by Clare Flynn
'She'll be married when I find the right fellow for her. I don't want to hear a word on the subject from you.'
'She's a clever girl. She could study at the University.'
'I'll not have a daughter of mine turn into a bloody bluestocking.'
'She can't just hang around the house all day. Her only friend is in Sydney. She has no social life. How on earth are you going to find her a husband? You never meet anyone! And a girl can't have her father choosing her boyfriends for her. She has to get out and meet young men herself.'
'I won't have you filling her head with romantic notions. That bloody Radley woman has done enough of that already.'
The chance of Elizabeth filling Hattie's head with anything, let alone romantic notions, was remote. As to the choice of husband, she didn't care. She hoped Kidd would get on with it and make a decision soon, as the presence of the girl in the house was becoming more irksome every day.
Despite the house being fuller than when she first arrived, Elizabeth was more lonely. Miss Radley rarely visited: the humiliation she had suffered from Kidd at the races proved too much for her to risk a repetition, so they only met when Elizabeth could visit the schoolhouse. Will was at work in the pit and seemed to spend all his free time with Michael Winterbourne. He was usually at home for supper and took the opportunity to talk with Elizabeth then, but the presence of Harriet and Kidd inhibited openness in their conversation. Elizabeth sensed a growing sadness in Will and presumed it was due to his loathing of the mine. Apart from a bit of banter with Mary and Mrs Oates, Elizabeth's days were devoid of adult conversation, but she exulted in her time with Mikey, who was growing so fast and managing his first words. Needless to say, he mastered the word mamma long before dadda. She wondered if he would have managed dadda at all, were it not for her constant repetition. Kidd showed no interest in the child.
As for Harriet, it was a while before she ventured out, after her public humiliation. Her aim of looking sophisticated and modern, a cut above the rest of the town and her former classmates, had backfired. She seethed with resentment at her father. She'd always been ashamed of his rough appearance, gruff manners and country ways. Their long separation had made her despise him more, except when trying to persuade him to part with money for new shoes or a silk blouse. But this time he'd gone too far. Shouting and bullying her in front of the whole town. Any thoughts she had entertained of impressing Michael Winterbourne were shattered. He'd see her for what she was: a naïve and gauche girl with a bully for a father. She lay on her bed wishing she were dead.
Harriet's passion for a dramatic and early demise faded soon. There were only so many tears of anger and frustration she could cry. When Miranda Appleton made one of her occasional visits from Sydney, Harriet accepted the invitation to visit her. She was bored of the four walls of her new bedroom and at least Miranda hadn't been present at the scene of her public humiliation. They sat together in the garden of Miranda's mother's house.
'I don't know why you care what people here think about you? Come to Sydney.'
'God, Randa, you've no idea how I'd love to do that. I'm so sick of this town and its stupid people. I'd like to escape and never have to look across the table at the Witch any more.'
'Surely she's not that bad, Hat?'
'She's taken my mother's place. That's enough.'
'Your mother died a long time ago. It's understandable that your Pa would want to marry again.'
'My mother was only thirty-four when she died. Her life was constant drudgery and struggle out in the bush but the Witch just swanned in and got to live a life of luxury in town. It's not right.'
'Your Pa's rich. You can't expect him to live the way he did before.'
'He was happy to carry on living like that until she came along. He stayed out at Wilton's Creek. But that's not good enough for the Witch.'
'Hat, you wouldn't want to live out there yourself. Not any more.'
'Too bloody right I wouldn't. I'm glad Pa's got lots of money now. But that doesn't mean I'm happy that someone else gets to benefit instead of my Ma.'
'You can't blame your step-mother for your Ma not being around any more.' Miranda's tone was tentative. She knew how volatile Harriet could be, especially on the rare occasions when her mother was mentioned.
Harriet looked away, preoccupied. Eventually she spoke. 'I think Pa wants me off his hands. He's been yelling at me a lot and complaining that I'm too fond of fancy clothes and French perfume. He doesn't care about me. But there's never any problem with him spending money on her.'
'Do you think he wants you to get married?'
'Who's going to look at me, when my father potters about in a ridiculous pony and trap with dead rabbits hanging off the back.'
Miranda giggled.
Harriet looked up in annoyance. 'I have a horrible feeling he'd prefer me to be shacked up with some poor old digger without two brass farthings to rub together and a house full of screaming brats.'
'How vile.'
'I want someone from the country club: a rich Sydneysider who only comes up for the weekends or a few weeks in the summer. I'd like a big house here in the mountains – in Leura or Katoomba – that I could visit once or twice a year when it's too hot at the coast and an even bigger house in Sydney. I'd entertain the cream of Sydney society.' She sighed with longing.
'If you stay in McDonald Falls that's never going to happen. You're not even a member of the country club.'
'Don't remind me!' she groaned. 'Those fellows from the country club think my father's a rough old swagman. I need a fresh start, away from here, where he can't embarrass me.'
'You can't just go off to Sydney alone. Your Pa would do his block. You can stay a few days with Robbie and me, but that's not going to be enough, is it?'
