The Dreaming

by Barbara Wood

  After McBean left, Colin picked up the letter he had received that morning from Scotland, read again the one significant phrase that stood out from the pages of his mother's writing: "Your father is very ill. I wish you would come home."

  Home, Colin thought bitterly. He wished he could go home; it was not his desire that he should be estranged from the land that bore him. Colin had tried, in fact, to reconcile with his father when he had taken Pauline to Skye seven years ago, on their honeymoon. But Sir Robert had refused to receive them; he would never forget the words his son had spoken to him years ago, when they had argued over the issue of evicting farmers to make room for the more profitable mutton production, and Colin had turned his back on his heritage and sailed to Australia. Colin and Pauline had spent two weeks exploring Skye, walking among alder and birch woods, and riding over the brooding moors, where black-faced sheep grazed; they had hunted in the forests surrounding the castle, and fished in Loch Kilmarnock; discovered moss-covered Celtic crosses and gravestones, the carving on them no longer readable; they had taken supper with Lady Anne, and then they had left, cutting their visit short, having never once seen Sir Robert.

  Colin was distracted by another knock at the door. It was fifteen-year-old Judd, dressed in the school uniform of Tongarra Agricultural College—gray flannel trousers and navy blazer. He was tall and reedy, with silky platinum hair, and disarmingly bright blue eyes. "May I have a word with you, Father?" he said.

  Colin was pleased to see him. "Certainly, son. Come in."

  Judd closed the door behind himself and hung back. He wished he could talk with his father in another place, the drawing room perhaps, where history and the dead weren't so omnipresent. At almost sixteen, Judd was still cowed by his father's study. He tried not to glance at the latest sampler that Lady Anne had stitched. It hung framed behind glass on the wall, a poem titled, "The Haunted Kirk of Kilmarnock," where "Kilmarnock was drawing nigh, Where ghosties and ghoulies nightly cry." Judd preferred poems about the Australian outback, such as Hugh Westbrook's ballads, which spoke of golden suns and luminous skies, and men who were alive and vigorous and who weren't afraid of ghosts or legends.

  "What is it, Judd?" Colin said as he poured himself a whiskey. He was looking forward to the day when he would introduce Judd to the Men's Club in town, and they would share their first drink together.

  "They've asked me to make a decision, Father. I'll be sixteen soon, and my course of study will be ending a year after that. But if I'm to stay on, then they'll enroll me in a special—"

  Colin held up a hand. "You already know my feelings on the subject, Judd. I've told you. Why are we discussing it again?"

  "I don't think you're being fair to me, Father."

  "Judd," Colin said with a patient smile, "you're only fifteen. You don't know yet what you really want."

  "I'll be sixteen soon. Didn't you know what you wanted when you were sixteen?"

  Colin's smile turned sad and wise. "I thought I did. But I was young and ignorant and I made many mistakes. I want to save you from that."

  "I'd rather make my own mistakes, sir."

  The thunderous face of Sir Robert flashed across Colin's mind. "Mistakes bring pain," he said to Judd. "I want to spare you the suffering I went through. You know, there are times when I regret the day I gave in to you, when you pestered me to let you go to Tongarra in the first place. I should have sent you away to school in England, as I had planned. But I thought that maybe having you go to an agricultural school would be of benefit to Kilmarnock. I see now that I was wrong."

  "But, Father, the school is good for me," Judd said eagerly. "And I think that maybe someday I can use what I have learned there to develop a new strain of wheat that will grow under drought conditions."

  "Judd, you're a sheepman, not a wheat farmer," Colin said, coming around the desk and placing a hand on his son's shoulder. "I wish we wouldn't quarrel like this. Can't you see that I only have your best interests in mind? I can't allow you to demean yourself by being a teacher."

  "I won't be a teacher forever, Father. I want to be a scientist."

  Colin shook his head. Where had the boy gotten such obstinacy? And then, suddenly, Colin saw himself standing in a similar study, in a large stone castle much like this one, and confronting a stern-faced man like himself. And he heard his father saying, "You'll be the laird of Kilmarnock someday. I forbid you to go to Australia."

