by JH Fletcher
She advanced to the front of the dais. Rows of faces stared up at her. Dark eyes, ivory skins. Everyone waited. Alex thought she might be sick. Derisive laughter might be the answer, a secret mockery.
‘My father,’ she said, ‘is very rich. He is involved in the river trade, the shipment of wool and grain from the Outback to the sea. And let us not forget, the Murray is the lifeblood of the nation.’
How clearly she could see it all: the endless plains of the sun-scorched interior, the trudging hooves of bullocks, the creaking waggons piled high with bales, the bows of the steamers cutting the green waters of the river, their whistles echoing among the red gums … all pouring wealth into the coffers of her family. Whose vines produced the best wines in the colony. Whose house, huge yet in the best of taste, dominated the countryside for miles around.
‘Our house is called Eagle on the Hill. My mother, Lady Jane, says it’s got forty rooms, although I’m sure no-one’s ever bothered to count ’em. Our servants are loyal. They bin with the family for years. The father of one of them came from England eighty years ago, with my great-uncle. The younger son of Baron Armstrong, he was.’
Who owned a sizeable chunk of England and whom the present queen’s uncle, King William, had called George. While his father … By now Alex was quite carried away by her almost-royal past, and would have accepted curtsies from any disposed to give them, while behind her Miss Hetherington’s brows gathered in an ominous frown.
‘Thank you, dear.’ She cut off Alex in full flood. ‘A most remarkable tale.’ She turned to Miss Dorcas. ‘We’ll need to keep our eye on this one. I never heard such nonsense in my life.’
Princess Alex was a marked child.
Her roommates, Griselda Jervis and Annie Mortimer, had been at the school for two years. They had arrived on the same day and stuck together ever since. They were regarded as inseparable. They were caught between awe of their new roommate because of her aristocratic background and resentment of her for being there at all.
Alex was faced with a dilemma. She had to live with these two gigglers. She could carry on with her act, which would soon become boring and impossible to carry off, or she could tell them the truth. She decided truth, at least on this occasion, was the winner.
‘That story I told in assembly … all rubbish.’
Griselda’s eyes were as round as pennies. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I made it up.’
‘Don’t you live by the river, then?’
‘I live on the river. On a paddle steamer. My father owns a riverboat.’
She had been afraid they might tease her but they didn’t. Far from it; life on a riverboat was the most romantic thing either of them had ever heard of. And Alex’s cheek in telling the whole school such a wonderful yarn, in front of Miss Hetherington at that, made her an instant heroine.
‘How did you have the nerve?’
‘Nerve runs in my family,’ Alex said.
She needed plenty of it, that was for sure. Nor was she found wanting. After a week her knuckles were already being rapped. Metaphorically, at first, but within two days literally, for her pronunciation, which Miss Hetherington regarded as close to blasphemy. Worse, as a deliberate attempt to desecrate the holy temple of the English language.
‘Not “nuthun”, young lady! “Nothing”! “Nothing”!’
She set Alex a little task. ‘“For we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” Repeat!’
The stubborn words rolled from Alex’s tongue like barrels along a wharf. ‘For we brought nuthun —’
‘Again!’ The cane hovered.
‘For we brought nuthun —’
‘No!’ Crack. ‘Again!’
‘Nuthun —’
Crack!
Alex remembered the lesson she had learnt from Miss Tossall. ‘Ow! Ow! Ow, ow, ow!’
While Miss Hetherington, who had a nose for defiance, lashed Alex’s knuckles bloody. ‘You will learn to speak properly, if I have to beat every syllable into you!’
It looked as though it might be necessary, at that. It wasn’t hard to speak the way Miss Hetherington wanted; there were days when Alex had to be on her guard against doing so. But it had become a matter of principle.
‘We brought nuthun —’
‘You are a stubborn girl!’
Crack! Crack!
‘Ow, ow, ow, ow …!’ She raised dust from forgotten corners while the class stared, as rapt as spectators at the Coliseum, to which Miss Dorcas had introduced them. The Christians, noble in the face of death. The lions. The blood.
