She had never really minded being alone at Moura before, even though she’d been lonely. There had always been the knowledge that at any moment Tommy might arrive, grinning on his bicycle, that Auntie Love might appear, a gift of oil-rich grass seeds, or tiny red-brown native cherries, or the long purple fruit that grew up in the cliffs.
She hadn’t realised how much she had always felt Auntie Love’s protection around her. Even more than Tommy, it had been as though the old woman would always be there if she was needed.
She had told Mr Sampson what had happened. He had nodded, as though it was no surprise. He had probably guessed as soon as he saw Hey You at Matilda’s heels. He added that he and Elsie would ‘take care of things’. Matilda supposed that meant whatever their people did for a funeral. But he offered no more, and she hadn’t liked to ask.
Mr Drinkwater had asked after the old woman a week later. Perhaps one of the stockmen had told him of Auntie Love’s disappearance. She had told him briefly that Auntie Love had died, that she didn’t know where she was buried. She hadn’t added that she didn’t even know if she had been buried at all.
She had never wanted to put flowers on Mum’s or Dad’s graves, or Aunt Ann’s. The heart of them was with her, and what they had loved, not in the soil. Auntie Love was all around her too. But that didn’t help the loneliness.
Sometimes the words of the song came to her. She wished she had never heard them, but everyone it seemed sang it now. And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong …
I would even welcome a ghost’s company now, she thought.
She sat on the verandah, fondled Hey You’s ears and watched the sheep, nosing at the trough of cobs of corn. She should write to James, give him news of home, the Federation celebrations, the short storm three days ago. Tell him his father was well, the news James would expect her to send.
And yet … James wrote when he could, she knew, and in each letter he sent his love, talked about the time they would be together. But he was there, and she was here. Other men had come home, their days of war over, their duty done, though the Boers were a long way from beaten yet. But James had stayed.
At first she thought he was waiting till his father apologised, wrote and said he would agree to their marriage. Now she suspected that even if he did it would make no difference. James would stay till the war was won.
And I wait here, she thought. My whole life is waiting. Waiting for rain, waiting for James, for marriage and for children, waiting like women have always waited for their men to come back from war or shearing.
She stood up. She was sick of waiting … and there were people she could see. Peter Sampson’s new wife, only a few years older than her. She bit her lip. No, it would be too hard to be with newly married happiness.
Instead she changed into a wide-skirted serge skirt and white blouse, suitable for riding, with stockings and pantaloons and high-buttoned black boots, her straw hat securely attached to her hair with half a dozen hat pins. She saddled Timber, and made her way to town.
The Doos’ Prosperity Hardware Store now occupied two shopfronts, with big sheds out the back around a central gravelled courtyard: one shed for sacks of feed, another for hay, a giant bay of farm machinery, metal pipes and shelves of tools.
It was a long way from the vegetable cart.
Patricia sat at the end of the dark wood counter, adding sums in the ledger book, one eye on the baby sleeping in the pram, the other on the young man advising a local farmer about a new plough. She was dressed like any other prosperous shopkeeper’s wife, in a dark serge narrow-belted skirt, a white high-necked blouse, and with her hair pinned fashionably about her face. She closed the book as Matilda came in.
‘Nei hao, zai gun gei hao le ma?’ Matilda pronounced the words carefully.
‘Yai hao.’ Patricia stood up and pushed the pram into the room behind the shop. ‘Come. I will make tea.’
They sat at the oilcloth-covered table, sipping the strangely fragrant tea from the thin china cups. Patricia eyed her shrewdly. ‘You have cried.’
‘No. I mean … yes.’
‘What wrong then?’
Matilda shrugged, staring into her tea cup. ‘I think … I just need someone to talk to. Someone who isn’t a sheep.’
Patricia nodded thoughtfully. ‘I am not sheep. You come to sewing circle then. Every second Thursday afternoon.’
‘Sewing circle?’
Patricia shrugged. ‘We sew. Sometimes we pod peas. We talk.’
‘And they …’ Matilda wondered how to tactfully ask if the other women had invited her, a Chinese woman, to join them.
‘They not ask me to come. Ladies talk about it by the counter. I say, I like to go. They do not know how to say, “We do not want you there”. So I go.’ She gave a slight smile. ‘Sometimes they forget, oh, for maybe five minutes, that I am Chinese.’
‘Then why do you go?’
Patricia put down her tea, and gazed into the pram. ‘I go for my children. New parliament will pass law; no more Chinese come here now. So, who will my son marry? Lots of Chinese men, few Chinese girl. The women see that Mr Doo and Mrs Doo do not run opium den, do not white slave or worship idols. One day maybe they will see that my son is a man, not that he Chinese.’
