Inheritors

by Неизвестный

“Can't you see I'm not like that—not a spoilt brat?” Harriet protested. “I don't want his money and his presents. I'm like you.”

  “You look it,” Emma said dryly, eyeing her dress, her bracelets, her boots which fitted her tiny feet like gloves, her manicured hands. “But I am. In here I'm like you.” Harriet pressed her hands to her breasts. “I couldn't be a lady. Not without pretending that a part of me didn't exist, and I don't want to pretend. Besides, they despise me, all the ladies, all the Nice People in Brisbane.”

  “Huh, told you about your mother, did they, like they told James?” “Oh, don't think I'm ashamed like James. I'm glad. I'd rather be you than Mrs Peppiott.”

  “Oh, aye,” Emma said sarcastically. “I've had a high time of it.”

  “I know you've had troubles, Mother. It must have been terrible. But nothing could be more terrible than feeling ashamed of yourself, wondering what other people are thinking of you, and perhaps for that reason losing everything you want in here.” She pressed her breasts again. “Can you understand? I did something dreadful in Brisbane—with a man. Everybody knew about it. I was so ashamed of myself I could hardly hold my head up. I wanted to marry any fool, any Tomnoddy, who could protect me. What if one had come along and taken me because of Father's money and looked down on me afterwards. That would have been more terrible than physical pain.”

  Emma turned up her face, which age had withered till it seemed hardly bigger than a baby's face. It had lost its old expression of sad restraint, and in their shrunken setting the eyes seemed to reflect an uncontrollable fire which had charred the skin around them and now was eating deeper and deeper into her. “A fat lot you know about pain,” she said, “or shame, or losing what you want.” She pulled the shawl close and shivered slightly, though it was suffocatingly hot in the little kitchen with all the windows closed. “When I was younger than you they took me, the traps, and put me on the ship for Australia. The filth, the stink, the rotten meat, and the men—you didn't get any chance to pick and choose what your fancy stomach wanted there.”

  Harriet put up her hand in feeble protest. “Oh, don't. I know.”

  The old woman grinned spitefully and lifted her voice. “And then when we arrived they drove us ashore, and there were the men waiting on the beach with their tongues hanging out—drunken soldiers and brutes from the bush who hadn't seen a woman for years. They drove us up the street with the men running along and singing out at us and trying to touch us. Then they put us in the factory and men came to look at us like cattle, and I was sent into the country with one and I ran away.” Her voice dropped until she was whispering her story to the fire, frowning, waving her hands, as she had been whispering it when Harriet came in. She seemed to have forgotten Harriet, lost in the enormous memory of her pain. “Yes, I ran away and they caught me and in public, yes, in the streets with all the men standing round and grinning, they stripped me half-naked and flogged me till the skin broke on my back. And then the man who had ordered me to be flogged and watched them do it, a drunken swine named Major Mowlatt, he took me off to be his servant and bought me dresses and silk shoes. That was on the Murray, fifty-three years ago.”

  Harriet whimpered in a deep breath.

  Emma sniffed at her. “You wouldn't like to have a man who looked down on you, eh? How would you like to have one who sent for you when he had his drunken friends in and pulled your dress off to show them your back with the scars down to your waist? Yes, I was young enough to feel shame, but soon I gave up caring. I thought I was too dirty for any man ever to want, and when it was time to go free I didn't care whether I stayed or went, until my cousin, Jem, came and took me.”

  The two women looked at each other, the old woman and the young woman, the one filthy, in rags, with her features almost eaten away by the years, the other with hardly a line on her face, carefully preserved against the sun, and as fragile in its small, clear features as a cast in delicate porcelain; yet between them was so plain a likeness that you could see, pathetically, in the young girl the old woman's wasted beauty and passion; and in the mother, tragically, the hatred and despair that could ravage the daughter.

  Harriet saw it and shuddered. “I understand, Mother. I felt like that too. A man called me a whore. I felt dirty too, as if I was finished for life. I could have killed myself. But now I'm glad. I can't explain it, but I'm glad I'm what THEY call depraved, because it must be what they're not, all those women. And that's why I'm glad I'm like you, because you're not like them.”

