The Whitest Flower

by Brendan Graham

  Here and there, they came across vines planted further apart than the others, or in circular rows. When Coombes came by on one of his inspection rounds, Ellen asked to know the reason for this.

  ‘More experimentation is needed with both space and soil,’ he explained. ‘The Lutherans plant too close. Everything needs space – the vine to grow, the soil so it is not depleted in feeding the vine. I want Crockford’s to be a model for all future vineyards in the Province.’

  Mostly the vineyard labour was carried out by men, and those women who were there seemed to be their wives. Ellen didn’t give it much thought as the work and Kitty kept her occupied. And then they were taken off harvesting the grapes and given the task of treading them.

  Ellen observed that only the white grapes were pressed into the ‘must’ with bare feet; the black grapes went into wooden wine presses. (Black grapes that, Kitty insisted, should be called red: ‘If green becomes white for white wine, then red should remain red for red wine, not black – they just make it up to sound interesting,’ she reasoned.) They learned that white grapes required gentler treatment to avoid the skins being bruised, which would give the wine a bad colour. Also, with pressing by foot, the seeds were not crushed – which would give the wine a harsh flavour. The seeds, or ‘stones’, could then be removed before fermentation began.

  Coombes’ wine-making building was constructed into the side of a hill and on a sloping site so that at every stage of the process – pressing, fermentation, blending – everything moved downwards towards the cellar. The Great Cellar, as Coombes rather grandly referred to it, was a split-level building constructed of stone hewn out of Bethany rock for coolness, with access from either the hill or at ground-level.

  It soon became Ellen’s favourite place. There she could think – when the wine-maker, a Frenchman named Chevalier, whom Coombes had brought in from Bordeaux, was not annoying her. There, in the silence, among the casks of sturdy French oak which housed Crockford’s wines, she could reflect on all that had happened, sift her thoughts, and pray.

  Each cask or hogshead – Ellen preferred ‘cask’, not liking hogshead, for some reason – had a tin label which gave the vintage quality and the quantity of the wine within: fifty gallons. Coombes had explained: ‘A hogshead is fifty-two and a half imperial gallons. We ship fifty. I’m endeavouring to have sixty-gallon hogsheads made, to make life simpler and more cost-efficient.’

  Coombes kept Ellen busy, and she had to admit to herself that she found this new learning very interesting. He was a good teacher, and behaved like the perfect gentleman. He never once referred to their previous skirmishes, or to the night of the maze, which Ellen was sure Mrs Baker had told him about.

  Yet, there was something about Coombes, about Crockford’s, that didn’t fit, that didn’t sit comfortably with her. The more time she spent with him, the more Ellen began to appreciate just how clever Jasper Coombes was. Cunning and ruthless, she knew him to be, but he was also very clever. Glic but cliste, she thought.

  She needed to talk to Lavelle, but try as she might, there never seemed to be an opportunity to see him alone. She sensed that Coombes was deliberately keeping the two of them so busy that there was no chance of a meeting by day. And in the evenings, she needed time to be with Annie, and to read. Coombes had given her a publication – the first in the Barossa, he had boasted – called The South Australian Vigneron and Gardener’s Manual by George McEwin. She wondered if this was the George she had heard in the maze that night.

  Meanwhile, she continued to learn about the Barossa and wine-making. How the mild, dry climate of the valley, and the cooling gully winds, provided a perfect combination of climatic conditions for viticulture. How variations in the soil favoured different vines. Alluvial sandy loam was ideal for producing the yellow-white Riesling. Darker, heavier soils, like those found back towards the hills, tinctured the red Grenache. Soils laced with ironstone spiced the black-red Shiraz with a distinctive pepper flavour.

  One day on their rounds, they came upon some white grapes rotting on the vine. Ellen, startled, pointed it out to Coombes.

  ‘Look, they’re rotting! It’s like the blight on the potatoes – there will be nothing left of them!’

  But Coombes only laughed. ‘No, no, no, my dear. We actually encourage some of the grapes to rot. Botrytis, or “noble rot”, produces a particularly sweet flavour in the wine – the Auslese quality styles.’

