by Juliet Bell
The plane sputtered to a halt. Edward threw the door open and jumped out, leaving Betty to scramble down on her own. A tall, dark-skinned man was leaning on the side of a ute a few metres away. He stepped forward and took their bags from the plane. Edward frowned at him. ‘I thought Jack would be here.’
The man shook his head. ‘He went into town.’
Edward nodded. ‘Right. Up to the house, then, Jimmy.’
The man held the door of the ute open for Betty. He didn’t speak, but briefly touched the broad brim of his dusty brown hat.
Betty smiled as she slid onto the passenger seat. She was somebody here. She was at the top of the tree rather than the bottom.
Her husband got behind the wheel and started the engine. The Aboriginal man jumped into the back of the ute with the bags.
Betty peered forward and then twisted around. The land was flat, with low scrubby trees. She knew Edward had cattle, but there weren’t any to be seen. She gazed out towards the horizon. ‘I can’t see any fences.’
Edward frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘A fence, to show where your property ends. How do you know when the next farm starts?’
‘There aren’t any fences.’ Edward’s voice was flat and without emotion.
‘What? Why not?’
‘All this is Thornfield.’
Betty twisted again in her seat. She remembered the map Mr Mason had shown her. On paper was one thing, on the ground it was mind-blowing. ‘Everything?’
‘As far as the eye can see and then some.’ Edward lifted his chin. ‘All of this belongs to my… to me.’
Betty was still struggling with that as they arrived at the house.
Edward threw his door open. ‘Well, here we are.’
He didn’t go in. He just stood beside the car and stared up at the house. Betty stopped beside him and stared too. The house was even more imposing close up than from the air. She’d thought the Masons’ house in Sydney was big, but this was like one of those big English houses she’d seen in magazines and on TV. A wide veranda encased the front of both the floors of the sandstone building, edged with intricate wrought-iron railings. The window frames were painted a bright, shiny white, which was impressive given the red dust in the air. Edward swallowed hard next to her. This wasn’t where he’d planned to be, either. She took his hand. ‘Shall we go in?’
He nodded curtly and she let him lead her up the two shallow steps, across the wooden veranda and into the hallway. Jimmy followed, carrying their bags from the car. He placed them carefully inside the door and left, touching his hat in Betty’s direction once again.
Betty spun slowly around, her mouth falling slightly open as she took in the big entrance hallway, with its high ceilings and grand staircase leading to the top floor. The stair rails and doors and furniture were all dark polished wood, gleaming red in the late afternoon light against the pale cream walls. The Masons’ house was a shack compared to this.
‘Edward!’ A middle-aged, grey-haired woman bustled into the hallway. ‘I didn’t hear the plane. I had the radio on. I don’t hear anything. Have you had something to eat?’
Betty was starving.
Edward shook his head. ‘I’m tired. It’s been a long journey. We might just go straight upstairs.’
The stranger patted his arm. ‘I understand.’ She turned her attention to Betty, holding out a hand. ‘I’m Mrs Fairfax. Grace Fairfax.’
‘I’m Bett… Elizabeth.’
‘Mrs Rochester.’ Edward spoke over her.
‘Welcome.’ Grace smiled at her. ‘I’ve made up the blue room, Edward’s room, for the two of you.’
‘The blue room?’ Edward hesitated. ‘I should have the master bedroom.’
Grace looked at the floor. ‘That was your father’s room. It’s where he…’
Betty’s stomach lurched. Was Grace saying …?
‘What happened?’ Edward’s voice cracked slightly. ‘He was with us for the wedding in Sydney. How …?’
‘He flew straight home after the wedding,’ Grace told them. ‘When I went to ask him if he needed anything…’ Her voice trailed off.
Edward nodded curtly. ‘The blue room will do for now. And…’ He gave Grace a questioning look.
‘Oh. Fast asleep. I didn’t tell her you were coming tonight. She would’ve wanted to wait up.’
