Dorothy Eden (48 page)

Eugenia found the wet sacks awkwardly heavy to handle. She had to get too near the flames and was in danger of setting herself on fire. Obadiah silently took the sack from her and handed her a garden rake. With this she could beat at the small flames, running like an incoming tide, across the grass. When a row of vines burst into flames, the sight was awesome. The row of fire fighters, with their sooty heat-reddened faces, was illuminated in a sudden all-enveloping orange glow, like some improbable scene from the Old Testament.

It was on these occasions that Eugenia paused in her back-breaking work and looked towards Gilbert. He was there in the distance, leaning on a stick, but directing the campaign tirelessly, his hoarse voice easily audible above the sinister crackling of the advancing fire.

They must concentrate on the ploughed land dividing the muscatels from the rieslings, he shouted. The muscatels would have to be sacrificed, but if the fire could be prevented from leaping across the intervening space, half the vineyard could be saved. It all depended on the wind, which fortunately seemed to be dropping.

Gigantic columns flamed against the sky as gum trees caught fire. The heat was overpowering. Eugenia had a moment of horror when her swirling silk skirt dragged in smouldering ashes. Why hadn’t she had Addie’s good sense to throw off her dinner gown and her petticoats? Addie was working like a man in a pair of Jem’s trousers.

It was too late for her to put on trousers, but at least she could discard her dangerous skirts.

She dropped the charred and filthy dress and petticoats where she stood, and in only her laced bodice and pantaloons continued beating at the small yellow tongues of fire. Presently a gust of wind blew a flame on to her discarded gown and turned it to a balloon of yellow fire.

Gilbert caught sight of this phenomenon and exclaimed. He thought for a moment that someone had been burnt alive. Eugenia gave an irrepressible peal of laughter. Gilbert’s face was so comical as he turned from what he had thought to be a tragedy to see his wife standing in her underclothing.

‘Eugenia! What are you doing here?’

‘What everybody else is doing. Trying to save the vineyard.’

‘Good God!’ he whispered. She heard the tortured frustration in his voice, as he realized their reversed positions, he the helpless watcher while she toiled. There was no time to be sorry for him. The flames were taking another direction, frizzling the dried grass in their path. It would be utterly tragic if the rieslings were burned. Someone was watching to see that no sparks floated in the direction of the house and stables. The stable doors had been opened and the horses left to run free.

Another rivulet of flame was quenched. Some soaring sparks winked out and fell harmlessly. The vines through which the holocaust had swept stood blackened and shrivelling, the thin red veins of fire ebbing in the tough stems.

Tom Sloan arrived with a fresh supply of water. The overpowering smoke had given way to a wet charred smell. Strangely the smoke seemed to be drifting away, and the fierce heat diminishing. A pause came in the intense activity. Eugenia saw Gilbert straighten himself with something of his old vigour.

‘The wind has turned,’ he called out in a strong, excited voice. ‘By God, we’ve won!’

His blackened, emaciated figure had a curious affinity with the shrivelled vines. But where they were dead and would have to be dug out, he was alive to see the miracle of the wind turning, and the saving of his most cherished grapes.

Mrs Jarvis, Tom Sloan, Addie and Jem, and the Frenchman whose suave appearance had suffered severely, all came hastening to him, dropping their tools, sighing with exhausted relief.

‘Papa, it’s going to be all right now,’ Addie was crying. ‘We’ve only lost the sauternes and we can replant—
Mamma!
Where are your clothes?’ She went into shrieks of hysterical laughter, only to be slapped lightly on the cheek by her father.

‘Don’t you dare to laugh at your mother! You saucy hussy! Genia, we’ve spoiled that girl. All the same—’ he held out his hand to Eugenia, ‘it would be a good idea to go home and freshen up.’

No one would ever know how he had stood on his feet for so long.

But now that the fight was over, he was content to sprawl on the floor of the dray, his head on his wife’s shoulder, and she with her little smudged face and her great eyes, and her wonderful lack of embarrassment over her state of undress. She sat there, cradling him in her arms, and Tom Sloan tried to avoid the bumps on the track, while hurrying the horse as much as possible.

When they reached the house, Sloan turned anxiously to see how his passengers had fared.

‘Wait there while I get some help, ma’am.’

‘There’s no need to hurry, Sloan,’ the mistress answered in her courteous manner. ‘We have all the time in the world.’

‘He’s not gone, ma’am!’

She moved her head in a bare acknowledgment. ‘Just as we left the vineyard. He was looking towards his vines as he drew his last breath. We mustn’t grieve. It was merciful.’ She lifted large brilliant eyes. Sloan was afraid she was a little deranged. But her voice was perfectly calm, even if her words were strange. ‘Go indoors and leave us for a few minutes, Sloan. Until the others come. Just now he belongs only to me.’

Even the nights that seemed endless did come to an end. The stars moved in their courses and people died, and morning came. All the same, that night had seemed to Lucy as if it were going on forever. She hadn’t slept at all, and she was sure no one else had. It had all been such a nightmare, the terrible fire, Papa’s death, and then Mamma in her bizarre shaming state of undress of which she hadn’t seemed to be aware until Addie had persuaded her to go and take a bath and change before the doctor arrived.

To Lucy, Mamma’s strange behaviour had been the most unnerving thing of all. But now, at last, it was dawn, and it was a relief to get out of bed and go to the window for some cool air.

As Lucy leaned out she saw, to her surprise, someone already walking in the garden. It was Mrs Jarvis, wearing her usual dark dress, even a white starched apron. Was she dressed for the new day, or had she not ended the old one?

Lucy was about to call to her when she heard a footstep on the verandah. A moment later Mamma appeared. She, too, was in the gown into which she had changed last night. It had been one of Papa’s favourites. Its flowing pearl-coloured chiffon made her look like a slender ghost as she crossed the lawn.

Mrs Jarvis saw her coming, and paused in her walk, her head tilted enquiringly. Mamma said something that was inaudible to Lucy, then surprisingly, but in the most natural way imaginable, she linked her arm in Mrs Jarvis’s.

Together, the two women began pacing up and down, their steps in unison.

I
WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE
the great help given me in research by Darli McCourt, who suggested the background for this novel, and also by Jim Sare, both of Hodder & Stoughton, Sydney. And for the actual knowledge of Australia as a country, I wish to thank my sister and brother-in-law, Win and Bernie Hampton of Hunters Hill, Sydney.

Dorothy Eden (1912–1982) was the internationally acclaimed author of more than forty bestselling gothic, romantic suspense, and historical novels. Born in New Zealand, where she attended school and worked as a legal secretary, she moved to London in 1954 and continued to write prolifically. Eden’s novels are known for their suspenseful, spellbinding plots, finely drawn characters, authentic historical detail, and often a hint of spookiness. Her novel of pioneer life in Australia,
The Vines of Yarrabee
, spent four months on the
New York Times
bestseller list. Her gothic historical novels
Ravenscroft
,
Darkwater
, and
Winterwood
are considered by critics and readers alike to be classics of the genre.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1969 by Dorothy Eden

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

978-1-4804-2978-9

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com