‘Why does everyone think they have the right to tell me what to do?’ said Ross.
‘Perhaps it’s because you’re acting like a fool,’ answered Connor. ‘The family’s been through enough without you behaving like a spoilt wee boy.’
‘I won’t be bothering to count on you for support,’ said Ross, his voice rising.
‘If you want to yell at someone, yell at me. Dinnae take your anger inside to them.’ Connor rested the currycomb on the railing and with deliberate slowness walked from the stall. ‘You’ve always been a stubborn one. Come on then, lad, let’s show me what you’ve got.’
‘I don’t want to fight you, Connor.’
‘Better me than fighting yourself,’ he replied.
The anger that started building the day the first of his father’s letters had arrived at Gleneagle now goaded Ross. He tried to recall the location of the nearest church, for shortly he was going to have to find a pew near the back, under a stained-glass window, and ask for absolution. At this point he needed more than Presbyterian stoic conservatism, because he was seriously thinking of punching Connor in the face.
‘Didnae your brother give you enough floggings when you were young?’ Connor squared up to him. ‘Or your father?’
Ross’s first punch missed. He should have known Connor would be quick, the small ones always were.
‘Well, well. And here was I thinking you’d go meekly to your fate. It seems I was wrong. And you’re angry about it. Good. It’s good to be angry. That’s it. Get those fists up and have a go, lad. It’s been a year since I gave someone a good belting.’
Ross stepped straight into Connor’s left jab.
‘Forgot I was a lefty, didnae you? Come on.’ He beckoned. ‘You can do better than that.’
They moved across the dirt of the stables, Ross throwing punches as Connor ducked and twisted out of reach.
‘A pretty boy like you should be married, you know.’
Ross slammed his fist into Connor’s jaw and received a winding blow to the stomach in return. He staggered backwards into the stable wall, gasping for air.
Connor rubbed his jaw. ‘Enough?’ he asked.
Ross nodded. ‘Enough.’
They sat on a bale of hay catching their breaths. ‘If you didnae come back for her, why are you here?’ asked Connor.
‘My grandmother,’ admitted Ross. ‘I agreed to meet Miss Thomas. Nothing more.’
‘Ah, aye, it’s important to know where the real power lies in a family. But seriously, Ross, there will be hell waiting at the gate if you dinnae do this. If you refuse to marry her.’
Ross turned to his friend. ‘I said I’d meet her and I will. Then I’m off. I need you to buy me two tickets on the next steamer out of Adelaide. Cargo, passenger, mail, any kind will do. As long as it’s leaving soon and heading north. I’d always thought I’d take the inland route, meet up with the cameleers, follow the telegraph line, but that won’t be happening now.’
‘Are you going north then? To the Territory? To Waybell?’ asked Connor, his interest clear.
‘Yes. About time, I think.’
‘Why two tickets?’
Ross prodded his injured right eye. ‘One for you and one for me. If you’re up to it.’
‘Aye, I’m up to it, lad.’ Connor’s smile disappeared. ‘What of your father? I don’t expect he’ll let you run off, or me.’
‘I’m not letting him stop me. Anyway, I’d be surprised if he said no now that I’m here and prepared to meet Miss Thomas. But I doubt they’d let me leave without a chaperone,’ said Ross, placing a hand on Connor’s shoulder. ‘Who else would he send? You’ve been with us for years. And now the war’s over it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a man to take over from you while you’re away.’
‘I dinnae know.’ Connor shook his head doubtfully. ‘It’s not that easy a position. We couldn’t get just anyone. They’d have to be experienced.’
‘You mean old like you?’ said Ross.
Connor gave Ross a shove and he fell from the bale to the dirt. ‘Careful, lad. I’m in my prime.’
Chapter 9
They were assembled in the drawing room, each of them arranged carefully like players on a stage. Had Alastair been present he would have theorised on the archetypes in the room. Tyrant that their father was, he would certainly be the ruler, Zeus. Hera, the now insubstantial caregiver who took the form of his mother, and the indomitable sage Isis, his grandmother. Which made him, Ross supposed, Hermes. The wanderer and fool.
