by Peter McAra
‘Fair question.’ He sipped his beer. ‘Long story.’ He looked away, drew an uneasy breath. Why had this smiling, agreeable man suddenly become ill at ease? He sighed again, gazed towards the hills. His shy, perhaps bashful, look told Kate that in the next moments he’d reveal something unexpected. He fiddled with his glass, looked down. Then he spoke.
‘Kenilworth, it’s been in the family for three generations.’ He waved a hand towards the hills. ‘My father inherited it. Then, when he reached the age of sixteen, he left. Caught the city bug. Reckoned he would never be a farmer. He worked in banks and such, travelled the country. He was never at home. Then, on a long business journey to England, he met my mother. She was the youngest daughter of one of them … whaddaya call ’em? “Establishment” families. The eldest son has a title. All that stuff. They lived on this ancestral estate in country Hampshire. If her photograph is anything to go by, my mother was a real English rose when they met.’
‘You mean a gentlewoman?’ Kate offered.
‘If you say so, teacher.’
She stole another sideways look at the man. Beneath the country lad exterior he wore like a heavy overcoat, his nervousness had now become too obvious. He sat hesitant on the edge of his chair. ‘My father had been raised with the family legend as the blood in his veins,’ he continued. ‘Kenilworth must always stay in Fortescue hands. Be a solid part of what they calls “the bunyip aristocracy” round these parts.’
Kate had heard that term before, applied with due disparagement to English migrants of gentry stock who had attempted to transplant the British class structure onto Australian soil. She bit away her smile, watched his eyes drift towards the hills again.
‘It all began when a fellow called Horatio Fortescue, my grandfather, first took up this land back in the 1830s. They say he was the youngest son of an earl or a baron or a duke, or whatever they call ’em. It seems youngest sons don’t inherit the title. Sometimes, not even a little smidgeon of the family wealth. It was about the time the English gentry came to see The Great South Land as a place where any ambitious man could get rich.
‘So Horatio came to Australia. And he did pretty well.’ Tom waved towards the hills yet again.
‘Then, my parents. Seems my father had always wanted to marry a high-born English lady. As his father had. And his grandfather too, come to that. He wanted to carry on the Fortescue tradition that would have been fed to him with his mother’s milk. And from what she told me, I reckon my mother’s family had always wanted her to marry money. The minute my parents met, the two of them knew they were made for each other. They married at the family seat in Hampshire. Then my father brought his bride back here to Kenilworth. She’d never seen Australia before. Never travelled. Reckon her eyes would’ve popped when she climbed down from the coach over there.’ He pointed to the flight of elegant steps leading to the mansion’s ornate front door. He paused, drew a long breath.
‘Hampshire’s about as different from this place as a blowfly is from a butterfly. Tidy little green hills, sprinkled with them old castles. Tiny villages, straight out of a fairy story. See what I mean?’
‘Yes. I’ve come to love England from the travel books I’ve read, the Jane Austen novels,’ Kate replied. She waved an arm towards the hills now silhouetted by the setting sun. ‘After Hampshire, New England must have come as rather a shock to your mother.’
‘Yeah, I reckon she tried hard to like Kenilworth,’ Tom continued. ‘Often, I’d watch her sitting here of an evening, taking in the view. She seemed to love the hills. She’d sit me on her knee sometimes, perhaps round sunset. Tell me how beautiful it was. And all that after she’d been raised in neat and tidy Hampshire.’
He stopped, as if he’d run out of words. The silence grew. He pushed his glass away. Perhaps he was building the courage to reveal something that caused him pain.
‘Around the time I turned eight, my mother died,’ he said, his voice now a gravelly whisper. Kate watched sadness drift over him like a cloud hiding the sun. Tears stung her eyes as she pictured the little orphaned boy—sad, alone, trying to be brave while he pined for the mother who’d been everything to him in his isolated world.
