Elianne

by Nunn, Judy

  Looking up, he caught her eye and smiled as if sharing the moment.

  ‘You are with child?’ He gestured at the short smock she wore over her gown, beneath which the swelling of her belly was virtually invisible.

  Ellie’s instinctive reaction was again one of shock. No gentleman would ever ask such a question, if indeed he were to notice or suspect her pregnancy, which most would not. It seems that since his marriage the islander in Pavi has all but obliterated the Frenchman, she thought. Then, once again she heard Beatrice’s voice, sharper this time. Dear me, how very strait-laced you have become, Ellie. Pavi’s code of etiquette may differ from yours, but that does not make him wrong. You are behaving like those self-righteous expatriates, French and English both, all of whom you know I abhor.

  Feeling duly chastened, Ellie answered his question with an honesty that surprised her. ‘Yes, I am with child,’ she said, ‘and I am hoping for a girl.’ She had never made the admission out loud for fear of annoying Big Jim. ‘If it should prove to be so I intend to call her Beatrice.’

  ‘What an excellent idea,’ Pavi replied, and they shared a smile.

  Ellie blessed her mother for having come to her rescue. She chastised herself also. Had she changed since she’d come to Queensland? If so, this was a timely reminder. I must never lose sight of the example Beatrice set, she told herself.

  Over the ensuing months the Salet family embraced their new life at Elianne. Pavi loved his work. The giant Clydesdales became family to him just as Ellie had predicted they would, and if one appeared even slightly off colour he would sleep the night in the stables on a fresh straw bed he’d made up for the purpose. The horses responded in kind. They loved their new friend, and would lower their huge heads to him, snorting and nuzzling their affection.

  Mela loved everything about her new life. She loved her house and her stove and her garden, and most particularly she loved the companionship her job as laundry maid offered. Twice a week she would report to the Durham family home, Malou dangling from one hip, and there, hunched over the big tin tubs in the shed out the back, she would happily scrub away at the Boss’s work clothes and the household linen. She washed very few of Mrs Ellie’s clothes, however, Mrs Ellie preferring to do her own.

  ‘I need to feel useful at something, Mela,’ Ellie would say.

  The two women would hang the washing out on the clothesline together, Ellie insisting on lending a hand with the linen. They would chat companionably while little Edward and Malou crawled about at their feet.

  The presence of Pavi and his family was the salve Ellie had longed for. She enjoyed Mela’s company far more than the company of the white women with whom she socialised on her trips into town. Jim had always insisted she accompany him when the occasion included other men’s wives.

  ‘It’s good for business,’ he would say, ‘and besides I like being the envy of every man present.’ He would invariably add, ostensibly as a joke, ‘Of course I would kill any whose envy overstepped the mark,’ but they would both know he was not joking at all.

  The fact that he was not joking proved socially inhibiting for Ellie. She often longed to join in the men’s conversation, which was interesting, but in order to avoid trouble she limited herself to the wives’ conversation, which was not. The wives did little else but gossip about others, and she had nothing to contribute even had she wished to. They were the wives of Bundaberg businessmen with whom Big Jim had dealings, and the various subjects of their gossip were for the most part unknown to her. She supposed this was the way the women alleviated the boredom of living in a man’s world where little was required of them, but she found them shallow. Did they never read books?

  Ellie knew the wives in turn found her aloof, which was hardly surprising. They may even have believed that, as the wife of James Durham and the mistress of Elianne, she considered herself grand, which was certainly not the case. It’s a pity, she had thought. She would have liked a female friend.

  She now had one in the form of Mela, and Mela’s gossip was far more engaging than that of the wives. Mela would chatter on cheerfully about her new friends, the German brothers who worked at the slaughter yards and ran the butchery, and the Kanaka family at the dairy, old Willie who gave her seedlings and cuttings for her garden, and his daughter Molly, one of the dairymaids who was shortly to marry her beau. Ellie found it interesting that Mela herself should adopt the blanket term ‘Kanaka’. Clearly the word was in such common usage that its meaning had become bland, even to those who should rightfully find it offensive. She decided as a matter of principle to avoid its use nonetheless.

