Dorothy Eden (45 page)

She allowed herself to be fitted for the ball gown she was to take to London, and when this was done she consented to sit sewing lace on her new petticoats, instead of fretting to be out of doors.

Lucy hoped and prayed that her impulsive confidences had arisen from the excitement and the wine, and that with sober daylight she was having second thoughts. There were just four weeks until they sailed. If only Addie could keep this quiet sensible mood until then.

It was the lull before the storm. A lull that lasted three whole weeks.

The house was in a continual upheaval, with gowns and bonnets to be finished, boxes to be packed, decisions to be made about gifts for the English aunts and cousins. Lucy began to sigh about leaving Erasmus. He had an endearing habit of hanging by one claw from the top of his cage when she approached him. He would always respond to her. ‘Good morning, Erasmus,’ when he frequently squawked rudely, or was entirely silent, with other people. ‘Good morning, Erasmus,’ he would say in exactly her soft gentle tone. Would he still remember his tricks after a whole year?

Adelaide was much more concerned about Poacher, although she had no need to worry—Jem would exercise the animal. But Poacher was getting old, and Adelaide suddenly was stricken with the fear that he might die in her absence.

She worried all one night about that, and came down to breakfast red eyed.

‘Papa, if Poacher should die you would write and tell me, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t keep the dreadful news from me?’

Lucy expected her father to give his roar of amused laughter. Instead he said quietly, ‘Yes, Addie, I would write and tell you. I’ll also write and tell you if any other animal or person on Yarrabee passes away. I’ll even arrange for you to be informed if it happens to be myself.’

He was meaning to be facetious, of course. For some reason Adelaide, in her emotional state of mind, took him seriously.

‘Papa, what do you mean? Have you something the matter with you?’

‘Only middle age. A serious disease but not fatal.’

‘Papa, don’t joke about such things!’ Adelaide, to everyone’s surprise, flung down her knife and fork and burst into tears. Eugenia, coming at that moment, exclaimed in surprise.

‘Adelaide in tears! Whatever is the matter?’

‘She seems to have suddenly had the morbid notion that I or Poacher or someone may die while you are all away,’ Gilbert said. ‘I have merely pointed out that you will be kept informed.’

‘Adelaide! What nonsense, child. We are only to be away a year. Do you think we will come back and find everybody greybeards?’

Eugenia laughed softly at the notion, and was quite unprepared for Adelaide lifting her scarlet tear-stained face and declaring vehemently, ‘I can’t go. It has come over me at this moment. I will stay and marry Jem this year instead of next, as we had arranged. Forgive me, Mamma.’ She was babbling now. ‘I really thought I could go, for your sake. I knew how hurt you would be if I didn’t. But suddenly I know it to be impossible. I can’t leave Yarrabee, and Papa, and Jem. The ship might sink in a gale, or strike a rock, or we all might catch cholera in England. I have read that it is rife. It is a very unpleasant d-dis-ease—’

Her voice died away as she became aware of her mother’s alarmed face.

‘Adelaide, my dear child, I think you are having a brainstorm. It comes from too much excitement. Go to your room and rest quietly. Ellen will bring you some hot milk to calm you.’

‘Wait!’ Gilbert’s hand was raised. ‘Wait, my love. Adelaide’s brainstorm, as you call it, seems to contain some interesting information. Did I understand you to say, Addie, that you and Jem have arranged to marry?’

‘Oh,
yes,
Papa! It was to be a secret until we returned from England. We talked about it for hours only yesterday. I had to propose to Jem in the most unladylike manner. He was too conscious of it not being his place to do so, as if I were royalty, or something. But you should have seen his face. He accepted me with the greatest happiness, and I want you to know that we have no intention of behaving in such a cowardly way as Kit and running off with only a letter left to tell you. I meant to tell you like this, plainly, when we had returned from England. But suddenly I realized I can’t go. I simply can’t. It would be like tearing my heart out. Supposing there are bad frosts or blight or caterpillars—’

‘Or Jem dies,’ Gilbert echoed, in a strange mild voice. ‘I completely understand your anxieties, Addie, my dear. But you must know your mother has set her heart on this trip for longer than either of us care to remember. And you are not yet eighteen. You can well afford to wait a year before you marry Jem.’

‘Gilbert—’ Eugenia began to say, but was again stopped by his imperious hand.

‘Wait, we must hear Addie out. Now, Addie.’

