Whispers Through the Pines

by Lynne Wilding

  Sarah, glancing at Meggie to see that she was behaving herself, tried to remember the things she had heard about Norfolk Island. None were good. A harsh place, hardened felons. Isolated. Did she want to take Meggie to such a place? And the opposite view: did she have much choice in the matter? Finding employment in Sydney Town was proving quite difficult, and her savings were being steadily depleted.

  ‘I’d appreciate a little time ta think about it, ma’am. There’s much ta consider.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs O’Riley. But, unfortunately, I cannot allow you very much time. The ship to Norfolk sails with the tide on Saturday.’

  Four days away! After several minutes small talk, during which Cynthia Stewart made it abundantly clear that she was eager for Sarah to accompany her and had taken a liking to young Meggie, Sarah was seen to the door by the maid who had first let her in.

  ‘Me name’s Maude Prentiss,’ the maid whispered. ‘I be goin’ t’Norfolk wif the master an’ mistress.’ She gave Sarah a lopsided smile. ‘Do come wif us, Mrs O’Riley. I’ve heard ye’re feared o’no one and I don’t fancy bein’ wif a bunch o’ convicts on me own, so to speak. I’m sure you’d be puttin’ ‘em in their place.’

  ‘I’ll be considerin’ it most seriously, Maude,’ Sarah whispered back. And she was.

  As she and Meggie trudged across Hyde Park, along Elizabeth Street and across the bridges that forded the Tank Stream down to The Rocks, she weighed the fors and againsts of Cynthia Stewart’s offer.

  Perhaps going to Norfolk Island would be all right. She’d be the housekeeper of the captain, who’d been appointed as second in command of the 58th regiment, which was already on the island. There was a certain prestige in that, and Mrs Stewart had assured her the accommodation would be suitable. And, perhaps it would do her good to get away from the memories for a small time. How long had Mrs Stewart said? A year.

  She had heard rumours that, with the appointment of Major Deering as the commandant last January, and while six hundred convicts remained on the island, the penal settlement was in the first stage of being dismantled. But she could save every penny she earned and with what remained in her tin box, perchance there would be sufficient for a new start when she and Meggie returned to Sydney Town.

  After spending half the night debating the matter, the next morning Sarah sent a message to Captain Stewart at the barracks. She would accept the position of housekeeper and requested information as to when she should be ready to board the Lady Marie, and what items she needed to take for her and her daughter.

  7th August, 1852.

  Dear Bridget,

  My heartiest congratulations on the birth of your twin sons, Daniel and Sean. How proud you and Seamus must be.

  I don’t think I will ever get over my dear Will’s death. T’was cruel of God to take him from me and Meggie at such a young age.

  We had grand plans, you know, which now will not come to fruition. My Meggie grows sturdy and well and is beginning to look more like Will than me, so I have a constant reminder of him with me always.

  The evening of Will’s funeral I was attacked by his best mate, Elijah Waugh who, thank the Lord, did me no permanent damage.

  The army has dealt with him and sent him to Newcastle. I have not seen him since and hope never to again. He has an evilness about him that quite alarms me.

  I have accepted a position of housekeeper to Captain Stewart and on the morrow we sail for Norfolk Island, a penal colony in the south Pacific Ocean. I have heard dreadful tales of what goes on there. The cruelty of the soldiers and the baseness of the convicts are often spoken about here, but I console myself that our stay will only be for one year and then we will return to Sydney Town and, I hope, with all my heart, to a fresh start.

  With deep affection, as always,

  Sarah

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  As soon as Jessica opened her eyes the next morning, Simon urged her to get up, despite the obvious signs of a hangover.

  Frowning with puzzlement, Simon took one hand—her other hand held a throbbing temple—and led her from the bedroom, through the living room and kitchen and out onto the narrow verandah. Something in his demeanour, an uncharacteristic tenseness, warned her not to argue with his actions. The sunlight dazzled her and she squinted against the glare, inwardly moaning as her headache intensified.

