‘We can’t even be sure it’s my grandson’s child, Mrs Harris.’
Bec was not the sort to ignore a comment like that. She collared the old bitch when she was alone.
‘I’d be a bit careful, Gran, I was you. You start makin’ remarks like that, there’s no way of knowin’ when they might come back and bite you. Ain’t that so?’
Bessie’s port-wine face showed what she thought of that. And in her own drawing room? Even the silk-lined curtains were aghast.
‘I’ve not breathed a word,’ Bec said. ‘Not so far. And I won’t, neither. Not so long as we understand each other.’
Never in a million years would she have imagined having the nerve to speak to Bessie Penrose like that, but she had done it and the world had not come to an end. It gave her the oddest feeling, like it must feel to be drunk, and she saw something she had never thought to see: that Bessie Penrose, terror of the high country, was frightened. Frightened of her. She saw too that Bessie would never forgive her for that and that she had been fooling herself to imagine the old lady would ever accept the blacksmith’s daughter as a fitting wife for her grandson. They would be enemies for life. Well, so be it: she no longer cared. It was not what she would have chosen but if that was the way it was going to be they would have to live with it.
‘Somen else I wanted to tell you,’ she said.
Bessie’s expression was pure hatred. ‘What is it now?’
‘I’ve invited me mum to come and stay for a few days. She used to work here, you remember. Mary Smith as was? She’ll be wanting to see her grandchild.’
‘You’ve invited her to stay here?’
‘No need for you to worry: I’ll sort something out with Mrs Harris.’
And left her, Bessie close to apoplexy. True to her word, Bec tracked the housekeeper to her lair adjoining the kitchen.
‘My mother will be coming to stay for a few days. I thought perhaps the Flinders room?’
Named for the famous navigator, the Flinders room was the grandest visitor’s room in the house. Mrs Harris’s expression was like a locked safe.
‘Very well, Mrs Penrose.’
Inside, Bec was smiling.
Mary Hampton arrived and made much of the baby. Bessie, carefully polite, was as welcoming as an ice floe in winter, but inside her head Bec’s smile was broader than ever.
There were other fights, more than Bec could count. Enmity simmered through the months and years, because Jonathan’s prognosis had proved wrong. The boys were not home for Christmas or the one following. The war dragged on with tales from those returning – many maimed in body or in mind – of horrors beyond imagining, of friends buried alive in mud or blown into rags by the endless shells – but somehow Jonathan survived, his letters as regular as moonrise and sunset, and it was only their lack of emotion that betrayed the horrors that lay behind the formal words.
I am well. The weather has been fine. Charlie Forsyth is dead.
The newspapers were full of it. There had been a huge battle at a place called Pozières, which no one had ever heard of. It must have been important even though apparently it didn’t exist any more; thousands of Aussies had died in capturing a piece of shell-cratered land that by the sound of it hadn’t been worth having in the first place.
‘I shall never understand this terrible war,’ Bec said, and thought of the mothers whose sons would never come home. ‘It’s not right. It can’t be right.’
She’d known one German, an outback trader, who’d had his donkey shod at the forge in the old days, and as far as she could remember he’d been all right. But now it seemed he was a Hun and therefore a devil and must be killed.
Bec and Grandma Bessie saw little of each other and said less, sensing that only through a shared silence could the form of civility be preserved.
More and more Bessie kept to her room. One day Mrs Johns, Bessie’s personal maid, came to Bec and said she was concerned for Bessie’s health. ‘She seems to be worried about something. Keeps saying she has to change the trust, or something like that. Wants me to get her lawyer. Poor old lady, I think she’s losing it.’
‘Hardly old, Mrs Johns. She’s not even sixty. I expect it’s just a dose of the wartime blues. We all get them from time to time. I’ll come and talk to her, find out what she’s on about.’
But when she went Bec was taken aback to see how Bessie had gone downhill in the week since she had last visited her. Even her scowl lacked the venom of the past.
