Haunted Creek (13 page)

The pupils filed into the sewing class and there was the usual chorus: ‘Good morning, Mrs Teesdale.’ Ada was put into the baby carriage, which was overflowing with fresh new pink and white cotton covers. The class waited to see Rose’s reaction.

‘What pretty pillows and covers!’ Rose looked round at the eager faces. ‘Who made these for baby? They are so well done!’ The hemming was neat and there had even been a spidery attempt at embroidery.

‘We did!’ Lottie jumped up and down. ‘While you were away. Mrs Jensen told us what to do and we worked all by ourselves, except when she came to see us.’

Rose met Freda’s eyes above the children’s heads and saw that she was laughing with pleasure. ‘We like sewing!’ Lottie announced. ‘We want to do some more.’

The sewing class worked happily all morning, making cushion covers for home, and when Lottie started humming to herself, Lydia asked, ‘Can we sing, Mrs Teesdale, if we keep working?’ So the class sang, and Rose with them, some nursery rhymes and songs they had learned from Mrs Jensen. They loved ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ and sang it several times, and followed it with ‘Little
Boy Blue’ and ‘Jack And Jill’. Then they sang ‘Little Snail’, a Swedish song that Rose guessed came from Freda’s childhood.

‘When children are learning, they enjoy it much more if they do a real project with an end result, rather than an exercise. That’s my way of teaching,’ Freda explained at lunchtime over a cup of coffee while the children played outside. ‘Sewing for Ada was a big
incentive
.’

They were quiet for a while, resting after the effort of teaching, and then Freda said, ‘I heard you singing with the class. Do you play the piano, Rose?’

‘Not since I came here,’ Rose said ruefully. ‘I used to play at home, though.’ The thought of a piano in a bark hut was ridiculous. ‘I’ve been singing to Ada lately – she seems to like it.’

‘I’d be grateful if you could take the whole school for singing. You have a true voice,’ Freda said. ‘I can pay you for extra hours, if you can spare the time.’

Rose felt herself blushing. ‘Thank you, I would like it very much.’ There had been little music in her life in Australia, and she missed it.

‘You’ll have noticed that Charlie’s not in the sewing class this term,’ Freda went on. ‘He sewed to his own and my satisfaction, so that he can do basic repairs. And then he asked to learn farming. So he goes off to Ben Sawley’s farm one day a week. Of course he has to keep a journal and let me read it.’ She laughed. ‘The other boys brought in sewing too, so now they work in the garden on Wednesdays and learn botany and arithmetic. They have to measure and calculate, I make sure of that. Erik set up a little garden area for them.’ There was a pause. ‘I haven’t heard from Erik since he left.’

‘It will be hard for him to write a letter if he’s travelling all the time,’ Rose said to comfort her. ‘I’m going to deliver eggs tomorrow – I can call at the post office if you like.’ If only Luke thought of writing a letter! Rose never knew how he was faring, or when he was coming home until he appeared.

Freda’s normally serene face was worried. ‘Thank you, Rose, there may be a letter tomorrow. Erik usually writes to me … there are plenty of post offices on the Melbourne road.’

T
HERE WAS A
quiet routine to Rose’s days as the heat of summer cooled into milder autumn weather. Instead of being an effort, it was a pleasure in cooler weather to carry the basket of eggs down the track to the All Nations hotel. Maeve was always pleased to see her and to play with Ada. ‘Reminds me of when I was young, with my little Paddy on my knee,’ she said with a laugh that shook the big shoulders.

Of course there was no word from Luke, but Rose didn’t expect it. Erik was another matter and the last few times she had been to the post office, she had asked in vain for a letter for Mrs Jensen. Rose believed that bad news travels fast, as they said in Yorkshire, and that they would have heard about it if Erik had come to grief, but she felt a nagging uneasiness about him.

