Land of Golden Wattle

by J. H. Fletcher

  Conan couldn’t wait.

  1913

  ‘What d’you mean, I can’t?’

  Bec Hampton was distraught. Confronted by unfairness in the form of a stubborn-mouthed dad, she had nowhere to turn.

  ‘We had it all planned,’ she said. She was close to tears, and Bec was not the weepy type. ‘You said you didn’t care what I did,’ she accused. ‘Washed your hands of me: that’s what you said.’

  ‘A father’s got responsibilities,’ Dad said.

  ‘But we love each other.’

  Bec saw she was wasting her breath, as she was when later she ran to her mother.

  Mrs Hampton, who had come out with her sister from Home in the days when that mattered and had never got used to the idea of colonial living or her brawling, brawny husband, blinked short-sightedly and was no help. She said nothing of the visit they’d had from Mrs Penrose, which she suspected might have had something to do with her husband’s change of heart, but the man was head of the household, was he not, and she would no more have thought of querying his decision than of doubting the vicar, whose spiritual guidance gave such comfort.

  ‘Your father thinks it’s best you should wait,’ she said.

  ‘Wait for what?’ Bec said.

  ‘When you’re of age you can make your own decisions.’

  No consolation there. Five years was an eternity to sixteen-year-old Bec; besides, there was always the fear that if they had to delay so long Jonathan might change his mind.

  Jonathan, when she pleaded with him, was no help either. He would have done something had it been possible but it was not.

  ‘It is the law,’ he said.

  ‘I hate the stupid law,’ Bec said.

  How she wished something would happen to change her situation. Wishing was useless; she knew that. Therefore she prayed to God, if he was there and willing to help. She was prepared to believe God had created the world and everything in it, fire and storm, but they were the big things; she doubted he would have the time to sort out what to him must surely be an insignificant matter.

  ‘Not so insignificant to me,’ she told him.

  She might have promised to live a holy life if he helped her now but decided against it, fearing that might be interpreted as an attempt to bribe. She prayed anyway, doggedly but with little hope.

  The rain, at first welcome after a prolonged period of drought, began three weeks later. Tin roofs rang with the percussion of the rain. Gullies that had been dry for months dribbled, spouted and overflowed, spilling water across the thirsty paddocks which became inundated in time. Creeks rose.

  All across the high country the land was submerged. Water seeped relentlessly or erupted in thunderbursts of spray and roaring flood. Windblown trees streamed. Placid rivers became torrents yet their sound failed to drown the hammer blows of the rain, which continued to fall. Roads became impassable.

  Livestock drowned, their carcasses swept away. Hilltop homesteads became islands. Grandma Jane Hampton’s cottage was inundated but miraculously stood firm. Not everyone was so lucky; of many low-lying properties nothing but the roofs could be seen, with many destroyed altogether.

  Some families, seeking foolishly to escape in carts piled high with possessions, were swept away by the unrelenting floods. Some escaped; some drowned.

  People rallied round, as people do. Teams of women in canvas shelters handed mugs of tea and mutton sandwiches to refugees from inundated houses. Men in shiny slickers set out in boats, bringing back people and dogs and chooks and reporting others trapped in trees. Unpredictable currents swirled the boats this way and that, sometimes tipping the occupants into the mud-brown froth, to be hauled to safety, swearing and spitting, by the men in other boats.

  One boat, seized by a vicious undertow, plunged over a freshly formed waterfall below which the stream swirled in sucking eddies. The boat, upside down, vanished downstream, eventually coming to rest in a nest of willow branches. Two of those in the boat, one the blacksmith from Waldren’s Corner, drowned.

  A decent interval was necessary if scandal were to be avoided but a month after the funeral Jonathan came and talked to Bec’s mother.

  ‘A terrible tragedy, of course, but you must be so proud.’

