The shifting shade prompted James to rise, gathering up the blanket on which the ladies had been sitting. ‘We may as well proceed to the veranda.’ He gave a little, ironic smile. ‘We can continue this amicable conversation in the cool.’
Jack quickly rose to follow him, obviously grateful for any distraction from the tension emanating from their two visitors. Lloyd was about to mount the steps in their wake when Charles caught him there.
‘So you fancy yourself as a horseman, Kavanagh?’
Lloyd paused and looked at him coldly. ‘I don’t fancy myself as anything, but I can ride and break-in a horse with the rest of ‘em.’
Charles laughed and said in an undertone, ‘Let’s hope that little bastard of yours takes after you, then, if he wants a place in my stables when I’m squire at Fenham Manor.’
Lloyd’s tight rein of control snapped. Swearing obscenely he lunged at his prospective brother-in-law, his fist taking him on the side of the jaw. Charles rocked back with the force of it but retained his feet, the grin wiped from his face. He came swiftly back at Lloyd, raining punches around the other’s head and face.
Louise heard the commotion from the kitchen and ran to the veranda, Mary close behind her. James and his son stood back, watching, while Charles and Lloyd fought furiously, disregarding any of the accepted rules of boxing. As they watched, Lloyd’s fist caught Charles in the stomach and the latter dropped back a step, grunting with pain. Mary gasped and Louise, gnawing anxiously at her fingernails, moaned, ‘Oh, how could they be so stupid.’
‘Mother, what are they doing?’ Sarah had followed them out and stared incredulously at the fighting men, her eyes wide and frightened.
Mary turned and grasped her arm firmly. ‘Come on, Sarah, this is no sight for ladies. Come away, Louise and leave them fight if they must.’
But Louise didn’t heed her. She stood there at the veranda rail, grasping it convulsively. Mixed with her dismay and shame that they could behave in this brutal and ill-bred fashion, was her fear that Lloyd may be badly hurt. If he did some serious injury to Charles it would be almost as bad. And suddenly it wasn’t because Charles’s welfare concerned her, but because she knew what a man of his position could do in the law courts to his social inferior.
They had each other in a wrestler’s grip now. Lloyd tripped Charles with his foot and they toppled together to the ground. They rolled over and over in the dirt, grasping each other’s arms, grappling together in a way that was reminiscent of lovers, except that there was nothing lover-like about the emotion that drove them. Charles brought his knee up, aiming for the groin and Lloyd jackknifed his body away. He wasn’t quite quick enough to avoid the second attempt and the knee caught him in the stomach. He drew back, gasping, relinquishing his grip. Charles followed up his advantage, jabbing him in the chest and face, but he managed to roll out of reach and came back again, breaking through Charles’s guard with a particularly savage punch to the ribs.
‘Oh God, can’t someone stop them?’ Louise appealed to her cousins, horrified. ‘They’ll kill each other!’
James seemed to notice her for the first time. ‘Go inside, Louise. We won’t let it come to that.’
Yet she stayed, shocked and fascinated, unable to move. They were evenly matched, Charles slightly taller but Lloyd of sturdier build. Charles was well versed in the science of boxing, but Lloyd had learned to fight in a hard, tough school as a boy and his taut body was fit from physical work. Charles was hardly less stalwart, but they were both panting heavily by now, their breaths coming in short, painful gasps. Their clothes were grey with dirt, which looked less out of place on Lloyd’s moleskins and striped shirt than on Charles’s tailored breeches and tweed jacket. And there was blood on their faces, mingled with the sweat and grime.
‘I think they’ve had enough,’ said James. ‘Come on, Jack.’
Jack looked hesitant and with good reason, for both combatants were larger than either him or his father and, judging by their present display, far more aggressive. But he bent to grasp Lloyd by the arms, dragging him back, while James constrained Charles.
As James had anticipated, both men were too exhausted to protest. Lloyd rolled onto his back and lay motionless in the dirt, fighting for breath, while Charles struggled to a seated position, gasping with pain. James said not one word but retired to sit on the edge of the veranda. Jack followed his example and Louise, who had come down the steps, was left standing alone in the sun.
