Clytie felt her knees tremble and she sank down beside him. ‘Do you mean the little one who died wasn’t Sonny’s own child?’
The answer came with a great show of reluctance. ‘No.’
‘Then who was the father?’
Finch looked cornered. ‘That’s really none of our business, is it! You’ve got Max back – isn’t that enough for you?’
He strode off but Clytie blocked his path. ‘You’re lying. You know who it was. Something doesn’t add up. Is this the true reason Rom’s been avoiding me? Oh my God, you can’t mean Rom had an affair with Noni? But she despised him – she cut him dead in the street!’
Finch turned away, trapped.
‘I can see by your face it’s true! If Rom was sleeping with us both at the same time, when he comes back – I’ll kill him!’
‘Why? Rom didn’t know! He’s been desperate to put things right for you!’
‘I find that hard to believe.’ She seized on another question. ‘What was it that Sonny shied off telling me about Rom? Has he seen him?’
‘Maybe Sonny didn’t want to upset you. A few nights ago he heard Max crying in the night and went to his nursery to calm him. He saw Rom standing outside in the moonlight, watching them. Sonny told me he would never forget the look on Rom’s face – he looked haunted. But when he went outside to talk to him, Rom had disappeared.’
‘Why does Rom come to everyone – but me?’
Clytie’s knees were trembling so badly she sank down onto a fallen tree trunk, her head in her hands.
Finch knew he might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.
‘It’s clear Sonny only married Noni to protect her child from the stigma of illegitimacy. But I suspect he had an even stronger reason.’
‘What, for heaven’s sake?’
‘I think he particularly wanted to give the boy his Jantzen name – because he was Rom’s child. There are different ways of loving, Clytie. I’m sure Rom was never aware of Sonny’s feelings for him.’
She stared at him. ‘You mean – what Oscar Wilde’s lover Lord Alfred Douglas called . . .?’
‘The love that dares not speak its name? Perhaps it was. Anyway, Sonny knowingly took on the role of father to Max – and you can see how truly he loves him.’
Clytie held her head as if it was in danger of falling off her shoulders. She looked up at Finch, her eyes bleak with shock.
‘That still begs the question. Was Noni in league with Bracken? Did she knowingly steal my baby?’
‘Sonny isn’t sure. But he believes all Noni really wanted was to have a child – any child – to consolidate their marriage. What love there is between them is on her side, not Sonny’s.’
Finch knelt in front of her and lifted her chin to make her meet his eyes.
‘Don’t hate Rom. He came back to Hoffnung because he loved you. He made me his go-between to help him to put the past to rights. Doc, Sonny and me – we all helped him to bring your baby back home to you.’
‘Will Rom come back to me now?’
Finch looked defeated. The silence was broken only by the mocking sound of sulphur-crested cockatoos shrieking through the bush in flight to disappear from sight.
‘I’m not God, Clytie! I don’t know where the hell the future’s leading. But for heaven’s sake be happy about one thing, will you? Max is alive and well – and in a few weeks he’s coming home to his mother.’
It was only then that shock, grief and joy welded together. Clytie gave in to the dry sobs and laughter that shook her body. For once she did not reject the strong arms that held her as Finch led her home.
Chapter 47
Seated in his office at home, Doc hesitated before writing the words in his diary in the entry for Monday, June 2nd 1902.
‘Peace – that highly ambiguous word for an uneasy treaty – became official in South Africa on May 31st 1902. The news did not reach Hoffnung until today, three days later.
‘The second of the Anglo-Boer Wars (in Boer eyes the Second Freedom War) has ended after thirty-one months, fought to the final hour against the brave remnants of the Boer Commandos’ “Bitter-Enders”.
‘The death toll on both sides is a tragedy. What angers me is the unnecessary loss of life. Half the Australians who died did so not at the hands of the Boers, but from enteric fever, dysentery and typhoid – for want of medical treatment and hygiene.