‘What’s this about wanting to see your lawyer?’ Bec asked.
It was tricky because Mr Miller was off at the war like so many others. In any case Bessie did not seem to hear her.
‘My turn now,’ she said, her head restless on the pillow. ‘When he was dying my father said shadow walkers were watching him from the foot of his bed. Now it’s my turn.’
‘You’ll be good for years yet,’ Bec said. ‘But I can get the doctor to give you a look, if that’s what you want.’
Bessie was off in another world and did not answer. ‘I did what I could to stop you,’ she said. ‘I was determined you would never set foot in this house. But you beat me in the end.’
‘Time to put all that behind us,’ Bec said.
‘I’d have done it if you hadn’t found out about my mother. I hate her and I hate you. I’ll hate you till I die.’
‘That’s a pity,’ Bec said. What else was there to say?
But rage, no longer confined, had Bessie by the throat. ‘I’d have buried you, if I could. Buried you alive. Conan Hampton’s daughter lording it over Derwent? It’s intolerable. I hate you, you hear? Hate –’
And stopped. And gasped, breath dragging through open mouth.
Bec ran to the door.
‘Mrs Johns, send Bennett for the doctor. Quick as he can. Looks like Mrs Penrose has had a seizure.’
Mrs Johns ran. Bec went back into Bessie’s room. She crossed to the bed. One look told her all she needed to know. Bessie Penrose was beyond the help of doctors now.
Two doctors arrived with a policeman, their purpose not only to confirm that Bessie Penrose was dead but that her death had been caused by natural causes and could not be pinned on her grandson’s wife who after all had a lot to gain. Bec suspected the cop was disappointed that handcuffs would not be required but she gave him a cup of tea and he was mollified.
On their heels came a lawyer, from Melbourne Town no less. Self-importance in a tail coat, Mr Dominic Trueblood talked at her and did not try to conceal the contempt he felt for a woman endeavouring to interest herself in matters of business and law that were clearly beyond her understanding. He would not have tried such tricks with Grandma Bessie but she, admittedly a woman, had been one of a kind.
Bec did not try to hide her ignorance. ‘It is because I don’t understand that I would like you to explain things to me,’ she said.
It did little good.
‘It was Mrs Penrose’s wish that I should become involved in the affairs of the family trust.’
‘In what way involved?’
‘Mrs Penrose’s instructions were not clear. I was hoping she might have left a letter.’
‘I’ve seen no letter. In any case there is a trust already. My husband is one of the trustees, together with Mr Miller, a Campbell Town lawyer. You may have heard of him.’
Mr Trueblood’s manner made it plain that he had little regard for Campbell Town lawyers. ‘No doubt. But that is an entirely separate matter, you see. Mrs Bessie Penrose expressed the wish that I should oversee the running of the estate in her grandson’s absence,’ said Mr Trueblood, even by lawyers’ standards more opinionated than most.
‘She never said that to me,’ Bec said.
‘No doubt she thought it best not to trouble you with such matters,’ he said.
Bec might be ignorant of the law but was the woman who had rescued a child from a menacing bull at the Campbell Town show; she was not to be intimidated by a lofty lawyer in a black tail coat.
&
nbsp; ‘When did she tell you this?’
‘Some time ago. But I have no reason to believe she had changed her mind.’
‘Got a letter?’
‘Mrs Penrose did not believe in letters,’ said Dominic Trueblood. ‘She believed in trust.’
‘I have a copy of Mrs Penrose’s will appointing my husband Jonathan Penrose to administer Derwent’s affairs after her death,’ Bec said. ‘I believe in that.’ She smiled at the lawyer, secretly astonished how the words flowed so easily from her lips. ‘You say Mrs Penrose didn’t believe in letters. I do. I have a letter from my husband authorising me to act for him in his absence fighting for king and country. I believe in that. Nowhere have I found any reference to you, Mr Trueblood. Nor any reference to the family trust.’
