Eagle on the Hill

by JH Fletcher

  His head went under the water. It was the best thing that could have happened; it took all the stuffing out of him. Alex turned him onto his back, as Charlie had taught her, and towed him around Brenda’s stern to the bank.

  Even then their troubles weren’t over. The bank was thick with mud and laced with roots that overhung them like a crayfish trap, making it impossible to climb out. But at least their feet were on the bottom; they wouldn’t drown, or not for the moment. Slopping and slipping, sliding and squelching, they made their way along the bank until they reached a clearer section and were finally able to crawl out onto dry land.

  Alex lay face down on the earth. Twigs and leaves pressed into her cheek. She was light-headed, but soon realised she was cold too, through and through. She told herself to get up, but found it too hard to be bothered.

  ‘Get up, dammit!’ she told herself.

  Still she did not move.

  She turned over and found her parents staring down at her in horror. Before she knew it her father had grabbed her, along with the boy whose existence she had almost forgotten. A child dangling from each fist, Charlie leapt on board and took them below.

  The boy was so thickly smothered in mud that he looked like a chocolate blob. Alex was about to say so, then looked down and saw she was even worse, so kept her comments to herself.

  Elsie dragged out the tub. Brenda had no steam up, but the water in the boiler was still hot. Sarah ran some into the tub, and tipped in a bucket or two of river water to cool it to just below scalding. Then into the bath both children went.

  So the first time Alex ever set eyes on Martin Grenville they ended up in the bath together. Because that, he told them presently, was his name.

  ‘Grenville?’ Charlie had a strange expression on his face.

  ‘My grandfather owns the vineyard next door.’ Now that he was no longer in danger of drowning, Martin had found his voice at last. ‘It’s called Eagle on the Hill.’

  ‘I know it,’ Charlie said, his voice as strange as his expression.

  ‘Hop out,’ Sarah ordered quickly. A Grenville … that’d be right, wouldn’t it!

  The worst of the mud was off them by now and the water was the colour of the riverbank. The filthy water was flung over the side, the tub refilled and the two children pushed back into the water, which was even hotter than it had been before.

  ‘It’s boiling!’

  ‘Serves you right,’ said Elsie, mouth grim. She thrust Alex’s head under the water and scrubbed her hair clean. Alex had been left in her care and might have drowned.

  The two children stared at each other, as red as lobsters in a drift of steam. Finally they were allowed out and rubbed dry.

  Now there was a problem. Their clothes were beyond wearing. Alex was all right, but what was Martin Grenville to put on?

  ‘You can have one of my frocks, if you like.’ Alex grinned at him.

  The prospect of having to wear a frock clearly terrified Martin far more than the thought of drowning.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll find something of Luke’s he can wear.’

  ‘Luke won’t like it,’ Alex warned. ‘Giving his clothes to stray boys …’

  ‘You be quiet,’ Sarah said, going to look for something for Martin to put on.

  ‘Dammit,’ said Alex under her breath. Not enough under.

  ‘I hear you use that word again,’ Sarah warned her, ‘I’ll wash out your mouth with soap.’

  She came back with a pair of underpants, a shirt and clean overalls.

  ‘Put these on,’ she said.

  They hung on Martin like sails on a barge.

  ‘They’ll have to do,’ Sarah said. ‘At least you’re clean.’

  Alex decided to ask him how old he was.

  He looked at her cautiously. He hadn’t forgotten how she’d almost pulled his hair out. ‘Ten and a half,’ he said.

  ‘How can you be so old and not be able to swim?’

  ‘I don’t go outdoors much. I spend most of my time practising.’

  ‘Practising what?’

  ‘Piano. I’m going to be a pianist.’

  Alex gaped. ‘A pianist?’

  It was so extraordinary an answer that for the moment she could think of nothing to say.

  Elsie fetched some cheese and a slice or two of bread. Alex and Martin stuffed their faces at the dining table while Charlie asked the boy how he had ended in the river.

  Through mouthfuls of cheese — Martin had an appetite like an anaconda — he told them he’d taken the family’s rowing boat to go fishing and somehow, he wasn’t sure how, had managed to fall overboard.

