Eagle on the Hill

by JH Fletcher

  CHAPTER 90

  Before they picked Alex up at Edward’s Crossing, Sarah warned Charlie to say nothing about her visit from Mary Grenville.

  ‘It’s up to Martin now. I don’t want her to get any more hurt than she’s been already.’

  Charlie, anxious to stay out of it, was quick to agree. ‘Not a squeak,’ he promised.

  Sarah watched her daughter surreptitiously as Brenda, carrying a cargo of cement for a builder in Wentworth, pushed out into the stream on her return journey upriver. Alex seemed all right. She laughed and was full of stories of her adventures at school and how Miss Dorcas was expecting big things of her in the year-end exams, yet Sarah thought she detected an emptiness behind the glitter. She decided Mary Grenville had been right.

  ‘If that boy don’t get in touch with her,’ she told Charlie that night in the privacy of their cabin, ‘I’ll kill ’im.’

  Charlie hadn’t wanted to know the details of the women’s chat, but Blind Freddie could have seen Mary Grenville’s visit had something to do with the kids.

  ‘Best leave it,’ he counselled his wife. ‘You’ve done all you can.’

  When they got to Wentworth, they found Margaret already tied up at the wharf. Charlie hurried off to find the builder and arrange the unloading of the cement.

  ‘I’ll have a word with Davis when I get back,’ he said. ‘See how things are goin’.’

  But he hadn’t been gone five minutes when Davis Laird came walking down the wharf and asked permission to come aboard.

  ‘You don’ need to ask,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Only polite,’ he said, while his eyes ate Alex up. ‘Hi, there. How ya goin’?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  That was all. ‘I’m fine.’ Sarah sighed inwardly.

  That night, all the same, after Charlie had come back and the two men had spent hours talking business, Alex agreed to let Davis take her for a walk.

  Sarah knew the significance of her going; everyone knew that a decent girl did not walk out with a single man without intentions. Or at least the possibility of intentions.

  During the journey upriver Sarah had worried whether she should have told Alex about Mary Grenville’s visit, but in the end she persuaded herself she’d been right not to. It was something that only Alex and Martin, and perhaps Davis, could sort out. And it would be cruel to sow doubt in Alex’s mind when Sarah had only Mary’s word that Martin felt the way his mother claimed. Given his track record, it was quite likely that Martin wouldn’t contact Alex at all.

  Sarah wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Davis was more suitable in every way, but Mary was right. If love was missing, nothing would make up for it.

  Which caused her to await her daughter’s return with more than her usual concern.

  Davis and Alex had been for a stroll, going nowhere and being very decorous about it. Usually Davis would have said that to walk without purpose was stupid, but tonight was different, and both of them knew it. They had stopped for a drink in the hotel — no dramas this time — and had come back to the wharf.

  Now they stood beside Brenda. They were conscious of Alex’s parents waiting in the lighted saloon. They could sense the river’s unseen presence, silent and sleek, its power concealed by darkness. It could have drowned them so effortlessly, and shown no sign. It could rise and destroy whole towns or dwindle to a trickle that a child could cross on foot. It had raised them and now offered the dubious promise of a shared living. It gave freedom yet was a barrier shutting out the world. Everything in their lives was governed by it. It seemed an appropriate witness to their awkward conversation as they stood on the wharf, at the pivot of their lives.

  Davis twisted his cap in his hands and stared at his boots as though they had suddenly grown three sizes too large. ‘Walk to the end of the wharf with me? Just for a minute?’

  She stared at him. A walk with a friend, even a drink in a crowded hotel, was already a serious business. To go unaccompanied to the shadowed end of the wharf was something else again, and both of them knew it.

  She looked past him at the shadows, saw the faint shimmer of weed-scented water between the piles. It was the nature of river life that personal contacts were fleeting. People met and moved on. Sometimes they met again, sometimes not. Intimate relationships could not ripen slowly, as on land. They came about very quickly, or not at all.

