Sisters of Freedom

by Mary-Anne O'Connor

  ‘Oh no,’ Aggie said, heart breaking for him.

  ‘He won’t be likely to have any more opportunities at ten years old,’ Sister Ursula said, watching the children as they ran out for recess, Eddie leading the way. ‘He would have enjoyed it, I think. They have a mill and a few a good milking cows …’ She drifted off then pulled herself back to her senses. ‘Anyway, what’s done is done. You’ll need to make your choice and we’ll see what he says.’

  ‘Of course,’ Aggie said. ‘I’ll discuss things with my husband, he knows so many of the children already too.’ She wondered how they’d ever choose. ‘It will be a very difficult decision, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Sister Ursula said, gazing out at the children once more. ‘I don’t know if I could ever decide myself.’

  Aggie looked at the older woman, her face drawn with hardship beneath her habit, and wondered at the other choices she’d made in life, especially in taking up a religious vocation. To choose never to marry or have children for freedom and autonomy like Frankie was one thing, but to abstain because of God seemed extraordinary to Aggie.

  ‘It’s one of those times in life when you stand at a crossroads, I suppose, but sooner or later you have to choose a path,’ Aggie reflected.

  ‘Yes,’ Sister Ursula said. ‘I will pray for God to guide you, Aggie. Perhaps He will make this decision for you, somehow.’

  Aggie wondered at that but as the nun said no more she considered herself excused and walked out, slowly coming to terms with the fact that she would soon have to make up her mind, with or without God’s help. The decision seemed almost an impossible one. How to choose between children like baby Annabel or the irascible Eddie, if indeed she could get Father to allow it? How to favour one orphan over another?

  It was overwhelming but Aggie was determined to do it. Since Ivy’s return they all seemed to have been re-evaluating their lives. For Ivy’s part it was marriage to Patrick and Aggie couldn’t have been more pleased for her sister at that wonderful news when she’d told her that morning. He’d proven himself a loyal and good man and it would be a happy afternoon at Kuranda as they celebrated later that day.

  Frankie had been much encouraged by the positive reception she’d received when she’d given her impromptu speech and was now talking about running for parliament once the federal bill was officially passed, which was bound to be soon, gauging by the papers.

  And so Aggie had made a choice of her own: to be a mother after all. To fill her empty, aching arms with a parentless child, and to love and care for them with her entire being. It was finally really going to happen and she couldn’t wait to tell Robert the news that Sister Ursula had given her approval for the process to start.

  This New Year may have begun in turmoil but, two months on, all three Merriweather sisters were moving towards brighter futures, and on their own terms. Each following their own water, as Ivy and their father liked to say. For life seemed far briefer and more precious than it had before. The opportunity to embrace whatever happiness you could was too valuable a thing to ever squander. To give a child a loving family seemed the most logical path to take in the world, especially when they’d all come so close to losing one of their own.

  ‘To the happy couple,’ Albert toasted and glasses were raised all round.

  ‘The happy couple,’ they all echoed and Frankie joined them, trying to ignore the inner turmoil she felt at the news. She’d expected it, of course, they all had, even Patrick’s mother, although she looked like she’d been sucking on lemons all afternoon, so pursed were her disapproving lips. Ivy would win her around though, Frankie was sure. She always managed to charm her way through life.

  ‘For they are jolly good fellows,’ John Hunter began to sing and they all joined in. Patrick and Ivy smiled, slightly embarrassed but obviously pleased too as the song eventually concluded.

  Her sister was glowing, radiant and the picture of health in a new blue-and-white checked dress and matching wide white bonnet. She looked so much a part of the pretty gardens near the main pond at Kuranda that Frankie supposed she could sit for a portrait for a fashion magazine right there and then. Patrick looked handsome standing beside her in his white jacket and navy trousers, completing the overall effect. They truly appeared the ideal couple. Sipping champagne and eating the rather delicious cake Dossie had brought along only added to the picture perfect feel of the afternoon but Frankie was trying not to be too cynical. This was the life Ivy wanted and one Frankie most assuredly did not. Good luck to them, she said to herself, taking a large sip of her champagne.