At last Lloyd rose slowly to his feet, holding one hand to his stomach as if it pained him. He picked his hat from the dust where it had fallen and crossed to Louise. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth and already a bruise was beginning to develop on his right cheek bone.
Louise stared in dismay at the picture he presented. ‘Oh Lloyd, how could you behave this way? Did you start it?’
It was James who answered her, his voice very calm. ‘No, Charles did. At least, it was something he said, which unfortunately for him I happened to overhear.’ Lloyd looked quickly at him and he met the younger man’s eyes with a sympathetic regard. ‘Louise, take Kavanagh inside and help him clean up and then I’d like him to join me in the study for a chat.’
‘I think Louise and I should just go, before there’s any more trouble.’
‘There’s no need.’ James turned to Charles, who had pulled himself up against the gum tree and was engaged in brushing off his clothes. James’s voice hardened. ‘You’re the one who is leaving, aren’t you, Charles?’
Charles looked at him swiftly. He shrugged his shoulders and straightened his tie. ‘If that’s the way you want it to be, Barclay.’
‘I’m afraid it is. Just wash and fetch your things and then I would appreciate it if you went.’
‘Certainly.’ Charles bowed mockingly and disappeared inside. James sent Jack to catch and saddle Charles’s horse and had it waiting for him at the gate when he reappeared. As Charles mounted up he glanced to the front door, where Louise and Lloyd now stood, arm in arm. Sister and brother exchanged looks for a long moment. For Louise this was to be the final cutting of ties with her family. But suddenly she realized that it didn’t hurt her to think she might never see Charles again–the older brother whom she’d loved as a child and had continued to love in spite of everything, until the last few weeks.
Charles reined his horse and rode off without a word. James watched after him in silence for a few minutes before turning to the young couple in the doorway. ‘Come on, Kavanagh. I think it’s time we got to know each other a little better.’
~*~
In the study James motioned to Lloyd to sit across from him on a hard, upright chair. He came straight to the point. ‘From what Ashford said to you, I gather there was a child.’
Lloyd nodded, looking down as a quick shaft of shame and anguish stabbed him.
James studied him, rolling a pencil between his fingers. ‘Did you know at the time?’
He shook his head. ‘I had no idea until Louise told me the other day. Poor girl...she had to go through it all on her own. They took the baby away from her, you know.’
‘That was to be expected, I suppose.’ James’s face twisted. ‘No wonder Louise broke down the other night. Where is he now?’
‘He’s with the coachman and his wife at Fenham Manor. Louise says they’re good people and he’s well-taken care of. But it hurts like hell to know I’ll never see him. And I can’t stand to think of him working for that bastard when he’s older.’
‘Whatever their faults, I’ve never heard that the Ashfords mistreat their servants. I think Charles was merely taunting you.’
‘I hope so. God, what a mess we made of everything.’
‘It is too late to change that, Lloyd.’ James’s face softened. ‘What’s done is done. Just look to the future and concentrate on making it a happy one. You’ll have other children and if your little boy is well provided for you’d do best to try to put him out of your mind.’
He hesitated. ‘You know, I
wasn’t happy about Louise marrying you before, but I’m beginning to think I was wrong. I always knew the Ashfords had a streak of rottenness in them and Charles certainly has it. Louise is the best of them by far. Suddenly I can see it all very clearly and I can see what Louise has been looking for that she never had at home.’ He rose to his feet and held out his hand to Lloyd, who hastily stood up and clasped it. ‘I hope she has found it with you. My very best wishes to you both. I hope you will keep in contact with us and look on us as family.’
‘I’m sure that would please Louise very much.’ Lloyd met James’s eyes gratefully. ‘She’s very fond of you and Mrs Barclay and her brother made it clear the Ashfords would cut her off if she married me.’
‘Perhaps that won’t be much loss to her. Come on, then. We’ll rejoin the others and I must explain to Mary why I sent Charles off with such lack of ceremony.’