Adelaide’s tears had dried, and now, with an impulsive change of mood, her face was literally shining.

‘Then you will not object, Papa, to my marrying Jem?’

‘On the contrary, it has been an event I didn’t dare to hope for, for fear it wouldn’t happen.’

‘Oh, Papa! How wonderful you are. I told Jem you would be. But Mamma—’ Adelaide dared to glance at her mother’s face and what she saw made her bite her lips.

‘Jem is a fine man,’ Gilbert said. ‘In my opinion you couldn’t have a better husband. What’s more, he will want to carry on the vineyard—’

‘The vineyard!’ Eugenia cried at last in a shaking voice. ‘I believe you two have made this up between you to protect the vineyard now that Kit has gone.’ She flung down her napkin and rose. ‘This is the very last unendurable straw. Our trip to England is not only ruined on the very eve of departure but I am now to have a convict as a son-in-law. It is exactly what I might have expected from the moment I set foot in this country.’

‘M-Mamma!’ Lucy stuttered as Eugenia, stiff-backed, walked to the door.

She could scarcely believe her ears when her mother, unkind for the first time in her life, said curtly, ‘You may well cry, Lucy, since this is the country where you are to remain for the rest of your life.’

B
UT IT SEEMED THAT LUCY
actually wanted to remain here. She had been secretly reluctant to go on such a long journey and meet so many strange people. She would no doubt have been thought exceedingly dull. The idea of curtseying to the Queen had petrified her.

To Eugenia, this was the hardest blow of all.

‘But, Lucy, my darling, England would have been like home to you. Your cousins are not strangers. You’ve heard so much about Lichfield Court. What is there for you here? Will you be content to marry like Adelaide and Kit?’

‘Rosie and Jem are just Australians, Mamma. The same as Kit and Addie and me.’ Seeing the pain in her mother’s beloved face, she went on quickly, ‘I don’t mind if I never marry.’

‘And what will you do instead?’

‘I’ll stay with you and Papa. I’ll have the garden. I thought Obadiah and I might plant snowdrops and lilies of the valley for next spring. English snowdrops, Mamma.’

‘In this dried-up red dust?’

‘It isn’t dried up in the spring. You know that we have plenty of rain then. After all, you made a garden here, Mamma. I don’t really see how you can bear to leave it.’

That thought had sometimes come to Eugenia. She had wondered whether in England, she would have longed for her antipodean garden and perhaps boasted about the brilliant colours of the native flowers. And wondered whether Gilbert ever walked in at dusk, as he frequently did now, in her company.

Her voice was softer when she answered Lucy. ‘You should have told us long ago that you preferred to stay at home. It would have saved us all a great deal of trouble.’

And there had to be another letter of apology to Sarah.

‘It seems that my headstrong eldest daughter has been dying of love, and only concealed the fact for fear of disappointing me too much in my plans. But the truth had to come out, and now a wedding is much more imperative to Adelaide than a visit to England. Jem, to Gilbert’s great satisfaction, is a most promising vigneron. So Yarrabee and the vineyard will be kept in the family after all, even though Kit will not be the heir. But I must tell you that Kit has had the good luck to find a gold nugget for which the bank has paid him five hundred pounds. He and Rosie are going to travel through Victoria, and perhaps continue all the way to South Australia where there is a flourishing colony. It is true that this country is full of adventure for the young…’

‘If you’re going to stay home you must begin to look happier.’ It was no use trying to resist Gilbert when he wheedled.

‘Adelaide is the person who has to look happy. At least we won’t need to have clothes made for the wedding. So all is not lost. Adelaide can wear the gown she was intended to wear to Court, and Lucy as her attendant can do the same. And I shall be in difficulty to decide which of several gowns is best suited for myself as the bride’s mother.’

‘My darling, you will look charming, as always, in any of them.’

His words were spoken automatically. She had caught the sudden look of pain that had crossed his face.

‘Why did you wince as you said that?’

‘Did I? My back hurts. I must have strained it.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know. A few weeks ago, perhaps.’

‘A few weeks ago and it hasn’t got better! You must see a doctor.’

‘Nonsense. A bit of rheumatism. I’m getting old.’

‘So am I, but I don’t wince when I move. I’ll call on Doctor Wilson when I’m in town this afternoon and ask him to come out.’

