He entwined her arm in his and began exploring her hand with his fingertips. “Samantha. You’ve heard, I trust, the adage that a man thinks from his head and a woman from her heart.”
“Aye—the notion of it, at least.”
“Yes. Well, I can nowhere in Scripture find the notion of it. When God told Isaiah, ‘Come, let us reason together,’ He called all mankind. Still, I rather cling to it. Cultural, I suppose.” He licked his lips nervously. “I, uh, just recently learned that I have not one but two prospects for marriage.”
“Aye, Ellen.”
“Ellen, yes. I should have known you women would be miles ahead of me in this area. I struggled, in a quandary. I even called God to question for putting this decision upon me. Finally, I sifted it out. My heart loves you; my head loves Ellen. Your head loves me, Ellen’s heart loves me. Uh, er…”
Samantha knew what was coming. In a way, she knew the moment he linked his arm in hers. Curious, the way she could almost read his thoughts, when she so inaccurately read Cole Sloan that she was frequently flabbergasted—or appalled. Did that not indicate she was literally made for this man?
She finished the thought for him. “Ye’d feel much more comfortable with a—how shall we say it? He-head, she-heart relationship than with one the other way around. Aye?”
He sighed. “The matter’s not cut in stone. When I came down just now it was more to explore the situation with you than to declare a decision. But yes; that’s pretty much it.” For the first time he turned to face her squarely, eye to eye. “I love you too much to hurt you…”
Would that Cole could say the same.
“But I perceive that whatever choice I make will inflict pain on someone. I regret that. I so wish it weren’t unavoidable.”
“Meself greatly admires ye. To follow y’r head down the straight road when y’r heart goes skipping off across the meadow calls for a powerful discipline.”
“Legend gives the Irish a gift for beautiful pictures. That’s it exactly! The road and the meadow.” He kissed her hand tenderly. “Thank you.”
Samantha felt herself very near tears, and that would never do. To break down now would make this man feel terrible, and he of all men did not deserve that. She forged a smile deep inside and let it surface. “I received me severance pay late yesterday. If y’rself be like the rest of the swarmy mob I’ve been running with, y’re utterly impecunious. Might I treat ye to lunch?”
“‘Impecunious.’ You’ve been listening to the verbal excesses of our August Runyan. You called the game indeed; impecunious is my middle name. Completely penniless.” He turned and began the stroll to the bridge. “Eighteen-seventy-nine, eh? Not yet thirty years old, and already she looks worn as an old shoe.” He squeezed her hand. “Regardless of my final decision, I shall love you always, Samantha Connolly.”
****
Sloan leaned back against the wall of the Esplanade’s cellar and didn’t mind that its dampness was probably ruining his coat. He stared at the drink on the table in front of him and didn’t really see it. It was something else, an abstract. Everything was an abstract these last few days.
How could he have done that?
You poison everything you touch, Cole boy. Sugarlea was one of Queensland’s great plantations when you took it over; you left it bankrupt and in ashes. You destroyed John Butts’ dreams and then you destroyed Butts. He was an honest man, good-hearted. You’re not in Sydney six months before you ruin Clyde Armbruster without half trying. One of your oldest, most caring friends. Boyhood mentor. And Sam. How the blazes could you ever let yourself do that to Sam? You tell yourself you love her. But you’re not capable of anything but hate and treachery.
He took a sip simply because the glass sat before him.
In fact, you’re not even capable of hate. What did you do about Beckerstaff? Turned Bower over to the Victoria police and let it go. That’s all. If you were the man you used to think you were, you’d have Beckerstaff in the crosshairs of a pistol.
He took another sip.
Pistols don’t have crosshairs, idiot.
He tossed the last of it down.
You’re tonked. You’re not worth a brass razoo, Cole, old man. You can’t do anything right, and everything you look at goes crook. What are you doing, taking up space? You’re not worth the air you’re breathing, you flaming ratbag.
Cole thought of all the people who would have had happier lives if he’d never been born—especially Samantha. He tried to think of people who were better off for his being here. Nary a one. Nobody. And that, mate, about summed it up.
