur of thank you on her lips.
And then she switched her attention to her brother, stiff with annoyance.
‘I’ll have you know, Robert Farrer, that the plastering in this room is said to be the same as in Vaucluse House. It’s irreplaceable,’ she repeated, but the man still didn’t seem particularly impressed.
Farrer set his eyes to the Heavens but had the sense not to argue the point any further.
The next clap of thunder was loud enough to wake even Duncan, and then Alice and Robert were off to fuss and dote and soothe, and—wordlessly—Elizabeth and Peter drifted to their rooms.
***
Elizabeth stayed in her bedroom only long enough to struggle into a dress and find some slippers. It was a little late to have concern for propriety, but she could hardly go out again as she had the first time. She waited with an ear pressed to the door until Duncan was settled and doors began to close once more, and then she waited longer, counting all the way to one hundred before easing her way back into the hall.
Peter opened his door almost as soon as she scratched on it, and drew her in in a hurry, closing them both inside. His lamp was lit, and it was impossible to ignore the mussed bedcovers. A few personal things were scattered across the dresser.
Oh, this was more inappropriate than she could have imagined it would be. She’d not blush. She would not.
‘Your brother’ll want to shoot me if he knew you were here,’ he whispered, leaning close, his breath stirring the fine hairs at her temple.
It was an even more inappropriate situation than being on that ladder, and—oh—the memory of where his hands had been minutes earlier brought that blush she’d been fighting to the surface.
‘Robert’s not the shooting sort. I’d say you’re safe.’ The sentiment was close enough, however.