‘I’ve never been sure,’ he continued. ‘My father’s dead now. But the housemaids used to whisper stuff about him. Like he had fancy women in the city. He was away from Kenilworth for weeks at a time. Whenever he came home, he acted the country squire. Sometimes when I lurked about the kitchen after dinner, I heard the maids gossiping about them good-looking young secretaries they reckon buzzed round him day and night in his city office. Every time he left Kenilworth, I felt my mother’s hurt. The first few days after he left, she’d go to her room for hours. Sometimes I’d tiptoe by to see her. I could tell she’d been crying, though she tried to hide it. Then she’d hop off the bed and hug me. Perhaps tell me a story. Whenever I asked her when Father would come home again, she’d say “Soon, my dear. Very soon. But he’s busy now. Making lots of money to buy us nice things”.’
Tom fell silent again. Kate watched as he clenched his teeth. He’d started on a journey he must finish. A new rush of pity for the lonely man flooded through her. In the brief time she’d known him, she’d watched him transform from tough country male to bereaved, lonely child of a dead mother he’d cherished with every last drop of his childish love. Now, years later, that loss must still hurt.
How could Kate comfort him, help him? The urge to sit beside him, hug him, surged through her. She brushed it away quickly. An applicant for a governess position does not hug her prospective pupil in the first five minutes of the interview. She looked into his face, hoping he could read the sympathy in her eyes. He cleared his throat noisily.
‘Reckon my mother found out about Father’s fancy women,’ he continued. ‘Whenever he headed for the city, she seemed to pull a dark blanket round herself. But she looked after me good. Brought me up pretty much by herself. Taught me to read and write. I knew she loved me a lot. She told me so every day. I was all she had. She was a bit of a reader. A romantic, she called it. She often said she wished she’d gone to university, studied the arts. Dunno much about that stuff meself, but she really wanted to do it. She’d tell me stories about princesses and goblins and witches. I loved them stories.’ A wistful look wafted across his face. He wiped it away.
‘After she died, my father came home to sort things out. My schooling was going to be awkward. All my life, my mother had been my teacher. On her deathbed, she begged my father not to send me away to a boarding school for young gentlemen. Said I was too young. Said my life had been too sheltered for me to cope with the rough-and-tumble youse get in places like that.’ Kate nodded, recalling horrific scenes from a Dickens novel.
‘Then she died,’ he continued, voice now husky. ‘We lived too far from town for me to go to a regular school. You know how far from Croydon Creek this place is, Miss Kate. After your wagon ride here.’
‘I do indeed.’
So Tom Fortescue had been raised in this lonely place, isolated from other children, from kindly teachers, from real life. She watched as he paused, stared at the hills yet again. Those hills had surely shaped the life of the man who now sat beside her in the evening cool, sharing the dark side of his life. The silence settled. He meshed his fingers and looked hard at Kate.
‘My father had to find someone to teach me. He settled for Edna Stubbs. I’ve always called her Aunty Edna. For years she come and cleaned our house. Every Tuesday. Still does. You’ll see her round often.’
‘But why have a servant teach you?’
‘There was no-one else. Father told me years later that he’d advertised everywhere, didn’t get a single nibble. So he gave Aunty Edna the job of housekeeper. To live here, mother me, work through my lessons with me. Trouble was, she could hardly read and write. She wouldn’t have told my father that. She was poor, a widow. She’d have grabbed whatever my father offered. She likely told him a few white lies about her own learning. She was kind in her
way. But my schooling wasn’t so good.’
‘But when you were ready for high school, what then?’
His face twisted. ‘It didn’t work out so well.’
‘Indeed? Why was that?’
‘Never mind.’ The pain in his face told her to retreat from further questions. Perhaps he’d never bared his emotions so completely to anyone else in his life. His upbringing would have left him a shy young man, uncomfortable in company. Her training as a teacher suggested that his years as a boarder at an exclusive private high school for the sons of the gentry would have exposed him to bullying, teasing. He’d have been the butt of many a cruel joke, spent many a sleepless night in a dormitory full of red-blooded young males from wealthy rural families. She must wait for his revelations to flow as he let them, never pushing him.
‘I ran away from my boarding school,’ he said. ‘Came home. Took to running the property. Didn’t need no book learning for that.’ Now Kate saw how the friendly country lad had evolved from the years he’d spent in lonely exile. When he returned to the farm he’d loved all his life, he’d feel competent, in charge of his environment.
