Salt Creek (33 page)

There was still some constraint between Tull and Papa on account of Papa refusing to help his family any further. They spoke a little of a repair that was needed to the stable door before Papa turned to his book. Addie rested against the veranda railing across from Tull, who leaned back on the settee, his hands in his pockets. Fred was reading by lamplight at the other end with his cheek rested on his hand, as was his habit. He looked up once or twice and took us all in with a slow sweep of his eyes, or perhaps to follow a thought to its proper end. He had an orderly mind.

After her days of moodiness Addie was calm – calm enough. She leaned over the railing towards a late bunch of grapes and picked it and crossed to the settee. Tull moved up and she sat between him and Fred. There was space between them all. Addie pulled a few off and handed them to Tull. They did not speak or look at each other, but ate their grapes, their hands moving up and down with utmost slowness. Tull finished his. Addie held out her bunch, tightening her hold on the grapes as he tugged a few more free. I could not say what was so mesmerising about them eating grapes. Presently I looked about to see if anyone else was as transfixed. Papa was reading – a glass of drink at hand – and Hugh and Stanton were playing draughts. Fred's eyes had stopped moving across his page. His head turned on his hand and he watched Tull and Addie aslant. His expression was concealed by his eyelashes and his hair so I did not know what he was feeling or what he might suspect about them. But there was nothing wrong in what they were doing, and so Addie knew. She looked at me until I had to drop my gaze.

The tranquillity lasted until the following afternoon when from outside there was bellowing and hollow wet sounds and deep groans and a scream that was as shrill as Albert's old tin whistle. All these half-heard and then heard fully and comprehended. I ran outside. Hugh and Stanton were beating Tull with their balled fists. They were halfway up the slope to the stable and dragging him as I had seen them do to a beast reluctant to slaughter and cleaving to life. They could lift him well enough despite his height, but containment was something else entirely. He was all muscle and billowing energy twisting in their meaty hands, his legs and arms flailing, his body bucking and his head become a bludgeon. Hugh was grunting with effort. Stanton, flushed and shining with sweat, had blood pouring from his nose and a fixed grin on his face as if this time, this time he would not be denied. Papa was at a distance, watching, with his hat pulled low and his arms folded and feet planted and his lips parted as if words of judgement were still sliding out.

The screaming started again: ‘You'll kill him.' It was Addie at the stable and Fred holding her back, his arms wrapped around her body binding her arms tight. ‘Let me go. Stop it.' Her face was red and her hair wild about it.

I should ask what had happened, but I knew. I could save no one and comfort no one and have no influence on events, which I could see unfolding as if time and the things that filled it were rolling out before me and past me without stopping, and were unalterable in all of their details. Finally Tull broke free. His face was red with blood and he made for the trees. Hugh and Stanton took a few steps after him but they would never catch him again and so they knew. Their shoulders were heaving from their efforts. Fred released Addie, who fell to the ground.

Papa came down the slope. ‘Hester,' he said.

‘Papa?'

‘Did you know?'

‘Did I know what?'

‘About Addie and Tull?'

‘That they are friendly, yes. We are all friendly with Tull. I don't know what we would do without him.'

‘We will have to find out. He is gone now.'

At this, Hugh gazed at his hands, rubbing his knuckles, and Stanton went to a pail of water by the stable and poured a beaker of water over his hands. The water ran pink into the ground.

‘Gone?' I said. ‘Where?'

‘I can't bear it,' Addie said. ‘How could you, Hugh! You wanted to kill him.'

‘I did not. I wanted to teach him his place. But he's lucky to be alive, I'll tell you that, and you're lucky you're not getting a whipping. Bringing shame on us all.'

‘What were you thinking? He's a black,' Stanton burst out.

‘He's different.'

‘He is not coming back,' Papa said. ‘Let that be an end to it.'

‘Who told you?' Addie said.

‘I said that was enough. I do not want to beat you. I should have before, and perhaps I should now, and I will if you are not quiet. Do you hear me? Go inside now, out of my sight. Hope that I will feel different in the morning.'

CHAPTER 17

The Coorong, April 1861

AFTER TULL'S DEPARTURE PAPA WORKED OUTSIDE
as late as he could and ate sparingly and left the table to sit in the parlour or on the veranda. He spoke little and preferred his own company. Hugh and Stanton's brutality had sickened me towards them, as it had Addie, and Fred also I suspected. If we made them uncomfortable that would be no wonder. They left two weeks after Tull, and Papa was obliged to employ another native to work on the run, but he seldom came to the house. It was very soon after that that Addie first fled the table at breakfast and was ill over the veranda railing. My eyes flew to Papa's and I saw that he thought the same as I. About our discovery of Addie's condition I will say no more, except that when Papa had recovered somewhat from his shock and anger he came to believe that the matter could be concealed. No one spoke of what would happen afterwards.

Some days that autumn Addie would be merry and speak as if she had a future. ‘I will go back to town, you see if I don't, Hester. I'll be a lady again one day.' What she was thinking about Tull I had no idea. She cried as often as she laughed. Skipper had two puppies and they were a diversion. One of them, a black scrap with dark eyes, attached herself to me. I called her Sal. Mr Stubbs took the other, a brindle, on one of his visits.