  ‘Didn’t anyone know you were out?’ Charlie asked.

  Martin shook his head.

  ‘That’s pretty stupid.’ Over her earlier shock, Alex returned to the attack.

  ‘Alex, be quiet!’ ordered Elsie.

  ‘But it is! I mean, how can you go out and fall —’

  ‘You don’t behave yourself I’ll send you to your cabin,’ Sarah warned her.

  Alex scowled at her plate. She didn’t care what anybody said. It was stupid. And Martin Grenville was stupid too. He had to be; he’d nearly drowned the pair of them.

  Dammit, she said inside her head. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

  Sarah looked at her suspiciously.

  ‘Any more cheese?’ Alex asked.

  The question now was how they were going to get Martin home.

  ‘We’ll have to take him back to the house,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Or maybe drop him off on the riverbank?’ suggested Charlie hopefully.

  She stared at him. ‘He nearly drowned. You can’t just leave him, barefoot, in someone else’s clothes, with no boat, and not give some kind of explanation.’

  ‘He can tell them himself.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Sarah told him. ‘We’re takin’ him right up to the house.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘You.’

  Charlie glowered.

  ‘It can’t be helped,’ she said. ‘I know it’s awkward but we can’t dump the boy on the bank like a … like a parcel. How can you even think such a thing? And you’re the one who’s gotta take him home. You know it as well as I do.’

  ‘Maybe it woulda bin better if he had drowned,’ Charlie said gloomily.

  Men! Sarah’s expression said. ‘You know you don’t mean a word of it.’

  She turned to Elsie, her face stern. ‘Now … A word with you, miss. Explain to me again just how all this happened.’

  With Sarah shouting and Elsie bawling her eyes out, telling the world it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t her fault, how was she to know the child was going to jump into the river like that, the atmosphere on board was so spiky that Charlie found it almost a relief to feel the soil of Eagle on the Hill under his feet for the first time in — what? — fifteen years.

  Or it would have been a relief had it not been for the reception that was waiting for him.

  He was still tying up when two men, big and oafish, came slouching through the vines towards him. They were tall, with heavy shoulders and heads as round as turnips, and their little eyes were watchful. They carried cudgels and sheath knives dangled from their belts.

  Charlie watched them, hands hanging loose. They were coming at him from two sides, taking their time about it and grinning with a great display of furred teeth.

  The younger of the two looked appraisingly at the riverboat, then back at Charlie.

  ‘Brenda, eh? Then you’d be Charlie Armstrong.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘We ’eard o’ you. My oath we ’ave. What you doin’ ’ere?’

  ‘This land’s private,’ the older of the two said.

  ‘I know it,’ Charlie said. He breathed deeply, ready for trouble but not worried by it.

  ‘Git off out of it, then, if you don’ wanna end up in the river.’

  ‘I doubt you’re man enough to put me there. Anyway, I’m ’ere to see Mr Grenvil
le.’

  ‘But does ’e wanna see you?’ the younger man said, tapping his left palm with the tip of his cudgel. ‘River rat like you, some’ow I doubts it.’

  It would be such a pleasure to hit him. One thump, that was all it would take. Or crack their heads together and leave them groaning … But Charlie restrained himself. He hadn’t come for a fight. Not this time.

  ‘I think he will. I’ve got his son.’

  Alarm, then. Mean and threatening, the men were suddenly ten times more dangerous than before.

  ‘What d’you mean, you got his son?’

  ‘He fell in the river,’ Charlie explained. ‘My daughter rescued him. Now we’re bringin’ him home.’ He whistled at the boat. ‘Come on, kids. Let’s get on with it.’

  Because Alex had pleaded to be allowed to come, too, and Sarah had thought it a good idea. ‘Less chance of you getting in a punch-up,’ she’d told Charlie. Although it was always a possibility.

  ‘What’s he doin’ on that boat?’

  ‘He’s been having a bath to get the mud off him.’

  And suddenly there the children were, jumping ashore together.

  The older man stepped forward, ‘’old on. What’s the other kid doin’?’

