Miles Off Course

by Sulari Gentill

The bar was crowded, being the only establishment with a liquor licence for miles. A few dogs had crept in behind their masters and lay unobtrusively at the base of bar stools or under tables. Milton, or more likely his attire, received a few sideways glances but generally the patrons appeared used to guests from the city. Rowland ordered drinks and asked the barman to let them know when Moran walked in, which he did just a few minutes later.

  A thin and weathered figure, Moran’s hat slouched low over his eyes. He wore a long riding jacket, split high at the back to accommodate the saddle. He went straight to the bar, ordered a whisky and slammed it down. Rowland waited, watching as the stockman made enquiries of the bartender. Moran straightened when he realised Rowland was already there, and removed his hat as he made his way to their table.

  They stood.

  Moran’s eyes, now visible, moved slowly from Rowland to Milton and Clyde.

  Rowland put out his hand. “Mr. Moran, Rowland Sinclair.”

  Moran shook his hand silently. His face relaxed into a broad smile that showed more gold than teeth, and Rowland introduced Clyde and Milton.

  “Pleased to meet you gentlemen,” Moran said as they sat down. “I’m just sorry you had to come all the way up here. I told that other Mr. Sinclair that we’ve got your mob in hand, sir. We’ll bring them in as planned, even short-handed. There was really no need for you to come.”

  “Except for the fact that Harry Simpson is missing,” Rowland replied evenly.

  Moran shrugged. “Oh, Simpson… His kind do that, don’t they? Somethin’ in their blood.”

  “I understand that you and Harry didn’t necessarily see eye to eye.”

  “That’s just gossip… those fellas from Batlow, I s’pose. Me and Simpson had our differences. The High Country ain’t like drovin’ on the flats. He was a bit arrogant your Mr. Simpson—seems he forgot who he was at times.”

  Clyde and Milton recognised the hardening of Rowland’s gaze, the very slight flex of his jaw, but Moran did not.

  “Are you saying he forgot he was in charge? Because as I understand it, Mr. Moran, we put him in charge.”

  Moran looked at him. “Naw, you mistake me, sir. I had no problem with Simpson, but you pay me to look after your mob. Sometimes I had to point things out to Simpson and he didn’t take that kindly. He was a bit high and mighty, considerin’…”

  “Considering what?”

  “Considerin’ we were all there to do the same job.”

  Rowland took a breath. “When did you last see Simpson?”

  “About ten days ago. Had breakfast and he went off to check the Eastern boundaries.”

  “And he didn’t return?”

  “Nope. After a day or two, I rode down to Caves House and had them call the other Mr. Sinclair and send a telegram to the agent in Tumut. A couple of blokes quit, but all in all we’ve been managin’ pretty well. We’ll start to bring the mob in after the Sports Day. It’s been a tough season… we’ve lost a few head… but so has everyone else.”

  For a moment Rowland said nothing, and then, “Where are the men now?”

  Moran smiled, a little embarrassed. “With the mob. Some of them are comin’ in for the Sports Day,” he said. “Most of the stockmen ride in for it,” he added defensively. “It’s only a day and it can get awful dull up here.”

  “Well I certainly wouldn’t begrudge you that, Mr. Moran,” Rowland replied. “We might come out with you after the Sports Day. I’d like to talk to the men myself, see if any of them saw anything.”

  “It’d be a waste of time, if you don’t mind me sayin’, Mr. Sinclair. None of the boys saw nothin’.”

  “Still, I’d like to have a look around myself. If you’re short-handed we may even be of some use.”

  Moran laughed loudly at the notion.

  Rowland was mildly affronted but outwardly he didn’t react.

  “Well, sir,” Moran said finally, “if you’re determined, I can’t stop you comin’ out, but I gotta warn you: the boys ain’t used to tourists, you may find them a bit rough.”

  “I’ll take that risk, Mr. Moran.”

  11

  WANTED, a Protestant Governess, to proceed to Yass. One who is capable of instructing two young children in a good English education, with the piano. Excellent references must be given. By applying to Mrs. H. Sinclair, Oaklea, will receive further particulars.

