But this party was all about Hugh and she didn’t want any aspect of it to upset him. As she took Charlie back to the kitchen to make his breakfast, she mentally crossed off five other possibles from her invitee list.
Hugh was showering and shaving in the bathroom and Charlie was messily trying to feed himself porridge when Seth appeared at the kitchen door.
‘Hello, darling,’ Jackie welcomed him. ‘I didn’t expect to see you up so early.’
Seth shrugged. ‘It’s after seven.’
There was an edge of challenge in his voice, but Jackie didn’t back down. ‘You had a late night, didn’t you?’
Seth merely shrugged again.
She couldn’t help feeling curious, but of course she wouldn’t press him.
‘Charlie hasn’t quite finished his breakfast,’ she said. ‘Come on in.’ She went to wipe Charlie’s porridge-smeared face. ‘Look, Charlie, here’s Daddy. Would you like a cuppa, Seth?’
‘I can get it.’
‘Of course. I’ll just put the kettle on.’ She was never happier than when she was fussing over her family.
‘That sideboard mirror’s in the back of the ute,’ Seth said as he helped himself to a mug and spooned in coffee.
‘Oh, that’s great, thanks.’ Another job Jackie could cross off her list. ‘I’m so glad you remembered. How’s Alice?’
‘She’s fine.’
Jackie noticed a guarded look in Seth’s eyes and she was struck by the pleasing possibility that he might have been with Alice Miller last night. Till the early hours?
She was surprised by how much the thought delighted her. ‘Alice is a lovely girl,’ she couldn’t help adding.
‘I’ll get the mirror for you now,’ Seth responded without looking her way. ‘While Charlie’s finishing his breakfast.’
The kettle came to the boil, but Seth ignored it and took off. By the time he arrived back with the carefully wrapped mirror, Charlie was banging his spoon against his empty porridge bowl and Jackie had made Seth’s coffee and set it on the counter with a plate of toast and her homemade cumquat marmalade.
‘Where would you like this?’ Seth asked. ‘In the dining room? I can reattach it to the sideboard, if you like.’
‘That would be great,’ Jackie told him. ‘But don’t worry about it now. I’ve made your coffee.’ She pointed to a spot on the floor, clear of cupboards, where the mirror could be propped against the wall. ‘Just leave it there.’
‘Down!!’ wailed Charlie, and he tossed his spoon onto the floor.
‘I’ll take care of him,’ said Seth as soon as the mirror was safely stowed.
Jackie would have liked Seth to enjoy his toast and coffee, but he was always fiercely independent about Charlie.
She wandered to the mirror and peeled away a corner of the canvas wrapping. ‘Oh, it looks lovely, doesn’t it?’ She pulled a bit more of the canvas away. ‘All the scratches and spots are gone. It’s as good as new.’
‘Yeah, Alice did a great job.’
There was still a cautious note in her son’s tone, and Jackie quickly looked up, trying to judge his mood. Unfortunately, Seth was busy wiping Charlie’s hands and she couldn’t see his face.
But as she continued to check out the mirror, her imagination had a lovely time, getting quite carried away, conjuring a future with Alice Miller as her daughter-in-law.
‘By the way,’ Seth said suddenly. ‘Whatever happened to that envelope?’
Whack!
Jackie’s happy musings came crashing back to earth and guilt rushed in to take their place. ‘Envelope?’ she hedged.
‘The one Alice found behind the mirror.’
Of course she knew what he was talking about.
‘Gran’s name was on the back,’ Seth said. ‘What was it all about?’
‘Oh, it’s – it’s like a diary,’ Jackie said quickly. ‘It’s a bit rough, only in note form really, but it’s quite interesting. It’s about when she was a nurse during the war in Singapore.’
‘Singapore?’ Seth looked surprised.
‘Yes, she never talked about it, did she? I hadn’t even realised she was over there.’
‘Singapore was overrun by the Japs, wasn’t it? They set up Changi Prison.’
