The Landowner's Secret

by Sonya Heaney

  ‘It’s not that bad here,’ she said immediately, but she sounded unconvinced.

  ‘I’d be uneasy if any young lady—yes, lady,’ he said with emphasis when she laughed outright at the moniker, ‘was on her own out here, especially after what has happened recently.’

  They walked on, more or less in step, though Robert’s strides were naturally larger. A breeze rustled the treetops up above, but didn’t reach them on the ground, where the shade turned the atmosphere chillier than it’d been out on the town road.

  ‘Elizabeth said you might need a gardener,’ Miss Ryan said tentatively when they’d reached the clearing surrounding the cottage.

  ‘I think the homestead needs one, but it shouldn’t be construed as me luring you into slave labour. Nor as an insult. It’s not compulsory, but I thought it’d be something you’d enjoy.’

  She looked up at him, all earnestness. ‘Construed?’

  He searched his mental dictionary. ‘Interpreted as. Understood as.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her attention drifted to their surroundings. When she made a dismayed sound, he knew he’d lost her attention once more.

  Robert bent to pick up an entire fallen branch of a dying tree, and dragged it across the clearing, the leaves trailing curled patterns through dust and dirt.

  When he’d finished his little task, Miss Ryan had taken off ahead of him.

  ***

  The house looked terrible.

  Alice muttered a few words she was certain Mr Farrer knew but would never use in front of a lady—or her—while she took in the scene in front of her. Luckily he wasn’t in earshot.

  The porch was a sea of scattered dead leaves and other mess that’d blown in over the days she’d been away. She could have sworn that the wooden planks forming the building’s front walls had rotted, dried, and splintered all in the time she’d been gone, but more likely it’d been that way a fortnight ago. She’d been living like a princess for a little while now, and suddenly, mortifyingly, all she could see now was how the place looked through the eyes of others.

  She really did believe Mr Farrer when he said he hadn’t brought her out here to show her the difference in their positions, but she was feeling awfully self-conscious regardless. It was one thing for him to know where she’d come from, but another for him to see it with his own eyes. He’d never been in her house before, and she didn’t want him there now.

  She picked her way over rocks and twigs, putting some space between herself and the handsome fellow in question, a little relieved he gave her the distance she needed as she approached the house.

  ‘Miss Ryan, wait for me!’

  She looked over her shoulder to Mr Farrer, who had started off after her.

  ‘Why?’ she called. She couldn’t let him in there, she simply could not.

  ‘You never know who might be around. After everything that’s happened.’

  He was almost on top of her, and she quickly held up a hand to stop him.

  ‘Whoever’s been here before is long gone, I promise. Even if they robbed me blind, all they could’ve taken was the cutlery, and some stockin’s.’

  He didn’t look convinced, and she tried harder.

  ‘It’s a small house, with no shadows to hide in. Isn’t it better you stay out here, standin’ guard?’

  ‘All right,’ he told her after a long, long pause. It was a pause so lengthy that Alice had time to remember she shouldn’t be mentioning stockings to a gentleman.

  ‘Call if you need me.’

  Someone—and she was betting on that bothersome possum that was fond of cackling bloody murder during the nights—had taken a liking to the autumn berries growing over to the far side of the building, and had made a meal out of them right at her front door. Alice used the toe of her boot to kick the scraps aside, and then bent to pick up a stick to bat at the big new cobweb that’d been cast across a quarter of the front of the door. It was thick and strong and all but glued to the wood.

  Spiders … She’d never loved them much, and as she fought her silent battle with the web she could all but feel one at her nape, climbing into the layers of her frock. Shuddering at the imagined sensation, she eased the front door open and stepped inside.

  The dim light was the first thing she noticed, so quickly accustomed she was to the bigger house down the road. Next, she bent to inspect the surprise of a pile of meat dumped on the table in the middle of the room. Something cold and ominous crept up the back of her. She knew exactly what that meat meant: Ian was here.

