The Artist’s Secret

by Sonya Heaney

  She lifted the card and forced her focus onto the words.

  Dear Elizabeth,

  There’s no reason for this gift other than that I thought you would like it.

  Love, E.

  It was not the sort of letter a lady expected to receive from a man about to leave for the Sudan.

  The disappointment was huge, sudden, and overwhelming.

  ‘That’s it?’ she asked, her voice loud with an unexpected, enormous anger.

  It was dated the second of March, 1885. The day before Edward had set sail from Sydney Harbour for war in Suakin.

  Had the man no common sense? No ability to feel anxiety or fear? As much as he’d painted the campaign as an adventure, she had always known there’d be a great deal of danger involved. How had he not?

  The little box contained a pendant, the gold manipulated into soft swirls and decorated with small pearls and Ceylon sapphires. A solitary sapphire a little larger than the others dangled from the golden drop at the end.

  Elizabeth touched the stone gently and then lifted the pendant, turning it this way and that, and then held it up to the light to appreciate its gleam. It was no little bauble, not any old trinket. It was expensive, and much more than Edward could usually have afforded. It was so fine it brought a seizing to her chest and a sting to her eyes.

  She fixed it around her neck with hands that shook and fumbled with the awkward clasp, tucking it, concealing it, behind the collar of her gown, and then returned to the letter—such as it was—reading each word over and over, tracing them with the very tip of one fingernail, absorbing each one for the treasure it was, and furious with the casual tone.

  Less than twenty words. The last she would ever hear from the man on whom she’d pinned so many hopes and dreams for the future, and she had less than twenty words.

  She touched the sapphire again through the fabric of her clothes, pressing it as firmly as she dared so that she could feel its imprint against her skin, and held it there until it warmed. It was not the sort of piece that could easily be explained away to the others.

  How foolish of me, she thought, and then carefully returned the card to its envelope. How foolish to have hoped there might have been so much more.

  ***

  Whatever had happened earlier that day was gone from Miss Farrer’s expression when she emerged for the meal in the evening. She smiled her way through the soup and the roast and joked with her brother about a pair of escaped ewes he’d found halfway to town the previous day. And she laughed at Mrs Farrer, who could barely conceal her disgust when a plate piled high with green beans appeared on the table.

  ‘Are you convinced we’ll be able to raise the wages by a pound?’ Farrer asked, turning his attention Peter’s way and picking up a discussion from the day before.

  ‘Very confident. Possibly two pounds, provided summer doesn’t bring on too many challenges.’

  The evening was warm, and once they’d eaten they lingered, first at the table, and then in the drawing room, enjoying the breeze from the open windows.

  It was high time for him to make his excuses and be off, but first young Duncan insisted on a lengthy game of watch Peter bounce a ball of yarn about, and he couldn’t quite make himself go. The infant tired of the game eventually, and Peter climbed to his feet with an exaggerated groan and a complaint about creaky knees—only to discover that the boy’s father had produced a bottle of something from the mantle.

  Both women saw it and groaned.

  ‘As you can see from that enthusiastic response,’ Farrer said as he went to the cabinet for a pair of crystal glasses, ‘this is not the most popular bottle in the house.’

  The drink in question was, Peter discovered after he’d been handed a glass, a sickly sweet homemade sherry. The strong scent of the drink, a combination of dark currant and far too much sugar, was almost overpowering.

  ‘It’s a present from a neighbour. A well-meaning if slightly misguided neighbour,’ the other man said apologetically.

  ‘It’s what passes for a good tipple in the country—until we here at Endmoor change the state of things, that is. Manners oblige me to drink it rather than pour it into the garden.’

  ‘Robert,’ the man’s wife said, ‘if you pour that into my garden it’ll kill something. And then I’d feel obliged to kill you.’

  Farrer raised his glass in a toast.

  ‘Here’s to our neighbours. The tablelands’ second-finest vintners.’