After the pleased but restrained greeting Ross received from his parents and grandmother, his request to meet Darcey Thomas alone was grudgingly approved. He knew his parents wanted to be present, to ensure it went smoothly and that the result they sought was guaranteed. They didn’t trust him and they were right not to. His father even went so far to say that Darcey needed a chaperone, which was, to Ross’s mind, a ridiculous idea considering the circumstances.
‘We all know why I’m here,’ he told them. ‘Let’s not stand on pretence.’ It was this suggestion of compliance that Ross hoped would win the argument.
‘Quite right.’ His grandmother sat hunched at a card table, a game of patience spread out before her, liver spots on veiny hands. ‘It’s not like he’s courting Darcey. You took your time, Ross,’ she stated. ‘We expected you two weeks ago. Alastair would have –’
Ross rested an elbow on the mantelpiece. ‘I’m not Alastair.’
His grandmother slapped a card down on the table. ‘What’s wrong with your eye?’
‘I fell from my horse,’ he replied.
‘Really?’ She gave a huff of disbelief. ‘The one thing you can do is ride, my boy. Sit a horse like a brush in a gluepot.’
‘You’ve lost weight,’ commented his mother.
‘Leave the lad alone,’ said his father.
The housekeeper entered with glasses of lemon cordial. ‘It’s a pleasure to have you back here, Mr Ross. It’s been such a long time.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Blum. I’m pleased to see you’re still here.’
The woman sat the tray on a table. ‘Only just returned, sir.’
‘How is your family?’ asked Ross.
‘They placed my two boys under house arrest during the war. They said we were agitators. Things have only recently begun to return to normal.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs Blum.’
‘Mrs Blum,’ his grandmother interrupted, ‘can you please tell Miss Thomas that Ross is here and to wait in the sitting room. It’s quieter in there, Ross,’ she told him, as the housekeeper left the room. ‘I never expected to re-employ Mrs Blum, especially at her age. But it’s simply impossible to find anyone willing to work in a big house these days and with your return we needed someone capable.’ She gathered up the deck of cards. ‘Think of all those boys they killed. You do know that they changed many of the German place names back to English. Hahndorf is now Ambleside. As it should be.’
The drawing room was just as Ross remembered. The large bay windows offered a perfect view of the circular gravel drive and fountain. The camphor laurel tree still stood in the very centre and under it the wrought iron bench. Long ago, Alastair had dragged it there so it would be easier for Ross to reach the lower branches. He’d stared out the window at this scene the morning after their disastrous expedition, learning from their father that the wandering lunatic and the little boy had been found. The asylum was given a substantial donation and the injured rider was presented with a new penny-farthing bicycle. His father righted their wrongs with generous bequests and was applauded for it.
‘Well, Ross, you’ll want to change before the big moment.’ His father broke into his thoughts.
‘Yes, you look like you’ve been riding for weeks,’ his grandmother added. ‘There are fresh clothes for you in your room.’
‘Off you go then,’ his father ordered cheerily. ‘After it’s done come back here and you and I will have a celebratory dram.’
C
hapter 10
Ross rubbed at freshly shaven skin and then at the eye that was swollen and sore. A slight discoloration was already beginning to appear. He ran fingers through damp hair, turning from the mirror’s reflection. The room was unchanged, full of schoolbooks and sporting ribbons. The same grey blanket folded at the foot of the bed. The travelling trunk with the bent latch. Inside was his cricket bat, the willow stamped with an old property brand used to burn numbers into stud ram’s horns, and his marble collection secreted in the biscuit tin.
Ross opened the tin and rolled the spheres in his palm. He thought of Drummond and George. His two closest friends from childhood. The sons of his father’s business acquaintances. The three of them had traded marbles, arguing about the weight of an aggie or the quality of a jasper, whether it was the colour of the sea on a swimmable day. Ross poked at the balls in his hand. There were old alabaster ones from Germany, some fine two-coloured glass ones from America and others with steel ball-bearings, which the boys complained about because Ross used them as shooters. He smiled at the memory, thinking of impromptu cricket matches, summer visits to the beach, sticky hands and chocolate faces. These sunlit days were strange to think on as they’d rarely been spent in Alastair’s company and yet Ross had enjoyed these happy moments and remembered them fondly.
