The Artist’s Secret

by Sonya Heaney

  Peter looked past the residence’s grounds to the crumbling old barracks and the abandoned territory beyond.

  He knew so little about what to ask. Furious, helpless with his own ignorance, he chose to wait in silence rather than leave the man to his work. He’d a sense that if he were to walk off now his chances of getting the fellow to talk to him again were slim.

  Manners told him to go. Desperation told him otherwise.

  Peter had held his ground.

  And finally, finally, the gardener spoke again.

  ‘Not much likin’ what’s happenin’ now, with this town. Too many people. Too many come ’ere from far away and stay, like they’ve the right. Those people you’re lookin’ for? Most are movin’ out. If you mean to find your people, I’m no use. But you might try Weereewaa.’

  And then he swiped the last of the leaves off that obscenely green grass, and stalked away before Peter could ask who—or what—Weereewaa was.

  Chapter 13

  There was more than enough food and drink to go around, even with Alice throwing a substantial amount of shredded ham to the persistent magpies. They served their plain pudding and their jam tarts with the pastry stars, and it was collectively decided the fences were mended enough to last the remainder of the day.

  Nobody suggested singing anything, religious or otherwise.

  Alice poured more wine and cut a tart into neat triangles to pass around, giving her own berry-topped slice an uneasy glance before taking the tiniest of nibbles. The next moment her face dissolved into a picture of relief.

  ‘Thank the Lord Mrs Adamson wasn’t so enthusiastic with the brandy this time. Still not for you, Duncan,’ she scolded gently, placing a dull old bread crust in his fist instead.

  Robert came and went from where they sat in the shade. Someone was always after his attention.

  ‘They’re hungry, too,’ Elizabeth felt compelled to point out when he caught the two women throwing more ham the birds’ way.

  ‘Yes,’ Alice readily agreed. ‘And you’ll be thankin’ me for maintainin’ a friendship with them so they won’t come and attack your son when they’re in a mean mood.’

  ‘You do have a point,’ he conceded, and then bent to scoop the child up, leaving Elizabeth on the picnic blanket with Alice. The crust dropped to the ground, snatched immediately by one of the birds. It was then a familiar figure approached from the main road.

  Peter hid his agitation well, but Elizabeth still saw it.

  No matter how he smiled at the enthusiastic greeting he received from the other men, his shoulders remained squared and set. His laugh, in response to something she was too far away to hear, didn’t seem very natural.

  He caught her watching him and gave her a funny little bow that teased the corners of her mouth upwards despite her unease. Smiling slightly, he strolled off after Hutton, who had a stick in his mouth and a game in his plans. Elizabeth switched to watching the other men.

  There’d be no more grand romances for her, she reminded herself. She preferred to stay silent about her loss nearly three years before, and there was another side to her grief she didn’t say a word about to Alice, even then. The side’s name was Victoria Abraham, the woman whose betrothal to one Edward Sumner had been announced in the Herald three days after the contingent set sail for Africa.

  ‘Was he handsome, your Edward?’ Alice was watching her husband and son.

  ‘Handsome?’

  ‘I know I oughtn’t to ask that before learnin’ if he was smart or a dunce, or funny or serious, but I’m tryin’ to get a picture of him in me—my mind.’

  Elizabeth thought of the day she met him on that Sydney street, of stumbling into him and making her hasty apologies, and of Edward’s hand on her arm as he steadied her.

  ‘He was the opposite of Mr Rowe in most ways.’

  ‘Ah, so he was ugly,’ Alice said immediately. Elizabeth threw a strawberry and her sister-in-law ducked, giggled, and then got a sparkle in her eye. ‘Why’re you mentionin’ Mr Rowe, hey?’

  ‘It was just an example. He was in my line of sight when you asked.’

  ‘Funny. Because I only asked now, and I see him right over there, playin’ with the dog.’

  ‘He ran. The man moves fast.’ Oh, what a believable excuse.

  The other woman scoffed her disagreement, looking too amused.