  No, Colin thought. That was different. I had to get away. I had to make my own way in the world. "Judd," he said, "I built this station for you. On the day you were born, I made you a promise that I was going to hand an empire over to you. How can you stand there now and tell me that you're willing to settle merely for being a teacher?"

  "I won't be settling for anything, Father. There is so much I want to learn, and to do—"

  "Judd, you're going to be the laird of Kilmarnock someday—"

  "Father, I'm not a Scottish lord, and I never will be. I'm Australian, and proud of it."

  Colin sighed impatiently. Where on earth had the boy gotten these notions from? From the very first day he could talk, Colin had taught him about his home in the Hebrides. He had described the stark beauty of Skye, the often turbulent skies, the meadows like thick green velvet, the hard splendor of the Cuillins, the lochs running like liquid pewter, the craggy peaks and tumbled-down crofters' cottages, and the centuries of history imbedded in its soil. Colin had taught Judd love and loyalty for his ancestral home at Kilmarnock, and for Scotland in general. The first song Judd had ever learned was, "My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;/My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer."

  Where was that loyalty now? Colin wondered. Where had he gone wrong in instilling in his son a sense of bloodline and Celtic pride? Judd's boyhood heroes should have been William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, but instead he had worshiped a rebel convict named Parkhill and an outlaw named Kelly.

  Pauline was passing through the hallway outside Colin's study, when she heard voices coming from behind the closed door. Wondering if this might be a good time to talk to Colin, tell him of her desire to go away on holiday somewhere, the two of them, to someplace romantic, she paused outside the door and listened.

  It was another argument with Judd.

  There were times when she wished Colin's son were truly her own. Judd was tall and attractive, resembling his mother more than his father, and he was intelligent, with a pleasant personality. Pauline had tried, in the beginning, to be a mother to him, but only with modest success. Neither of them had been able to put from their minds the fact that Judd was another woman's child. She had ultimately been unable to find herself at ease with him. And, in the way of children, Judd had sensed it. He addressed her as "Pauline" and introduced her to his friends as "My father's wife." But she sometimes wished that, in front of others at least, he would address her as "Mother."

  Pauline opened the door a crack and watched Colin as he went to the liquor cart and poured himself a whiskey. At forty-eight, he still cut a striking figure. Colin kept himself in excellent physical shape; and the silver in his black hair only added to his good looks. Pauline remembered the intense sexual desire she had felt for him long ago, during their honeymoon, when she had ached for his touch. When had that desire faded away? she wondered. When had he become simply the man she shared a house with?

  Then she thought of John Prior, who excited her in a very different way. Prior had brought to the surface all the old feelings she had once had for Hugh Westbrook, feelings of warmth and tenderness as well as passion.

  She heard Colin saying to Judd, "No Kilmarnock MacGregor has ever been a teacher, and we are not about to start now."

  "But, Father—" Judd said.

  "Good God, son, what would your mother think?"

  "Pauline doesn't mind—"

  "Not her! Your real mother!"

  Pauline froze, slowly closed the door and stared into the shadows in the hall.

  So, there was love in
Colin after all, as she had suspected, but it was not for her. Yes, of course—she had always known it. Christina still occupied his heart. And, Pauline realized, she probably always would.

  She searched the dim shadows for answers. She wanted a baby out of her body. She thought of Hugh Westbrook.

  Pauline wanted to look her best for her first visit to Merinda in nine years, and so she dressed with care. She wasn't nervous or anxious; in fact, she found herself quite calm, as she thought: A desperate woman will try desperate measures.

  From the moment of that fateful meeting with John Prior a month ago, Pauline had not been able to get Hugh Westbrook out of her mind. She had found herself dwelling on what might have been, had she not so foolishly ceded him to another woman. Pauline would think of Hugh and wonder what her children would have been like, had she married him. She would think of the empty nursery next to her bedroom, the monthly disappointment and the growing desperation to have a baby before her childbearing years were over, and she would associate all of this with Hugh.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. "Still beautiful," was how the society pages described her. But Pauline knew it would not be long before the silver strands began to appear among the blond. And she thought: A woman doesn't mind gray hair when she has something to show for her life.

