by Clare Flynn
Elizabeth looked past the schoolmistress at Winterbourne, who was talking to Will, while Jack Kidd listened and solemnly drank his beer. She strained to hear what he was saying but the table was long and his voice was low. At least that meant he would not be able to hear her either.
She turned back to Miss Radley and said, 'Tell me about the school.'
'I had no money so I just gathered those children I could and gave them lessons in the shade of a tree here in town. I put a sign in the post office that I was willing to teach any children. At first only a few came but little by little the numbers grew. The town was growing fast then – although mostly menfolk working in the mines and on the railroad. They tended to leave the women and children on the coast at first, but as time went on, more and more of them settled here permanently. I like to think that having some proper schooling is what attracted so many people to settle in the town.'
'When did you get the school premises?'
'Ten years ago. Mr McDonald, who practically owned the town then – and owned the mine before Mr Kidd – built the schoolhouse and paid for the furniture and books. He was a great benefactor.'
'What happened to him?'
'He's retired and lives in Sydney. He sold the mine to Mr Kidd.'
Elizabeth realised this was the man rumoured to have lost everything at the card table to Jack Kidd, but she decided to refrain from mentioning this. Telling Verity Radley might diminish the schoolmistress's respect for her benefactor, while doing nothing to enhance Jack Kidd's reputation.
She looked again to the other end of the table; Kidd was munching his food and swigging beer, throwing the odd comment in Michael's direction. Harriet was eating in sullen silence on her left, next to Winterbourne. She had ignored Miss Radley's discourse, either from familiarity with its subject matter, or more likely to avoid being drawn into conversation with her step-mother.
When the dessert was served and Harriet had still not spoken, Elizabeth decided to take the girl on. She addressed Miss Radley, but leaned forward to include Harriet in the conversation. 'Is Harriet the only pupil who lives with you at the schoolhouse?'
'She is now, aren't you, Hattie? Until a year ago there were the Dunbar twins too. Their place is twenty miles out of town, so during the week they used to stay with us in town, but they've grown up now. Millicent helps out at home, as her mother is sick and can't do much these days and Pru got married a few months back to a young man from Katoomba, so she's gone to live there.'
'You must miss them, Harriet?' Elizabeth said.
The girl stared back at her in silence. Elizabeth flushed in anger but resisted responding, as Verity Radley had started to answer for the girl. 'Harriet's very different from the Dunbars aren't you?'
She added in a confidential tone to Elizabeth: 'Being twins they tended to stick together a lot – poor Hattie was left out a bit I think.'
Harriet spoke, stung into a response. 'Couple of outback ignoramuses. Good only for milking cows and plucking chooks.'
Miss Radley appeared oblivious to the venom in the girl's voice and smiled indulgently. 'Don't be mean-spirited. Not everyone is as clever as you, or shares your love of literature and music.'
'Literature and music?' Elizabeth seized on the information. 'Who's your favourite composer, Harriet?'
'I listen to music and I read books. That doesn't mean I want to talk about them with ignorant pommies.'
'Harriet! That's extremely rude! Apologise to Mrs Kidd.' Miss Radley spoke quietly but firmly, clearly anxious to avoid the male company overhearing.
Harriet was not accepting any reprimands. She scraped back her chair and jumped to her feet.
'I've had enough. Just because he's married her doesn't mean I have to talk to her. Or sit at the table with her.'
She ran out of the room.
At the sound of the front door slamming, Verity was about to go after the girl, but Jack Kidd's voice boomed.
'She wants to go so let her go.' Turning to Winterbourne he added. 'She's a chip off the old block. Can't do with fancy manners and chit-chat. I've had enough of sitting here like a stuffed shirt myself to be honest, mate.'
He reverted to the role of the mine gaffer, handing out orders to his foreman.
'Go and find her, Mick and see she gets back to the schoolhouse. Then if you fancy another drink come back here and join me. Will, see Miss Radley home then get to bed.'
Without another word, he rose from the table, took a decanter of whisky from the sideboard and went into the drawing room where he settled himself in an armchair.