'No. And the trouble is I've no money of my own. Instead of giving me an allowance, I have to plead with Pa and justify why I need every penny.'
'Sorry, Hat, you may have to make the most of life beyond the black stump.'
Harriet scowled and made a mental note to be unavailable next time Miranda graced McDonald Falls with her presence.
As for Michael Winterbourne, since the race meeting, she couldn't even bear to think about him and how he had witnessed her humiliating exit from the park. She cringed with embarrassment. If her mother were still alive she'd scold her and tell her that it was no more than she deserved. That was why she didn't like to think of her mother very often - she knew she would not be happy with the way she'd turned out. It's not my fault Ma - you should never have left me.
Jack Kidd took little interest in the workings of the coal mine. It was a means to an end: the source of his wealth and the power that went with it. He was a countryman who loved fresh air, felt claustrophobic underground and hated being enclosed in darkness and damp. Before Winterbourne showed up, he had worked his way through a succession of foremen, without trusting any of them. The new man swiftly proved his competence, despite his lack of coal-mining experience and Kidd immediately trusted him. Coal was different from lead, but when it came down to it they both had to be dug out of the rock. Kidd also saw him as a bit of a kindred spirit. The Englishman spoke little, but told Kidd enough to let him know that he shared a love of the outdoors and came from a humble background. Kidd liked that. He knew he had served in the Great War and seen a bit of action, but he didn't seem inclined to talk of it and Kidd was not inclined to listen anyway. Winterbourne told him enough to reassure him that his wartime experience building and maintaining tunnels between the trenches and the rear lines gave him enough technical grounding to understand the mechanics of sinking a coal shaft and tunnelling safely.
The mine had seen better days. Kidd still made an income from it, but it was not the money-spinner he'd hoped when he won the title deeds from John McDonald, as the culmination of a series of increasingly high-staked poker games. The price of coal had plummeted since the War and the demands of the workforce were getting louder. The last thing Kidd wanted was a st
rike on his hands. He'd sell up if he could only find a buyer. He was hanging on in the hope that the market would pick up and he could negotiate a deal. The money itself didn't bother him. It was what it represented. The standing it gave him in the town. The fact that he didn't have to grovel to anyone.
He needed little for himself and only put up with living in Kinross House, with its fancy furnishings and servants, as he thought it might help him when it came to settling his daughter with a husband. It irked him though. He wished the girl took after her mother more, showing a bit of humility and understanding what a hard day's work meant. He knew Susanna had wanted a better life for her daughter and that was the only reason he'd gone along with the whole education charade.
But this morning Kidd had woken with a plan. As soon as he thought it through, it struck him as the perfect solution to all his problems. Winterbourne could marry the girl. He rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. He could join the family and eventually take control of the mine. Will was never going to be up to the job. The boy had shown no inclination to learn the business and had an antipathy for going underground that was greater than Kidd's own. Winterbourne, on the other hand, was respected by the men and a hard worker. Kidd could get him more involved with the financial end of things. He could do a stint in the office. Robinson wouldn't like it, but he'd have to lump it. Harriet wouldn't want to be married to a man who came home with coal dust round his collar. After a while Kidd could liberate himself from the mine altogether. He could give the newly weds the house in town and move back to Wilton's Creek and do what he really wanted to do: farm the land. He'd need to invest a bit of money to build a proper homestead out there. Not for himself – he didn't care two hoots about his surroundings, but Elizabeth and the child needed more comfortable surroundings. And he could buy more land and farm it seriously.
Excited and feeling the energy surge in his body, he walked towards the foreman's office shouting, 'Mick! Get over here man. We need to talk.'
Chapter Sixteen – Courtship
Will looked more down in the mouth every day. One evening when he returned from his shift, Elizabeth asked him to join her for a walk around the large garden. They walked in silence at first then, when they reached the boundary fence, they stood side by side, leaning against the palings, looking out at the fern-covered crags, listening to the sound of the distant waterfall. She breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with the unpolluted mountain air, then put her hand over Will's where he had placed it on the fence.
'What's wrong, Will? You're not yourself these days.' She took her hand away and placed it on his arm instead.
'You know it often helps to share a trouble.'
'Not in this case, Lizbeth. You can't make it better. It's not like Mikey grazing his knee.'
She put her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eye. 'Spit it out. I want to know. I'll follow you round the garden until you tell me!' She was smiling.
Will frowned. 'It's the mine. I can't take it any more. There was an accident a few weeks back. Since then I keep thinking every time I go under that it's all going to come down on me and I'll die.'
She squeezed his hand to encourage him to go on.
'I'm not scared of dying itself. When your number's up, it's up. What scares me is being trapped and buried alive. I've been having nightmares. The tunnel collapses and I'm stuck under a ton of rubble and they all think there's no one there and close up the shaft and leave me to die – slowly and in terrible pain.'
Elizabeth pulled him towards her and held him, stroking his hair gently. 'It's only a dream, my darling. It's not going to happen.'
'I know. But it's getting worse. All the time we're underground I'm a bag of nerves, jumping at any sound. The men are starting to notice. If it weren't for Michael, they'd refuse to do the shift with me. They say I give them the willies. That I'm a big wuss.'
