She bent her head and read the lines written under the red gum almost a month ago. William watched her as she frowned and read it carefully a second time.
‘Well?’ He felt unusually tense, and didn’t know why. ‘She’s unhappy,’ Hannah said finally.
It was not the answer he expected. ‘How can you tell that?’
‘You felt concerned yourself, William. Otherwise you wouldn’t have spent all this time worrying about it.’
‘But she doesn’t say anything.’
‘It’s what this letter doesn’t say that’s important.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It doesn’t say she’s happy. It doesn’t say she’s in love, or thrilled about the baby. It says,’ she read aloud from the letter: ‘we work hard but enjoy it. I’d hardly call that boundless enthusiasm. It doesn’t sound like the girl you used to tell me about.’
She returned it, and he folded the letter away, troubled by her comments, but uncertain of his own opinion.
‘Still, she doesn’t say she’s miserable.’
‘Willie, I’ve read those little notes she used to dash off to you, and I’ll tell you one thing about this letter — there’s no happiness in it. She’s nineteen years old, my darling — wilful, impulsive.’ She held up a hand to prevent his dissent. ‘She ran away because she loved the boy, and that’s a fact of life, whether you wish to hear it or not. The letter should be bubbling with news, but it isn’t. It’s just dull — and dutiful.’
That’s it, he thought. That’s what I felt. Like someone obliged to write, but only a grudging minimum. Dull and dutiful. That described it exactly.
‘Then why bother to write at all,’ he wondered.
Hannah had a moment of rare insight. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘it’s a cry for help.’
It was harvest time again, and the line of women and children bent over the wooden churns as they stripped the vines. The grapes were small and disappointing, and Johann Ritter had already decided they would have to be sold as fruit, for they could not make wine. It was a bitter blow, and his mood was sombre as he and his eldest son Franz, now a tall fifteen-year-old, carried the oak buckets from one end of the field, while Stefan collected them from the other, and they loaded them into boxes on the dray. Later, they would fetch the mule loaned by a neighbour, and drive the produce into town to the co-operative.
All the family, except for Grossmutter, picked the grapes.
Stefan had protested at Elizabeth’s being asked to help. Listless and wanting to avoid a confrontation, she had not supported him, and now, too heavy with child to kneel like the others, she sat on a churn beside Aunt Anna and felt the noon heat sapping her strength.
Stefan came past, and this time he insisted. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘In a moment. I’ll just finish this vine.’
Very soon now, Heinrich would wake from his midday sleep, and she would have to feed and wash him.
‘Please, Elizabeth.’ Stefan took her arm and raised her. ‘You’re tired and you shouldn’t be doing this. Go and lie down. Get some rest before Heinrich wakes.’ He looked towards his uncle. ‘I don’t care what they say. To hell with them.’
‘All right,’ she said, grateful for his concern. It was not the first time of late he had defied the Ritter family. It seemed as if, ever since the night when he had realised she did not want this child, he had become positive and more assertive.
‘Go and rest,’ he said. ‘Please, liebchen.’
She nodded. She was, after all, more than a month off her expected time. So the sudden knife-thrust of pain, when it happened, frightened her.
‘What is it?’ he asked her. ‘Elizabeth?’
She shook her head. It had gone as swiftly as it came, but left her feeling breathless.
‘Is it the baby?’
‘No, of course not. It can’t be.’
Clara, the eldest of the Ritter children, came along the furrow between the vines. She was now a strapping sixteen-year-old, who had caused the family some concern with more than one local youth at the recent SchutzenJest. She had long blonde hair plaited around her head, and pendulous breasts beneath her thin cotton dress. She paused and looked curiously at Stefan still supporting Elizabeth.
‘Was ist das?’