  ‘She’s with me,’ Martin said. ‘Good day, Baxter.’

  ‘G’day, Master Martin.’ The man touched his forehead. ‘If she’s with you, I suppose that’ll be fine. Orright, are you?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’ve been on a paddle steamer, Baxter. Such fun! They won’t believe me when I tell them.’

  The man turned to his companion. ‘I’ll take ’em up to the ’ouse. You stay ’ere and make sure no-one else comes ashore.’

  A punch-up would be by no means impossible. Charlie hadn’t wanted to come here at all. Now, after such a reception, tigers wouldn’t have kept him away.

  They walked up between the vines and went through a gate in the stone wall, across the lawn and up the steps to the terrace, where a uniformed woman — black dress, white apron — was waiting, hands on hips.

  ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ Then she saw Martin, and her expression changed. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. I hadn’t realised —’

  ‘Mr Grenville, please.’

  It was odd to think they’d never met, despite all the friction that had divided the two families over the years.

  ‘Which one?’

  It hadn’t occurred to Charlie that George Grenville might be there; he’d heard that the old bastard was based in Adelaide nowadays.

  ‘Martin’s father.’

  ‘I’ll see if Mr Rufus Grenville is available. Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘Armstrong. Mr George Grenville knows me.’

  Damn right he did. So did this woman, by the look she gave him when she heard his name.

  ‘Wait here one minute …’ Leaving Charlie to cool his heels on the terrace, she hurried into the house.

  Charlie glanced at the man hovering at his elbow. ‘No need to keep you.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ the man said.

  Afraid Charlie might steal the house, perhaps.

  The children were already galloping indoors, Alex pursuing Martin with squeals of excitement.

  They’d barely disappeared before the woman was back.

  ‘Mr Rufus says what’s it about?’

  ‘About his son. He fell in the river. I’ve brought ’im back.’

  Once again she disappeared.

  Charlie walked to the stone parapet guarding the edge of the terrace. Beyond the lawn the neat rows of vines, already showing hints of copper and red, ran right down to the river. The reflections of the gum trees lining the further bank seemed to shine upwards from the stream’s depths. It was strange to remember this place as he had first seen it, the slope thickly forested and not a vine in sight, and how he had once imagined he might have a future here.

  Well, that was long ago.

  He heard a footstep on the terrace behind him and turned.

  The new arrival was not as tall as the man he remembered, yet the family resemblance was strong in the acquisitive features, the light blue eyes set close together above the long nose. But there was a weakness about the chin and eyes that George had never had. Rufus was quite the dandy, wearing a cravat above a tightly fitting waistcoat of embroidered silk, with a coat and trousers in contrasting colours.

  Charlie’s only concession to the occasion was the clean white shirt, open at the neck, that Sarah had talked him into wearing.

  Rufus’s eyes were unfriendly. ‘Armstrong? What’s this about my son?’

  Charlie looked him over, taking his time about it. ‘You Rufus Grenville?’

  The dandy nodded impatiently. ‘I am.’

  ‘That paddle steamer down at your wharf belongs to me. Like I told that woman o’ yours, your boy capsized his rowing boat an’ ended up in the river. My daughter found ’im clingin’ to one of our paddleboxes and fished ’im out.’

  ‘Paddleboxes? But —’

  ‘We wasn’t movin’ at the time.’

  ‘He might still have drowned.’ From his expression Rufus seemed to suspect the whole situation was of Charlie’s making.

  ‘He’s ’ere now, with my daughter. They’re in the ’ouse somewhere.’

  ‘I don’t understand why either you or your daughter are here.’

  ‘Like you said, he might have drowned. I wanted to be sure he got home safely.’

  ‘Good. Thank you.’ The slightest of pauses. ‘And your daughter?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘Martin invited her inside. They seemed to hit it off.’

  ‘No wonder, if she saved him, as you say.’

  Rufus thought for a moment, his eyes fixed on Charlie’s face, before turning to his manservant, who, cudgel dangling, wore the look of a guard who had unexpectedly mislaid his prisoner.

  ‘Thank you, Baxter. I’ll take care of this.’