‘My new life suits me good,’ he said, smiling again. ‘I have a manager in Croydon Creek who takes care of the paperwork. A team of men to do the hard work. Fencing, roads, shearing, all that.’ He cleared his throat. ‘That enough for youse, Miss Teacher?’
‘Yes. I’m glad you told me the details. It will help me to plan the best ways to teach you. But what made you suddenly decide to hire a governess?’
He looked away again. As they sat silent, she replayed their conversation in her head. As the man had talked of his childhood, he’d become a vulnerable little boy. Kate sensed an unusual warmth glowing inside her. She felt protective—motherly even—towards the handsome drover who an hour before had ridden up to the stables from the pages of a rural Australian novel, tethered his horse, and walked into her life.
‘Now to last year.’ He took a long breath. ‘We’d had a run of good seasons. Wool prices high, good rains. My father had died, left me what some might call a fortune. I reckoned it was time to do something about my mother’s dying wish. For me to marry and have children who’d grow up and take over Kenilworth.’ A grey cloud of nostalgia wafted over him. Again, Kate pictured the tearstained face of the eight-year-old, trying not to cry, standing by his dying mother’s hospital bed.
‘She often told me that when I grew up to be a man I should go to England, to the place where she was born, and meet a beautiful princess. Then I’d fall in love, marry the princess, bring her home to Kenilworth, make lots of babies. They’d inherit the property. Keep it in The Establishment.’ He forced a shallow grin.
‘So I took a year off and went to look for my princess. Found my mother’s village, the house where she’d grown up. They call ’em stately homes, I think. Then I met some eligible young ladies, all organised by my mother’s relatives. And I got a little bit fond of one.’
He hesitated, almost blushing.
Kate’s stomach crunched as she imagined the tall tanned Aussie countryman mingling with young women from English high society. How would a well-brought-up gentlewoman react the moment this good-looking, no, outright handsome prince, opened his mouth? She’d very likely reel backwards, hiding her well-bred horror. Then, when he left, she’d laugh out loud and run to tell her friends.
Tom’s voice died. He’d hit a brick wall. He looked away, then down.
‘We’re both adults, Tom,’ Kate said, realising it was the first time she’d called him by his Christian name. ‘It’s perfectly appropriate for you to mention your friendships. I’ve had men friends. I’ve had embarrassing moments. Everyone has.’
She heard his sigh, watched him straighten his back as he slumped in his chair. As he struggled to talk again, she felt his pain once more. Once more, she had to fight off the urge to hug him. When they first met an hour before, he’d been a tough, no-nonsense land baron, master of the thousands of acres spread over these rolling hills. Now he was a sad little boy.
‘Yeah.’ He took another breath. ‘A bloke my age, twenty-six, has gotta think about getting hitched. I want children. Sons to take over the property. A bloke can get a tad lonely out here, hours from the nearest town. Armidale ain’t exactly Paris.’
‘I understand absolutely, Tom,’ Kate said, amused by his now out-in-the-open shyness. The teacher inside her surfaced. ‘We’re people, all of us. We fall in love, raise families. It’s perfectly normal.’
‘Yeah. But this lady in England. A gentlewoman, you’d call her.’ His smile was shy, but at least it was a smile. ‘At first we got along not bad. Laetitia Barrington-Smythe, that’s her name. I can’t even spell it. We went out walking a few times. I knew she was the one. Then, no-one said anything. But I reckoned …’ He clenched his hands, flexed them, punched one into the other. ‘No, I didn’t reckon. I knew, she was laughing at me behind my back. Laughing at me because I had no education. No class. A bit of money in the bank, but no class.’ He stopped. His face twisted. Then his jaw set. Kate could almost feel his pain.
‘I sorta fell in love with Laetitia.’ He stopped again. The hurt in his eyes told Kate he might never have spoken those words before. ‘We had fun together. I took them travelling. Laetitia and her mother. We did some of them fancy places in Europe. Stayed in some of them real nice hotels. Paris, Rome, Venice, the famous ones like you see in pictures in books. She loved that. Then, back home in Hampshire, she told me we could never get married, just stay good friends.’