  Ellie was grateful that her pregnancy, now obvious, precluded her from social outings. Jim made his trips to Bundaberg without her these days and she was left to enjoy Mela’s company and the rapidly developing bond between their respective sons.

  ‘Edward and Malou will grow up together,’ Mela said. She had come out of the laundry hut and caught Ellie fondly watching their babies who, now approaching toddler stage, stood and tottered and fell, each competing to stay up the longest and stagger the farthest distance. ‘They will grow up and become best friends, just like you and Pavi, Mrs Ellie.’

  ‘They will, Mela, they will.’ The fact that Mela appeared to have read her mind did not surprise Ellie. Despite her carefree, outgoing nature, Mela was a highly perceptive young woman. Our boys will indeed grow up together, Ellie thought, and I shall see that Malou is taught to read and write just as Pavi was. They will be friends for the whole of their lives.

  Ellie had come to accept that her friendship with Pavi could never be as it once had been. Despite her request, he never called her Ellie. She remained Mrs Ellie always, even on the odd occasion when they found themselves alone. Perhaps he was fearful he might be overheard, or perhaps wary that the familiar use of her name might become a habit that could catch him out, although he appeared to her neither fearful nor wary. She never queried his reasons and she never pushed him further, accepting the decision as his. But the bond of the past was still there, resting unspoken between them. It surfaced most strongly when she visited the stables.

  To Pavi and Ellie stables had always been special places. On her father’s plantation they had shared their love of horses and stables both. Ellie had grown to love even the smell of a stable, the pungent mix of dung and hay and harness leather, and now here at Elianne, during the height of the crushing season, she loved the very busyness of the place. She would stand quietly watching Pavi and his stablehand as they mixed the general feed, and then as they made up the endless feed bags to be taken out into the field at dawn for the following day’s harvest. Or at the end of the work day she would watch as they watered the returning horses and brushed them down meticulously, Pavi inspecting each one for any possible injury. The stables, like the mill itself and like the cane fields, was an essential link in the chain during the hectic months of the crushing season.

  From time to time Pavi would look up from his work to meet her eyes and the silence between them would say everything. Their silence was enough. They had no need of words. Such moments were precious.

  In November, when Ellie’s time came, there was a doctor on hand as there had been for Edward’s delivery and also a woman with nursing experience to assist. Ingrid Kearn was a local farmer’s wife and lived on the estate, but the doctor had been transported from Bundaberg several days earlier and accommodated at the Durham family home while they awaited the event.

  Alfred Benson, general practitioner, had delivered baby Edward and he couldn’t help feeling guilty at once again so deserting his other patients, but James Durham had made him such a generous offer that once again it had been impossible to refuse. Indeed, had the good doctor been forced to hold up at the Durham home for a full two weeks’ wait, the daily rate of his incarceration would have been five times more than he would have earned in town. As it turned out, he was only required to be there three days, which was a blessing, or perhaps a disappointment.

 
James Durham, as before, had spared no expense. He intended to take no chances with the birth of this his second son. His expectations, however, were thwarted. The child was a girl.

  Big Jim returned from his morning’s work at the mill around midday to discover his wife had given birth. He had rather expected that she might for she’d been suffering some discomfort when he’d left the house at dawn, but he’d had no wish to be around during the process. The messy business of childbirth was the realm of women and doctors.

  The doctor met him at the front door. ‘Your wife gave birth two hours ago,’ he said, ‘and Mrs Kearn is tending to her. She and the child are both well.’

  Two hours ago, Jim thought. How strange. Why didn’t they send news to the mill?

  The doctor followed him inside. ‘You are the father of a baby girl, Mr Durham,’ he announced.

  Jim stopped mid-stride in the sitting room, the doctor all but colliding with him. A girl . . . That’s why they didn’t send a messenger, he thought, they didn’t wish to be the purveyor of such ill tidings. He cursed his own stupidity. How unrealistic he’d been. He’d had his heart so set on another son that somehow he had never considered the child might be a girl. The outcome was hardly Ellie’s fault, however. He must do his best to disguise his disappointment. She was young and healthy: there would be other sons.