‘Yes, but I think Stella got out just before then.’ Jackie hoped Seth wouldn’t probe too deeply. She hadn’t read the rest of Stella’s notes.
‘If it was just a diary, I wonder why Gran bothered to hide it,’ Seth said. ‘Seems a bit weird. Was there some kind of secret?’
‘I – I don’t think so.’ But Jackie couldn’t be sure, and of course she was remembering the other envelope inside the bigger one with Magnus Drummond’s instructions to his lawyer. ‘I must admit I got busy and I haven’t finished reading it.’
‘Reading what?’ asked Hugh, coming into the room.
Jackie froze. She was thinking again of his mother’s words – I have done a terrible thing.
She had planned to find out what this terrible thing was before she told Hugh about the envelope. But she’d hoped she could leave it until after the party – just in case it was in any way upsetting. It had been hidden away for so long now. Another couple of weeks shouldn’t hurt.
She glanced quickly at Seth, who was watching her expectantly, clearly waiting for her to answer his father.
Instead, she frowned at Seth and shook her head, warning him to remain silent as she frantically struggled to find a safe answer. But before she could speak, Charlie rushed forward with his little arms outstretched to Hugh.
‘Pum-pa!’ he cried and Hugh swept him up high, called him Bruiser and seemed to totally forget he’d ever asked a question.
Jackie let out a huff of relief, but she had seen the puzzled, unsettled look in Seth’s face. She knew he would ask his question about the envelope again and next time he would expect answers.
__________
It was Sunday afternoon before Jackie found the time and the privacy to take another look at the contents of Stella’s envelope. Hugh was having an after-lunch nap, and instead of lying down with him as she sometimes did, she headed for the office, telling him she had emails to deal with.
She felt a little sick as she unlocked the drawer in the desk. It was silly. She was probably being melodramatic, but she couldn’t shake off a sense of dread. She wished now that she’d dealt with this when it had first arrived.
She’d been foolish to dither. She should have given the envelope straight to Hugh instead of trying to protect him. Hugh would have promptly handled whatever issues these papers raised. The whole matter would have been done with by now.
Resolutely, Jackie pulled the drawer open and found Stella’s notes and Magnus’s instructions just as she’d left them. Anxious to get to the heart of this quickly, she put the closely written sheets of Stella’s diary aside and turned her attention to Magnus’s envelope.
There was a letter inside it, written in a strong spiky script on blue-lined paper. There was a brown stain suggesting that something had been spilled by Magnus when he wrote out his instructions. Jackie took a deep breath as she began to read.
Ruthven Downs
19 November 1970
Dear Kenneth,
I am instructing you to change my will. The Drummond family estate must be passed on to my daughter, Deborah.
This must be confidential and I am not prepared to discuss the details with you. My instructions are clear and I want it all, including Ruthven Downs, to go to Deborah.
I am being specific in totally excluding my wife Stella and her son Hugh. I know you will try to talk me out of this, as you are a family friend, but I have gone through hell recently and this is my decision. My wife knows about this change.
It is all because of Stella that I have been forced into this unhappy situation and she can take responsibility for her son when I am gone. She can survive on the bank account and investments we set up for her after our marriage, but the Ruthven Downs property and estate funds must r
emain with Deborah and the Drummond family bloodline.
Do not call me or try to discuss this, just proceed to change the necessary documents.
Magnus H Drummond
Jackie read this with a hand clasped over her shocked mouth. Oh, dear God, it was unbelievable.
She read it again, just to be sure, but the message was still just as terrible. Magnus was more or less implying that Hugh wasn’t his son.
He hadn’t declared this outright, but it was glaringly obvious, reading between the lines.
My wife Stella and her son Hugh . . . she can take responsibility for her son when I am gone . . . the Ruthven Downs property . . . must remain with Deborah and the Drummond family bloodline.
Jackie was shaking so badly she almost tore the letter. The implications of its message were terrible. Hugh should never have inherited Ruthven Downs.
It was almost impossible to contemplate.
