He reined his horse to a halt outside the homestead which was rather pleasing to the eye and now had a sign displayed above the picket fence that said “Aldridge Farm”. Aubretia would never have had the wherewithal to have built such a prosperous looking place and yet it was called “Aldridge Farm”, which began to cause a bit of puzzlement in Clarence’s mind. As he gazed with interest at the handsome dwelling, sat as it was on a substantial looking site, surrounded by an extensive almond grove, it struck him that they must have dug up little Molly’s grave when the place was extended. The thought didn’t faze him, as who would connect the tiny body to such an influential looking man? He tied his horse to the picket fence and let it graze on some lush looking grass, whilst he ambled over to examine the contents of a couple of dog eared reed baskets, placed on a rickety wooden table nearby.
“Can I help you?” A man in his twenties, a working man by the appearance of his clothing, walked towards him along the unsealed drive at the side of the building. He looked with interest at the horse and carriage as he neared, no doubt wondering who the visitor was.
“Just passing by on my way to Aldinga” Clarence said nonchalantly, putting on a supercilious voice and playing with the fob watch that he had just taken out of his waistcoat pocket. “I have business in the area and noticed your table with produce for sale.”
“Anything you were wanting can be paid for in the Honesty Box,” the young man said turning away, disinterested now he had ascertained the person’s purpose. He was on his way to eat his dinner in the farmhouse, his mother having called him from the back porch a little earlier.
“It says Aldridge Farm on here,” Clarence called, pointing to the sign. “I used to know a Mrs. Aldridge, when the place was called “Meant to Be”. Does the family still live here?” He’d never know if he didn’t ask, he told himself. She’d been in his hopes and dreams for many a year.
“Yes, Mrs. Aldridge still lives here.” The young man turned back on his heel uncertainly and looked closely at Clarence, who had put on weight and had grown a lot of facial hair. “Do I know you, Sir?”
“You must be Bertie. You won’t remember me, you were just a small child last time I saw you.”
Bertie nodded politely, not sure whether to invite the man onto the homestead or leave him there.
“Give my regards to your mother.”
Clarence looked at the fob watch and stared at it intently, wondering whether to turn his vehicle around and head back the way he had come. He could be stirring up a hornet’s nest by staying. It was best that he should go.
“Who is it, Bertie?” Aubretia stood in the doorway, her voice impatient, as the food was cooling on the table whilst a stranger was chatting to her son. “Whoever it is, I’m just about to serve up dinner, perhaps you would like to come by a little later, Sir.”
She paused for a moment, looking towards the picket fence, unable to believe who her visitor might be. “ Mr. Filbey – is that you? Mr. Filbey – well I don’t believe it – do come along in.”
She was still beautiful, a little lined in the face, but who wasn’t, he told himself as he sat with the family at her table in the cosy farmhouse kitchen. It was a world away from the poor dwelling that had existed when he had stayed there before. Her two elder boys who were both grown men now and young William, who was loud and boisterous, an annoying child, sat beside him as Aubretia, a little plump now and in her country woman’s clothing, but still attractive as she had been before, served their meal. It was a simple meal, but very tasty, a vegetable stew served with lots of boiled potatoes and an apple pie for dessert with lots of cream. He had eaten the food hungrily, delicious compared to his housekeeper’s efforts back in the city. Then after complimenting Aubretia on keeping hearth and home together, he told them a little of his life so far. He relaxed, lit a cigar, offered one to each of the boys, agreed to a tour around their fields and almond groves and accepted her commiseration on losing his loved ones.
He looked forward to meeting Bertie’s wife, ensconced as she was in their cottage in the grounds, having given birth to a little girl a few weeks before. It would be a surprise for him, Aubretia had said, though Clarence couldn’t see why.
Yes, I could get used to this, he thought, as he surveyed the land before him whilst standing on the back porch of the dwelling. The leafy almond groves, the produce of a fertile land; the tree shaded paddock with two fine horses grazing; the brick built outbuildings which he’d been told housed the dairy and almond storage and thankfully, there was no sign of the shelter that had been there before. The original dwelling had been given an extension and the narrow creek still ran through the property, bringing with it a natural water supply.