‘It’s said the final stages of the war cost the British Government two million pounds a week to keep its massive Imperial Forces supplied across hundreds of miles. In contrast, it cost the Boers everything.
‘For Hoffnung, and no doubt towns all over Australia, what often began as an idealised adventure for young lads from the bush, has ended in disenchantment, mourning, the return of the walking wounded . . . .’
Doc couldn’t quite bring himself to write the words in his mind ‘. . . and lost souls like Rom Delaney.’
• • •
He didn’t hear any doorknock, but something made him look up, sensing the arrival of his first patient for the day. The face of the man standing in the doorway was in shadow, the light behind him.
‘Good morning, Rom. No doubt you’ve heard the news. Peace at long last.’
The voice was weary. ‘Yeah, Doc. But not for me . . .’
• • •
Finch recognised that his own reaction to the news of the peace treaty was very different from the rest of Hoffnung. It aroused in him conflicting emotions and images from his two entwined lives – as Finch and Jonathan D’Angers. It also foreshadowed radical changes in his life that were now inevitable.
Time was running out in his role as Sonny Jantzen’s personal assistant. For weeks past he had hidden the knowledge from everyone, including Clytie, that he had supervised all the legal documents involved in the sale of the Golden Hope mine and the Jantzen mansion. The new mine owners, two brothers from California, were due to arrive in Hoffnung within days.
Finch had no wish to remain at the Golden Hope after Sonny’s departure. It was time to move on. His employer had been more than generous in his promised pay-out to Finch and had insisted he would write glowing references for all future employers. Finch’s current workload was now confined to helping Sonny dispose of his estate. His last official duty would be to drive him to Port Melbourne to sail on the luxury passenger ship bound for Europe.
Today, bearing the newspapers announcing the end of the war, he arrived at Jantzen House to begin the day’s work. He found Sonny in his study as usual immaculately dressed, and poring over the photographs Finch had taken from every conceivable angle of The Lady. In most of them Sonny was posed proudly in the driver’s seat with the ever-smiling Max on his knee.
As instructed, Finch had organised the automobile’s return to Sonny’s former business partner in Melbourne. No longer able to afford to remain a silent partner in automobile inventions, Sonny had taken Finch’s advice on how to conserve the family fortune to cover his treatment in the Swiss sanatorium and provide for his father in the family townhouse in St Kilda.
Finch waited for Sonny’s verdict.
‘You’ve done The Lady proud, Finch. I shall treasure these photographs. And thank you for the second set of prints. I’ve put them in an album along with Max’s baby photographs, in the hope that as he grows they will be a reminder of the happy times we shared together – and Max will know what he meant to me.’
There was a catch in Sonny’s voice that he covered with a nervous laugh. ‘Forgive me, I’ve never been much good at what the British call keeping a stiff upper lip.’
‘You’ve done an incredibly brave thing, Sonny. Putting Max’s happiness before your own was an act of true love.’
Sonny looked startled, as if uncertain whether the words had an underlying meaning.
He tried to make the question sound casual. ‘Have you heard anything more of Rom Delaney? Has he shown himself to Clytie yet? God willing, he will do the right thing by her.’
Finch s
hook his head, wanting to avoid a line of questioning that was impossible to answer. ‘I am most grateful for your character reference, Sonny. There’s only one problem. I had grown so comfortable sporting the name Finch, I forgot to tell people that I had remembered my legal name – Jonathan D’Angers, an old Huguenot name.’
‘Ah yes, like Ben Viljoen, De Wet and those other brave Boer leaders. No problem, Finch. I’ll write you a fresh reference in your given name – you can decide at a later date which one you want to live with.’
Ever alert for signs of fatigue in the employer who was now his proven friend, Finch was not surprised when Sonny rejected his offer to help him clear away the mine’s final paperwork.
‘The day is too beautiful to waste indoors. I want you to deliver Max to Clytie for the afternoon, so that the little chap can become familiar with his future surroundings. And now, if you’ll excuse me, time for my nap . . .’