  ‘I think there’s a bit of a chill in the air. Perhaps you should put on a shawl, dear,’ Dossie was saying to Ivy. Ever since Ivy’s accident and illness, Dossie had treated her like some kind of heroine in the tale of Dossie’s own hypochondriac life. That there was someone to fuss over meant she could offer endless advice and quote Dr Pratt whenever possible, having attributed Ivy’s ‘miraculous healing’ to the man. That the doctor had been elevated to Jesus-like status had Frankie rolling her eyes as Dossie added, ‘The doctor said you must keep an even temperature at all times. You don’t want to risk the shaking fever twice, you’ve been blessed as it is and no mistake.’

  Frankie looked at her mother, expecting a smirk, but Harriet merely looked worried. It still hadn’t quite left her, that haunted look, but hopefully it would with time, especially if good news kept arriving. Looking over at Aggie’s animated face as she whispered near the citrus trees with Robert, Frankie hoped there was perhaps there was more on the way and she prayed for that miracle to occur above all.

  ‘Whatcha doin’?’ Pretty Boy asked Frankie, his head cocked at a quizzical angle as he sat on the back of the bench nearby, and Albert chuckled, wandering over to her side.

  ‘Yes, what are you doing? You’ve been unusually quiet today.’ Her father had recovered from Ivy’s ordeal quite well by now, although his illness had lasted a good month after she’d come home and he’d had to keep his distance from her. But as much as Harriet looked constantly concerned, Albert had had a reflective air about him as he came to terms with the shock of nearly losing his darling Ivy.

  Frankie shrugged. ‘Oh, nothing. I’m just a bit tired really. Sat up half the night trying to finish that article on enfranchisement.’

  ‘Douglas says they expect it could pass within the next month or two,’ Albert muttered, glancing over his shoulder at the man, ‘but don’t let on I told you.’

  Frankie broke into a grin. ‘That’s good to hear. He wouldn’t be saying it lightly.’

  ‘No, indeed. You’ll have the federal vote before summer comes, I’d say, then the real fun begins.’

  ‘How so?’ she said, taking a forkful of cake.

  ‘Well, it’s a bit like a wedding, really. People focus a bit too much on the celebration and not quite enough on the marriage itself.’ He paused and Frankie wondered if he was really using a metaphor or making a pointed comment as he looked over at Ivy and Patrick, but then he continued. ‘There’s been so much focus on women getting the vote that there doesn’t seem to be much planning as to precisely what laws they want to challenge or who they want to vote for to achieve that end.’

  ‘We want to challenge any laws that discriminate and vote for whoever supports that,’ Frankie said. ‘It seems rather straightforward to me.’

  Albert sipped his champagne. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned about politics it’s that nothing is ever straightforward. If they can find a way to make the process more complicated and convoluted they will, unless they see something in it for themselves,’ Albert pointed out. ‘Men will still be voting too, Frankie, and there are many who fear change. Don’t expect too much in these early days, is all I’m saying, and remember to keep on reading everything you can about politicians if you seriously want to take them on.’

  ‘I have been,’ she said.

  ‘Not just the laws and suggested reforms,’ he explained. ‘I mean read the men themselves. You’r
e an astute judge of character and good at thinking on your feet, Frankie, but you need to understand why men won’t want change, more than why women do.’

  ‘Some men want change,’ she said, looking over at Patrick. ‘Some want to move forwards and take a chance on new beginnings.’

  ‘Yes, when the change is welcome and expected. It’s the unexpected that people don’t like … but life will hand you those sometimes.’ Albert paused to watch a dragonfly land on one of the pond’s lilies. ‘Ah, a Hemicordulia tau. You’re late to the ponds, young lady.’

  He wandered off to watch the dragonfly and smoke his pipe, and Frankie pondered his words. It was true that men would resist changes to the law, they already were, of course, and her altercation with that horrid man at the restaurant illustrated just how many would view her: a harridan and a bluestocking, wanting to stop men from drinking and running their lives as they pleased. Trying to take women out of the home and tipping the balance of power away from their traditional male control.

