Wildflower Hill

by Kimberley Freeman

  TWENTY-THREE

  Henry sat in the car, the engine running, wondering what the devil was taking Molly so long. They’d pulled over in Lewinford on the way back from taking Lucy to Beattie’s, and Molly had insisted on stopping for something to eat on the way home. She never seemed to stop eating lately, was straining at her skirts. Henry had tried not to notice how fit and fine Beattie was looking by comparison.

  Not that he would ever take Beattie back. Those feelings had gone cold many years ago.

  Why must Molly drag her feet so? Could she not remember that he was always in a terrible mood when he had to say goodbye to his little girl? The child was the only thing that made him happy in the world: the rest—money, a good job, a faithful wife—were empty things. Only Lucy made his heart truly glad.

  Henry cut the engine and climbed out of the car. He crossed the road and pushed open the door to the general store. Molly stood at the counter in rapt attention. The young woman and young man behind the counter were talking to her, taking turns, in quiet voices.

  “Molly? Are you ready to go?”

  Molly turned. He saw her face was pale.

  “What is it?” he asked impatiently. She was always overreacting to something.

  “I’ve just heard the most despicable thing about Beattie,” she said.

  Henry’s back prickled with irritation. He didn’t love Beattie, but she was Lucy’s mother, and anything that dragged

  Beattie down dragged Lucy down, too. “Get in the car, Molly,” he said.

  Molly gathered her purchase and scurried ahead of him. He gave the couple behind the counter a glare and headed out into the sunshine again.

  Molly waited in the car, her hand in a box of chocolates.

  “I wish you wouldn’t listen to gossip. Molly,” Henry said as he started the car and pulled onto the dirt road. “It’s beneath you.”

  “I think we should know what kind of a woman is looking after our child when we’re not there, Henry. We’d be bad parents if we didn’t.”

  Henry winced. Our child. “Lucy is as much Beattie’s daughter as mine.”

  “Yes, but you’ve chosen as your wife a good churchgoing woman. I’m a good mother to Lucy. But the man Beattie has in mind for Lucy’s father is horrifying.”

  A small barb of jealousy. Where had that come from? He didn’t want Beattie; he was absolutely sure of it. “What do you mean?”

  “They tell me she has taken a lover.”

  Henry glanced at Molly. She was licking her fingers.

  “Go on.”

  She paused for drama. “Charlie. The black man.”

  Henry watched the road unfold under him, silent for a long time. In truth, he didn’t care if people were black or white or green. Charlie seemed a low sort of fellow but decent enough. Henry felt strangely displaced by the news. Was it the imaginings of the fellow touching Beattie in the way that Henry had once touched her? Or was it Molly’s warning that Charlie would not be a good father for the child?

  “I see you think the way I do,” Molly said. “It must be stopped.”

  “Beattie can choose to love whomever she wants,” Henry said, but his voice came out choked.

  “I think it’s appalling,” Molly continued, as though she hadn’t heard him, and he began to doubt that he had ever said anything. “Imagine him kissing our little girl good night.”

  It seemed to Henry as though his whole body were rumbling.

  “I know that some of those dark fellows can be all right,” Molly conceded, “but I’d rather not have one quite so close to something I hold so dear.” Her voice dropped to a whisper; he almost didn’t hear her over the engine. “They say he’s a thief.”

  “Be quiet,” Henry commanded, at a loss to understand the currents of fear and anger that infused him. “I wish you’d never said anything.”

  Molly sat back in silence for the rest of the trip home.

  Charlie had finally moved into the house, though he insisted on a separate room. Lucy’s bedroom was between Beattie’s and Charlie’s, and Beattie told herself that for her daughter’s two-week visit, they would simply sleep apart.

  Simply, it was impossible.

  She had grown too used to the proximity of his warm skin, to the passionate touch of his fingers. Late at night, when she was sure the child was sleeping, Beattie crept down the hallway and knocked lightly.

  He answered the door warily, eyes black in the dim light. “Are you sure, Beattie?” he asked.