Finch found that Max was all geared up for adventure and his nursemaid Gertie had a picnic basket already packed and containing his favourite toys.
Strapped into the buggy beside Finch, Max sang his own lusty accompaniment to the children’s songs that Finch sang to him in three different languages. The horse picked up their rhythm and gaily trotted along the road to the priest’s house.
He found Clytie enveloped in an apron, her cheek still streaked with flour from baking, when they surprised her in the garden with Long Sam, planting seedlings.
That woman would look seductive attired in hessian bags.
‘Don’t get too excited, Max is only on loan for the afternoon,’ Finch said, transferring the boy to her open arms. ‘He comes like a little Greek bearing gifts – a photograph album, food, a host of toys and a tin drum to entertain you. Sonny felt it was high time for Max to become familiar with his mother’s world.’
Clytie was so moved she could hardly speak, so she carried the boy on her back, racing him around the garden in mock pursuit of Long Sam, who was pulling faces to make Max laugh. Finch watched them with mixed feelings, reminded that these were among the last memories he would have of them.
Their picnic on the lawn was peppered by Clytie’s questions to Finch about the end of the war. Why hadn’t they heard any church bells celebrating peace?
‘I don’t know much more than I’ve told you. It seems the newspapers are surprisingly reserved. No fiery editorials, no jubilation, no cries of victory. Evidently the Commonwealth offices were immediately closed, but from what I can gather the Federal Government has not announced a national commemoration apart from one. Next Sunday, thanksgiving services will be held in churches throughout the nation.’
‘Is that all the thanks our lads get?’ Clytie demanded sharply. ‘Quite a contrast with the send-off they were given when they marched off to war. Patriotic speeches from politicians, parades through the streets with flag-waving crowds and girls kissing them. Now they’re coming home, the sick and wounded. No fanfare. No public thanks. To be met with a shortage of jobs and people who are tired of the war.’
Finch couldn’t argue with that or the underlying bitter implication that Rom was not among them.
After Max had been shown over the tiny house and explored the garden, Finch suggested that Clytie take him for a walk down to the creek.
‘I’ll come back later to return him to Sonny. Max has been handled with kid gloves for too long. He’s strong and healthy – needs to be allowed to splash in the creek and get his hands dirty. Muck around the way all boys were born to do.’
Clytie was automatically on guard. ‘But what will Noni say?’
‘From now on, it’s what his mother says that counts.’
Finch was annoyed to feel the lump in his throat as he watched her piggy-back Max down the road towards the creek, stopping to point out some bush animal or bird for Max to crow over in delight.
• • •
Wandering down Main Street towards the Mechanics Institute, Finch could not fail to notice the contrast of people’s reaction to him – today, following war’s end. He had never felt more alien than he did right now.
Mrs Mintner passed him with unseeing eyes, her mourning weeds now muddied around the hem from constant use. An old fossicker spat in the street at sight of him. To others, he was invisible or else given a reluctant smile.
The new Australian flag fluttered in the breeze on the town’s flagpole and a few of the shop windows featured a photograph of a family soldier – some of them edged in black crepe. Kitchener’s photograph was noticeably absent. Overall the town appeared to be strangely subdued, as if the long awaited peace had come too late, or tinged with an edge of shame.
Inside the Post Office, Finch handed across the letter he had written to the Melbourne publishing house to order two advance copies of My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War. Written by General Ben Viljoen, still a prisoner-of-war on St Helena, the manuscript had been smuggled off the island by a sympathetic British officer, Theodore Brinckman, to be published in London.
Marj Hornery glanced at the publisher’s name on the envelope and gave Finch a tight smile. ‘Offering to sell your account of the war, are you? That should make interesting reading.’
Knowing Marj’s reputation for steaming open personal mail, he answered with steely politeness.
‘No. It’s an order for the memoir of a brave Boer General that has been praised by a British Colonel as one of the most honest accounts of the war he has ever read.’
‘Really!’ the word was loaded with sarcasm.