Mr Trueblood was affronted. ‘My dear madam, you are surely not suggesting –’
‘I am suggesting nothing,’ Bec said. ‘I am stating facts.’
‘But Mrs Penrose, consider… You are young and inexperienced. How can you possibly hope to administer a property as complex as Derwent?’
‘It won’t be easy,’ Bec said. ‘That was why I was hoping you might help me by explaining all the things that I have to do, but I see that would be asking too much of you.’
Not so lofty now and anxious for his vanishing fees, Mr Trueblood did what he could to retrieve the position but it was too late. Bec thanked him for his assistance to the late Mrs Penrose but made it clear she would have no need for his services in the days ahead.
‘But madam, I assure you –’
‘Thank you, Mr Trueblood.’
There was a funeral to arrange which no doubt would be attended by the high and the haughty, who would stare at her and say how sorry they were for her loss and privately think she should be sent round to the kitchens where she would be more comfortable with the rest of the servants. There would need to be suitable refreshments for after the funeral, even accommodation for those who had come from far away.
She found herself wishing it was she who had died and not Bessie Penrose. At least Bessie would have known what to do. How was she ever going to cope?
She had to reply to the hundreds of condolence letters that came from everywhere. Even the prime minister wrote and you’d have thought Mr Hughes had enough on his plate with the war. She had been sending a weekly letter to Jonathan ever since he’d gone overseas; now she must write again once she had worked out what to say to him. In many ways Bessie had been an absolute monster but as ruler of Derwent she would be hard to replace.
All these things, scary though they were, were good in one way because Bec relished a challenge and knew this would be a hard one. It had never entered her head that she would have a say in running the estate but now, with Jonathan away and Bessie dead, she saw she would have to learn. And quickly too.
The offices of the Australian Farms and Produce Company were scrunched up and insignificant in a down-market Collingwood back street, with no money wasted on such fripperies as a coat of paint or smart furniture. The clerks were down at heel too, which was not surprising considering the level of their wages.
Lemaire Forrest, owner of the building, the company and, some said, everyone who worked for him, set his staff a fine example, being the most down at heel of them all; the jacket he wore might have been made back in 1874, the year of his birth.
Lemaire Forrest dressed poor but was one of the richest men in Victoria, hard-featured and merciless. Untouched by the tales of horror and courage at the front, he thought the war a blessing, giving the astute businessman opportunities to grab significant profits by supplying the military with wool for uniforms, with boots and winter underwear, not to mention providing a hungry home market with butter, mutton and cheese. It also provided him with the opportunity to pick up some choice properties in Victoria and Tasmania, the owners having been mowed down in Flanders or lost their sons in the same way.
‘Happy times,’ he told Hedley Crabbe, the solicitor who had tipped him off about Derwent.
‘The finest estate in the Tasmanian high country. One of the top merino producers in the Commonwealth.’
‘What about it?’
‘The owner died recently, her son is dead and her grandson, the heir, is fighting overseas.’
‘Who’s running it now? A manager?’
‘Better than that. The old lady’s granddaughter-in-law is having a go.’
‘Does she know what she’s doing?’
‘I doubt it. She’s nineteen years old with a baby and has never run a business or property like Derwent in her life.’
‘Check it out,’ Lemaire Forrest said. ‘See how the granddaughter gets on. If she makes a muck of it there could be an opportunity for us down the track. Particularly, heaven forbid, if the husband is killed.’
‘We can only hope,’ Crabbe said.
After she’d chucked Mr Trueblood out the door one of the first things Bec did was teach herself to drive Grandma Bessie’s Ford.
A motor car was still unusual enough to attract attention when she drove into Campbell Town or Ross and often she would come out of a shop and find it the centre of a crowd of urchins to whom she liked to introduce the motor as though it were a living person.
‘This is Buster,’ she would say to the children. And to the motor: ‘Say g’day to them, Buster,’ and would blow the horn and set them laughing before driving gaily away, one hand on the steering wheel, the other waving goodbye.