  “You always ask that, and I am always sure,” Beattie said.

  He stood back to let her in, then closed the door behind them. She fell into his arms, surrendering her mouth to his lips, his tongue. His narrow bed waited for them. The stars beyond the curtainless window glowed soft and eternal. Charlie had quickly learned precisely the best way to meet her needs; by comparison, Henry had been positively clumsy. Charlie always left her spent, her ears ringing, and pulled tight against his hard chest, muttering to her words of love.

  But it was more than physical attraction. She sometimes felt as though her soul and his were magnetized to each other, always pulling together. They were made of the same stuff. He was the safe harbor she had been searching for all these years.

  “We should get married,” Beattie said idly, after, when midnight was drawing close.

  “I don’t know, Beattie. Folks in town wouldn’t like that.”

  “We can’t just go on the way we are.” She sighed. “As though it’s a secret. As though we’re afraid of their opinions.”

  “According to that lawyer of yours, we ought to be afraid of them.”

  Beattie conceded. “All right, but as soon as Lucy is mine, then we won’t keep it secret anymore.” She had spent weeks wording the letter for Leo Sampson as precisely as she could. She’d felt guilty, enumerating Henry’s faults one after the other. But she had to remind herself that she wasn’t making any of it up: he had run away from his wife, he had drunk and gambled away their security, he had taken Molly back when she’d inherited money. In truth, Beattie didn’t think him a bad father; she knew that nobody could love Lucy more. But she had to say whatever would make the court decide that Lucy was better off with her mother. Her real mother and not Henry’s fretful, childless wife. Now Leo had the letter, and the papers had been signed and were ready to submit as soon as Lucy returned to school. Leo had told her it would take months to get through the courts.

  “Imagine, Charlie,” Beattie said. “You and I could marry, Lucy would be with us. Wildflower Hill would be ours.”

  Charlie laughed. “You know I don’t care about owning anything, Beattie.”

  “But you should. Imagine if I died tomorrow and somebody else took over the property. You’ve done so much for it, and you get only the smallest rewards.”

  “I’m happy with what I’ve got,” Charlie said. “It doesn’t pay to dream too big. Especially for a blackfella.”

  Beattie sat up, gazing down on him. His dark hair was spread about him on the pillow, his strong bare shoulders. “Dream as big as you like with me, Charlie,” she said.

  “If you don’t mind, Beattie, I might still take care.”

  She bent to kiss his forehead. The smell of his skin filled her nostrils. “Everything will be fine,” she said. “You will see.”

  Beattie took a long time to identify the feeling that itched in her stomach on the drive down to Hobart. It was guilt.

  She was taking Lucy home, but everything was different this time. Yesterday Leo Sampson had sent papers to Henry and Molly’s lawyer. Sometime this week they would know that Beattie was going into battle for Lucy’s custody. That Beattie had committed to print all of their faults as parents.

  Today they didn’t know. Today Molly came to the front gate waving when she heard Beattie’s car. Today was the last time they would be civil to each other.

  “Oh, my dear girl.” Molly sighed, closing Lucy in a hug.

  “Hello, Mama. I patted an echidna!”

  Molly
looked over the top of Lucy’s head at Beattie. “Henry’s been called in to work.”

  “Tell him I sent my best.”

  Molly smiled tightly, and Beattie grew afraid that she could read Beattie’s mind. “How are you?” Molly asked.

  “Well. We’re looking at a good wool clip this year, and the boutique is selling my designs quicker than I can make them.” She told herself to stop talking so fast.

  “And how is Charlie?”

  Words got stuck on her tongue.

  Lucy intervened. “Charlie showed me how to tie five different knots!”

  “That’s lovely, dear,” Molly said, “but you should be careful about getting too close to a black man. They aren’t quite the same as us.”

  Beattie’s spine grew hot with anger, but she knew better than to jump too quickly to Charlie’s defense. “Lucy takes people for who they are,” she said, “no matter how they appear on the outside.”

  “Because she is a child,” Molly said smoothly, “and surely in time she will learn.”

