by Rosalie Ham
‘They will eat The General,’ said Hadley. ‘They plan to capture and eat your prize ram, tonight …’
The colour drained from Guston’s cheeks.
‘They’re just fighting for what they deserve, sir,’ continued Hadley, amazed that he’d said it. But it was true. He sat up a little straighter.
‘We cannot pay the rouseabouts a shilling more! We cannot afford thirty a hundred for the rams,’ bellowed Guston, but he was bellowing at Rudolph. ‘I won’t pay it. I won’t lose my property because a bunch of shearers and larrikins and ne’er-do-wells have bled me dry.’
Hadley shifted carefully on the couch, wondering if he should be listening to the fiscal secrets of Overton, seeing Guston so desperate, knowing the shearers were more desperate. Very well, he thought, he would solve this, if it ruined him, and he would solve it without bloodshed. It was no one’s fault: these were just bad times.
Rudolph Steel moved to the drinks tray and poured four glasses of whisky as if he owned the place. Hadley’s nerves jangled with his new resolve. He took the drink.
‘There’s thousands of pounds worth of wool on the sheep’s back not to mention the bales waiting to go to the siding,’ said Rudolph, gently.
‘We’ll shoot them,’ shouted Guston. ‘We’ll shoot the lot of the ruddy sheep and be done with it.’
Marius stood up and went to his father. ‘Almost everything is riding on this wool, Father. I think we should do as Rudolph suggests.’
Guston thought for a moment, grinding his teeth. Suddenly his eyebrows shot up: ‘They won’t get a bloody concert this year, that’s for sure.’ Each year Mrs Overton played the piano for the shearers but Hadley doubted they’d miss it. Other pastoralists were better thought of anyway, for providing a fiddle and accordion.
Guston turned to the window, his whisky gone in a single swallow. ‘Do as you wish,’ he said.
‘We’ll go to them in the morning,’ said Rudolph,
‘The General,’ said Hadley. ‘I don’t know if they’ll hold off that long.’
They would take turns at the shed in six-hour watches, in pairs, Rudolph announced, with sheep housed in the yards surrounding The General so they would scatter if anyone approached. Hadley and the bookkeeper were allocated first watch; McInness, the other classer, could take the second. And in the morning, Hadley would offer the men a shilling. Hadley declined a second drink and stood up to leave, the books dropping from his lap.
‘You read poetry, Parsons? Not too soft for this are you?’
‘No, sir, these are for Phoeba.’
Guston looked at Marius. ‘Who?’
‘The patient.’
‘Oh shit! The Crupp girl. God, what a bloody mess. It was the plain lass, wasn’t it?’ Guston held his glass out to Rudolph for a refill. ‘Not the other one.’ He smiled salaciously.
‘ “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion”,’ quoted Rudolph to himself.
‘She’s a strong, smart girl and it’d take more than a bad tempered old rogue to dent her,’ said Hadley, firmly, and went to find the maid to give her the books and flowers for Phoeba.
Guston frowned and shook his head. ‘Shame about the horse.’
Hadley’s partner, the bookkeeper, did not show up, so he found himself alone on the loading dock in the moon shadow feeling vulnerable, rejected and inadequately armed, with the rifle on his lap. When Guston had handed him the gun he’d said, ‘We don’t want a murder on our hands. You can do enough damage with this.’
But it was dark and Hadley’s eyes were dry from straining to see movement among the silver and black blotches. The sheepyards stank, the sheep were in poor condition due to the dry season and they’d been housed for days. Some were flyblown and the hot air was thick with the stench and the thrumming of mosquitoes that bred in the puddles of urine and excrement. He couldn’t hear well and his thoughts were preoccupied by Phoeba, in her bed, with her brown hair tousled on the pillow and curling about her small, pink lips. He would prove himself, show her, make her admire him. She wouldn’t be swayed by an offer of a secure future. He’d have to think of something else.
Suddenly the sheep spooked, pattering in a circle, and he thought he saw the moonlit shoulders of figures skimming from tree to tree.