‘Before we do, I apologise for making a spectacle of myself with Ashford.’
James smiled grimly. ‘You’re lucky I heard what he said, or I might not have been so tolerant. I think Jack is still trying to make sense of it, but I won’t be enlightening him.’
~*~
Louise made an emotional farewell to Mary later that afternoon. James was driving her and her luggage to Boolburra in the buggy.
‘Write to me, won’t you, dear,’ Mary said, hugging her. ‘And visit us, if you can spare the time. I hope you’ll be very happy.’
Mary was still reeling with the shock of it all; first the fight and then James’s revelation. She wondered that anyone could have spoken the way Charles had. She managed to farewell Kavanagh with a tentative warmth, although just looking at him with the bruise on his face and the dirt stains on his clothes made her recoil slightly.
Jack seemed embarrassed by the entire business. Louise didn’t prolong her goodbyes to him, but kissed Sarah and promised to have her to stay sometime, before stepping up into the buggy. Then James drove her away, with Lloyd riding ahead on his borrowed horse.
After James left them at Boolburra they had a couple of hours to fill in before the train departed. Walking to the river, they scrambled down the bank to the edge of the water. Lloyd took off his shirt and shook the dirt from it while Louise took her fill of his naked torso, captured by her memories even as she noted the darkening bruises. He glanced at her and she saw his eyes darken as if he read her thoughts. But he merely sat beside her to re-button the shirt and then lay back, wincing as he eased his body into a more comfortable position. He cupped his hands behind his head and stared at the sky, while the slowly stirring leaves of the river-gums made drifting patterns of light and shade across his face.
‘Your cousin James is a decent bloke,’ he commented thoughtfully. ‘He could’ve very easily blamed me for starting the fight.’
‘It’s fortunate he overheard Charles, or the outcome would have been different. Not that I wanted anyone else to know what he now knows. Oh, how could Charles have been so indiscreet?’
‘Indiscreet? I would’ve found another name for it.’
‘It was worse than indiscreet, I agree. But I didn’t think you were one for brawling.’
‘I suppose if some bloke seduced a sister I cared about I’d want to belt him up, too. But not the way your brother did.’
‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’
And so he told her then, in a flat, expressionless tone that gave away little of his true feelings. Yet Louise glimpsed his agony and mental anguish in the stark description of brutality and knew she wasn’t the only one who’d suffered.
Tenderness rose up in her and she reached across to stroke his cheek. ‘I’m glad I didn’t say goodbye to Charles today.’
She didn’t know it, but the fight with Charles today had begun the real healing for Lloyd, the ending of bitterness. It had excised the humiliation of his beating in a way nothing else could have done, for though he hadn’t been the victor in the struggle he’d extracted his revenge. Charles wouldn’t take him lightly again.
Chapter Twenty-six
It was just on dark when the train left Boolburra. They shared a compartment with two stiff, middle-aged ladies who looked disapprovingly at them and frowned severely when Lloyd took her hand. Lloyd presented a raffish appearance with the purple bruise on his face and although he’d changed into clean clothes, he was saving his only suit for his wedding day.
They laughed together at the ladies’ frigid censure and Lloyd even kissed her as they passed through the dark tunnel in the Gogango Range, his battered mouth making him wince. But there was excitement in that stolen kiss, along with the knowledge they’d soon be married and subject to no-one’s disapproval. Louise pulled away just in time to escape the censorious stare of their companions as the train chugged into moonlight once more.
Eventually the rocking carriage and clacking wheels lulled them to sleep, despite the hard, unaccommodating seat. When the train pulled into Rockhampton, Louise awoke with her head resting on Lloyd’s shoulder and quickly moved to put a respectable distance between them.
It was shortly after midnight. They left the bulk of Louise’s luggage at the railway station and walked to the nearest hotel, shivering, for though it was only May it was cold at this early hour. In the lobby Lloyd asked for two rooms, while the clerk behind the desk looked at them suspiciously, raising his eyebrows at Lloyd’s battered face. The rooms he allotted them were obviously set well apart. Louise knew it would have been more circumspect to have stayed at separate hotels, but the hour was too late to be bothered with such niceties.
