‘Ted, are you awake?’ Lucy knocked gently on the wall beside the sliding screen door of the demountable. She’d spoken softly, but almost immediately she heard the sound of movement inside, and a light came on. A moment later Ted was on the other side of the screen, pulling on a T-shirt.
‘You all right?’ he asked, in a voice so alert that Lucy wondered if he’d already been awake when she knocked.
‘Grasshopper is in my hut,’ she replied, realising suddenly how silly it sounded.
Ted slid the door open and looked down at her. She could feel herself shaking and was too miserable to try to disguise the fact. He put out his hand and steadied her. ‘That bugger can’t handle his grog,’ he muttered. ‘He’s pretty harmless, but.’
Lucy nodded, feeling calmer already.
‘C’mon.’ Ted took her hand and she clung to him tightly as they walked across the grass in the darkness.
All was silent in the cottage when they went in through the open door. Ted flicked on the light and they looked around. There was Grasshopper, stretched across Lucy’s bed with his shaggy head hanging over the side and his mouth wide open. A large pool of vomit was on the floor underneath him, partly covering one of Lucy’s little slip-on shoes.
‘He won’t be giving you any more trouble tonight,’ Ted observed dryly.
Lucy looked up at his stern face and chastised herself inwardly for being so cowardly and not even attempting to deal with the intruder herself. Realising how tightly she was holding Ted’s hand, she quickly let go and stepped away.
‘You want some help with that mess?’ Ted asked gruffly, inclining his head towards the reeking puddle.
‘Oh no, I can fix it. Thank you, Ted. I’m so sorry for waking you.’
‘Better to be safe than sorry.’ His dimple appeared for a moment. ‘Anyway, you couldn’t’ve shifted him on your own.’
Stepping around the vomit, Ted grabbed one of Grasshopper’s limp arms and hoisted the unconscious form over his shoulder like a large sack of potatoes. He staggered towards the door, where he paused for a moment and looked back. ‘You sure you’ll be right? You’re whiter than a sheet.’
Lucy smiled gratefully. Ted’s blunt concern was surprisingly comforting. ‘I’ll be fine now, thanks to you.’
‘No worries, mate. Good luck with the spew.’ And then he was gone.
The next day Lucy was partway through a maths lesson when a shamefaced Grasshopper knocked on the door of the schoolroom. He, Jacko and Blue were due to leave the station that morning.
‘Struth, I’m so sorry,’ he said mournfully. ‘Not the best way to endear meself to a lady, breaking into her house then bringing up me guts on her favourite shoes. Ted told me everything.’ He looked at her with bloodshot, remorseful eyes.
Naturally, the kids pricked up their ears. ‘What did you do, Grasshopper?’ Billie asked.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lucy said firmly.
‘Lucy would never look at a bloke like you, mate,’ Cooper said. ‘Better to leave her be.’
‘Cooper!’ Lucy exclaimed.
‘Too true, mate,’ Grasshopper agreed resignedly; then, unbuttoning his breast pocket, he took out a roll of cash and turned to face Lucy again. ‘How much do you reckon them shoes were worth?’
‘Oh no, don’t worry,’ Lucy said hurriedly, holding her hands up in front of her defensively. ‘They were nearly worn out anyway.’
Grasshopper gawped at her for a moment with a doleful, hangdog expression. Then he turned to shuffle off. He paused on his way out. ‘Lock your door next time I’m on Charlotte’s Creek, eh, Lucy.’ His voice was full of genuine concern. ‘I just can’t be trusted.’
‘Thanks, Grasshopper,’ Lucy answered. ‘I will certainly do that.’ Still shaken from the events of the night, she suddenly felt like laughing or crying hysterically, and she had to battle to keep the tremor out of her voice when she resumed the maths lesson.
Thinking it over later that afternoon, Lucy realised that Grasshopper probably wouldn’t have harmed her. In spite of this, when she went to bed that night she found she no longer felt safe in her little cottage. Every small creak or rustle, inside and out, was enough to set her heart racing. The Grey Lady sprang to mind, and an innocent shadow on the wall made her sit up in alarm. Taking a deep breath, she scolded herself for being so jumpy, and lay back down. When sleep finally came, though, it was disturbed, and her dreams were full of dusky, prowling figures.
