by Anna Romer
Owen sat opposite, the freckles stark on his ruddy skin. As the train rattled out of Armidale and southwards towards the coast, he took a handkerchief-wrapped bundle from his pocket and passed it to me.
‘Open it later,’ he whispered. ‘When you start to get homesick.’
A whiff of honey drifted from the bundle, and I guessed it contained a sprig of stringybark blossom. My lips trembled. Reaching for my brother’s hand, I gave it a quick squeeze and nodded my thanks. I didn’t dare tell the boy that I was already homesick, and that the blossoms he’d collected for me with love would only serve to make me more so.
I stowed the precious contents in my bag, and turned my attention to the window. I had decided to make the best of my situation. Mama and Fa Fa had not been in love when they married, but over the years their affection had deepened. If I bore a son for Carsten, and practised kindness and understanding, then surely we would grow to love one another.
The only landscape I had ever known rushed past the window. The New England tablelands withstood scorching summers, and driving snow in winter; flood, drought, and brutal hailstorms that shredded crops and buckled rooftops and killed lambs. Most of the tree species that grew here were drab, their foliage grey-green, their trunks unremarkable – but they were tough, designed to survive extremes of climate.
Carsten leaned forward to emphasise a point to my father, and the window briefly caught his reflection. He was more animated than I’d ever seen him, his eyes alight, his features somehow more striking, but gazing at his ghostly likeness on the glass brought me no joy.
Closing my eyes, I rested back in my seat. As the train rattled me along the track to my new life, I made another vow, a silent vow that was mine alone. I would be a tree – an angophora, an ironbark, a hardy wattle. Whatever storm blew my way, whatever hail or snow or scorching heatwave raged around me, I would stand my ground and find a way to endure.
The steamship Mareeba departed Newcastle at dusk, beneath a cloud of seagulls. Tugboats led us from Oyster Bank, then released us to the mercy of the open sea. I stood on the deck gripping the rail as I watched the pier, tasting the salty sea spray and holding my hat against the blustering wind. My gaze stayed fixed on the lonely figures of my father and Owen until they receded from view.
In my hand I held the treasure my father had slipped into my fingers moments before I boarded the steamer. He had leaned near and whispered into my ear, ‘Not a day goes by – not an hour, not even a minute – that I don’t think of her. Look after her for me, my sparrow.’
My fingers had tightened around the little queen, and I smiled my thanks to Fa Fa, overwhelmed by the preciousness of his gift.
Darkness fell quickly, devouring the tiny lights of the port. Soon all that remained of the world was an inky nothingness. My limbs were stiff and cold before I finally tore myself from the deck and went below.
Almost the moment I set foot in the cramped cabin I was to share with my husband, my stomach began to churn. And it did not stop churning for the next three days, the majority of which I spent with my head over a tin pan. Carsten removed himself to an adjoining cabin, and I didn’t see him again until we docked at Port Melbourne.
From there our passage to Burnie on Tasmania’s north coast took twenty-eight hours. The sea became increasingly rough as we went through the Rip, a concourse of currents that, according to the steward who kindly brought it upon himself to deliver me a hot broth, was turbulent even in the mildest weather.
‘Never fear,’ he reassured me. ‘Only one other passenger has ever died of seasickness on this route, and oddly enough, they were in this very cabin!’
I curled on the bunk, the grey light from the porthole filling the room with watery shadows. Beneath the sound of waves rushing past the ship’s flanks, I could hear the drone of the steamer’s engine, a constant reminder of the distance growing between me and my home. All through the night I clutched the black queen my father had given me, and drew comfort from her.
When I drifted into a queasy half-sleep, I dreamt of the cave in which I had been hidden that long ago night with Jindera and my grandmother. Only, in my dream, there was no fear – we sat quietly around a small fire, roasting wood grubs over the flames. Beyond our shelter there were no screams, no violence or terror – just the soft call of owls and the murmur of the river Muluerindie as it rushed inland, always inland, far from the raging sea.
