The Vines of Yarrabee
Dorothy Eden
Contents
Author’s Introduction
Prologue
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Acknowledgements
A Biography of Dorothy Eden
Author’s Introduction
I AM A NEW Zealander by birth, an Antipodean, so that I am completely identified with the birth pains of those two countries, Australia and New Zealand.
In childhood we were fostered on stories of the brave pioneers, and brave they were, struggling to live in isolated places, the bush of New Zealand where hostile Maoris roamed, and on the infinitely vast grassless plains of Australia where the only shelter from the blazing summer sun was a one-roomed comfortless cabin. Medical help, such as it was, might have been a week’s journey by horseback away. Women had their babies and nursed them through childish and more sinister illness in the most primitive conditions. There were droughts, floods, snake bite, sunstroke, near starvation, and every kind of accident with which to contend.
They were gallant people, those pioneers, but this was not surprising considering their reasons for emigrating. They had already been toughened in their countries of birth by poverty, harsh laws, persecution, or war. And they must also have had a fearless adventurous spirit, and plenty of optimism.
My English grandfather was one of a family of ten children, his father a parish clerk in a small Cotswold village, where the picturesque cottages are now sought as desirable investments. In my grandfather’s day those same cottages would have had no electricity or sanitation, they would have been damp, dark and cold, and they would have slept four or five children, as well as their parents, in two rooms. Jobs would have been grossly underpaid, and hard to come by. There would have been no prospect in old age but the workhouse. So my grandfather, with his wife and three young children, set out on the great adventure of beginning life in a new country. All of his children died on the voyage to New Zealand, the last one, and the only daughter he was to have, as the ship sailed into the haven of Lyttelton harbour.
However, he had the stamina to survive. So did his wife. They had four more sons, one of whom was my father, also a resilient and undefeatable character.
My mother’s parents came from Schleswig-Holstein, in Denmark. This charming province was overrun by an invading German army in the 1860s. So my grandparents were displaced and homeless, and also sought a new life in New Zealand.
I was brought up on these stories of hardship and heartbreak. So, when on a visit to Australia, I decided an Australian book was not only a good idea but an inevitable one.
I felt I knew instinctively the terrors and homesickness of the young people who so gallantly determined to put down roots in an alien soil. The old cemeteries, mostly in sandy and thorny ground withered by the pitiless sun, fascinated me. I deciphered the tumbled headstones, so often of children, for the climate in Australia, without modern amenities, can be harsh, and the hazards for young lives in the nineteenth century were often too great.
Now Australia is a civilised country, but still only round the edges. There remains the vast interior, waterless, hostile, infinitely lonely. Indeed, so heartbreakingly lonely, as the sun sets and the crows call over the dusty empty land, that I knew my characters, especially the women, would hardly be able to bear it.
This was how The Vines of Yarrabee was born, and a healthy infant it turned out to be.
I think maybe we all hanker back to those days when the struggle to exist was purely basic and was built on so much real faith in the future.
Kensington, London
March, 1978
Dorothy Eden
Prologue
WHEN THE RAPIDLY SPREADING DISTRICT OF PARRAMATTA, IN THE AUSTRALIAN STATE OF NEW SOUTH WALES, HAD EXCEEDED TEN MILES FROM THE OLD CHURCH AND CEMETERY, IT THREATENED THE EXISTENCE OF THE BIG HOUSE CALLED YARRABEE, AN HISTORIC DWELLING BUILT IN THE LATE EIGHTEEN TWENTIES. THERE COULD BE NO QUESTION OF IT BEING PULLED DOWN TO MAKE WAY FOR THE NEW HOUSING ESTATE. IT WAS AN AUTHENTIC PIECE OF AUSTRALIAN HISTORY, AND AS SUCH MUST BE PRESERVED.
A notice was put on the rusted iron gates ‘YARRABEE, the former home of the early pioneers Gilbert and Eugenia Massingham, and the site of one of the first vineyards in Australia. Circa 1827–1864.’