  Emma sneered at her defiance. “Just like your father, that's what you are—eaten up with pride. A proper Cabell.”

  “But I'm a Surface too. I'm your daughter as well as his.”

  Emma held her off with a look of distrust. “What d'you want then? Sympathy? Hasn't he given you enough? Hasn't he robbed my Larry so that you can have your silks and necklaces? What d'you come in here snivelling for?” She grinned again, and the fine tattoo lines shifted their pattern. “Aye, you'll snivel for some reason, my lass, when Larry comes back.”

  “Will he come?” Harriet said to soothe her. “How do you know?”

  “Will the sun rise?” Emma said. “Because he IS a Surface, that's why? Because he IS like me in here.” She pressed her own flat breast. “And because he hates all your aristocratic mugs as I do. He had his chance to be a gentlemanly Cabell, but he wouldn't take it. He was right. To hell with them. They flogged and insulted me, and now my Larry and his mates will do the same with them.” She nodded and mouthed over the fire, more than ever like an old sibyl calling up evil chance. “Oh yes, my fine young lady, you'll snivel with a vengeance then.”

  “Don't wish me evil,” Harriet said. “I don't want to take anything that is Larry's. I want to do what Larry did—escape.”

  “Escape—what from?”

  “From Father. I want to go away from the Reach. I love somebody—Mr Cash. Do you remember him? He was Father's partner, but Father turned against him because of me and ruined him. I don't know what his feelings are. I wish I did. If he loved me I'd. . . perhaps I'd run away.”

  Emma studied her excited face. “You're play-acting,” she said. “I know you hysterical young chits.”

  “But I would,” Harriet insisted fiercely, and she told her mother everything that had happened between Cash, her father, and herself, and what news Geoffrey had brought.

  Emma listened closely and an ugly expression of cunning sharpened her eyes. “Well, what's stopping you? You're not locked up.”

  “I'm so afraid,” Harriet said. “I might make a mistake and be lost. I could never come back.”

  “You're frightened of the ladies in Brisbane.”

  “I'm not.”

  “Oh, yes you are. You're thinking of the ladies in Brisbane you pretend not to care about, but you care about them more than about your man. Like me, you call yourself. A lot you'd care for anything else but your man if you were. What does it matter whether he loves you or not, if he's in trouble? You love him, don't you? D'you think I served your father all these years and spent myself for Larry because I thought they loved me? Love means give, not take.” She waved Harriet off. “Go and take a pill, girl. Tight-lacing and rich food, that's what wrong with you.”

  Harriet was indignant. “That's not true, Mother. I don't care about anything. But how can I go without money. I'm all alone. They watch me like a prisoner. Even now they'll be watching, and when Father comes home they'll tell him I was here and that will bring trouble on you.” “You needn't bother your head about that,” Emma said. “I'd be pleased to see him if you'd gone. Aye, very pleased.” She stirred the fire and huddled closer to it. The sun was sinking and it was dark in the kitchen behind the cobwebbed windows. “And if you had the money,” Emma asked, “you'd go?”

  “Well—yes.”

  Emma broke some sticks on to the dying flames. The fire leapt up, on her face, in her eyes. “I'll give you the money,” she said turning. “Oh, it's not mine. Don't thank me. Thank him. It's his money. I
t was meant to bribe my Larry out of the way, but he refused it. Now you can have it. That's fair, isn't it? I'll remind him of that. Oh, I'll remind him of a lot of things when he comes in here. You needn't worry.”

  She got up from the fire and shuffled across the flags, cackling merrily to herself. From the shelf behind the door she took down an old biscuittin and fished out a small paper packet. “There,” she said, laying it on the table. “There's fifty pounds. Go on, take it. Lost your nerve, eh?”

  “No,” Harriet said, “but I should go, shouldn't I, Mother? I'm so frightened.”

  “Of course. Of course,” Emma said impatiently. “Go tonight when they're asleep. Nobody will hear you. You'll be in Brisbane before he gets back from the mine.”