It could all be his if he played his cards right and married the comely Aubretia. Working for Sir Rodney might have brought him a steady income, respect from his lordship’s many tenants and employees and given him a comfortable lifestyle, but he would give it all up for his love who resided in this pleasant corner of the world.
*
Hannah, oh God, it was Hannah! What was she doing here? He had thought that was the last he would see of her when he had taken her to the orphan depot all those years ago. Clarence felt alarm as he glanced towards the nursing mother, sitting as she was on an old horsehair sofa in the front room of the workman’s cottage with her baby wrapped in a white, lacy, shawl lying contentedly on her knee.
Hannah looked visibly shaken as she recognised her visitor. Her face went white and her hands began to tremble and she clutched her baby to her in case it should fall. Mr. Filbey. She had thought he had gone back to Ireland, taking his crabby tongued wife along with him. What was he doing back here in Willunga?
“Hannah, we’ve brought Mr. Filbey. Of course you will remember him from when he employed you as a nursemaid.” Aubretia sounded as if she was giving her daughter-in-law a treat in bringing the man into the cottage and Bertie looked gleeful, thinking that he was reuniting a former employer and his wife.
So she had told them half a story, she had been the nursemaid and it looked as if that was all she had told them too. Clarence let out a sigh.
“We wondered what had become of you, Hannah. I came back to the depot later to let you know that we had decided to stay in Adelaide, but they said you’d moved on. Mrs. Filbey eventually managed to come to terms with the loss of little Molly and I got a good job with Sir Rodney.”
Hannah nodded politely, wondering where the Filbey woman was and thinking that the man was lying; he had never come back to get her from the depot.
“Do sit down Mr. Filbey” Aubretia insisted, pulling out an upholstered chair from underneath a cloth covered table. “Bertie has a few chores to do and I need to go back to the house to get a jug of milk for Hannah. I’m sure you two have got a lot to talk about. I’ll bring some of my baking and a pot of tea.”
“No, don’t go to any trouble on my behalf, dear lady.” Clarence fumbled around in his head for an excuse to depart the homestead. Being left with Hannah was the last thing he wanted to do, unless of course he could use the time to his advantage. “I must away to Willunga; I have some unfinished business at the show.”
“But that is where we will all be going later, Mr. Filbey” Aubretia replied gaily. “Ralphie has exhibited some of our plump and delicious almonds there. Judging doesn’t start until three, so you could spend a little time with Hannah before we go.”
She didn’t wait to listen for a negative answer, thinking she was doing them both a favour by leaving them alone to reminisce and bustled off, whilst Bertie ambled across the yard to check on one of his sows, who was about to give birth.
“So, Hannah. I’m sure yer just as surprised to see me again as I am to see you and I see yer’ve fell on your feet having managed to get yerself wed to a member of the Aldridge family.”
His silken tones had gone and to Hannah’s ears his words sounded menacing but as it was he who had committed the crime of burying Molly, why should he want to frighten he
r?
“I am surprised, Mr. Filbey” she admitted, her trembling having stopped, as the minutes passed by and she took stock of the situation. “When you took me to the orphan depot I thought that was the last I would see of you and Mrs. Filbey. I imagined that you had both returned to Ireland to cover up your wife’s crime.”
“Hardly a crime, Hannah, more of an accident – one of which you were witness to and thus an accomplice in any court of law.” He sat back in his chair and watched as the colour drained from her thin features.
“But I…”
“Yes, Hannah, yer were an accomplice. You saw what happened and yer didn’t raise the alarm, yer didn’t go fer help from Mrs. Aldridge and yer kept quiet about it when we went to live in the city.”
“But I was a young girl and I relied on you for everything. I was a stranger in a foreign land and I was frightened – frightened of authority and especially of Mrs. Filbey and what she could do.” Her face took on an agitated look and she clutched her baby even closer.
