Midsummer's Eve

by Philippa Carr

“Hey! Be careful,” he said. “A sudden jolt and you’d be off.”

  I put my arms back. He patted one of my hands. “Do you know, Annie,” he said. “I’m very fond of you.”

  I said: “How far are we from the house?”

  “Far enough to give us time for a little chat.”

  “There is nothing to be said which cannot be said in the house. Let’s go faster.”

  “Trust me to know how we go,” he retorted. “I could see you becoming a fair dinkum Aussie … in time. This place will grow on you like it has on me. You’re free out here. You’ve done with most of the rules and regulations … you go your own way … you’re a real person.”

  “I feel I am a real person at home,” I said.

  “Oh, so polite … saying the right thing or what’s expected of you. How do you know what people are really feeling?”

  “Sometimes it’s better not to know.”

  “That’s something I don’t agree with. Annie, let’s get to know each other. You’re so standoffish. Sometimes I think you don’t like me very much. But that’s not true, is it? That’s just your English hypocrisy.”

  “In the language of the fair dinkums, it’s true,” I said.

  He laughed.

  “You and I would get along fine, Annie.”

  “Let us at this moment concentrate on getting back to the house.”

  “Tell me, do you have a lover in England?”

  “You are being impertinent.”

  “I just wanted to know. It’s important to me.”

  “As far as I’m concerned this conversation is over.”

  “As far as I’m concerned it’s still on. I give the orders at the moment, Annie. Where would you be now without me?”

  “I daresay I could find my way back.”

  “Shall I put you down so that you can do so?”

  “Don’t be absurd. Just go on … quickly.”

  “I must say you are the most ungracious maiden in distress I ever rescued.”

  “I suppose the others were eager to repay you for your services?”

  “That’s just about the case, Annie. Let’s be serious. I like you. I like you very much.”

  I was silent. How much farther had we to go? I wondered. I was a little afraid of him and the alarming thought came to me that I was at his mercy.

  “Just suppose that you and I got together …”

  “Got together? What do you mean?”

  “Suppose we married.”

  “Married! Are you sure you are feeling quite well?”

  “Never better. It’s been a dream of mine ever since I saw you to have your arms round me like this.”

  “Of necessity.”

  “Oh I’ll settle for that … for the time being. It would be just right. You’re the sort. Plenty of spirit. That’s what I like. I reckon you and I were made for one another.”

  “And I reckon you have a touch of the sun. They say it brings on hallucinations.”

  “I’m just looking truth straight in the face. I want you, Annie. I think of you all the time. Now I’ve seen you, there’s no one else who’ll do for me. Think what we could make of this place. We’d expand. We’d have a house in Sydney. We’d have people … entertain … just so that you wouldn’t miss the Old Country. You could play the gracious lady. It would be pretty good, I promise you. You don’t say anything …”

  “I’m just stunned,” I said.

  “You’d only have to tell me what you want and it would be yours.”

  “Very well. I want to go back to the house.”

  “You’re a hard woman, Annie,” he said, sighing deeply with mock resignation; and just at that moment the house loomed up out of the mist.

  I was greatly relieved.

  He leaped down and turned to lift me. He looked up into my face and we were very close to each other for a second or so. Clearly I saw his thick dark hair curling about his temples and the mockery in his eyes; and twinges of alarm came to me in spite of the comfort of seeing the house so close by and knowing my family was there.

  He kept his hand on my shoulders and I said quickly: “Thank you for bringing me home.”

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you,” he said. “Remember that.”

  I turned and ran into the house.

  My mother came into my room followed by my father. Gregory had come into the house and told them how he had rescued me.

  They were very disturbed.

  “I cannot understand you, Annora,” said my mother. “The times you’ve been told about going out alone!”

  “I didn’t go far. I should have been all right if it hadn’t been for the mist.”

  “That’s one of the hazards,” said my father impatiently. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I am,” I said. “Do stop scolding. I promise I won’t do it again. I want to go home … soon.”

  “Well thank Heaven for Greg,” said my mother. “And thank goodness your horse came back. It was wonderful of Greg to go and look for you.”

  “It was miraculous … the way he came across you,” added my father.

  “Well, he gave the bush call and I answered.”

  “There’s not much he doesn’t know about this country,” said my father admiringly. “But we’ll go home as soon as we can. I begin to feel a bit homesick, too. Don’t you, Jessica?”

  My mother admitted that she did.

  “As soon as this business of Helena’s is settled we’ll go. And I think I shall sell to Greg. He’s made a jolly good thing of this place and I fancy he’d do even better if it were his own.”

  “Promise me,” said my mother to me, “that you will never do anything so silly again.”

  I promised.

  She hugged me for a moment and I felt so glad to be back with them; but I heartily wished Gregory had not been my rescuer.

  I found sleep difficult that night. I kept going over what he had said. There was such purpose in his eyes and I think it was that which frightened me.

