by Darry Fraser
Elsa had taken a moment to work out what she meant. ‘You mean to say you’d let people think that the baby is Frank’s?’
‘What else to do?’ Rosie cracked at her, bleary eyes red-rimmed and streaming. ‘I am a forty-something-year-old woman, who laid with a man not my husband, and before I was widowed. Of course I must say it’s Frank’s.’ But she held onto her middle and her features softened. ‘But I never dreamed I could have a baby. I never dreamed I could.’
Astounded on all fronts, Elsa had sputtered, ‘But you loved Nebo, you must have, to have been with him and—’
‘Not love, Elsa. It was far too soon for love. It was a need, or something. A longing. Oh, I think he could’ve loved me. For me, he was—a delightful, irresistible rogue, but …’ She faltered, seemed to search for the right words. ‘He had no house, no land, no work. I would’ve been living in a camp—’
‘Many people do.’
‘—with no prospects and that is not for me. I knew even before you returned from Ezekiel’s that I’d been hasty being with him. So very hasty. And now,’ she’d said and lifted her shoulders. ‘This.’
‘But it is a baby for you, Rosie,’ Elsa said in wonder.
‘Yes. A baby. If only I can keep it.’
A thought pounced on Elsa. Horrified, she said, ‘You wouldn’t think to sell it to one of those despicable baby farmers, would you?’
Rosie had rolled her eyes. ‘Elsa, I simply meant that at my age, I might miscarry.’
But it had stayed, and its little life beat strongly inside her sister. Perhaps Rosie’s body had not been at fault at all over the years. Perhaps it had been Frank’s body. But everyone knew that the woman was always at fault, either for being barren, or for having female offspring, or for having a baby at all, especially out of wedlock. Always her fault. She was congratulated if a boy was born. Where was the science? Certainly not in any newspapers she’d read.
Elsa was thankful that her own monthly course had arrived, right on time. Far too soon for love, Rosie had said. And even though it had only been a few days for Elsa too, she was sure of her feelings. They hadn’t changed. Was it far too soon for love? That may well be, but she knew her mind. And heart. She would follow where it took her. It felt too good to dismiss. But how to keep it?
They both resided in the rooms over the bakery, and it was just about dawn. Hours before, Elsa had already been downstairs firing up the ovens and had rolled the dough ready for proving. Thinking to encourage Rosie to have something for breakfast, she took a cup of cooled, sweetened tea for her and a dry slice of bread. Yeasty, warm wafts had followed her back upstairs and flour covered her just about head to toe.
The first of Rosie’s morning heaves reached her ears. Gracious, how long will this last? If all went well, it would be mid-December or thereabouts before the baby was born. Elsa looked over at the dining table where Ezekiel’s letter lay open, waiting for her to pen a reply. She’d made a decision and would put it to paper. It seemed unavoidable—so why was she still hesitating?
At Rosie’s side, she sat the teacup and the plate of bread on the bedside table then drew open the curtain. Weak daylight streamed in. Helping her sister to sit, she bunched the pillows behind her.
‘Oh, I can’t even look at the bread,’ Rosie said, her lip curling.
‘Then sip some tea.’ Elsa held up the cup. ‘There’s something I want to talk about before I fall asleep on my feet.’
Rosie glanced at her, her frown dark. ‘Oh, is that right? I am the one throwing up my stomach all day and night, yet you are asleep on your feet. Poor you.’
Elsa let it go. It wouldn’t make any difference reminding Rosie that working for twenty hours of the day was taking its toll. Instead, she took a deep breath. ‘Yes, poor me. And so I’ve come up with a solution to our predicament.’
Rosie waved a hand dismissively. ‘What predicament? It’s only a short time until the baby is born, and you’re quite right, I’ll be able to work after. So I don’t see things need to change now. You’ll just have to find the energy until then to—’
‘Stop.’ Elsa held up a hand. ‘That’s not what I meant. I’ll write to Mr Jones and tell him of our situation.’ Even firm in her convictions, she felt the burning flush spread across her face and rush down her neck.
Rosie’s mouth dropped open. ‘You will not.’
‘I will.’
‘But it’s a scandal, Elsa, about me—’
‘And about Nebo. We will tell his family.’