Lucy woke the next morning feeling exhausted and nervy. She was quieter than usual that day, and hardly touched her dinner. She excused herself as soon as she’d done the washing-up, keen to return to her cottage while it was still light and free from shadowy corners where imaginary intruders could lurk.
Once safely inside, she locked the door and made herself a hot chocolate, already dreading the night ahead. Then she heard the sound of her gate opening. Glancing towards the door, she saw Ted coming up onto her little deck with a chain in his hand. She quickly unlocked the door again.
‘Just wondering,’ Ted began shyly, ‘if you’d have a spot on your veranda for Shep at nights.’ He motioned towards the old kelpie, who was waiting at the bottom of the steps. ‘His old bones aren’t handling the draft over at the dog cages, and I don’t want him inside my donga.’
‘Oh yes!’ Lucy responded immediately. ‘I’d love to have him here.’
‘Righto, that’ll save me the trouble of shooting the old bugger.’
Lucy smiled knowingly to herself over Ted’s harsh comment, then looked on while he connected the dog-chain to the base of a veranda railing with a small shackle. ‘I can feed him too if you like,’ she offered.
‘You’ll probably spoil him rotten,’ Ted muttered. He gave a short sharp whistle and Shep came slinking up the stairs, his tail between his legs, clearly entering previously forbidden territory.
‘You’re right, old mate.’ Ted gave him a pat on the head. ‘Your new bed, eh. You can keep off any fellas who feel like sniffing round, or coming to piss on the gatepost.’
And then, without another look at Lucy, Ted was down the steps and walking with long strides across to his donga. Lucy smiled gratefully after him before going inside to look for an old blanket for Shep.
Mel had told her that the battered sea chest stored in the cottage fireplace was full of extra bedding. Lucy hauled it out a little so she could fully open the lid. As she dug through the piles for the oldest blanket she could find, something in the fireplace caught her eye. Pushed to one end of the cavity, where a dense curtain of spider webs had just been towed free, was a small brass-hinged wooden box. Lucy immediately abandoned the blankets. Getting down on all fours, she pulled out the box, brushed off the spider webs and opened it. It was lined with canvas and filled to the top with bundles of letters bound with string. The envelopes were discoloured but were in otherwise quite good condition. Each was addressed to ‘Charlotte Carlyle of Leichhardt’s Creek’ by someone called Marianne Learmont, in a calligraphy so exquisite that tears pricked Lucy’s eyes on sight of it. Breathlessly, she took out one of the letters and glanced over the even, slanting rows of script, noting how the words began to fade as the ink on the writer’s quill had run out, only to become suddenly dark again, renewed by a plunge into an inkwell, long since dust.
It was a couple of hours before dawn when Lucy folded the last of the letters and tucked them safely back into the box. Lying awake, her eyes wide in the darkness, it was now intrigue rather than anxiety that held off sleep. All of the letters had been written by Lotte’s ‘dear sister Marianne’. If only Lucy could have read the letters sent as well as those received, what an insight into the life and character of Lotte she would have had. Instead she was required to deduce, from Marianne’s questions and replies, what Lotte had communicated.
The early letters, beginning in 1897, were full of longing. Marianne, back in England, respectably married to one Lord William Learmont, apparently had a thirst for adventure that was never likely to be satisfied,
and she hungrily sought all the details of her sister’s life in the Great South Land. Even while Marianne was lamenting poor Lotte’s battles with the heat, the mosquitoes, the blacks, unsavoury swagmen, and the shortage of tea and unweevilled flour, Lucy caught hints of the Englishwoman’s envy of her sister’s exotic situation and her desire to experience it, at least vicariously.
Marianne, it appeared, had also been quite politically minded; amid her news of various social gatherings and society gossip were reports of significant events in England. There were mentions of the women’s suffrage campaign spanning a few years, and the ongoing conflict that her interest in it had caused with Lord William. But then her husband had become ‘terribly tied up’ with the Second Boer War and his correspondents in South Africa; ‘had not the Conservatives been re-elected,’ Marianne told Lotte in 1900, ‘he should have gone quite distracted’.