Several hours before dawn, we disembarked at Burnie. A man was waiting for us on the dock. He raised his hand in greeting as Carsten descended the gangway. The shadow of his battered black hat concealed his face, and his shoulders were hunched against the wind, which whipped the threadbare coat around his lean body. Something about his bearing attracted my instant curiosity.
Although the ocean no longer rolled beneath my feet, my head still swum giddily and my legs were rubber. The porter brought our luggage from the ship, and the man – whom my husband introduced as Lucien Fells, his manservant – shouldered my small trunk and picked up Carsten’s portmanteau. The man cast me a quick look but made no greeting, then hastened along the pier towards a black carriage that waited in the street beyond.
‘Don’t mind Lucien,’ Carsten said as we followed him along the jetty. ‘He’s not a great one for society, but he’s a good lad. Pay no mind to his manners . . . nor to his appearance.’
I wondered at that last remark and was about to query him further, but we had reached the carriage. It was open-topped like my father’s, but its woodwork was lacquered and gleamed wetly beneath the street lamp, and its trimmings were shining brass. Lucien secured our luggage at the rear of the dray and busied himself unhitching the horses.
Carsten helped me up the steps and gave me a rug to drape around my shoulders. I settled onto my seat, huddling into the blanket, breathing in the scent of wood polish and leather. Lucien sprang into the driver’s seat, and Carsten climbed in beside him. A moment later the vehicle jerked from the kerb and rattled along the road.
‘Try and get some sleep,’ Carsten called over his shoulder. ‘It’ll take us several hours to reach Brayer House. I’ll wake you when we get to Wynyard.’
As we travelled along the edge of the bay, the air grew wintry. I pulled the blanket tighter around me, but soon my fingers were numb and my feet had turned to ice. I wriggled my toes inside my boots and blew on my hands, snuggling deeper into the blanket. And yet despite my discomfort, I couldn’t wish the journey over.
On the landward side, tall trees overshadowed the road, their trunks concealed beneath vigorous undergrowth. On the ocean side, the bay was an inky dark bowl; I couldn’t see the water, only hear it rushing in and out against the shore, breathing its salty exhalations into the night. Stars winked in the blackness, and every once in a while I saw a pinprick of light far out at sea, perhaps a fishing vessel or a distant steamer, striking out for Melbourne or crossing the strait on its way to England or Africa.
The road became uneven and potholed. The carriage rattled and strained, and I clung to the brass handrail, my palms alight with cold. We travelled uphill for a way, and our progress slowed until we crested the rise and began to descend.
As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, the two men at the head of the carriage became more clearly visible. I caught a glimpse of Carsten’s profile, and wondered what he’d meant by telling me to pay no mind to Lucien’s appearance.
Intrigued, I studied the manservant.
He was a youth, perhaps of similar age to me, nineteen or twenty, I guessed. He sat tall in his seat, although not as tall as Carsten, and was more slightly built. His long hair was snagged back in a tail, with wild strands escaping over his shoulders. On the few occasions he turned his face to answer a query Carsten put to him, I glimpsed pale features that rivalled Carsten’s striking good looks.
I settled back against the cushions and closed my eyes. Days had passed since the wedding ceremony at Armidale Town Hall; days that Carsten and I had spent travelling. While on the steamer he had neces
sarily kept his distance; but now that we were approaching home, our period of abstinence would end and my life as a married woman would begin.
Drawing the rug tighter, I tried to doze.
The clop of horses’ hoofs on the road, and the rhythmic swish of the sea, were soothing sounds, interrupted at intervals by the quiet talk of the men. The two voices were distinct. Carsten’s tones were clipped as he enquired after his farm, his questions commanding and formal. The young groomsman spoke with more reserve, and his voice – for which my ears seemed to listen more acutely – was rougher at the edges than his master’s, a vague accent that I could not identify, which gave his words a pleasant lilt. More intriguing, were his replies. His choice of words held a strange poetry, as if, despite a lack of education, he was in the habit of thinking carefully before he spoke.
Why had Carsten advised me to pay no mind to the young man’s appearance? I squinted at him, but there was too little light to see.
Snuggling under my blanket, I resigned myself to knowing soon enough.
‘My dear?’