  Harriet looked away from the ugly, gloating expression on her mother's face. “She's only saying it to spite him. She doesn't care what becomes of me.” Then she turned back and threw her arms around her mother and clung to her, peering into her eyes. “Don't lie to me, Mother. Tell me the truth. Do you think he loves me? Am I mad? Don't tell me to go because you think it will ruin me and hurt Father.”

  Emma pushed her off and returned grumbling to the fire. “I've given you the money. Take it or leave it.”

  Harriet sighed. It was useless to expect understanding here. The rift between them was too wide. She walked over to the table and fingered the little parcel. A sovereign slid out and rolled around the table.

  “Harriet,” Emma said, “come here, girl.”

  Harriet glanced around. The old woman was holding out her hand. She closed it on Harriet's arm. “Perhaps you'd better not go,” she mumbled. “What's the good of my advice? I'm a wicked old woman.”

  “No, no, you're not,” Harriet said, pressing her hand. “It's been terrible for you. I know why you hate him. I'd hate him too if I had to stay much longer. The other day he broke into my room—I could have killed him.”

  Emma searched her face. “Perhaps you're right. Perhaps there is a lot of Surface blood in you.” She ran a finger down Harriet's cheek. “And you're not ashamed of it?”

  “No, Mother.”

  “You used to hide behind my skirts when you were little,” Emma said softly. “Do you remember?”

  “I've always wanted to hide behind them,” Harriet said, “but you wouldn't let me. You kept me off. That day I came in here—you laughed at me.”

  “Yes,” Emma said sadly, “it's a terrible thing to be ashamed, as you said. It makes you suspect even your own children. But it was him who kept me ashamed. God knows, I was ready enough to forget what had gone, but he was always throwing it in my face. You're right, child, don't marry a man who'll look down on you.”

  “I'd kill myself first,” Harriet said. “He wants me to go to England for a husband, but I couldn't, Mother. It would be you and Father all over again.”

  Emma nodded. “And you love this man Cash?”

  “Yes.”

  “He's a good man. He's been through the mill. He must love you too, leaving you all that money.”

  “Do you think so? Really? Truly?”

  “I'm sure he does,” Emma said, “but I don't know what to tell you to do. I only know what I'd do. I'd go. But all Surfaces are reckless fools.” Harriet threw her arms round her mother again and kissed her on the mouth. “Then I'll go, Mother. I will. Aren't I a Surface?”

  “It would be better, maybe,” Emma said uncertainly. “Anything would be better than sitting here year after year hating him and waiting for him to die.”

  Harriet could not stop kissing her mother. Her heart was light and gay all at once and her whole body felt radiant, fortified by an act of decision.

  Emma had to tear herself away. “Well go, child, before they come spying out what you're up to. Go on.” She pushed Harriet towards the door. “Here's your money. Be brave, child, and God bless you.”

  Harriet kissed her a last time and ran back to her room in wild and joyous excitement. . .

  Part VI: Pioneers! O Pioneers!

  Chapter One: Bad Conscience

  About this time it was that Jean Berry chased Larry up into the loft. Once more Larry felt that his old life had died and a new world opened before him. Occasionally, for politeness sake, he let Berry take him to a meeting of the Pyke's Crossing Labour League, which Berry had helped to form in the hope of returning a Labour member to parliament at the next elections, but the speeches about wicked squatters and the Utopia of Democracy did not touch Larry. His mind kept wandering to Jean, who would be waiting in his room at the farm, a promise beside which prophecies of the Golden Age of Human Brotherhood seemed nebulous and dull.