  He waited until the man had clumped his surly way down the hill, then turned back to Charlie.

  ‘I’m surprised he and his brother let you ashore. Their instructions are quite definite —’

  ‘They tried to move me on.’

  ‘My family values its privacy. In the circumstances I’m glad you persuaded them —’

  ‘I told ’em I was stayin’, if that’s what you mean.’

  Rufus’s blue eyes appraised him. ‘Yes. I can imagine you did.’ Unexpectedly, he smiled. ‘I apologise. I am forgetting my manners. Please … come inside.’

  He led the way into a grand room that spanned a considerable section of the house. To Charlie’s inexperienced eyes it looked elegantly furnished, with a row of windows overlooking the river. At the end of the room stood a large black piano.

  Rufus picked up a silver handbell and rang it. The same white-aproned woman came.

  ‘You’ll take a drink with me, Mr Armstrong? Beer? Whisky?’

  Hospitality from a Grenville … Charlie would never have believed it. With memories of how this man’s father had treated him, a refusal trembled on Charlie’s lips. Then he had second thoughts. Let the past bury the past.

  ‘Whisky, thanks.’

  ‘Make that two,’ Rufus said.

  He led the way to two easy chairs. ‘Please sit down.’

  Such a gracious invitation! George Grenville would have had a fit. They sat side by side in this room that Charlie had never imagined he would enter.

  ‘My wife Mary is away at present, otherwise I should be pleased to introduce you to her.’

  ‘And mine is on board. With one of your men watchin’ to make sure she don’ step ashore. Otherwise I’d be pleased to introduce you to her.’

  Charlie’s words jarred the cordial atmosphere, but Rufus smiled, saying nothing, and the moment passed.

  Rufus leant back in his chair, legs stretched in front of him. ‘Tell me again what happened.’

  ‘Nuthun to tell. The boy fell in the river. Not hard to do. My daughter heard him shoutin’ and found him hangin’ on to
the paddlebox.’

  ‘And pulled him out?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And my rowing boat?’

  ‘Gone, I’m afraid.’

  Grenville nodded. ‘If you see it on your travels, I’d appreciate your bringing it back. There might be a small reward.’

  Charlie looked at him. ‘If I see it, I’ll bring it back. No need for any reward.’

  ‘As you wish. But I really must thank your daughter. I’m very grateful. An only son, you understand …’

  ‘I got one of my own.’

  ‘Your family lives on the paddle steamer?’

  ‘Luke’s away at school. But the rest of us live aboard, yes.’

  ‘Such a free life,’ Rufus said. ‘I envy you.’

  Charlie smiled, eyes taking in the wealth about him. ‘I’d say you got a pretty good life here.’

  ‘It has its points,’ Rufus agreed. The two men walked to the window and looked out. ‘I’ve been thinking of setting up a factory to process our own grapes. At present we send them to Adelaide but by doing it on the estate I would be able to keep a closer control on the process.’

  ‘Why haven’t you done it, then?’

  ‘It would be a pity to spoil the view, don’t you think?’

  The door opened and another man came in. This one was tall, hunched, scowling, and Charlie remembered him very well.

  ‘Rufus, there’s a riverboat tied up at the bank. Why hasn’t Baxter chased them off? And some damn brat is rampaging —’

  Then he saw that his son was not alone.

  ‘I beg your pardon. I didn’t realise you had company.’

  George Grenville had aged since Charlie last saw him. The dark hair was streaked heavily with grey, the complexion mottled and unhealthy. But the eyes were as he remembered, direct and challenging, and the mouth was still a rat trap. Whereas Rufus, suddenly diffident, seemed diminished by his father’s presence.

  ‘Our visitor has brought Martin back to us.’

  ‘Brought him back? Where’s he been?’

  ‘He fell in the river. Mr Armstrong’s daughter rescued him.’

  ‘Very handsome — what name did you say?’

  For the first time George took a proper look at Charlie’s face. Blood flushed his cheeks. ‘By God, it is you, too. What the devil d’you mean, coming into my house?’

  Charlie stood up. His face, too, was flushed. ‘Your son invited me—’