“Hannah, Hannah.” Clarence’s voice took on a soothing tone. “Let’s not peer into the past, lookin’ for blame when nothing can put right from what has happened. My Bessie is dead now, taken her secret to the grave, Molly is in a better place and you and I have surely achieved everythin’ we could have wished fer. You now belong to a loving family, with a child of your own to give succour to and I am the right hand man of Sir Rodney, well thought of and respected by everyone. It could all disappear like snowflakes on a sunny day if you went to the authorities, but then who would believe a scut of a girl like you?”
He waited for his words to sink in and watched whilst her mind seemed to be at war with herself. He smiled as he heard Aubretia calling to her son across the way.
“Yer wouldn’t want to lose all this, Hannah, the love of yer husband and mother-in-law, not to mention that they’d take your baby away.”
He stopped his persuading as Hannah nodded bleakly, then Aubretia made her way across the room, depositing the jug and holding her arms out for a hold of her little grandchild. It was a pleasant scene and Clarence knew that he had won.
*
The weeks went by and Clarence was a frequent visitor. It seemed that Sir Rodney’s business interests stretched far and wide. Not that Clarence discussed the reasons for his calls upon the owners of the now flourishing orchards and vineyards that had sprung up around the McLaren Vale and the surrounding areas, but he always seemed to time his visit to coincide with Aubretia serving afternoon tea. He became a kindly “uncle” to her sons, though of Hannah he saw little, as she always seemed very busy at that time of the day.
One afternoon, just as Hannah was bringing in some washing from the yard as there was a threat of a shower in the air, he came hurrying through the almond trees with his red face wearing a scowl, either though through exertion or anger, Hannah couldn’t tell.
“It’ll be your fault, yer little schemer,” he hissed, as he stood so close she could smell the stink of his breath. His Irish way of speaking that he had tried hard to get rid of in the past, was coming to the fore in his haste to get out his words. “She’s told me she doesn’t want a suitor, told me she doesn’t want a marriage agin, suggests that I don’t visit the homestead if that was what I was wantin’ from ‘er in the long run.”
“How can that be my fault? I’ve never so much as mentioned to Aubretia about what happened on that awful day. You give me enough warnin’ of what would ‘appen if I did.”
Hannah stood her ground. She couldn’t understand why it was her fault that her mother-in-law had asked Mr. Filbey not to call at the farm again. “She has always vowed to never love another man, at least that is what Bertie has always said.” It seemed that her stance took the sting from his anger. He had guessed as much, but needed to put the blame on someone else.
“Perhaps it’s as well that yer don’t come visitin’, Mr. Filbey, then we can put the past behind us. I were doin’ fine until yer came back into our lives again.” Hannah turned to go, using the excuse that her baby wanted feeding, but not before she noted the slump in his shoulders and the sadness in his eyes. The girl was right. He had seen the flash of desolation pass over the face of his beloved, before she had told him gently that perhaps it was time for him to go. He’d be wasting his time if he was after a courtship. Her heart had died along with William Aldridge, a fine man, the love of her life and no other man would ever take his place.
Chapter Fourteen
Under the watchful eye of Grandma Aldridge, four year old Beth was discovering the delights and pitfalls of playing in the yard behind the homestead. Warnings, her grandma’s gentle threats of what would happen if she chose to ignore her, rang through her ears as she picked a bunch of yellow soursobs for her darling mother. Don’t go near the fast flowing creek that had swollen because of the last few days of heavy rain; don’t put her hand into the pig pen where the sow was farrowing and don’t go near the ferocious dog who was tied up on a rope in the yard. Flowers grew in profusion amongst the grassy undergrowth on the banks of the creek.
Hannah, now in her eighth month of pregnancy with her third child, was spending some time with her feet up whilst Aubretia in her element now that she was the grandmother of the couple’s two children, took her grandson Matthew, inside the house to change his smelly cloths.