  Alex was in no doubt as to why Davis Laird wanted her to walk to the end of the wharf with him. Should she go? She knew so little about him, yet what she knew she liked. It wasn’t hard to like him; if she ever had a son of her own, she would like him to grow up like Davis. Able to look after himself, if needs be, but not someone who went looking for trouble. She was younger than he was, yet that was how she thought of him: as a likeable boy. Marriage was a different matter, not something for boys. Yet to refuse him would be to lose him altogether, and she did not want to do that either.

  She thought of Martin with something of the old ache. But Martin had gone, Martin was history, Martin had no more relevance in her life. She had told herself so a dozen times. Her heart still refused to listen; if Martin came back she knew she would go running to him. But he was not coming back and she had a right to a life too.

  Davis was kind, decent. He could look after himself, as he had shown the other night. He would look after her, too. He was a good man. A likeable man. And love — how often had she heard it — could grow.

  She looked at him: decent, nervous in his size twenty boots. Not bad looking. And, she knew, fond of her. Very fond.

  It was his fondness that turned the key.

  ‘Walk down the wharf with you?’ she said. ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you tonight?’ Charlie demanded of Sarah. ‘You’re bouncin’ about like a flea on a griddle.’

  It was true. Sarah had been getting up to do things that didn’t need doing, then sitting down again, only to leap up again a minute later.

  ‘Am I?’ she asked, Miss Innocent herself.

  ‘Darn right.’ Charlie stretched in his chair and turned the page of his newspaper. ‘Coupla ships lost off Western Australia,’ he said. ‘Says ’ere there are lots of passengers missing.’

  ‘How terrible …’ But even such tragic news could not capture Sarah’s attention for long. She got up, folded a tea towel, put it down again.

  ‘Where’s Alex?’ Charlie asked from behind his paper.

  ‘Gone for a walk.’

  ‘With Davis?’

  ‘I said she could.’

  He grunted. ‘Reckon anything’ll come of it?’

  ‘I dunno, Charlie.’

  She was conscious that he had lowered his paper and was watching her.

  ‘I thought you were in favour of it,’ Charlie said.

  ‘I want Alex to be happy. Only that.’

  ‘Don’ you think’Davis is the right bloke for her?’

  ‘He’s a nice boy. I like him. But whether he’s the right one … How can anyone else know that?’

  ‘They better make up their mind pretty soon, or people will start talkin’.’

  Charlie went back to his paper. Reading was easier than living, sometimes.

  Straight-backed and proper, Alex walked at Davis’s side. Her heart was thumping and she was finding it hard to breathe.

  But not for long, she told herself. This — this ordeal will soon be over.

  She knew she should not think of it like that. Unless she had misread the situation very badly, she was about to enter upon what was supposed to be one of the great moments of a woman’s life. To be asked by this happy, laughing, dangerous boy to marry him. To be with him in sickness and in health. Wasn’t that what they said in the marriage service?

  Sickness and health. Was there anything about love? That too, she thought. Well, quite right. So there should be. Which was the problem she faced. Love comes later … Wasn’t that what people said? Perhaps they were right.

  It was dark here, at the wharf’s end.
Below them, the river talked gently to itself. They stopped and pretended to look down at it.

  Alex could feel Davis beside her. She turned to look at him, out of pity and a need to get things over with, and saw that he was looking as comfortable as a mother kangaroo with a python in her pouch.

  ‘Alex,’ he said, ‘I care for you, you know that.’

  It was strange. Silence rose to overwhelm every other sensation. She knew he was talking, suspected she even knew what he was saying, but could hear only fragments of what it was. It was like listening to a stranger’s voice in a crowd of other strangers. She thought it must be a form of shock. Not that it had come as a surprise, but her ears were rejecting what her mind could not accept. She was standing here, alone with this man who she knew was asking her to marry him, yet she felt separate from him, as though none of it had anything to do with her at all. And suddenly, startling even herself, she said:

  ‘No. I can’t. I’m sorry.’