  Alice straightened, and wished against all knowledge and sense she was wrong. However, her traitorous eyes made out his silhouette in one corner.

  She sighed, turned to pull back the old curtain and wave her reassurance at Mr Farrer through the window, and then let it fall into place as she faced the brother she was disappointed to finally see.

  ‘What’re you here for, Ian?’

  She heard a sigh bigger than her own, and then he was stepping towards her. He came into a shaft of light so that she saw him properly: a much taller, lankier version of herself.

  All those lonely nights of wishing he’d return, and now here he was, and she wanted him gone.

  Dismayed, she saw that the wooden cabinet had clearly been rifled through, and thoroughly. She edged closer to it, eyes adjusting to the dimness, and hoped against hope that Ian hadn’t found the hidden compartment at the back.

  ‘You thought I couldn’t take care of you? Alice, you don’t need that rich family up on the ridge, you’ve got me.’

  ‘Fat lot of good that’s done me so far.’

  ‘What’s that mean, then?’

  ‘Ian … You can’t go away for days or weeks and then just come home with a few pounds of lamb. Thank you, but it’s not going to help me next week when you’ve upped and disappeared again.’

  ‘No. It won’t be like that anymore. I’ve got friends now, connections. And as long as you keep your head down and keep quiet about it, then we’re set.’

  ‘Criminal friends? Criminal connections?’

  His silence was confirmation enough. With a frustrated sound Alice moved further into the house, taking it all in with an eye for anything damaged or missing. Like the outside, it just looked scruffy.

  ‘You wantin’ to be arrested, is that it? Or killed while you’re tryin’ to make money in a hurry?’

  ‘It’s only while I set us up, Alice.’

  Did he realise he was a brother, not a husband? Did he really think she would be there forever to keep house for him? She absently picked up a spoon that had fallen to the ground and been left there, polishing the dust off it with her skirt and then putting it away with the others.

  It was a good opportunity to check the cabinet more closely.

  Her heart all but sank when she saw that the compartment had been pried open. A look over her shoulder confirmed Ian was watching the window—not her—warily, and so she slipped her hand in, praying silently it was there, but knowing the necklace was gone.

  The pain she felt was immediate and so strong she didn’t hear the beginning of what her brother said next. Something about how he’d be bringing pounds and more pounds home soon, and then she could fix up the house however she liked.

  Yes, then. Ian probably did think they were a pair for life. She should tell him she’d other plans for her future, but she minded her words; something about him was scaring her.

  ‘It’ll all be over by Januarius,’ he said with confidence.

  ‘What? What’s that?’

  ‘Januarius? No bloody idea, but I’ve been told that’s the night it’ll happen.’

  ‘What’ll happen?’

  Her brother visibly closed up. ‘Nothin’ for you to worry about.’

  ‘Ian … Business as in … robbin’ people?’

  ‘No, Alice. It’s not for you to know.’

  Alice turned cold, and silently committed the word to her memory. Januarius, Januarius, Januarius.

  ‘All I have to do,’ Ian
said with an odd gleam in his eyes, ‘is lie low around these parts until I’m summoned.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good for anyone, Ian.’

  ‘Even if it’s only once? Well, Alice, these people have enough money they can stand to lose some of it.’

  Alice felt sick. ‘So it is theft, then.’

  He looked guilty, but then did he not always seem that way? She watched him fidget under her gaze.

  ‘I promise you, I’ve no bloody idea.’

  The subtle sounds of Robert Farrer moving around the clearing then had them both tensing. Alice went back to the window and drew back the curtain a fraction. He was still a distance from them, but had turned to look at the house.

  She slowly dropped the fabric back into place.

  ‘I have to go, Ian. I can’t stay here at the moment.’

  He flicked a glance over her shoulder.

  ‘What’s he doin’ here, anyway?’