I blinked awake. The sun had crested the horizon, and in its pale glow I saw that the carriage had stopped in front of an imposing house. Built of cream-coloured sandstone, with decorative black wrought-iron festooning the ground and first-floor verandahs, it might have sprung from the pages of a sinister fairytale. The black roof was pricked with pointed finials, and the slate tiles gleamed like the scales of a mythical serpent. It seemed large and gloomy in the dawn light, saved only by the rambling garden of exotic plants and trees that surrounded it.
Carsten alighted from the carriage, but rather than offer his arm to me, he strode immediately towards the house, where two women waited. One of the women was tall and dark-haired; her ivory dress made her appear luminous. Her companion was short and heavily built, with a tower of dark hair perched precariously on her head; she wore a black dress with mutton sleeves, overlaid by a stark white apron.
Gripping the carriage rail, I was about to step down when the servant, Lucien Fells, came to my assistance. As he extended his arm for me to take, I glared at my husband, but it seemed rude to decline the young servant’s offer, so I rested my fingers lightly on his forearm. I took the first step without mishap, but then my legs were taken again by the sea-wobbles and I was airborne.
Lucien grabbed me roughly by the arms, and set me on my feet. He didn’t let me go immediately, and I looked up at him, startled by the unexpected contact, feeling bruised by his fingers.
I’d not been wrong in my earlier observation. He had a striking face, an angel’s face with dark eyes that were stormy grey as the ocean; a regal nose and brows that made me think of eagle’s wings. His wild hair had loosened from its tail and now coiled unrestrained around his shoulders, the colour of burnished copper. His fine bone structure pushed through skin that was pale and, for the most part, flawless. He might have been beautiful, had it not been for the cruel scar that carved along the left side of his face from temple to jaw, disappearing beneath his ear.
My breath escaped too quickly. ‘Oh.’
He released me, and turned his attention to the luggage secured to the rear of the carriage. While he unbuckled it, he kept his back to me, as if unwilling to subject himself further to my scrutiny.
Shakily I trod along the path towards the house and joined my husband and the two women. Their chatter fell quiet as I approached.
Carsten took my arm. ‘Brenna, this is my sister, Adele Whitby.’
The woman in the ivory dress was even more striking close up. She appeared to be in her early thirties, with chestnut hair and eyes rimmed by long lashes, and full lips that might have been brushed with carmine. Her smile was full of warmth.
‘Welcome,’ she said, taking my hand and kissing my cheek. She smelled of roses, but from beneath her floral perfume wafted the treacly bitterness of Minerva Tonic.
Carsten introduced the shorter woman as the housekeeper, Mrs Quinn. She examined me with a frown, then muttered a stiff apology and hurried back to the house, quickly vanishing into the dark interior.
Adele took my arm. ‘Don’t mind Quinn. She’s been caring for Carsten and me since we were babes in arms. Once she warms to you, I promise you’ll be friends for life. Now, my dear, you look tired. I can’t say I blame you after your long trip. Come, let me show you to your room.’
Carsten hurried ahead of us and bounded up the stairs, two at a time as if he couldn’t wait to get away. I heard a door clatter shut, and then the heavy tread of footsteps as he crossed the floor. There was a faint clink of glass, and I guessed he was washing down the journey’s dust with a measure of sweet sherry.
Adele steered me up the stairs. On the first-floor landing, she paused at a small lacquered table and gestured for me to go ahead. When she followed a moment later, her breathing sounded laboured, and as we climbed the rest of the way I heard the rattle of a nasty cough. Carsten had mentioned she was poorly, and I wondered at the nature of her illness.
My room was at the very top of the house, at the end of a narrow hallway. Adele turned the doorknob, and I expected to step into a room that was as cramped and dark as a wardrobe – so I was taken aback to find it large and bright and airy.
An enormous oak armoire took up most of one wall, its carved doors gleaming in the gentle sunlight that peeped through a chink in the curtains. The huge bed was swamped by an exquisite quilt of pale ivory silk, topped by pillows embroidered with daisies, and near the window was a small blackwood desk.