Although Freda said little, Rose understood that droving could be dangerous. Luke had assured her it was one job he wouldn’t take; he’d talked to drovers and heard their stories. ‘What with sleeping rough, wild cattle, the Ganai clans on your tail and duffing down the track, a man wouldn’t have a minute’s peace by day or night.’ He’d told her that sometimes cattle came in from the big runs that had hardly ever seen a human being, let alone a Cobb & Co. mail coach flying along to make up for lost time. ‘Those cattle are toey,’ he’d said and Rose could imagine what he meant. ‘Duffing’ must mean cattle stealing.

‘And some of the Ganai are partial to a leg of beef, although they might not take the whole steer. They’re good hunters, too.’ If
something had gone wrong, surely the agent would have let Freda know? Perhaps he had no news, either.

Early one misty morning Rose fed and dressed the baby with her usual care and took to the track along the Haunted Creek. Wisps of vapour curled up from the water to disappear in the blue sky and high in the tree canopy, magpies warbled. It was good to be alive. The air was still; not a leaf moved.

The road was so familiar now that she was able to enjoy the morning as she walked and Rose was watching two lyre birds with their plumed tails spread when a slight movement made her turn round. The dark women were standing on the track where she had just walked, the ghosts of Haunted Creek.

‘We follow you for a mile! Did you see?’ Sal giggled and Auntie Mary beamed. They both wore cotton dresses and carried their soft grass bags. Rose shook her head; they had startled her a little. ‘Haven’t been here since long time. We come for berries,’ the older woman told her. ‘What a lovely little white baby you got!’ Both women laughed again and Ada chuckled up at them.

‘The first time I saw you, there was a baby with you,’ Rose said. ‘Is it yours, Sal?’

The girl’s eyes were sad. ‘My little baby died … got sick. There was nothing could save him. He’s gone to heaven now, buried with a cross on his little grave.’ She held out thin dark arms to Rose. ‘I like to hold your baby for a while.’

‘You shall … her name is Ada.’ Rather reluctantly, Rose took off the harness and Sal took the baby gently, rocking her. She began to sing in a strange, faraway voice. She sang a lullaby, but it sounded like a sad song of farewell. Rose felt all the sadness of Haunted Creek, of the wider country, in the simple notes that rose and fell. It was a lament for the dead child but she felt that Sal sang too of other sorrows – the passing of a way of life, the loss of country. Sal knew about loss.

Past and future blended as Rose looked down at long grasses, weeping into the clear waters of the stream. Was it old sorrows, or was there sadness in store?

Auntie Mary wiped away tears and then it was over. As she handed Ada back, Sal looked earnestly at the child. ‘This baby is strong. She will live.’

Ada chuckled, the spell was broken and the women laughed at her. When they were walking again Rose asked quietly, ‘Which are the berries you gather?’

‘
Garawed
’s the best – look here.’ Sal pointed to a shrub under the trees as they walked along. She turned aside and picked a cluster of berries.

‘It looks like an elderberry, only it’s white. I never noticed it before!’ Rose tried the berries and found them sweet; she must have been blind to miss them. ‘Do you eat those little raspberries?’ Those she had seen and eaten herself, this last week.

‘
Yalaban
? Course we do and quite a few more, some here, some there. You should try them.’

They came to the wider track up to the hotel, where not far away a couple of men were loading food supplies onto a donkey. When they saw the men, the women quickly turned to go, but Rose stopped them and gave them some eggs from her basket. Smiling, they thanked her and put the eggs carefully into their bags. ‘See you after,’ they said. ‘We need to tell you …’ And then the track was empty and Rose was alone with the baby. Perhaps she would see them on the way back, or perhaps they meant next year.

Maeve insisted that Ada be left with her while Rose went to the post office, but once again there was no letter from Erik. It was too bad of Erik not to write to his mother. Perhaps the stock agent who employed the drovers would know something; she would ask Bert Carr when next he was going down to Moe. He might be willing to see the agent.

Maeve was holding Ada on her knee when Rose went back to the All Nations, but she handed over the baby quickly as four men came in, demanding bacon and coffee for breakfast. They had
obviously
been living rough for days. ‘Give us plenty of bread with it,
missus, we’re starving.’ Maeve rang a bell and Boris the cook appeared to take the order.

