by Téa Cooper
‘You’ll be staying then?’ Peg asked.
‘It’s just telling Mother I’ll be here a few more days.’
Peg looked over her shoulder as though someone might be listening then stepped closer. ‘Listen, Lettie. You mustn’t get too caught up in Olly’s grief. She’s prone to periods of melancholia. It’ll do her no good to bring it all back.’
‘I’d like to help, and I like being here.’ The truth of her words made her start. Evie’s story had drawn her in and Olivia had asked for her help.
‘It’ll be more than a few days I’d guess.’ Peg gestured to the piles of newspapers on the floor and the teetering column of journals and other paraphernalia, then held out her hand. ‘I can post the letter for you, and tomorrow I’ll lend you my feather duster. You can’t work in this mess.’ She pocketed the note, ruffled Oxley’s ears. ‘Watch out for the sandwiches, egg’s his favourite. See you tomorrow.’
The door closed quietly behind her and Lettie sank down into the chair, Oxley’s plaintive eyes following her every move as she downed two glasses of lemonade and lifted the napkin covering a pile of sandwiches, crusts removed.
‘Just one, and don’t tell anyone.’
Oxley took the sandwich from her fingers with a sigh of pleasure, swallowed it in one gulp, licked his slobbery lips and sat fixated while she demolished the remainder.
By the time the shadow of Yellow Rock had lengthened she’d created some sort of order and cleared enough space to work at the desk. Calling Oxley, she took the tray, shut the doors and made her way through the orchard revelling in the cool fresh air blowing the dust from her hair and the grit from her eyes.
Olivia sat waiting in the kitchen, the table laid. ‘I don’t want to know anything. Not yet.’
‘I’ve nothing to tell you. I cleared the desk, made space to sort things out, read a little about Leichhardt’s Essington expedition. May I ask a couple of questions?’
Folding her arms tight across her waist, Olivia lifted her head. ‘Depends.’
‘I’d like to know more about Grandfather. I found a box. Instruments of some sort.’
With a nod Olivia sat down. ‘A cedar box with brass corners?’
Lettie nodded.
‘His surveying equipment. Blaxland brothers gave it to him. He had no need of it in Sydney.’
‘Why did he become a surveyor?’
‘Wash your hands and I’ll dish up. Peg said you’d let your mother know you were staying.’
A flush of heat stole across Lettie’s cheeks as she concentrated on rinsing her hands. ‘I hope that’s all right. I wrote to let Mother know, I didn’t want her to worry, and asked Peg to post it.’
‘Quite right. We mustn’t worry Miriam. She might think I’ve done away with you.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Take no notice. Old wounds.’
‘Why would Miriam—’
‘Your grandfather grew up here. It was early days. He was the first child born, the hope for the future. The Ludgroves and the Maynards had a common dream when they secured the two adjacent land grants: to breed the finest horseflesh this country had ever seen.’ Olivia dolloped a large spoonful of rabbit stew onto her plate. ‘Until Herr Leichhardt himself arrived and William was smitten.’
‘Leichhardt was here?’
‘Right here. Climbed that very rock.’ Olivia flicked her fork towards Yellow Rock and a comfortable silence descended while they tucked in.
The rabbit stew was quite the most delicious Lettie had ever tasted. Following Olivia’s lead, she wiped the crust of her bread around the plate. ‘Tell me more about William and Leichhardt. How did they meet?’
‘It was coming up Christmas. William went to visit the neighbours, wish them the best of the season, deliver some gifts. He stumbled across this chap, up to his knees in the river. Thought he was in trouble. And William, being William, jumped in to help. Turned out Herr Leichhardt was on his way to Glendon.’
‘Glendon? Where Evie was going?’
‘The very place. Other side of the river. The biggest property in the area in those days, belonged to the Scotts. They’d invited Leichhardt to stay but somewhere along the line he got sidetracked and lost. William sorted him out, delivered him to Glendon. In a matter of hours Leichhardt weaved his magic and William’s heart wasn’t in horses anymore. He’d got bigger dreams. From that moment there was nothing for William but exploration. More rabbit?’
