A House Divided

by Sulari Gentill

  The township of Yass itself was busy, and for a country centre, its main street was crowded. Yass thrived as a natural break-point in the long journey between Sydney and Melbourne. Despite the times, visiting travellers contributed significantly to its economy and the activity of its business district. There were also other travellers, of vastly different circumstance. The tired men on the wallaby track, who moved from town to town in search of work and were marked by the ragged swags that weighed down their backs. They, too, came to Yass.

  The countryside here was already parched. The summer, though barely begun, had been intense and dry. The pastures had long turned gold, and the road was dust under the wheels of the motorcar.

  The low stone walls marking the home paddock of Oaklea seemed to hold the dryness of the landscape at bay. The lawns were irrigated and lush. The long driveway was lined by large oak trees underplanted with purple-bloomed agapanthus. It circled in front of the main house, around a segmented rose bed, which lent its heavy perfume to the afternoon air.

  Despite the heat, Rowland slipped his jacket back on. Wilfred was particular about such things, and there was no need to start out on a bad footing.

  Several other cars were parked outside the house. Rowland expected they were people who had come to pay their respects at the funeral—the usual births, deaths, and marriages company of distant relatives that appear only on such occasions. Fortunately, so close to Christmas, they were unlikely to stay long.

  He stepped out of the car as soon as it stopped on the gravel.

  Oaklea loomed before him. It had changed since his last visit, well over a year ago. The original homestead had been a Victorian building, with rubblestone walls and Romanesque features. Over the past three years, however, it had been expanded and remodelled under the direction of his sister-in-law. The verandah had been widened and softened with wisteria, the blooms now hanging in their pendulous purple clusters. Several bay windows had been added to the ground floor, as well as a projecting porch at the entrance. Another wing had been constructed and the roofline now included gables. Even the garden sported large arboured walkways and meandering dry rock walls he had not seen before. The extensive modifications interested more than disturbed him, but he wondered what his mother thought of them. She didn’t like change.

  Rowland straightened his tie and ran up the steps to the front door. He braced himself. Homecomings were difficult.

  Mrs. Kendall, who had been the housekeeper at Oaklea since before the war, was holding the door open for him. Her husband was head gardener and her sons both worked for Wilfred on the property. Mrs. Kendall was a substantial woman with perfect rose-hued skin, and a face that was warmth and welcome itself.

  “Mr. Rowland!” she exclaimed. “Come in, come in…”

  As he entered the house, he saw the interior had also been renovated. It was much lighter now. Many of the original dark and ornate features were gone, replaced with modern touches.

  “Mr. Sinclair is with funeral guests in the main drawing room,” Mrs. Kendall said conspiratorially. “Why don’t you go into the library, and I shall quietly tell him you’re here? You won’t want to be talking with visitors immediately after you’ve arrived, not after such a long trip.”

  Rowland smiled. Mrs. Kendall looked on him as a twelve-year-old. In her maternal heart, he remained the shy boy who’d been her charge. If he’d not grown so tall, she’d probably still be licking her hand to smooth down his hair. He embraced her whilst Wilfred was not around to disapprove of such familiarity. She was probably the only person at Oaklea who still missed him.

  When he finally entered it, he noticed that the library, too, had been modernised with oak panelling and a sandstone fireplace. Wilfred, it seemed, had added to his father’s already substantial collection of books. Rowland leant on the back of a leather armchair, letting his eyes scan the shelves for familiar titles.

  “Rowly,” Wilfred walked in and shook his hand. “It’s good to see you back here. What do you think of Kate’s changes?”

  “She’s been busy.”

  “Yes, it keeps her occupied.” Wilfred clearly believed the occupation of his wife to be a good thing. “Kate will be down in a moment—she just went to fetch Mother from her room.”

  “There’s no need for that.” Rowland glanced uneasily toward the doorway. “I could just go up… How is Mother?”

  “Good days, bad days,” said Wilfred grimly. Their mother had never quite recovered from the deaths of her son and her husband.