Rosie looked aghast. ‘We won’t. I can’t have you telling anyone. You know that.’
‘I, for one,’ Elsa said, ‘will not be telling anyone here about the father of your baby, therefore no scandal.’ She sat up straight, the cup of tea in her hand hovering close to Rosie. ‘It’s sensible. It’s right and proper that—’
‘No, it’s illegitimate,’ Rosie shrieked, throwing her hands up before she snatched the bowl and coughed over it. ‘I forbid you,’ she barked between spits.
‘Forbid me? I don’t think so.’ Elsa whisked away the cup of tea before her sister knocked it from her. ‘We must also put the bakery up for sale to see if it attracts a buyer.’
‘Elsa, no. You must work the bakery, you must.’ Rosie groped for her hand. ‘We can’t sell it. How will we survive without it?’
‘Be reasonable. I can’t work the bakery and the farm. It’s too much for me and we can’t afford a worker for either place.’
‘Sell the damn farm. It’s useless.’
Elsa’s shoulders fell. ‘There’s not much point to trying to sell the farm.’
‘Abandon it, then. God knows, it looks derelict.’
That hurt, but it was close to the truth. Rosie gulped again, screwed up her face and clutched the bowl. Elsa handed her the damp cloth and watched her sister drag it over her face and neck. ‘I’m not a baker, Rosie. I’m a farmer, or, if you’d rather not call me that, I’m a woman who knows how to work a farm. I can’t abandon it.’
‘And I’m not a farm person,’ Rosie shrilled. ‘I can’t live out there on that lump of dirt without even a decent roof over my head.’ She thrust the cloth back at Elsa, fear and anger etched on her face.
Drawing in another deep breath, Elsa said, ‘Then I’ll be writing to Ezekiel, and I will post the letter today.’
Rosie stared at her and began to gulp. The bowl hovered under her chin but nothing happened. Her eyes widened and her breathing was shallow, but it wasn’t anything to do with pain or with the baby. Rosie was thinking. ‘I can’t stop you writing,’ she said.
‘You can’t,’ Elsa replied. ‘I have to do what’s right. For all of us.’
‘I will not take charity.’ Rosie was tremulous. ‘You must stay with me and we will work this out, together. You must, Elsa. No one here must know about Nebo’s child. Their family would be disgusted with me. Nebo is dead, they might think— Promise me you will not write to him,’ she cried.
Elsa’s heart pounded. Suddenly she wanted to be sick, too. The future was so unknown. But if she didn’t explain to Ezekiel, didn’t give him a reason for her absence then she hadn’t tried everything she could—for herself, not only for Rosie and the baby. For Ezekiel, too. She wouldn’t be dishonest with him. She couldn’t be.
Rosie seemed to be weighing up her options. Her mouth pursed and her voice cracked. ‘You don’t have to write to him about it today, do you? Just give me a little more time to become calm, to think more clearly. I’m—not my best right now.’
Elsa thought it over. Anything could happen in the next few weeks, she knew. Early life in the womb could be quite precarious, Rosie had said. ‘All right. I won’t tell him yet.’ She had a sinking feeling.
Rosie reached across and squeezed Elsa’s hands. ‘I’ll feel better soon, I know it.’
‘I hope so.’ An overwhelming fatigue struck, and Elsa tried to disengage her hands.
Rosie’s grip tightened. ‘But no matter what, Elsa, you won’t leave me alone, will you,
even though I know your heart is elsewhere?’
Gracious me, Rosie, acknowledging I have feelings. Elsa sighed inwardly as the ache grew. She removed her hands from her sister’s and rubbed her eyes. ‘I won’t leave you, Rosie. I wouldn’t do that.’
All evening, thoughts of how life here at Robe might look were only interrupted by mopping Rosie on the half-hour. Her sister had grown increasingly waspish. ‘Yesterday, the dough for the bread hadn’t proved long enough. What a waste. Where is the icing for the sweet buns? You’ve used the wrong jam. And just look at them—they’re not exactly works of art, are they? They’ll have to be thrown out.’
‘Which is totally unnecessary.’ Although when Elsa looked again at her handiwork, the buns did look more like cowpats.
