Wildflower Hill

by Kimberley Freeman

“I . . . hadn’t imagined that you’d want to introduce me to family quite so soon,” she said.

  He glanced at her sharply, then turned his eyes back to the road. “Have we not been seeing each other since January?”

  “Well, yes. But you were away in Canberra for two months.”

  “I feel a bit of a fool, Beattie. Do you have your eye on someone else?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Of course not.”

  “Then it can do no harm to meet my parents, and they have a guest house adjoining their property where we can stay. To get out of the city. Mountain air is invigorating.” He recovered from his consternation quickly and began yodeling.

  Beattie laughed, and this encouraged him to continue. She laughed harder, until her belly ached and tears ran down her face.

  His parents were very kind, as he’d said. The day passed with a long lunch and a longer walk, until finally, Ray and Beattie retired to the guesthouse in the late cool of the evening.

  “There are two bedrooms, you’ll see,” Ray said as he unlocked the door. “But only one bathroom. We’ll go up to my parents’ house for breakfast. After you.”

  She walked ahead of him into a tiny cottage with a low ceiling. It smelled faintly of old ash and old books, and Ray strode directly to the fireplace to light a fire. There was a large settee in front of the fire, and a wall lined with bookshelves.

  “There’s a bottle of port in the cabinet there,” Ray said, indicating with his shoulder. “Will you join me for one?”

  “Certainly,” Beattie said. She found the bottle and poured two glasses, and they sat back to watch the fire.

  Ray had his arm along the back of the settee, behind her shoulders. Her skin prickled faintly with desire.

  “Can I ask you something, Beattie?” he said, turning to face her. His skin was golden in the firelight.

  “What is it?”

  “This morning in the car, I sensed you were reluctant to be with me.”

  “No, not at all. I really enjoy your company.”

  “I mean reluctant to be with me . . . as in a relationship. As in getting to know each other with a view to . . . more.”

  Beattie blinked back at him. It was time to tell him. Tell him, go on. About Lucy. About Charlie. About how she got Wildflower Hill. But she was aware that Ray was a man who had known her for months before he’d kissed her, had graciously extricated himself from her passionate kisses. How was she to admit not one lover but two?

  She couldn’t. Simply couldn’t. Lucy was out of her life at least until the end of the war. Perhaps it didn’t matter so much if she didn’t say anything about her now, in the firelit room, with Ray’s eyes locked on hers.

  “You are a lovely man,” she said.

  “But . . . ?”

  “No buts.”

  “So I’ve not made a fool of myself by bringing you to meet my parents?”

  “Not at all.” She reached for his hand, clasped it in her own.

  “You deserve better than me,” he said. “Somebody who isn’t away half the year.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m used to my own company.”

  “But you won’t see anyone else while I’m gone?”

  She shook her head. “I promise, Ray. You’re the one for me.”

  Beattie knew that eventually, it would all come out, because eventually, she would see Lucy again. But it didn’t seem to matter so much when he was away, and when he was with her, she was too busy to think about it. The war finally ended, and in the same week, something finally came from Scotland.

  One of her own letters marked “not at this address.”

  Beattie was devastated, furious, bewildered. How long had it been since they had moved without telling her?

  Ray noticed that evening at dinner that she was distant and preoccupied, but she told him it was something to do with work and he wasn’t to worry. She cursed herself for not telling him the truth. He was a kind man, he would understand. He would tell her it was all right and that he didn’t mind.

  But it wasn’t only his opinion she feared. He was an elected member of parliament: his career depended on his being clean, honest, trustworthy. A terrible sadness washed over her. She was bad for Ray. She ought to get out of his life and let him get on without her, let him find some young virgin to woo and marry, a woman who would never embarrass him publicly.

  He chose precisely that moment to stand up from his chair, put aside his napkin, and go down on one knee in front of her.

  Other people in the restaurant stirred, murmuring excitedly.

  “No, Ray, no,” she whispered, but he didn’t hear her.

  “Beattie—”

  “Not here,” she said.

  But it was too late. They had an audience. Tears pricked Beattie’s eyes. He looked so hopeful. He reached for her hand, but she snatched it away. Shot out of her seat and ran for the door.

  Out into the evening air, the traffic noise and the cigarette smoke of passersby.

  He found her, sobbing, on the front step of her house. Somehow in the mad dash, she’d lost her key: the final straw.

  “I’m the one who should be crying,” he said from the front gate.

  She looked up. “I’ve lost my key.”

  He held it up. “Found it on the floor of the restaurant. Luckily, I was down there on one knee, so I spotted it easily.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ray.”

  “Can we talk inside? It’s rather cool out here.”

  She gestured for him to come forward, and he opened the door to let them in. She switched on the lamps on either side of her couch and drew the curtains closed. Her heart thudded dully.

  “Now, I take it you don’t want to marry me?” he said, settling in the wingback armchair by the empty fireplace.

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “So you do want to marry me?”

  Marriage. The last time she’d thought of it, she’d been with Charlie. When he’d died, she’d supposed it would never happen to her.

  “Why now?” she asked.

  “The war is over. Life is going on.”