  Elisabeth Sinclair came into the room just ahead of her daughter-in-law. Now in her mid-sixties, she was still a handsome woman. Her hair was the snowy white that spoke of auburn origin, and she wore it stylishly back from her face. Always dressed immaculately and tastefully, she moved with a considered grace. Her face, however, was hesitant; her eyes tragic and bewildered. Until she saw Rowland. She rushed to him, as he stepped quietly toward her, and reached up to clasp his face between her hands. “Aubrey.” Her voice trembled. “My dear, dear Aubrey.”

  Rowland returned her smile sadly. His mother had started mistaking him for Aubrey when he first came home from Oxford. In the last couple of years she had acknowledged him as no one else. It was as if she eased her grief by convincing herself that he was his dead brother. Rowland occasionally wondered what she thought had become of her youngest son, but he had given up trying to disillusion her.

  “Mother, this is Rowly,” Wilfred corrected her calmly.

  “Rowly? Don’t be silly, Wilfred. Do you not recognise your own brother?” Despite her words, her eyes welled with tears at the mere suggestion that it was not her beloved Aubrey returned.

  Rowland glanced at Wilfred, a sign to say no more. “How are you, Mother?” he said. “You look well.”

  He spoke gently with her for a while. He wasn’t sure if his visits helped or hurt her—she seemed more and more fragile each time he came home.

  Eventually, Wilfred suggested their mother take her afternoon rest. “No, Wilfred.” She stamped her foot like a small child. “I want to stay with Aubrey.”

  “I’ll be here for a couple of weeks,” Rowland said as Mrs. Kendall took his mother’s arm. “You go and rest; I’ll come up to see you later.” Elisabeth Sinclair smiled, sunshine again. “Yes, I believe I am a little tired.” She stopped briefly at the doorway. “Aubrey, darling, did Wilfred tell you? Rowland has died… It’s so sad.”

  There was an awkward silence after she left.

  “I’m sorry, Rowly.”

  “You don’t need to be, Wil,” Rowland replied. He turned to his sister-in-law and kissed her briefly on the cheek. “How are you, Kate? And where’s my nephew?”

  Kate Sinclair smiled shyly. She was a pretty young woman, a couple of years younger than Rowland. Naturally slim, the slight swell of her belly was already obvious, though Wilfred had not yet mentioned that they were expecting a second child. She had married Wilfred when she was barely twenty. To Rowland, she still seemed nervous in her role as the mistress of Oaklea.

  “How lovely to see you, Rowly,” she said. “It’s been too long… Ernest has gone out with Gerard to select a suitable horse. Gerard will start breaking it for him, so it’s ready when he’s old enough to swing a polo mallet.”

  Rowland nodded. The selection of one’s first polo pony was something of a Sinclair tradition. By the time young Ernest was of an age to start playing, the animal would be both experienced and quiet.

  Wilfred considered his brother critically. “There’s a match next Saturday. Do you want to play?”

  “Polo?”

  “You still look reasonably fit—the city doesn’t appear to have softened your body at least.”

  “Yes, why don’t you play?” Kate piped in.

  Rowland grimaced. “No, thanks. I’m afraid that riding around in the midst of several men wildly swinging mallets never seemed very sensible to m
e.”

  “But you used to play,” Kate persisted.

  “I wasn’t ever very good—just ask Wil.” Rowland tapped his temple. “Too scared of head injuries.”

  “You always were a bit skittish for polo,” Wilfred agreed, remembering the few matches that Rowland had played. “Stop alarming Kate—next thing she’ll be telling me that it’s too dangerous for Ernest.”

  “Well, we couldn’t have that.” Rowland nodded toward the drawing room. “Who’s here?”

  “The Hamiltons, the Castlemaines, and the Oldmans,” Kate replied. All three families were cousins of sorts to the Sinclairs. “And Canon Radford, of course.”

  * * *

  The small chapel on Oaklea had been built by the first Mrs. Sinclair, and it was here the service was conducted, before Rowland Sinclair was laid to rest in the family plot behind it.

