Summer at Mount Hope

by Rosalie Ham

  ‘Have you run away?’ asked Phoeba, pouring her a cup of tea.

  ‘You can always have the shed, Henri,’ said Robert removing his shoe to inspect his gout toe.

  ‘I won’t need it,’ she said. ‘Mr and Mrs Overton left on the ten o’clocker to Melbourne. Lilith is in a state because …’ Henrietta was having problems getting the words out. ‘… I’m happy to go home. But I don’t know what Hadley will do. He may stay at Elm Grove now ...’

  ‘Tell me, Henrietta,’ said Phoeba, her knuckles white around the teapot’s handle.

  ‘Guston Overton has gone bust. Rudolph Steel has bought them out.’

  The teapot dropped with a wet crack and several, brown-stained ceramic slices skidded across the floor leaving a starburst of tea-leaves. Phoeba gathered the mess into the tea-cozy.

  Spot cantered as fast he could to Overton, so fast that Henrietta was left far behind. She tied Spot to the back gate and ran into the house, bursting through the back door to the cavernous kitchen. Rudolph Steel was at the stove in his shirt and trousers and knee-length boots, a cup of tea in one hand and a slice of bread in the other. He didn’t look surprised to see her.

  ‘Tell me what’s happening,’ she gasped.

  ‘Would you like some bread? I’ve been dreading this scene for days, Phoeba,’ he said, sitting down slowly. ‘And I’m sorry about this. I believe you will make your vineyard viable.’ He watched her carefully – he liked her particularly now, standing in the kitchen after a fast ride, vibrant, a little breathless. She was pretty, he thought, but there was something else in her, a substance that would grow with age and knowledge, and he admired that. Sometimes he’d seen her eyes blue and sometimes grey. Today they were dark and challenging.

  She sat down in front of him, folded her hands on the table. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The London Bank of Australia foreclosed on Overton’s liens. I have paid them out—’

  ‘You’ve bought Guston Overton out?’

  He didn’t pause. ‘Mr Titterton has been let go and is packing up as we speak. I’m sorry it’s come to this but your sister and Marius can stay in the manager’s house for as long as they need …’

  For as long as they need – until they find somewhere else. Marius had been dispossessed.

  In the short, piercing silence dread sank Phoeba’s heart then hope lifted it just as quickly. So Lilith and Marius would go to Melbourne. And Rudolph would take over Overton. Which would keep him next door to her.

  ‘But Marius has refused,’ she heard him say. He took a breath and she held hers. ‘They say they will go to Mount Hope.’

  Very quietly, her ambitions, her plans for her whole life flaked into pieces on the floor around her like paint falling from an old ceiling. Rudolph drummed his fingers on the table next to the slice of bread in which his single bite had left a small bay. She looked at him squarely. He could have warned her.

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure—’

  ‘You knew though. You knew and you let Marius marry Lilith.’

  ‘What could I do about it? They had to marry, didn’t they?’

  He was right.

  ‘You can save me now,’ said Phoeba desperately. ‘Let them stay as manager.’

  ‘I am the manager. He has been manager.’

  ‘And he managed to ruin Overton.’

  ‘To be fair, a lot has to do with his father—’

  ‘And the banks,’ she spat.

  ‘And the banks and workers, the dry season. Marius could stay as caretaker, but he won’t.’

  ‘He’ll manage Mount Hope though. He was happy to marry Lilith for the grapes,’ Phoeba shrugged. ‘What about me?’

  He gestured helplessly to the ruined crop, the sheep in their poor condition, the low green water in the dams. She knew that he had seen it all coming. ‘You will need help …’ she remembered him saying.

  ‘You knew.’

  ‘I hoped it would come right.’ He turned his teacup on the table and she reached and put her hand over his wrist, stopping him.

  ‘Rudolph, they’ll move in over there and I’ll be … I don’t know what will happen to me. I’m like you. I don’t want to be anyone’s possession.’

  ‘I thought, like me, you had someone … a commitment.’

  She took a moment to catch her breath. ‘Hadley wants a wife who’s devoted, homely, who likes children – and sheep. I’m not right for him; I’m the same as you.’