She set the distasteful letter down beside Stella’s notes and then stood, too upset, too appalled to remain seated.
But what on earth should she do? She was too stunned to think straight. She couldn’t go running to Hugh with this terrible news, not until she’d thought about it properly.
She began to pace, her arms tightly folded, her shoulders hunched, sick with fear. Now she understood Stella’s claim to have done a terrible thing. She’d hidden these instructions.
Obviously, they’d never reached the lawyer. Hugh certainly knew nothing about this letter. He believed he was Magnus’s son. And on his father’s death Ruthven Downs had passed to him as the only son.
But, dear God, this wasn’t what Magnus had wanted. Hugh shouldn’t be living here as proud owner of Ruthven Downs. She shouldn’t be here. Nor Seth and Flora. Or Charlie.
All of this – the homestead, the property, the cattle, their good standing in the district – should never have been theirs in the first place. It should all belong to Deborah.
Oh, God.
Jackie’s knees almost gave way. She sagged against a timber filing cabinet. The beautiful life she’d enjoyed here was suddenly completely spoiled. She felt as if her marriage and her happy family life were based on a lie.
Closing her eyes to hold back tears, she tried to picture Deborah’s reaction to this sudden revelation. Would she be shocked? Upset? Smugly triumphant?
Jackie couldn’t be sure. She’d never really got to know the woman properly. Deborah had always been so aloof and fiercely independent, living as a single mother with that strange son of hers in their hippie-style house in the rainforest at Cape Tribulation.
They hadn’t seen enough of each other to get over the hurdles of their differences. It wasn’t just the fact that visiting Deborah involved close encounters with pythons and green tree frogs. Jackie had never really felt welcome, and there’d been times when she’d been sure that Deborah resented her comfortable lifestyle here with Hugh.
But she also knew Deborah had rejected Hugh’s offers of financial assistance. Somehow, the woman had scraped together a living for herself and her son by selling her paintings and pottery in local galleries and at tourist markets, which was rather clever of her, really.
Meanwhile, Jackie had been a kept woman, living very contentedly in the family homestead – with two of Deborah’s paintings hanging in the dining room and the thousands of acres that should have been hers, not Hugh’s.
Oh, Stella, what have you done?
Jackie dashed back to the desk and grabbed Stella’s diary pages. She knew Hugh would soon be up, and she had to hurry, so she skipped the rest of Stella’s wartime chronicles and turned quickly to the last pages, hoping they might hold a clue to Stella’s fateful decision.
Scanning the lines quickly, Jackie couldn’t see any mention of hiding the letter. Stella was still writing about Tom Kearney – something about searching for him after the war, and then a secret meeting with him in Cairns.
So perhaps there had been an affair, but there was no mention of Hugh’s birth. No suggestion that he was Tom Kearney’s son.
Jackie almost groaned aloud with frustration. There were important gaps in this story. Who was Hugh’s real father? Why were Magnus’s instructions hidden?
How could they ever know the truth, and what on earth should she tell poor Hugh?
He’d devoted his whole life to running this property. Almost every day, he’d risen early and, like all men of the land, he’d worked long hours outdoors in all kinds of weather, dealing with cyclones and floods, as well as drought and bushfires.
Pacing the room again, Jackie thought about the nights Hugh had spent in frosty paddocks, nursing a cow through a difficult labour, and the long sultry days of drought when he’d carted stock feed from one end of the property to the other. She remembered the times he’d worried about falling beef prices, and the time the government had dropped a particularly bad bombshell by suddenly closing down a profitable Asian market.
Hugh had weathered each storm with his customary calm resilience and he’d put every ounce of his being into making this property a success. It would be so unfair to reveal this terrible news to him now, especially with his birthday party so close. She wanted it to be a celebration at the pinnacle of his career as a cattleman.
This last thought brought Jackie to a sudden halt. She knew avoidance was a character fault, but she couldn’t tell Hugh about this with the party looming. It would be too cruel. She couldn’t bear it.