‘And what names will it be, sir?’
‘L. Kavanagh and Miss Ashford.’
The man looked up, startled. The name of Ashford was well known in Rockhampton, although her family had never been in the habit of patronising this hotel. Louise wondered if he recognized her as one of them, even though she hardly looked the part with her crushed skirt and hair escaping from its chignon.
She held her head high and made a dispassionate survey of the lobby, wrinkling her nose at its faded wallpaper and worn carpet. The attendant hastily jingled some keys and left his desk, carrying their luggage up the stairs himself. He ushered Louise into the first room with a gracious display of manners, before departing along the corridor with Lloyd’s case without waiting to see if he was followed.
Lloyd paused, smiling, obviously aware that he was being snubbed. ‘I’ll knock on your door before I go down to breakfast. Sleep well.’
At eight o’clock she was dressed and ready when she heard his knock, and waited for a discreet interval before joining him in the dining room. After they’d eaten they paid a visit to the priest. To Louise the Saint Joseph’s church in Alma Street seemed foreign and almost sinister with its confessional and statue of the Virgin Mary. Lloyd hardly seemed more at ease, confessing he’d seldom been inside a church of any sort. He appeared to be disproportionately nervous of all the trappings of religion.
The French priest was reluctant to marry them at such short notice, seeming to think Louise should receive instruction in the Catholic faith first.
Lloyd grew impatient, casting off his diffidence. ‘We’re down from the bush, Dean Murlay and we can’t afford to stay for more than a few days. If you won’t marry us we’ll find someone else who will.’
The Dean was a friendly, approachable man, not the sort of person to inspire the fear in which Lloyd seemed to hold his religion. He looked at the bruise on Lloyd’s cheek and smiled. ‘Did you have to fight for Mademoiselle, then?’
Lloyd glanced quickly at Louise. ‘You could say that.’
Fortunately Dean Murlay seemed to be as broad-minded as he was congenial. ‘Then, if you’ve put yourself to so much trouble I won’t send you away. But you have family who would wish to be present, no?’
‘My family’s in New South Wales and Miss Ashford’s is in England. And we’re both of age.’
‘Oh, in that case...I travel much through the outer reaches of my parish and I perf
orm marriages and christenings as I go. I only regret it will cost you extra for a special licence.’
The time was set for eleven o’clock the following morning and after only a short sermon on the sacredness of marriage and the inadvisability of entering into it lightly, they were able to make their escape.
‘Well, that wasn’t so bad.’ Lloyd squinted a little in the glare of the street. ‘And now for a wedding ring.’
After purchasing the ring they spent the rest of the day shopping for household goods and furniture. Louise had money of her own in a bank account in Rockhampton, the inheritance she’d received on her twenty-first birthday. She decided to purchase a few luxury items, including a piano, a bookcase and a sofa.
‘It’s still a let-down to what you’re used to,’ Lloyd observed glumly.
She looked up into his eyes and smiled impishly. ‘Have you forgotten it was me who went chasing after you the other day, not the other way around?’
‘I said you must be desperate.’ But he was smiling back at her, as if he knew full well what lured her, this compelling emotion they shared that transcended class and creed.
~*~
After dinner at the hotel that night they went for a walk down the street, since the prospect of retiring alone to their separate rooms didn’t appeal. They sat on a park bench until a drunken derelict ambled towards them, begging for money in a hoarse croak. Lloyd thrust a few pennies at him and drew her away, turning back to the hotel. When they reached her door he opened it and swiftly checked the deserted passage before stepping inside with her.
She gave him a startled look. ‘You shouldn’t...if anyone were to see you...’
‘There was no-one about.’ He locked the door and smiled at her, hoping to soothe her misgivings. ‘There’s so much I need to ask you, where no-one can hear.’
While she sat on the only chair he perched on the edge of the bed. He asked questions he hadn’t asked her before–about her journey to England and then, tentatively, about the time before and after the baby was born.
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