As Jonathan’s wife most people knew her, at least by sight, although not everyone approved of her or her antics. She overheard one lady, a member of the haughty brigade, talking to a friend.
‘One wonders what Bessie Penrose might have had to say about her behaviour.’
Bec didn’t care. ‘At heart I’m an urchin too.’
She liked to grab fun where she could find it because there wasn’t a lot about; the news from France was dire and she also had Derwent to run. To begin with that had been a nightmare.
After Bessie’s death she had been appalled to discover the extent of the Derwent operation. It was not simply the estate; in the years before the war Bessie had acquired an interest in a number of businesses: among them a cheese-making factory, a clothing manufacturer and an ironmonger in Launceston.
She found herself confronted by endless paper: returns, crop figures, sale futures of the merino clip, shipping contracts and sets of accounts. To begin with they were mostly incomprehensible to her.
And she, Bec Hampton the blacksmith’s daughter, had the cheek to think she could run such an operation? It was insanity; she told herself she could not hope to get the hang of it. Her courage ran away like water. There was no help for it; she would have to eat her pride and ask Mr Trueblood for help.
She thought about that. She slept on it. In the morning she told herself she was not Bec Hampton. She was Rebecca Penrose; she wasn’t Jill in the nursery rhyme either; no matter what, she would not come tumbling down the hill. The thought of Mr Trueblood’s smug expression was all the incentive she needed.
‘At least you know you don’t know,’ she told herself. ‘That’s a start. So find people who can help you. When you don’t know, ask.’ She heard sniggers of derision from the part of her that doubted but she became more and more resolute as the weeks passed and stamped the sniggers down. Each night before sleep she looked at her reflection in the bedroom mirror and told herself she was not afraid. It wasn’t true but the lie helped.
She gathered a team. It was expensive but the only way. She told the managers of the various farms making up the Derwent property to keep her up to date. Some of them were a bit toey about reporting to a woman but Bec made it plain they had no choice.
‘I think of us as a team,’ she said. ‘Until Mr Penrose comes home we all have to pull together. For his sake as well as ours.’
Lawyer Maurice Miller had been discharged from the army after taking a bullet through the arm in the trenches. Mort Meredith was a wool classer who knew the markets and the
world. He had no problem reporting to a woman; far from it, his warm eyes sending signals.
I shall have to watch him, Bec thought.
Jed James was the manager of the factory in Ross that made woollen garments. It was a small operation and she wondered whether perhaps it might be made bigger.
‘Sell things overseas when the war’s over,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
Andrew Rippon, an accountant who had recently opened a practice in Campbell Town, was a man who knew figures like a second language but also, thank the Lord, had a sense of humour and never pretended to be the smartest man in the room.
Finally there was the most important team player of all: Mrs Harrington, the kindly new housekeeper at Derwent House, whose job – a secret discussed between them over tea and crumpets one winter’s day – was to make Bec into a lady.
‘Or as close to it as you can get,’ Bec said. ‘Like it or not, I got to run this estate until Mr Penrose comes home from the war and that will mean mixing with all sorts. The prestige of Derwent is at stake,’ she said, making a joke of it but meaning it all the same.
The housekeeper assured her there was nothing to it but there were cursing and swearing days when Bec thought Mrs Harrington had the hardest job of all.
Six months later Crabbe got back to Forrest.
‘Disappointing news,’ he said. ‘The granddaughter seems to be handling things well. We’ve asked around but everyone says she’s doing a good job.’
‘And the grandson?’
‘Still breathing, the last I heard.’
Lemaire Forrest stroked his chin. ‘Does she know we’ve been sniffing around?’
‘Bound to have heard something. You can’t keep these things secret.’
‘No matter. There may be another opportunity, one of these days.’
1918–32
When Jonathan came back from the war Bec discovered that the man she had married had not survived after all, that part of the old familiar Jonathan had drifted off somewhere and never come home.
Land of Golden Wattle Page 36