  He strode out of the sitting room and down the hall towards the master bedroom, the doctor following hastily, trying to keep up.

  ‘The child is healthy, Mr Durham,’ Alfred Benson said, doing his best not to appear as if he were scuttling, ‘although there is one complication . . .’

  ‘Ellie, my darling.’ Upon entering the room to discover his wife propped up against the pillows of the four-poster bed, Ingrid Kearn standing capably by, Jim ignored the doctor. A lace bedjacket was about Ellie’s shoulders, her hair was freshly brushed from her face and, though wan and exhausted, she was as beautiful as he had ever seen her. Their child, wrapped in a baby blanket, lay asleep in her arms. What matter that it is a girl? he thought. She will be a beauty like her mother, a princess to bear the Durham name.

  ‘A girl, Doctor Benson tells me,’ he said, sitting carefully on the side of the bed, wary of disturbing mother and child. ‘I have a feeling you will not be too disappointed with the outcome,’ he added wryly.

  ‘Oh Jim, I must admit that I am not.’ Ellie was deeply relieved to discover that he was not angry. ‘I have so longed for a daughter. The next child will be a son, I promise,’ she added, hoping her admission was not cause for annoyance.

  ‘Of course.’ He smiled. ‘And in the meantime, Elianne has a new little princess.’

  He reached out his hand in order to peel back the blanket and see his daughter’s face, at which point the doctor tried once again to offer a cautionary word.

  ‘As I said, Mr Durham, there is a complication –’

  Too late. ‘What’s wrong with her mouth?’ Jim barked. His expression was a mixture of horror and disgust as he gazed at the puckered hole where the baby’s upper lip should have been. ‘Good God, what’s happened to her mouth? She’s deformed.’

  Alfred Benson and Ingrid Kearn exchanged uneasy glances. They themselves had been startled by the sight upon the child’s delivery.

  ‘It is known as a hare lip, Mr Durham,’ Alfred explained, maintaining a strictly professional tone while trying to mask a growing nervousness. ‘The child has suffered a birth defect that is not altogether uncommon. She also has a cleft palate, which as I have explained to your wife will inhibit her feeding, given that the sucking and breathing mechanism is altered, but in the long term . . .’

  Jim stood to tower threateningly over the doctor. ‘You said she was healthy.’

  ‘She is, Mr Durham, she is.’ Professional ethics forced Alfred to stand his ground although he longed to back away. ‘The abnormality of cleft palate and harelip is not life threatening. As I said, the condition will inhibit feeding initially, and later there will be speech impairment, but your daughter can be expected to live a normal life –’

  ‘My daughter is deformed.’ Big Jim’s voice was cold and his rage contained, which if anything made him even more frightening. ‘You said “abnormality” Doctor. Abnormality is not healthy. You said she would live a “normal life”. A life with physical disfigurement and speech impairment is not normal, my friend –’

  ‘Stop it, Jim,’ Ellie interrupted, ‘stop it, I beg you. Doctor Benson is hardly responsible for the defect that has been inflicted upon poor little Beatrice.’

  Beatrice. So the child already had a name. ‘And how do you feel about this defect that has been inflicted upon your daughter, Ellie?’

  Ellie looked down at the baby in her arms. She had had two hours to adjust to the sight of the deformity, two hours during which she had examined every perfect little finger and every perfect little toe and had felt the fierce clasp of her daughter’s tiny hand. ‘I shall love her all the more for it,’ she said.

  ‘I see.’ Jim nodded briskly to the woman standing by the bedside. ‘Well, I shall leave you in the good hands of Mrs Kearn,’ he said, then to Alfred Benson, ‘I will arrange a driver and buggy to take you to the punt, Doctor, and you will invoice me as agreed, yes?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Durham. Mrs Kearn will visit daily over the next week or so to check on the child’s progress, and should there appear any problems, do send word.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Ellie asked as he turned to leave.