  ‘Look, Jessica. Look at your painting,’ Simon urged as he drew her towards the easel. He had already checked earlier that what he’d seen last night had been no hallucination. They were still there. Four faces stared back at him, almost mockingly. As he waited for her reaction, he was not disappointed, for her eyes opened wide and then widened further.

  Jessica took a deep, shocked breath in and slowly breathed out. The painting was ruined. Hours and hours of painstaking work wasted. Instant tears sprang to her eyes, but she brushed them away in an angry gesture. Who could have done such a thing? And why? Someone had sneaked into the cottage and brush-stroked the faces of four ruffians over her beautiful landscape, the one she considered her best work to date.

  ‘Well…?’

  Jessica turned to stare at Simon. ‘Well, what? Oh, Simon, who has done this?’ Her gaze flew back to the painting. ‘And why? I just don’t understand…’

  It was Simon’s turn to frown. ‘Jess, don’t you remember? When I came home, about eight o’clock last night, I found those faces all over the painting and you, drunk as a skunk on the sofa. Don’t you recall any of it?’

  Silence invaded the room for almost a minute. Then in a hushed tone, Jessica said, ‘No…’

  ‘You don’t remember opening the brandy I bought last week and drinking half the bottle?’

  She blinked with shock. ‘No.’ She hated the taste, even the smell of strong alcohol. Simon knew that. What was he implying?

  Simon motioned for her to sit in the armchair which faced the painting. ‘All right, tell me what you did yesterday. From the time I left for the hospital until, well…?’

  Jessica tried to think. Her head was pounding, and she could feel her pulse rate rising. What was happening here, to her? She didn’t understand and the strangeness of it defied explanation. Several unusual things had happened to her since her arrival on Norfolk Island. It was as if she were under a strange spell or, whimsically, she thought, curse! None of it—the queer sensation at the cemetery, then the face in the window at Hunter’s Glen, now this—made sense. Unless, maybe, she was going crazy! Knowing what was coming next, she deliberately blocked the memory of that fateful scene with her grandfather from her mind. No, she wasn’t insane, she had been sick because she’d lost Damian and, for a while, couldn’t cope with the loss. And she hadn’t drawn those faces on the painting, she was sure of it…but someone had.

  Simon glanced at his watch and stifled a sigh. He was going to be late for work. To encourage her he asked, ‘What did you do after I left the cottage?’

  She stared at him blankly for a moment. ‘Oh, the usual. Made the bed, washed up, put a load of washing through the machine…’ If the throbbing would cease, her brain would be able to think normally. Brandy. Ugh! ‘Then I went into Burnt Pine and shopped.’

  ‘Did you work on the painting at any time during the day?’

  ‘Yes, late in the afternoon. It just needed a few finishing touches.’

  ‘How long did it take you to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She frowned up at him, trying desperately to recall. ‘I can’t remember.’ Her eyes closed and she took her mind back to the events of yesterday, and when she spoke, her tone was dreamlike. ‘The afternoon became surprisingly cool; there was a real chill on the verandah. I got a sweater and put it on as I worked.’ She opened her eyes and looked at Simon. ‘But the sweater didn’t help, I felt chilled to the bone. Yes, I remember that. I looked at my fingers, they’d begun to whiten with the cold. It was very strange. I couldn’t stop staring at them and the coldness, it made no sense. Outside I could see the sun shining, yet on the verandah it was like
the inside of a fridge. And then, and…’ She sighed, and with a frown, looked up at him. ‘That’s the last thing I remember about yesterday.’ Why couldn’t she recall anything else? It was as if a shutter had come down over her memory. She didn’t remember eating dinner, or Simon coming home. Nothing!

  Simon stared hard at her. ‘It wasn’t cold yesterday, Jess. The temperature must have been in the high twenties.’

  Regardless of her headache, she jumped up and went to the bedroom, returning a minute later. ‘See, my sweater. There’s paint on it. So, I was painting and it was cold.’ She was beginning to tire of Simon’s third degree. Why didn’t he believe her? He’d always, in the past, especially after Damian…been so gentle and compassionate. Why wasn’t he being so now? She didn’t know what had happened to her, she couldn’t remember anything about the painting or the brandy.