He stood, his gun raised, and balanced himself on evenly placed feet, although his knees shivered in his trousers and his armpits ran wet. He imagined men driving sharpened sticks into him, belting him with clubs. But it was a lone figure that advanced, strolling, unafraid. ‘This time, I will die,’ he thought, but he summoned a menacing voice.
‘Who’s that?’
The figure kept coming, boldly, despite the gun at Hadley’s eye.
‘Stop!’ he cried, his body quaking with fear. Then his finger twitched and a shot cracked loud across the night. Through the ringing in his ears he heard the sheep scattering, bleating, and then someone shoved him and seized his gun, laughing, and the nozzle was at the tip of his nose. Through the silence of Hadley waiting for his life to end he heard the bush behind the shed crackle as shearers retreated – a dozen men scampering over fallen bark and brittle grass. He had frightened them away – all but this one.
He smelled whisky on his murderer’s breath and closed his eyes.
‘Damned fool, it’s me, the next watch.’ It was McInness.
In her sleep, Phoeba had heard the crack, like a thick branch snapping, and she turned over.
Guston, Marius and Rudolph had heard it too, and they raced to Hadley, emerging from the shadows with their arms in the air.
‘Steady-on, it’s us,’ called Guston.
Hadley lowered his reclaimed gun. In the sheepyard beside the loading dock a figure lay in a thick, green puddle, groaning.
‘Shit, Parsons, is he dead?’
‘No sir, he’s … unconscious. Drunk.’
McInness lifted his heavy head from the slime. ‘He hit me.’
Hadley’s chin went up and his hands straightened at his sides. ‘I repelled them, sir. I heard them run when I fired the shot. I saved The General.’
Wednesday, January 17, 1894
While Maude prepared the dried fruit again, Robert nailed jute scraps over the holes in the tin walls of his room: this time he knew his banishment to the shed would be a long one. When the cake was in the oven, Maude settled on the front veranda with the looking glass trained on the brougham. Her head ached and it felt like a barbed wire fist pressed down in her pelvis, but the intensity of her pain dulled as long as she watched the two chestnut Hackneys circling around the island of thistles in the middle of the intersection. Marius sat on the box seat with his arm around Lilith’s waist; Lilith held the reins in her hands. Maude watched, delighted when her coquettish girl threw her head back laughing and the Hackneys shot off across the reserve. Lilith steered them around the dam and then around and around the dented Sunshine harvester that had been abandoned on the stock reserve. It was missing its nuts and bolts now and was therefore useless. The brougham turned towards Overton and sped towards the pass.
Maude flushed pink under her gown. She felt full of hope for her daughter and the gentleman beside her. Then she remembered her own gay youth, dancing with Robert when they were young and slim, and she felt fond for a moment before a searing rush of envy enveloped her and she was suddenly teary. ‘This wretched change,’ she said, suddenly craving something sweet to eat. She went inside for a comforting slice of the second plum cake, still warm from the oven.
Clean linen, wet roses and dusty sheep-manure floated on a summer breeze towards Phoeba, then the smell of lunch wafted in – roast lamb. Her head still seemed unevenly balanced and she had trouble lifting it. Her neck felt too weak and her body seemed to have been cast in barbed wire. At least she could wiggle her toes. ‘Welcome back legs … thank you.’ She blinked away tears of relief and tried to sit up but her back wouldn’t let her. She flopped down and told the ceiling, ‘At least I am alive.’
On t
he bedside table a bunch of chrysanthemums from Mr Titterton’s garden and the mauve flowers from the jacarandas by the sheep yards sat in a vase, a note from her mother leaned against the lamp. The note assured her that the doctor had told them she would ‘mend all right’. Her father had added, ‘Mind when you first catch your reflection. You look worse than a flattened pomegranate.’
Behind the vase, leaning against the lampshade, was the photograph from the ploughing match – a brown and cream image of Hadley in his new wool suit and boots, a young and smooth-skinned youth with very round spectacles; Henrietta, ramrod straight, bonny, big-boned and grinning like a well-fed cat, her coat incorrectly buttoned; and a straight-backed, firm-jawed girl in her best skirt and jacket staring away from the camera, as if it was not to be trusted. Herself. Both girls had their arms looped through Hadley’s; all three wore skin-tight leather riding gloves and there was not a frill, flower or ribbon between them.