  Miss Farrer scoffed without looking up from the papers she’d spread across her lap.

  ‘I suppose you’ve placed yourself at the top of that list.’

  ‘Naturally. It’s early days, but I’m quietly confident.’

  The siblings shared a grin and then the brother turned back Peter’s way.

  ‘You do, however, have permission to pour the drink into the nearest vase when my back is turned.’

  The room fell into a comfortable silence, save for the occasional babble of the baby, who’d been hoisted onto his mother’s lap. The sounds of the staff reached them from other parts of the house, and the calls of birds headed home for the night slowly faded away, leaving the endless chirping of insects in their wake.

  Elizabeth continued to pore over her papers, a pinch of a frown beneath her brow, her finger tracing the lines as she read—and then read again. Peter gave the sherry a polite sip, eyed the nearest vase, and then sipped again.

  ‘What’s that you have there?’ he asked her when she sighed and looked up.

  ‘Notices and accounts from Goulburn and Sydney. Nobody warned me that when my painting sales increased I’d be expected to pay attention to the finances.’

  She cast her gaze to the Heavens and sighed again.

  ‘It’s utterly boring.’

  ‘But a necessary evil of success,’ her brother chimed in and she rolled her eyes.

  ‘I know I oughtn’t complain … At least I don’t have to touch Robert’s ledgers anymore. I can hardly moan about working on my own …’

  Peter shifted in his seat, drawing her attention his way.

  ‘Then you’re very lucky I came to Endmoor to take on the task. What would you have done without me here?’

  She shrugged and tapped the papers to her chin, pretending to think about it.

  ‘I couldn’t say for certain, but I think we’d have increased our expenditure rather a lot, and business would be going so well we could offer a one—or possibly two—pound raise in our workers’ wages, and—and …’

  She floundered.

  ‘And I daresay we’d have also increased our revenue to a point we were forced to employ an accountant from Sydney to assist us. And then—’

  ‘My sister,’ Farrer said, interrupting her good-natured tirade, ‘has plenty of talent for, but no love of numbers.’

  Miss Farrer smiled at Peter, looking apologetic.

  ‘I’d prefer to create something than analyse it.’

  ‘I really don’t mind looking at them, if you’d rather work on your art. It’d be a pleasure to help.’

  She looked so hopeful about the prospect he almost laughed, but pride had her hesitating another moment before she arranged the papers and handed them over.

  ‘A man must be utterly mad to consider tallies and sums a pleasure.’

  ‘We all have our quirks.’

  She seemed to like that observation.

  ‘I could do it myself, you know. It’s only that staring at a page of numbers for any length of time is hardly conducive to creativity. Or sanity.’

  ‘Well, then. You’re lucky I was willing to come out to the tablelands to help.’

  She looked from the glass dangling from his hand to his relaxed position on the chair, assessing, judging—smiling.

  ‘Oh, yes. I can see that living in the country has been a terrible hardship for you so far.’

  He held her eyes a moment longer than was gentlemanly, thinking several things that would’ve been incredibly inappropriate to say, and then
noticed the brother watching them and came to his senses. It seemed a good time to leave.

  Downing his sherry and sparing a thought for his poor teeth, Peter collected the documents, rose, said all the right, polite things and nodded and bowed at all the right people—other than Duncan, who, in his growing fatigue, had become a bit grizzly—as he headed for the door. Elizabeth rose to see him out, and when he was at the bottom of the stairs he looked back once; she still stood on the veranda, watching him go.

  Outside in the lingering warmth the countryside felt alive. The gravel crunched under his feet as something nocturnal ferreted about in a bush. The light from the house arched outwards across the darkening land, a light breeze rustling the homestead’s curtains.

  And, because of those open windows, as he rounded the corner Mrs Farrer’s words reached him, as clear as crystal.

  ‘Well. This has been an interestin’ night.’

  Peter’s step faltered.

  ‘I’ll say,’ Farrer replied. ‘Very interesting.’