‘I hope you’ll be comfortable here,’ Adele was saying. She went over to the bed, dusting her fingers across the quilt, absently plumping the pillows. A bay window overlooked the back garden and, as I pressed my forehead to the glass, I couldn’t contain a sigh of pleasure.
‘It’s just . . . divine,’ I marvelled. Adele joined me at the window and we stood in silence admiring the vista. The sun was creeping up over the horizon, daubing the treetops with pale light. Down in the garden, brick pathways wound between the trees and vanished in a tangle of undergrowth. There were black cypress pines, mingling with flowering camellia hedges and wrought-iron archways smothered in jasmine vine, and sunny patches featuring great mounds of glossy-leafed daphne.
I spied a rambling vegetable garden, and on the southern horizon a line of hills slowly turning from purple to blue. To the west, the forest thinned and the land dropped away. Beyond, glittering in the early light like an endless field of blue diamonds, was the sea.
I was itching to rush outside and explore, to capture that breathtaking sunrise with my paintbrush and colours and breathe the salty ocean air. But a clock began to strike; seven ponderous notes rang out, each one vibrating beneath my boots.
‘My brother has been lonely,’ Adele said softly. ‘I have the feeling you will do him the world of good.’
‘I hope so.’ In the room’s dim light, she and I might have been sisters. There was colour in her skin that spoke of a love of outdoors, accentuated by the pale ivory dress. Her lips were deep red, but the effect was achieved, not by tint from a bottle as I first suspected, but by her unconscious habit of biting them.
I liked her, I decided.
Outwardly, she appeared quite perfect. And yet I sensed in her a darkness, a faint shadow of sorrow or perhaps of grief, that mirrored my own.
‘I shall leave you now,’ she said warmly. ‘Quinn will bring some wash water for you. You can change your dress and freshen up. Breakfast is at eight. As you’ve probably come to realise, my brother values punctuality.’ Dimples appeared in her cheeks, and her teeth shone white against the pink fullness of her lips. She leaned towards me and whispered, ‘Whatever you do, my dear, don’t be late.’
Carsten did not show himself at breakfast, nor did he appear for lunch, but it wasn’t until his absence at dinner that I began to suspect he was avoiding me. That night I retired early, exhausted after the long journey, but once in bed I found I couldn’t sleep.
I perched on the edge of my bed,
my knees pressed together beneath my nightgown, my heart thudding as I watched the door. Downstairs, the grandfather clock ticked away the minutes; I could feel its mechanical pulse throbbing up through the floorboards and into the soles of my feet.
Finally, I heard footsteps in the hallway outside.
I tried to recall Aunt Ida’s instructions, but all common sense had flown from my head; my thoughts were suddenly jumbled, like bees disturbed from the hive and goaded into a buzzing frenzy.
The door opened. My husband stepped into the room. He was dishevelled, his dark hair raked about, his eyes bloodshot; the sticky smell of port wine wafted off him. He did not glance at me, but walked straight into the room and took his watch from his pocket, placing it with care on the little blackwood desk. Removing his waistcoat, then shirt and shoes, he crossed the room to the bedside and blew out the lamp.
The bed creaked as he climbed in beside me.
‘Lie down,’ he instructed.
I did as he asked and lay in the darkness, wide-eyed. My heart rammed against my ribs, my breath seemed loud in the stillness. A cold, sweaty trembling spread over me.
I had once seen a pair of snakes mating. They had risen onto their tails and twined about one another, hissing softly as they moved in sinewy accord. I’d been transfixed, so absorbed in trying to distinguish one snake from the other that I hadn’t heard my father’s approach. There was a click, then the crack of rifle fire. I lurched in fright, and then stared at what remained of the snakes. Blood and mess, where a moment ago had been a delicate play of love. My father dragged me away by the arm, scolding me for putting myself in danger and forcing him to waste gunpowder on a reptile.
Carsten rolled onto me and kissed my mouth. It wasn’t the lingering sweetness I had anticipated, but rather a hard meeting of lips that was quickly over. My nostrils filled with the smell of wine and pipe tobacco. Carsten was heavy, and when I expelled his foreign odours from my lungs, the air was slow to draw back in. I was lightheaded, wanting to shove him off me so I could breathe, but I did not dare.