  The Sydney Morning Herald (Classifieds), 1897

  Edna sat contentedly at the sturdy kitchen table, drinking sweet black tea and eating rich butter cake. Mrs. Harris and her fellow proprietress, a Mrs. Bruce, bustled about with news and gossip. Both women had a largesse that matched their physical size; they were baking for the upcoming Sports Day. Judging by the rotation of trays being placed into the Metters stove, quite the crowd was expected. While they mixed and rolled pastry and fed the firebox, they regaled the young woman from the city with stories of stockmen and guests, laughing often and loud, their great soft bellies jiggling with mirth.

  A couple of very young poddy lambs were settled in a basket by the stove and got up to explore occasionally, wandering a few feet on their awkward spindly legs before they were shooed back.

  Edna absorbed the warmth of the kitchen and the company. She smiled, picturing the two elderly women in sculpture, smooth round shapes polished to a gentle sheen. Clay she thought, not bronze—there was something earthy about the old girls. She would pit-fire the sculptures so that the figures would be baked like the biscuits which filled the house with their aroma.

  “I’ll just put in another roast for supper, Mrs. Harris,” Mrs. Bruce said, as she took the last tray of biscuits from the oven. “With three extra gentlemen we’ll be wanting at least another leg.”

  “Yes, my word, Mrs. Bruce.” Mrs. Harris checked the soup simmering on the stove top. “Miss Brent will be wanting her tray as usual, I suppose.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. She’s still eating in her room.”

  “Oh dear, is she unwell?” Edna asked.

  “Oh no. My word, she’s as healthy as a horse!” Mrs. Harris laughed, her enormous girth bouncing gently. “Our Miss Brent is a writer… working on her latest book. Very committed she is. Why she’s been here for weeks and we’ve barely seen her.”

  “Brent?” Edna tried to place the name. “I don’t think I’ve heard of her. Is she very famous?”

  Mrs. Harris looked at Mrs. Bruce and Mrs. Bruce looked back. The pause was just a breath too long.

  “No, no… not at all.” Mrs. Harris decided. “You won’t have heard of her, my word.”

  “What is she writing?”

  “Something about a monkey, I believe.”

  Rowland, Clyde and Milton enjoyed the benefits of the bar for a while after Moran had left, and so were in that congenial state just beyond complete sobriety when they returned to Edna. It was nearly suppertime by then and so they joined the rest of the guests in the dining room where the waitress brought them generous plates of the fare which Edna had watched being prepared. Over roast lamb and potatoes they told her of Moran and their plans to go out to where the men were camped.

  “We’ll have to get horses.” Clyde poured more gravy over his plate. “There’re no roads,” he added, as Rowland began to protest. “You don’t want to have to abandon your car because she gets bogged or worse, Rowly.”

  “No, I suppose not. I’ll speak to Mrs. Harris and try to arrange something.”

  Edna beamed. “When are we going?”

  Rowland halted. He had actually expected, hoped, that Edna would stop at the guesthouse. He mentioned that.

  Edna cocked her head to one side. For a moment, Rowland dared to believe she was considering it. Then she laughed. “No, I think I’ll come.”

  “Ed…”

  “I’m not made of glass, Rowly. What happened, happened, I’m all right now.” She glared at him, challenging him to tell her otherwise.

  Milton glanced at Clyde. They had both known it would be only a matter of time before
Edna rose against Rowland’s protectiveness. It had never been in her nature to take a back seat, however safer that seat might be.

  “Ed, we may have to stay out there a couple of nights. It’s a camp of men…”

  Edna spoke quietly, a bit too fiercely. “I’ve never been afraid of men, Rowly.”

  “Come on, Ed,” Milton said. “Be reasonable.” He suspected that Edna was trying to prove something to herself more than to Rowland. Still, the sculptress had very nearly died.

  Rowland met Edna’s eyes, a little uncertainly. He knew Edna would never tolerate any compromise of her independence, however well-intentioned, but that bastard had nearly killed her.

  Edna’s face softened. She put her hand on Rowland’s arm. “Dear Rowly, it’s so sweet of you to worry about me, but I’m well now. I’ve got to get back to being me.”

  Rowland groaned, but he relented. Edna was not one who’d wait meekly to inherit the earth, and he would never change her. Apparently she was determined to treat this excursion like a trail ride. “Tremendous.”