The house itself was opened to the public. Lovers of architecture could admire the verandahed colonial style with the honeysuckle (cuttings from the original plants) twining round the verandah posts. The garden had been famous and was still a source of delight and wonder. The familiar jacaranda, oleander, waratah and wattle made a background for a most comprehensive selection of English flowers and shrubs, including a profusion of white climbing roses that cascaded over an ancient trellis, like snow in the blazing Australian sun. A lily pool held a few inches of dark green scummy water. It was still possible to decipher the words on the sun dial Every hour shortens life.
Indoors, the furnishings were true to the period. Visitors might admire the faded Chinese wallpaper in the drawing-room, or more particularly the charming portrait hanging over the fireplace. It was of a slender long-necked young woman holding a rosy-cheeked little boy on her lap, a hat with green ribbons dangling from her wrist, and a white cockatoo in a cage at her side. The small brass plate read ‘Eugenia Massingham and her son Christopher with parrot. Painted by Colm O’Connor, Irish exile.’
There was a story that the house was haunted by a lady dressed in lavender carrying a parasol. No one knew whether this was true, but one of the dresses in the glass case was lavender in colour, and there was an ancient parasol, furled and faded.
A Sheraton writing desk with a not very craftsmanlike mend in one leg stood in the little room called ‘Eugenia Massingham’s sitting-room’. Across the hall, in the high-ceilinged dining-room, there was a long oak table set for dinner with old English silver and a sophisticated number of wine glasses, four at each place setting. It was well known that guests were invited to drink riesling, claret, champagne and port, all of Yarrabee vintage.
Upstairs in the main bedroom an elaborately carved bed bore an inscription stating that this bed in the French Empire style had been part of the dowry Eugenia Massingham had brought with her from England.
Another plaque claimed that Governor Sir Charles Fitzroy and Lady Mary Fitzroy had slept in one of the large bedrooms facing south.
In the grounds there was a winery with concrete walls eight feet thick. It contained an ancient press and vats that still held a faint sour odour. This was the only evidence that a flourishing vineyard had existed on the sunny slopes beyond the house. There was not even a gnarled vine left. They had all been destroyed long ago when the devastating disease phylloxera, that had mysteriously crossed fifteen thousand miles of ocean from the vineyards of Europe, had ravaged the vineyards of Australia.
If one wanted more evidence of the vanished family, one had to go to the old cemetery and find the large o
rnate headstone with the inscription ‘Gilbert Massingham formerly of Suffolk, England, late of Yarrabee, famous vigneron, and Eugenia, his dearly beloved wife.’ Nearby was a small sandstone angel, badly eroded, on which the lettering could just be deciphered. ‘Victoria, beloved infant daughter of Gilbert and Eugenia Massingham of Yarrabee.’
And a little farther off, for the cemetery must have been getting crowded by then, ‘Lucy Massingham, youngest daughter of the late Gilbert and Eugenia Massingham of Yarrabee.’
Not many people noticed the simple cross that said, ‘Molly Jarvis, former native of England’, but then no one was likely to connect her with the occupants of the big house on the edge of the town.
Chapter I
EUGENIA COULD SEE HIM at last. She had been gripping the side of the small rowing boat, straining her eyes shorewards, ever since she had clambered down the ladder of the Caroline, leaving that three-months-long home anchored in the blue waters of Sydney Cove. Mrs Ashburton was perched on the narrow plank beside her, taking up the room of two with her ample girth and billowing skirts. She was exclaiming petulantly as the wind tore at her bonnet. The brisk breeze had also nearly snatched Eugenia’s parasol from her hand. She had had to furl it and let the sun beat on her unprotected face.
Sun and wind and water, wooded slopes with rocky outcrops, glistening honey-coloured sand and patches of pale red earth, primitive rows of buildings clustering round the little jetty. The town of Sydney in Botany Bay, or New South Wales as this part of Australia was now being called.
When Eugenia at last caught sight of Gilbert she thought that he was the colour of Australia with his red hair and sideburns, his sunburnt skin, and strong blue eyes.