‘Good.’ He nodded, abruptly ending the conversation, before taking Betty’s hand and almost dragging her up the stairs.
‘Our bags?’ Betty pulled back.
‘They can wait until tomorrow.’
The grand staircase ended in a hallway that ran at right angles to the stairs. There were several doors leading to rooms at the front of the house and what could be other hallways leading back behind them. Edward paused for a second at the tightly closed door directly opposite the stairs. His fingers tightened around Betty’s hand. She winced but didn’t pull away. He needed her support now. This must have been his father’s room. Edward turned away and led her to a door at the far end of the house. Inside, a large double bed and polished wood wardrobes didn’t begin to fill all the space between the pale blue walls.
Rochester slammed the door shut behind them. Betty watched and waited as he pulled his shirt loose from his jeans and wrenched it off over his head. ‘This place…’
‘What about it?’
‘It just… It makes me feel like a child again. It’s a trap.’
Betty shook her head. How could you be trapped when you owned everything as far as the eye could see? No fences, no boundaries. In a house as big as a castle, he was king of his own universe. He had no idea what being trapped really meant. She pushed the thoughts away. She was being unkind. He’d just lost his father. And she was his wife. She was supposed to be taking care of him.
She closed the gap between them and pressed her body against his.
He grabbed her, hard and tight around the waist, and smashed his mouth against hers, pressing his tongue between her lips urgently, before pulling away to give himself space to drag at her clothes. Within seconds she was on the bed, raising her hips to meet him. This was something she could do. This was a way that she could make them both feel better.
Chapter 31
Jane
‘I know you didn’t say anything, Jane. But they found out anyway. I guess they were bound to.’
I didn’t know what to say. For the past two days, I had been struggling just to look Gail in the eyes. Every time I looked at her, I saw her face as it had been – burning with life and passion and ecstasy. I had apologised for walking in on her, of course, and she had brushed it off as not important. But then word had somehow got back to the nuns, and, after a meeting with Sister Mary Gabriel, Gail was packing. She had to be gone that very day.
‘Where will you go?’ Those words at least I could speak.
‘Matt and I have decided to go to Queensland.’
‘Queensland?’
‘Yes. There’s a job for Matt in Townsville. We’ll swim every day and walk on the beach and I’ll never have to walk to chapel in a heavy frost again.’
‘Are you going to marry him?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘But you and he…’ I couldn’t say it out loud, but surely she knew what I meant. Men and women only did…what they did if they were married or at least going to get married. Didn’t they?
Gail stopped packing. ‘Seriously, Jane, how old are you now?’
‘I’m twenty. I’ll be twenty-one this year.’
‘And this is 1979, not 1929. You’ve never lived out in the real world, have you?’
I shook my head.
‘Maybe you need to leave Our Lady? There’s a lot of world out there. You need to meet people…meet men…you need to fall in love and make mistakes, and live your life. I don’t want you to end up a lonely old woman.’
I helped her carry her things to the car. Two suitcases and three cardboard boxes, one small television and, of course
, our well-used video player. Once it was all safely stowed, Gail turned and hugged me.
‘Goodbye, Jane. Good luck. I hope you get away from here and I hope you have a happy life.’
I held her tightly for a second longer, then let her go.
She got in her car and drove away without a backward glance.
Chapter 32
Betty
The next morning was bright and warm. Sun danced through the curtains long before Betty woke up. When she did wake, the bed beside her was already cold. She found her suitcase standing against the wall. Half her clothes were still at the Masons’ house. They were supposed to have been going back to Sydney. She pulled out a cotton sundress – the best thing she had that wasn’t a bikini – and got dressed.
She found the bathroom. As she washed her face she looked at the water running over her fingers. Where did the water come from all the way out here? Tentatively she took a sip. It tasted strange. The door at the top of the stairs, the one that had been tightly shut last night, was ajar. Betty pushed it open. Her husband was standing alone at the foot of the bed.