  ‘I have a wife in England—’

  ‘No!’ she screamed, startling herself. She stood up, the chair behind her tipping over. ‘But I thought …’

  He turned to look at her. ‘I have been honest. I have never approached you … romantically.’

  ‘But it’s there,’ she said, simply. ‘I feel it, and so do you—’

  ‘I did. I do.’ He looked directly at her. ‘I thought my wife was the right person to marry, and she is the right person. Anyone is if you want them to be. But it’s not the person, it’s the condition of commitment, of compromise. It’s impossible just to be as I want to be – that’s what I discovered. If I could be with you, I would still hurt you if you said, be as you want, I won’t stop you. You would still hope for something, an obligation—’

  ‘I want my freedom – you know that. I would have no expectations.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be honest.’

  Which was what she had said to Hadley: ‘It wouldn’t be honest to marry you …’

  ‘I would know that you were waiting,’ said Rudolph. ‘It would tear at me.’ He gathered her into his arms and said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and she fell against him. He smelt like cigars and bath soap and she felt she was entirely safe, felt the sensation of a body so close, being enveloped. She was miserable but thrilled, standing there with her tears leaving wet stains all over his shirt. But if he said, stay, be with me, she thought, I would. She would. It was cosy, lovely. The things she’d often imagined that men and women did, the things she’d thought would be uncomfortable or lewd, now they were natural. So this was attraction, this was why Lilith risked everything to be with Marius. Rudolph pulled her tighter against him and she knew she could easily live in hope, for this – she could truly do anything, say anything, be what she felt. And she knew that was what he felt too. It was like a net around them. No one need ever even know.

  She looked up at him and pressed her lips to his but he pulled her back. ‘I will not tie you to me,’ he said gently. ‘I would not do that to a friend, to you.’

  She took his hand, ‘But I want you to—’

  ‘No.’ He stepped back, became a manager again. ‘The place will be left until it can be worked up, the sheep will be sold, a caretaker will stay here. It will be worth its weight in wool and grain one day but the land has been flogged …’

  ‘I don’t care what anyone says, we could just be together sometimes.’

  He took her hands and pressed them to her sides. ‘No. It will be years before I come back and do anything with Overton and when I do, my wife will come with me.’

  ‘I’ll live here, in the house until you do,’ she said, nonsensically.

  ‘Waiting? With your sister and brother-in-law over the hill in your house, in your vineyard, and you exiled and standing on the balcony watching for someone to come – someone who will come with someone else.’ Hadley would say this was like something from a book, she thought.

  ‘It will be all right, eventually,’ said Rudolph. ‘Things change. You must sort it out with your family, your friends.’ And he let her go and walked away. She felt cold and wished she’d brought a wrap. Now she knew how Aunt Margaret’s heart felt. It had all come to nothing.

  Lilith was not crying, stamping her feet, slamming doors or screaming. She was tense with fury, marching about in a quilted silk morning gown, pitching white lacy things at her trousseau trunk.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I have lost everything.’

  ‘You’ve gained, Lilit
h,’ said Phoeba. ‘You’ve gained a husband.’

  Lilith put her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes at her sister. ‘A husband who has lost his land, his future. Poor Marius …’

  ‘Why don’t you take the manager’s house?’

  ‘I’m not going to replace old Mrs Tit.’ She pointed her finger at Phoeba. ‘Marius has to do something and he’s interested in wine.’ Then she strode to the hallway, screaming, ‘and I am not staying here with that … that … banker.’ She slammed the door, hard, the noise like a cannon shot. When it swung open again, slowly, there was Rudolph, his brown eyes angry. As he walked away Lilith screamed, ‘This is Marius’s home, he can’t live next to it as a … servant.’ She looked at Phoeba. ‘And you thought you’d got rid of me, didn’t you?’

  ‘Well,’ said Phoeba, ‘I thought that if this happened you and Marius would go to Melbourne. She paused. ‘Lilith, what will happen to me?’

  ‘Phoeba! That man, Steel, has seized Overton, and you’re worried about where you will sleep?’

  Lilith had always twisted things, Phoeba knew, but wondered if this was the way life worked? You took what you could and if you weren’t forceful, others took it from you. There was nothing for it, she thought: it was time to please herself.