He was waving wildly.
‘Eugenia!’ She could hear his voice above the clatter and confusion of the boat being tied up at the jetty.
He cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed, ‘Welcome to Australia! Have you brought my vine cuttings?’
Mrs Ashburton gave Eugenia a nudge and began to laugh in her jolly fashion.
‘Well, that’s a fine welcome, miss! Which is more important to this young man, his intended wife or his vine cuttings?’
Mrs Ashburton, a family friend who had providentially been travelling to Australia to join her son, and who had agreed to chaperone Eugenia, had proved a great trial on the long voyage. She was garrulous, tetchy, unpredictable, and had an irritating habit of constantly losing her possessions. The voyage had been spent in a search for a mislaid fan, or lorgnette, or shawl, or smelling salts, or any of a dozen other objects. But she was kind. And at this moment Eugenia’s only friend.
All the same her ribald remark gave Eugenia a flutter of uncertainty. She knew Gilbert’s dedication to his vineyard, but she had not imagined it would take precedence to her in this first moment of encounter.
She had met Gilbert three years ago at her uncle’s chateau in Burgundy. Her mother was of French descent, and her Uncle Henri was a noted viticulturist with a chateau and vineyard. It happened that the young Englishman, Gilbert Massingham, who had already spent five years in Australia and had seen its possibilities as a wine-growing country, was visiting France at the same time as Eugenia, for the purpose of collecting vine cuttings. He had been travelling in Malaga, Portugal and the wine-growing areas of the Rhine for the same purpose.
On her first evening Eugenia had seen the way he had looked at her Uncle Henri’s wife, who was a very beautiful woman, still young and graceful, and a gifted hostess. Indeed, she had been convinced that he had been interested in no one but Aunt Honoria, until she realized that he saw her aunt as an essential complement to the dinner table, the silver and fine crystal, the epergne full of roses, the good food. And the wine. A chilled white burgundy in long-stemmed shallow glasses with the fish, and later with the pheasant, a full-bodied claret. Eugenia watched the young man raise his glass and silently toast Aunt Honoria. Then, with a speculative look in his eyes, he had turned to Eugenia and raised his glass with a curious deliberation.
It would of course have been rude to ignore her, the only other woman at the table. But his subsequent attention to her, in the drawing-room, and afterwards strolling on the terrace, had nothing to do with wine.
Or had it?
It certainly hadn’t seemed to when he had followed her to England, and asked permission to call on her parents.
They were in London for the end of the season. Jessica, the eldest daughter, had been presented. Eugenia must wait until the following year, since she was scarcely eighteen, and money was a little short. There were three younger sisters also, so it was important that Jessica and Eugenia find husbands before too long. A certain younger son of an earl had been particularly attentive to Jessica, and now, it seemed, Eugenia had her Australian.
But he was not an Australian, Eugenia emphasized. He had merely spent five years in the Colony, and being of an adventurous and ambitious nature had decided that it was the country of the future. Orphaned at an early age, he had been brought up by a maiden aunt, whose modest fortune he had eventually inherited. With no family and a comfortable amount of money, he could afford to indulge in the adventure of sailing across the world and discovering the country for which he was to develop such a passion. He had already acquired a thousand acres of land near Parramatta, a settlement some distance from the already over-crowded town of Sydney. On this land he proposed erecting a house suitable to which to bring a wife.
But more important than the house was the frail beginning of his future profession as a viticulturist.
His whole visage changed when he spoke of his infant vineyard. Some men saw Australia in terms of sheep or cattle, some in trading, some were already prospecting for gold. But soon after his arrival Gilbert had visited a small thriving vineyard at vintage time and his imagination had been instantly fired. The challenge of such a life exactly appealed to him. Not for him the dusty sheep or the cattle dying in a drought. He much preferred the luscious grapes, the satisfying red wine and the hazards and uncertainties and triumphs attendant on the beginning of an industry that could become world famous. This was something worthy of dedicating his life to.