Elizabeth screamed as a new shaft of agony seemed to dissect her, and she felt her clothes and legs flood with fluid. She dimly heard Stefan shouting something; he was telling them to get the doktor; she heard and recognised that word. Then the pain stabbed at her again, like a punishment tearing and ripping her body. Once more she screamed, but this time it was with fear. She felt Stefan lifting her, and yelling at the others, and Clara’s voice and then Uncle Johann’s, and after that it became a confused hubbub. Then a strange silence settled upon her that gave way to a dark and empty space.
PART TWO
NINE
‘Where in God’s name are we?’ William demanded of the driver, who had come with the carriage when he hired it in Adelaide.
The road was little more than a track in places, and the landau bounced uncomfortably over the ruts and corrugations. It was a spacious vehicle, but more suited for the cobbles of city streets. ‘Glen Osmond,’ the driver said. ‘Used to be silver mines. Big battle here once.’
‘A battle?’
‘Miners. Rounded up a mob of Chinese and killed ‘em. ‘Bout forty years ago, thereabouts it was. Bad blood berween’em. Still is.’
The driver had been quiet until then, but now began to acquaint his passenger with local history.
‘Lots of small communities. Strathalbyn, down south’s where the Scots settled. Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Albert he was, come to visit in ‘67. Then there’s the Germans. Went to Clare and Mount Pleasant. And Hahndorf. Hardly anyone lives in Hahndorf, ‘cept Germans.’
William nodded. He was alert and refreshed by a night at the Wellington Hotel in North Terrace. Despite the comfort of a first-class sleeper, he had found the rail journey tedious, the customs posts at each state border an anachronism, reinforcing his belief that this absurd colonial divisiveness must end soon.
He wondered in what section of the train, and under what circumstances Elizabeth had travelled, and doubted if it had been a particularly pleasant experience. He felt a growing impatience, an eagerness to see her.
‘What time will we reach there?’ he asked.
‘Late afternoon, I reckon. Depends what sort of stop you want for lunch.’
‘Just a beer and a sandwich.’
‘Goodo,’ the driver said, pleased at this evidence of his passenger’s informality. He had been told Mr Patterson was a wealthy Right Honourable from New South Wales, an important man, and he had expected some old stuffed shirt, but Patterson was quite young, and seemed all right. Good clothes, a gold watch with chain, smart polished boots; the bloke obviously had money, but wasn’t a la-di-da like some.
‘It’s a funny place — Hahndorf,’ he said, after a spell. ‘In what way?’ William asked.
‘Dunno really. Just sort of funny.’ He reflected for a moment. ‘Houses are different. The people — hardly any of ‘em speak English. They got great big churches where they yabber in their own language, and the cemeteries are full of dead Germans. You kin tell by the tombstones.’
They stopped for their beer and a sandwich at a roadside inn outside Crafters in the Mount Lofty ranges.
‘Some of the Germans went up north,’ the driver told him, ‘to the Barossa Valley. Ever hear of it?’
William shook his head.
‘Tanunda way. Good country for grapes. Better than here. Met a fella called Joe Henschke, once. Come from Prussia, brought vines, years back. Now I hear he’s got a great big vineyard, big as Johann Gramp at Jacob’s Creek.’
William sipped his beer and listened. The fellow was agreeable, and a fund of information.
They reached Hahndorf two hours later. While the driver went to seek directions, William waited in the carriage. He found himself reluctantly impressed by the gracef
ul town. The Boarding Academy and the Old Mill were substantial stone buildings, and the rows of cottages were tidy and well kept. There was a sense of order about the place. A bell clanged further down the street, and a group of children emerged from the timbered Lutheran school, and sedately dispersed for home. There was no boisterous or unruly behaviour; he doubted larrikinism, the current scourge of the Sydney streets with their gangs and ‘pushes’, was known here.
The driver came back.
‘Only a mile or so on the north road.’ He flicked the reins and the horse began to trot, the landau travelling more comfortably on the graded town street.
Just a few minutes more, William thought, and the expectation of his first glimpse of her after so long made his heart quicken.