  Beattie knelt to hug Lucy, who looked confused and hurt.

  “Charlie’s not a bad man, is he, Mummy?” she asked.

  Beattie kept her voice low. “Charlie is a good man, and you are a good girl. I will see you in three months.”

  “Thirteen weeks.”

  “Exactly.” Beattie pushed away the intense sadness she always felt saying goodbye. Come July, Lucy might well be coming to stay with her permanently. “Goodbye, my darling.”

  “Bye, Mummy,” Lucy said. She waited with Molly at the gate while Beattie got into the car and drove away.

  * * *

  Peter and Matt came back for crutching season in April, as green was reappearing on the scorched hillside. Charlie became profoundly uncomfortable about the extra people on the farm.

  “Don’t worry,” Beattie assured him as he pushed her away gently in the kitchen one night, “they’re over at the cottage. They don’t even take their meals in the house. They’ll never know.”

  “Last time they were here, I slept in the cottage. They’ll have noticed I’m not there anymore.”

  “And they’ll think nothing of it. Mikhail lived in the house for years, and nobody ever said a word about it.”

  He took her hands in his, brought them to his lips. “I’m only worried about you. About what people think.”

  “I don’t care what people think.”

  He struggled with words for a moment, then said, “You can only say that because you’ve never really been hated.”

  “I have. Most people in Lewinford think I’m colored scarlet.”

  “Yeah, but at least they don’t think you’re colored black.”

  Beattie fell silent. Charlie dropped her hands. “Let’s keep our distance till after dark.”

  “Then we can get nice and close?”

  He smiled. “As close as you like.”

  Winter came and they were left alone again. Long nights by the fireplace, lost in each other’s arms. He told her he loved her over and over, against her skin, against her hair. Her heart became so entwined with his that she began to fear: nameless fear, the fear of anyone who loved too intensely. The only way to make the fear go away was to focus her entire mind and imagination on Charlie and let the rest of the world slip away.

  Henry phoned the day he got the letter from his lawyer, to spit blood and threats at her. She didn’t mind. Leo Sampson told her the court hearing for Lucy’s custody was held over until August. She didn’t mind. The new postmistress in Lewinford refused to serve her when she wanted to send a package of clothes to the boutique in Hobart. She drove to the next town and didn’t mind. She was in love—mad love, love that blinded her. She didn’t see what was coming.

  Not at all.

  When Lucy came home from church, she took off her shoes in her bedroom and placed them in the wardrobe. She flopped on her bed where Bunny and Horse were waiting. She picked up a book and began to look through the pictures. A knock at her door, and Molly’s voice calling, “Lucy?”

  Lucy stopped reading. She didn’t want to let Molly in. Molly was acting strangely. Like she was afraid of something. Like she was afraid of Lucy.

  But Molly let herself in anyway. Lucy drew herself up into the corner of the bed, winding Bunny’s ear around her fingers.

  Molly smiled at her, and for a moment Lucy felt like everything was normal. But it wasn’t normal. Molly and Daddy had been talking a lot lately, in quiet tense voices. Whenever Lucy came in the room, they hushed quickly. Lucy knew there was something going on, and she knew it had something to do with her.

  “Can I talk to you, darling?” Molly said, sitting on her bed and smoothing the covers under her hands. “It’s important.”

  Lucy nodded, though she wanted to say no. “Where’s Daddy?”

  “He’s in the sitting room. He said I should talk to you, seeing as we’re both girls.” She smiled again, and Lucy thought she didn’t look like a girl at all.

  Lucy shrugged. “What is it?”

  “It’s about Beattie, about your mother.”

  Lucy waited, her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t want to hear that Mummy was sick or dead.

  “She’s done a bad thing,” Molly continued. “She wrote a very bad letter, and now Daddy is cross.”

  “Did she write it to Daddy?”

  “No, she wrote it to Daddy’s lawyer, but that’s not the point. She said some things in it that aren’t true. What do we call a person who says things that aren’t true?”

  “A liar,” Lucy said quietly.