  He studied the sweater. Dobs of green, grey, white and a darker colour, almost black, were evident on the front of the sweater: proof indeed that she had at least been painting as she’d said. ‘And you’re sure you don’t recall diving into my Napoleon brandy?’

  ‘As I said before, no.’

  Simon ran his hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. Here was a puzzle and no easy solution to it. Fact: the faces were on the painting. Fact: someone had painted them on. Jessica said she didn’t do it, but the smears of dark colour on the sweater proved that, most likely, whether she recalled it or not, she had had something to do with it. Then he had a brainwave. Perhaps she had experienced a mental blackout, and that’s why she had no recall! Another possibility came to him. Was she in denial or was the depression more severe than he’d thought? And then came the most worrying thought, could it be an early manifestation of schizophrenia?

  But, to him, that didn’t satisfactorily explain why she had chosen to paint sinister faces over the landscape and, in the doing, ruined it. Not for the first time he felt a sense of medical inadequacy. Mental problems—psychiatry—was beyond his field of expertise, or personal comfort level.

  ‘I’ll get something for your headache,’ he offered and went to the bathroom.

  In the meantime Jessica was—she couldn’t help it—studying the painting or what had been done to her painting. The faces, the slashed paint-strokes, the anger and emotion in it were extraordinary. It was as if whoever had done the work really hated the subjects. Deep down she sensed her own inability to paint with such…passion. Not that she didn’t feel strong emotion. She did, for Damian. And for Simon? She brushed the questioning of her relationship with her husband back into her subconscious, to be dealt with at another time.

  Her thoughts returned to the painting. She didn’t believe she had the skill yet to transfer strong feelings successfully to a painting. The first face, she noted, the only one completed, was a fine example of portrait painting, far beyond the ability she believed she possessed. The fingers of her right hand came up to stroke her chin as she concentrated on the first face. Had she seen him before, she wondered? It was an unforgettable face. There was cruelty and an animal cunning in his expression, and the scars, four marks running almost vertical from his cheek bone to the jawline. How had he got them? Then she focused on his attire. A uniform of some kind, but not a modern soldier’s uniform. The colour, red, and the braid reminded her of one she had seen recently. She concentrated, trying to remember…

  Simon came back. ‘There,’ he dropped two pills into her outstretched hand, ‘that should ease the pain.’ He ran his hand softly over her still untidy hair. ‘Don’t worry, Jess. We’ll get to the bottom of this. There has to be a logical answer to those faces and why you painted them.’

  She bristled at the condescension in his tone, as if he were talking to a rebellious child. ‘Did I paint them? I don’t remember doing it, and look at the work,’ she urged, ‘look closely. You’re no art expert, but you know how I paint. I can’t paint as well as that, and certainly not portraits.’ She glanced at him, a flicker of fear disturbing her attractive features. ‘God, Simon. Am I going insane?’ There she’d said it, out loud, but she didn’t feel any better for having voiced what had been running through her head since she first saw what had been done to the painting.

  He took her by the shoulders and made her stand up. ‘You are not.’ His tone was forceful. He drew her close and kissed her forehead. ‘What’s happened is odd and I don’t have any answers yet, but we’ll work it out. I’m going to stop your medication until I talk to Nikko. There’s a possibility, although it’s remote, that you’re having some kind of hallucinogenic reaction to the Valium.’ Even as he said the words, he didn’t believe them. He was merely mouthing platitudes to try to make her feel better.

  ‘Simon,’ her voice was a mere whisper as she placed her hands against his chest, desperate to feel the warmth of another human being. ‘I’m afraid.’

  ‘You’re not to be, and that’s an order. Look, I want you to get out of the house today. Visit Nan, or go on a shopping spree at Burnt Pine. Just stay away from the cottage for a while. Somehow, though it may not sound logical, it may help.’

  ‘A spending spree!’ Her blue eyes brightened. ‘That’s very brave of you.’

