by Téa Cooper
Lettie could barely remember the woman. They’d visited only once, as children after Grandfather had died. A dark old house, the atmosphere thick with unvoiced grievances, Miriam stony faced, Pater cowed as he towed them back to the carriage he’d hired, long before the days of motor cars. Thorne had wrangled himself free and clambered into the branches of a majestic angophora … She swallowed the lump in her throat.
Maybe a trip would help her wretched lethargy abate, provide material for some new drawings and articles, clear her mind. The editor of The Bulletin had sent a card only a few days ago requesting an appointment. She hadn’t answered, had nothing to offer.
‘Letitia.’ Miriam patted the counterpane inviting her to sit again. ‘I’ll be honest with you, there’s more to it than simple good manners. Thorne was heir to both properties, you must accept your responsibilities for the family’s sake.’
Miriam’s words brought Lettie’s head up sharply. ‘With Thorne gone …’ Miriam raised her hands almost in supplication and with a crashing realisation Lettie understood the plan she’d fallen victim to.
‘You want me to ingratiate myself with Great-Aunt Olivia and ensure that Thorne’s inheritance …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence. The horror of the prospect sank slowly into her atrophied brain.
‘Darling, it’s for the best.’
Darling! Since when had she ever been anyone’s darling? That spot was reserved for Thorne and Thorne alone. No matter what plan Miriam might be hatching, Lettie had no intention of moving into the role Thorne had vacated.
‘It is Olivia who, by her callous disregard for your grandfather’s wishes, has foiled everyone’s intentions. You must go and speak to her. Make her see that now Thorne has gone …’ Miriam dabbed her dry eyes with the soggy scrap of lace. ‘Letitia, you must be the one to inherit. Not just for the family but for yourself. You’re no longer a young girl. A large endowment will significantly increase your odds on the marriage market.’
Good God! Was she nothing but a prize racehorse?
‘Thorne planned to drive out and see Aunt Olivia.’ The words, the secret trip Thorne had promised, tripped off her tongue.
Miriam’s head tilted at an alarming angle and her mouth followed suit while she fished for words. ‘Why would he have wanted to do that?’
‘He thought it would be the right thing. Introduce himself to the woman whose estate he may one day inherit.’
‘But we don’t … we haven’t …’
‘Spoken for years. Yes, indeed and that’s why Thorne thought it was important. Good manners, polite. He didn’t want to appear grasping or rude.’ And neither did she.
Miriam lifted her tea cup, handkerchief held to the base to catch the drips, and sipped. Over the rim her eyes glittered. Unshed tears? More likely the prospect of achieving her aim. A hard, tight smile pulled at the lines around her mouth. ‘We must never appear rude.’
After the claustrophobic months of mourning the prospect of an escape beckoned like a welcoming wave, outweighing the horror of Miriam’s contrivance.
Lettie brushed off her skirt. She wouldn’t do this for Miriam, she’d do it for Thorne, do as he’d intended, uncover the secrets of the past and bring an end to the ridiculous family feud. ‘I’ll go and get the motor out from the stables and check it over. It’ll need an oil change and grease, spare tyres and extra motor spirit.’
Fired with a long-forgotten enthusiasm and before she had to listen to any more of Miriam’s blathering, Lettie fled downstairs and into the stables. Ignoring the sudden wrench as she opened the car door and inhaled the familiar scent of Thorne’s cologne, she reached beneath the seat and pulled out his matches and packet of cigarettes and lit one.
The exhaled cloud of smoke conjured his grinning face then faded as the spectre of Great-Aunt Olivia rose, tinging the air with the stirrings of the long-forgotten past.
Two
Yellow Rock, NSW, 1880
The pair of wedge-tailed eagles soared high in the air, circling on the thermal currents rising from the ground below. Evie tilted her face to the sun and threw out her arms to embrace the view that encompassed her world: from the ancient rocks beneath her bare feet to the distant horizon where the pale pink clouds marked the division between reality and mystery.
All she needed and all she had ever wanted. This was her place, where she belonged.