‘Edward?’
He started as she said his name. ‘It was right here.’ He nodded towards the bed. ‘She found him just lying there, like he was asleep.’ His voice cracked but didn’t break.
Betty moved towards him, but she was bustled out of the way as a little girl, blonde curls bouncing, whirled past her and bowled into Edward’s legs. His demeanour changed instantly. He scooped the child up into his arms. ‘Hello, you.’
‘Did you bring me a present?’
His face tensed. ‘Sorry, doll. Not this time. We had to come back in a hurry.’
‘Cos of grumpy Grampy?’
‘Don’t call him that.’
‘Mummy calls him that.’
A hint of a smile tugged at Edward’s lips. ‘Well, Mummy is a very naughty lady.’
The little girl giggled, her blue eyes sparkling. What was Betty supposed to think? She knew Edward had a brother but this little girl was too big to be the baby that had been whispered about. Was there another brother? Or a sister? Or was this Grace’s daughter? Maybe she was just treated like one of the family. Betty didn’t know anything about how Thornfield worked. She was supposed to have time – time to learn, time to get used to being Mrs Rochester – before she had to understand any of this.
Edward set the child down on the floor. ‘Adele, there’s someone I’d like to introduce to you. This is Elizabeth. She and I are going to be living here all the time now.’
Adele beamed. ‘All the time?’
Edward nodded.
The little girl trotted over to Betty and held out a podgy hand. ‘Are you my new nanny?’
Betty shook the hand that was offered. ‘No. But I’m sure we’ll be friends.’
The little girl giggled. ‘You’re funny.’
‘Adele!’ Grace’s voice from the stairway sent the child scurrying for the door.
‘Bye bye, funny Lizzybeth,’ she chorused. ‘Bye bye, Daddy.’
Betty reeled. ‘Daddy?’ she stuttered.
Edward nodded.
Something hot was rising in Betty’s gut. ‘You didn’t tell me.’ Another thought clicked into place. ‘You didn’t invite her to the wedding? Your own child.’
Her husband bristled at that. ‘I’m a good father. I would have had her there if…’
‘If what?’ Suddenly the explanation was obvious. Betty might not understand Thornfield, but after years with the Masons she understood these people. They all had their secrets. ‘You didn’t tell the Masons about her, did you?’
Edward looked at the floor. ‘My father thought it better not to.’
Betty could imagine. Nothing improper. Nothing human that might get in the way of business. Adele was like her – another inconvenient little girl. ‘So you lied. Where’s her mother?’
‘Celine? God knows. She’s an actress so probably off on tour somewhere. Adele lives here. My father had one of the Aboriginal women look after her.’
‘Were you married?’
Edward gave a sigh of disbelief. ‘Of course not. Celine was not what my father wanted for his son.’
Betty understood. ‘But you still lied.’
He shrugged. ‘They told me you were a virgin.’
‘So now we both know.’
He nodded curtly.
‘And that’s it? Nothing else.’
‘Nothing else.’
She felt herself calm. Maybe she could manage this. If the two of them had time together to learn how to navigate this strange new world, maybe that would be all right.
‘Lizzybeth! Lizzybeth!’
‘What is it?’ Betty leanet over the railing on the veranda at the front of the house and let her gaze follow Adele’s finger up towards the sky, where the mail plane was turning above the property, getting ready to land.
‘Is that Mummy’s aeroplane?’
Betty nodded. ‘I guess so.’
Adele’s mother, Celine, would be the first new face on the property since Mr Rochester’s funeral, where Betty had met some of Edward’s neighbours, if you could call someone who lived fifty kilometres away a ‘neighbour’. They were two hour’s drive from the nearest town. A full day’s drive from Sydney. Neighbours didn’t just drop in. Edward’s brother Freddie had snuck into the back of the church at the funeral and sat on his own. The brothers had only exchanged the briefest of nods, before Freddie departed. It didn’t seem like he was in any rush to revisit the family home.