‘No, thank you. It was delicious.’
‘All that summer he trailed around after Leichhardt, carrying his bags, helping him collect his samples and specimens, canisters and collecting tins full of old rocks, lumps of clay, dried plants and those imprint things.’
The display on the mantelpiece, the fossils and samples. ‘And did Leichhardt find what he was looking for?’
‘Not sure he knew what he was looking for, he was just looking. It all started with William’s father, he put money into Leichhardt’s first expedition along with other Hunter families keen to open up grazing lands and a route to the north. All would have been fine if it hadn’t been for William’s stubbornness. Seventeen he was, just seventeen, thought he was a man. Had some dream about taking off into the wilds with Leichhardt and when he was invited along he couldn’t leave fast enough. The Hunter was more rugged in those days. The grants took up all the good land along the river but up in the hills it was still a wilderness. They trekked around for a few weeks, reached the top of Mount Royal then Leichhardt’s horse bolted. William settled him in the shelter of an old tree and set off in search. That’s when he had his accident.’
‘When he lost his leg?’
‘One of those bloody awful summer storms, by the time he was found it was too late. Been lying in the dirt for days. I remember the night they brought him in. Face like a ghost, stinking to high heaven of blood and gore and that was that.’
‘Leichhardt saved him?’
‘No. He was tucked up in his camp up on the mountain, knew nothing of it. One of the timber cutters found William. His horse had stumbled in a hole, throwing him to the ground before rolling over him and pinning him down. He had to be ferried back on a flat wagon with no springs to cushion him. His leg seemed to be healing at first but complications set in. Doctor Glennie had to take it or it would’ve taken him. He didn’t only lose his leg, he lost his dreams. He wanted to go with Leichhardt but a one-legged boy with a dream wasn’t about to be invited on any overland expeditions. Young boy named John Murphy took his place. Poor William. It broke his heart. He never rode again, never mind exploring the interior. He did the best he could, helped raise money for Leichhardt’s expeditions, hung on his every word when he finally made it back from Port Essington … Prince of Explorers …’ Olivia let out a dismissive snort and cleared the plates.
‘Was the Essington expedition the one Grandfather missed out on?’
‘Yes. And just as well he did, more so the next expedition because Leichhardt never came back. William reckoned if he’d been with them they’d never have got lost. He’d have saved the day. He spent all his time trawling through every piece of evidence he could find, every reported sighting, every blazed tree, every piece of gossip but you’d know all that if you’ve been through the desk.’
‘I’ve really only sorted it into piles. I haven’t read very much.’ Been too concerned with Leichhardt’s story not William’s. ‘What did all this have to do with Evie?’
‘And that’s the rub, isn’t it? William’s obsession was like a family disease, he passed it on to Evie. From the moment she was old enough she’d sit at his feet and listen to his stories. Like tales of the heroes of old.’
‘Do you think she went looking for Leichhardt?’
‘He was long gone, even William admitted that. Besides she would have told me. She went off to take some map Leichhardt had made to Glendon, just a few miles away, and do some mapping of her own. I gave her more freedom than she’d had before. She liked to go up to Yellow Rock, said she l
iked the view, thought she could see to the edge of the world—said it encompassed her world. She wouldn’t have gone further afield without telling me. We were close. I was like a mother to her.’
And that was hardly any recommendation in Lettie’s eyes. She couldn’t imagine telling Miriam all her plans. Thorne certainly hadn’t. ‘I’d like to go up to Yellow Rock.’
‘Not a good idea.’
‘Why ever not? Will you come with me?’
Olivia’s face blanched. ‘No. Not up there. Not unless you can convince me it’ll help find Evie.’
Then in that case she’d have to find something to convince Olivia, or work her own way up there.
The days slipped by while Lettie wasn’t looking and an easy pattern developed. Most mornings dawned with a rumpled eiderdown of mist wallowing in the valley until the weather warmed up and the afternoons held the heat. She’d breakfast with Peg and Olivia then make her way to the main house, unlock the study, open the French doors to the verandah and slip back into the past with no one but Oxley for company.