He pushed the table away and stood. His sleeve was damp clear through; it must be raining outside. There beyond the bar to the right stood the narrow black entry to that passageway, beckoning. He ducked under its lintel beam and stepped inside.
Dark. Moist. The dirt floor gritched beneath his boots. He extended his arms; his fingers touched rough-cut wall on each side. He took a step forward. Blackness like a cocoon enveloped him. He did not look back. Another step. His fingers hit shoring timbers. He passed his hands around them and continued.
Spider webs slashed sticky, painless lines across his face. He paused to brush them away and walked on. The passageway curved, curved back again. As he perceived first light ahead, his boot toe struck a riser. He began ascending stairs cut into the living rock.
With each step the light grew brighter. When at last he emerged into the gray-green alley behind the tea garden, the light forced him to squint.
The tea garden. He entered its shady bower from the rear, from the alleyway. They were closed now. He sat down in the wet iron chair at Samantha’s favorite table. So familiar. Samantha.
He sat there a long time, with the rainwater dripping through the leaves of these arching vines, and he found this place far more conducive to rational thought than the Esplanade’s cellar. Whether or not he decided simply to hang it up, there were amends to be made first. And the first was to the victim of his most heinous act of treachery.
He walked out into the rain, across the Esplanade to the wharf, seeking Samantha.
Chapter Eighteen
Hymn for Him
The sun skated in and out among fluffy cloud-blobs against a marvelously blue sky. To the one side of the little boat stretched brown rolling land. A patina of new grass tinged it green. To the other side, cliffs with ragged faces rose straight close to the boat, arcing high into the blue. What a lovely, serene, majestic view!
Linnet could see why Samantha had fallen in love with the riverboats. This little Mayflower, as clunky and noisy as it was, echoed the mystery and charm of the Murray itself. Linnet loved just standing on deck watching the beauty slide by.
The whistle hooted. It hooted again. Chris came out with a comb and arranged Linnet’s hair just so. Linnet adjusted her elaborate, ruffled, lace-detailed dress and the little ribbon at her neck. They were getting pretty good at these arrivals.
Swan Hill was larger than most of their ports of call. For the tiny settlements, they simply set up chairs on the deck of the Mayflower and used the covered space between the paddle wheels as the proscenium. Captain Husting frequently stacked his fresh supply of firewood neatly around and under the piano. Swan Hill being larger than the deck could accommodate, Linnet would sing tonight in a local union hall, the only place in town besides the church with a piano. Linnet always felt funny about singing “Brennan on the Moor” in churches.
Samantha’s advance notices were doing their job. More people awaited Linnet than she could ever have imagined! They lined the wharf; they stood on the street beyond. Mayflower hooted one long whistle and reversed her paddles. So many people!
With all the usual churning, roaring, shuddering mayhem, Mayflower drifted in and nudged against the wharf right at a—what was this? A red carpet!
Now Linnet must act. And indeed it was acting. She was playing the part of a famous singer greeting her admirers, for these people couldn’t possibly be interested in a simple
servant girl. She smiled. She blew some shy little kisses. She waved.
They were clapping. They had not yet heard her sing, and they were clapping. A small boy even more shy than she came running up with a bouquet of wildflowers. She accepted it, plucked one from the bouquet, and handed it to Chris beside her.
And now she was to walk up to the union hall. She stepped out onto the wharf still waving and onto the red carpet, albeit a very short one. Honestly! She smiled and happily greeted those nearest who caught her eye. This was beyond dreaming! This was beyond imagining, and certainly beyond reason.
“Miss Connolly! This way, please!” The mayor himself beckoned from an open carriage. It had to be the mayor; he was wearing a handsome top hat. Linnet was to be conducted to the hall! How unimaginably grand.
Close to her right, a little girl’s voice cried out, “Oh, Mum, she’s so beautiful!” Linnet froze. This was Linnet Connolly the lass was talking about! Chris nudged her on.