Alex decided martydom suited her well, and her reputation soared. The aristocrat who was not, or who might be — there were differing theories about that — the intrepid veteran of paddle steamers and inland storms that lost nothing — nuthun! — in the telling, became a symbol of defiance against unjust authority.
Yet there were those who disliked this upstart, who had not been in the college for five minutes yet who already had the impertinence to have a reputation. Two girls in particular resented her. Samantha and Claire, two bedrooms down and two years older than the interloper, had enjoyed something of a reputation themselves. Now their noses had been bent sadly out of joint by the competition.
‘Conceited bitch! Show-off!’
There had to be a reckoning.
Toads in the bed might intimidate more nervous girls, but neither Samantha nor Claire thought they would work for Alex Armstrong. Something more serious was needed.
CHAPTER 60
It hadn’t rained for months.
‘There’s hardly any water coming down the Darling at all,’ Wilf Laird said when they put into Wentworth. ‘Worse even than ’83, and I won’t forget that in a hurry. You take care,’ he told Charlie. ‘Hear me?’
‘I’ll do that.’
Charlie thought he could manage, no worries, but he was wrong.
Brenda was five miles east of Evans and Sarah had just taken a cup of tea to him in the wheelhouse when there was a violent crash below decks. At once the steamer lost way, slewing across the river as the paddles ceased to turn. Charlie fought the wheel, cursing as he tried vainly to control the sideways movement. A second crash as Brenda’s bow slammed into a shelf of rock that lay just beneath the surface near the bank. The steamer stopped so suddenly that Sarah was thrown off her feet, spilt tea and broken china everywhere.
There was no time to think about bruises or shock or anything but the safety of the boat. They raced out of the wheelhouse and down the steps to the lower deck, almost falling in their hurry.
They ran forward. Brenda had reared up as she tried to climb the reef. They could hear the splash of falling water from the hold as Charlie ripped back the hatch cover and clambered down into the darkness.
‘The water’s over my ankles!’ he called back to Sarah. ‘Two planks are splintered and the river’s comin’ in fast. Get some wooden sheets and a hammer and nails, quick as you can.’
Sarah flew to the storeroom at the back of the saloon where they kept their emergency equipment. They had carried spare timber ever since that day, years ago now, when Luke had shot the tiger snake in the forward hold and blown a hole straight through the bottom of the boat.
Sarah came back with wood, nails and hammer, as directed.
‘Get down here and help me,’ he said, his voice sharp and direct.
She joined him in the hold. The sound of the rushing water was loud in her ears, the level halfway to her knees and climbing. They splashed their way forward, crouching beneath the deck above them. It was hard going, there was barely room to breathe in the forepeak, but somehow they made it.
It was Niagara down there.
Charlie explained what he wanted Sarah to do. She pressed the wooden sheet against the hole torn below the waterline, needing all her strength to hold it against the rush of water. Charlie took nails, and hammer, hammer went the blows, machine-gun quick. The flow of water lessened.
&nb
sp; ‘More wood!’ Charlie said.
Sarah pressed a second sheet over the first. This time it was easier, the flow of water much diminished, and the sheet was quickly hammered into place.
‘I’ll get some screws and make it really tight,’ Charlie told her. ‘It’ll do till we get to a boatyard. At least there’s no danger of her sinking under our feet. Not for the moment, anyway.’
Which was good, but didn’t sort out the problem of what had caused the crash in the first place.
They explored and found disaster.
The engine was a mess. The paddle drive had fractured. Pieces of metal had sprayed everywhere like shining darts.
‘Nothing to be done,’ Charlie said heavily. ‘It means a new engine, but we gotta have it.’ He managed a wry grin. ‘We can be thankful it wasn’t the boiler, or we’d be needin’ a new boat.’
‘That’s terrible.’