First of all she worked her way through the piles on the desk. Much to her surprise there was some sort of order, and many of the seemingly random pieces of paper referred to notes in William’s journal. Notes written in block print, not the neat cursive she would have expected a girl to use. The looping handwriting, faded in places and most annoyingly, frequently written in pencil, belonged to William.
Olivia never set foot in the study. She’d answer Lettie’s questions over supper and gradually a picture of Evie’s life formed. It was Peg who’d slip in every lunch time with a chunky sandwich, a piece of cake and a bottle of lemonade, place them on the side table and disappear before Lettie had time to acknowledge her presence.
Rumbling thunder and a heavy humidity forced Lettie from her bedroom early. The cloying heat made her skin damp and her head ache with a heavy lethargy. Peg had beaten her to the study. She’d left the French doors open to catch the slightest hint of a breeze and a bottle of lemonade in a bucket of water next to the desk. After pouring a glass, Lettie stood for a moment taking in the room as a whole. She’d focused her attention on the desk, which was now in some sort of order, but barely given the maps and the stacked bookshelves a second glance since that first day.
She made her way around the room studying the framed collection of maps hanging on the wall. Most of them bore the printer’s name, none would appear to be by William’s hand despite Olivia’s assurances he was an excellent surveyor.
The pair of globes shone in a shaft of sunlight and she shook out her handkerchief and polished the brass casing before spinning them slowly. Every available space between the bookshelves and on either side of the fireplace was stacked with boxes and tin canisters holding fossil samples and even occasionally the remains of some dried plant but nothing that gave her one iota of information about Evie.
Above the golden rocky escarpment of Yellow Rock the perpetual pair of eagles soared. She eased past the desk mesmerised by the dominating cliff face. Which path had Evie taken and how far had she gone before she disappeared? Stepping back, resting on the front of the desk, legs stretched out she tried to picture the young girl in the sketch taking a path to the top. Would she have ridden part way, walked, run even? ‘It’s hopeless, just hopeless!’
Oxley’s ears pricked and he opened one eye but he’d become used to her incessant chatter. She’d learnt a lot about Leichhardt, and William’s obsession with the man, a case of hero worship, but nothing, not one single thing spoke of his daughter and her part in his passion.
Swallowing a muffled expletive, Lettie spun around and faced the room, her fingers gripping the underside of the desktop.
A soft and very mechanical click broke the silence.
Squatting down she ran her hands along the underside of the desk. She’d spent hours sitting there but never once had she examined the front. She tugged at the base of the timber apron. It refused to budge.
No sign of a keyhole or a handle of any sort. Head down, on her hands and knees she crawled underneath. A drawer ran the width of the centre of the desk, the runners melding into the legs and there she found the culprit—a paintbrush!
With a grunt of satisfaction, she dislodged it from the runners, squirmed out from under the desk and eased the apron open. The scent of must and ink rose bringing with it a faint but tantalising perfume of boronia and citrus.
A long, narrow piece of paper covered with minute illustrations filled the cavity. After removing the last remaining piles of papers from the desk she eased it from the drawer, her breathing fast and her vision blurring.
A map. It had to be Evie’s. She rubbed her hand across her eyes. There was no doubting the fine illustrations dotting the routes and rivers nor the simple signature, EVIE LUDGROVE, in the bottom right-hand corner. She leant forward and sniffed to confirm the distinctive scent impregnating the paper.
Was this what she’d unknowingly been searching for? Could it in some way explain Evie’s disappearance? She spread the map out and anchored the corners. A decorative scrolled border marked with the longitude and latitude coordinates formed a frame, and in the bottom left-hand corner an intricate compass rose indicated the cardinal directions.
Roads wove from the coast inland; near the centre of the map sat Yellow Rock and the house nestled among the plains sweeping down from the escarpment. To the south a range of mountains neatly labelled in Evie’s distinctive block letters—The Watagans; to the north-west a town, roofs visible and a church spire—a town called Singleton; to the north, another range of hills—the Barrington Tops; and nestled among them Mount Royal.
