by Sonya Heaney
He whirled.
‘Mortifying? Alice, you—’ he stopped and shook his head hard and fast and only once, and then he was back in control. ‘Alice, I should have been here. I’m never going to forgive myself for it.’
‘I think,’ she said, earnestly, ‘that if you’d been here it would have been worse. They could’ve hurt you.’
She studied her hands as she spoke, and Robert eased the cloak aside enough to find the small bag he knew was hidden there. He worked hard to maintain his temper at the sight of it, but it was a hard thing.
‘Here, let me help you,’ he said in a reasonable voice when he caught sight of her twisting and turning this way and that, attempting to free herself of her gown.
‘I really am better, Robert,’ she told him once he was done.
He again moved over to the corner. This time, she watched him closely, suspicious now.
‘Yes, but humour me. We’ve a few things to discuss, and now I have an excuse to make you stay and listen.’
It got her hackles up, he saw that and concealed his amusement. She reached for the laces of her boots, muttering something about dirt on the counterpane.
‘What’ve I done now, Robert? If this is about takin’ that man out with the bat, I’ve no regrets on that front, so you’d better prepare yourself to be—’
‘Hush, Alice,’ he said, sitting on the bed beside her, making the mattress dip just enough that she rolled against his side. She plucked a leaf from his coat, and he nudged her with his shoulder.
‘Secretly, I’m impressed about that, but if you’re determined to win over the ladies in town you might want to give me credit for doing it.’
‘Never.’
He kissed the top of her head and rose. ‘I thought not.’
Robert was well aware he had an avid—if weary—spectator as he stripped out of his coat and boots and made a valiant effort of removing the dust from his hands and face. He heard her own boots hit the floor as he draped the coat across the back of the chair and then dipped his hand into one of the pockets, curling the necklace in his palm before turning back to his wife.
Her eyes widened when he returned to her side and he let the locket drop, the chain pinched between his fingers. The piece was too well-loved and the metal of too poor quality for it to glint in the light, but Alice’s expression lit up at the sight of it in a way it had not ever done with any of the prettier baubles she’d collected over the past few months.
She sat obedient and still as he unfastened the clasp and fixed the necklace around her neck.
‘Where’d’you find it?’ she asked as the locket settled into place against her chest. She lifted a hand to touch it, her fingers tracing the small nicks and dents.
‘I didn’t find it so much as requested its return.’
She swivelled, turning wide, astonished eyes on him. ‘You saw Ian.’
‘I did.’
‘And he’d not sold it?’
‘He hadn’t.’ It wouldn’t have fetched much—if anything—but there was no need to share that with her.
She shook her head in wonderment. ‘I’ve been surprised more times this year than in the whole rest of me life.’
***
Alice had long ago resigned herself to never seeing the thing again. More than once she’d tried her best to call up a memory of her mother’s face, seeing as the pendant—all of her mother that was left—was gone, but she’d been too young and her memories too hazy to form a proper image. Even now, touching the locket, she saw only flashes, hints in her mind, and that was all.
‘I can’t believe he kept it.’
Biting her lip, she refused to let herself cry. Instead, she stared hard at her husband, hoping her face wouldn’t give her away. He’d moved off again, and was digging far too close for comfort to where she’d stashed her things.
‘What’s that you’re doin’ over there?’ Oh, but she knew.
He bent and retrieved the bag, and Alice’s belly dropped.
‘Robert … I swear that I was—’
‘Going to leave us? Leave me?’
‘No! Well, maybe. Dependin’ on what happened, you know? I thought it better to have options.’
‘Options!’
That seemed to do it; the man upended the paltry contents of the bag between them on the bed. All right, he was angry, and Alice couldn’t blame him, but he had to understand.
‘Robert, what if it all went wrong tonight? Would you want the Ryans around, draggin’ you and Endmoor down? What about Elizabeth? What about John? What’d it do to them?’
He sighed then, and with an invisible whoosh, all the ire went out from him. After scrubbing his eyes with a hand, he fixed that attention squarely back on her.
‘What Ryans? Ian is gone now, left town for good I hope, and you might recall an event that happened not all that long ago. The one where you became Mrs Farrer.’
‘Don’t be so pedantic. You know what I meant.’
‘Yes, I do know. And I think that if you try such a thing again I’ll have to barricade you in this house until I can make you see sense.’
He sat beside her again, on top of the things he’d upended, and picked up one of her hands, toying with her fingers one at a time.
‘You know this marriage of ours? It mightn’t have come about in a regular way, but that doesn’t make it any less of a marriage. It was never meant to be temporary, Alice. And the longer it goes on, the more I can see I married the right woman after all.’
He paused, and took her measure before saying the rest.
She waited.
‘I married the right woman,’ he finally continued, ‘even if she is prone to bouts of ridiculousness.’
Well. This wasn’t the scold she’d been expecting. Alice shifted until her head could rest on his shoulder. It wasn’t a soft cushion for her cheek, and he still smelt of horses, but she didn’t mind.
She stayed that way until she could feel much of the tension go from him, until he began to sink back against the headboard, relaxing slowly, slowly. And then she lifted her cheek and kissed him where it had been.