Miss Radley made her goodbyes hurriedly to Elizabeth, then squeezed her arm and whispered conspiratorially. 'Harriet can be a difficult child. She still feels the loss of her mother. I hope you and I can be friends and I so want to see the baby. May I call on you after school one afternoon?'
When the schoolmistress left the room with Will at her side, Elizabeth realised that Michael had already gone, saving them both the awkwardness of a goodbye.
It took Michael almost an hour to track Harriet down. His heart wasn't in the task; his mind was still reeling after seeing Elizabeth. Nothing had prepared him for what happened. Unlike Elizabeth, he'd had no warning of their meeting. He'd accepted a dinner invitation from his boss, expecting a dull and uneventful evening, with perhaps the opportunity for a more substantial meal than his lodgings provided and if he were lucky, a little congenial conversation. If he had envisioned his hostess at all, it was as a plump, middle-aged matron presiding over her table – or as a pinch-faced harridan, a thin, wiry match for her husband. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to meet Elizabeth at Kidd's table, let alone discover she was Kidd's wife and the mother of his new-born child.
When he finally caught up with Kidd's daughter he was in no mood for conversation, but the girl wanted to talk.
'Mr Winterbourne – or can I call you Mick like Pa does?' She didn't wait for a response but pressed on. 'Why do I get the distinct impression that you already know my father's wife?'
'I can't imagine, Miss Kidd, as I don't.'
'I saw you talking to her outside the school a couple of months back.'
'You must be mistaken, Miss.'
'I never forget a face. I think you're playing with me.' Her voice was coquettish and Michael was impatient to be rid of her.
He shrugged, then resisted her efforts to make conversation over the half mile or so back to the school.
Miss Radley was waiting on the steps of the schoolhouse so Michael made a speedy escape then walked the streets of McDonald Falls like a man possessed. By the time he got back to his digs he had decided to leave the Falls and resurrect his plan to try his hand at sheep farming. But the following morning, after a sleepless night, he had changed his mind again. Why should Elizabeth drive him away? He was damned if she was going to force him to give up a job that, since his promotion, paid him well when his parents needed the money. He tried to channel his feelings for her and the overwhelming sense of loss he felt at her betrayal into anger and contempt. Sometimes he even believed it was working.
If Jack Kidd had planned to bring Harriet to live at Kinross House, he abandoned the idea after the dinner. There was no mention of her leaving the care of Miss Radley. The schoolmistress took to visiting Elizabeth once or twice a week in the late afternoon, after lessons had concluded. Harriet never accompanied her. Miss Radley rarely mentioned her charge and seemed reluctant to answer any questions from Elizabeth about her progress. Elizabeth sensing this and relieved not to have a sullen stepdaughter under her roof, stopped enquiring.
She made it a rule every day to write something in her diary. Nothing profound or momentous. She didn't write of the loneliness of marriage to Jack Kidd, his lack of interest in her, other than in bed, where he grunted his way to a rapid climax, to which she felt like an incidental accessory. Elizabeth could not write of such things, so instead she recorded the progress of Mikey. The name Will had given the child had stuck within the household and n
o one gave him his full name, even Elizabeth.
The baby bloomed and grew rapidly, with a healthy complexion, bright eyes and a tendency to smile and gurgle happily at any attention paid to him. Elizabeth took joy in the little creature and was grateful that he was not a difficult baby, but the source of endless entertainment and pleasure. Every day she recorded his progress in her diary: the smiles of recognition, the angry cries when he was hungry or teething, his ever-stronger grip on her finger, the way he now rolled on his stomach trying to lever himself up.
One afternoon, she was taking tea in the parlour with Miss Radley, while Mikey lay on his stomach on a blanket, battling as usual to get into an upright position.
'He's going to have such strong arms. All that pushing and shoving will develop those biceps' said Miss Radley.
'I'd better make sure his father doesn't see or he'll have him out at Wilton's Creek chopping wood before he's talking.'
'Better that than sending him to work in the mine.'