  He nodded, and said, tongue in cheek, as he moved to the kitchen to pick up his attache case and jacket. ‘Within reason, of course.’

  Simon replaced the phone’s receiver and sat deep in thought. Nikko had categorically stated that he doubted the anti-depressant would cause any aberration in Jessica’s behaviour. Good friend that he was, he had offered to fly over from Perth to consult with Jessica, see if he could help in any way. But Simon had read between what Nikko had said and what he hadn’t said. If he believed that Jessica’s lapse was important enough for him to fly almost eight thousand kilometres to review, then the problem could be serious. That was undeniable.

  He leant forward, his head cradled in his hands and, for the first time in a long time, was at a loss to know what to do next…

  That was how Sue Levinski found him when she went to his office to give him the hospital’s weekly report. For several minutes she stood in the doorway, knowing he was unaware of her being there. She was good at reading body language, and everything about Simon’s posture screamed depression. Since her fall from grace on Christmas Eve, she had tried everything she could think of to get back to their initial level of camaraderie. And he was coming around, slowly. Too slowly for her liking. Besides, she already knew that Simon Pearce was a man with an easygoing disposition, who didn’t panic and, didn’t get depressed. The Board of Directors were enormously impressed with his medical performance, so the most likely cause was…Jessica! Her level of curiosity skyrocketed.

  She coughed to alert him to her presence.

  His head shot up. ‘Oh, Sue.’ He saw the folder under her arm. ‘The reports. Good. I’ll need to go through them before I go to Sydney next week.’ He had had notification of a bi-annual conference initiated by the NSW Health Department and was expected to attend it.

  She put the folder in his in-tray, then sat opposite him. ‘Are you all right, Simon?’ she asked in that caring tone she had perfected long ago. ‘You don’t look yourself. Not coming down with a bug, I hope? Infectious bugs are one of the less attractive attributes of tourism—the viruses holiday-makers bring with them to the island affect the locals sometimes more than the tourists.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m okay.’

  He very definitely was not okay! She had tried a few times before to get him to open up and had been rebuffed. Dare she risk another knockback? But on the other hand, what did she have to lose? Of course, she could try the subtle approach, skirt around the subject, or she could come straight out and ask him.

  ‘Simon, don’t think I’m poking my nose into things that aren’t my concern, but I know you well enough to be aware when something’s not right with you. Let me assure you that whatever you say will go no further than this office,’ she promised. Now the ball was in his court.

  It had been therapeut
ic talking to Nikko earlier, but he was so far away. Then Simon looked at Sue, really looked at her. Her earnest ‘I’d like to help expression’ gave her features an extra dimension, a certain radiance. God! Why hadn’t he noticed before, was he blind? Sue Levinski was a beautiful woman. The thought came right out of left field before he continued his mental debate. He knew he hadn’t given her his trust because of that earlier episode but, dear God, how good it would be to talk it out with someone who had a glimmering of understanding of what he was going through! He needed to, very much. He’d do it, he decided spontaneously.

  ‘It’s Jessica. She’s presenting a whole new set of problems. Imagining things, doing things and not remembering that she’s done them. Maybe it’s more than depression. I thought it might have been the Valium, but Nikko said no. It’s darned hard to know what to do. I can’t stay at home all the time and watch her.’ He stopped for a moment, thought about it. ‘She was getting better, Sue. I believed she’d got over the worst of her breakdown and that by the time my stint’s finished here, she’d be back to normal, but…’

  ‘Tell me everything. Maybe, between the two of us, we can work something out that will help Jessica and you.’

  Simon filled Sue in on the odd things that Jessica said had been happening to her since she had come to the island, and about her background—the grandfather who’d spent the last years of his life in a mental institution.

  ‘She’s becoming paranoid and, I fear, delusional.’

  ‘Why not increase the anti-depressant?’

  ‘I’ve thought of that but, if she’s delusional, the increased dosage won’t help. That would be regressive and, possibly, just sublimate the paranoia, instead of trying to find out why her problem is going in a different direction.’