We lay on the bed in silence together, me absorbing what she had said and having all these various thoughts and so forth when, perhaps interpreting my silence as disapproval, she suddenly leapt up, quite pink in the face, and cried: ‘Don’t be foolish! Of course, I am only joking! It is only nonsense! I cannot think why you believed me!’
At once, I felt a mixture of emotions, hurt and confusion foremost amongst them, but also a small measure of relief that I did not after all have to contend with such a complicated scenario. To vent my feelings, I berated her harshly for making up fibs and she berated me in turn for believing them and so I punched her, and once again our sisterly relations resumed their normal course. Some small part of me, however, held on to the truth, and the truth was that I had seen her lower lip tremble violently when I asked if Darcy loved her.
Antecedents
It is an interesting coincidence that, earlier that same day, we had been capsized out of the sulky, petticoats over our heads, directly in front of our great-grandfather’s tombstone.
‘Well,’ said Louisa, pulling her skirt down and dashing the sand from her eyelashes. ‘This will certainly confirm the old man’s suspicions about us.’
It seems that several of Alexander Davidson’s daughters had been notably flighty of disposition, and thenceforth the old man regarded all his female progeny with some measure of distrust. We had only been small children when he died, and yet he would so frequently mutter the word ‘harlots’ in our near vicinity that for a long time we believed it was the Gaelic word for ‘girls’.
Apparently his daughters had a weakness for sea captains and, happily for them, the feelings were entirely reciprocated. How they ever came to meet these sea captains was a source of some wonder to us, for these Davidson girls were stranded and becalmed in Kiah, just as we were. Yet it seems they were somehow more resourceful in their methods, for certainly they succeeded where we did not (I have never even met a sea captain, and short of loitering hopefully about the wharf, cannot imagine under what circumstances such a meeting might ever have transpired). The eldest daughter Margaret married William Greig, the captain of one of Benjamin Boyd’s whaling ships. She bore him a son (our own Uncle Aleck), and shortly thereafter Captain Greig sailed to Queensland, from which ill-fated trip he was never to return. It was presumed that the ship had foundered in bad weather and gone down with all souls.
Yet it seems in truth that Captain Greig had somehow convinced his crew that, instead of returning to Sydney, it would be a fine thing to try their luck on the goldfields of California, as had done Benjamin Boyd before them, and thus in that direction they set sail. A hurricane drove them to seek shelter on Fanning Island, and there they found the amenities so pleasing they decided that perhaps they were not in such a hurry to get to the goldfields after all. Captain Greig succumbed to the charms of a native princess (having apparently forgotten about poor Margaret languishing at home), acquired large tracts of plantation land, sired several more children and appointed himself the King of Fanning Island. This was only discovered many years later, when Uncle Aleck happened upon his obituary in a newspaper. As can be imagined, it came as a tremendous surprise to him, for he had laboured under the misapprehension that his father drowned at sea. He had never imagined for a moment that all this time the captain had been lying about under a coconut tree with a bevy of dusky maidens in attendance. Poor Margaret, meanwhile, had died long ago, bereft, at the age of twenty-two. So it is a very sad story, and goes some way to explaining the fact that Uncle Aleck could at times be a difficult individual.
The story of Alexander’s third daughter, Jane, had particularly piqued our interest for she had eloped at the age of eighteen with a gentleman considerably older than herself, the sea captain of the Fancy. Her sister Elsy had assisted in this illicit conjugation by rowing her out to his waiting schooner. Alexander got wind of the scheme and gamely pursued them, but the sea captain had no sooner hauled Jane on board than he set sail, and Alexander could not catch them. Whenever I hear this story repeated, I always find myself sympathising with the hapless Elsy, persuaded against her better judgement to row her sister to her waiting paramour and receiving, no doubt, little thanks for her trouble; her sister scooting up the rope ladder swung over the Fancy’s sides with nary a backward glance. And then Elsy having to turn the little boat around and row back and face the wrath of Alexander Davidson, all red-faced from the rowing and spitting epithets at her. I would not be in her shoes. And yet it was not difficult to imagine myself in a similar scenario, for if any member of our family was most likely to elope with a sea captain and force me into rowing her out to his schooner, it would be Louisa. Except she didn’t.