  Ellen, having seen the devastation caused by fields of rotting lumpers, could not imagine anybody drinking the produce of rotting grapes. But Coombes assured her that: ‘Those of us with a cultivated sense of taste imbibe it. Moreover, we have, of late, consigned a case of it to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. We understand it to have been well received by the royal palate,’ he gloated.

  His boast brought home to Ellen, yet again, the inequality of the world. Queens and their wines, peasants and their potatoes. For the former, a luxury, for the latter, an absolute necessity of life.

  Coombes was passionate about his vineyard, referring to it as ‘the pride of the province’ whilst dismissing the other English wine-growers like Gilbert, just commenced at Pewsey Vale, or Evans at Lindsay Park, ‘where it is yet only a subject for dinner conversation’, as being ‘so small in their thinking, they will scarcely see the decade out, never mind the century. As for the Germans, they are consigned to their station – the Bible, and the grapes of wrath. Hymns and hock, in that order.’

  He gave her more reading: Letters on the Culture of the Vine by William MacArthur. And he sent her to Chevalier. The Frenchman would sit too close to her and teach her to taste the wines. She didn’t like their taste – any of them – at first.

  ‘Monsieur Coombes, he tries hard, Helene …’ He always called her by the French version of her name. It sounded strange, but she liked it. ‘But this place, it will never be France – the land is harsh, the vin is too raw,’ he told her. ‘See, Helene, you do not like it – it has no raffinement. Your people, the Irlandais were clever. The Wine Geese, when they fled your country, did not come to Australia to grow wine. They came to Bordeaux, to Champagne. The Hennessys and the Lynches, the Bartons – they knew, Helene, they knew.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘I told you why, Helene: the soil. I am the best, the barriques of French oak are the best – everything with Mr Coombes is the best. But why always do I have to put so much unrectified spirit in the vin? It is the soil, I tell you. The soil – the Irlandais knew.’

  Ellen was fascinated by it all – a new land, the petty rivalries, the ambitions, the endless possibilities. How long would it take her to succeed in this great Southland? How long to gather together her passage home? And maybe a little extra besides, so that she wouldn’t go back as she came – a pauper.

  Coombes, for his part, was pleased with Ellen’s application to learning the secrets of the vine. He had seen it in her from the start. That questioning of everything, her mind working all the time, taking in information, sifting it, reacting to it.

  Pakenham was right to be rid of her. She could be a barrel of trouble, what with that resoluteness of purpose, coupled with the anger, the passion for righting things. She was a woman men would die for – either following her, or fighting for her. Those deep, dark, mysterious eyes and the wide mouth – all challenging a mere mortal to win her, or take her. She probably isn’t even aware of it herself, Coombes thought, and that is her power, her strength.

  He would not try to take her. No, that was for others. It would be fun watching them try – and fail.

  He thought of the upcoming Crockford’s tastings, and his guests from Adelaide, and her, and it amused him. He had been holding tastings the past few years to mark the end of the harvest. Guests would be wined and dined, entertained, and educated: Chevalier was always on hand to advise his guests and instil in them an appreciation of the vin. Jasper Coombes would do his bit for his guests, but he couldn’t conjure her into their beds. No, he could only present them with
the opportunity to try their seduction techniques on the red-haired woman. And yes, they would fail, of that he was sure!

  The others, they were mere girls, playthings. They would succumb easily enough. Keep his guests happy, for the evening, maybe many such evenings. Eventually, he would toss them back to that abominable Mrs Hopskitch in Adelaide, where they would probably end up on the streets. Like all the others sent out from that blighted country only to end up blighted in the whorehouses of the colony. Coombes laughed to himself; ’twas oft repeated that over half of the whores in Adelaide were Catholic girls from the West of Ireland.

  The twist in it was, the big-wigs in Westminster were aiding and abetting the problem with their half-baked schemes. Sending out orphaned and pauperized young girls into service in South Australia. Service, indeed – aye, the oldest service in the world! Most of them could hardly write their names in English. And as for ‘domestic skills’, that was a misnomer if ever there was one. And impudent as bedamned, to boot, like that Kitty. No wonder they couldn’t hold down steady work. There was scarcely one decent set of girls amongst all the shiploads that poured into Port Adelaide.

