He averted his eyes, played his final card.
‘I hear circus folk don’t judge a man by his colour, race or where he comes from. Only by his loyalty and how good he is at performing his work.’
That was the line that did the trick. She kept a straight face. ‘Can you milk a cow?’
‘Don’t ask me how I know but I’m dead sure I could.’ A smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. ‘Hey, that was a trick question. You don’t even own a cow.’
‘That’s because I can’t stand the idea of hurting a cow by pulling its teats. But if you can milk one, I’ll save up and buy one.’
Finch’s whole face changed; he looked younger, the way his eyes smiled at her. He offered her his hand. ‘Let’s shake on that. I’ll get started mending your back fence. The wire needs replacing. An elephant could pass through it and trample your cabbage patch.’
He was out the door in a flash but she called him back.
‘When you meet Sonny Jantzen I suggest you put your uniform aside. There are some clothes of Rom’s that should fit you.’
Finch smiled. ‘Thank you, Miss Hart.’
She added casually, ‘Clytie will do here on home ground. But call me Miss Hart in the town, right? Don’t want to hand them any more gossip on a platter.’
Finch nodded and was gone. She could hear him whistling in the back paddock as she washed the dishes in the smallest amount of water she could manage, saving left-over water for the herbs planted in the old kerosene tin.
She looked at the photograph on the mantelpiece. Rom stared back at her, his eyes brimming with secrets.
She said the words aloud, gruff with tenderness.
‘You have my word, Rom. If Finch puts a foot wrong I’ll boot him out the door. Hurry up and come home to me, my love. I miss you like crazy.’
Chapter 34
Clytie hurried along the track to Doc’s house close on the heels of Shadow. The baking dish she carried was accompanied by her hastily written note to Doc expressing her hope that his sister was in good health, because she had not even been seen at the Post Office this month.
In sight of his house, Clytie noticed the stable was empty. This was not unusual given the heavy demands on his services. What surprised her was the sight of Miss Hundey in the carriage-way. She was in the process of climbing up into the pony trap that Doc had provided for her personal use on the rare occasions she ventured out.
Clytie was doubly surprised to see that today Adelaide was dressed in a dark burgundy gown and a saucy, toning hat covered by elegant veiling. The boot on her club foot was polished to a high shine. She was the picture of matronly elegance but Clytie noticed the way her hands fluttered nervously with the reins when she saw Clytie’s approach.
‘Good heavens, did I mistake the calendar? Was I expecting you for morning tea today – instead of next week?’
Clytie quickly reassured her to the contrary and stood awkwardly holding the pie dish.
‘I don’t want to hold you up, Adelaide. I just wanted to reassure myself you were well. I made you your favourite blackberry pie. My first attempt. No doubt not up to your high standards, but – well, made with good intentions.’
Adelaide’s face softened beneath the spotted veil. ‘How very kind, Clytie. I shall enjoy it later. Doc’s out somewhere dispensing his medical knowledge – no doubt we’ll be showered with the usual boxes of spuds and cabbages in lieu of payment.’ Her agitation grew. ‘Right now I have an urgent call to make. Most distasteful – but it can no longer be avoided. Doc won’t take a stand, so I must. Why don’t you hop up beside me? You can bring me up to date with whatever fresh scandal Hoffnung’s invented about me.’
Clytie was quick to climb in beside her and with Shadow bounding alongside the pony trap, they rattled off down the road at the greatest speed Adelaide could manage to draw out of the aged Welsh pony. She quizzed Clytie about the progress the council was making in the debate about the design for the Boer War Memorial. Had Clytie read any news about Vida Goldstein’s meetings with the new Victorian Premier on women’s issues?
Despite Adelaide’s barrage of questions, Clytie instinctively felt that her mind was distracted by whatever meeting lay ahead of her. Turning the corner, she felt her stomach lurch in anxiety when they drew in sight of the Hoffnung bush hospital. She had an unbearably bitter-sweet image of her baby gripping her finger as he suckled at her breast.