  “Yes, that’s right. Your mother . . . She has done some things that a lot of people are unhappy about. Things that God wouldn’t like.”

  Lucy wasn’t so sure about God. She was still terrified of Him, but only when she was at home in Hobart. At the farm, she wasn’t quite so worried what He thought of her. “What kind of things?” Lucy asked.

  “It’s too grown-up to explain.”

  This wasn’t the first time Lucy had heard accusations about her mother, so she didn’t think to question them.

  “But she’s far too close to that black man.”

  “Charlie? He’s nice.”

  Molly’s mouth turned down at the corners. “He only seems nice. He’s actually a thief. Everyone in Lewinford knows that he stole something from a wealthy white man.” Molly took Lucy’s hand. “You must tell me, darling, have you seen anything while at the farm? Anything . . . wicked? If you have, you must let me and Daddy know. It will help us a lot as we get the lawyer to make his case.”

  “No,” Lucy said, shaking her head hard.

  “Tell me what she does. Who she speaks to.”

  She kept shaking her head.

  “Where does she sleep at night?”

  “In her bedroom. Next to mine.”

  “And when she gets up in the morning?”

  Lucy was frightened by Molly’s hard eyes. “My mummy does nothing wicked. She gets up and has breakfast in the morning with me and Charlie and—”

  “Charlie? He’s there at breakfast?”

  Lucy went still. Her heart thudded in her throat.

  Molly’s eyes grew round. “Lucy? Does Charlie sleep in the house?”

  Lucy nodded, not sure why Molly should find this so shocking.

  Molly looked away, her face reddening. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but your mother has sinned.”

  “She’s not a sinner.”

  “Does she go to church?”

  Lucy couldn’t answer.

  “Henry!” Molly called. “Henry, come here.”

  Lucy waited on the bed, her heart thumping. She wished she hadn’t talked to Molly. She wished she had kept her mouth shut. Then Daddy was there, and she knew she could trust him. She leaped from the bed and buried her face in his chest.

  “What’s going on?” he asked in a gruff voice, and Lucy could hear his words rumble around in his chest. She refused to look up.

  “Lucy says Charlie sleeps in
the house. Has breakfast with them in the morning. I’m sure you can imagine the rest.”

  A pause. Daddy’s hands were still on her back.

  “Well?” said Molly. “You want your daughter to have a black man and a fornicator for parents?”

  “Molly—”

  “I tell you, if we lose, that will happen. Instead of you, she’s going to have that man for a father.”

  Lucy grew alarmed, stood back to gaze up at Daddy. “I want you to be my daddy,” she said. “Not anybody else.”

  “Tell her,” Molly said. “Her mother is too steeped in sin.”

  “Molly . . .” he said again, but couldn’t finish his sentence.

  “We need to keep her away from that farm.”

  Lucy kept her eyes fixed steadily on Daddy. Whatever he said was right and true. Molly was upset and acting strangely, but Daddy wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

  Daddy’s eyes turned down, and he smiled at her crookedly. “How would you like to go on a little trip, my girl?”

  * * *

  Beattie caught a fever that flattened her in the first week of July, the day that she was supposed to drive down to Hobart to pick up Lucy. She rang to tell Lucy she might be a day or so late—all the while dreading Henry or Molly answering the phone. But there was no answer. There was nothing for it: she could barely stand, let alone drive. She went to bed and hoped to feel better the following day.

  Next morning, and still she couldn’t rouse anyone on the telephone at Henry’s house. She figured their telephone was playing up and was worried that Lucy would think she’d been forgotten.

  As she picked up her handbag to go out to the truck, she lost her balance and stumbled against the wall. Charlie saw her and came to steady her. “You’re still sick,” he said.

  “My ear is very sore,” she said. “I can’t seem to find my balance.”

  “You can’t drive. You’re too sick, and it’s too foggy.”

  “I can’t stay here. Lucy has been expecting me since yesterday.”

  “She’ll wait.”

  “You don’t understand. She’ll think I’ve forgotten her or I don’t love her. I don’t want her to think that, not even for another hour. Certainly not another day.”