  A shout rang out from across the clearing, and Elizabeth watched as one of the stockmen produced bats and a ball from Lord only knew where. Evidently repairing the fences hadn’t been the only thing on their minds when they’d set out that morning.

  ‘These are sweet strawberries, Alice. I don’t want to throw any more of them. Edward was fair. His eyes were blue.’ What had Martha accused her of that day in town? Of describing a handsome man the way a person described a horse?

  She thought harder.

  ‘He had an idea that he needed an adventure before he settled.’

  She remembered the way Edward’s eyes had shone at the prospect of travelling all the way to another continent. ‘You don’t understand, Lizzie,’ he’d said to her. ‘You’ve come from the other side of the world, and I’ve never been past Wollongong.’

  To Elizabeth it didn’t sound like the best reason to race off across the sea in the general vicinity of Khartoum, but his enthusiasm had been untameable, and—stupidly, and desperate to please him—she hadn’t tried all that hard to stop him.

  ‘Adventure?’ Alice scoffed. ‘We’ve enough of that here. More than enough, when it comes to it.’

  Elizabeth traced the gold chain around her neck, and then she drew the pendant out from the bodice of her dress. Outside, on such a beautiful day, the sapphires were a rich, deep, luminous blue.

  ‘This is what came for me in that parcel from Sydney. He bought it for me before he left, and it’s been waylaid all this time.’

  She shouldn’t wear it. Even if she wasn’t furious with the man—a dead man, at that—it was too fine a piece to be wearing around the station.

  ‘Lord,’ Alice gasped, saucer-eyed, and touched the battered silver locket, her late mother’s, at her neck. ‘That sure is fancier’n mine.’

  Yet Alice’s spoke of loyalty, and Elizabeth’s …

  ‘I thought … When Mr Rowe handed me the parcel, and when I saw Edward’s writing on it? For a mad few hours I’d almost convinced myself there’d been a mistake. That he’d not died in Africa as I’d thought.’

  They’d been so focused on their conversation neither of them noticed when Robert, Duncan in tow, drew up beside them, the tips of his boots touching the edge of the blanket.

  Robert was much too kind to pry as he moved his attention from one woman to the other. Elizabeth closed her hand around the pendant, again warming the gold against her skin.

  Alice looked to the side and was suddenly on her feet.

  ‘You’re bored now, Robert? Want some entertainin’? Come, then,’ she gathered her little family up with her words. ‘I see crowea growin’ over there, and I’ve of a mind to pick some.’

  The man was visibly startled by Alice’s spontaneity, but when two shadows appeared over her, Elizabeth rolled her eyes. They were Mr Rowe and the heeler, the latter panting, the former perspiring genteelly. Alice was cunning. And determined.

  Robert and the baby exchanged glances, and then her brother called after his wife. ‘They can’t be blooming now. You told me they grow in the autumn and winter!’ It had no effect. Alice was already off across the grass, pausing only once to cast Elizabeth a conspiring look over her shoulder.

  ‘She is distinctly lacking in subtlety,’ Elizabeth told Peter when the rest of the Farrers were out of earshot. She was half amused and half mortified, and thought he probably felt about the same.

  Elizabeth shifted across to one side. ‘I promise I won’t complain if you sit down.’

  He laughed at her from behind a bland façade. ‘Thank you.’

  While he relaxed onto the blanket, leaving a polite distance between
them, Elizabeth broke off a piece of piecrust and tossed it to the adolescent magpie that was toddling around after its parents on lanky, unsteady legs.

  ‘They’re not all that different to children, are they?’ Peter murmured as Robert, Alice and the baby continued off into the distance, with not a wildflower in sight.

  ‘Not really. However, I don’t remember a hungry Duncan ever once resorting to squeaks.’

  ‘Poor bird, he’s trying his best. We shouldn’t laugh.’

  It was a silly conversation, but he relaxed as they spoke, altering his posture so he leaned closer to her.

  Elizabeth wondered if he’d noticed.

  ‘I bet you’d drag a husband off with more grace and beauty, if not as much determination,’ he said when the others paused to talk in the middle of the paddock. It wasn’t long before Alice took off again, her pace even faster than before.