Tiny illustrations decorated the map. Grey-green bush, ragged scribbly gums, small flowers, brown creeks and rough bush tracks, a profusion of birdlife, insects and animals, tiny figures going about their daily life and vignettes of the anecdotes she’d read in William’s journal. Leichhardt’s escapade with the bull; two men, Leichhardt and William no doubt, offering grass to a joey on the lower slopes of Yellow Rock; and tiny duckbills feeding on the banks of the creek.
Every image carried Evie’s distinct style. Lettie could imagine the smile on her face and hear the murmur of her voice as she admired the delicate drawings interspersed with the winding tracks and the sparkling Hunter River. She wanted nothing more than to immerse herself in the panorama before her. To the east the brilliant blue of the ocean sparkled, tiny ships under full sail and the warning Here there be whales.
Curbing a smile, Lettie returned to the image of the homestead, the stables and the farmhouse, the paddocks and the horses. And beyond the stables a scene she recognised—the drovers’ camp, the fire clearly visible, people dancing, cattle and horses and dogs.
From the property, a fine line ran to the north through Broke towards Mount Royal, another track to Maitland, and the names of properties or the people who owned them. At the centre of the map where the Hunter River wound its meandering course, in a horseshoe bend she found two men on horseback, one wearing a long dusty coat, the other upright, hat at a jaunty angle, pointing to a property marked Glendon.
Seeing the map, running her fingers over the delicate images sent a ripple of anticipation down her spine. An invisible thread connecting her to Evie. More than any inheritance, more than ties of blood. It had sat for decades waiting to be discovered.
The hairs on her arms prickled. She could hear the music of Evie’s whispering voice, her words as clear as if she were standing beside her, and the dream she’d had melded into reality, the night she’d woken to find the white dress draped across the chair—Evie’s dress.
Did Olivia know the map existed? The jammed drawer indicated it was something private, something Evie didn’t want to share, or maybe something Olivia had locked away?
Lettie returned to the drawer, ran her fingers over the base and sandwiched at the back was a coiled blue ribbon. She unravelled it and smoothed her fingers over the worn satin. Why had the map been locked away? Did it hold a secre
t Olivia or Evie didn’t want to share? A surge of panic rose in her throat … what if Evie had died out there somewhere, wandering alone lost in the vast country just as Leichhardt had? Carefully rolling the map she secured it with the ribbon and rushed off to find Olivia.
‘Have you seen this before?’ Lettie unrolled Evie’s map and spread it out on the kitchen table.
Olivia smoothed the ribbon between her fingers. ‘This is Evie’s. Her hair ribbon. I’ve never seen the map before but I recognise the drawings.’ Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘Come with me.’
She led Lettie past the room where she slept to the very end of the corridor and threw open the door to a small bedroom. Nothing like the room she’d imagine Olivia would inhabit. Spartan. An iron bedstead and a small bedside table. No wardrobe, no dressing table just a bowl and pitcher and a row of pegs along the wall where an assortment of work clothes hung. No sign of the grey satin dress she’d worn on the day she’d taken Lettie into the study and nothing that spoke of the modern woman in the navy skirt and pin-striped blouse.
Reaching into the drawer of the bedside table Olivia brought out a series of drawings, miniatures. An exquisite watercolour of a grass-tree, a tiny pool among the rocks where two red and green birds sat drinking … the same meticulous style as the illustrations on the map.
‘King-Parrots. On the way up Yellow Rock.’ Olivia sniffed and handed her the next drawing.
Expecting more flora and fauna Lettie started. The picture was carefully drawn, almost scientific in its accuracy, a telescope, a hunting watch, a quadrant, similar to the one in William’s box, and a thermometer all arranged as some sort of still-life in the middle of a barren landscape, complete with an animal skull. ‘Are these Evie’s drawings?’
‘They’re Evie’s all right. I sat with her while she drew them.’
‘Have you shown them to anyone? The sergeant perhaps when he searched the study. William?’ Surely someone would have known what they meant.