'A wuss?'
'A coward.'
'You? You're one of the bravest men I know, Will Kidd. Living on your own in the bush, looking after yourself. You're as brave as any of those miners. You just dislike being underground. Goodness, I'd hate it if it were me. You wouldn't be able to drag me into that lift cage! I think you should talk to your father. Ask him to let you work in the office or do some other work on the surface.'
'I'd rather go back to the Creek – apart from not seeing you and Mikey so much. And Michael. But I like being on the land. It's not natural being down there. And since poor Wingo copped it.'
'Wingo?'
'The fella who was trapped when the tunnel fell. He almost died. His leg got infected. He'll never work again. Crippled. They amputated his leg below the knee. Poor blighter.'
'I'm sorry, Will.'
'And then the horse dying. I could never have done what Michael did that day. They're right. I am just a big wuss.'
Elizabeth wasn't sure she wanted to hear any more, but Will was visibly relieved at the opportunity to unburden himself.
'He had to kill a pit pony. Right there in the shaft. Fired a dynamite charge through its head. I know he was putting her out of her misery. She was in terrible pain and we'd never have got her out and her leg was broken and it looked like her spine too. He was right to do it. But he was so calm. I was a nervous wreck.'
He looked at her as though weighing up whether to continue or not, then carried on.
'I threw up, Lizbeth. In a pile of rubble and I couldn't stop blubbing like a baby. Michael was calm. He told me to hold her head while he put the detonator in her ear.'
'How horrible!'
'It was the worst thing. Bad as the day Ma died. I think he was pretty shook up too. We went for a beer afterwards. But don't you see, Lizbeth? That's the difference between him and me. He knows exactly what to do and he gets on and does it. He hates the mine too. He's told me so. But it doesn't stop him being good at the job. The men love him. They think I'm pathetic and they only put up with me because he stands up for me. How does that makes me feel?'
'Well, I think they're pathetic and you're a very brave man. I'm proud to know you.' She leaned forward and kissed him in the middle of his forehead.
Will reddened but couldn't help grinning. Elizabeth reached for his hand.
'Come on. That was the dinner gong. Promise me you'll talk to your father about changing your job?'
The boy's mouth hardened but he nodded and they went into the house together, hand in hand.
The sound of the violin was unlike anything Michael had heard before. He'd only known the cheerful and raucous fiddle playing that accompanied harvest suppers, weddings and miners' galas at Hunter's Down, in the days before the War robbed the village of so many of its men.
The plangent, haunting music was coming from the room next door. The notes rippled in the air in a bittersweet mixture of beauty and sadness. He'd never heard anything so moving or so sad. He stood beside the window looking out onto the garden, where the sunshine dappled the lawn, feeling a little melancholy as a picture came into his head of his parents sitting like bookends on either side of the fireplace in their humble cottage. He rarely thought of home these days. It was too painful, but the music carried him back.
Then he remembered what he was here to do and wondered momentarily if the musician was Harriet; but he knew it could only be Elizabeth. The virtuosity of the playing couldn't come from one so young as Harriet. He caught himself as he mentally added 'one so shallow'. He was not going to let himself think of Elizabeth any more in any context other than as his employer's wife. As for Harriet, he'd softened towards her since witnessing her father's humiliating treatment of her at the picnic races. Yes, she was vain and probably shallow, but she had spirit and hadn't deserved to be treated that way in front of half the town.
When Kidd had mooted that Michael court his daughter, Michael's initial reaction had been outright resistance. The girl was too young and he had no wish to marry anyone, now that Elizabeth was beyond his reach. But Kidd brooked no opposition.
'A man your age
needs a wife. I like you, Mick. You'll be a good match for Hattie. She needs a firm hand. She's taken against the missus and spends her life in her room sulking. You can take her out and get to know her and then we'll see what happens.'
'I'm not in a position to take a wife, sir. I have to support me parents. They need the money I earn here. If I was to have a wife I couldn't send them so much. They're getting old and me Da's not been able to work since...'
Kidd interrupted. 'Don't you worry about that, mate. If you marry her I'll see you both right.'
'What about Will?'
'I don't need you to tell me how to do right by my own son. I'll be getting out of town as soon as Harriet's wed. You can have the house and the bloody servants. Will can stay there if he wants, but I reckon he'll come back to Wilton's Creek. He'll never make a miner.'
'What'll you do?'
'Back to the Creek with the missus and the kiddie. I hate it in town. Can't be doing with all the crap people talk here. I hate having bloody servants creeping around after me, expecting me to live like a bloody snob. I'll have to polish the Creek up a bit for the wife but she knows what to expect. She'll be all right there. Not that she's got a choice. When you marry, I'll settle some cash on Hattie - Will too when he comes of age.'
Michael was torn. Elizabeth's betrayal was so absolute that it made no sense that she still had a hold over him. He hated himself for that. But try as he might, he could not hate her. He was too angry to admit to love for her either. He wanted to wrap her up and lock her away in a closed part of his brain, along with Danny and his parents. Thinking of her and them was just too painful.