by Sonya Heaney
She climbed back to her feet, tucking the jewellery away into a fold of her dress, and looked around. Robert crossed the drive to greet stockmen returning from the outskirts of the property. Bertie and Bessie bustled down the path bearing various implements to clear away the worst of the damage. If there were any spitfires crawling about the garden that day, they’d been well and truly extinguished.
Everything was back to normal—or at least it would be soon.
‘Miss Farrer? D’you know what became of that ladder?’ the maid, Bessie, called from across the courtyard. The woman had a broom in her hands and a smudge of something grimy across her forehead.
‘It’s up in the—no. Don’t worry. I’ll get it myself.’ Elizabeth was already in a state; she might as well ruin her gown completely clearing out the eaves. And this time Peter was too distracted to disapprove of her climbing it.
Bessie’s eyes narrowed as she considered a protest, but then her name was called and she was off before she could admonish the landlord’s sister for doing something as helpful as sweep.
If you were to return home, we wouldn’t be surprised, and you’d be very welcome here.
Yes, Elizabeth knew her parents would welcome her back in England, but that evening she was needed in Barracks Flat.
And only when she realised this truth did she breathe freely.
Chapter 23
The next morning Elizabeth slept in longer than she should have. When she woke, astonished at the angle of the sun, she jumped out of her bed in confusion. She devoted a good few minutes to standing in the middle of her room, bare and lightly blistered toes curling against the floorboards as her heartbeat steadied. Her life had changed irrevocably, but she didn’t know what she was supposed to do about it.
Forgoing breakfast—there was no chance she could do something as mundane as sit about gnawing on toast—she wandered the rooms of the homestead, catching a glimpse of some rich riesling vines from one window and of several of Endmoor’s workers laughing as they set off across the property, Mr McCoy amongst them. Plants and people in the tablelands, it seemed, were both doggedly resilient.
She was halfway to the homestead’s front door when a familiar smiling face attached to a familiar tall man appeared in front of her. John Stanford was in good spirits, characteristically indestructible in the face of the past few days’ events.
‘Good morning,’ he said when he spotted her. ‘I thought I’d swim my way up the town road to deliver some news. Your Martha’s house survived yesterday.’
He grimaced before continuing. ‘That father of hers is smug about it … Naturally the town’s least affable man won’t suffer any damage while the rest of us marinate in river water over the coming weeks.’
Elizabeth gave him a solid inspection. He was impeccably dressed, as always, and the sunlight tinged his hair golden. As it always did.
‘You’re nowhere near soggy enough to have been in the water today. John, how is it that you never manage to look ruffled?’ She was genuinely curious.
‘It’s a talent a person is born with.’ He grinned at her. ‘You look more or less untarnished. I heard you took a dip in the Murrumbidgee. Might I recommend you choose a finer day the next time you decide to go for a swim?’
He came nearer and gave her a nudge with his elbow, and then reached past her to retrieve something from the table near the door.
‘I thought I might as well relieve the post office—which, by the way, survived thanks to your little sandbag escapade—of some of their correspondence while it was still salvable.’
He sifted through the various papers and then handed her three letters.
‘The post, it seems, won’t even stop for a minor disaster.’
‘Thank you,’ she said absently, noting the familiar handwriting on the first two envelopes.
‘Well, then. Postman’s duties complete, I think I’m superfluous here. I’ll be off, inspecting grapevines and such, should anybody like to offer me their thanks for my thoughtfulness.’
‘John?’
He stopped and looked back at her, waiting.
‘If yesterday was a minor disaster, what’s your definition of a catastrophe?’
He smiled at her once more. ‘A catastrophe would have been if I’d been up to my ankles in the Murrumbidgee when I got out of bed this morning. My new oak floors ruined straight after they were laid? Utterly unthinkable.’ He shook his head and was gone.
Soft footsteps sounded in the hallway behind Elizabeth as she watched him step back outside, and Alice arrived at her elbow, peered at the letters, and then scoffed.
‘We’ve almost no decent fruit left thanks to that bloody downpour, and the stockmen are claiming the road’ll be a mess for the next few weeks, and yet that man brings us the mail? Somethin’ about this is more than a little ridiculous.’ She tied the strings of her apron around herself as she spoke. ‘I’ll be in the drawing room inspecting another soggy spot on the ceiling.’
She was halfway to the door when she realised Elizabeth hadn’t moved. ‘Aren’t you going to open them?’
‘Yes, I suppose I have to,’ she responded, her voice sounding like it came from another woman entirely as she read the messily scrawled address of the third letter’s origin.
Cascade Street
She braced one hand on the table and watched until Alice was gone.
She couldn’t open it; she had to open it.
‘Not here,’ she murmured, and returned to her room for her hat, oldest boots and her sketchbook. Drawing might, just might, provide the comfort she’d need after reading her news.
But probably not.
***
What now, Peter wondered when he woke the morning after the flood, again in the cottage on Endmoor’s grounds, which had somehow managed not to leak in its old age. Despite its slightly dilapidated exterior, the place had solid foundations.