‘Yes, really! And when it arrives, if it hasn’t already been opened, I’ll donate a copy to the Mechanics Institute Library – to be read by anyone in Hoffnung who has an open mind!’
He slapped the money for the stamp on the counter and stalked off, hands in his pockets as he whistled Sarie Marais.
Virtually alone in the library, he came across a recent copy of The Daily Telegraph republishing an English article that identified the executed men of the Bushveldt Carbineers as Lieutenants Harry ‘The Breaker’ Morant and Peter Joseph Handcock, found guilty of murdering their prisoner, a German Lutheran missionary. Knowledge of this trial and execution of Australian soldiers by British officers had been withheld for months from the Australian government and the public.
Finch mumbled under his breath, convinced that this whole episode had greatly increased the country’s disenchantment with the war.
‘I wish I could talk about this stuff with Rom. It’s ironic – he’s the only one who really understands what I’m feeling.’
‘Did you say something, lad?’ asked the sole remaining reader, the one-legged ex-miner known as Captain Kid, who raised his head from a Work Available column.
Finch mumbled an apology. ‘Just thinking out loud, Sir.’
‘It’ll be good to get our lads home again. No doubt they’ll be given preference in government jobs. Fair enough, I say. Not much call for one-legged blokes at the best of times.’
Finch respected his lack of self-pity. ‘It’s a shame our governments have flatly refused to follow the Ontario government’s example. Canadians are granting 160 acres to each of their returned soldiers.’
‘Good on them. Our pollies are too stingy by half,’ Captain Kid said darkly as he took up his crutch and descended the stairs.
Finch was pleased to read that The Brisbane Courier was full of praise for ‘a conquered and brave enemy’. He read that five members of Australian contingents had won the Victoria Cross, the highest Imperial honour, by rescuing de-horsed or wounded comrades from the field.
They deserved it. The irony is, I did the same thing for Viljoen’s wounded burgers – and I’m considered a traitor.
He flinched at the memory of the burning farmhouse where he had collapsed, every trace of his memory and identity erased. The thought of Rom’s role in rescuing him revived the question that nagged at him.
What really happened to Rom in South Africa – at the end . . .?
Chapter 48
The C
ricket Ground was deserted, except for a wallaby nibbling at the edge of the oval. Summer had burned the field of its scraggy carpet of grass. A light breeze eddied down the pitch, playing with the jagged imprints of past players’ running feet.
Rom paused at the entrance turnstile where he had stood the night of Wildebrand Circus’s first performance, boasting to the ticket-seller that he was Boss Gourlay’s guest-of-honour for inviting the circus to Hoffnung.
Was that only two years ago? Jesus, it seems like another lifetime.
In his mind’s eye he saw superimposed on the scene The Big Top, the booths, the surrounding circus wagons and animals; he felt the bustling, nervous excitement of the count-down to the circus performance. Swaggering inside he had taken his seat, aware he had drawn the eyes of the audience; the same faces who had looked down on him as a fly-by-night now looked up at him as a man of some account.
He felt an echo of the excitement of that night, his first ever visit to a circus, an experience only ever dreamt of in the Boys’ Home. Even more than that, he remembered his elation at the knowledge he would see Little Clytie the equestrienne, whose carelessly blown kiss to him during the entrance parade down Main Street had caused Rom to bet on himself that he would take her before the circus left town.
What a callow youth I was. I met my match in Clytie.
Now he was waiting again. Alone. For what? He willed Clytie to come to him.
Seated in the miniature grandstand nervously smoking his last cigar, he counted the minutes as if time was fast running out.
Then, rising above the gurgling sound of the creek, he heard the chortle of a small child. It drew closer and caused a fluttering sensation where his heart must once have been.
And there they were. Clytie strolled on to the Cricket Ground, wearing a rainbow-striped shirt and black skirt, her long waves of dark hair held back by a large bow at the nape of her neck. On her hip she carried the boy known as Maximilian Jantzen.
Golden Hope Page 50