Sarah had her hand to her lips and a sense of guilt in her heart. Because the new engine would cost a lot of money and they had none. They were committed to putting money aside for the venture with Wilf Laird; they had bought her father’s land, because she had made an issue of it; and Alex was a student at Regency College, because she had made an issue of it. Now they had to buy a new engine with money they didn’t have. All her fault.
She looked at Charlie. ‘What’ll we do?’
‘We’ll have to get ’er towed in.’
‘I meant about the new engine.’
She was afraid he was going to say they would have to take Alex out of school. But she should have known better. Charlie was no piker; he’d never change course once he’d made up his mind.
‘Only one thing we can do …’
Charlie had never seen how it was possible to be both free and in debt, but after he’d seen Brenda safely into Niland’s dry dock, he went to the Clarence Bank and negotiated a loan.
The bank manager, Horace Pegler, was a tarty sort of bloke with his collar up to his ears and a tight black coat that must have been hell to wear in the hot weather. But look at that jaw, those eyes! He was like a Murray cod in spats, more than capable of swallowing you hook, line and sinker if you didn’t watch out.
Yes, a loan could most certainly be arranged. To the right class of customer. To a reliable and trustworthy customer. Who was deferential in matters of money, which was the spindle upon which the world turned. Horace Pegler’s cod eyes questioned, almost audibly, whether this riverboat captain could be so categorised. In any case, safeguards were essential.
‘Security?’ Horace wondered, his voice shedding dust on the proceedings.
Charlie, wearing his suit — patched up after his run-in with Baxter four and a half years before — feared that his collar, though humble by Horace Pegler’s standards, might strangle him. ‘I got a block of land.’ And of course there was Brenda herself.
Horace conceded that the resources of the Clarence Bank might be available to assist, provided the land, the boat and contents of the boat —
‘The stores aren’t mine,’ Charlie said.
‘Explain.’ The cod’s eyes glowered, suspicious of sharp practice. How could the contents of the store, so much more valuable than the boat itself, not form part of the deal?
‘Because they belong to old man Tomkins, down in Goolwa.’
The manager’s nostrils flared. It was inconceivable that the contents of Brenda’s store, eminently desirable now they were no longer available as security, could have been entrusted to this man who was planning to take them hundreds, even thousands, of miles away, who might do a runner altogether with stores or proceeds. Who could conduct business in such a fashion? Horace Pegler’s suspicions were needle-sharp.
‘What arrangement do you have with Mr Tomkins?’
The ‘Mr’ was a measure of Horace Pegler’s respect for the Tomkinses of the world. The Goolwa trader had his own business, after all, though admittedly in a small way.
‘I sign for the goods I take,’ Charlie explained. ‘We have an accountin’ once I get back.’
‘And that is all?’ It was an affront to all Horace’s beliefs in the sanctity of the iron fist in matters of business. His smile was thin and cold. ‘We shall require more, ah, more formal arrangements in this case.’
The land would, of course, be pledged. The boat would, of course, be mortgaged. A personal acknowledgment from the boat’s owner would, of course, be required.
One by one the manacles were clamped onto Charlie’s reluctant wrists.
The papers were prepared, at Charlie’s expense. Were stamped, also at Charlie’s expense.
‘What happens when I’ve paid you back?’
Horace Pegler smiled a trifle patronisingly. In his experience that seldom happened. Those whom the bank was willing to honour with its assistance seldom breathed free air again. But should such an unlikely event occur, the securities would be released, certainly, the papers cancelled, of course. At Charlie’s expense.
‘One further thing is required,’ Horace added. ‘A third-party guarantee.’
Charlie had reached the point where, if this bloke in the starched collar had required him to pledge the moon and stars, he would have gone along with it, but this last demand had an ominous ring.
‘What’s a third-party guarantee?’
‘Should your venture fail, should your boat sink, the bank would still need to recover.’
From someone, from anyone.
‘You’ve got the land!’
Ah, the land. But land, my dear sir, was a problem. Because land, you must understand, had no intrinsic value. Land had to be sold. Which might involve expense and might indeed prove impossible. Dependent on the state of the market. Whereas a guarantor was an altogther different matter.