The arrival of Marianne’s second child, in 1901, had coincided with the excitement over Federation in Australia and the birth of the Labour party in England. This was closely followed by the death of Queen Victoria, and Lucy rolled her eyes upon reading how ‘relieved’ Lord William had been to have a King for a monarch again with all of the ‘bother’ that Germany was causing.
At this point, Lucy had paused in her reading to make another hot chocolate. Then, avoiding the sight of the clock, she hunkered down to read some more. As the dates on the letters progressed, Lucy noticed that Marianne ceased making tactful queries about the possibility of a coming child for Lotte; instead, reports of her own young children began to fill the pages. Clearly Lotte must have begun to lose hope of ever having a baby. Marianne was most sympathetic over the tiresome salted meat, the mouse plague, the snakes and flies, as well as the speed with which milk soured. She imparted to her sister the latest advice on stain removal for the permanently discoloured dress hems that Lotte had been complaining of. But most noteworthy to Lucy was Marianne’s faithful sending of her regards to ‘dear Thomas’. The Englishwoman hadn’t only been confident that her sister’s marriage was a happy one, but she’d also believed Thomas to be living on Leichhardt’s Creek. Had old Mollie got the story wrong? No, Lucy felt sure that she hadn’t.
In 1905, Marianne’s great concerns about the ‘bad business in Morocco’ were overshadowed by her joy over the tidings of Lotte’s pregnancy, and then the birth of little Henry. Lucy exclaimed out loud on reading this; Henry must be the baby that Mollie had spoken of, but she could find no mention of the unpleasant circumstances surrounding his conception. Marianne had given birth to her own fourth baby in London shortly afterwards; now that Lotte had her coveted child, Lucy noticed Marianne allowing herself to indulge in unrestrained descriptions of all the tiny dear details of motherhood, and comparing the progress of their ‘bonny babies’ as the months passed. And was dear Thomas giddy with happiness over his fine son? she asked. Was he full of plans already for his little ‘Curly’?
The letters had continued for two and a half years after Henry’s birth. Whether for Marianne’s peace of mind or for the sake of her own honour, Lotte had obviously continued to portray her life at Leichhardt as a happy and respectable one. At last Lucy found herself coming to the end of the final bundle. In April of 1908, Marianne had relayed excited details about the buzz in London over the Olympic Games in White City.
This was followed by only two more letters. The first, on exquisitely embossed blue paper, contained greetings for Curly’s second birthday, and had accompanied some sort of ‘modern’ toy sent across the oceans. Lucy picked up the final letter; although her eyes were stinging with tiredness by now, she was regretful that her journey into Lotte’s life was drawing to a close. But moments later, she was wide awake and sitting bolt upright. The letter was desperately sorrowful, with Marianne responding heartbrokenly to the news of little Curly’s disappearance from the garden at Leichhardt’s Creek and insisting that ‘those savage dingoes be hunted down and shot until not one remained’.
‘Dingoes must have got him!’ Lucy spoke out loud in her shock, before hungrily continuing to read.
Next Marianne gently reprimanded Lotte for not being ‘entirely honest’ about the situation with Sir Thomas. Lord William had seen him back in London with his new wife, and they evidently now knew that Henry was another man’s child. Was Lotte now destitute? Marianne asked anxiously. Did she need money sent? Then, tentatively, Marianne suggested that Lotte, still beautiful, might find some way to start afresh now that baby Henry was gone. After all, things were different in the colonies. Would Lotte go and see the minister for advice and forgiveness?
The letter concluded, leaving Lucy reeling. She gazed around at the inside of the humble wooden cottage with fresh eyes. Lotte too, had sat here, looking at the same four walls, suffering under such grief and loss. Lucy looked back down at the yellowed paper in her hand. Why was this the final letter from Marianne to Lotte? Had something happened to the rest of the letters or, even worse, had there been no more? Had Lotte been too desolate to reply? The blow of this humiliation would have been heavy on top of the loss of beloved Curly. Poor, poor Charlotte. No wonder she’d lost her mind.
Chapter 21
‘We’ll be doing school on Saturday then!’ Lucy called in exasperation after the departing forms of the children, who had been summoned away by Dennis less than half an hour after starting school. Even before he’d appeared, Lucy had been unusually uneasy, as she’d released her feathered babies from their crowded enclosure into the main coop that morning, leaving them at the mercy of the adult chooks and White Trash. And now Dennis had taken the children.