  Maud had said once on some very trivial matter: “Oh, Greg wants it and Greg always gets what he wants.”

  Ominous words. But I was my own mistress. No one was going to force me to do what I did not want to.

  Sleep would not come.

  It was midnight when I heard a movement near my window. There was someone out there … close to the door.

  I stood at the window and looked down. It was Gregory. My heart was beating wildly. How dared he! Was he coming in? What did it mean? But the door was locked. It was always locked at night. He himself had said that we must lock up carefully because of prowlers who might be looking for something they could pick up. Bushrangers were hardly a danger. They would not attack a household where there were so many men about.

  Did he think he was coming to me? For what purpose? The answer was obvious. Did he think he could overpower me with his magnetic charm—or whatever he thought it was? Did he think he was irresistible to me? To come to the house was a very bold thing to do. I only had to scream and I would wake my parents along the corridor. If my father caught him he would be dismissed. He would never have a chance of owning the place.

  A movement along the corridor. Someone was there. I opened my door and peeped out. I saw Polly Winters in a low-cut nightdress exposing her considerable bosom as she went silently to the door.

  I shut my door and listened. The front door was opened … just a whisper … almost imperceptible. They would both have had long practice of this sort of clandestine nocturnal event.

  When I opened my door again, they had gone … into Polly’s room.

  I thought: This is intolerable. And under my father’s roof when only today he had asked me to marry him.

  The man is a monster, I told myself.

  I went back to bed, but not to sleep. I lay there thinking about riding on the horse with him. I was more angry with him than I had believed I could ever be with anyone.

  I had thought it would be a good idea to be read
y for him when he left the house in the morning, to confront him and let him know I understood where he had spent the night.

  I wanted to tell him how I despised him, and that I would let my parents know the sort of man he was. I would let him see that he was not the mighty conqueror he imagined himself to be.

  I must have dozed for it was fairly late when I arose. I heard Maud in the kitchen. She always let herself in very early and two of the women came to help her get the breakfast.

  So I was too late to catch him.

  I did not tell my parents. I did not see how they could send him away. He was so necessary to the property. Why should I bother about his relationships with women? It was not as though Polly had not welcomed him. She must have arranged to let him in.

  Helena was getting very near to her confinement. She was surprisingly calm. She said to me one day: “I feel so much better since Polly’s been here. She’s so comforting. She’s always telling me about ‘her little babies.’ She does love them so much.”

  People had so many sides to their natures.

  I tried Maud.

  I said to her: “Don’t you think Polly is too fond of the men?”

  “Well, she’s certainly fond of them,” said Maud.

  “And they of her, I imagine.”

  “Men are always fond of women who are fond of them. It flatters them and there’s nothing they like better than a bit of flattery.”

  “Don’t you think some of them like women who don’t like them at all?”

  “Oh, that’s in a different way. That’s the challenge. They like that, too.”

  “It seems to me they like all sorts.”

  “That’s probably right.”

  “I er … believe Polly invites men to her room at night.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “And you … think we should accept that?”

  “There’s not another midwife round here and once the baby starts to come she’ll forget about the men. She’s one of the best at her job. You have to put up with people’s ways if they’re good at what they’ve come to do.”

  “I see,” I said. “That applies to the men here too.”

  She looked quickly at me. “That’s always a problem. There aren’t enough women in the country. They need them, you know. We have to shut our eyes to a lot of things out here which wouldn’t be acceptable at home.”

  “I understand that.”

  “It makes morals not quite the same.”

  “Can’t they marry?”

  “Most of them do.”

  “You’d think Gregory …”

  She smiled. “Oh he’ll marry when the time is ripe. He’s waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “For the right moment.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “Well, he’s a man like the rest of them … more so, perhaps.” I had an idea that she might know that Polly’s nocturnal visitor was Gregory Donnelly.

  She could shrug it aside. I could not. To me it seemed the height of depravity when, that very day, he had asked me to marry him.

  All thought of the matter was driven from my mind because the next day Helena’s pains started. It was amazing how Polly threw off her frivolity and put on the mantle of the midwife. The white coat she had brought with her was the outward symbol of her professionalism and that was certainly in no doubt when she took charge.

  She gave her orders in a sharp crisp voice and we were all eager to accept her authority.

  It was as though she had changed her personality entirely.

  We had all been very anxious about Helena; her listlessness had disturbed us. Maud thought it was due to the fact that she had an indifferent husband. Both Maud and Polly had a poor opinion of Matthew; but there was, naturally, so much that they did not know.

  Her labour went on for two days while the house was plunged into a state of fearful expectancy. Even Jacco was affected and talked in whispers.

  We were all seated in the living room waiting. Polly had summoned Maud to help her, for Maud over the years had gathered certain experience and had on one occasion delivered a child when help was long in coming.

  Our relief was intense when we heard the cry of a child.

  Maud came down to tell us.

  “It’s a boy,” she said.