Unpleasant Encounter with the Price-Cutter
When we had decided that we had sufficiently recovered from our ordeal with Mr Cook and his ponies, we thanked Mrs Pike profusely and made our way down Imlay Street towards the vast emporium of Mr Howard, the Price-Cutter. A sick, heavy feeling of apprehension began to manifest in my belly, for Mr Howard was a trying man at the best of times, and we were already indebted to him to some considerable extent. I had a long list of requirements and no money to pay for them; I could only prevail upon his kindness, the one provision he kept in short supply.
Out the front of his store, we paused to survey a small poster pasted on the window:
Glumly, we gazed upon it.
‘I wonder if Eunice Martin will wear her cream lustre or her tinsel-thread organdie,’ I said.
‘I imagine she will have a new dress altogether,’ said Louisa. ‘It will be sewn together from the desiccated corpses of seventeen bush rats, left out to dry in the sun.’
I snorted gleefully. How fondly I felt towards Louisa sometimes! In her meanness towards Eunice Martin, I saw that she was demonstrating her loyalty and affection towards me. In her own strange way, she was a loving sister.
‘Let us look at the muslins and cretonnes and see if there is something we like,’ I said, squeezing her arm. ‘There is no harm in pretending. And choose some lace and some ribbon to go with it.’
‘All right,’ said Louisa, although her heart did not seem to be in it. We stepped inside, adopting a purposeful attitude to indicate that we had a job to do and meant to do it. Mr Howard was engaged in serving somebody, and feeling our resolve diminish at the sight of him, we seized the opportunity to lurk amongst the bolts of chiffons and georgettes, muslins and lace. How pretty they were, and how long it had been since we’d had a new dress! After some consideration, I chose for myself a moss-green georgette with cream chiffon trimmings; it was only then that I realised Louisa had moved over to the bridal section, where I found her thoughtfully contemplating an ivory crepe de Chine. Alarmed, I thrust a bolt of pink crinkle marocain at her in an attempt to distract her from the direction in which her thoughts seemed to be wandering. It was at this point that Mr Howard pounced upon us.
‘Well, here we are, the Davidson lasses! I was wondering if you’d pay me a visit, for I heard you were thrown face first into the sand at Aslings Beach! I am glad to see that you have sufficiently revived to feel equal to the task of shopping. Are you looking to buy something pretty for the ball?’
‘Actually, it is for provisions we have come,’ I responded stiffly. ‘I have rather a long list, if I could call upon your kind assistance.’
He took the list I proffered and surveyed it at length, and as his eyes travelled down it, his face assumed an expression of mounting incredulity.
‘70 lb sugar
2 cwt flour
10 lb Lipton’s tea
Rolled oats, 2 bags
3 dozen eggs
vinegar (1 gallon)
condensed milk, 1 dozen tins
jam (1 doz. assorted)
5 lb tapioca
5 lb pearl barley
5 lb split peas
3 lb currants
2 lb cocoa
1
loaf cheese
2 jars mustard pickles
Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce (6)
5 large tins golden syrup
Biscuits (Arnotts), 5 lb
Dripping
5 lb bacon
1 side corned beef
2 flaps mutton or mutton shanks
5 bags potatoes
3 bags carrots
2 bags onions
2 lb salt
Baking powder
Tobacco (6 pkts Yankee Doodle dark)
Sunlight soap (4)
Candles (3 boxes)
4 cases Snowflake kerosene
1 bottle raspberry cordial
1 small bag aniseed balls’
‘Is there anything you’ve left off, do you think?’ he asked finally.
‘I don’t believe so,’ I responded untruthfully. In fact, we required a great deal more than this, but given we did not have any money, I did not wish to appear too fanciful.