He hesitated, looked away. ‘So after a week or two, I took ship back home, a little bit sad. Then this letter from her father. He’s a bit hoighty-toighty, but a decent enough bloke.’ He stopped. ‘Wait. I’ll fetch you the letter.’ He left the verandah and returned a moment later, flicked the page open, and handed it to Kate.
My dear Tom,
I trust your return voyage to Australia passed pleasantly. My wife Florence and I truly enjoyed your visit, as, indeed, did Laetitia. We were most intrigued to hear of your farm in New England. More than a hundred thousand acres, is it not? As much as hundreds of farms in Hampshire.
I now beg to inform you of plans we have lately made. We are to take a steamship voyage around the world. Why, you may ask. The reason is that Florence has always yearned to see the wonders of the world. The pyramids of Egypt, now accessible before we sail the wonderful Suez Canal. The mountains of The Cape, the new and exciting cities of Australia.
Lately, Laetitia has confessed to a similar passion to travel to Australia, perhaps to visit a young man for whom, so we are given to understand, she nurses a growing affection. I need hardly tell you, Tom, the name of that young man.
We shall disembark for a time when the Princess Alicia berths in Sydney, around April 13th, depending on the weather during the voyage. Then, if you might be so kind, we should be most pleased to visit Kenilworth, if that can be arranged. At your convenience, we shall return to Sydney to board the Lady Sylvana for the voyage back to Portsmouth. I understand that it may set sail early to mid May. We shall of course bring our housemaid, butler, and Laetitia’s maid, Prudence.
Kate put the letter aside. The hidden meaning was clear enough. His wealth had captivated Laetitia’s parents. Now they wanted her to fall in love with Tom.
‘You should read what I wrote back. I got a copy made. I have it here.’ His shyness showed again.
‘Mmm.’ Kate nodded. Before she read the letter he held out to her, she must ask the question which had agitated her since the moment he’d mentioned an exchange of letters. How could someone as illiterate as Tom answer a letter employing such gentlemanly prose? She winced as she remembered the letter he’d sent inviting her to the interview. He read her mind.
‘Don’t worry, Kate. I asked Miss Hawkins, the teacher at Croydon Creek school, to write my letter. I told her what I wanted to say, and away she went. When I read it, it looked bonzer to me. But see what you think, Kate.’ She opened the page and beg
an to read:
Dear Mr Barrington-Smythe,
I was delighted to receive your letter, and also delighted to hear of your planned visit.
I am happy to meet the Princess Alicia when she berths, and become your guide forthwith. Might I suggest we spend a few days exploring the delights of Sydney, then take the train to Armidale, the nearest town to Kenilworth? I own a private carriage, which I keep at Armidale Station. This means we will be able to take the three-hundred-mile journey from and to Sydney in a degree of comfort, with more than sufficient sleeping accommodation for all of us, including Prudence and any other servants who may accompany you.
As well, I trust you will find my house at Kenilworth comfortable. You may choose whatever accommodation you please from the twenty or so chambers which make up the house.
I look forward to your safe arrival. I shall keep in regular touch with the shipping company regarding the Princess Alicia’s arrival date. You may expect to see me standing on the wharf as she berths.
Please convey my fondest regards to Mrs Barrington-Smythe and Laetitia.
Yours,
Tom Fortescue
‘Mmm,’ Kate repeated, having found the letter at least acceptable, if not a mite too formal. ‘It sounds appropriate. I hope your intended father-in-law liked it.’
‘He must have. He wrote back and said he looked forward to meeting me in Sydney on the thirteenth of April.’ His eyes locked onto Kate. ‘So when they come, I wanna speak proper. Be able to talk about proper English books. Litratcher, is that how you says it? And theatre, famous paintings and suchlike. And then perhaps, just perhaps, Laetitia and me, one starry evening, after I’ve taken her riding round the hills …’
He looked at Kate. She saw his tattered heart dripping blood onto his sleeve. She must help him. It shouldn’t be so difficult. He sorely wanted to learn. He’d created a practical plan. He’d be what teachers called an enthusiastic pupil. He shuffled his boots on the verandah’s wooden deck, straightened in his chair, looked hard at Kate.