  But as he fell more in love with Jean, and began to think that it would be good to marry her and have a place of his own, children perhaps, an itching little uneasiness irritated his mind, so he put the idea aside without trying to understand why he felt guilty about it. A few nights later when he was lying in his bed in the harness shed with Jean, Berry came to the door to tell him something and nearly caught them. They were both so scared that Jean did not go again, and they had less of each other and were both unhappy. So Larry lying in his lonely bed thought of marriage again and the uneasy feeling came back and gradually concreted itself into the sense of a duty to his mother neglected. “I ought to write and tell her that I'm going to marry and settle down and won't go back to the Reach no more,” he told himself, but that did not soothe the guilty feeling at all, only made it worse. One day soon afterwards when he was in Pyke's Crossing buying stores he met a swaggie who told him of the change that had come over Emma. Only the swaggie said that it was all Cabell's doing and that he refused to let Emma live anywhere except in the kitchen or eat anything except the scraps from the table. He told Larry that Emma was sure he would come back one day, and that she spent all her time watching for him. “But you'll need to go soon if you want to see her alive,” he said. “She hasn't got the condition of a half-starved rabbit on her.” Larry said nothing to the swaggie, but he flared into anger within. “Why should I go back? I didn't tell her I would. I've wasted half my life already hanging around because she wanted me to. If it hadn't been for her I'da had a wife and a place of my own twenty years ago.” Later he was surprised at himself and ashamed. “I'll go back and see her one of these days,” he promised, “before she dies.” BEFORE SHE DIES. Months passed and he did not go, but every time he was in Pyke's Crossing he kept his ears open as if he expected to hear some important news, and the more expectantly he listened the more guilty he felt, until suddenly he refused to go near Pyke's Crossing any more, and when Berry came back one day and said, “Heard a bit of news that'll interest you,” Larry shouted, “Keep it to yourself. I've finished with the Reach, I tell you.” Berry did not press the news on Larry, for it was bad news and he was afraid of what it might make him do.

  The year brought a fresh crop of troubles. The shearers' union had decided to call another strike. It was to be a different strike from the last. In 1891 the men went into the struggle with vague, idealistic notions and the squatters severely beat them and severely punished them afterwards. As a result the shearers split up into three camps—the dyed-in-the-wool Utopists like Budge cleared out to South America to start afresh; the men like Berry who believed in democracy and the vote and the power of ideas renounced strikes and violence for a parliamentary party; and the third group was left to do its worst. By and large these were native-born bushmen, descendants of the old hands, who had grown up to a tradition of hating squatters, landtakers, bosses, toffs, governments, and police. When the Budges and Berrys took themselves off they were ready to start the new strike where the last one finished and fight it for the sheer joy of harassing an hereditary enemy.

  Berry and the selectors round about had been discussing the strike to come for weeks. They all belonged to the union and spent three or four months each year shearing in Queensland and New South Wales. Berry tried to persuade every one not to go shearing this year as, according to him, the sooner the strike was o
ver and lost the sooner the men would realize that their only hope was in putting representatives into parliament. Larry listened to the arguments but said nothing. He did not want to go away from the farm just now; Jean's love was still too new and near. And yet—he could not hear all the talk about burning fences and kicking scabs and “getting even with the squatters” without a stir of excitement and a twinge of self-reproach. At last the selectors began to go off for the shearing, taking their rifles with them, and Larry and Berry and a few older men were the only ones left behind. Larry's conscience pricked him. “You're a scab. You're scared. That's why you don't go to see your old woman. That's why you hang on to Berry—because he gives you arguments why not to go. . .”

  One afternoon he was chopping wood in the yard when Jean came round the house and said in a worried voice, “There's a man out here looking for you, Larry.”

  “What sort of a man?”

  “A bad-looking sort. He's got eyes like a dead man.”

  Larry dropped the axe.

  “What's wrong, Larry? Will I send Dad out and tell him to go away?”

  “No, don't tell your dad. I'll go.” Larry went round to the front of the house and found Coyle sitting on the steps.

  “Good day,” Coyle said. “They told me down Pyke's Crossing you were here.”

  “I'm helping Berry a while.” Larry examined Coyle's face. It was thin and as viciously wedgelike as ever. He was something like a dead man, as Jean said, like a cadaver animated with galvanic energy, not with human feeling. It made his eyes shine with a glassy light and kept his hands and mouth twitching in a queer, unco-ordinated way. As he looked up at Larry he chewed a stem of grass in the corner of his mouth, biting at it with quick little bites as if he was excited, but his voice was calm and soft as of old.

  “Berry must have a bit of a goldmine to keep you both here without going shearing,” he said.

  “Ain't no use him going shearing and there's a strike,” Larry said. “He's got a wife and daughter.”