She was looking at him clearly for the first time since her great disappointment. She wondered how she could not have noticed sooner the look of quenched tiredness in his eyes. His allegory about the withering vine came back to her mind. A pain twisted in her heart.

‘You will let the doctor examine you, Gilbert? What about those ulcers on your arm? Have they improved?’

‘They’re nothing.’

Something in his voice made her heart jump.

‘Are there more?’

‘One or two. For goodness’ sake, I’ve had them for years. I’m not sick. I’ve never been sick in my life.’

‘And you would have let me leave you for a whole year without telling me this?’

‘That I had a backache? You’re surely not turning that into something important as well.’

‘But you will see Doctor Wilson?’

‘That old woman! Oh, very well, if it pleases you.’ He held out his hand to her. ‘Don’t mind too much about Addie. She and Jem will be happy. They’re much better matched than you think. They’re members of the same new race. They’ll make their own social conventions. How could this polyglot lot of people live with one another if they allowed themselves to be weighted down by all those stuffy English traditions? Who’s going to care in a hundred years, in fifty years even, that Jem McDougal came out in a convict ship?’

‘I, for one, care now,’ Eugenia said stubbornly.

‘Well, don’t go on brooding about it.’

‘Oh, I shall hold up my head at the wedding. You don’t need to be afraid of that.’

But it was not to be a grand wedding after all.

Doctor Wilson drove out in his buggy behind his smart grey mare to see Gilbert. After being closeted with his patient for a long time he emerged from the bedroom with Gilbert, buttoning his jacket, following him and shouting in a highly irascible voice.

‘Get Phil Noakes to come down, Eugenia.’

Eugenia was alarmed.

‘But why? You’re not seriously ill, are you? What is the matter with my husband, doctor?’

The doctor, with his little pointed beard in the air, walked down the stairs, leaving Eugenia to follow. He was too mannered and foppish for an Australian town. She might have known Gilbert would have little patience with him.

In the hall he answered Eugenia’s question.

‘I can’t be sure yet. I’d welcome Doctor Noakes’ opinion. Make your husband rest more, Mrs Massingham.’

‘But is that all you can say?’

‘My dear lady, don’t look so anxious. It may be something perfectly simple. A touch of lumbago. I don’t fancy it has anything to do with the skin condition, though I can’t be certain.’

The chill settled round Eugenia’s heart.

‘Doctor, what are you afraid of?’

The little beard lowered itself an inch or two. The man was human after all. His eyes were kind.

‘Loss of weight, lack of appetite, severe pain in the lumbar region—classic symptoms of a tumour, Mrs Massingham. But the diagnosis is by no means confirmed. Your husband has been a fairly heavy wine drinker for a long time. This may merely be some aspect of liver trouble. Give him a nourishing light diet and make him rest. You might do me the goodness to inform me of Doctor Noakes’ diagnosis. Good day to you, Mrs Massingham.’

‘Old fool,’ was all Gilbert would say. ‘Why didn’t he stay in London and prey on rich women? I’ll take my oath there’s a shady story in his past.’

‘You have to rest more,’ Eugenia said. ‘Please, Gilbert. For my sake.’

‘Are you turning me into an old man?’

‘Don’t be absurd. You’re tired. And tired people rest. If they’re not quite lunatic.’

‘Well, I am lunatic. You know that already.’ He shook her hand off his arm. ‘Don’t fuss. Oh, very well, for the sake of peace I’ll rest until Phil Noakes comes. Not a day longer.’

Actually, after that protest, he seemed to enjoy sitting in the rocking chair on the verandah in the sparkling autumn sun. He even displayed an interest in Eugenia’s garden.

‘What’s the name of those fiery red things?’

‘Salvia bonfire.’

The name pleased him. He nodded his head in a considering way.

‘And they flower in the autumn. A brave flame before the frosts. Where are you going?’

‘Just indoors to get my needlework.’

‘Bring it out here.’

He didn’t like to be left alone. He was resting to please her, so she could oblige by giving him her company. He liked to have Addie at his side, too. But Lucy had always been too nervous of him. He preferred her at a distance, working in the garden. Her slender figure kneeling over the colourful borders looked like her mother’s.

The other person who appeared more frequently than was necessary was Mrs Jarvis. Her movements and her face were quiet, as always, but she was beginning to look old. The servants knew that she was anxious about the master. ‘And no wonder,’ Ellen muttered spitefully. But Ellen had had a mysterious grudge against Mrs Jarvis for some time.