  Chapter 7

  Peter hadn’t expected work in the country to be the same as any experience he’d had yet in his life, and it was gratifying to discover he was right. What he’d not expected was how much he’d enjoy it.

  In between writing invoices and corresponding with people everywhere from Bethanien to New Sheffield, and going over Miss Farrer’s utterly boring notices and accounts, there was always a bucket to carry for Mrs Farrer or Mrs Adamson, or an opportunistic chicken to feed on the way to or from his cottage.

  He spent his nights reading, beginning with the Dickens, and studiously avoiding too many glimpses in the direction of the homestead. However, as he read he could not stop himself wondering how Elizabeth was getting on with a certain bigamous Englishwoman.

  And, he’d started to reason with himself, a man really ought to ride out and see for himself the property he worked for—and ride out quite often if it was sunny. It was an awfully convenient way to poke about the estate without looking guilty when he did it.

  He was a decent horseman, despite living the largest portion of his life in the middle of suburban Paddington, and he took to his borrowed horse well enough. Not that it was exactly a challenge, when the fellow knew the land so thoroughly that he plodded on along of his own volition, following favourite routes, as determined to stick to the direction of his choice as a locomotive on railway tracks.

  Peter didn’t mind, and let the horse have its way. He hadn’t a particular destination in mind that day anyway, supposed the horse wouldn’t get them hopelessly lost, and was happy that it gave him an opportunity to get a better look at the land in daylight, and more or less on his own.

  He was taken along an overgrown but previously worn track that encompassed a few small buildings in various states of repair and disrepair, coming across the river or one of the streams now and again, all sparkling ripples and the occasional gliding bird.

  Peter saw a few animals: sheep—there were always sheep—silent to him now they were so far off in the distance, as well as the occasional kangaroo.

  What he didn’t see was any other man.

  As the horse wandered Peter made a point to turn his mind over to the coming week. The arrangement with the vineyard further north was coming together nicely. Though there’d been doubts of the region’s viability for wine production, both Farrer and Stanford were determined, and there was a kind of brilliance in their bloody-mindedness.

  Some dew had gathered overnight, and the last of it glittered like a thousand crystals on the leaves of the trees as the sun grew in strength.

  The Murrumbidgee reappeared at a bend up ahead, and Peter considered how long he’d been out, and how much further he could expect the horse to amble along for and still be happy to make the return journey. They were almost at the foothills of the Brindabellas, and he suspected they’d long ago crossed over from Farrer land to the wilder countryside beyond.

  He drew them to a stop and dismounted. The animal took an immediate interest in a nondescript patch of grass.

  Whomever was responsible for Namadgi Sunrise hadn’t sketched from where Peter was then, so far from where Endmoor now stood. The angle was wrong, but he’d wager the image had been captured from somewhere in the valley. It was a start, even if the valley in question was absurdly large.

  He thought back to that painting, to that parlour in Sydney. His appalling sketch was as good as useless, and it was a pity he hadn’t had Elizabeth with her charcoal about at the time to do it for him. The mountains were a lot vaster than he’d imagined, their scope so much greater than the artist had given the impression they’d be. A person might be out there for months—or even longer—and still not find any clues, nor any answers.

  He pulled the utterly unhelpful and crumpled sketch in question from his pocket anyway. Holding it up to the horizon, he strained to make a comparison.

  ‘Disastrous,’ he concluded.

  Giving up for another day, he removed his hat to wipe at the perspiration on his forehead and then decided it was time to interrupt the horse from his snack. He was almost there when the animal’s ears pricked.

  Peter froze, listening. Careful now, he moved in a slow circle, searching.

  He saw the swag first, leaning against a rock, its colour blending in with the plants around it. Tempering his steps, he moved slowly around a tree, and then around a scrubby bush.

  It was then that he saw the lantern.

  ***

  John Stanford’s return was a complete surprise.