The valley below shimmered like the surface of a vast inland sea edged by blue-grey ridges unfurling into the distance. Over it all lay an intense stillness, broken only by the jewelled flashes of the parrots and the screeches of the cockatoos. A view so indelibly engraved on her mind she could recapture every detail with her eyes closed.
A distant cooee rang out, echoed and bounced back. Snatching up a spray of flowering old man’s beard she’d found growing along the track, she slithered down the rock face to the clearing where her horse stood patiently cropping a patch of grass. She threw herself astride Elsey’s back and galloped down to the very spot where Aunt Olivia stood waiting.
‘If you’ve been out on your own again you’ll be for it.’ Aunt Olivia dusted her hands and glared.
For as long as Evie could remember Pa had insisted someone should always accompany her although as she’d got older she’d learnt to pick her time and escape alone.
‘I haven’t been far, Elsey needed some exercise.’
‘And that would tell otherwise.’ Aunt Olivia pointed to the spray in her hand. ‘Don’t give me that rubbish. That grows up the top. You’ve been up Yellow Rock again.’
‘I didn’t come to any harm.’ Throughout her childhood she’d suffered from the occasional spell which no one could explain. One moment she would be ‘there’ and the next, someone would be sitting her up and asking if she was all right. She always was, but it was as though she’d lost a fragment of time.
‘Your father wanted to know where you were.’
‘Did you tell him?’ She tucked the spray of flowers into the metal tube she used for collecting samples. The last thing she wanted was a lecture from Pa on what Doctor Glennie liked to call petit mal. It was in no way evil nor an illness; simply a slipping of time and a residue pain in her head which dispersed after an hour or so. And besides, it hadn’t happened for almost two years.
‘You better get a move on. He wants to talk to you in the study. Now.’
Evie’s stomach gave a lurch. Pa had never summoned her to his study in such a peremptory fashion before. ‘Why?’
Aunt Olivia shrugged her shoulders. ‘I have no idea. I’m going to sit with Alice. She needs some company.’
Poor Mama. A pall hung over the house, the air laden with an oppressive ambience. That’s why Evie had fled, hadn’t even taken her sketchbook or her paints. She’d simply thrown a blanket over Elsey’s back and slipped the bridle over her head. Then escaped, leaving behind the strange thick silence cloaking the house.
She pushed open the study door and tipped her head around the corner, inhaling the familiar scent of leather, old papers and ink mixed with Pa’s sandalwood soap. And dust—more dust than anywhere else in the house, because he guarded his precious mementos with a single-minded obsession and no feather duster was allowed in his hallowed space.
‘Come in, my sweet. Come in.’ He peered up from the piles of paperwork obliterating the desktop.
She stepped inside, her hand drifting towards the two globes. When Pa was away in Sydney she’d sneak inside and wander among his mysterious collections, her fingers trailing over the fossils and shells, sharpened rocks and strange artefacts arranged on the mantelpiece. It brought him closer, a way of feeling the essence of him during the long days without him. As she stood and spun the terrestrial and celestial globes she’d imagine his voice patiently describing the world’s wonders that inhabited her daydreams and filled the void of her loneliness.
Pa gestured to the chair across from his desk. Taking care to avoid the sprawled mass of dog on the carpet she picked her way across the room. Pa’s hound,
Oxley, the shaggy bundle of bones that possibly loved Pa even more than she did. He raised his head and flicked his bedraggled tail in welcome.
It wasn’t until she reached the desk that she realised what it was Pa studied with such intent. Her palms grew damp and her heart picked up a beat or two. She’d given it to him last evening, asked for his opinion on the task that had consumed her every waking hour for the last year.
Her map.
The map of her life, every place of significance she’d visited, every track she’d travelled, every story Pa had told her of the vast valley they called home, the Hunter Valley.
He lifted his leonine head, eyes twinkling. ‘I had no idea you were so talented.’
Heat rose to her cheeks, feet fidgeting, heart thumping as she fought the desire to cover her face. Pa loved her drawings, he’d hung a series in golden frames in the hallway, showed them to anyone and everyone who visited but she knew why her map had particularly sparked his interest.