As Rose slipped into the harness again she caught a whiff of
eucalyptus
oil and realized that the men at the bar were the dreaded eucy men. The tall one was Lordy, the polite Mr Barrington, leaning on the bar looking at the landlady. He took off his hat and bowed to Rose, then went back to gazing at Maeve. She recognized a large hat with a beard under it as Joe and there was the rat-faced Benny and his mate.

As she was turning for the door, Joe caught sight of Rose. ‘You again, you bitch. Still bloody here? It’s time you left this country before something bad happens to you.’ The hoarse voice echoed round the room.

‘Here, Joe, can’t you be civil in my bar? Everyone is welcome here and you know it.’ Maeve brought a fist down on the bar with a crash. ‘You can all leave right now unless you apologize – no breakfast for you. I won’t have my friends insulted.’ Maeve looked magnificent, blue eyes flashing fire. ‘Boris, come here!’

The big Russian appeared in the doorway and stood there, silently glowering at the men.

‘Please, Mrs Malone, do forgive Joseph. He is extremely hungry and thirsty. We offer no insults to Mrs Teesdale, she has as much right to be here …’ Lordy’s cultured voice was lost in a shout from one of the others.

‘Push off back to England, you English bitch!’

Boris lumbered forward. There was much noise and confusion, but Rose did not wait to hear any more. She picked up her empty basket, slipped the baby on her back and went off down the track as fast as she could in case Ada heard any more bad words. The eucy men were dangerous, but Lordy – was he one of them? His smooth manner with her might cover up a dangerous streak. Maeve had Boris to keep order and you could see why she’d chosen such a big, brawny cook.

Half a mile from the pub, Rose found the dark women sitting by
the creek eating berries and waiting for her. ‘Lunch, better than mission tucker.’ They smiled, giving her some of the elderberries. She sat down with them, thankful to be among friendly faces after the scene in Maeve’s bar. Why did people warn her about Aborigines? But of course she had not met any of their menfolk … they might be different. There seemed to be a bond between women, a desire for peace and harmony.

‘We tell you message now, we should have told before,’ Auntie Mary said seriously. ‘The drover is safe.’

Rose started. ‘Drover? You mean Erik?’ Her heart pounded.

‘I think so. My cousin said, tell this Rose that live up here
somewhere
. He didn’t know, but we thought of you.’ Sal handed over some more berries. ‘The drover spoke in his sleep, they thought he said “Rose”… he has been sleeping long time. But he …’

A shot shattered the peace from the far side of the creek and the dull echo of the shotgun rumbled through the trees. Sal moaned and clutched her chest. Before Rose could move, Auntie Mary jumped up, put her arm round Sal and they limped into the forest. In seconds they were out of sight.

Rose cradled the baby protectively; would they shoot her next? Wild thoughts flashed through her mind: if she were killed, would Maeve take care of Ada? Rose kept her head down low, over the baby. There was a little blood on the bag the women had left behind. Poor Sal had been wounded.

‘Winged one. That should teach ’em,’ said a rough voice. With horror Rose saw three eucy men were ranged by the water, looking across at her. Lordy was not with them.

‘How dare you fire at people!’ Rose was so angry that she forgot to be afraid. ‘Defenceless women and a baby!’

‘Them’s not people,’ Joe sneered, lowering the shotgun. ‘Let it be a lesson to you. Just because of you, we gets thrown out of our pub. And then we find you talking friendly with blacks, that’s bad. Don’t come down here no more or you’ll get bloody shot the next time.’

‘Blacks won’t come back here again,’ said the one called Benny as Rose turned away. ‘Not ever. They can’t stand lead, y’know.’ The others laughed, a pitiless laugh almost like that of the
kookaburras
.

The homeward trail for Rose was blurred with tears. It was quite likely that she would never see Auntie Mary and Sal again. It was even worse because they obviously knew something about Erik, they could have told her where he was. They’d said that berries were easy to find everywhere, but they’d come up here again to see her. To see Rose, and look what it had brought them.