  His words were chosen for the occasion but as he uttered them Jonathan watched Mary Hampton apprehensively. Bec’s mother had always been timid and Bec had warned that the loss of her husband, bully though he had been, might have put her over the edge. But no. The shock had been undeniable, that a man who every day had triumphed over flame and iron should have been destroyed by water, but the effect on his widow was different from Bec’s expectations.

  Dominated by others all her life, Mary Hampton’s willpower had lain dormant. Now, of necessity, she coaxed it into being and for the first time discovered she was capable of making decisions for herself.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your loss,’ Jonathan said. ‘A true hero, died helping others.’

  ‘At least I won’t be gettin’ no more black eyes,’ Mary said. ‘There’s that, I s’pose.’

  That almost threw Jonathan but he battled on.

  ‘He saved my father’s life, you know.’

  ‘Worst day’s work he ever done,’ Mary said.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Showed him what he was capable of. Spent the rest of his life trying to live up to the idea that he really was a hero but never managed it. That business in South Africa: I reckon that was just a fluke. Then to get drowned the way he did… Didn’t make no sense but he would go. Never mind me. Had to prove what a brave bloke he was. Fat lot of good it did him.’

  ‘What are you planning to do?’

  ‘Go to my sister in Hobart. We always got on; I reckon she’ll have me. But that’s not why you’re here, is it? You want to know what I’m gunna do about my Bec.’

  Her attitude was far from what he’d expected. Bec had said talking her round would be a formality; now he was not so sure.

  ‘Mr Hampton thought she was too young to know her own mind,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that’s right.’

  ‘She’s not seventeen yet. That’s young.’

  ‘Not too young to know what she wants.’

  The ghost of a smile. ‘She’s always known that. Don’t mean she’s always been right, though.’

  ‘If you speak to her –’

  ‘I will. Don’t you worry about that.’ Mary’s eyes, bird-bright, scoured him. ‘You done good, coming to see me.’

  ‘Not such a monster,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘Never thought you were. But with you she’d have a different life from what’s she’s used to. Bein’ rich is all very well but I ask myself whether that’ll make her happy.’

  ‘That won’t,’ he said. ‘But loving me and being loved by me will.’

  ‘And you don’t want to wait five years.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Maybe I’d have done better for myself if I had,’ Mary said. ‘And what does your grandma say?’

  ‘She wants me to marry a government official’s daughter.’

  ‘Got her head screwed on, that one. Can’t go far wrong marryin’ a government official’s daughter.’

  ‘Except that I want to marry a blacksmith’s daughter.’

  ‘You willin’ to go against your grandma in this?’

  ‘If I have to.’

  ‘She’s a tough one.’

  ‘I’m tougher.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Very soon, I hope.’

  ‘You want to marry my underage daughter, you got to wait on my say-so, don’t you?’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Long as it takes.’

  ‘Well?’ said Bec.

  ‘She says she’ll think about it.’

  ‘What’s there to think about?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I’ll go and see her,’ Bec said. ‘I’ll sort her out.’

  ‘Be careful. She’s discovered she can make up her
own mind about things and I think she’s enjoying it.’

  ‘Just so long as her decision’s the right one.’

  Prim hat and button boots, Bec Hampton marched purposefully down the road to the old forge. The floods had subsided but the signs were everywhere – scoured earth, wrecked trees, the smell of death where some animal had been swallowed by the mud – but Bec was determined to be cheerful. The sun was shining, the creeks and dams were full and the lush countryside was already recovering.

  ‘This year and next,’ Bec said to the bright air. ‘1913 and 1914. They’ll be good years. They’ll be the best.’

  ‘So you’re planning on changing your name,’ Mum said.

  ‘Soon as I can,’ Bec said.

  Mercifully the cottage and forge had escaped the floods although the forge fire, for the first time Bec could remember, was out. The cottage already had the forlorn look of a house about to be abandoned.

  ‘What will you do now Dad’s gone?’ Bec asked.

  ‘Sing Alleluia,’ Mary said. ‘I’m beginning to realise what I’ve been missing all these years.’

  ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘Go and stay with your Auntie Mavis, I reckon.’

  ‘You’re still young,’ Bec said. ‘You might want to marry again.’

  ‘Not me,’ Mary said. ‘Once bitten twice shy.’

  Bec sipped her tea, strong enough to melt the cup.

  ‘What about me?’ she said.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Me and Jonathan?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  Bec squeezed up her face. ‘Please, Mum…’

  ‘What you want to get married for? Enjoy your freedom while you got it, my girl. That’s my advice to you.’

  Bec with her pleading look, saying nothing. Mary sighed.

  ‘Such a different way of life. You sure you’re up to it?’

  ‘Never know till I try, will I?’

  ‘Bein’ rich is nice but it’s not everything. Happiness is what matters.’

  ‘Happiness and love.’

  ‘The old girl won’t like it, you know that? She’ll make your life a misery.’

  ‘She’ll try. I won’t let her.’

  ‘Easily said.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Bec said. ‘I really won’t.’

  They watched each other: the daughter pleading yet certain, the mother doubtful. But doubt yielded in the end.

  ‘All right then. I won’t stop you. But don’t blame me if the wheels come off.’

  The next day Mrs Bessie Penrose turned up in her posh motor. When Mary Hampton went out of the cottage to see her, the chauffeur gave her a haughty look but said nothing – that Bennett had been a snooty bugger from the day he arrived. The air was vibrating around Mrs Penrose’s head in the back seat but she leant forwards with a smile that would have pole-axed a bull.

  ‘I came to ask how you were coping.’

  ‘Good. Thank you for asking.’ Mary spoke politely but as between equals; the frightened Mrs Hampton of old had been buried alongside her husband. ‘And you? Did you lose much stock in the floods?’

  If Bessie was surprised by Mary’s temerity in asking such a thing – and in such a way – she concealed it well. ‘We were fortunate,’ she said. She spoke to Mr Bennett, who came and opened the car door for her. She stepped out. ‘I wonder if I might have a word with you?’

  And led the way up the path to the cottage.

  ‘Please yourself, I’m sure,’ said the new Mary Hampton to the silk-clad back. Which showed no sign of having heard.

  Inside the cottage Mrs Penrose looked about her, seeming to fill the room. ‘Did your late husband mention the money he owed me?’

  Perhaps she had thought the direct approach might frighten Mrs Hampton; if that was so, she was disappointed.

  ‘First I heard of it,’ Mary said.

  ‘Three hundred pounds.’

  ‘First I heard of it,’ Mary repeated. ‘Got a piece of paper, have you?’

  In the old days she would never have dared ask such a question.

  ‘It was an understanding between friends.’

  ‘Between friends? I see.’ Calm face; calm voice.

  ‘I understand you have given your daughter permission to marry my grandson.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Even though she is under age.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘As to the money you owe me, I was hoping we could come to an amicable arrangement. I would not be ungenerous.’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t know nothin’ about it.’

  ‘The last thing I want is to get lawyers involved.’

  The old Mary Hampton might have trembled; not the new one. ‘Without no piece of paper, I don’t see what anyone can do,’ she said. ‘Lawyers or no lawyers.’

  ‘I see you are determined to marry your daughter off to a rich man. I had thought better of you.’

  ‘You must think what you want,’ said Mary Hampton.

  Later, after Bessie Penrose had swept out, outrage in every curve, Mary Hampton thought about the husband who had imprisoned her and in dying set her free. Now the daughter too would be gone to what the world would call a good marriage. Well, time would tell.

  In the meantime, for the first time she could remember, she would have a life.

  After leaving the blacksmith’s cottage Bessie instructed Bennett to drive her to Campbell Town, where the family’s legal adviser had his rooms.

  Fortunately Mr Miller was able to see her at once. Defying arthritis, Bessie marched into the lawyer’s office and plonked herself down in the chair facing him.