He was a surveyor and if life had treated him more kindly his name would rank with many of the famous explorers who had charted the wide land the Ludgroves and the Maynards called home. Blaxland, Mitchell, Oxley, Sturt, Hume and Hovell, and of course, Ludwig Leichhardt.
‘I see you’ve marked some of Leichhardt’s travels through the Hunter.’ Pa let out a long sigh and traced the path she’d annotated. ‘A prince, the veritable Prince of Explorers, the most amiable of men.’ His eyes took on a distant look as they always did when he spoke of Doctor Leichhardt, staring out to some far horizon visible only in his memory, a memory that still rankled despite the passing years.
‘What do you think, Evie? Have you a theory? Leichhardt left us with such a mystery when he and his exploration party disappeared, never to be seen again. Five men, two Aboriginal guides, seven horses, twenty mules and fifty bullocks cannot vanish without a trace. Can your bright young mind shed some light on this conundrum?’
She tucked a rogue curl behind her ear then tightened her fingers around the strap of her collecting box; she wanted to show Pa the spray of lichen she’d found but she knew better than to disturb his reminiscences.
These were the stories she’d grown up with, her bedtime stories. Fairytales lulled other children to sleep, fantasies of princesses locked in towers, marauding dragons and handsome princes. She had her handsome prince but he was no fantasy. He was a genuine hero.
‘I see you have marked the spot where I first met Leichhardt.’
Evie didn’t respond, she knew the words that would follow as surely as any well-loved fable.
‘I came across him horseless and lost on the banks of the Hunter. Here he is. You’ve drawn him on the map. Are the coordinates correct?’ He lifted the monocle he’d taken to wearing on a long black ribbon around his neck and gripped it between his cheek and brow bone. ‘Why you’ve even drawn his hat and long coat, such an impractical garment. It was the array of pockets he loved. He was on his way to the Scotts’ and had missed the path. When I delivered him, safe and sound, they invited our entire family to return for a Christmas feast, and very fine it was too. Tables stretched in the shade of the spreading trees, roast goose and plum pudding, figs, peaches, apricots from their trees.’ He let out a delighted chuckle and pointed to the little vignette marking what was once the vast property of Glendon. ‘And here we all are enjoying the Christmas bounty. And here are the drovers at their camp beyond the stables. Your map is remarkably accurate.’
For longer than she could remember the old maps of the Dutch cartographers had held her fascination. She tried to replicate the intricate designs and drawings and at the same time remain true to history and the local landscape. She’d wanted to mark the great ocean beyond Newcastle with the words Here there be dragons but she’d had to make do with Here there be whales. Any inaccuracy would have incurred Pa’s wrath.
‘I’ve always believed Leichhardt only invited me to accompany him through the Hunter in the hope he wouldn’t get lost again.’ He allowed himself a wry laugh. ‘You’ve marked it all. The places we unearthed fossils and the ancient water courses, even our camp on Pieries Peak. A time of my life I will never forget. Armed with little more than knapsacks and notebooks we roamed wherever we fancied. From Yellow Rock itself to the very summit of Mount Royal, country filled with stands of box, spotted gum, blackbutt and forest gum, ironbark and stringy bark.’ He let out a painful sigh. ‘We could have achieved so much.’
But there was no happy ending to Pa’s story, no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The evidence sat before her in the shape of poor Pa. Struck down in his prime, to live forever with dreams of what might have been.
‘We had such plans, of exploration, for the betterment of the country, for you my sweet and all who will come after you.’
She knew better than to interrupt but he’d aroused her curiosity. She’d heard so many tales of Leichhardt’s expedition but none that directly affected her. ‘How?’
‘First an overland route to Carpentaria, creating a shorter route to India, an unlimited market for our horses. The settlement at Port Essington would be our entrepôt for all traffic in and out of the country. And acres and acres of grazing land, enough for all the generations who would follow.’ He rolled his eyes and shook his head. ‘But for the governor. He refused to confirm the vote for supplies. Then, always impatient, Leichhardt took matters into his own hands, volunteered to lead and finance the expedition himself. Many of us in the Hunter bred horses, the finest in the colony, our reputation established. Your grandfather raised a large proportion of the funds to support Leichhardt and I was to travel with them. Then this …’ Pa thumped his leg with his cane and heaved upright.