As if suddenly acutely aware of Clytie’s thoughts, Adelaide’s gloved hand covered Clytie’s clenched fist.
‘My mistake, dear. I should not have brought you here. Wait for me, I’ll be as quick as I can. My business is a private matter with Sister Bracken. The old dragon thinks she’s Florence Nightingale’s reincarnation. I intend to make short work of her!’
Clytie watched her climb down awkwardly from the pony trap, clutching her skirts and reticule and measuring her steps to disguise her limp. She did not bother to knock but simply pushed open the door and hurried inside the building.
Clytie counted the minutes, telling herself she would never have come here had she known the destination. Nothing good could come out of this place for her.
She had a brief flash of satisfaction to see through the window Sister Bracken half cowering behind her desk, while Adelaide Hundey thumped her gloved fist on the desktop. Their conflict was a dumb show without sound but there was no mistaking which woman held the upper hand.
Despite her desire to be quit of the place, Clytie was drawn close enough to hear their angry voices and to decipher most of their argument.
Adelaide stabbed her finger at the inkwell on the desk.
‘Write your confession – now!’
‘I have nothing to confess! I have always done my duty – acted in my patients’ best interests –’
‘What utter garbage. You played God with people’s lives. But if you own up to the wrong you’ve done, it’s not too late to put it to rights.’
Sister Bracken pressed her hands to her temples and looked at her accuser with an expression of fear and anger. ‘I can’t. I won’t. Doctor would never forgive me – I’d lose his good opinion of me. Don’t you understand? That’s all that matters to me.’
Clytie recognised the anguish of a woman whose love is forever unrequited but Adelaide Hundey was relentless.
‘I haven’t got all day to stand here arguing with you. Write that letter now, and I guarantee you won’t lose your position or good name – such as it is. If I were the doctor I’d give you the boot but my brother’s a soft-hearted fool.’
‘Give me time to think about it.’ The nurse’s tone was strangely pleading.
‘Your time is up! The longer this thing is left unresolved the greater the suffering by innocent people. If I don’t leave with that wretched letter, I shall see to it Doc goes straight to the Medical Association – no hospital in the world will employ you!’
Clytie held her breath. Finally Sister Bracken dipped her pen in the inkwell and began to write, prompted by Adelaide who stood at her shoulder to ensure that the correct words grew on the paper.
Clytie was reminded of her first meeting with the eccentric woman who had described herself as an avenging angel – a role now materialising right before her eyes. She hastily resumed her seat in the pony trap moments before the pair emerged on the porch. Miss Hundey limped in triumph. Sister Bracken’s face was mottled purple as she desperately sought to re-establish her authority.
‘You don’t know what harm you’ve done raking up the past, Adelaide Hundey. My conscience is clear. At least I have complete control over my mind – I am not the one who belongs in a lunatic asylum.’
Her accuser faltered for a brief moment. ‘Better a sick mind than an evil one. I have what I came for. Now let justice be seen to be done.’
Adelaide called out for Bracken’s messenger boy, who lumbered along as quickly as he could.
She handed him a letter and a coin with her instructions. ‘Thank you, Donald. I trust you will deliver thi
s straight away.’
As Clytie handed back the reins to Adelaide she noticed the hands in the black lace mittens were shaking. But with an expert crack of the whip Adelaide drove off, leaving Sister Bracken seemingly to wither inside her nurse’s uniform.
Driving off at great speed, Adelaide wore a grim smile. Clytie was careful not to question or provoke her. The pony trap drew up outside the priest’s house and Adelaide turned to her, her calm restored and now fully aware of Clytie’s presence.
‘Thank you for the splendid pie, my dear. And most of all for putting up with your cantankerous friend.’ Her voice wavered slightly and her next words came with effort. ‘That Bracken creature was right about one thing. My mind is not always as it should be. You see, my dear, I have not exactly been a stranger to the Kew Lunatic Asylum.’
Adelaide’s eyes watched her keenly from behind the veil, prepared for rejection, but Clytie did not hesitate. She leaned across and kissed the veil that covered the woman’s cheek.