  Still, the Colony needed women. Men would only stay for so long working in the harsh conditions, far out from Adelaide, if they had women – any women! If it wasn’t for the black lubras his men netted from time to time, or their own men handed over for tobacco and whisky, there would be endless fighting and drinking, and desertion. How, then, would the province be developed? Women were good for men – and for the province, Jasper Coombes thought.

  ‘Look after the girls, Mrs Baker. Rest them, feed them, dress them up. Get them used to the easy life.’

  That was the way Ma-Ma Baker knew not to push the girls too hard. Her job was to keep an eye on them, make sure they stayed out of any mischief and followed the three Cs: care, cleanliness and Crockford’s. Then, they would be brought out to meet Craigie and Kendall and the others when the time came.

  Crockford’s, he knew, was beginning to become known in Adelaide for its soirees. Good food and wine, followed by some horse-racing on the Great Ride, and then for the select few the real Barossa Races: the maze chases, with the girls running barefoot, and the male guests bare-backed on Coombes’ stallions riding them down.

  Oh, yes, Jasper Coombes caused many an eye to be closed to his business dealings, and many a tongue to be loosened to his advantage, as a result of tastings and racings at Crockford’s. He had to be careful, though, to keep the likes of Lavelle from finding out. The girls, too, had to be changed every so often – couldn’t have one of those old geezers catching anything. That would bring the shutters down fast. By that time, the girls would not want to leave. Some, their services no longer required, would settle down with his hired hands. That was good – it kept the men happy, and, more importantly, it kept them at Crockford’s. The rest of the girls he spirited away to Mrs Hopskitch.

  In the meantime, he was looking forward to seeing how Craigie, the crusty old Scots Presbyterian, would react when he propositioned the red-haired woman, only to have her reject his advances. Probably relish it, Coombes thought. Craigie hadn’t been to the tastings before this year, but Coombes was aware of the man’s predilections from previous experience in Adelaide. Now Coombes was anxious to guarantee Craigie’s support in the battle against repeal of the Distillation Act. The old blackguard liked nothing better than a bit of spirit in a woman. He had once told Coombes that the Catholic Church’s greatest gift to Irish womenfolk was to: ‘Put a bit of spunk into them. All that repression and saying “no” – good for a woman, makes ’em feisty.’ And how George Alderton Craigie liked the undoing of feisty women – especially feisty Catholic women! Coombes was sure it had something to do with the missionary zeal with which Presbyterians, particularly Scots Presbyterians, seemed to be endowed.

  It would be quite a contest, the fiery redhead against the forceful Scot. And he wouldn’t have long to wait to find out the outcome.

  * * *

  The day of the tasting arrived and Crockford’s was bedecked on all sides with bunting and decorations. Ma-Ma Baker had surpassed herself, and every type of delicacy was laid before those assembled.

  Ellen, resplendent in a new emerald-green dress with matching ribbons for her hair, baulked at the idea of kangaroo-tail soup and hard-boiled platypus eggs. Yet, despite strong misgivings about attending a public and festive gathering within a year of Michael’s death, she enjoyed the afternoon.

  Lavelle, as soon as he saw her, seized the opportunity for a few words. A few words was all he had time for, however. No sooner had he complimented her on how well she looked, than Coombes arrived on the scene, accompanied by another man. Lavelle, recognizing his cue to depart, hurriedly whispered: ‘You’ll be at the barn dance later in the Great Cellar?’

  ‘It’s not a right thing for me …’ Ellen started to protest.

  ‘I know, but, please be there,’ he insisted.

  She hesitated.

  ‘Say you will!’

  ‘All right, I will,’ Ellen conceded, still uneasy about breaking the old code of mourning: ‘the widow’s year’.

  ‘Mrs O’Malley,’ Coombes and the other man were upon her. ‘I’d like you to meet one of the province’s most distinguished servants, and a dear, dear, friend to Crockford’s. May I present Mr George Alderton Craigie.’

  The other man swept off his tall grey hat and bowed to her.