  Elisabeth Sinclair didn’t attend either the service or the burial. Rowland suspected the decision was Wilfred’s, not her own. His brother did not want the world to know how unsteady their mother’s mental state had become, and with her insistence that he was Aubrey, it would be obvious. Rowland suspected her frailty was no secret, but he did not blame Wilfred for trying to protect her dignity.

  Wilfred and Rowland shouldered their uncle’s coffin with the men who had been the old man’s closest friends. The lacquered oak casket was heavy. Rowland wondered, fleetingly, if the weight would finish off any of the aged pallbearers who shuffled and wheezed beside them.

  But the elderly men did not falter, and Rowland Sinclair was placed into the ground without incident. A large crowd attended to see him to his final rest, most of whom Rowland recognised only vaguely. They all returned to Oaklea afterwards, where the funeral guests took refreshments in the cool of the Sinclair ballroom.

  It was not until after all the guests had finally departed that Wilfred spoke again to Rowland about their uncle. “What do you want to do with the house, Rowly? He left it to you, you know.”

  “The inspector mentioned it.” Rowland shrugged. “I don’t really care, Wil. Do whatever you think best… Just make sure Mrs. Donelly and the others are taken care of.”

  “Inspector Biscuit thinks Mrs. Donelly was involved.”

  “It’s Bicuit,” Rowland smiled. “No ‘s.’ He told me his theory… Frankly it’s idiotic.”

  “They have to investigate everything, I suppose.” Wilfred absently fingered the Returned Soldiers’ badge on his lapel.

  “Did Bicuit tell you about the stockings?”

  “Yes.” Wilfred exhaled with vexed disapproval. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, Rowly, but it would be just like the old bugger to have some harlot on the side.”

  Rowland grinned. “Could be worse, Wil—maybe they were his.”

  Wilfred glared at him, unamused. “With respect to the house,” he said, “there’s no need to do anything yet… It might be handy to have another house in the city once Ernest starts school…particularly since you’ve…”

  “You’re right,” interrupted Rowland before his brother could relight the fiery topic which had led to them parting in anger just days before. “Another house in the city would be useful.”

  At that moment, a little boy slipped quietly into Wilfred’s lap. He did not say anything, but stared at Rowland from the safety of his father’s knee with bright blue Sinclair eyes.

  Wilfred ruffled the boy’s hair. “Are you going to talk to your uncle Rowly?”

  Ernest shook his head. Rowland smiled. The boy had not yet said a word to him, but he wasn’t surprised—he had no talent for small children. To him, they were strange, inexplicable creatures.

  “Let him be, Wil,” Rowland said as his brother tried coaxing some conversation from the boy. “I’m going to sit with Mother for a while.” Rowland stood and removed his jacket, retrieving his notebook and pencil from the inside pocket. He liked to have something to do while his mother chatted to him, or rather to Aubrey, about things that happened years ago as if they had occurred only yesterday.

  Chapter Eight

  TROTSKY’S PLANS

  AUSTRALIAN VISIT MOOTED!

  MELBOURNE, Monday

  A Melbourne journalist has received a letter from a friend in Paris stating that Leon Trotsky is endeavouring to secure permission to visit Australia in order to study conditions here and write a book.

  From other quarters, however, it is reported that Trotsky’s desire to visit Australia is part of his effort to reconcile with Stalin.

  —The Canberra Times, December 16, 1931

  * * *

  Rowland sat on the verandah with the latest edition of Smith’s Weekly. The paper gave a particularly patriotic and conservative perspective on events. Favoured by returned soldiers and old men, it was not Rowland’s usual fare.

  The front page carried an alarmist account of supposed Communist plots aimed at setting the countryside ablaze. According to the journalist, the hot, dry summer was just what the Bolshevik insurgents required to bring rural Australia to its knees. Rowland regarded the article with amusement, though not surprise. For some time, the popular press had been inflaming the public’s fears of a Communist uprising by painting bleak and bloody pictures of a Socialist future. Socialism, even Communism, was regarded far more kindly among the artistic and intellectual communities of Sydney. In any case, Rowland was fairly sure that the man the press vilified as Australia’s Trotsky was rarely sober enough to lead any sort of offensive.