  She rewarded him with her most enchanting smile. “Good. That’s settled then.”

  “So it seems.”

  They retired to the guest lounge after dinner, which initially was crowded with other guests. Clyde and Milton joined a card game with a couple of holidaymakers. Rowland sat by the fire with his notebook, drawing Moran from memory—the sun-lined face, the shadowy eyes. He hadn’t come to a decision about Moran, but he was not predisposed to like him. He wondered if he should just sack the man and hire a new crew to muster the cattle… but the fact remained that finding experienced cattlemen this late in the season might not be easy, and he still had nothing specific to prove that Moran was not simply doing his job.

  “Are they worth a penny?” Edna sat down and poked him from his reverie.

  He smiled. “No—nowhere near that valuable.”

  She looked over at his notebook. “Is that Mr. Moran?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re interesting, aren’t they,” she whispered, “the people up here. They make me want to work.” She told him quietly of her plan to sculpt their hostesses. “If I use the right oxides I can turn the clay rosy in the pit… can we dig a pit at Woodlands? Will it upset the neighbours?”

  Rowland laughed. “We’ll say we’re barbequing—it’s very fashionable at the moment.”

  Edna giggled and, curling up on the couch beside him, chattered about her plans for a series of figures based on the rotund ladies of the Rules Point Guesthouse. Rowland drew them as she talked and then Edna showed him how she would simplify the images for her sculptures, choosing the lines that best conveyed the solid softness, the maternal comfort, of the women. They must have been so engaged for a while as, when they thought to notice the room again, most of the other guests had retired. Clyde and Milton were still playing cards though it was just the two of them now.

  Rowland checked his watch. It was nearly midnight. He was just about to suggest they turn in when one of the bedroom doors creaked open. A woman walked out into the dark hall. She was small, with an extraordinary amount of grey hair piled in a bouffant knot on her head. It looked heavy. She emerged from the room muttering, “The words, where are my words?”

  Rowland nudged Edna and nodded towards the woman.

  “Oh that must be the writer, Miss Brent. She’s writing a book about monkeys.” Edna raised her voice. “Hello Miss Brent. Would you care to join us?”

  Sarah Brent turned and squinted into the lamp-lit room. She stepped towards them. The gentlemen stood hastily.

  In the light, the writer looked to be on the wrong side of fifty. Her frame was diminutive, her face unremarkable except for the masses of hair which were loosely tied up around it.

  “Hello Miss Brent, I’m…” Edna extended her hand, but the woman was not paying any attention to her. Sarah Brent stared at Rowland as if she were looking at some kind of apparition. She turned abruptly and scurried back into her room, leaving them standing bewildered in the lounge.

  “What the devil was that?” Milton asked.

  “A writer apparently.”

  Then Sarah Brent was back. She held a card in her hand, and she looked from it to Rowland repeatedly. “You… who are you?” she asked.

  Milton moved quietly to peer over her shoulder at the card. It was a photographic postcard, the kind servicemen had sent back from Egypt in the Great War. He recognised the soldier in the picture.

  “Well, I’ll be blowed, that’s Rowly’s brother! What are you doing with a picture of Rowly’s brother?”

  Rowland stiffened, surprised. This was most odd.

  “Brother?” Sarah Brent started. “You can’t be Wilfred?”

  “No, madam, I’m Rowland Sinclair. I’m Wilfred’s youngest brother.”

  Edna approached the writer. “Miss Brent, would you mind if I…?”

  Distractedly, Sarah handed her the postcard. Edna too recognised it—a similar picture of Aubrey Sinclair had always graced the mantelpiece at Woodlands. Though he was now several years older than Aubrey had been when the photograph was taken, the image could easily have been of Rowland Sinclair. Edna handed the postcard to Rowland. He glanced at it and then turned it over. Aubrey had signed it with love. Now Rowland was confused. He had no doubt that his late brother had had sweethearts, but Miss Brent seemed a bit old for that.

  “You knew my brother?” he asked.

  Sarah Brent seemed finally to gather herself. Her lips pressed into a tight smile. “Your brother… well, isn’t this a peculiar thing?”