  He looked at her, stricken and — yes — angry. She didn’t blame him. Because she had led him on, hadn’t she? She had walked to the end of the wharf, guessing what he had in mind, and had not even listened to his proposal, to the words hacked so painfully out of his diffidence.

  Now she could hear him, only too clearly. It was horrible beyond belief, because now, this strong, reliable, brave man was pleading, his voice choking on his words.

  ‘I thought that perhaps — you cared for me. Like I care. I still think you care. We wouldn’t be here, otherwise. You wouldn’t have let me —’

  Wouldn’t have hurt me. As you have. The meaning was plain. She could not bear it.

  ‘No! Davis, no!’

  Now, to her horror, she was crying. His crumpled face showed that he was not far behind her, and the thought was terrible, terrible. She could bear it no longer.

  He was saying, ‘It’s the wrong moment … I chose wrong. I’ll ask you again —’

  ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t! It’s no good. I’m — sorry, Davis. But — I can’t. I can’t.’ Her voice rose in her distress. ‘Please … Please leave me alone! I’m sorry! Sorry! Please go! Please, oh please, leave me now.’

  She was panting; there was not enough air in the universe to fill her lungs. She turned and stumbled away down the wharf, her hands to her face.

  It was worse than anything she could have imagined. She wanted only to be alone with the river and the night, to feel the peace of the trees, to find forgiveness for having wounded this good man so badly.

  She had not known what her reaction would be. It had shattered her, as well as him. But what was the use of worrying about that? She was afraid he would never forgive her, or she herself. She wanted to be alone, with the reeds and trees and water for company, to put behind her the pain of what had happened, to feel nothing but the coolness of the wind, calmness and a blessed ease.

  How could she have done it? How could she?

  She stood with her foot on Brenda’s gangplank and looked back towards the far end of the wharf. Davis was gone.

  She did not go into the saloon but straight to her cabin, where, ten minutes later, Sarah found her.

  Alex, lying on her bunk, heard the knock followed by her mother’s voice. ‘Alexandra? Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You want to talk?’

  ‘Not tonight, Mum.’ She could not talk, could not possibly talk.

  A silence. Then: ‘Goodnight, Alex.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  The next morning, when Alex emerged from her cabin after a sleepless night, she found Davis had taken Margaret and vanished up the Darling.

  CHAPTER 91

  It was evening, the last Friday in July. In a sky devoid of cloud the setting sun was a blaze of gold as it sank towards the trees. Brenda was moored against the wharf at Edward’s Crossing. Alex was in her cabin putting her clothes into a suitcase. In the morning she would catch the train to the city to begin her last term at Regency College. She had written to Melbourne University and had received an encouraging reply. She had been told to contact them again in October, when hopefully a place for her would be found.

  And after that?

  The future stretched in front of her as empty as the desert. What was she capable of doing with her life? She did not know. What did she want to do with it? She didn’t know. There were so few career opportunities for women.

  Sarah was calling to her. ‘Alex …’

  There was something strange in her mother’s voice. She went on deck, squinting in the rays of the dying sun, and saw …

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  She concealed the harsh thumping of her heart behind an uncompromising coldness of voice and face. While Sarah made herself scarce.

  ‘I shall be going overseas later,’ Martin said. ‘I am working very hard. But I wanted — I had to see you.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ Alex listened for something in his voice — anything — to tell her he still cared for her but found nothing. There was only this endless obsession with music and his career.

  ‘Ernesto says —’

  ‘Ernesto?’

  ‘Ernesto Walsh. One of the top pianists in the world. He says I have the potential to be the best. He’s promised to be my mentor in Europe.’

  ‘I’m glad for you,’ she said coldly.