‘I feel privileged to know you, Adelaide Hundey,’ she said and jumped down.
Miss Hundey’s cart rattled off, wobbling over the many potholes, in the erratic style that had become her signature.
Clytie was left feeling curious about the reason behind the confrontation at the bush hospital, yet a far stronger emotion was uppermost. She was deeply touched by the woman’s wistful parting confession.
‘I can only imagine, Shadow, what it cost her to tell me that dark secret.’
Skirting the house via her side vegetable garden, Clytie’s eyes were drawn to the two distant figures of Finch and Long Sam, who had set out early that morning to mend the sliprail fence down by the creek.
She was struck by Finch’s odd posture. His long legs were straddled over a felled tree, as if riding a horse and cracking an imaginary whip in the air.
Long Sam was laughing at some tale Finch was telling him. Clytie was unable to hear their words but from the exaggerated way Finch grabbed a stick, raised it to his shoulder and fired it, it was clear he was enacting some outrageous tall tale inspired by the war.
At the climax to the dumb show Finch took an acrobatic fall from his ‘horse’ and rolled over to hide behind a rock, like a sniper shooting at ‘the enemy’. Sam was bent double laughing and Clytie found it so infectious she joined in.
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard Sam laughing.
She was struck by the strange irony of the scene.
Finch is play-acting a light-hearted moment – in a war that he cannot remember fighting.
• • •
That evening she went to particular pains to present a healthy meal for Sam and Finch as thanks for their hard day’s labour restoring her boundary fence. As ‘mother’ of the table, she was pleased to listen to the easy way Finch conversed with Long Sam, drawing out stories from him about the grand Bendigo Joss House that Sam visited each Chinese New Year. He showed real interest in how Sam and his four compatriots had built the original small joss house for the hundreds of Chinese fossicking on the Lerderderg River at Crimea Point during the height of the Gold Rush.
Finch has a certain knack of talking to people, no matter their age or background. I wonder where he spent his own lost years.
Lying in bed that night Clytie reflected on the day’s events, particularly Adelaide Hundey’s dramatic confrontation with Bulldog Bracken. Unable to fit the pieces together, she had barely drifted asleep when she was startled awake by the sound of a man shouting in some foreign tongue then swearing in English, ‘Keep your head down or they’ll blow it off, you bloody fool.’
The shouting came from the direction of the barn, but a moment later all was quiet.
Clytie remained awake for some time, wondering about the unknown ways men were forced to deal with their experiences of war. It was a sobering thought.
By day Finch can amuse Long Sam with his antics as a V.M.R. soldier – but by night he’s trapped, fighting Boers in his sleep.
Chapter 35
Today was a red letter day. Finch was determined that nothing and no one was going to stand in his way to prevent him reaching his goal. For months he had felt as if he were climbing a greasy pole, sliding back each time he was in reach of the prize.
Today would be the turning point in the short, fragmentary life of shadows that was all that his memory had revealed to him of his personal life. The moment he heard the kookaburras’ laughter that heralded the dawn, he hurtled out of the makeshift bed in the barn and held the cut-throat razor in steady hands as he shaved his jaw line.
Today I will be seen to be a man everyone will look up to – everyone, even Clytie. I can trace my ancestors back to the sixteenth century – which is more than most men can. And I know they were brave men of principle.
He was stopped by the thought that maybe he was the one rotten apple in the family tree.
The blade of the razor froze in his hand. Family Tree. The map he had drawn as a child flashed before his eyes. And the words printed clumsily at the top. The Danger Tree. He repeated the words with varying emphasis, in English, French and German. The phrase was tantalisingly elusive. What dangers? He closed his eyes and tried to hear his father’s complimentary voice. ‘Très bien, mon fils – but you have forgotten the apostrophe and the “s”. That’s the key to where we came from.’
The apostrophe! That was the key. He said the word with a French accent, softening the hard English ‘g’ to a soft French sound. ‘It’s my name! D’Angers! We originally came from Normandy, from the old royal capital, Angers! And whatever country gave us refuge, we kept our old name as a mark of pride – our proof of survival.’