Life at Aldridge Farm had changed little since Clarence had made his departure and Hannah, now able to relax once more, was at her happiest producing babies, secure in the knowledge that she would have the love of her growing family for the rest of her days. She felt needed by her offspring and was the contented wife of Bertie, who was feeling fortunate that when all around him families were falling victim to poor harvests from overworked land, crop diseases, storms and terrible droughts in the summer, he and Ralphie, now married to a Willunga girl whom he had met at a public lecture, had heeded the call for diversification by the local agricultural associations, buying more land to expand their marketing to the residents of the area and beyond.
Hectares of maize, root crops and another market garden had been added to their acres of almond groves and with the improvement of the district’s roads, the busy jetty at Port Willunga, the construction of many bridges and the transport of their goods to the city, townships and surrounding country villages, distribution of their produce was a lot easier than it had been before. There was a growth in population now in and around the settlements, all who were in need of fresh supplies of vegetables, butter, eggs and cheese.
William, Aubretia’s youngest, now grown up and the brains of the Aldridge brothers, spent his life now at the city’s university, where he was studying to become an agricultural engineer. He was also the instigator of starting the Aldridge family Bible. It was fitting, he said, to have a record of births, marriages and deaths of each family member, for the benefit of the generations to come.
*
This particular day was a cool one, the start of a summer which hadn’t yet got into its stride. Beth was nonplussed when a little girl with long, brown hair, wearing a shabby, white dress and old black boots, appeared at her side and began to pick some of the yellow flowers too. It was unusual, to say the least, to see another little girl at the homestead, as Beth only got to see her friends when she went to Sunday school.
“Hello, where have you come from?” The little girl smiled sadly and shrugged her shoulders at the question and Beth noticed she had a mark on her brow. “That looks bad. I fell over last week and bruised my knees. See? Grandma said I shouldn’t have been running. Did you do that when you were running too?” The little girl nodded and handed her bunch of flowers over, then turned away and began to walk towards the farmhouse. “Don’t go,” Beth called. “Stay a little longer and I’ll ask Grandma if we can have a slice of her cake. It’s an almond cake.” But the child seemed to have a problem with her hearing and carried on ahead.
To say that Hannah was astonished after her small daughter related the conversation she’d had with t
he strange girl who had appeared in the yard a little earlier, would be an understatement. At first her thoughts were ones of disbelief and she assumed that the child must have belonged to a family of itinerant workers who had been hired to help the brothers bring part of their harvest in. Then she remembered that Bertie had said he had paid them off and they were making their way to Aldinga, where a farmer needed help with his harvest of an early cereal crop.
It was when Beth mentioned the mark on the little girl’s head and the fact that she hadn’t spoken, that Hannah started having her suspicions and was dumbfounded to feel quite certain that it was Molly’s spirit that her daughter had seen. It made sense. Beth had said that the girl had appeared from nowhere, hadn’t spoken and was wearing a white dress and little, black boots which was exactly what Molly had been wearing on the day of her death. To say all this to her daughter could have been too alarming for the four year old dote, so instead she hugged her, thanked her for the flowers and hoped that Molly would rest in peace.
It was on her deathbed many years later, when still haunted by the visions of her dying friend, who would appear in her dreams from time to time, Hannah confessed to her youngest son, Bradley, a preacher by then who had changed his allegiance from Roman Catholic to the Wesleyan Church, of the part she had played in Molly’s secret burial in the Aldridge yard. She asked him to write down her words so that Molly Mayo’s memory could be kept alive in years to come.
It was a long time before Molly put in an appearance at the Aldridges again. Perhaps her spirit was always there watching, looking on at the successive generations as they played on the banks of the narrow creek.
*
The land around the homestead had flourished with careful husbandry. The Aldridge family, now using the modern agricultural machinery on their extensive hectares, began to reap the rewards of their endeavours, when many farmers had walked away from the uncertain climate, leaving buildings deserted and land in disuse.
A Distant Dream Page 14