  She couldn’t help herself; Elizabeth’s mind went immediately to the past. She gave Hutton, who’d returned to sniff at the basket, intense attention as she patted him.

  Edward had not been from the land. Marriage to him would almost certainly have kept her in Sydney—nearly two-hundred miles from home. She hadn’t had time to even imagine the realities of such a change before her grand romance had prematurely ended.

  The dog wandered off and Elizabeth sneaked a sideways glance at the man beside her. He sat with his face tipped up to the sun, eyelids half lowered.

  The day really was too hot to be lounging about outside. Elizabeth could feel herself becoming ever so attractively sweaty beneath her chemise, and felt the increasing trickles of perspiration down her back.

  Elizabeth smiled at the antics of the increasingly boisterous stockmen and turned towards Peter a little shyly, only to find herself snagged. She made a sound of dismay to find the hem of her skirt tangled in dry, prickly, overgrown grass and set about extracting herself from it.

  ‘It’s too hot for picnics,’ she decided, and saw Peter’s lips curve as she moved a little closer to him, further onto the blanket.

  ‘That’s probably why the English perfected the business. Many British traditions were not made to work in Australia, I think.’

  ‘Perhaps not in summer. The ground is certainly softer in my homeland.’

  She surreptitiously mopped a bead of perspiration off her temple and watched her brother and family become smaller and smaller figures in the distance.

  It was wholly unintentional, but when she placed her hand back down it came into contact with another, bigger and far more masculine one.

  ***

  Peter’s breath caught. His little finger moved against Elizabeth’s involuntarily, making the tiniest of strokes.

  Was she aware? How could she not be? He did it again, but right then she gasped a laugh and nodded in the direction of her family.

  ‘Soon they’ll reach the fence, and then what will they do? Knowing Alice, she’ll probably insist they climb over it and continue walking.’

  ‘I think that at some point even Mrs Farrer will tire and march everyone back.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Elizabeth didn’t sound convinced. ‘What do you think she’s expecting us to do?’

  He decided there were a number of excellent answers to that question, none of which were appropriate to be discussed with an unmarried lady. No matter how familiar Elizabeth Farrer might be with Lady Audley, the book’s authoress hardly went into great detail on such matters.

  He stroked her hand again, and again she hardly appeared to notice.

  ‘Judging by the pace she’s marching your brother away from us, I’d say she’s expecting us to do at least one shocking thing. When she returns, she’ll be very disappointed.’

  ‘I can be shocking,’ Elizabeth informed him in a tone that might have been fractious if it wasn’t so determined. Peter nearly asked her to prove it, and then remembered he wasn’t supposed to be seducing her—not even with words.

  ‘You’ll have to do it on your own, then. I’ve no plans to be shocking with anyone.’

  She turned curious eyes his way. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I hadn’t planned to marry. Not anyone. Not ever. Shocking behaviour tends to lead to matrimony, so I’d best avoid it altogether.’

  Elizabeth nearly sprang off the blanket in surprise. ‘What do you mean? All men marry at some point.’

  He adjusted his cuff, feeling the loss of her touch against his own, and then patted the space beside him, encouraging her to resume her position.

  ‘Just as I said. Elizabeth, I’m a Ngambri man. No matter how much education and how many manners my parents installed in me—and, believe me, I was driven nearly mad with my extensive education—I can’t hide my face. People decide who I am the moment they meet me, and I’d wager few of their thoughts are kind.’

  She shook her head slowly. ‘Peter … Do you regret your life? Do you regret who you are?’

  ‘No. However, there’s anger sometimes. Sometimes a lot of it,’ he admitted.

  He was a man who wasn’t wholly one or the other, brought up in a white world but thought of differently. He searched for a way to explain.

  ‘My mother … She wasn’t a happy person a lot of the time. I don’t think she ever truly was. She never admitted it, but I always felt she regretted many things about who she was. She was raised to be ashamed.’ He exhaled sharply. ‘I’m bouncing about all over the place. It doesn’t matter in the end. Ignore me.’