His eyes watered. He laughed in embarrassment and wiped the soapy residue from his face. He spoke to the fragment of mirror as if to reach beyond the reflection of his own face to the generations of his ancestors.
‘No matter what I’ve done in the past to disgrace your name, from this day forth I swear to L’Eternale I’ll make you proud of me.’
God was his witness. There could be no going back on that promise.
As he sang snatches of an old French song that had lost its words, he washed himself at the tank, delighting in the abrasive thrill of cold water. Sunrise had never looked more inviting. Its rays filtered through the trees like angels’ wings.
Today he would discard the khaki uniform that had camouflaged his memory. He gratefully donned the garments from Rom’s wardrobe that Clytie had washed and pressed for him in readiness for this all-important day.
Clumsily he tried to knot the man’s tie, unfamiliar with the process. He polished his boots to a high shine. Tie in hand, he sprang up the steps to the back door of the priest’s house. Through the window he could see Clytie busily making breakfast. His breakfast. The fantasy pleased him. He had never slept in her bed but she was washing his clothes and feeding him. Sooner or later bed will follow.
He smiled in expectation. Some instincts could not be banished. He knew exactly what he would do with her when that moment came.
• • •
Clytie was dressed sedately enough in the white Gibson Girl blouse and the flirty-hemmed shirt over dark stockings that had been neatly darned. She wore a jaunty tie loosely knotted at the collar. But her hair had not yet been piled up on her head. It gave her the slightly wanton look of a woman who had just made love all night.
She eyed him speculatively. ‘You don’t look too bad in Rom’s clothes,’ she said and waved him to the waiting seat at the table.
‘Bacon as well as eggs. How on earth did you come by that? I thought we were broke.’
‘Not “we” – “me”. And I’m not broke, just cutting my coat to suit my cloth. I’ll get paid at the end of the week. The fact is I found your breakfast wrapped up in a cardboard box on the doorstep this morning.’
‘I should thank Shadow for not eating it.’
‘He wouldn’t dare!’ Clytie said. ‘I’ve trained him to eat nothing except at my hands – in case some villain lay
s a bait for him. Some men hate all dogs – dingos, sheepdogs, you name it.’
‘Aren’t you going to share breakfast with me? I don’t feel right eating it all by myself.’
‘I’ll have breakfast later when I get to the pub.’ She eyed him seriously. ‘You never want to look hungry when you’re applying for work. It would make you look desperate.’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ he said, managing to disguise his smile. ‘I’ll remember that.’
She drank a cup of tea, watching him while he ate. ‘You look different this morning. Like a cat who’s tasted cream.’
He was startled by the thought she had read his mind about her. ‘Maybe it’s because I’ve remembered my name – half of it, anyway. D’Angers,’ he said, caressing the word with a soft French accent.
‘Hmm, Finch D’Angers. It suits you.’
He wanted to change the subject. ‘I’ve forgotten how to knot a man’s tie. Can you give me a hand?’
He offered her the tie and saw her hesitate about accepting it, as if the gesture was one that aroused intimate memories of Rom.
‘I can only do it as if I were tying it on myself,’ she said and walked behind his chair.
Her arms slid around his neck and she folded the two ends expertly. The sweet smell of her hair as it fell across his cheek was almost overpowering.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll make a man of you,’ she said lightly.
It was as much as Finch could do to keep from twisting her down onto his lap and kissing the cheeky smile off her face.
‘Thank you,’ he forced himself to say. ‘A man, if not a gentleman.’
‘I rather suspect you are both,’ she said.
Buoyed by a glimmer of hope he thanked her for the meal and for the clothes and found the courage to say the words as casually as he could.
‘I don’t know what work Sonny might offer me – if any. But one way or another I’ll be free this evening. I guess you know there’s a dance being held tonight at the Mechanics Institute to raise funds for the volunteers’ comfort parcels. Did you know the mighty Imperial Army doesn’t even provide them with soap?’
Golden Hope Page 37