  ‘I have been working so hard …’

  It was unbearable. She had thought herself over him, had come within an inch of committing herself to another man, only to have him turn up, out of the blue, and tear open all her wounds, leaving them as raw and bloody as ever. That would not have mattered had he shown any sign that he cared, that he wanted her, that he loved her. But he did not. He stood there with a foolish smile nailed to his face, going on and on about concerts and triumphs and Ernesto Walsh, until she had to bite her tongue not to scream in his face.

  A drum was beating in her head. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, hopeless …

  She raised her voice, speaking harshly to drown the voice of the drum, and saw the smile disappear from his face. ‘I am glad for you, Martin. I really am. I am sure you will have huge success in Europe. I wish you all the best. But you must excuse me now. I have to get ready for school in the morning. The train leaves very early and I mustn’t be late. You must excuse me …’

  She was talking more and more rapidly, her voice combating the scream that she could feel rising, threatening to overwhelm her, to shatter the tranquil evening with an outcry of pure pain. ‘It is so nice to have seen you again, to know you are doing so well, to know you have everything you ever wanted in life …’

  Bundling him towards the gangplank, not able to be rid of him quickly enough, ignoring the look of shock and hurt on his face — too late for that — while the triumphant drum beat its malignant rhythm within her, Hopeless, hopeless, drowning peace, drowning joy, and the unshed tears scalded her eyes with heat.

  When he had gone, Sarah said, ‘He came all this way to see you and you couldn’t wait to get rid of him. I don’ understand you, Alex, I really don’t.’

  There were times when Alex did not understand herself. Right now she knew only that she was bleeding again, without cure and without hope. ‘He never talked about anything but music and concerts and Europe and someone called Ernesto Walsh. He never mentioned us, or the future, or how he felt …’

  Sarah was overwhelmed by her daughter’s pain. ‘But don’t you see, my dear, those are the most important things in his world. He brought them to you — as an offering. The best part of himself. Because that’s all he’s got to give.’

  ‘He never said he loved me.’ Alex was shaken but still defiant. ‘He never said he cared. Or anything.’

  ‘But my dear, that is his love.’

  And Alex had rejected it, humiliating both him and herself, throwing it back in his face.

  Oh, God, she wept in the secret places of her heart. Oh, God.

  I must find him.

  The thought came to her u
nbidden and with it a rebirth of hope.

  ‘I must try and catch him.’

  She thought she’d said it. Afterwards, running frenziedly down the wharf, she couldn’t be sure.

  How could he have vanished so quickly?

  She stopped at the end of the wharf and looked about her. Nothing. She ran up the steps to the street. Nothing. There were carts and people, some on horseback, some on foot. She could see no sign of Martin anywhere.

  She turned and walked with dragging feet back down the steps to the wharf.

  Now, in truth, there was no hope left.

  CHAPTER 92

  On Saturday 9 December 1899 Brenda drew into the wharf at Edward’s Crossing to collect Alex after her final day at Regency College. The train from Adelaide was due in at midday.

  Charlie and Sarah had intended being in time for speech day, but trouble with the paddle linkage had delayed them. It was particularly annoying, since this had been their last opportunity. Alex was the winner of the College’s Gold Medal for academic excellence, and her acceptance as an undergraduate at Melbourne University had been confirmed.

  ‘I’m that vexed,’ Sarah said.

  ‘That she’s goin’ to university?’

  ‘That we weren’t there to see her get her Gold Medal.’

  Of the university Sarah could not bring herself to speak. It was an unknown and frightening world. She had wanted it for Alex above all things, yet now she resented it. She had told Charlie they had to let their children go in order to keep them, yet now she found herself wondering if she’d been right. Luke had gone already, but at least it was to a world that was familiar, so that she could tell herself he was merely elsewhere, and had not truly gone at all. This business of university was altogether different. When Alex left, it would be to a world where Sarah had no ability to follow her. Charlie had been right: Alex would be lost. Sarah hated the idea and wished with all her heart that things could somehow change so that Alex could stay at home.

  Oh, the things that are wished, and the sorrow that comes with them!