  She turned on her heel and went to the rooms at the corner of the house, Rudolph’s rooms. He was putting on his riding coat but paused, frowning when he saw her. She leaned against the door, shutting it, and he heard the key turn and lock with a clack. He eased his arm from the coat’s sleeve and threw it on a chair.

  Henrietta jigged around the corner of the house on Liberty, her jaw clenched to stop her teeth chattering and her plait unravelled. Spot was tethered at the back gate, straining against his reins to get to the vegetable garden, a pile of manure behind him. She had a good mind to let him off to eat all Rudolph Steel’s vegetables, but she didn’t. She went to Lilith’s room to find Phoeba, but Phoeba wasn’t there. Phoeba wasn’t anywhere in the great homestead that she could see – though she didn’t go far. It felt wrong to be snooping in a house so recently abandoned.

  She found Hadley in their mother’s parlour, wrapping Mr Titterton’s epergne in newspaper.

  Henrietta said, ‘Careful, it’s an heirloom,’ sounding just like her mother.

  ‘You can carry it then, on Liberty.’

  ‘Very funny. Have you seen Phoeba today?’

  ‘No.’ He carefully put the parcel in a box with all its little hanging bowls and plates and carried it outside to the wagon, his sister shadowing him. It was the movement that caught their eye. The bare arm grabbing the drapes in Rudolph Steel’s rooms, wrenching them together, and Phoeba’s face. Hadley and Henrietta looked straight back into her bold dark eyes as she looked down. Then her head fell back and the drapes closed.

  The box tipped in Hadley’s hands but Henrietta reached and caught it. Inside, the epergne tinkled. Hadley straightened himself, gesturing, it’s all right, I am all right. Henrietta put the box safely on the wagon.

  ‘Go and start lunch, Henri,’ said Hadley, ‘before Mother comes down.’

  ‘Hadley, Phoeba’s—’

  ‘Just leave me.’

  He led Spot to the stables, gave him a bag of oats, filled his water trough, slapped his rump and said, ‘Patience, old boy.’ Then he sat on the feed box and watched his tears drop into the powdery dust among the wheat grains and dry stalks, the flecks and chaff, the stalks and wisps of wool.

  Phoeba felt herself locked with Rudolph Steel and knew this was what life was all about, being entwined, flesh on flesh, limb through limb. What a bizarre and ridiculous thing to do, she thought. And how glorious it was, how undignified, messy and soft. The ugliness of men, but so beautiful if you loved them. This was delicious.

  Later that afternoon, Robert was pottering in his wine cellar. He slapped a pair of leather gloves together to shake out the spiders, and placed them next to the grape bins. He gathered up the shears and secateurs and turned to his sharpening stone as Phoeba’s shadow slowly filled the door. Her expression was strangely hard.

  ‘Lilith wants to come home. But the vineyard will still be mine, won’t it?’ She was calm, precise.

  ‘Everything we have and everything we could be – the future – depends on the grapes, Phoeba.’ He took off his pith hat and brushed something from the top of it.

  ‘Dad, look me in the eye and tell me what will happen to me if Marius lives here.’

  He looked at her. His nose was purple against his smoke-stained moustache. She saw him now, clearly, a pressured man, a drinker, fast-hearted, the kind of man who had apoplectic fits and fell dead.

  ‘I have spent everything, given everything for these grapes. My neighbours think I’m mad, my wife hates me for them and you tell me you are the best person to make the most of them. Someone must make the very best of them because I have nothing left to invest in them.’ He pointed at the vineyard. ‘The money we’ll get from these grapes is the only money we have. Now Marius has a bit, which we need, and contacts too. We’re on the edge here, Phoeba. I can’t afford to turn him down.’ He pushed his foot to the treadle and the sharpening stone revolved. The blade pressed against the stone filling the shed with an abrasive noise that put her teeth on edge and made her fists clench. Her father was selling her out.

  At least she could lie in her bed reliving every gesture, every touch, the tumbles and the kisses. Her skin was rough with gooseflesh and she tossed as images came to her, flashes of skin, the smells and sounds, textures and wetnesses. She wondered at the human body and smiled and buried her head in her pillow and groaned knowing how bold she had been. She had been very, very reluctant to leave when it was clear they could stay no longer. But Marius was banging on the door, thumping up and down the halls searching for Rudolph, and Lilith was screeching in her room. She had known Marius would go to the stables to check for the Holstein, and that he would see Spot. And she hadn’t wanted Lilith to know she was there.