  I had not seen Helena so happy since the days of her engagement to John Milward. She sat up in bed holding the baby while we all stood round declaring our admiration for the infant.

  Polly was beaming with satisfaction as though the baby was entirely her creation. All of us were deeply moved. As for myself I could not take my eyes from the baby. It seemed extraordinary that one could marvel at ten tiny fingers, ten toes and a blob of a nose but I did—and so did my mother and Helena. The men were a little aloof though there was certainly general relief that Helena’s baby had come safely into the world and that she, though exhausted now, survived her ordeal.

  The days went quickly by; I was with Helena most of the time. I was allowed to hold the baby. Polly reigned supreme. She had promised to stay for two weeks after the birth for, she admitted now, she had been a little worried about Helena.

  Polly bustled and twinkled and laughed; every time I saw her I thought of her lying with Gregory in her bed, making love. It was a repulsive thought—and yet there was Polly, so happy, so pleased with life, talking about little babies. “I reckon,” she said, “they’re the nicest things God ever thought of. Mind you,” she added, “there’s other nice things, too. But when I’ve just brought a little one into the world, I don’t think there’s anything as lovely as a little baby.”

  How strange people were! Polly, the baby lover and the wanton companion of men like Gregory Donnelly. If there had been love I could have understood it, but this was plain lust.

  Rosa came in and held the baby. She was such a pretty girl and different from the young girls I had seen about the property. In a way she seemed younger. I expected this was because her mother sheltered her from the crudeness around her. Not an easy task, I imagined.

  I thought again: I want to go home. And now that the baby is born we can start making our plans.

  There was the baby’s name to consider. Helena wanted to call him after John.

  “After all,” she said, “he is John’s.”

  “Why not vary it a little? Jonathan is a name used in our family.”

  “Jon,” she said. “John without the H. That will make his name a little different from his father’s.”

  So the baby became Jon and we were soon calling him Jonnie.

  Our time was taken up with the baby. I was learning a great deal from Polly; how to hold him; how he should be bathed; how to dress him; how to rock him.

  “You’d be a good little mother,” Polly told me. “Better see about getting one of your own.”

  She nudged me and went off into one of her fits of laughter. I flushed painfully thinking again of her and Gregory Donnelly together.

  She was shedding her midwife’s skin just like a snake does and becoming the flighty woman with promiscuous habits. There was nothing else snakelike about Polly Winters.

  Soon she would be gone to some other homestead looking for a little baby to bring into the world and new men to comfort her at nights. And we should be gone, too. I had seen signs of restlessness in my mother.

  I desperately wanted to go. I wanted to get away from Gregory Donnelly. He disturbed me. He aroused images in my mind which I wanted to banish. I supposed that was what people would call life. I wanted to remain apart from it for as long as I could.

  There was one thing I would greatly regret on leaving Australia and that was that we had been unable to find Digory. I often talked about him to my father.

  “I know how much you wanted to find him,” he said. “You wanted to make sure that he was all right … making a life for himself. He seemed to me a survivor. But I agree with you that it would be good to know. Don’t give up hope. We might find him even yet.
Everywhere I go I make enquiries, but it is rather like looking for the needle in the haystack. But you never know what’s going to turn up.”

  Rosa was often in the room we called the nursery. She adored the child. She confided in me that when she grew up and married she intended to have ten children.

  “Do you want to be married?” I asked.

  “Oh yes. But I’ve got to wait until I’m a little older.”

  “Have you decided on the bridegroom?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “I’ve always known.”

  “Oh? Who is it?”

  She opened her pretty blue eyes very wide as though astonished by my ignorance. “Mr. Donnelly, of course.”

  “Oh … Mr. Donnelly! Do you … like him?”

  She nodded. “He’s the finest man around here. My mother says he’s the only one for me.”

  I was silent. I could understand Maud’s reasoning. Rosa was not for one of the men from the shacks, not for one of the hired hands; she was for the master of them all; and that was Greg Donnelly. That he was a philanderer did not seem to affect Maud. Perhaps she believed that when he was married he would settle down.

  She probably thought he would own the property one day. That was his ambition of course, and hadn’t she said he was the sort of man who would get what he wanted?

  Poor Rosa. I was beginning to understand a great deal. It was not that he wanted me. He wanted the property; and I was the key to the property. It belonged to my father and it was very possible that if Gregory Donnelly married his daughter, the property would be a wedding present.

  It was all hideously clear.

  I hated the man more than ever.

  We were at dinner. In the room which had become the nursery now that Polly Winters had gone, the baby was sleeping. Gregory was dining with us as usual and I had become more aware of him. Every time I looked up his eyes would be on me and he would give me that meaningful smile which embarrassed and infuriated me. He was like a man who was biding his time. I began to dread these meals because of his presence.

  My father was saying did we realize that we were already into May?

  “It’s eight months since we left home,” he said.

  “And time we were thinking of getting back,” added my mother.

  “It’s been a great time here,” said Jacco with a hint of regret.