  ‘George, this is Mrs O’Malley, recently from Ireland. Mrs O’Malley is deserving of our condolences, having, within the year, been bereaved of her dear husband.’

  Ellen was discomfited both by Coombes’ reference to Michael and the reminder that, here she was, not in deep mourning, as she should have been, but all dressed up and meeting people.

  As soon as he spoke, Ellen knew George Alderton Craigie was the man in the maze.

  Craigie was courteous to a fault in his commiserations on her loss, and his felicitations on her appearance. She studied him: tall and big-boned, with a slight forward stoop, he looked to be in his late fifties. He had a handsome face, if somewhat furrowed by time; though to Ellen’s mind the effect was ruined by a nose which would have had a fine line, had it been straight instead of exaggeratedly hooked.

  Coombes excused himself, leaving Ellen alone with the Scot. She felt uncomfortable, being unused to this kind of company and only too conscious of the unsettling aura of power which surrounded Craigie. It was clear to her that she was dealing with a keen, perceptive intelligence – and a man accustomed to getting his own way. He was, he told her, ‘one of the visionaries who would shape and mould this untamed Southland into a model province.’ And Ellen well believed him.

  ‘What is needed in South Australia, Mrs O’Malley, are men of vision, risk-takers, entrepreneurs like Coombes here. And, of course, the women to go with them. Women of spirit, women who can help their menfolk forge this new country. Women like yourself!’

  As Craigie spoke, Ellen thought of the strong women of her valley, women who had kept the body and soul of all around them together, even when all seemed lost. How well they’d prosper out here, if only given the chance. Like her.

  Coombes returned presently and, taking Craigie by the arm, excused them both. Ellen scanned the crowd for a sight of Lavelle, but, again, he was nowhere to be seen. She noticed that, of the women present, none seemed to attract the attention of male admirers both young and old as did Kitty, Sarah and Nora. Kitty was rapt in conversation with a rather glossy-looking gentleman in his thirties. Another of Coombes’ guests from Adelaide, no doubt.

  As evening fell, the festivities moved to the Great Cellar. Ellen, rather reluctantly, joined them once she had finished settling Annie for the night. Mrs Baker had given her an assurance that she would keep an ear out for Annie, in case she awoke. But, just to be on the safe side, Ellen herself would slip away and check on the child periodically.

  The Great Cellar looked transformed. Ellen was used to seeing it in darkness, but now the a
rea was flooded with light. Lanterns had been hung from the hogsheads to create a rectangle of illumination in the centre of the cellar – the place of the dance.

  In the far corner, where the Shiraz slept – deepening, darkening, cocooned within the oak-panelled casks – the musicians sat. To Ellen’s surprise, Lavelle was among them, and to her further surprise he was armed for playing with, of all instruments, a fiddle and bow.

  As the musicians played, she thought of Michael. How sweetly he played, his fingers dancing on the strings, his dark eyes dancing with delight at the music he made for her. Fingers and fiddle fusing into one, always connected with something deep within him for which he could never find words, except through his music.

  She remembered the céilís at the three roads above Maamtrasna, and how, in the dance, when you spun around one way, you saw the little cabins, the smoke swirling heavenwards from them. Then, when you spun the other way, you would see the far shore, towards Tourmakeady, ever-shadowed by the Partrys. Finally, the dance would come full circle, bringing you to face the Crucán, high on its hill, overlooking both valleys and Lough Nafooey.

  There, now, his grave marked only by a rock, lay Michael. Looking down on the place where his music once caused many a heel to click high in the air in a merry dance. Here, now, as the musicians struck up a set of lively reels, Ellen remembered him. Remembered how, without saying a word to her, he had walked the long miles to Castlebar to sell his beloved fiddle so that she would not have to sell her silver brush. The previous night, he had played for her, and she had sung for him – spinning out their love for each other by the glow of the hearth. Encircling each other with the words and music, until, at last, it drew them to each other in the love-dance they always knew it would.

  That was the last reel Michael had played for her before they had been evicted, before Pakenham’s bullet had shattered his side. Before his young body danced in the delirium of fever until it could dance no more, and she laid him down on the Crucán, silent, still, and in final rest.