‘I note that you request aniseed balls – would you not prefer humbugs instead?’
‘No, thank you,’ I replied firmly, for I sensed where this was heading.
‘Yes, I daresay there is enough humbuggery already in this list,’ said Mr Howard. ‘Kindly tell me how you imagined you were going to pay for all this?’
‘Oh! Well, of course I was hoping that you would extend our credit for just one more month, Mr Howard,’ I began, and as he was already starting to shake his head, I continued on quickly: ‘As you know, November is traditionally a very strong month for whales –'
‘Not last November, it wasn’t.’
‘Last November was certainly the exception to the rule, I grant you. But all the signs are there for us this year. The Killers are in remarkably fine trim –'
‘I heard the Killers have already departed for the season.’
‘I refute that utterly!’ Just at that moment the bell tinkled above the door and a customer entered the shop.
‘Misses Davidson, I have the greatest respect for your father –' said Mr Howard, adopting a more obsequious tone for the benefit of the other customer.
‘I am Miss Davidson,’ I interrupted.
‘I meant “Misses” as in the plural, for there are two of you.’
‘Mrs Davidson is my departed mother, who had the misfortune to expire far too early,’ I continued, ignoring him, for a wave of fury had overtaken me, ‘before she could raise her children to adulthood and before she could see the statue in honour of our father that I have no doubt will be erected in the middle of Imlay Street, cast in bronze and standing thirty feet high, with a fountain spouting from it which will represent the spout of the whale, and which people will travel from far and wide to throw coins into, for it will bring tremendous fortune to all who do so.’ I remember Louisa staring at me, but the release of all the accumulated tension – of the day, if not of the entire whaling season – was so tremendous I did not seem able to staunch the torrent. I went on to state that while it seemed to me the townsfolk were very happy to bask in the reflected glory of my father’s bravery, and write poems about him that were factually inaccurate and did not even rhyme very well, and use his reputation for fearlessness to advance their own ill-fated efforts to have Eden become the nation’s capital, no one would offer a hand in assistance if he suffered two bad years in a row and was struggling to feed his family.
And just at this point, the customer, who had been standing about impatiently and shifting his weight from foot to foot, suddenly interrupted me, and said: ‘Excuse me, Miss Davidson, your father has a whale in the bay right this moment and it is as big as the S.S. Merimbula!’
‘Rush oh!’
Voices Whisper
That during last Thursday’s whale chase, intense excitement prevailed in Eden.
That, while the chase lasted, business was suspended and homes deserted.
That many families left the dinner table before the meal was completed; and
That as a consequence, before they returned home, the cats of the neighbourhood had ‘sat down to all good things provided’.
That two lady visitors had some trying experiences while negotiating the barbed wire and other fences on whale day.
That when the whale was in the vicinity of the wharf, many feared it would be knocked down, and reached the other end, hat in hand, in even time, and
That one was the ‘belle’ of the Eden Show.
Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate
An Intensely Exciting Chase
I am now going to attempt as best I can to describe the chase and capture of the whale, and I ask the reader’s forgiveness in advance if my abilities are found to be somewhat less than equal to the task. I admit it is a daunting challenge, for I fear it will only invite comparisons with Mr Melville that will not be flattering. (I mean, they will not be flattering to me; they will be perfectly flattering to Mr Melville.) Nonetheless, it is important that I attempt it, as this particular chase was considered by old-timers to be unparalleled as regards its unpredictability and sheer excitement, not least for the fact that the Killers staged their triumphant ‘deus ex machina’ in the third act. So I shall endeavour to do it justice in my depiction, and if the reader finds it wanting, then they must simply put up with it, as I will have certainly tried my best.