  Rudolph was more than she had ever imagined.

  Tuesday, February 13, 1894

  Maude shot from her bed on Tuesday to be at her spot on the front veranda with a cup of tea, her knitting and the looking glass when the tabletop wagon, piled high with Mrs Titterton’s belongings, travelled back to Elm Grove. Hadley led in the Hampden and Henrietta bobbed along far behind. At the intersection Henrietta raised her hat and waved up at Mount Hope. Maude whipped the telescope behind her chair and said in a cheery voice, ‘Well, Mrs Titterton has made her bed.’

  Phoeba stayed quiet with her wrap pulled tightly. Birds lifted and fluttered behind her father as he moved unsteadily along the vines. He picked grapes at random and held them up to the light, rubbing them on his lapel and peering at them closely. He ate one and spat it out, his face screwing from the bitter taste.

  ‘Sampling,’ said Phoeba, quoting her father, ‘and you, Miss Grape-Expert, will begin sampling.’

  ‘What?’ said Maude.

  ‘Nothing.’

  The noon train came and went and a huge passenger steamer rolled gently out to sea leaving a black smear in the sky. Spot lifted his head and studied her down his black nose – she wondered what he thought about all the coming and going.

  The world moved along as always, yet everything had altered. Some people only ever got some of the things they wanted, sometimes. She’d had two days of everything she wanted; a room of her own, a future growing grapes, Rudolph, and now she wasn’t sure if what remained would still remain tomorrow. She might become extraneous.

  Her mother put a sandwich in front of her. ‘Your face will stay creased if the wind changes,’ she said, retreating again behind the screen door.

  But Phoeba’s brooding hadn’t run its course. In the afternoon she watched a swaggie come up the lane from the siding and then suddenly the Hampden turned at the intersection and sped up the lane, Henrietta at the reins and Hadley by her side. The trailing dust floated gently and settled on the vines. Phoeba sighed, bracing herse
lf for Hadley’s hurt, Henrietta’s disapproval. She had spent one day with a married man, right under their noses. If that had ruined everything, if they hated her, then that was the way it would be.

  It was when they didn’t stop to give the swaggie a lift – he jerked a clenched fist at them – that she knew something else had happened. Henrietta circled the yard sharply. There was a weary slump to Hadley’s shoulders as he came towards her but his face was calm. Henrietta strode across the yard, the rim of her felt hat pushed back and her boots kicking her hem. ‘Hadley has been disregarded. Mr Titterton has taken Elm Grove. He’s going to build a new house and everything.’

  ‘It’s all right, Henri, really it is.’ Hadley looked straight at Phoeba and she saw no judgment in his gaze. ‘I have my wool classing certificate and …’ – he took his hat off and slapped it on his knee – ‘… and I have a position up north.’ His moustache was thicker than it had been at New Year, waxed now and twisted at the ends.

  ‘But it’s only for a year,’ cried Henrietta, desperately. And ‘there’s a drought up there —’

  ‘They may keep me on if I’m satisfactory,’ said Hadley defensively.

  It was all so unfair. Phoeba let her head drop, her tears rolling down her nose onto her folded arms while Hadley and his sister sat miserably on either side of her on the battered wicker lounge.

  ‘No matter what,’ said Henrietta, taking Phoeba’s hand, ‘we’ll look after each other.’ Hadley took her other hand and said, ‘No matter what.’

  Aunt Margaret was right when she said all you needed was a friend.

  They were still there, a short time later, and looked up as one when the britzka turned into the yard with Marius at the reins and Lilith beside him. She was wearing a ridiculous new hat with a nautical theme and she sailed up the front steps. ‘You three look as if the world’s about to end. You should count your blessings: at least you have a home.’

  Marius hesitated as he passed but no one, not even Hadley, greeted him. Without a word, they followed him to the kitchen. Maude was eating a sandwich. She fussed over Marius: did he want tea? Coffee? Cake?