Her sister huffed. ‘You’ll have to lease out the farm, Elsa, or get rid of it altogether. No more indecision about it. Put all your energy into making the bakery work. How will we survive if—’ Retch. ‘You will take over everything here at the bakery. I know it’s a big job: the early mornings, the baking itself, the deliveries. Manning the shop counter. But you’ll have to do it.’ Retch. ‘Who knows when this daily sickness will stop? Until it does, I can’t be expected to work—’
‘Here’s another damp towel, Rosie.’ And on and on it went.
Later, Elsa collapsed into her bed. Her life was never meant to be in the bakery, a life Rosie had built with Frank. Perhaps instead of leasing the farm, they could sell the bakery. Sell to whom? No one in the district would have any money—the banks weren’t lending.
Please, please, please let me find a solution.
Her mind went around and around, and at each turn, her heart thumped as Ezekiel popped into her head. If Rosie had a disturbed night that evening, Elsa hadn’t heard her. She’d dropped into a deep, exhausted slumber.
Next evening, Rosie had retreated to her room early. Hopefully she’d not be attacked again by the wretched vomits.
Elsa sat at the tiny dining table with Ezekiel’s letter under her hand. Shaking off the weight of exhaustion, she looked down at the beloved handwriting and read it again.
‘My Lovely,
‘The nights grow cooler, the dawn comes later. My children groan about the crisp air they must endure getting to school. Perhaps not for much longer. It appears I must soon take Gifford from the classroom and put him to work on our farms.’
Elsa thought about Giff, the serious boy who’d delighted in her using the crutches he’d fashioned. She wiggled her foot. Barely a twinge in it now and she tried not to favour it at all.
‘Gracie is doing so well, it seems a shame to remove her to the kitchen.’ Elsa frowned at that. Surely not that bright little girl? There would be a better future for Gracie if she stayed at school. She would write and tell Ezekiel so.
‘And Jonty is, well, Jonty. My delightful little lad.’
‘One wouldn’t think winter is coming, but rather spring if Jude were anything to go by. I have never seen a happier man than when he is in the company of Mrs Hartman, and even when he is not, there is certainly a spring in his step.’ He’d underlined the word. ‘And as for Mrs Hartman, she cannot seem to stop cooking. I presume that to be a good thing, and I, for one, do all I can to encourage it.’
Each reading of his letter made her want to start another to him. She’d worried that she wouldn’t have anything to say. She certainly had no hope to offer that she’d visit—ever again—and her heart nearly gave out at that thought. She wanted to tell him so much, but knew it best to chatter about the farm, the bakery—she’d told him Rosie had re-opened it. Now that the vote had been made, she would send him clippings of the Naracoorte Herald reports of polling day. She was sure it would make headlines, and not only here but right across all the colonies.
He went on. ‘Despite my sore loss of you, I’ve been keeping busy. In part, telling my children of their uncle’s passing. No easy task. A sorrowful time, and I would keep the full circumstances from them. It grieves me further that few will ask after my brother, but if they do, we’ll only say that he’s gone to God. Our doctor’s hand on the death certificate will suffice. The other business at Nebo’s campsite remains forever unspoken.’
Elsa paused then but could not think of any reason why it needed to be otherwise.
‘Nebo rests next to my infant son and both now have their names over their graves. Xavier Jones’s resting place looks very fine, especially as Mrs Hartman is also tending my family’s plot as well as Jude’s.’
Mrs Hartman. Kind woman. Elsa had felt very good about her. Surely Judah Jones would find happiness with her. Even the little time Elsa had spent there, it appeared they might have been well matched.
She read on. ‘My children enjoy helping her and she has such a good way with them. We all look after George’s grave for you until you return.’
Her heart gave a thud again. George’s grave. She bit her lip. Until you return.
But it was his next few words that had surprised her when she’d first read them. It shouldn’t have—she knew Ezekiel was kind and generous. She let that thought linger before revisiting his words.
‘Mr Southie also has a marker with his name on it over his grave in the town cemetery.’
Ezekiel Jones was a kind man; he was her kind man. (She’d have to think harder about how she could return to him.) She thought of what he’d done for George, and George’s resting place, beneath that majestic gum tree. She smiled to herself that George would be able to see far and wide from his vantage point as befitted his roaming nature.