Upon hearing the news of the whale, we took leave of Mr Howard and hastened out of the store, finding ourselves at once amidst a throng of people hurrying in the direction of the wharf and surrounding headlands. Some were running, some rode bicycles or went on horseback; older matrons half ran, half walked in a bid to keep an air of respectability about them. Shopkeepers hastily shut up shop; others climbed onto balconies and rooftops, peering through telescopes and binoculars. Drinkers spilled out of the Great Southern Hotel; children poured out of the school gates in haphazard lines of two by two, herded in as best they could by their teachers. ‘Excuse me, excuse me, we are Davidsons, our father is after a whale,’ we cried, as we elbowed our way through, and on the whole, the townsfolk were most obliging and made way for us: ‘Let them through, it’s the Davidson lasses!’ Suddenly, there beside us materialised Mr Caleb Cook in his sulky, offering us a ride. I was about to demur, but Louisa, who was slightly ahead of me, at once hitched her skirt up and, taking his proffered hand, clambered on. I followed suit (without any proffered hand, I might add), feeling it arguably safer to be pulled by the sensitive ponies than trampled to death by them. With Mr Cook’s encouragement, the easily offended ponies made it down the hill in a matter of moments, whereupon we jumped off and ran full tilt along the wharf, for judging by the screams and shouts that emanated from there, it seemed to be the best vantage point. Some locals were even jumping into their dinghies and pleasure craft, eager for a more immediate experience.
We were about midway down the wharf when we heard the cry, ‘Look out!’ and, looking out, I saw my father’s boat hurtling towards us at such speed that for a moment I genuinely believed it had become airborne. The oarsmen, their oars peaked, clung on to the gunwales with looks of grim desperation on their faces; my father stood at the bow, lance in hand, and he seemed to be shouting something, for certainly his face was contorting in a way I had never seen before. At once I realised that the whale (to which the boat was attached) was travelling in a direct path towards the wharf, and even if it managed to pass under the structure, the boat would surely collide with the piles. Cut loose! I thought to myself. Cut loose! It was then I realised that my father was shouting, ‘Get off! Get off!’ and seeing suddenly that the wharf might well collapse with the impending impact, the crowd turned as one and bolted to safety, clearing the distance, as the newspaper said, ‘in even time’. Upon reaching the end of the wharf, we turned around in time to see the whaleboat careening under the wharf. The oarsmen ducked, Arthur and my father threw themselves down to avoid being knocked out; Louisa and I
screamed in horror, expecting the very worst. But there, in a second, the boat emerged on the other side, still fast to the whale and the wharf intact. Arthur and my father sprang back up to their standing positions, and the crowd roared its approval.
The whale now headed out to the middle of the bay, causing those eager onlookers in their pleasure crafts to scatter in all directions, rowing wildly as the whale bore down upon them. One hapless man in a dinghy even dived into the water and attempted to swim before remembering that he could not, and was thence plucked out of the water by the nearest boat. The whale cleared all of them with my father’s boat hurtling along in its wake, the Number Two boat rowing desperately to keep up with them.
What happened immediately afterwards we did not witness, for at that moment we were running as hard as we could up to Lookout Point, which afforded the best view of the bay. It was en route that we became entangled in a barbed-wire fence, as reported in ‘Voices Whisper’ (for it seems the editor of the Eden Observer and South Coast Advocate had his opera glasses trained upon us, in preference to the action at sea). Caring not, we ripped our skirts loose and raced onwards, leaving snatches of worn fabric to blow in the breeze like bunting. There was already a crowd up there, waving their hats and shouting and gesticulating. We pushed to the front of them and found ourselves at the very outermost edge of the cliffs, where various men obligingly wrapped their arms around our waists to ensure we did not plunge over. The whale passed close by the rocks down below, and from this perspective we could see the length and breadth of it.
‘Oh, Louisa!’ I cried. ‘It’s a black whale!’
‘Fifty feet if it’s an inch,’ offered the stout, moustachioed man who had his arms about me. (Incidentally, I recognised him to be one of the judges at the Eden Show who had deemed ‘Stern All, Boys!’ to be worthy only of a Highly Commended.)
Rush Oh! Page 20