He had become persistent in his attentions to Addie, arriving twice more unannounced, on the slender excuse of the need to visit his inland station. ‘I all but pass through here in any case,' he said, when it must be twenty miles out of his way at least. He had a swag on his horse, it was true, but for a station owner visiting his sheep his style was embellished: fine town boots, a sateen waistcoat and a fat gold fob. No one could blame him for his interest in Addie. Her condition became her; it magnified her: the winter cream of her skin became high blooded at her cheeks, her eyes were clear as any summer sky and each of her movements – picking up a tea-cup, arranging flowers in a jar, brushing a curl from an eye – was filled with languorous grace. She knew she was beautiful, and part of that was a conscious queenly sadness, as if she were presiding over her disgrace or mourning what was to come, or both.

The second visit from Mr Stubbs was on a Sunday in June, when he must have known we would all be about. I made scones and used Mama's Wedgwood jasperware for the preserves, cream, milk and sugar, and took the tray into the parlour. Fred was there too – the lure of afternoon tea. Papa began a performance as affectionate father to us all, even Addie, which startled her at first. She fell into her old teasing way with him: reckless behaviour. Fortunately Mr Stubbs was a great deal more interested in his own opinions than in hearing those of others.

‘Yes, chickens, a very useful fowl. Ducks, now, I do not agree with. Their eggs are too rich, and spoil too easy, and there's no meat on the birds at all, but a good capon: delicious, or even a hen bird poached correctly is very nourishing. A few small root vegetables to enrich the stock.'

‘Papa loves chickens too, do you not, Papa?' Addie said, knowing very well that Papa hated them – their combs, their flat bead eyes, their scaled feet. He was not rational on the subject.

‘Yes. A most excellent bird,' Papa choked out.

‘Oh Papa,' Addie said. ‘You cannot say so. You know you hate them. God will sit in judgement on you one day.' She shook her head sorrowfully.

Papa's face twisted. ‘Adelaide,' he said.

‘And what breed do you favour, Mr Stubbs?' Fred asked. ‘White leghorns, such as we have?'

‘Interesting question,' he said. And he really did seem interested and opined at length and would not be diverted even by the blankest of expressions from his audience.

Having diverted Mr Stubbs, Fred smothered one scone after another and ate them absently, his mind drifting through the parlour window I daresay. He was becoming solitary since Tull went, even in his thoughts.

The warmth of the parlour fire contrasted with the iron skies made us cosy. Addie leaned back, which Mama would not have approved, and the folds of her dress fell away to either side of her stomach revealing for the first time a curve. Papa's eyes became wide. ‘Adelaide,' he said in such a voice that she sat up straight.

‘Yes, Papa?'

‘Would you please see to a little more tea?'

‘Cannot Hester go?'

‘I am asking you, my dear, and Hester can help, if you wouldn't mind?' And now there was a desperate edge in his tone.

‘Of course,' I said. ‘Come, Addie.'

‘Two of us to make one pot of tea,' Addie said, but she stood and her belly was concealed again and we left the parlour.

‘Think, Addie,' I hissed when we were further down the hallway. ‘It was to spare you. Your stomach. Did you wish Mr Stubbs to see?'

‘Oh.' She cupped her small palm against herself, low, and blushed. ‘I couldn't help it, Hettie. I didn't know.'

‘Never mind now. We will walk until Mr Stubbs has gone, rain or no rain, and hope we don't catch a chill.'

Addie was dismal and silent all along the sandy path. We passed one of the remaining cows, heavy with calf. She regarded us, chewing, before lowering her head to the grass.

‘Do you miss Mama?' Addie said.

‘Of course. I will always.' And when she said nothing, only kept walking, I asked, ‘Do you?'

‘More than anything, more than you could.' She touched my arm. ‘I do not mean to insult. It's different for me. I need to talk to her about things that you do not – the baby and to ask how it was for her, what I might expect. You only miss Mama because of what she was to you, not what she might have become. She would be someone new to me now and I to her, closer. I would like her to see how changed I am. Papa does not speak to me. No one here knows. I am alone, as alone can be.'

‘I am here.' I drew her arm through mine and we moved together, clumsy and warm.

She sniffed and hunted in her pocket for a handkerchief and wiped her nose. ‘You don't know any more than I. Less.'

‘I know other things – that love did Mama harm, and that it has done you no good. That's what I would ask her: why she married when she need not have. She gave her life to Papa, the whole of it, Addie. Don't tell me I know nothing.'

She would have become argumentative in the past, as I would have. It was such a quiet conversation. ‘We can only be what we are. We cannot help ourselves,' she said.

‘I think we can. I believe it. It is my only anchor, not Papa, or God or anything. We can resist ourselves. And we can resist others.'

‘Oh Hettie, don't you see? You think that because of who you are. Look at us now. Here.'