Replacing the tin, Ross looked out the window to the circle of plane trees planted by his grandfather. He sighed, and sighed again, aware of his procrastination. Then he walked downstairs and into the sitting room.
A woman was silhouetted by the window. She pushed back the damask curtains, the light revealing a brocade chair, a large vase of flowers with sagging greenery, and thick carpets scattered across the floor. Ross wondered if she’d heard him enter, for this woman who once belonged to his brother continued to gaze out the window. Did she still think of Alastair? Did she even care?
Darcey Thomas was dressed in emerald and cream. Strange, but he had expected her to be in black, in mourning and respectful, not bright, colourful and modern. The silk blouse she wore was loose-fitting, the fashionable skirt short like the women in the city streets he saw as he rode into town. It had been some time since Ross had been alone with a woman close to his own age. The niceties of polite society were hardly needed on a sheep property, and avoiding the town of Burra meant there was little opportunity for socialising. Maybe there was such a thing as being tongue-tied, for he silently stumbled over his prepared words, and in that moment the clearest of pictures came to him of his brother and Darcey together on a busy London road.
She turned around fully and faced him and offered him a smile. Soft and welcoming. ‘It’s easier for getting in and out of cars and the tram.’
‘I’m sorry?’ asked Ross.
‘The length of women’s skirts.’
He’d been staring at her ankles. ‘Yes, of course it is.’
They met in the centre of the room. She was a foot shorter than he was. Pretty, in a plain English way. Her skin was lightly powdered and her lips reddened. At a loss as to how he should greet her, Ross eventually held out a hand. Hers was small and slightly moist. She was nervous. He felt somehow pleased by the fact, because, despite his family’s cajoling, their marriage was not the fait accompli that everyone thought it was.
‘I’m Ross.’
‘Darcey,’ she replied.
‘Should we …’ He gestured to the small grouping of chairs and they sat stiffly, she on the chintz sofa and he in an armchair. A gleaming solid silver teapot, flowery cups and shortbread biscuits waited for consumption on the table between them. Ross wished to be anywhere but here.
‘Shall I pour?’ she asked, lifting the teapot from the spirit burner.
‘Not for me,’ Ross answered.
Replacing the pot, Darcey fidgeted with a cup and saucer. Turned the plate of biscuits on the salver.
There were any number of comments Ross could have begun with. ‘You don’t resemble your photograph.’
Darcey looked up. ‘I didn’t know you had one.’
He fumbled in a pocket, holding up the image given to him by his grandmother.
‘Oh,’ was all she said.
Ross wondered what Alastair saw in the woman opposite him. If it weren’t for the expensive clothes provided to her by his family, he rather thought she would have blended in with the cream walls. He was more used to women like Mrs Toth. Women who worked the land, darkened and creased by an outdoor life.
‘It’s just that I gave that to your brother. I wrote on it.’ A blotch of red coloured her cheeks. She lowered her chin. On her wedding finger she wore a ring, a blood-red ruby surrounded by diamonds. It was vaguely familiar.
Ross turned the photo over. On the back of the image, towards the bottom in small, neat cursive, were the words, I love you. He stared at the message, so intimate in its admission, wondering how he hadn’t noticed it before. ‘And did you love him?’
‘Of course.’ There was a defiant edge to her voice.
‘Of course,’ he repeated, placing the photo on the table between them. His intention had always been to return it to her. Ross didn’t want it. It was given to another.
‘You don’t believe me,’ stated Darcey. ‘I wouldn’t have agreed to marry him if I didn’t love him.’
‘Really? How long did you know him? A week?’
The knuckles on her hand turned white. ‘We wrote to each other for twelve months.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you?’ she challenged.