  She stepped a little closer to Rowland. “I knew both your brothers many years ago.” She sat in an armchair, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees as she continued to study Rowland. “How old are you, Mr. Sinclair?”

  “Twenty-eight,” Rowland replied carefully as he returned to the couch.

  “Well there you go then—it was all before you were born.”

  “What was?”

  “I took a situation as a governess on a property near Yass in 1897,” the writer said, without taking her eyes from Rowland. “Both circumstance and research really. Two little boys: the elder, a funny solemn child called Wilfred, and Aubrey, my beautiful laughing baby.” Her eyes became misty. “I was fond of Wilfred—he was away at school a lot, of course. I loved Aubrey like he was my own.”

  Rowland looked down at the photograph again: Aubrey posing in front of the Sphinx. “You kept in touch?”

  Sarah Brent smiled. “I’d write and visit. Your dear mother was very kind to let me do so. Aubrey was such a bright little boy; he grew up to be such a handsome decent young man. I was very proud of him.”

  Rowland was at a bit of a loss. He’d had governesses too, before he’d started school, but they were just vague memories. He had no idea what had become of them after they’d left his parents’ employ. He didn’t think any had ever tried to keep in touch. And yet, here was this writer, still carrying a picture of Aubrey some seventeen years after he’d died.

  “You’re aware that Aubrey…”

  “Yes, of course. I was volunteering at a hospital on the Serbian front then.” Sarah took a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed her eyes and wiped her nose. “So many boys… Wilfred found one of my letters amongst Aubrey’s belongings and wrote to me. It was so very kind…”

  For a moment there was silence, none of them sure what to say, and then Sarah Brent spoke again.

  “Tell me, is Wilfred well? I take it that he returned.”

  Rowland nodded. “Yes, Wil came back. He’s well. I must telephone and tell him that I’ve run into you…”

  “No! You mustn’t do that. I’m incognito you know.”

  “Oh… really?”

  “Wilfred will never have heard of Sarah Brent.” The writer was adamant.

  Rowland had no doubt she was right. “Who would he know you as?”

  “I think I was calling myself Sarah Frankling then.”

  “I see.” Rowland was b
eginning to think the writer quite bizarre.

  “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” Milton offered solemnly.

  “Shakespeare,” Rowland muttered, then realised that the niceties had to this point been ignored. “Miss Brent, may I introduce, Messrs Milton Isaacs and Clyde Watson Jones. And this is Miss Edna Higgins.”

  Sarah Brent, as she was now calling herself, sat back in her armchair. “And what brings you all to Rules Point? Have the Sinclair fortunes changed? I would have expected you to be holidaying at Caves House, at the very least?”

  Rowland was mildly unsettled by the directness of the enquiry. “We are inspecting stock we have grazing on a snow lease up here,” he said. “It’s rather convenient to ride out from Rules Point.”

  The writer’s eyes sparkled. “Well that sounds most agreeable! I was born in Talbingo, you know, grew up in the saddle, a child of the bush. There’s nothing so exhilarating as riding in the mountains.”

  Edna smiled. “See, I told you, Rowly. Mr. Sinclair thought it would be too rough for me.” She poked him playfully.

  Sarah Brent’s mouth tightened. “Did he indeed?” She fixed Rowland with a steely gaze. “How very patriarchal of you, Mr. Sinclair. I would have hoped a man your age would have been less inclined to oppress the women in his acquaintance under the guise of concern!”

  “I was just…”

  “Oh yes, you cloak it all in civility and consideration, but it all amounts to the same thing—the unjust, unconscionable pursuit of power over women and the denial of a woman’s basic right to self-determine!”

  Rowland looked for help. Milton grinned and even Clyde’s mouth twitched. But only Edna came to his defence.

  “I’ve been ill,” she said, squeezing Rowland’s hand. “Rowly was just being sweet—he didn’t want me to overdo it.”

  Sarah sat back into the chair. “Oh I see. Well there is nothing so good for convalescence than a ride in the clear mountain air. I’m sure this excursion will do you the world of good. A ride on the plains sounds delightful indeed, struggling as I am with this novel.” She sighed. “The words are elusive at this time, when I’m so nearly finished.”