After Australia, Gilbert went on, England was small, confined, limited. The skies were too diffused a blue, the weather too cold, the cities too crowded. There was too much poverty, squalor, crime. When Eugenia’s father pointed out that on the contrary Australia was little more than an outdoor prison, a miserable dumping ground for the dishonest trash and riff-raff of the British Isles, Gilbert vigorously denied such a thing.
That state of affairs had existed only in the time of the first Fleet and the second Fleet, nearly half a century ago. Now, explorers were making exciting discoveries, the country was large beyond imagining, and could hold unbelievable riches. Responsible settlers were wanted, hard-working healthy adventurous young men. And women to marry them. The convicts, only a fraction of the population, were an asset in their own way since they represented a constant supply of cheap labour.
Gilbert himself could never hope to build the house he planned without the use of convict labour.
He would begin it on his return. When it was finished, could he anticipate the arrival of his bride?
Yes, yes, Eugenia wanted to cry, because she was in love with Gilbert Massingham’s vitality and persuasiveness. But afterwards, because she had a strong streak of caution and commonsense, she was glad her father had stipulated that she should wait until she was of age. Three years would give both of them time to be sure of their feelings. Gilbert would return to Australia and build his house and establish his vineyard (if such a thing were possible), and Eugenia would remain at Lichfield Court, the old red brick manor house in Wiltshire which had belonged to her father’s family for two hundred years.
Gilbert was anxious that she should spend the three years continuing her study of music, painting and other ladylike pursuits, none of which, he assured her, would be wasted in the new colony. He took the greatest pleasure in listening to her
fluent French, although it was a language he spoke very little of himself. His own education had been practical rather than classical. He seemed to think that possessing a wife who spoke French was somehow an asset to be compared with an appreciation of good wine. Everything, Eugenia reflected, came back to wine.
But her devotion to her lessons was not to exclude time for writing letters. Eugenia was a dedicated letter writer. She assured Mr Massingham that addressing a correspondence to him would give her the greatest pleasure.
That was when the reality of her rather perplexing courtship by the red-headed young man from the colonies turned into the dream.
He lived for her on paper. She had almost forgotten what he looked like. He was the black-scrawled handwriting that began ‘My dearest Eugenia’ and ended ‘With devoted thoughts’, and if the matter in between was largely concerned with plain facts about house building, and the problems of establishing healthy grapevines in alien soil, she scarcely noticed. She loved to be called dearest and to have someone dreaming devoted thoughts of her.
In the flurried weeks preceding her departure, Sarah, the sister who was only eleven months younger than her, and who had always been like her twin, had constantly burst into tears, and begged Eugenia to assure her that she was happy. It was such a tremendous thing to do, to travel by sailing ship fifteen thousand miles to marry a man whose features she could scarcely remember.
By that time the matter had gone too far, and Eugenia was too proud to admit her own misgivings. In any case, what else was there for her? Jessica had married her Honourable, and little Elizabeth, younger than both Eugenia and Sarah, was engaged to marry a curate with very moderate means. That left only Sarah and Milly. Milly was still a schoolgirl, and Sarah herself said that she would never marry. She meant to stay at Lichfield Court with Mamma and Papa, to comfort them in their old age. She was a born spinster.
But Eugenia was not. And her excitement was real enough. It was the greatest fun gathering together a very complete trousseau, because it was unlikely that she would be able to buy wearable gowns or decent bonnets or good materials in Australia. The formal dozen of everything must be two dozen, and in addition she must take out a great many household goods. Gilbert had written asking her to bring various pieces of good furniture, a massive oak dining table, chairs and sideboard, a bed and bedroom furniture which she was to please choose for herself, since he trusted her good taste entirely. She was also to find some good drawing-room pieces, but not a carpet, as he had already ordered fine carpets from China. And pictures and knick-knacks, of course. A Waterford crystal chandelier, for instance, would look well, and some good wall mirrors in the Chippendale style.
Dorothy Eden Page 1