  One moment there were three adults in the house taking their midday meal, and the next there was a tall, fair-haired man standing there, grinning at them, two generously sized, open and overflowing bags at his feet.

  ‘What are you doin’ here?’ Alice was the first to react.

  Robert pushed back from the table at the same time Elizabeth came to her senses. ‘Why didn’t you say you were home?’

  ‘Welcome home, John. How was your journey?’ Robert offered in a chiding tone, sending amused looks at both women.

  The man accepted his best friend’s handshake and then granted them all with another grin. ‘Who’d want to write ahead when a fellow could receive a welcome as wild as this?’

  It was designed to snap them out of their surprise and trigger a flurry of affection, and he could not have been disappointed. Alice got there first and was hefted all the way off the tips of her toes in a hug Robert would surely have taken issue with had it been another man.

  When she was free, Elizabeth’s embrace was a little more dignified but no less warm.

  Predictably, the barrage of questions began the moment the greetings were complete. John staggered back under their enthusiasm, hand at his chest.

  ‘Good Lord, a man forgets the force of a full set of Farrers. Give a man a chance to recover from the long, dusty journey home before you bombard him.’

  Elizabeth crossed the room and poured him a drink from the pitcher on the table, watching as he took a swill, every movement measured and coloured with false exhaustion.

  ‘John … didn’t you come home on the train, not in a coach? Is it not comfortable? Mr Rowe seemed to think so.’

  ‘Shh.’ He winked and leaned across to refill his glass himself.

  ‘How was your trip? Were the exhibitions everything you hoped for?’

  ‘I’ll save stories of the snobbery at the Paris and Vienna shows for another day. Nobody’s particularly fond of Australians, but they’ll learn. Give them a few more years and we’ll have Europe convinced ours wines are equal to those from Bordeaux or the Rhineland.’

  ‘John,’ Alice began as Elizabeth smoothed a leaf off his sleeve and then stepped back, ‘what’s in those bags?’

  They all knew. There was only one reason the parcels sticking out of them came wrapped so finely, and tied so neatly with bows.

  ‘Why don’t you come and see.’

  They didn’t need any more encouragement.

  ‘I should have
started with the presents,’ John grumbled minutes later as the women exclaimed over delicate lace and little carved wooden figures from Germany. They found a paint box with a London name on it that made Elizabeth gasp, as well as a book on English gardens.

  ‘I’ll leave the two of you to decide who wants what,’ he joked. Alice already had the book open on her lap.

  There was even a hobby horse for Duncan, who was brought to the room to be introduced to the toy, chubby hand extended to pat the pony’s mane. As they should all have predicted, he gripped the hair in his fist instead, and then yelped when Robert removed the hair from his hold.

  ‘Perhaps not until he’s a little older,’ John cautioned. ‘Heaven forbid I’m blamed for maiming the Endmoor heir.’

  Elizabeth half listened to the men talk as she looked at her new art supplies. Something was said about the uncomfortably long journey from Europe to Australia, and she half heard a comment about the inherent snobbery in the winemaking industry.

  The paints in the box were so fine she hardly dared use them. It would be a shame to waste them on any old thing; she’d have to save them for something special.

  She was aware of Robert watching her carefully. He’d done that quite a bit since she’d gone strange in town days earlier. Even though he’d sworn more than once that he believed her flimsy excuse about being overwhelmed by the demand for her work, she knew he only said so to appease her.

  For her part, Alice had been uncharacteristically quiet about it, watching her as carefully as Robert did but not pressing. Elizabeth knew it was a reprieve, not an opportunity to escape the conversation entirely. The younger woman had ascertained time was what she needed, and time was exactly what she’d been given.

  And Mr Rowe? Elizabeth wasn’t familiar enough with him to know what he thought of the whole silly thing, but she did know he was too polite to pry. It had been a little tricky looking directly at him ever since, and if he had a notebook somewhere with a list of all the odd things she’d done in his presence since he’d arrived at Endmoor, she wouldn’t blame him.