  Alice nearly explained herself. She nearly gave into old habits and family loyalty. And then she remembered the last time she’d been in that house, and the reasons she’d fled from it. Turning to take one last good look at her brother, she changed her mind, and moved to the door.

  ‘He’s takin’ me home.’

  ***

  ‘Have you drawn any conclusions? Come to any decisions?’ Mr Farrer asked her as they got back up into that gig and turned around the way they’d come.

  Tell him about Ian.

  Alice stole a look his way. ‘I reckon I might’ve. But only with conditions.’

  He spared her a quick glance before turning his attention back to the bumpy road.

  ‘Conditions?’

  ‘Yes. Like the gardenin’. I don’t know if you were bein’—being serious about that or not, but I’d like to do it. And mendin’. I’ll do that, too. And … I don’t know what else yet, but I’m sure there’s more.’

  She thought he’d argue with her on it, but he was silent and thoughtful for a while—considering, she supposed.

  ‘All right,’ he eventually agreed. ‘All right, we can come to an agreement on that. I take it that means you’ll stay on for the time being?’

  Tell him about Ian!

  Alice twisted her hands and felt miserable. Her mother’s necklace was gone, and her brother wouldn’t have kept it for any sentimental purpose. She was about to accept charity from this handsome man beside her because it was her best option, even if it was selfish of her.

  They were almost back, and she felt stupidly happy on seeing the gate. She glanced at the man beside her once more and heaved an exaggerated sigh.

  ‘It’ll be an awful hardship to stay here, but it seems I must.’

  Maybe if he hadn’t rewarded her with a quick grin then she’d have told him why she’d made her decision. But she was a chicken, wasn’t she? Terrified he’d take the invitation back if he knew.

  She’d tell him about her brother another day, maybe …

  Chapter 7

  ‘Just ask me, Alice,’ Elizabeth Farrer said a few afternoons later. She offered Alice a small, friendly smile and turned a page of her book, eyes going back to the text. It wasn’t the first time Elizabeth tried in the past few days, but so far Alice’d not the courage to do as she asked.

  It was much like—she thought wryly—a person coaxing an animal to trust. Little advances and then a pause. Not pushing her to speak, but waiting patiently for her to do so all the same. She appreciated the patience, but the craven part of her wished the other woman would give up on it.

  ‘Ask you what?’ she said eventually, playing dumb, though it fooled neither of them.

  Elizabeth’s fine, pale fingers, darkened by charcoal in a spot or two, rested on the page, holding her place as she returned her full attention to her companion.

  ‘You should ask me whatever it is that’s been bothering you. Whatever it is that has you working your way through our library at all hours of the day and night. I’m in earnest when I say I don’t mind helping—if I can, that is.’

  Alice frowned and considered her options. For days now she’d been wondering—worrying. She’d raided the Farrers’ book collection and tried to make sense of words and phrases that weren’t familiar to her. It had been a frustrating exercise when her education was minimal. She needed to grow the collection of words in her head but wasn’t sure there was time for that.

  She felt like the village idiot, but some things were too important for pride, and so far nobody had laughed in her face. She’d a mystery to try and solve, and it was something of an emergency. Even so, she was reluctant to show her scribblings to anyone.

  If she couldn’t find the answers she needed in the books, she was going to have to squeal on Ian. It was the right thing to do. It’d been the right thing to do from the start, but she was still a chicken, and she still thought blood counted for something, even if it was the unpopular opinion when it came to the Ryans.

  Briefly, she wondered what her father would have thought of her lack of family loyalty, and honestly couldn’t make up her mind. And her mother had been gone so long she didn’t trust herself to know her mind on such things at all.

  Alice shrugged and then opened her mouth.

  ‘I’ve been readin’ through so many books, but I still don’t know …’

  ‘Know what?’

  At Alice’s feet a trail of ants were busy coming to and from a home they’d made between the paving stones of the path, which happened to be near where she sat. Not wanting to end the afternoon with stockings full of biting bugs was motivation enough for her to get up and hand Miss Farrer the paper, self-consciousness nearly making her snatch it right back.