  Wilfred approached and regarded his chuckling brother with clear disapprobation. Rowland stopped smiling and put down the paper. Wilfred took Smith’s Weekly very seriously.

  “Thought we might go out and look at Ernest’s new pony,” Wilfred said curtly. Dressed for a day on the property, he wore a tweed waistcoat and jacket over his crisp white shirt, his wool trousers pushed into knee-high gumboots. It was early, but already the day was hot.

  “Yes, of course.” Rowland stood. He grabbed his notebook from the wickerwork chair on which he had tossed it earlier.

  “Don’t you want your jacket?”

  “For God’s sake, Wil, it’s over a hundred degrees!”

  “If you wish to be mistaken for one of the shearers…”

  Rowland groaned. He’d never seen a shearer dressed as he was, and he didn’t really care, but it was clear that Wilfred did. He dragged on his jacket irritably.

  “I’m not wearing gumboots,” he muttered. “It hasn’t rained in six weeks—you look like you’re going for a walk in the marshes at bloody Balmoral.”

  Wilfred ignored him, flicking his eyes over the paper Rowland had discarded. “They’ll find we’re ready for them.”

  “Who?” Rowland slipped his notebook into the inside pocket of his jacket.

  “The Communists, who else? They’ll find we’re not so complacent here as in the city!”

  Rowland thought about responding, but only briefly. It was in moments like these that the years between them seemed greatest. He sighed. “Let’s go look at this horse then.”

  They strode out over the lawns at the rear of the house, past tennis courts flanked by rose beds in full bloom.

  Rowland took in the colour. “Flowers look good, Wil.”

  Wilfred had been passionate about the rose gardens since his return from the war. He oversaw their planting and spent hours designing extensions to the beds. He had even managed to breed a new cultivar. Rowland usually avoided reference to the blooms as Wilfred took any such mention as an invitation to expound on the finer points of pruning or grafting. This time was no exception.

  “Kendall’s brought on a Chinese lad to help McNair with the beds,” he said. “It’s made all the difference.”

  Rowland glanced at McNair, who was shuffling about with a hoe. Another veteran of the Great War, McNair had returned without his right arm and with a permanent limp. It was am
azing he managed to do anything at all, but his job at Oaklea was secure. Over the years, Wilfred had simply hired extra men to compensate.

  They stopped to discuss aphids with McNair, who had a great deal to say on the subject. It amused Rowland to watch the gardener in conversation with his brother. McNair spoke in consecutive strings of profanity, making no attempt to modify his speech for Wilfred’s sake. Wilfred, for his part, did not seem to notice and responded with his customary, genteel civility. Although Rowland found McNair quite difficult to follow, he gathered that the veteran wished to rout the “bloody flowers” to make room for vegetables. Wilfred listened patiently, and then suggested that McNair put the vegetables in the kitchen garden, where they were traditionally planted. In any case, he would certainly not tolerate his driveway and tennis court being lined with tomatoes and pumpkins. McNair seemed to find his employer’s attitude somewhat frustrating and stalked off with words which may have been translated as, “Be it on your own bloody head!”

  They watched him go in silence, though Rowland could not keep from smiling. McNair had always been thus.

  “He’s a good man,” was all Wilfred would ever say.

  It was over an hour after they’d originally left the house that they reached the exercise yard beside the stables. Regardless of his brother’s protestations, Rowland had again removed his jacket and carried it slung over his shoulder.

  Ernest was hanging over the rails as Gerard, the groom, handled a young colt in the yard. It was a sizable bay animal, well-proportioned and with an intelligent head.

  Ernest jumped down from the rail and ran to his father. “So, what do you think, Rowly?” Wilfred tipped his head toward the horse.

  “He’s rather big.” Rowland folded his jacket over the fence.

  “Ernest will grow. Won’t you Ernie?” Wilfred tousled the boy’s hair.