A lazy-eyed maid appeared and Phoeba said, ‘I’d like to go to the toilet and I’d like to clean my teeth, please.’ They struggled together to the bathroom, its mirror reflecting a girl with a mess of lanky straight hair and one side of her face, as her father had said, like a flattened pomegranate. She looked away quickly and sat for a very long time on the commode, dabbing tears from her eyes and feeling sorry for herself. Life seemed so very precious – one chance, one time to live. Imagine if she’d been born an itinerant, she thought suddenly. No wonder they were upset. Their already sorry lives looked like they were getting worse.
Back in bed she pondered the things that were most important to her life. She was alive – there was nothing beyond that – and now she would stay in her safe home, her corner of the world at Mount Hope, away from floods or drought, the recession, strikers and rebels. Some stolen eggs and a milked goat were not such a threat, just a means of survival for the sundowners. Mount Hope would be her future. She would grow hectares of grapes and have the same, faithful travellers return every year for the harvest. Her wines would win awards and Henrietta, whose mother would die tragically – and soon – would come to live with her in a new, small house that she’d build up near the spring. They would stay together forever. Friends were, after all, essential.
Things were in perspective, thought Phoeba contentedly. Time would heal Hadley and he would marry a squatter’s daughter with a generous dowry and they would breed champion ewes and rams at Elm Grove. He would see to the Crupps’ grain crop, as he always had, and partner her for the progressive barn-dance at the harvest dance. Lilith would marry someone rich and live somewhere in the Yukon, or England. Even Melbourne would be far enough.
Then the door opened and there she was. Lilith. She was wearing Phoeba’s new blouse and holding a book and a bouquet – some daisies and a single geranium. ‘At last, you’re awake. You know if you hadn’t made me nervous, Phoeba, I would have been able to stop that horse from bolting.’
‘Hello, Lilith.’
‘Mother’s taken to her bed. She says she has fractured nerves and a headache. Under no circumstances are we to mention Aunt Margaret and her commune to anyone here at Overton. You didn’t say anything while you were delirious, did you?’
‘Have you seen Henrietta?’ asked Phoeba, her voice croaky and unused.
‘She comes every day to ask how you are,’ said Lilith, shoving the vase of wilting flowers aside and sticking the fresh ones in Phoeba’s glass of water. ‘More flowers from Hadley. There’s a note.’
‘Dearest Phoeba, you are made of good stuff, you will be all right. May I visit?’
‘Was he hurt badly?’ Hadley can visit any time he likes, she thought.
‘He’s got a sore shoulder. Have you seen yourself? That nasty gash over your good eye will scar.’
‘You’re all right, then?’
‘I had extensive bruising and very sore shoulders from pulling on the reins and, worst of all, a badly turned ankle. I couldn’t walk. I had the doctor look at me all over, told him about my scarlet fever.’
Lilith plonked down on the bed and a pain shot through Phoeba. ‘It was influenza, Lilith. Is anyone remembering to look after Spot?’
Lilith dumped Far From the Madding Crowd on the bedside table.
‘Marius had Centaur shot but he’s teaching me to drive a brougham! I drove here! He said when he saw us tumble he thought of his wife.’
Lilith said Marius as if she’d been saying it for years.
‘We have the cook’s horse now. Her name is Angela,’ said Lilith running her hands along the damask counterpane. It had small flocks of sulphur-crested cockatoos embroidered on it.
‘Why can’t they give us a decent horse?’
‘And I can’t wait to drive the brougham to church.’ Lilith wandered over to the window. ‘Marius says I make him feel alive.’
That was it, she thought suddenly. Hadley was honest and honourable but he didn’t make her feel alive. Did she make him feel alive, she wondered, or just secure?
‘They have running water and gaslights in the garden.’
‘Lilith, can you bring my clothes—’
‘No! You have to stay here. The doctor said your spine had moved, or something, and you must rest.’
‘I’d rather be at home.’
‘You are to stay until you’re completely well,’ cried Lilith.
‘All right, I will,’ said Phoeba calmly, ‘if you bring me all Dad’s books on grape growing.’