The gulf between black and white was not surprising, if people of either colour behaved like this. Perhaps the eucy men had been attacked by Aborigines in years gone by. But it sounded as though an Aboriginal man was looking after Erik; Auntie Mary’s cousin.

Erik … he had called out her name in his sleep. A surge of love washed over Rose and with it came a glimmer of understanding. Erik may have gone droving because of her, because she was married to Luke and he’d decided to keep away from her. He’d always seemed to put her interests before his own.

Stopping at home only for bread and cheese and to feed the baby, Rose went on to Wattle Tree to see Freda. There wasn’t much to tell and perhaps Freda would not believe Auntie Mary, but it was the first news since Erik left.

Rose explained briefly that she knew the women and that they had passed on a simple message –
the drover is safe
– before they were fired at and ran away.

‘Thank you, Rose,’ Freda said. School was finished for the day and they were sitting on the veranda that Erik had built, Freda with the baby on her knee. ‘If he’s had trouble, Aborigines would help him if they knew of it. He’s always been a friend to them and they tend to remember … I’m very glad to have the message, though I wish we knew more.’

If they hadn’t been shot at, the women might have been able to tell Rose more. ‘But why are those eucy men – and other men, even
Luke – so against dark people? They are different, of course, but I can’t see why there shouldn’t be peace between us and them.’

Freda sighed. ‘For many reasons, Rose. It was natural for the original people to resent the arrival of white men. So sometimes they tried to get even, and so … the conflict was there from the start.’ She thought for a while and then said, ‘There’s also, if you’ll forgive me, a belief – not with people like you, of course – that the British, or perhaps the English, are a superior race. They do the rest of the world a favour by imposing their way of doing things. That’s how the Empire was built, but not all the Aborigines want to be loyal subjects of Queen Victoria.’

‘We were always taught to be proud of the Empire … but I see what you mean,’ Rose said slowly. ‘Weren’t you?’ She had taken her nationality for granted.

Freda smiled. ‘I’m looking at it from the outside, in a way. Erik and I are officially British subjects, all Victorians are. I suppose we’re loyal to the Empire and the Queen. But I was born in Sweden, so I tend to take a more detached view.’

Rose went home thoughtfully. Victoria was not just an outpost of England, like a remote Yorkshire parish with the same traditions. It was a different identity, a mixture. All Nations was a good name for the hotel. Her little Ada would grow up speaking English, but not Yorkshire, and she would join a community with people from all sorts of backgrounds.

By the time she arrived at her hut, Rose was very tired and it was a shock to see a man sitting in her chair on the veranda. She needed to feed Ada and a visitor was the last thing she wanted. The crickets were chirping in the garden and the birds were singing
undisturbed
, which meant he must have been there for a while, silently waiting.

The man unfolded long legs and stood up. ‘Good evening, Mrs Teesdale,’ he said and she saw that it was Lordy, cleaner than usual and wearing a fresh shirt. ‘Forgive the intrusion. I am most concerned that you were fired upon by those ruffians today. As
soon as they told me, I came to see whether you need any
assistance
. Where is your husband?’

‘Thank you, Mr Barrington,’ Rose said faintly, subsiding into the chair next to him. ‘Luke’s cutting a tree down somewhere,’ she said evasively. It was probably true, unless he was in a pub. She didn’t want the eucy men to know that he was away.

‘The police should hear about this, of course. But one hesitates to rock the boat, as it were.’ Lordy lounged in his seat, chatting away, and Rose put the billy on to make tea. ‘I do hope the young woman is not badly hurt.’

Barrington told her he had a house down by the Tangil River and had been looking for gold, but had not been successful. He had sent for money from England and when it came he would buy some land, but until it arrived he wanted to work with the distillers and understand the process. ‘And a rough crowd they are, as you have seen,’ he admitted. ‘Joe said he didn’t really intend to hit the native women, just to fire over their heads. But he’s a lousy shot, y’know.’