'God, what a horrible thought. I'll never allow that. I hate the fact that Will is stuck there. I'm trying to persuade my husband to let Will stop working there – or to give him a job in the office, but I'm afraid Will's not cut out for office work any more than for mining. He likes to be in the open, setting rabbit traps and riding his pony. He told me last week he loathes going underground. It must be like going down into the bowels of hell. I think he's frightened by it. I know I'd hate it.'
Miss Radley shuddered. 'It sounds most unpleasant.'
'Yet so many men have to face it virtually every day of their lives. Like being suffocated: deprived of light and air. It's not natural.'
As she spoke, she thought of Michael, not of Will. He too must hate the descent into the Stygian depths, away from the world, from light and from colour, even from natural sounds – the relentless throb of the mining machinery and the clash of pickaxes against rock taking the place of birds singing and the everyday noise of the town. But he had been a miner in England and during the war so he must be used to it. She remembered how on board the Historic he had intimated that he wanted to do something different when he got to Australia.
She had asked Will if his father and the foreman ever went underground, hoping that the answer would be negative. Will told her that while his father rarely went below, Michael led by example and was usually first down and last up. She hated to think of him in that netherworld, battling his demons in the dark.
Miss Radley said, 'Men are tougher than we ladies, Mrs Kidd. They're made of different ingredients.'
Elizabeth laughed. 'Frogs and snails and puppy dogs' tails.'
'Exactly!'
'Miss Radley, may I ask you to call me by my first name? It's hard being Mrs Kidd to absolutely everyone except Will. I'd be so happy if you'd call me Elizabeth. You are my only friend in McDonald Falls'
The schoolmistress beamed. 'I would be honoured, Elizabeth – and you must call me Verity.'
'Delighted, Verity.'
'No one's called me Verity since my parents and my Bernard. I'm happy you think of me as your friend.'
'Now tell me what's been happening in the world? I'm starved of news here. There's no one to talk to except Will when he's around – but now he's at the mine he goes to bed early and rises early so I hardly see him. And, as you know, Mr Kidd is not a great talker.'
Verity smiled and said tactfully, 'He's not exactly renowned for conversation.'
'At least you get out and about and see people every day, Verity.'
'I see small children every day you mean. It's not exactly the same – and I'm rarely a party to their secrets being "The Teacher".'
'Come on now! There must be something to tell.'
'Well... I hear several young women are rather sweet on that nice Mr Winterbourne. He's made quite an impression in a short time. Mind you he's a good-looking man and quite charming to boot. Did you know he saved a little boy from a snakebite? He was so quick to act – it happened right outside the school. He's a hero among the ladies. I didn't get a chance to speak with him at dinner here, but he was very courteous when he brought Hattie home after she'd run off that evening. And his landlady, Mrs Abbott, sings his praises when I see her at church.'
This was not what Elizabeth had expected or wanted to hear. Verity had never mentioned Michael before. She felt the blood rushing to her face and cursed her lifelong tendency to blush at the slightest provocation. Trying to sound casual and hoping the quaver in her voice was not discernible she asked, 'Mr Winterbourne brought Hattie back to the schoolhouse that night?'
'Yes. Will walked me home and it was almost an hour before Mr Winterbourne arrived with Hattie. He had trouble finding her. She can be difficult when she chooses and when she doesn't want to be found she won't be found. Just the other day she was very moody when I asked her to go over her French verbs – ran off and didn't come home until almost bedtime. I should be stricter with her, but it's a hopeless task. The only person she ever listens to is her father and he rarely sees her. I should have been much firmer with her from the start, but with her dear mother passing away so suddenly, I made more allowance than was good for her. She's a good girl really but she is a little wayward at times.'
Elizabeth was desperate to hear more of Michael yet hesitated to bring up the subject again. 'Don't talk about Harriet,' she said. 'I've given up trying with her. I made a big effort to befriend her, but she's made up her mind to dislike me.'
'I'm sorry, Elizabeth. It must be hard for both of you. She probably can't help but see you as someone who has taken her mother's place in her father's affections.'
Elizabeth snorted, then tried to cover it up by coughing exaggeratedly. The sidelong look Verity Radley threw her indicated she was not deceived.