‘You
are
changed.' I would never have expected to converse in this manner with Addie. To know that she had thoughts of her own that were of interest to me was a revelation. For the first time, even though she was much younger than I, I felt her as a comfort and was terrified of losing her. But this was all there was for us. There was nowhere we could go to make her safer.

Papa's fury upon our return was a shock; we had forgotten him in the closeness of our conversation. We had hardly stepped inside the back door before he was berating Addie: ‘Shaming us all. We can be thankful at least that your poor mother is not here.'

Addie paled at that. ‘I am sorry, Papa. I didn't know.'

‘Get out, get away from me now. I cannot bear you in my sight.' He turned from her and stood at the stove, holding its rail, sliding his hands up and down the smooth wood, and gripping it. When Addie had left the room, he said, ‘There'll be no more visits from Stubbs until the baby comes. I told him she would be visiting relatives in town, and so you may tell her. When this is done, I will let Stubbs know.'

‘Why will you do that?'

Papa turned and folded his arms and leaned against the stove railing, bouncing a little against the flex of it. A small smile played on his face, but there was no warmth about his eyes, no amusement. His gaze would not meet mine, though I watched and waited for that moment. It made him appear sly.

I removed my coat and bonnet and hung them on the door and smoothed them, my hands resting there. The remnants of outside chill drifted from them. Papa's voice came from behind. ‘He is a good man and a notable business person.'

‘I see,' I said, and without looking back opened the door and went out. I would light the fire in the outside kitchen and cook there, winter or not. I did not want to be in the same room as Papa.

There were no more visits for Addie after that. But it didn't matter; she turned inward. And really, the secret of her shame was easy to keep. She could not go any great distance towards the stock route, but it was safe enough to walk the lagoon path as long as she concealed herself when Mr Kruse's boat came into view.

All through spring she sat in the sun, her hands over her belly, stroking it or holding her arms about it as if it were already a babe in her arms. Once or twice I heard her talking to it in a low voice, pushing her belly with precise fingers: ‘No, don't
do
that. What's the matter with you?' and she laughed. ‘It won't be still today. Feel, Hester.' She took my hand and held it against her. The strangest feeling: the slide of a limb curving the wall of my sister, animate, someone, through flesh and cloth.

‘Addie, have a care. Don't attach yourself so.'

And she turned her head, slow, as if she could not bear to give me her attention. ‘Don't attach myself. What can you mean? What is inside you, Hester? What would you know?'

‘I don't know, Addie. I'm sorry for it.'

‘I suppose I know why you told Papa.'

‘I didn't tell him, but I should have.'

‘Do you wish me unhappy?'

‘No, of course not. Never that. It can come right. Life can come right. No one need know. Don't you think there is more than this?'

‘I didn't want more; I don't still. That was you,' Addie said, and in a soft plain sort of way that persuaded more than if she had lunged at hope: ‘You could ask Papa. He would listen to you. You are always sensible.'

‘I am not sensible,' I said. ‘If I were, I would not be here. I would be anywhere else. You know you can't have Tull. Papa will never allow it, not even for you. Especially for you.'

‘But what about me? There is nothing else.'

I made myself speak to Papa on the subject one evening after Addie had retired.

‘Afterwards, do you mean?' he said, lifting his head from his paper.

‘Yes.'

‘I have plans, naturally. The baby will go to the mission to be raised there. I suppose that is what Adelaide wishes to know.'

‘I'll run away,' Addie said when I whispered her this news in bed, but she was too far along for that and so she knew.

Papa wrote to Reverend Taplin at Point McLeay to procure the services of a wet nurse for Addie's baby if one could be found, though how he explained such a need I do not know. He would not have told the truth; I was certain of that. Some weeks later he went to the mission to fetch a young native woman Mrs Taplin had trained in domestic service. Flora had a child of her own, a fair little boy called Bobby, just walking, who hid about her skirts, clutching them and peeping out when spoken to.

Addie wouldn't be friendly with either of them but her eyes followed Bobby as intently as if she were seeing her own future child. ‘Look at him, Hettie,' she said. ‘He is not so dark.'

‘No, Addie,' I said.

‘
She
has kept her child. I am sure she is not married.'

‘She is
black
.'

‘I wish I were black then.'

‘Now you are being absurd.'

How Flora came to be at the mission and what had happened to her own family Papa did not say; perhaps he didn't know. She was quite pretty, and would have presented to greater advantage had she smiled more. She was not as well grown as the native women about our run, quite submerged in her striped dress, petticoat and apron. We were accustomed to blacks whose clothes and cloaks were made of rushes and seaweed and skins, and who were ornamented in shells and feathers and weaponed with wood and stone – things so much part of the land in colour and texture and movement that they might have fallen on the people and which stayed there so lightly that they might fall again. They moved across our land, certain and complete, not sparing us a glance unless there was a pressing need to converse. At least, they used to when there were more of them about. The ones we saw now often wore articles of clothing that Papa had brought from Point McLeay: a shirt, trousers, a jacket, a tunic. Flora was eager to please, which was disconcerting, but she was capable and well trained and I saw no reason not to relinquish cooking duties to her – washing too. It gave me time to sew clothes for the baby, even to smock them, which Mama had taught me to do.