  Frankie looked at the happy couple once more, thinking there was nothing wrong with a woman wanting to be in the home as long as the man treated her as an equal, and as long as she could leave that home to make her mark in the world as she pleased. Their own mother was proof of that. It really came down to who you chose to marry and Frankie had to admit that Patrick had surprised her these past few months.

  Despite his stuffy upbringing he’d accepted Frankie’s criticisms and he’d been openly admiring of her passion for the Cause more than a few times now. Perhaps he’d keep on surprising her and make his own efforts towards real change.

  Watching him now, however, she saw a man acting as was expected of him as he claimed the hand of her beautiful little sister who had long adored him. Yet there was nothing to disapprove of and everything to admire because Frankie now knew he was also capable of facing the unexpected with courage and humility, qualities she greatly esteemed. No, she didn’t disapprove of this union, nor of Patrick himself. It was the admission that she didn’t want to make that filled her with disapproval as she watched the lovely scene before her.

  For there was only one word for what she was feeling and it dragged at her conscience, challenging her passions and all the vows she’d declared. Frankie was jealous of this sister she so loved and that felt horribly unworthy and disloyal, especially when she wanted nothing more than for Ivy to have a happy, healthy, wonderful life. It was everything Frankie could ever have wished for only two months ago, that she would live to see this come to pass, but envy festered today, much to her shame.

  Patrick looked down at Ivy and smiled, his arm protective about her waist, and nothing could stop the memory of when his hands had held Frankie’s waist that night and the wild ragtime had carried all concerns of the heart and mind away. When he’d been suddenly just a man to her and she’d been alive to that fact, deep to the core, as she stood in his arms. Drugged by something she hadn’t known she would ever want when she’d declared an existence devoted only to the Cause. Realising she’d underestimated a very primal part of what it meant to be a woman.

  Twenty-Seven

  Hawkesbury River

  She shouldn’t be here. Ivy felt it with every fibre of her being but somehow she was and her stomach fluttered with excitement as Riley whistled away happily, breaking into occasional song as his boat chugged along.

  Many years have passed since I strolled by the river,

  Arm in arm, with sweetheart Mary by my side

  She recognised it as the one he often whistled or sang and the whimsical tune suited the day perfectly – it was pristine, if cool, and the wind whipped at her hat as they went. She held onto it as she gazed about, taking in the little coves and beaches that dotted the shoreline, thinking how many places you could live along here, if life were just that bit easier.

  Yet it soon would be, once Riley opened his store and people were closer to affordable supplies and other things they needed, like company. The new road down to Berowra would bring opportunity to them as well and Ivy could already see these isolated residents benefiting from having carriage access as well as a store further along. It would render this area less of a man’s world as it drew civilisation together and provided the river dwellers between Hornsby and Wisemans Ferry with something sorely lacking: a community. Ivy had meant it when she’d said she couldn’t live here the way it was but knowing that it was changing she wondered. Especially considering that Riley was changing with it.

  Ivy tried not to think about the possibilities that came with this new, settled-down version of the man as she watched him work but his words from two months ago tugged at her heart. How he’d never found someone he wanted to build a life like that with, his expression so wistful and bare. It tore at her now, knowing she could never be a part of it, and she knew she’d have to tell him about her engagement to Patrick. How that meant she couldn’t become a teacher and share even a portion of that life with him up here, but not yet. Just not yet.

  It felt like one last guilty adventure, because even though she’d keep her vow and send Fiona and the girls money and supplies from time to time, she also knew it would be the last time she would actually come here. She couldn’t continue to go up the river behind Patrick’s back. It was bad enough she was doing it today but she hadn’t been able to resist, and after having been engaged only three days, she didn’t want to think too hard about the reasons why. She just wanted to enjoy this last hurrah with Riley after everything they’d been through. Surely she owed him that, having encouraged this dream of his in the first place, and surely there was no harm in it, regardless, she reasoned, but the diamond ring lay heavily on her finger inside her day glove.