‘Robert?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Two things. First: I swear I’d already decided not to go. It was just done as a final … well, it was just in case there was an emergency, if things turned out different.’
He nodded, and she didn’t know if he believed her or not, but he didn’t argue with her about it.
‘And the second thing?’
‘If you dare try and lock me in this house I’ll go get your bat and whack you with it.’
Obviously he didn’t believe her threat because he snorted at that and oh, what a relief that he found it funny when she thought she’d earned herself a verbal walloping for packing that bag.
He rose then, and she watched him strip out of most of his clothes, draping them around the place. There wasn’t much light, but she knew an exhausted man when she saw one. Mister Robert Farrer was in need of some sleep; rather a lot of it.
Soon. There was a little more that needed saying first.
She patted the mattress. ‘Tell me about tonight. Only the important things, and then later you can tell me the rest.’
And so he returned to her, put his arm around her shoulders to draw her in close, and told her.
‘All right,’ she said when he was finished, and despite her curiosity, she didn’t ask a single extra question. There’d be time for that in the morning. ‘All right.’
‘That’s all?’ he asked her, all bristly chinned against her hair. ‘No interrogation?’
He leaned into her palm when she brushed it down his face, and she paused to cup his jaw.
‘Tomorrow, you tell me. I trust you, so sleep now.’
It was then that she remembered one final thing.
‘Robert?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Did you check the bed? For arachnids?’
He put his arm around her waist.
‘I did. Did you l
earn that word in my ghastly old Latin book?’
‘Maybe. Are you lyin’ to me about the spiders?’
‘Mmm. Maybe.’ He pulled her closer still.
Alice resisted the urge to tug the covers back and take a look for herself, snuggling in instead, enjoying the closeness. She’d take the risk with the spiders, she supposed. Just this once. And anyway, there were other things moving under the covers then, things that were a lot warmer and more welcome than an arachnid, and not as likely to bite.
‘What d’you think you’re doin’?’ she asked as his foot rubbed against her leg in a way that certainly wasn’t accidental, and slipped her hand inside his nightshirt in response, finding the now-familiar warmth of his chest, feeling his muscles flex against her touch.
‘You should be asleep by now. Endmoor won’t be takin’ a holiday tomorrow, no matter what happened overnight.’
‘If you’re worried about that,’ he said in a perfectly reasonable tone that was in stark contrast to what he was about, ‘then what are your hands doing?’
Alice hadn’t the willpower to snatch them back.
She hiked a knee around his thigh, enjoying the heat of him.
‘I wasn’t the one out in the bush. Honestly, Robert. You’ve gotta be tired. Rest.’
He buried his face into the tangle of her hair, and his sneaky fingers found the hem of her chemise.
‘Soon,’ he told her, and pulled it higher. ‘Later.’
***
Alice woke first.
Love you, Robert had finally whispered as he’d drifted off a few hours before, and she’d simply smiled and then rested on her favourite spot on his chest as he fell fully into slumber. He’d better bloody mean it, she thought with a small smile, because she loved him right back.
His arm around her middle had relaxed as sleep dragged him away, but each time she’d tried to move to her portion of the bed, he’d stirred enough to tug her back in place.
As ever in the bush, some creature outside was crashing about and calling in high tones, but Robert slept through it. Likely it was another possum. No other animal she knew had such a spooky call. And no burglar she knew of—not even a drunken one—would be so careless as to make so much noise.
She felt … safe. Completely safe for the first time in her life, and the awareness of it kept her awake and wondering instead of settling down to rest. What a bloody mess the night had been, but in the end everything seemed to have worked.
What now? she wondered, drawing back from Robert one more time simply for the fun of having him pull her back. The way she saw it, the only person who couldn’t be happy now—apart from those criminals who were rotting in a cell in town—was Miss Wright.
She frowned.
That odd creature outside started up with its horrid cackling again, and she decided she’d be giving up on rest for the remainder of the morning. When the sun came up she’d get back to work on those roses, she decided. Then she’d deal with the vegetable patch, if Mrs Adamson was in a mood to allow it. And, if she could muster the motivation, and manage not to fall asleep from the boredom, she’d get back to learning her Latin.
Who knew? One day it might come in use for a second time in her life.
She eased out of her side of the bed very slowly, slipping free without waking her husband, feeling the absence of his warmth keenly as she reached for a shawl and stepped away, trying not to make a sound.
Dawn wasn’t far off. The restlessness of the bush told her as much.
Ian was out there somewhere … She hoped by now he was a long, long way away.
***
Despite everything, Robert slept. It was the softest of sounds, a whisper of movement and a stirring of life in the room that finally pulled him back over the precipice.
He stirred and opened his eyes, registering that hours must have passed, and became aware of a couple of things at once. One was that dawn was all but broken. The other was that his wife was not in the bed with him. The place beside him was cool to the touch.
He noted the bedroom door was open a little, and spied Gertrude asleep by the fireplace, a speckled ball of fur.
‘It’s so pretty out there.’