Darcey wasn’t timid. Maybe his brother liked that about her. Ross didn’t. Boldness belonged to the likes of his grandmother. She’d earnt the right. Ross wanted to remind Darcey that she was a guest in his home. Except that the walls and ceilings, stone and timber that he’d returned to didn’t belong to him, nor he to it. He couldn’t tell Darcey that he was unprepared for this, for her. That he didn’t want a wife or the obligation that came with being the only remaining Grant child. He was stifled by this life. Hemmed in by buildings and people and expectation, and the sense of alienation went beyond the years away, the many miles apart. There was really only one person Ross looked forward to seeing on returning to Adelaide – his grandmother – but even his feelings towards her had changed. What occurred to him was that, of all the people who populated his life, it was perhaps Connor who knew him the best.
Darcey poured tea into a gold-rimmed cup and sipped. ‘I know this is very difficult, for both of us, and I do appreciate –’
Ross walked to his mother’s mahogany writing desk. A gold fountain pen rested on the blotter. In one of the corners a capital A had been written in his mother’s hand. A for Alastair. ‘This meeting is based on everyone else’s assumption.’
‘I’m sorry,’ replied Darcey. The cup rattled on the saucer. ‘I was under the impression that it was all arranged.’
How had he allowed himself to be coerced into meeting this woman? Ross lifted a glass paperweight in his hand. ‘You have no family, other than your father?’
‘My brother died at Fromelles, my sister on the hospital ship Britannic.’
When he didn’t enquire about the details she talked on regardless, as if the distance between them could be filled by words.
‘Anne-Louise was so excited the day she was assigned. It was a sister ship to the Titanic. The closest she imagined she’d ever get to luxury.’
Ross sat the glass dome on the desk. ‘What happened?’
‘A naval mine exploded near the Greek island of Kea in the November of 1916. Nearly everyone managed to escape but Anne-Louise was on one of the lower decks. The nurses had opened most of the portholes on those levels to air the wards.’
November 1916. Only a few months after Alastair’s disappearance. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said and then, curious about her part during the conflict, added, ‘And you didn’t share her interest in serving abroad?’
‘Everyone wanted to enlist and serve overseas, which created a huge shortage of nurses in London when war broke out. St Thoma
s’ Hospital in central London provided a three-month training course for VADs. Unqualified voluntary aid detachments,’ she clarified. ‘And I stayed on there. It allowed me to contribute to the war effort while also keeping my father happy. He couldn’t bear the thought of us all leaving England.’
Now Ross knew why Connor liked her. Loyalty and duty. Simple words that could be relied upon and might possibly act as a bond between them if they were to marry. He expected that, at that moment, Connor was heading to the Adelaide Steamship Company offices. If they didn’t have a passenger vessel leaving soon, there would be another company with a steamer heading up the coast carrying cargo or mail to Sydney, Brisbane or Townsville. Any port would do as long as he was transported further towards his destination.
Ross returned to the armchair. ‘What did his letter say? The last letter Alastair sent you along with the photograph. Did he mention anything about where he was going or what his intentions were?’
‘No. Nothing at all. Only that he was sorry.’
‘Are you sure there wasn’t something else? Think back to when you first met.’
‘I have, and your father’s already interrogated me numerous times,’ she explained.
‘He mentioned Mesopotamia to me, Greece, the Tigris,’ said Ross. ‘Alastair was fascinated by antiquity. I used to think that perhaps he’d joined the Geographical Society and gone adventuring.’
‘Alastair thought that was something you’d do. He said you’d always been interested in the great Australian explorers while –’
‘Alastair was a dreamer,’ interrupted Ross. ‘He’d think up these ideas, most of them impractical, occasionally dangerous, and anything old fascinated him.’
‘You don’t think I really knew your brother, but I did. Greek myths, Hercules, the asylum.’ She counted on her fingers. ‘I could go on, but I don’t need to justify my relationship with Alastair to anyone. I loved him and I lost him. We all did. No one has any idea what happened to him, least of all me.’ She wasn’t pale anymore, but flushed as if she’d been out playing tennis. ‘And that last letter, the final words, they were I’m sorry.’
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