'I'm sorry, Verity, but if we're to be friends we have to be honest with each other. God knows, I have no one else to be honest with any more.'
'What do you mean?'
'It must be as plain as the nose on my face, that I've not replaced the late Mrs Kidd in my husband's affections.'
The schoolmistress looked shocked.
'Come on. You said it yourself,' said Elizabeth. 'He's no great conversationalist. It would not have been an exaggeration if you'd added that he's an uncouth, morose, miserable, old curmudgeon who shows no interest in anything other than the mine and his clapped-out old pony. He has no time for his children. He ignores Will and indulges Hattie – probably to compensate for largely ignoring her too. He shows no interest in Mikey. As for me?' She gave a hollow laugh.
'Elizabeth, you don't mean it.'
'Yes I do. I do. I do.'
'Then why did you marry him?'
'I had no choice. Believe me if I had, I would have done otherwise.'
She wished she could retract her words as soon as they were out. She'd broken her promise to herself to make the most of her lot and get on with life without complaining to others. Verity's friendship and the mention of Michael Winterbourne's effect on the women of the town had proved too much for her. But this was not what she had intended. She didn't want the mask to slip, not even with Verity.
'I didn't mean what I just said. Mr Kidd is a good husband and I'd no intention to speak ill of him. I don't know what came over me? It must be lack of sleep. I've a headache and it's making me grumpy. Mikey is cutting a tooth and I've had a series of disturbed nights with him. Please forget I said it.'
'I understand. I've forgotten already.' She smiled kindly, but her eyes told another story and something had changed profoundly in their relationship with this brief slip of Elizabeth's mask.
Elizabeth would have liked to confide fully in her new friend, but felt it was a betrayal of her father. She knew William Morton had lost something fundamental in his character, distorted by grief at his wife's death and despair at his own failings. She, his daughter, couldn't bear to confront the truth herself that he had gambled her away like a stack of chips, let alone confess it to someone else. Her father may have faltered in his loya
lty to her, but she would not weaken in hers to him. And there was Mikey to think of. She wanted him to grow up with a chance of a good life, unsullied by her own sad history. That meant him being accepted as Jack Kidd's youngest son and growing up to respect his father. If she were to speak the truth of how she felt about Kidd, even to Verity, it would risk this.
Verity quickly tried to move the conversation back to what she thought was a safe and banal footing. 'I was telling you about Mr Winterbourne. Many's the time I've gone into the draper's to find a gaggle of ladies extolling his virtues. It's not often that a single man arrives in town as handsome and polite as him. And that lovely accent! They're all vying for his attention.'
'Really?' Elizabeth felt constrained from changing the subject when she had already steered the conversation away from one dangerous area.
Verity was unstoppable now, relieved to be on what she thought was safer ground. 'I'd be joining the queue myself, but I don't delude myself that a fine man like him would be interested in an old maid like me.' She gave a dry laugh. 'And after my Bernard there can never be anyone else.' Her voice dropped to a confidential whisper. 'Mind you. Hattie's not immune.'
'What are you talking about?' Elizabeth's stomach churned.
'He's a little old for her, but that's not always such a bad thing. My Bernard was quite a bit older than me. And she does seem to have taken to him. What do you think? I'm sure Mr Kidd would be delighted for Harriet to marry a young man like him.'
'Marry him? That's preposterous! Harriet's barely eighteen. He's almost twice her age. It's a ridiculous notion.' Her voice was sharp and she tasted bile in her throat.
Verity Radley saw at once she had upset her hostess. 'You're quite right, Elizabeth. What was I thinking? It's a schoolgirl crush. It will pass.'
'If it's a crush at all.' There was frost in Elizabeth's voice now. 'You must be reading too many silly, romantic novels.'
The schoolteacher blushed to the roots of her hair. Seeing her crestfallen expression, Elizabeth softened and smiled. 'I'm sorry – I didn't mean to be cruel. It's that headache again. I am out of sorts today. I definitely need an early night. Please forgive me.'