  Ivy decided to make the most of it and find out everything she could about Riley’s life, if she couldn’t actually be a part of it. Like filling in pages of a mental book she knew she’d revisit again and again in years to come.

  ‘So where exactly was it that you grew up around here?’ she said, interrupting his whistling.

  ‘Fair way up,’ Riley told her, sitting down at the wheel. ‘It’s a long river by the time you get all the way to Windsor. My family were oyster farming here before that, just around this corner at Greenman’s Valley.’

  ‘Why is it called that?’ she said, curious, if a bit distracted by the way he so deftly manoeuvred the vessel.

  ‘Not too sure you’d enjoy that story,’ he told her, sending her a doubtful glance.

  Ivy tucked her feet in, preparing for the tale. ‘Well, now you have to tell it after a comment like that.’

  Riley sighed. ‘All right, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you.’ He took out his cigarette pouch, balancing the wheel with his knee as he rolled a smoke, much to her fascination. ‘It’s named after an escaped convict who murdered a woman and her baby.’

  ‘Why would he do such a thing?’ she said, immediately horrified.

  ‘I warned you …’ he began.

  ‘All right, all right, I’ll try to be less shocked by whatever comes next, I promise. Go on.’

  ‘Well,’ Riley continued, ‘and this next bit is pretty gruesome: he was caught and they sentenced him to die by drowning. They weighted down his body with rocks at low tide and watched till he died. Then they left him tied up with his hands and legs outstretched. No-one untied him and eventually his arms and legs turned green.’

  Ivy tried hard to hide her revulsion. ‘Oh,’ she simply said and he chuckled.

  ‘Sorry, but you really should see the look on your face. Anyway, there is a spooky end to the tale. Many people claim to have seen the ghost of the young mother walking along these shores, holding her baby.’

  ‘Did you ever see it?’ Ivy said, eyes round as she stared ahead at the haunted area.

  ‘No, but my old da said he did one night. Swore it blind. He swore he knew the green man too. Apparently they worked together, sandstone quarrying along here for a while. Didn’t have a hell of a lot of luck and it was bloody hard work, ’scuse the
French. The mills weren’t much better. Life was tough all round except for oyster farming, which was a pretty good existence, really. I thought, anyway. I always like to be on the water.’

  ‘Yes, Fiona said that. Said your mother called it the life of Riley when she watched you out there, you looked so happy.’

  ‘Yeah, she did like to say that,’ he said, his expression both fond and tinged with sadness at the mention of her. He was silent for a moment and she prodded gently.

  ‘Where did you say they’re buried?’

  Riley nodded upriver. ‘On Bar Island, just further along up here, actually. Mum used to bring us down to attend church there sometimes, although it’s closed now. I suppose it’s rather a nice spot, as far as cemeteries go. I just wanted her to feel close to God and Dad would have just wanted to have been close to her.’

  Ivy watched the emotions flicker across his face, feeling his pain. ‘And what about you? Do you believe in God?’

  ‘Not any more,’ he said. ‘I gave up on the idea when they both went so suddenly … what about you?’

  Ivy tilted her head, looking over towards the widening mouth of Berowra Creek as they hit the Hawkesbury proper. ‘It’s hard not to believe in some kind of creator when the world can look as beautiful as that,’ she said, gazing out at the approaching expanse of glittering blue and green water. It lapped against the carpeted hillside of the mainland and the island that sat like a glorious adornment at its centre, perfectly serene in its flow and attracting wildlife like the great artery of lifeblood it was. Wallabies grazed with their young along its shores while a pair of sea eagles soared above, and a school of tailor jumped up ahead, scattering diamond droplets in the sun in their haste to avoid whatever chased them below.

  ‘Life just seems so miraculous to me now, although I suppose I always have seen it that way. There’s beauty everywhere if you stop and notice, I think, but especially up here.’ With you, she wanted to add, before banishing the disloyal thought, but the lingering knowledge remained that they shared this love, the two of them, each happiest taking in the detailed wonder of their natural environment.