Alice’s voice helped him locate her over by the window. She’d her back to him, but must have heard him stir. He propped himself up on his elbows and studied her.
‘Prettier than usual, or prettier because of the relief that last night is finally over?’
As was his wife’s way, she took the question as a serious one, and considered it before giving her answer. Robert spent the time appreciating the way the morning light cast her hair in silver and gold.
Finally, she shrugged. ‘Can’t say. Come and see.’
He was already on his way, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and pushing to his feet.
When he reached her, she edged sideways so he had an unobstructed view. The entire valley was lit in a spray of pinks and golds, spreading out from a point over the Brindabella Range and stretching out to touch the sky above them.
‘Prettier than usual,’ he decided. He tugged lightly at the ends of her hair and then rubbed the strands between his fingers, watching the colours grow even richer while Alice fell suspiciously silent. He could all but feel the thoughts radiating out from her mind.
‘So,’ she began, ‘it was worth it, then? Last night? All of this?’
‘I’d say almost everything that has happened these past months was worth it.’
‘Even if it means Miss Wright … No, you needn’t answer that.’
No, he need not. There’d been casualties in the past weeks, but Martha had suffered the worst of it.
And yet he couldn’t leave it unsaid.
‘Alice …’ he cupped one of her hands in both of his as he gathered his thoughts.
‘What was with Martha Wright is long over, as it ought to be. I realise now that if I’d wanted to be with her I’d have found a way around her father—and I did not. Whatever it was I felt for her these past few years was nostalgia, the loss of a dream. I’d too much time to myself, I suppose. Too much time to feel sentimental about something that never was.’
‘Why’d you two end it?’
‘Because her father has bigger ambitions for her than to be the wife of a landowner in the tablelands.’
Alice seemed confused. ‘But she’s still here.’
‘I know,’ he said, voice laced with irony. ‘I’m not sure all of Tom Wright’s plans work the way he wants them to. Not from lack of trying.’
She watched him in silence as he turned her hand over and traced a pattern across her palm.
‘If our positions had been opposite, I would’ve put up a bloody good fight to stay betrothed to you,’ she said so fiercely he squeezed her hand hard in gratitude.
‘The memory of discovering Martha wounded in the street will haunt me, but—Alice—that’s not love, and I need you to be certain of that.’
She seemed to accept that, and turned her focus back to the sky. There was more to say, but the morning was too beautiful for it. There’d be time later.
‘Look at it now, Robert. If I had Elizabeth’s skill, I’d paint it.’
‘I could buy you some paints and you could try. And I know my sister would happily share hers.’
She laughed at him and shuffled even further to the side. He reached out and tugged her back.
‘Come back here. There’s room enough for both of us.’
Because he could, he moved her closer still. She came to him in little shuffles until she realised what he wanted and slipped right in front. Wrapping his arms around her middle, he pulled her back until they were touching from head to toe.
‘This is better. You’re small enough that I can see right over you.’
He received a grunt for that. ‘I’m not so sure that’s a compliment.’
‘It’s not exactly an insult, however.’
He smiled when she covered his hands with hers at her waist and squeezed, adding
a little pressure with her short fingernails as punishment.
‘You think I’m too short?’
‘I think you’re exactly the height I want my wife to be.’
She made an inelegant sound at that but let it go, and Robert decided there were definite advantages to the difference in their size. Such as the way her soft breasts rested against his arms when he wrapped them around her …
A figure moved past the window: Adamson heading back to the house. If he’d left the remains of the hut then the fire danger was over.
Alice rested her head back against Robert’s chest.
‘I tried to give Ian me—my savin’s, so that he’d go,’ she whispered. ‘It was all the money I brought with me from before.’
His arms tightened briefly, and he bent to brush his lips across the top of her hair before he replied.
‘He wouldn’t take my money either, if you’re wondering.’
‘So he’s not entirely bad then.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘He’s just mostly bad. A hopeless cause.’
The sky changed again, the colour about to give way to the bright blue of the day. The mood was all but broken by a flock of a few dozen cockatoos streaking—shrieking —across the sky, followed by the calls of a dozen currawongs. The white-tipped black birds darted past them, and in and out of trees, in pursuit of each other.
‘Lord, they’re loud.’
Robert had to agree. His ears were ringing. ‘It’s that time of year. You can always tell spring has arrived when the currawongs start behaving like recalcitrant children.’
‘Robert?’
‘Hmm?’
‘That word you said just now …’
‘Recalcitrant? In this instance it means they’re a great big bloody pain in the arse,’ he explained, answering her unasked question.
She laughed, and then turned her pale gaze back on him. ‘Thought so.’
She rested her head against him, for once not in a hurry to be off anywhere in particular.
‘I won’t paint it, but I reckon I’ll remember it a long time.’
Epilogue
‘D’you see that?’ Alice asked, her voice as bright as the sparkle in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks.
They stepped away from the other parishioners, done with church for the morning, leaving Elizabeth to make her way down Monaro Street to pay her visit to the Wright household. Martha would recover—eventually. Until then she was closeted away, hidden from view from all but her closest of family members and friends.