The rest of the evening proceeded just as dreamlike as this unexpected welcome. Linnet sang her best. It wasn’t difficult; she felt good. A warm and happy amazement spurred her on. Chris was never better as his fingers glissaded up and down the keys.
The audience applauded. The couple encored. They encored again. Lacking a backstage, Linnet stepped out the back door into near darkness. Moments later the enthusiastic admirers found her.
The mayor, magnificent in his top hat, swept her hand to his lips and kissed it. “My dear, you were marvelous!”
She closed her eyes. To the dip of her head she added the slightest of bows, a tiny movement of the shoulders. As she raised her head, slowly opening her eyes, she beheld the silliest awed-little-boy gaze on the bedazzled mayor’s face.
This is it, this is it, Linnet thought. This is the reality for which I’ve prepared. Chris was right; I do have gifts. Her heart shouted, drowning out her thoughts, This cannot possibly be happening to a simple Irish working-class girl. How dreadful I will feel when they discover the truth about this “celebrity.” She answered questions from the news editor—she remembered his name from one of those envelopes they had sent out—while her heart cried Sham! No matter how her head reasoned, her heart shouted louder.
Very late that night, Linnet returned to the Mayflower. The curtains in the dark, silent cabin windows had not been drawn; the captain was still ashore. So was Chris—probably handling the last of business details and counting the money. Money. They were making money.
She looked at the sheltered space between the wheelhouse, where she conducted the very personal, intimate concerts for small groups of people in the villages. She enjoyed pleasing a big crowd, but in a different way she enjoyed just as much the eye-to-eye, smile-to-smile concerts here on deck.
Captain Husting had stacked firewood all around the piano again. She climbed over and through the wood and lifted the lid. She seated herself and began to play.
Sister Bertrand. Dear, sweet Sister Bertrand. If you could see me now! How patient you were, teaching theory and technique to a cabinetmaker’s daughter for no other reason than that the girl enjoyed music. What a wonderful gift you gave me!
She ran through her warm-ups and began at the beginning of her present Czerny book, from memory. Of the thousands of homilies she heard in her life, Linnet could recall only two or three, and they didn’t seem memorable at the time. In one of them, the parish priest preached respect for the nuns, for they were gifts to the common folk from God. Thank you, God, for your gift of Sister Bertrand.
And Chris. Yes, Chris. Of all the hundreds of people at the university, he was the one to notice her first. She could play tonight, at one with the music, because of Chris as much as Sister Bertrand. Chris had taught her to see not the notes and notations but the work itself. Sister Bertrand had taught her to read the music. Chris had taught her to feel it. Both of them pushed her to excellence.
Chris. Did she love him? She let her heart think about that awhile. It didn’t take long. Yes. What about him would she not love?
Her fingers continued. The music flowed freely now into the darkness and the starlight. In fact, thank you, God, for all of this! This adventure had to be God’s work; it certainly could be none of her own doing. She thought of Sam and how she had talked for hours about her new awareness of Jesus Christ. It was a different tune in the same symphony Meg played. Was Linnet missing something important?
Joy. Plain old happiness. The pure, sweet pleasure of living. She wasn’t really thinking about what her fingers were doing. They responded to something deeper, more profound than her thoughts. Joy sang in her heart and expressed itself in a parade of all the piano pieces she had ever learned, simple and advanced. No longer was she Linnet at the piano. She was Linnet and the piano.
The darkness beside her moved. She recognized him, and the musty odor of his cape confirmed her identification. He climbed over the firewood and settled onto the bench at her left. She shifted up an octave to accommodate him.
They had to make some adjustments; one piano and four hands cannot be played with the same range as two pianos. And yet, adjust they did, with no thought at all on Linnet’s part. It happened. They played beginning to end that first program they presented on South Terrace in lieu of the Bach master. The music sounded so much sweeter and happier now, flowing spontaneously from her joy.
“You were wonderful tonight,” he said.
“Eh, no less’n y’rself.”
He played in arpeggios as she completed a melody line.
“Will you marry me?”
Her fingers stopped.