  Elizabeth put her book aside and glanced at what Alice had written before accepting it with a slight incline of her head. Alice’s cheeks heated as the woman looked down at her partially legible scrawl.

  She would not be ashamed …

  The paper had some dirt on the edges, each muddy mark in the shape of a fingerprint. Even though Alice had worn gloves for the past hour she’d been digging in the ground and clearing dead twigs and sticks away, the soil was a little damp and she’d not managed to keep all the muck off.

  ‘Of course it’s spelt all wrong. I tried it lots of times, but it’s still wrong.’

  She leaned across and pointed. ‘Maybe you know what this is. Januarius? At least, I think that’s how you say it. I thought maybe the second try was the right spelling. Or maybe the fifth.’

  ‘Mm,’ Miss Farrer said, reading through the dozen attempts Alice had made of the word, looking as blank as Alice felt.

  ‘It sounds Latin, does it not? But I can’t think of what it could be.’

  She looked at Alice over the paper. ‘Where did you hear this word?’

  Tell her. You really should tell her.

  ‘I heard it somewhere or other, I don’t remember,’ replied the chicken with the muddy fingertips so quickly she sounded guilty to her own ears. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  Elizabeth watched her closely for a while longer, and Alice put her gloves back on and picked up her little trowel. She’d get back to work so she wasn’t caught squirming at her lie.

  ‘You should ask my brother,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It might be the sort of thing he had drilled into his memory in his school days. I’d wait for our guest to leave, however.’

  The guest in question was that pesky Mr Wright with his expensive vehicle and his rude looks that told Alice all about his opinion of her. She wished the men—Mr Farrer, Mr Stanford, and the toff—would finish their meeting, and that Mr Wright would set off to wherever he needed to go to be rude and disagreeable next. Only then Alice could have access to the room and the books.

  It was a mean thought, but she knew snobbery when she saw it: the man was an expert at thinking himself better than others.

  ‘I wish he would leave soon,’ she muttered, and bent to brush off a line of ants that had begun a parade up her leg.

  ***

  By midway
through the afternoon Robert found himself wondering why he’d not seen the cliff he was toppling off long before he reached the edge.

  The meeting he and John had with Tom Wright had been bizarre, awkward, and full of an odd dynamic that had John looking askance at Robert more than once. They made little progress in the hour they’d been talking in circles, and Wright had shown only the mildest interest in the papers they’d compiled to show just how ready they were to proceed with riesling production.

  Now—at Wright’s request—John had left the two men to a private conversation that took them around the side of the house and towards the paddocks. Merinos bleated and baaed some distance away, the sound carrying across the open space and surrounding them.

  ‘The warmth is holding out despite the change of season,’ the man beside him said as he held his imported pipe in Robert’s direction, always trying to impress, and as though they’d nothing better to discuss in private than the autumn weather. Robert supposed it was some sort of grunt he made in response.

  He thought back to the conversation he’d conducted with Wright in town several days earlier, when he’d called on the man at the risk of running into the rest of the Wright family—something he was loath to do—to find out why he was stalling on news from South Australia. They needed the help from there if the vineyard was to ever get off the ground, but so far all they’d heard was deafening silence.

  What he did not need in his way were the machinations of someone who’d been manipulating his life however he wanted for close to a decade already. On the other hand, it was becoming clear that the man who held all the cards was keeping them very close to his chest.

  ‘Say what you came here to say, Tom. Please,’ he added as an afterthought, aware he sounded as sarcastic about it as he felt.

  The man beside him stopped walking abruptly, and propped a booted foot up on the low rail of the fence.

  ‘If we’re to have a business arrangement, Robert, I won’t have my family tainted by your behaviour.’

  It sounded like a scold from a frustrated parent. Robert suspected it was exactly the way it was intended. He rankled, and worked hard to rein his temper in and find a reasonable tone.