‘We need some extra riders on the ground for this muster,’ he’d announced from the schoolroom doorway. This single statement had been more than enough of a cue for the kids, and they had scarpered. Dennis chuckled at the sight of them, but then noticed the look on Lucy’s face.
‘The other ringers aren’t getting here till tomorrow, Luce,’ he explained. ‘Only Bri and Tash could make it today.’
Lucy shrugged and began to push the chairs back in behind the desks.
He tried again, his tone mildly apologetic. ‘The chopper always stirs up the cattle and they run more than usual. We need plenty of riders on the ground.’
Lucy looked at him coldly. ‘They’re your children,’ was all she said.
‘Those bloody rumpers from Hill paddock always give us trouble,’ Dennis added.
‘Fine.’ Lucy continued to give him an uncharacteristically steely look.
He shifted uncomfortably. ‘Jeez, c’mon, mate! Don’t be dirty at me! Was gonna send you up too if you’re keen.’
‘Up?’
‘In the chopper. Give you a bird’s-eye view of Charlotte’s Creek. You can have a real good squiz at the lie of the land. What d’you reckon?’ He grinned, eyebrows raised expectantly.
Lucy tried to hide her surprise. ‘I’m not sure I want—’
‘’Course you do. Wait till you meet young Hoodlum—he’s the pilot. According to Bri and Tash, he’s hot.’ Dennis made a bemused face, then looked at Lucy hopefully. ‘You’d love to, wouldn’t you?’
Lucy hesitated. ‘I’ll have to check with Mel whether she needs me to—’
‘All done, darl,’ Dennis interrupted triumphantly. ‘Already told her you’re going up. Hoodlum’s just having a bite of smoko while the kids saddle up. He’s in the kitchen. Go and introduce yourself.’
Lucy packed away the markers and large sheets of butcher’s paper she’d carefully set out twenty minutes earlier, and put the books away neatly in the bookcase. She refused to rush. As intrigued as she was by the idea, she had no intention of going up in the chopper. She would not condone this lack of regard for school hours.
Once everything was tidy, she wandered down the hall towards the kitchen. Mel would be sure to need help with something.
‘What if it’s twins again?’ a deep male voice was asking laughingly. ‘You’re quite a woman, Mel. Must be the pheromones or something.’
&n
bsp; ‘Yeah, you can laugh.’ Mel’s voice was cheerfully sarcastic. ‘Very funny.’
‘You’ll just have to tell old Westy to keep his hands off from now on,’ the man continued, ‘hard as that must be for him.’
Lucy walked in just as Mel turned away from a younger man who was grinning cheekily at her from his seat at the table. Before she noticed Lucy, Mel threw a smile back over her shoulder at him in response to his larrikin chuckle. Lucy couldn’t recall ever having seen her look so animated.
‘Oh, Lucy.’ Mel spotted her. ‘This is Adam Hood, the chopper pilot.’
The young man turned in his seat to greet her. ‘Just a glorified ringer—better known as Hoodlum.’ He spoke smoothly, standing up and holding out his hand with an engaging smile. Lucy shook it and looked into his eyes. They were green and sparkly, full of warmth and laughter. ‘You’re not the usual breed of Charlotte’s Creek governess,’ he said approvingly. ‘I can see that at a glance.’
‘And you’re not the usual ringer,’ Lucy responded, having noticed his polished manner and way of speaking, his tidy haircut, neatly shaven face, ironed blue shirt and jeans. He pulled another chair out from the table and motioned to Lucy. As she sat down next to him, Lucy reflected that it was nice to be greeted properly and treated respectfully.
‘You’re coming up with me, I hear?’ Adam said.
Lucy suddenly wished she was, and she knew her face betrayed her when she spoke. ‘Oh no, I’m sure Mel could use a hand here.’
Adam grinned again. ‘That’s as weak as water! You sound like Flipper. He always says they need him on the ground too.’ Adam must have seen Ted coming across from the yards, for he had timed his comment perfectly with the ringer’s arrival. ‘Isn’t that right, Goldy? Or maybe you want to come up today?’
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