‘I’ll get Marius to bring them,’ said Lilith. ‘Have you seen Mrs Overton? She’s so sophisticated.’
‘You could learn a lot from her,’ said Phoeba, falling back onto her pillow. Her body was very sore.
‘I intend to,’ said Lilith.
Thursday, January 18, 1894
Time and again the wool-rollers went to McInness’s table with fleeces rolled against their chests. Hadley watched, disappointed and miserable, drumming his fingers on the classing table. He might have a bad arm but that didn’t mean he couldn’t gauge a fleece.
There was another two weeks shearing left and there were mostly rams to come. They were valuable animals, delicate and cumbersome. There was no shortage of willing men to shear but only the most experienced could be trusted not to ruin the priceless studs with a badly handled set of shears. Hadley knew the shearers would ask for even more money for this delicate task. And they had every right to ask. But would the work stop again or would Overton agree?
After the last bell, he headed upstream from the shearers’ camp, crunching his way through the dry bark on the creek bank. The air smelled of wet clay and dusty eucalypts and occasionally, sickness – lot of the shearers were ill. First there was an outbreak of measles, and this last outbreak was from bad game, they said. He fancied he heard men moaning, although it was hard to tell as birds whipped and chirped and some shearers – the thin but healthy ones – sat peacefully on the ground, naked, or soaped themselves, waist-deep in the tan water. He dumped his towel and clean clothes and leaned on a stringy-bark to remove his boots and socks. Placing his spectacles on top of his clothes he stepped quietly into the water, feeling his toes in the slime on the creek bed and his thin, white limbs sinking. He slipped under the water to the murky silence.
He was towelling himself dry, wearing only his glasses, when Rudolph Steel popped up in the water in front of him.
‘Good God, Steel!’ He quickly covered himself with his towel.
‘You like water, Hadley?’ asked Rudolph scraping his dark wet hair from his forehead.
‘I’ve nothing against it.’ It occurred to him that he and Phoeba might go swimming at the bay again, if they were married. He’d shield her from the swaggies.
‘We’d like you to take on the wool-wash,’ said Rudolph. ‘We’re grateful for your negotiations with the shearers, and your guarding of the shed, and the scour would keep you on after the shearing’s done.’
Hadley thought frankly that the scour was beneath him: he preferred the shed, the men working quietly, dignified among
great baskets of tumbling wool. But the money from scouring wool would do very nicely.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said, reaching for his singlet.
‘Let me know by the end of the day. There’s £100 in it for you – however you divide that for men and equipment. Guston thinks you’ll be good with the Chinamen.’ The new Hadley – the Hadley who negotiated and protected – knew he could be good with any kind of man, Chinaman or not. He called after Rudolph, ‘Can I ask … I’d like to return here next year, if I could.’
‘And we will have you back, if we can, but there are sheep all over the eastern states. You can go anywhere with a letter from Overton.’
Walking back, he tallied up the cost of two pressers, pot stickers, soakers, first and second scourers, green hands and barrowmen. He reckoned he’d need £125 at the very least to scour the rest of the wool, pay the men and make a wage. He’d insist on £130.
Hadley appeared at Phoeba’s door clutching the books and waving a handful of roses with his good hand. Petals fluttered onto the carpet. Quite pretty, thought Phoeba.
‘Hadley. Come in.’ She struggled up a bit and forced herself not to cry. It was lovely to see him, dear Hadley.
He came in slowly and rested his hand on the porcelain bed knob so that petals fell on the bed.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘look at you!’ His eyes were brimming with tears.
‘I am very happy to see you, Hadley.’ He was far better than Lilith. Hadley remained silent, grinning at her. ‘I’m on the mend,’ she said, and patted the bed next to her. Hadley dragged the pretty pink dressing table chair up to the bed and perched on it. Finally, he gave her the flowers and she sniffed them, so sweet and fresh, while he took Great Expectations and two poetry books from behind his sling and thrust them at her.
‘I saw you trying to stop the horse. You could have been trampled.’
He shrugged and his painful shoulder made him wince. ‘Titterton pulled me away, but I’d gladly have been trampled for you—’
‘Don’t say that, Hadley, I don’t know if I’d do the same for you.’