  Elizabeth studied the pastry star adorning the top of one of the tarts, frowning. A fly took a chance and landed on a patch of jam. She shooed it away.

  ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘No, I will not ignore you.’

  ‘Rowe? Will you play?’ Harry McCoy called. A couple of stockmen, bats in hands, looked ready for a serious bout of cricket.

  ‘Not today. Sore back,’ he called out reflexively, and didn’t miss Elizabeth’s scoff at the response.

  The man turned her way.

  ‘What about you, Miss Farrer?’

  ‘Oh, thank you ever so much. I do enjoy being the afterthought.’ She grinned. ‘I’ll stay where I am, thank you.’

  ‘All right, but don’t blame me when you miss all the fun.’ The stockman changed the ball from one hand to the other. It looked like a proper cork-and-leather construction this time. The man meant business.

  ‘I thought it was your hamstring,’ Elizabeth chided in a whisper as McCoy moved on.

  ‘Ah. I think you misremembered.’

  She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes him. ‘I’m sure I didn’t.’

  The game began, hampered by a dog determined to catch the ball before the fielders did. They watched for a while, and it was she who broke the quiet.

  ‘You know, just because I’m too overheated and lazy to play doesn’t mean you can’t. Go and join them if you wish.’

  ‘If I’m being honest, I’m not sure what appeals to a man about having a ball pitched directly at him, with only a bat to defend himself.’

  It was the perfect time for the crack of a hard-hit ball to ring out across the paddock.

  ‘Anyway, that hamstring of mine wouldn’t cope with all that exertion.’ And, despite his better judgement, he’d not give up the opportunity to sit with her longer.

  ‘Your back,’ she reminded him gently. ‘It’s your back that’s troubling you today.’

  Whoops. Peter pressed his hand to the small of it and tried to muster a pained expression. Elizabeth did not appear particularly impressed by the dramatics.

  ‘Did you know the first cricket team we sent abroad was Aboriginal?’ he asked quietly.

  She looked at him sharply. ‘Yes, I did.’

  They’d been dancing around his heritage for months, and it was some time before she continued. ‘Because of your family’s history you intend to be a bachelor forever?’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, which wasn’t much of an answer. Recently he’d allowed himself to imagine a different future, but those thoughts were so private he r
arely even shared them with himself.

  An army of ants marched in a trail along the blanket’s edge. Soon he’d have to brush them aside, but for the time being he let them be.

  ‘I was thinking of becoming a spinster myself.’

  The words lightened his mood but she could not be serious. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Spinsters are infinitely more interesting people than wives.’

  ‘They are? How did you come to that conclusion?’

  ‘To begin, there’s more time. A spinster can be anything she wishes to be and do anything she wishes to do. She can travel the world, or become a famous eccentric.’

  Peter supposed the idea had some merit. ‘Or she could become a famous artist?’ he suggested.

  ‘Or a famous artist, precisely. If I’m ever to be one it will surely happen because I’ve not wasted my days entertaining a husband. Ouch! These critters are starting to bite.’

  Peter made a great, valiant show of shaking the ants off the edge of the blanket, and when that was done he resumed his position, picking up her hand outright now and tracing an abstract pattern across the back of it.

  ‘Spinsters still take the time for picnics, I’m sure.’

  ‘Occasionally we find a space in our day for one, yes.’

  ‘It’s amazing that you’ve the time to waste sitting out here with me.’

  She liked that. He squeezed her hand when she smiled.

  ‘You should feel proud I’ve carved out a little time for you. It’s a great compliment.’

  She stilled his caressing fingers and turned her hand so that she held his.

  ‘Mr Rowe, if you’re to be an eternal bachelor, and I a spinster, then what are we doing?’

  He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed again. ‘I’d say we’re ignoring our better judgement. Elizabeth, if marriage makes a person dull, then what of Mrs Farrer? She seems … Um, I’m trying to think of a polite way to describe her.’

  ‘Do you not like her?’ She sounded personally affronted.