He had decided on this journey the same day that Hannah had read Elizabeth’s letter, but it had taken longer than he expected to arrange his absence. A vital debate on Federation in the House had required his presence, and he had made one of his best speeches, asserting the time had come for those who continued to equivocate to step aside, and let people vote on their own destiny. Ever since inveigling his way into politics William had maintained his crusade on Federation, and was now identified in the public mind as one of the leading proponents of its cause. If people sometimes wondered what had inspired this radical stance, often against the leaders of his own party, he was not about to enlighten them. It went back further than any of his contemporaries would ever know.
As a boy, growing up in poverty, forced to take employment for a near-starvation pittance when he was twelve, he knew his only escape from this kind of life was to educate himself. This he did determinedly. The factory floor became his place of learning. His older workmates unknowingly became his tutors. He listened to them, heard and noted everything. Their invective, as they railed against the bosses and ‘the system’. Their slender hopes and aspirations. The paucity of their lives. He realised their existence was intolerable, as his would be, unless he could find a way out. He had no idea how this might happen, but late at night, by the stub of a candle, he fought fatigue to concentrate on improving his reading, while he continued asking questions, learning to judge and store what was of value, while rejecting the inconsequential.
In rare moments he heard them talk of politics. They envied or despised their leaders, but seemed to admire an up-and-coming politician named Henry Parkes. He was, they told their young and avid listener, a man after their own hearts with the gift of the gab. Not only was he no toff, but he’d gone bankrupt, which made him fallible and human. It was well known he liked women, and they certainly seemed to like him — his randy exploits were making him famous, and if he could get his hands beneath so many petticoats he couldn’t be too bad an old bastard.
And he had this idea all the states should be one country, and it sounded like a fair sort of a notion. Might even be better. Couldn’t be worse than the way things were, they all said.
The boy had listened. Curious. It had begun as simply as that.
When Henry Parkes campaigned for the next election, fourteen-year-old William had gone to see him, and had stayed, entranced. In one unforgettable afternoon, he had become a convert. Despite the fact that later on Parkes had begun to vacillate, was at times erratic, and was even scorned by opponents as a demagogue, William never veered from his first youthful homage. He accepted the concept — and the man. Barely sixteen years later, not long after his escape from Broken Hill, newly rich and politically ambitious, William had been proud to meet Sir Henry, then conceded by most to be the father of the gathering push towards Federation. They had become firm friends until the grand old man’s death. In fact, William reflected, he and Henry had been dining together the first time he met Hannah Lockwood.
Hannah, he thought. Dear Hannah. She was so often there, a discreet spectator in the public gallery, as she had been the day of that speech. It was why, after attacking his own party for apathy on Federation, he then denounced the indifference of both sides of the chamber towards the vital matter of votes for women. For it was his relationship with Hannah which had made him so aware women of discernment and intelligence could not vote, while any dull-witted or drunken man was assumed to be more worthy of political wisdom — and had the right to exercise it. He found it truly unjust, and lost no chance to say so. On this particular day, mindful not only of Hannah but of the press gallery busily taking notes, he had made much of the fact that New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant universal suffrage.
Why should we across the Tasman remain blinkered and aloof from progress? he had demanded. His own staid party were demonstrably outraged: William had, in effect, crossed the floor, and was now a major figure in a centralist group. By doing so, he had established a small but solid power base.
It had been a fruitful time in other ways. He had finalised the purchase of a cluster of tenement houses in Wexford Street, near the Belmore Markets. He knew, from a Parliamentary Commissioners report, that the district was soon to be demolished. The Commission, on which William had served, had investigated the quarter, a crowded Chinese ghetto comprising cheap food stores, factories, slum houses, brothels and gambling dens, and had found much of the housing lacking in basic sanitary conditions and unfit for human habitation. The owners of the properties were to be compensated and also given a grant for rebuilding. This was not yet public knowledge, and using the protective umbrella of one of his companies, William had purchased a row of the derelict buildings at a price far below the figure set for compensation. He stood to make a handsome profit, as well as retaining ownership of the rebuilt houses.