  ‘To have lunch, my dear,’ he replied, ‘after which I shall return to the mill. As I’m sure you’re aware, Doctor,’ he said, turning to Alfred, ‘with a further month of the crushing season ahead of us, we are extremely busy.’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ Alfred replied, relieved to no longer be the focus of the man’s fury.

  For the remainder of the crushing season, Big Jim successfully avoided the sight of his latest offspring. He distracted himself by toiling long hours at the mill, and by roaming the plantation, checking on the teams of cane cutters and field workers, although the overseers appointed to the task were more than competent. Over-work and fatigue and the gnawing knowledge of exactly what it was he was avoiding found him constantly irritable. Workers lived in fear of the Boss’s unexpected appearance.

  ‘Get up, you lazy bastards,’ he screamed on one occasion when he came upon a team of six Kanaka cane cutters taking a well-earned break. ‘What do you think I pay you for?’ Grasping a man by the collar of his heavy work shirt with one hand and his belt with the other, Big Jim picked him up bodily, lifted him above his head, and hurled him into the wall of uncut cane a full five yards away. The man fell to the ground with an ominous crack of bone. ‘Work, you black bastards, work,’ Big Jim yelled, whirling on the others who’d already jumped to their feet. He stormed off, leaving the team thrashing away with their cane knives in a frenzy of labour until, assured he was gone, they could tend to their friend’s broken arm. Word quickly got about after that. ‘Watch out for the Boss,’ they warned each other.

  The delaying tactics did not ultimately work in Big Jim’s favour, however. With the crushing over, the slack season followed and he could no longer avoid his home and the baby his wife so doted upon.

  Ellie appeared to have no idea that the sight of her precious daughter was repulsive to him. She has become inured to her child’s deformity, he thought. He found it disgusting that a woman of Ellie’s beauty should dote on something so grotesque. The fact bewildered him. Why nurture such a creature? he thought. The child will grow to look ugly, she will grow to sound ugly, what value will she have to herself or anyone else? What value does any woman have without at least some shred of comeliness?

  It was early one morning in mid-December that Ellie discovered little Beatrice dead in her cot. Through habit, she awoke at dawn and rose to feed the child, wondering why Beatrice herself was not already awake and demanding to be fed. At first the baby appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but the moment
Ellie picked her up she knew. Her demented wail echoed throughout the house.

  Big Jim appeared instantly from the bedroom across the hall. They slept in separate rooms while she was breast-feeding.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, concerned to see his wife on her knees on the floor, the child cradled in her arms, frantically rocking it from side to side. ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded.

  ‘She’s not breathing,’ Ellie screamed hysterically, ‘she’s not breathing, she’s not breathing,’ and she rocked the baby’s body back and forth ever more fiercely as if the sheer force of movement might put breath back into its lifeless form.

  As Big Jim knelt beside her, another figure appeared at the open door, the housekeeper, awakened by her mistress’s screams, tying the cord of her dressing gown and watching with horror.

  Jim clasped his wife firmly by the shoulders. ‘Stop it, Ellie,’ he ordered, ‘stop it,’ and obediently she halted her frenzied rocking. He took the baby from her, Ellie relinquishing it freely.

  ‘Bring her back, Jim! Bring her back,’ she said frantically, desperately, over and over. ‘Bring her back. Bring her back.’

  He looked at the child, who was quite clearly dead. ‘I can’t Ellie. She’s gone.’

  Taking her arm, Jim tried to assist her to her feet, but Ellie would have none of it. ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘no, no,’ and reaching out she snatched the baby from him, hugging the body close, sobbing now, hysteria replaced by anguish as her mind was forced to acknowledge the inescapable truth.

  Jim stood. He signalled the housekeeper, who came forward and gently coaxed her mistress to rise.

  ‘Come along, Mrs Ellie,’ Bertha said, ‘come along and sit down.’

  Ellie stood, allowing herself to be led to a chair, where she sat cradling little Beatrice.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘What went wrong?’ She looked up at her husband and the housekeeper, her eyes begging answers. ‘I fed her only three hours ago. She was all right then. What happened? What did I do wrong?’