  For some reason this thought made her terribly sad. Life was indeed going on. And it looked like her life was going on without her daughter in it. Lucy would be sixteen now. Her childhood was over. What Beattie longed for was little Lucy again, with her light body and trusting eyes. She longed for something that was impossible.

  “I’m not what you think I am,” she said.

  “Yes, you are,” he countered.

  “I’m . . . My past is not so . . .”

  “You’ve had lovers? I could tell that when I first kissed you. I’ve had lovers, too. They aren’t here now. I’m here now.”

  His answer surprised her. “Your reputation—”

  “Beattie, we’re both in our thirties. Nobody in the government is expecting me to take a virgin bride.”

  She couldn’t meet his eye.

  “We can have a long engagement. As long as you like. There’s no hurry. But I see myself growing old with you, my dear. Please let me believe that this dream might come true.”

  She dissolved into tears.

  “Ah, there. You’re going to say no again, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I mean, no, I’m not going to say no. I’m saying yes,” she said.

  He strode to her and caught her in his arms, pressing her close. “I will take such good care of you, my love. I will never let you down.”

  Beattie intended to tell him so many times. Before their engagement party; after their engagement party. Before the first time they made love; after the first time they made love. But she kept putting it off. In the meantime, she wrote to anyone she knew in Glasgow, asking if they could help her find the MacConnells. She ended up with sixteen different addresses of Henry MacConnells in the greater Glasgow area. Wrote to them all. Had not a single response.

  She intended to tell Ray before their wedding, which was July the following year. But then an election was called, a
nd suddenly, he wasn’t happy, easygoing Ray anymore. He was always busy, he was tense in private but all charm in the public eye, he was perpetually exhausted. Beattie asked if he’d rather put off the wedding, but he said he wanted to be married before the election, so she went ahead with plans for a small registry office wedding, all the while dreading it. Dreading it.

  You have to tell him.

  She hadn’t counted on the letters.

  Two of them arriving on the same day. Same stamp. Same lack of return address. Different handwriting on the envelopes. One hand she recognized as Molly’s.

  Beattie was at home, taking a rare day off. She was barefoot, hoping to occupy the sunbeam that hung about in her sitting room for most of the morning. With the letters in her hand, she returned to her couch, but the sun didn’t seem so warm now.

  She opened the first, unfolded it slowly. Molly.

  Dear Beattie,

  We are aware of your attempts to find us, and ask respectfully that you do not contact us again. We are all happy and well as we are, and have no desire to be reminded of our difficult times in Australia. Lucy is growing into a fine young woman, and it is important that her friends and potential suitors continue to believe that I am her natural mother. I know that you care about her enough to let her go.

  Yours, Molly.

  Beattie was about to scrunch up the envelope with rage when she realized there was something else in it. She tipped it up, and two small photographs fell out in her lap.

  She caught her breath. It was Lucy. Tall. A young woman. She looked directly at the camera, unsmiling. Henry’s customary expression. The other photo was a family portrait of the three of them. Molly had aged terribly, and Beattie knew it was the guilt. Well, damn her, may she feel the guilt forever. Ask respectfully that you do not contact us again . . . How dare she? And what kind of a mother did Molly think she was to let her daughter go so easily?

  She turned her attention to the other envelope. Perhaps it was from one of the other MacConnell families she had contacted, apologizing for not being who she wanted them to be.

  But it wasn’t. It was from Lucy herself.

  Dear Beattie . . .

  Beattie pinched the bridge of her nose. Not Dear Mummy. She knew in that instant how things were going to go.

  Would you please allow me to get on with my life in peace? I have received all your letters and haven’t cared to read them. I appreciate all you did for me as a child, and Daddy has told me to admire you for taking me away when he was steeped in sin. When he brought me here he was merely doing the same thing and I am very grateful to him. And to Molly, whom I consider to be my mother now. I like Scotland and have no desire to return to you or the farm or any of it. Leave me be.

  Lucy MacConnell

  The rejection, petulant though it sounded, hit Beattie like a physical blow. Her stomach ached. She put aside the letter and picked up the photograph again. This unsmiling stranger had written the letter. Lucy, her russet-haired angel, was long gone.

  The stars had aligned cruelly. Lucy didn’t want to know Beattie, and Beattie didn’t want Ray to know about Lucy.

  So, helpless to fight the tide, Beattie said nothing to Ray. And something that never should have been a secret became just that.

  Beattie felt a cool touch on her cheek. She opened her eyes with a gasp.

  “Only me,” Ray said. “You left the window open. It’s freezing in here.”

  Beattie reoriented herself. That was right: they were in London, in the hotel. Ray had been to his welcome dinner. She’d sat down to read and remembered little after that.

  “I slept like the dead,” she said.

  “It’s traveling across time zones,” he said. “You’ll take a day or two to adjust.”

  “How was your function?” she said, watching him close the window.

  “Not as dull as the dullest meeting I’ve ever been to, but close.”

  She sat up, brushing her hair away from her eyes. “Ray, you’ll be busy the next few days, won’t you?”

  “I certainly will.”