Jackie couldn’t help feeling annoyed with Stella for having left this disturbing puzzle without supplying enough clues. Admittedly, she’d skipped through the final pages very quickly, so she might have overlooked a vital snippet, but it was too late to double-check. She could hear Hugh up and about.
There were still so many questions. Was Tom Kearney involved? Hadn’t he promised Stella that he’d find her once the war was over? Stella had known that and she loved him, so why had she married Magnus Drummond?
18
It was only by a miracle that I arrived safely in Australia. Our ship, SS Empire Star, was heavily attacked by Japanese bombers, but despite massive damage and terrible loss of life, we limped safely to Batavia. Eventually, after repairs, we reached home. I was dreadfully worried about Tom and about the fate of my fellow nurses on the other ships, but the only way to cope was to carry on nursing. I was posted to Townsville, which is where I met Magnus.
Stella found it hard to adjust to being ‘back home’. It didn’t help that Townsville was overrun with Americans looking for a good time, while she just wanted to lie low, to live quietly.
At least at the hospital she could throw herself into her nursing, and she was happy to spend her time off quietly reading or sewing, or writing letters. She wrote to Tom’s family in England, using an address he had given her, and she asked if they had any news of him. There was an unnervingly long wait before she finally received a rather formal reply from Tom’s mother, informing her that her son was alive and imprisoned in Changi.
Stella was so relieved to know Tom was alive that she was floating on that happiness for days. But as the first relief wore off, she began to worry about the conditions in the gaol and the Japanese treatment of the inmates.
It was impossible to put the Singapore experience behind her. Her new nursing friends found her reluctance to join them at parties and dances quite strange, although they weren’t without sympathy. They did understand that she’d been through a very grim time in Singapore and again during the voyage home, and they knew she was very worried about the fate of her fellow nurses on the other two ships that had not yet made it safely back to Australia.
Just the same, they were convinced that she needed ‘jollying up’.
‘Come on, Stella,’ some of the nurses urged. ‘The dance halls are full of poor fellows who just need someone to dance with.’
Other girls tried a different tack. ‘If you’re feeling patriotic, you can dance with the Aussies. We’ll take care of the Yanks.’
‘Give it a go, Stell. You’
re such a looker. You’ll make some poor soldier’s night.’
Stella did go to dances once or twice, just to please them, and she had a pleasant enough time, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Tom and the night they’d met at the exotic and glamorous Raffles Hotel. In many ways, she felt as if she was holding her breath now till the war was over and she could see Tom again.
She felt better on the wards, where the routine and discipline of nursing kept her from thinking too much. All the hospitals in Townsville were busy with casualties streaming in from New Guinea and the islands.
Stella worked in a huge, six-hundred-bed tent hospital set up at Pallarenda and she spent long hours on the malaria wards. At other times she went with the ambulances down to the wharf, or to Garbutt Base to greet the incoming patients who came by air. All these men were quickly sorted to determine who would be evacuated south on hospital trains.
But although the hospitals were busy and the wounded still suffered, the conditions in Townsville were close to nursing paradise compared to what Stella had experienced in Singapore and aboard the Empire Star.
At least her experiences had given her confidence, not only in her nursing skills, but also in her ability to mix with people and to hold her own in conversations. She realised she was a far more mature person than the excited girl who’d first stepped ashore in Singapore, and she felt as if she’d reached the point where she could handle just about anything the war could throw at her.
She met Magnus Drummond on the malaria ward.
He was a very tall and rather handsome officer, a young lieutenant who’d been fighting in the New Guinea jungles. He had a neat moustache and piercing dark eyes, and a dignified bearing that seemed to suit his name. But he wasn’t stuffy. He was typical of the Australian soldiers she was nursing – he never complained and seemed more concerned about the condition of the other members of his unit, who were also being treated, than he was about himself. As far as Stella could tell, he was very friendly and popular with the other men. He was older than them, in his late twenties, while they were barely out of their teens. He was given the affectionate nickname of Old Man.
The Grazier's Wife Page 17