  And what, she wondered, did she have to show for her thirty-three years? A cabinet filled with trophies—cups and statues that were shiny but cold, engraved with dates and events and the names of top honors. A trophy could not be cuddled or loved, or express love in return. How much more those awards would mean, Pauline thought, if she had someone to pass them on to. How much more satisfying her achievements in riding and archery, if she could teach her skills to a daughter. To Pauline, her life seemed sterile, pointless.

  A recent copy of the Times was lying on her dressing table. Pauline had read the letter that was printed on the second page.

  "It is time for us to stop thinking of ourselves as Victorians and Queenslanders and New South Welshmen," Hugh Westbrook had written, "but as Australians, one and all. We have to stop thinking of England as home, we have to cease looking across the ocean for protection and security. It is time we came of age, as a united people."

  Pauline had heard Hugh speak on the issue of federation of the Australian colonies. In the nearly one hundred years since the first white men arrived, Hugh argued, the continent of Australia had been divided into six independent, self-serving governments, so lacking in cooperation with their neighbors that each colony had its own postal system and set of stamps, its own army and navy with different uniforms; each placed a heavy tax on products imported from another colony; each had a different-gauge railroad. All of which, in Hugh's mind, worked counter to the best interests of all Australians. "It is ludicrous," he had written in the Times, "that when a man travels from New South Wales into Victoria, he must alter his pocket watch because the two colonies cannot agree to adopt the same time. Such rivalry among our colonies could put the rivalry between European nations to shame."

  Hugh's outspoken patriotism for Australia filled Pauline with pride. And it drew her to him all the more.

  As she rose from her dressing table, she felt a grim resolve steal over her. She had no doubts or misgivings about going to Merinda. She had to go. Her seven years of marriage with Colin had produced no child. A tryst with John Prior, a man who excited her but whom she did not love, was, for many reasons, out of the question. The solution lay at Merinda.

  Hugh rode into the yard, hastily dismounted and left his horse in the care of a stableboy. What had once been the front veranda of the cabin was now the side veranda of the kitchen, the cabin having been transformed into a cooking station when a newer cabin had been built next to it, the two buildings being connected by a covered walkway. The heavy green canvas shades had been drawn down over the kitchen veranda to block out the westering sun. Hugh went around to the side, through a wall of protective hedges, and into the small garden that had been laid out in front of the newer house. This had been built when the Westbrooks had outgrown the cabin, but had not yet been able to afford to build down by the river. It was a modest dwelling, with a high, pyramidal roof to permit the movement of air on hot days, and a newer, more spacious veranda that was set out with cane furniture and potted plants.

  Hugh found Joanna on the lawn, sitting on a stool in the sunlight. She had just washed her hair in a tin tub, and was now brushing it out, rich and brown. The privacy of this little garden, which faced the drive but blocked the house from view, permitted her to undo the top buttons of her blouse and roll up her sleeves. Hugh paused to look at her. Eight years of marriage had not diminished her mystique, or the power such a prosaic sight as her weekly hair-washing had to arouse him. The first time he had come upon Joanna at this ritual, he had swept her into his arms, taken her inside and made love to her, her hair still wet and clinging to her naked shoulders. And he wanted to do so again now. But circumstances had changed in eight years. He and Joanna were not as free to indulge their sexual impulses as they once had been; Hugh could hear the voices of Adam and Beth on the rear veranda, where they were playing. He glimpsed a maid through the parlor window, polishing something. And he had noticed on his way in a station hand out front, not where he could see Joanna, but there all the same.

  Hugh called out and waved to her with the packet of mail he had just brought from Cameron Town.

  They went to the veranda, and Joanna asked the maid to bring tea. This was their daily ritual: to take a break from their work, read the mail, and catch up on each other's news. It was a quiet hour, reserved just for them.