George. Whatever he’d done with the sovereigns, he hadn’t told a soul. Not even that terrible man who’d beaten him up and shot him trying to get the information. What could George have done with that tin? The thought popped into her mind every so often, surprising her, as if nudging her to see something, or remember something. She’d left Casterton believing with every part of her being that the tin was gone, and with it, all its contents.
She looked down to the last few lines of Ezekiel’s letter. ‘And so, my love—you are that to me—I will close and have the children post this on their way to Mrs Hartman’s today.
‘Yours most faithfully, Ezekiel.’
My love, he’d written.
Last night she’d woken with a start, remembering Ezekiel had told her something, something about what George had said. On the edge of her memory, it had refused to be coaxed forward. And just this morning she remembered something of what that horrible man had said.
Rosie called out again and Elsa tramped to her room. Her sister’s head pitched over the bowl, the retch loud as Elsa wrung out a cloth and wiped her face.
Gracious me. Rosie and a baby, a bakery, and a farm. Only Elsa to provide the hard, physical work. How was she going to survive all that?
Fifty-One
Lily stood up and stretched. Thank goodness it was a cool day again. At least the rain had loosened the soil enough to pull the weeds, without her pulling a muscle.
Her Anaïs Ségalas rose cuttings looked very healthy indeed. Soon dear Nebo would have mauve blooms at the head of his grave, just like the others had. She was sure that now, he wouldn’t mind having a pretty display when the flowers came out, even though he had been a very tough man—like all the Jones men. She gazed at the handsome timber cross Ezekiel had turned for Nebo’s grave. Even tough men could show great emotion for those they loved.
She dusted off her hands. The children were packing the cart with the tools now that they’d finished tending their mother and their little brother’s resting places. She glanced at the tenderly crafted sign Ezekiel had made for Xavier—another beautiful name for a Jones boy. He’d promised that they’d both have proper headstones as soon as it could be afforded.
Jude was here today. He looked across and winked at her, lifting her basket of fruit pies from the cart. The children let out whoops of delight. Since arriving, they’d been looking forward to the sweet treats.
Oh, family. Family.
&nbs
p; ‘Your bellies are full,’ Jude said, nodding towards Giff and Gracie sitting on the cart, legs dangling, and Jonty splayed in the dirt. ‘Off you go to your father.’ With an extra pie each, and gleeful, the children started out for home. Jude watched them go then turned to Lily. ‘I’ll take you home before the afternoon chill comes in.’
Pulling the cart under Jude’s reins, Cricket pranced down the gentle slope and away from the silent old gum tree. Lily reached over the back for a blanket and threw it across their knees. She sat close to him.
‘A letter arrived from Loretta yesterday,’ she said. ‘She’s coming home for a visit, she says. I wonder if our letters crossed in the mail, somehow. Seems she had little to say in reply to my last one.’ She tucked her hands under the blanket and Jude slipped a hand into hers. Lily thought of the clipped letter her daughter had written. ‘We will talk about things, Mother.’ Not Mama anymore. ‘I have a feeling she’ll be wanting to have a few words regarding my friendship with you.’
He nudged her with his shoulder and squeezed her hand. ‘Well, we’ll have to give her something to have a few words about, and it won’t be just our friendship. When we get to your place, I have a paper for you to look at.’
Lily turned to him, delighted. ‘You have it with you?’
‘Aye.’
‘Come on, out with it,’ she cried. ‘I’m not waiting the whole drive home without seeing it.’
Cricket danced at her lively voice. The serene plains drifted by, and white-grey cumulus clouds crowded the sky.
‘Judah Jones,’ she warned.
He tilted his head, side to side, as if thinking what he should do. ‘Inside my waistcoat. I don’t want to let go of your hand.’
She rummaged around and pulled out a folded paper, printed back and front. When she read it, she looked at him, amazed.
He gave her a sidelong glance. ‘No sense waitin’ and courtin’ when we know what we want. We’re old enough and can’t get into no trouble about it.’ He shrugged. ‘’Cept maybe from your kids.’
She waved the paper at him, beaming. ‘If it wouldn’t upset Cricket, I’d kiss you on the spot.’