  ‘Mr Miller, I wish you to explain to me my rights under the Derwent family trust.’

  It was not Bessie’s way to indulge in small talk, nor did she believe in wasting time. Twenty minutes after entering Mr Miller’s office she was on her way back to Derwent, grimly delighted by what the lawyer had told her.

  Seated in the Ford she reviewed the situation. The three hundred pounds was lost. That was obvious but of little consequence. However, if Rebecca Hampton believed she had got the better of Bessie Penrose she could think again.

  She revisited her conversation with Mr Miller.

  ‘Am I right in believing that the estate’s assets are all tied up in the trust that was set up by my dear father?’

  ‘That is so, Mrs Penrose. Every yard of land and every business.’

  ‘And that, as trustee and principal beneficiary, I have total and unfettered control over all the trust’s assets and activities, including how the income is distributed among the beneficiaries at year’s end?’

  Mr Miller touched judicious fingertips together. ‘That is correct.’

  He opened his mouth to say more but Bessie was already on her feet.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Miller. That is what I wished to know. I will detain you no longer.’

  Now, her mind and resolution clear, she considered her options.

  She had her finger in every pie in the family and knew Jonathan had virtually no assets of his own, his only income coming from the trust. If he went ahead with this ridiculous marriage a significant reduction in his annual income could therefore be easily arranged. She would do it, too, to bring home to him what should have been obvious from the first: that defying his grandmother came at a cost. Coupled with Rebecca’s evident unsuitability Bessie thought it would not be long before he realised how foolish he had been. She was convinced that shortage of money would drive such a wedge between them that within a year the ill-omened marriage would be over.

  The car turned off the highway and began the steep climb to Derwent House.

  And if she were wrong? If, despite everything, the marriage survived?

  Bessie’s jaw was always set hard; now it was set harder than ever. All her adult life she had believed that Derwent’s future mattered more to her than anything else; now she discovered that was not so. Rather than risk the blacksmith’s daughter getting her hands on the estate after Bessi
e’s death she would wind up the trust and sell the assets for what they would get. One way or another, she was utterly determined that Rebecca Hampton would never win.

  Daffodils that had somehow survived the flood were in flower around the church, and there were more in the lawn at the back of Derwent House, a spring display to welcome the bride.

  Escorted down the aisle by Constable Painter, whose wife had pushed him into lending the proceedings not merely a hand but a complete arm, Bec looked out of the corner of her eye at the handful of people making up the congregation and felt disbelief, apprehension, but above all an overwhelming joy that she was about to realise the dream that had been hers for as long as she could remember.

  During the big flood, water had covered the church floor; the smell of damp still lingered but Bec didn’t care about that.

  Her mother was there, almost buried in a hat that looked like a giant cream cake, and Auntie Mavis and Grandma Jane Hampton with her crooked grin; so was Jonathan’s mother, who had spent most of the years since Daddo’s death hiding in her house in the Whitsundays but had come back especially for her son’s wedding; so too – surprisingly – was Bessie Penrose. Bessie had sworn she would never attend the humiliation of her grandson’s marriage to a child better suited to the scullery than the drawing room, but in the end had obviously decided that image was all and that family solidarity mattered even more than her personal likes and dislikes. Unless something had happened to make her change her mind.

  While Bessie, once again confident that she could prevent Rebecca from ever getting her hands on any of the Derwent assets, saw no reason why she should not attend her grandson’s wedding. Vengeance, after all, was a private matter.

  1982

  The Swissair flight put down at Zurich’s Kloten Airport at ten-fifteen in the morning local time beneath a grey and rain-spitting sky that exactly matched Bec’s mood. The flight had seemed forever.

  ‘You’ve borne up pretty well for such a decrepit old fossil,’ she told herself briskly. ‘So stop your fussing.’ She was no more inclined to put up with nonsense from herself than from anyone else. She had even managed an hour or two’s sleep during the flight but age was an undeniable burden and she couldn’t wait to get to her hotel.