The mail plane came twice a week, and there were people around, but nobody who could be Betty’s friend. The Aboriginal workers had their own camp down by the river. Mr Jeffries, the property manager, had his own house between the stables and the landing strip. Edward spent all his time either out on the property with Jeffries or shut away in his office. Grace wasn’t friendly to Betty. She wasn’t unfriendly, but, like all the workers, she was assessing the new boss and his new wife. Betty’s confidence in the kitchen, and her willingness to clean up after herself seemed to irritate rather than endear her to Grace. They weren’t quite on the same side yet. Which just left Adele. Edward had sacked the Aboriginal nanny the day after the funeral. Betty was here now, and caring for house and child was a wife’s job after all.
And Betty did care for the little girl at least. Adele was wonderful. Betty knew the child had her new stepmum wrapped right around her little finger, but Betty didn’t care. She was completely in love with the little girl.
‘Can we go and meet it?’
The ute was sitting next to the house, where it always was. Betty could drive over to the landing strip herself, but the keys were kept in Mr Jeffries’ house and she hadn’t worked out how to ask for her own set. She stuck her head back through the door to the house. ‘Mr Jeffries. The mail plane’s here!’ she shouted.
‘Mr Jeffries has taken the other car to town.’ Jimmy, the stockman who’d met them on the first day, was standing in front of the house. His t-shirt, once white, was stained red by the dust and the earth, and his wide-brimmed hat topped a face half-hidden by a thick dark beard. ‘He said I should bring them to the house.’
‘I could drive,’ Betty offered.
Jimmy shrugged. ‘I don’t mind doing it.’
‘Adele asked if she could come too.’
‘No worries.’
Betty climbed into the passenger side of the ute with Adele squeezed in between her and their driver.
‘You’re looking forward to seeing your mum?’
Adele nodded eagerly. ‘She brings me presents.’
‘Does she?’ Jimmy chatted easily with the little girl.
Betty fixed her gaze out of the window. The vastness of the land hadn’t yet sunk in. She’d married a man who owned a whole world.
Jimmy pulled the ute to a stop alongside the landing strip. They climbed out and the little girl skipped away. ‘Don’t go too far.’ Betty could hear the note of worry in her own voice. She needed to keep th
e things she cared for close, so they couldn’t slip away.
‘She’ll be right.’ Jimmy folded his arms and looked to the sky.
‘All this takes a lot of getting used to,’ Betty said as she watched the plane drop towards the dirt landing strip.
‘I guess for city folk it does.’
‘They told me the Rochesters owned all this land. But I didn’t even imagine how big and remote it is.’
‘They do not own this place.’ Jimmy’s voice was quiet but firm. ‘They are not part of this land.’
Betty frowned. What was he talking about? Edward did own this place. His father’s will had been very clear. Before she could ask, Jimmy started walking towards the plane, which had landed and was now parking at the end of the airstrip.
‘Lizzybeth! They’re here.’
Betty let Adele grab her hand and drag her towards the plane. The first person to jump out was a man. Betty frowned. They weren’t expecting anyone else, were they? The second figure was a woman.
‘Mummy!’ Adele broke free of her hand and ran towards the stranger. Betty hung back. The woman was beautiful. She was tall, with long red hair rolling down her back. Her skin was as pale and as smooth as alabaster. Compared to her, Betty was too short. She looked too dark. She was just all wrong.
The third passenger made Betty gasp. Jumping from the plane behind beautiful Celine was another man. This one she knew only too well. Richard Mason. Here. In her brave new world.
Chapter 33
Jane
I missed Gail. But more than that, I missed the feeling our friendship had given me. The feeling of belonging. Of having a family. Of being normal. The more I thought about it, the more I realised how abnormal my life had been. Born into a commune to a mother I now barely remembered. Living with the Reeds, and treated like an unwelcome stray that had wandered in off the street. Living here, behind the high walls of Our Lady.