She twisted around to stare at him, gaping.
He moved smoothly into a lovely air she had not heard before. “Those first moments, when you sang ‘Brennan on the Moor,’ I fell in love with your voice. Melodic, sweet. As we worked together I fell in love with you. All of you, to your very depths, is just as sweet as your voice.”
“Miss Hack warned me…warned us…”
“And she’s right. Of course, the battleaxe never married, so she holds a rather jaundiced view. Most female artists marry, even the most successful ones. They do just fine.”
The melody ceased, faded into the liquid night. He turned to her. “I want to be part of your life forever, and I want you to be mine. Please, Linnet?” In the compassing darkness his black eyes disappeared into infinity.
“Yes,” she whispered, and that moment her joy multiplied itself beyond imagination. “Yes.”
****
Marty Frobel arrived at the Bridge as wet as a Murray cod. This country did dump the rain! He didn’t mind the warm rains of summer up in central Queensland. The cold rain of autumn down here penetrated to his very bones. He pulled his hat off and slapped it against his leg as he stepped into the lobby.
“Mail for ye, sir.” The desk clerk smiled. The desk clerk constantly smiled. Leads you to wonder about the bloke, Marty mused.
He leafed rapidly through the four or five letters and ripped open Pearl’s on the spot. She loved him and missed him. No news there; he longed for her, too. She had found a darling church not far from her accommodation; its vicar preached the gospel; its congregation received her warmly.
She was still in Sydney. She had spoken with all the people whose names Sloan had suggested. Two prospects seemed bright and a third proved to be a real bottler. Through this third, she had already arranged a shipping schedule for a regular supply of frozen sides of beef to Hong Kong. She hoped Marty would be able to talk to Sloan some more; the man seemed to have a special knack for coming up with obscure and promising contacts. The weather was pleasant.
Marty jogged up the stairs to his room. Sloan was still in town somewhere, he thought. He’d look the chap up later. Right now he was going to peel out of these wet clothes and try to find someplace—anyplace—that was warm. The weather was almost surely pleasant up home. Pearl said it was pleasant in Sydney. What was he doing in Echuca?
****
Samantha wasn’t home. Ah Loo had no
idea where she was. The post office was holding her mail, for there was no forwarding address. The conductors didn’t see her leave the area by railway. That left the riverboats as the most likely choice, for Sam did love the cranky boats. Sloan stood on the wharf in a pressing wind, endured the pounding rain, and contemplated side wheelers.
Along Rotten Row, an unsightly stretch of river shore, a score of derelict side wheelers and barges lay beached, weathering in the harsh summers, and the winter rains. In their heyday the riverboats enjoyed a trade monopoly stretching through the heart of Australia’s most productive and picturesque country. Then the railways, finger by finger, poked their sleek and greedy hands into the Riverina to steal away the cream of the trade. Now, no longer profitable, these sorry hulks sprawled, ignominiously abandoned, on the shoulders of the river they once served.
The weather was being exceptionally cruel to them these days. After broiling all summer under the dry sun, more and more of Rotten Row was now disappearing below the flood. Many hulks sat with their rear decks submerged and their bows sticking out.
Sad it was that the railways could shove a whole way of life to the brink of extinction. The few steamers left afloat, those plucky vessels still earning their keep off the river, allowed Sloan to cut a deal. The railways would not.
Echuca was the logical place to find Sam. She was not here. The next logical place was Barmah Mission. Quite probably Sloan’s ill-considered move, a move she could quite accurately interpret as deliberate betrayal, had driven her into Otis’s arms. Almost certainly, Sloan had precipitated the one thing he had sought so desperately to avoid.
He would go to her. He would beg her forgiveness. Was it too late to keep her out of Otis’s hands? Probably, but no matter. He must at least seek her forgiveness face-to-face. If nothing else, he must do that.
He started down the stairs toward the shore and was startled to find the water lapping so high. It must be a good third of the way up the wharf pilings—maybe more. But then, what else would you expect from all this rain?
Taste of Victory Page 20