  "Here's something from Karra Karra!" Joanna said, after she had buttoned up her blouse and rolled down her sleeves. But she left her hair loose, to dry in the heat.

  On the evening of their last day in Melbourne, just hours after she had discovered the Karra Karra brochure in Adam's possession, Joanna had sat down and written to the mission, which was located on the New South Wales border. She had explained why she was writing, and enquired about any records they might have of someone named Makepeace. While she read the reply from Mr. William Robertson, the director of the mission, Hugh opened his mail.

  "This is good news!" he said after a moment. "It's from McNeal. He says he'll be free to come out month after next, when the exhibition closes. He says he has no immediate plans to return to America, and will be able to commence right away on our new house. I'll write back and invite him and his wife to stay here with us. We have plenty of room, and a hotel in town would be an unnecessary expense." He looked at Joanna. "Well? What does the mission say?"

  "The director doesn't say much," she said, reading the letter again. "It's rather strange. He makes no mention of my grandparents, and he hasn't answered any of my questions. But he has invited us to come to the mission and meet with him at our convenience."

  "Maybe he has too much to tell you and prefers to tell it in person."

  "Yes," she said, refolding the letter into its envelope. "Perhaps. Oh, Hugh, do you suppose this is the same Karra Karra that I've been looking for? Something doesn't seem right."

  "We'll go and find out," Hugh said.

  Jacko, Merinda's station manager, appeared at the opening in the hedge. "We've got trouble, Hugh," he said. "Number six and seven bores have silted up."

  "All right," Hugh said, rising, and replacing his hat. "Let's go and see what we can do." He kissed Joanna on the cheek and said, "I'll try to be home for dinner. But I might have to stay out tonight."

  "I'll send Ping-Li with a hamper if you do."

  She watched him go. When she started to reread the cryptic letter from Karra Karra, she was surprised to see someone appear at the break in the tall hedge. She was further surprised to realize it was Pauline MacGregor.

  "Pauline," Joanna said. "Goodness, come in. I'm afraid you've just missed my husband."

  "I know, I waited until he had left. It was you I came to see."

  "Please," Joanna sai
d, mildly baffled. "Come inside. It's cooler in the parlor. May I offer you some tea?"

  "No thank you," Pauline said as they entered the dim interior, which smelled of fresh lemon polish and autumn flowers. Pauline recalled the last time she had visited Merinda, when Hugh had been living in that deplorably crude, almost derelict cabin. Now he had a proper house, modest but well taken care of, and graced with vines and shrubs. The parlor, though not grand, was meticulously kept, with new furniture, a brightly colored Turkish carpet, fringed lampshades, framed photographs and lace curtains. And she could not help but wonder "What if ..." once again.

  "What can I do for you?" Joanna asked, and Pauline looked at her. It had been a long time since they had seen each other, and Pauline thought Joanna looked awfully young; she remembered that she was still in her twenties. With her hair falling loose like that, she looked even younger.

  "I have come on a very personal errand," she said, "and I don't quite know where to begin."

  Joanna sat and waited.

  "I have been told," Pauline said, aware that her gloved hands were clasped tightly in her lap. "That you are discreet?"

  "You have my word that whatever we say will not go beyond these walls."

  "Very well, I will come right to the point. You are no doubt aware that I have been married for seven years, and that I am so far childless. I heard that you were able to help Verity McManus conceive a child, when doctors and Poll Gramercy had told her there was no hope. Can you help me?"

  "It is possible that I can," Joanna said. "But first we shall have to try and discern the cause of your childlessness. Very often, it is a simple thing to correct."

  "Before you go any further, I first must tell you something," Pauline said. She looked around the parlor that might have been hers, at the portraits of the boy and girl, and the neat little vases of flowers sitting on tidy doilies, the Bible on its stand. In the background, homely sounds drifted from the kitchen, and children's voices called to each other from the veranda. Kilmarnock seemed like a museum compared to this; not a home, not even a house, but a repository of relics and ostentation.