  “I wondered if you’d mind if I headed up to Glasgow tomorrow and stayed overnight.”

  “Glasgow? I didn’t think you had any relatives there still.”

  “I don’t,” she said quickly. “I . . . I’m interested to see how it’s changed since I left. A long time ago now.” So long. Here she was, nearly fifty-five years old, hair streaked with gray, skin growing thin. Lucy was thirty-five. The private detective had told her that Lucy had two children of her own. Beattie was a grandmother, a thought that filled her with curiosity rather than joy.

  “It’s a long way,” he said, unthreading his tie.

  “I’ll take the train.”

  “No, no. Get a car to run you up there.”

  “Then I’ll feel like I have to make conversation. No, I just want to read my book and drink a cup of tea.”

  He patted her hand. “Have it your way. As long as you’re happy.”

  She turned away so he wouldn’t see her face.

  A miserable London morning dawned. Gray streets, black taxis, black umbrellas, sodden leaves in the gutters. Ray left while she was still packing a few necessities. She couldn’t concentrate, kept forgetting what she was doing.

  Finally, she made her way to King’s Cross station, her shoes filling with water, and bought a ticket for the ten o’clock train.

  “There’s a delay on the line,” the man behind the counter told her. “We’re running twenty minutes late.”

  She took her ticket and sat on a bench while the activity of the station whirled around her. People in overcoats and dripping umbrellas brushed past. She closed her eyes, thinking of home and sunshine. An image of Wildflower Hill on a clear day came to mind, Lucy in the garden with Mikhail, sunshine in her hair. Beattie hadn’t missed Tasmania in long time; Sydney had firmly become her home. But all these thoughts of Lucy had made her long for the lingering quiet, the smell of the eucalyptus, the cool sunlit days.

  When the first set of tenants had moved out of Wildflower Hill in 1951, Ray had urged her to put the place on the market.

  “You’re too busy to manage it,” he said, “and we can’t move there permanently. I’m an elected official. My job is here, among my constituents.”

  “I know, I know,” she said. By this stage she had two children in nappies, both of them hanging off her ankles at inconvenient times. They had money for a nanny four days a week, but she was still far too busy to think about taking anything else on. And yet she couldn’t face the idea of selling Wildflower Hill. Not the least reason being that Charlie was buried there.

  But she could hardly admit that to Ray. No man liked to think that he wasn’t his wife’s greatest love.

  Still, what was she to do with the thousands of sheep? She contacted Leo Sampson, who suggested she divide the property. Wool prices were skyrocketing: she would have no trouble finding a buyer. Keep the house itself and the paddock it stood in, along with the shearers’ cottage and the new stables. Sell the rest. The new owners could build their own house at the southern end of the property.

  Within a week Leo had called back. “Now, you might not like this idea,” he said, “so I need to know you’re sitting down.”

  Sitting down? She had two children under two. She couldn’t find a chair under the piles of unfolded laundry, let alone a moment to sit. She glanced around the large, sunny room and realized that she couldn’t even see Mikey. He’d pulled one of his disappearing acts.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “The Harrows have asked about buying the farm.”

  “The Harrows? Tilly and Frank?”

  “Yes. I know you don’t like them, nor do I, but—”

  “Name a price they can barely afford. Wool is booming. They’ll pay,” she said. “If they accept it, why shouldn’t I take their money?”

  Leo hesitated.

  “I really must go,” she said before she changed her mind. “I’ve lost one of my children.”


  “I’ll see what they say,” he replied. “Take care, Beattie.”

  “And you.”

  “Boo!” said Mikey, jumping out from behind a curtain. Baby Louise began to cry.

  The children had changed them. There were not long hours for leisurely discussion anymore. In truth, they were probably both too old and too set in their ways for children, but the chorus of urgent voices had eventually persuaded them. They were a happy couple with public lives; they needed offspring to cement the image. A boy for him and a girl for her.

  Having Mikey had been so different from Lucy’s birth twenty years before. This time around, doctors interfered, nurses tried to separate her from her baby and return him to her every four hours, when he was too distraught to feed properly and had to have a bottle forced into his mouth. Beattie had told Ray she wanted to leave the hospital immediately.

  “But shouldn’t you listen to them?” he said. “They have so much experience with babies. We have none.”

  She’d convinced him, returned home with Mikey. He thrived on her breast milk and slept in a crib right next to their bed until he was six months, just as Lucy had done.

  Both her babies were fat and happy, and she hadn’t wanted more, but Ray had taken himself off for a vasectomy without consulting her. She didn’t know why she minded so much; she didn’t tell him everything. But it was the first in a long string of infelicities that weakened their relationship. The fact that he was away so much, leaving her to single-handedly care for the children and run her business, didn’t help. He never quite valued her work as highly as his own.

  He still loved her. She still loved him. But the prospect of their growing old together no longer seemed romantic. Some days it seemed a trial.

  Leo Sampson contacted her just before shearing season. She’d had to hire staff and cross her fingers, and so far everything seemed to be going smoothly. So she dreaded bad news.

  “The Harrows have agreed to your offer,” he said.

  “Really?” she asked. “I get to keep the house paddock?”