Pa, the man who’d lost most of his leg and all his dreams to an unfortunate accident.
He wasn’t alone in his obsession with Leichhardt. The entire country continued to offer theories, and had ever since Leichhardt’s final, fateful expedition to cross the continent from east to west over thirty years ago. A cornucopia of possibilities continued to absorb the population: Leichhardt and his party were murdered, or mutinied; they drowned in a flash flood, or perished for want of water, even that they were eaten by sharks in the Gulf and more recently that Leichhardt had lived out his days with a tribe deep in the desert—but nothing conclusive, nothing ever proven. ‘Perhaps he simply got lost.’
‘They thought him lost somewhere between the Darling Downs and Port Essington on his first expedition but he wasn’t, was he? Bold as brass he sailed into Port Jackson. Three thousand miles in fifteen months. Three thousand miles!’ Another whack with Pa’s cane on his wooden leg brought her out of her reverie. Pa’s life’s dream, to accompany Leichhardt, shattered by a single misstep.
Her map showed the past, Pa’s stories, where he preferred to dwell. Much of the Hunter she and Pa had travelled together—he in the dog cart he favoured as he could no longer ride, the faithful Oxley by his side, and she astride a pony that she’d gradually outgrown until she’d received Elsey for her sixteenth birthday. In Pa’s eyes the most magnificent Waler ever bred on the property.
Together they’d charted the paths with a compass and sextant, camped and as the sky darkened Pa would point out the map of the stars, tell her the stories he’d learnt from the Wonnarua People and quote his favourite line from Hamlet. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth …’ she murmured.
‘… than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ Pa finished with a wistful smile. ‘It’s time we attended upon your mother but first perhaps you’d like to show me what you have in your vasculum. Something from Yellow Rock?’
Her cheeks heated; he’d known all along where she’d been. While he rolled her map and secured it with the faded blue ribbon she’d saved from an outgrown dress, she lifted the lid on the cylindrical collecting box and carefully took out the spray of old man’s beard.
‘Ah! Usnea. Unusual to find it flowering.’
‘It grows on Yellow Rock. I’d like to add a picture of it.’ She reached f
or her map.
‘I’d like to study it further. I noticed there are sections yet to be completed. We should discuss those.’
A flicker of annoyance danced across her shoulders. Her map was something she’d created to amuse herself, to fill the long hours she spent alone. She could hardly refuse but she had plans for the unfinished sections.
With Oxley panting at their heels she led the way to the top the stairs, and into Mama’s room where despite the warm day, a fire burnt, rendering the bed chamber claustrophobic. It reeked of sickness and the strange air of despair that permeated the house.
The huge mound Mama had assured the family would soon be their long-awaited brother simply accentuated her pallor and discomfort. Aunt Olivia sat at the bedside, sweat beading her brow as she attempted to master the latest piece of embroidery foisted on her.
‘How are you this evening?’ Pa reached for Mama’s hand.
She offered a wan smile. ‘A little cold and a trifle uncomfortable.’ With both hands, she cupped her stomach. ‘I haven’t seen Miriam today.’
Olivia dropped her needlework in a flurry, a look of concern washing across her face. ‘I’ll go and fetch her.’ She leapt to her feet, her hand on the doorknob before anyone could respond. ‘Bailey and the drovers are in. She’ll be down at the camp, kicking up her heels.’
Pa hovered at the end of Mama’s bed, his eyes fixed on the dwindling light beyond the rock, as though his mind still rested on her map, compass points or landforms she might have forgotten to include. Keen to escape the oppressiveness of the overheated room Evie rose. ‘I’ll go with Olivia and find Miriam.’
The plaintive look etching Mama’s pale features kept Evie tied to the spot beside the bed. ‘Stay with me, I’ve seen nothing of you today.’ She reached for her hand.