The world, or at least their little part of it, slowly put itself back to rights. Nature moved on to cause problems for some other unfortunate souls, leaving the remnants of chaos behind for the people of the tablelands to fix. The birds were louder than ever, in ecstasy with the conditions where everybody else was knee-deep in mud.
I was thinking of becoming a spinster, she’d said.
Had it really happened? Had he really spent an afternoon with Elizabeth Farrer in another, less robust building, doing every single thing he wasn’t meant to?
There’s nothing wrong with unconventional matches.
‘Bloody hell,’ he told the wallpaper, and immediately felt bad about it. It wasn’t the right thing to say about what had happened between them.
His father had an excellent old copy of Roget’s Thesaurus that sat in his office with other important, impressive and rarely read books. Peter searched his memory for a word to describe how his life had changed in a matter of hours. Amazing? Enlightening? Astonishing? None of them were quite right.
‘I need to read that book,’ he announced to the room at large, and then threw back the covers.
Sunshine sneaked through gaps in the curtains. People were already bustling about on the property with so much to do now that nature had taken pity on them and carried its misery away somewhere else. It would take some time before Barracks Flat was restored to how it had been before, and Peter was just mean enough to hope the damaged gristmill beside the Monaro Street bridge wasn’t the first place in town anyone rushed to repair.
He lingered in the cottage longer than any respectable man capable of lending a hand should, reflecting on all the things he hadn’t dared to think of the night before.
That he would marry Elizabeth now was a given. That was if she’d not already come to her senses and gone running for the foothills, or rowed herself halfway down the Murrumbidgee to escape him. If he was allowed a say in such things, she wouldn’t be going anywhere near water of any kind in the future. Whether she accepted him or not, he was still banning any and all activities involving rivers, sandbags and small boats f
or the foreseeable future.
She’d probably wallop him for it.
Peter shaved and dressed and allowed himself a few thoughts about his future. He’d have to dip his feet into the sea a little longer the next time he was Sydney, to make up for the fact he’d not be doing it much in the future. There wasn’t a beach anywhere near the usually dusty Barracks Flat.
***
After stopping to help clear a couple of fallen branches from the roofs of the stables and the shed, and reliving the previous day’s events with the abnormally talkative Endmoor staff, Peter didn’t see his employer until the middle of the morning. They’d found themselves at the homestead’s front doorstep at the same time, Peter on his way into the office, and Farrer on his way out.
The other man changed his course, a dip of his head inviting—ordering, perhaps—Peter to join him there.
They set their hats side by side on the railing and together watched as the estate’s various workers scurried around the muddy grounds. Sunshine gleamed and rippled in puddles; the carriage drive would not be easy to mend. Peter would wager it had been a long time since Endmoor had been in such a state.
Mrs Farrer marched past with a broom, barely sparing her husband a glance as she muttered something about chaos in the rose garden. Despite whatever was hanging in the air between the woman’s husband and himself, Peter smiled at the sight of her. Apparently the estate wasn’t averse to oddities.
‘There’s something to be said for a storm that can clear off so fast,’ he remarked when the man beside him remained silent.
Farrer looked over at him.
‘Yes, and there’s also something to be said for a downpour that dumps so much misery and then leaves us to deal with the aftermath, while it blows off somewhere else without a care in the world.’
The sounds of brutally vigorous sweeping reached them and both men stopped to listen for a while. There was nothing soothing about how Alice Farrer attacked a misbehaving garden.
‘I’ve been out to check the vines,’ her husband said. ‘The damage is nowhere near what I worried it would be. I’d say we’re still all right to proceed as planned.’
‘That’s good news.’
‘It means I’m going to be busier than ever from now on.’
There was something not being said that had Peter perking up. He wanted to ask; he waited for Farrer to tell him instead.
‘I was thinking of a new arrangement. Something along the lines of a partnership. Me, John, and you, if you’re willing. God knows, you’ve taken on a lot more than we expected since you arrived. And you’ve no idea how happy I am to have that extra time out on the land.’
The sweeping stopped.
‘A partnership?’ Peter found he’d lost his words. Already he was picturing a new future, a different one than he could ever have hoped for or allowed himself to want until the day before.
‘You’re from Sydney, and I understand completely if you’d prefer to return. I daresay we could come to an agreement that had you in the city, working with us out here. However …’
There was a wealth of meaning in that one last word, and Peter straightened his spine and waited for it. This was Elizabeth’s brother, and he had to at least suspect something had happened between them.
‘I thought you might like to stay on in Barracks Flat. In town, if not in that cottage, which really is too small as a permanent residence. Or maybe you’d like to build something bigger on your land.’
Your land … Peter searched the man’s words for any alternate meaning but found none.
‘Elizabeth said something.’ He hoped to God it wasn’t about anything that happened in that hut on the Yealambidgie trail.
‘She’s been fairly coy, but I’d already surmised a lot of it. I’m sorry.’ Farrer shook his head. ‘This isn’t an offer of employment; it’s an attempt to right a wrong. Partially, at least.’
Peter looked off towards Namadgi country. ‘I might never understand exactly what that wrong was.’