‘I dunno anyone I could ask to guarantee anything.’ Charlie understood no more than one word in three of what the manager had been saying, but he knew that much. In the world of riverboats and river men, there was trust, a handshake, and God help you if you welshed on a deal or a mate. Fists were more valuable than paper along the river.
But not in the grey world of the Clarence Bank.
Horace Pegler adjusted his cuffs. ‘I am afraid a guarantee is a sine qua non.’
Which to Charlie was double Dutch, if ever he’d heard it. Not that he was about to admit it to this ponced-up pox doctor’s clerk. ‘How about the wife?’
My dear sir. Please be serious.
Horace went on. ‘I see from the land title that Mr Grenville is your neighbour. Now, there is a man in excellent standing. Perhaps he —’
No bloody way. Charlie had had enough. ‘You got the land. You got the boat. You got a letter from me. That’ll have to do.’
Horace Pegler was displeased with this customer, who, he suspected, might be an awkward cove. And hadn’t he been involved in some demonstration, up country somewhere? Some damage to property? The man should be thankful he was even permitted to enter the bank, in the circumstances. But there was no shifting the man, and Horace, giving way for once in his life, consoled himself with the thought that an extra half per cent interest might compensate for the hard time this uncouth man had given him. Repay his loan, indeed … With monthly charges and annual charges and loan fees, the bank would see about that.
* * *
A month later, with her bows repaired and a shining new engine, Brenda sailed out into the river.
On their way downstream Charlie and Sarah stopped at their block of land — to make sure no-one had pinched the trees in their absence, Sarah said — and while they were there had a visitor.
‘Mr Rufus Grenville would like a word,’ Saul said.
Charlie looked him over; granite could not have been harder. ‘He knows where to find me.’
‘On the other hand, I am sure it would be more pleasant, as well as more convenient, to meet at Eagle on the Hill.’
‘Why should I want to meet him at all?’
Saul coughed. ‘I am instructed to say that my client regrets the i
ll feeling that exists between the Armstrongs and the Grenvilles. In so far as he has any responsibility for this state of affairs, he would like to make such amends as are possible.’
‘His bloke fired a rifle at me!’
‘As I said, Mr Grenville has asked me to convey his regrets for any past misunderstandings. You are neighbours now, after all, and you both have children at Regency College.’
It was all very gracious and Charlie didn’t trust him a yard. ‘Tell Mr Grenville you’ve given me his message.’
The attorney turned his hangman’s eyes on Sarah. ‘It would give you a chance to see the house, if you were able to accompany your husband. And to meet Mrs Grenville, who I know is looking forward to making your acquaintance.’
‘Thank you,’ Sarah said, and meant it, but with one eye on Charlie.
‘Thank you,’ Charlie said, and did not mean it at all.
‘Mr Grenville suggested ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If that is convenient to you.’
‘Why does he want to see me?’ Charlie asked.
‘Perhaps I should leave Mr Rufus to tell you that himself.’
Charlie nodded. He knew Sarah would want to go. He was exasperated, feeling himself boxed in, his only satisfaction the childish one of not having committed himself to going at all.
As soon as Saul had left them Sarah took hold of Charlie’s hands and danced around him, eyes shining. ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
But he could not hide his smile. This middle-aged woman whose bones the years were beginning to lard with fat could still behave like a twelve-year-old, when she had the mind. Could still inspire both love and desire, when she had the mind. He remembered Goolwa, with Sarah stark naked on the bed, reeking of violet scent. What had that been about? Not that he was complaining, but even so … It was like living beside a volcano.
At the same time the idea of chatting with the man he blamed for Will’s death disgusted him.
‘There’s gotta be more to this invitation than wantin’ to make friends.’
‘Oh, Charlie, why do you have to be so suspicious? Sometimes I think you want us all to go on hatin’ each other forever. Why can’t we just be friends?’