It had been an excellent period, given zest by the knowledge he was going to make his peace with Elizabeth. He told Edith about his travel plans a few days before his departure. Although he felt she was pleased, to his relief she did not ask to accompany him.
The landau came along a narrow road, past a field of stunted vines already stripped of their grapes. There were two cows grazing listlessly in a barren stretch of land, fenced by sagging wire. Ahead of him was a squat wooden house, with several tin sheds attached to it, as if the original building had spawned these rusty extensions. The place had a forlorn look, and though city born and bred, William could tell this was a failed piece of farmland. There was nothing of substance, no beauty anywhere, except for a flowering red gum tree near the house. As the driver pulled up, he stared at the place with a sinking heart.
‘This?’ he said, bewildered. ‘Is this it?’
‘So they said in town.’ The driver himself was surprised.
William told him to wait, and pushed open the leaning gate. A thick-set man stood by the vines, watching him carefully. He saw no family resemblance, but he assumed this was the boy’s uncle.
‘Good day,’ he greeted him. There was no response. ‘My name is Patterson,’ William said.
‘Grüss Gott,’ Johann Ritter replied, and although William had no concept of what this meant, it was clearly some kind of greeting, so he nodded and held out his hand. They eyed each other warily, and shook hands, then wondered what next to say and how to say it. He guessed the farmer had no real idea of his identity.
‘Elizabeth,’ he spoke slowly, enunciating with care. ‘I am her father. Her papa. Where is she?’
He repeated her name, investing it with an accent he thought might register, as the other seemed to be gazing at him with a curious expression. ‘Eliza-bet.’
Johann Ritter began to speak rapidly in German, trying to explain something, gesturing agitatedly with his hands, ignoring William’s confusion. A middle-aged woman appeared from the house, and behind her several children of varying sizes and ages, who all gathered around, staring openly at him. In a rocking chair on the verandah, a very old lady sat watching ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said impatiently, ‘doesn’t anyone here speak English?’
‘Stefan?’
The man had stopped his incomprehensible babble. He pointed, and with almost a feeling of relief, William turned t
o see the young German approaching. He looked different. Tanned by the sun, and tougher somehow. Then William watched him stop, eyes widen in shocked recognition.
‘Mr Patterson!’
‘Will you tell him,’ William said, ‘that I can’t understand a single word he’s said. And tell my daughter I’m here to see her.’ It was only then, judging from the way they both gazed at him, that he began to realise something was wrong.
TEN
The telegraph boy rang the front doorbell, and when the young housemaid opened it, she scolded him for not taking it to the side door where the post was usually delivered. The boy, who was sixteen and had just joined the new Workers’ Union, told her he was not post, he was telegraph, which was different because they carried urgent messages, and did she wish to accept delivery or not? He also said that in her frilly uniform she looked like a capitalist’s lackey, but would she walk in the park with him on Sunday? The maid told him to ask her again when he was grown up. She shut the door in his face and, smiling to herself, took the message in search of her mistress.
On the way through the house she looked at the strange envelope with interest. It was the first one she had seen, and she doubted if such things brought good tidings. She found Edith sewing in the morning room, placed the strange envelope on a silver salver and handed it to her.
Edith seemed equally ill-at-ease with the telegram. She hesitated, then tore it open. When the maid went back to the kitchen, she announced to Mrs Forbes and the other staff that one of them telegraph things had arrived, and by the look on the mistress’s face, it was bad news.
Later that day the same telegraph boy crossed Glenmore Road, and went into a secluded cul-de-sac. At the end house with wisteria growing around the front door, he rang the bell, and a nice-looking woman answered. He gave her the envelope, received a threepenny piece together with a smile that made her look really pretty, and departed whistling.
A Bitter Harvest Page 9