‘There are still some Ngambri and Ngunnawal people around. In fact, for a while we had a few working as stockmen here at the station. Have you considered … I assume you came all the way to this outpost because you once had people here.’
‘I did. And I have. And I intend to be here long enough to investigate it.’ He glanced to the side. ‘I don’t suppose you need any more explanation as to why my father sent me in his place last September. Not that he told even me of his intentions, but I’ve no doubt he expected me to conduct a little investigation.’
‘You don’t know who your people are?’
‘I’ve an idea or two, but it would have been so much easier if I’d not been brought up to deny it.’
Farrer’s posture had sharpened with interest, so he continued.
‘I don’t know much about that part of me at all, but now I’ve a few clues I intend to follow. My mother was taught to be ashamed of her heritage, and my grandfather—a white man—he seems even less inclined to share. Vernon Towner,’ Peter added, and saw the recognition on the other man’s face.
‘Ah.’
It seemed the old man’s infamy was in direct contrast with his determination to stay isolated from anyone and everyone.
‘More infamously known as The Duffer.’
‘Ah.’
Too late, Peter remembered admitting to having a livestock thief as a relation wasn’t the way to endear himself to Elizabeth’s brother.
‘I know no long-term plans were discussed, but would you be willing to stay on? Help us make something more of this business?’
Farrer touched the braided leather brim of his hat and then turned brown, unwavering eyes, so similar and yet so different to his sister’s, on Peter.
‘I mean stay and work the land? This stretch of land?’
‘I will.’
Farrer nodded. ‘I want to tell you it isn’t enough.’
‘It’s more than I came here expecting.’ It could never be enough.
‘There are always going to be people who’ll judge the situation. Judge me.’
Mrs Farrer walked past then, hands full of leaves and bark and twigs, and added it all to a growing pile. A moment later she was headed back to complete her task.
Robert watched his wife until she’d gone. ‘There will be people who judge unfairly. Even so, I—’
He broke off abruptly and stared incredulously at the family that had silently appeared, hopping up the steps one at a time until they stood in a neat line at the edge of the veranda. The smallest and greyest of them wobbled to a stop, peeping little hungry noises.
‘Alice,’ Farrer bellowed in a tone louder than Peter had ever heard from him before.
The sweeping stopped again.
‘What?’ The response was equally as loud, if more feminine.
‘Will you please stop feeding the magpies.’
The adult birds regarded them with steady amber gazes as Mrs Farrer considered a response to the request. It came a couple of seconds later.
‘Never!’
Sighing and shaking his head, Robert went to the bucket in the corner and retrieved what looked to Peter like remnants of the past several days’ meals mixed together, and threw a couple of handfuls out onto the pockmarked carriage loop.
The birds were off in an instant.
Peter caught the other man’s quickly concealed smile.
‘As for my sister …’ he continued, and Peter wondered if this was the point in the conversation they discussed pistols at dawn. When he found it in him to look across at the other man, Peter saw deep awareness in his eyes.
‘If you want to ask for my permission, I think I’d better grant it, seeing as our father’s several thousand miles away and not easy to reach. Though Elizabeth would likely lock me in the housekeeper’s cupboard if I stood in the way of her wishes.’
He changed his focus back to the sodden landscape. A respite.
‘Have you asked her yet?’
‘Not yet.’ Not
officially, at least.
‘Well, you’d better go and do that.’
Chapter 24
Deciding to propose marriage was one thing. Finding the woman Peter intended to propose to was another.
After searching the entire homestead, and then the garden, and then—because he was getting a little desperate—each and every outbuilding within reasonable walking distance of the house, Peter had to concede she was nowhere to be found. Everyone claimed to have seen her at some point that morning, but it was no help when the woman refused to stay put.
When a stockman he passed near the town road claimed Elizabeth had walked away into the distance a little while ago, and directed him off cross-country, Peter changed his course and hoped the fellow wasn’t joking.
He walked. And then he trudged when he hit a muddy spot. And then he skated when things became a little slippery.
There was a sense of inevitability that it wasn’t Elizabeth he found first, but the man who’d avoided him for over three decades. After being nowhere for so long, Vernon Towner was suddenly everywhere.
‘I’ll be away soon.’ The man spoke before Peter reached him. ‘If you’ve somethin’ to say, now’d be the best time.’
The pony had been retrieved, as had the gig, as well as most of the rubbish that’d been scattered around the crooked cottage the afternoon before. His grandfather had secured it to the back of the little vehicle with rope in a way that didn’t look like it could hold for more than a mile or two. However, the rope—as Peter had learnt the day before—was capable of magical things.
‘Thank you for what you did for Elizabeth yesterday.’
The older man paused at that. His bushy grey eyebrows rose.
‘Elizabeth, is it? Not Miss Farrer?’
‘Elizabeth to me, yes.’
‘Interestin’. Anyway,’ he said after a short pause. ‘I didn’t do much to help, far as I remember it.’
Peter shook his head. ‘Yes. You did.’
For the first time that day his grandfather gave him his full attention.
‘The pony might not be mine, but the books and papers are, if you’re wonderin’.’