‘And by then you and Mr Doo will own half the town.’
‘Oh yes. So, you will come to sewing afternoon?’
Matilda stood up. ‘Yes, I’ll come.’
‘Good.’ Patricia hesitated. ‘People talk about a girl living alone too. Not talk so much if they meet her every second Thursday.’
‘Patricia, will you teach me more Chinese?’
‘No. Sewing afternoon is much better for you.’
They smiled at each other, understanding, as Mr Doo came in, and Patricia rose to make fresh tea.
She felt better, riding home, the sweet clop of hooves below her, the afternoon shadows turning the trees blue, the bare land gold, not brown. She had friends, her farm, the green valley with its silver water. Time would pass. One day she would have a husband too, and children.
She tried to imagine a time when she and James might live together, their children at their sides. She would never be alone then.
And if Mr Drinkwater never gave his consent? She and James would still have Moura, small though it was. And they could make it bigger …
A realisation swept through her, so obvious she wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her before.
She knew when it would rain.
It was Auntie Love’s last gift to her. She believed in it like she believed the sun would rise every morning.
In three winters’ time it would rain.
When it rained the price of land would rise. The price of sheep too. Wool fetched a good price now — armies needed uniforms of wool, especially with fewer sheep after so many years of drought. But no one was buying sheep now, except to slaughter for meat.
She gazed around the paddocks on either side, worn to their bones by drought, the idea growing.
She needed to buy land now — all the land she could. There were plenty who wanted to sell, who had abandoned their farms years ago, given up hope they could ever make a block of thistles and cockatoos keep a family.
Then at the end of next summer she should buy sheep — hundreds of sheep, or thousands if she could manage it, with enough hay and grain to keep them for a month or two. Then when it rained and everyone had grass she would be rich. She could sell the surplus sheep to pay her debts.
Moura could be twice the size by then — or bigger yet. Moura could rival Drinkwater, even if it was smaller, its carrying capacity greater with pipes and water troughs, with irrigated forage crops.
She and James could build the farm up together, breeding the best sheep in the country. They might even buy Drinkwater one day, or most of it, if Mr Drinkwater never forgave them and left it to Bertram as he had threatened.
If Moura was bigger Mr Drinkwater would have no power over them at all.
How much money did she have? Enough to double Moura, at least, with land prices so low, as long as she didn’t try to buy too much of the more expensive land along the river. Enough income to pay the interest on a two-year loan, if the price of wool stayed high. For the first time she hoped the war in South Africa would last long enough to keep her wool cheques plump.
But did banks lend money to women? Sometimes — but not when they were nineteen. And not, she suspected, without a male guarantor, even with Moura as security.
Moura … if she mortgaged Moura to buy land and sheep she might lose the lot.
But it would rain. Suddenly she knew it with an even greater certainty than she had felt when she’d heard Auntie Love’s words. For the first time the land felt like it was waiting, the trees sitting dormant, not even blooming in the spring. Waiting, like her, for rain.
She pressed her heels into Timber’s flanks, so that he broke into a canter. She felt like flying, but it wasn’t fair to him to go any faster.
She would be twenty-one by the end of next year. Time enough to buy the land then, to buy the sheep, to convince James to act as guarantor for her, even if he had to send a telegram to the bank to do it next time he was in Pretoria.
It would be hard to convince him that an old native woman would be right about the drought breaking, impossible perhaps by mail. But she was sure he’d agree to guarantee a loan if she thought she could make it pay — especially if it meant they could outdo his father.
In three years she would be done with waiting. In three years she could be rich.
Chapter 50
JANUARY 1902
Dearest James,
I really hope that you are well. It has been more than six months without a letter from you. Your father checks the newspapers for casualties, and every time we are incredibly relieved not to see your name. I am sure your letters will arrive soon — the last lot arrived three together. I suppose the mail has to wait till someone can take it to a ship coming to Australia.
All is good here. Moura is officially 1,500 acres since the sale of McSweeney’s place went through. It has been a hot dry summer — not even a storm for the past three months, but the spring still flows here in my valley.
You remember I told you about planting the spring wheat, one of Mr Farrer’s new strains? It was hard keeping the water up to it, even with our pipes. Mr Sampson and the boys took it in turns to guard it day and night to keep the crop from the roos and cockatoos. Even I took a turn — you would be surprised how good a shot I can be, though the noise is really all that is needed to drive the roos away.
We do not have a heading machine, so could not harvest the grain to sell, but we made a good grain-rich first cut of hay, and stored it in the silo, then took a second and third cut of hay from it too, to store in the old shearing shed. The sheep are grazing the stubble now. It should keep them going for another week at least, before we have to start hand-feeding them again.
There is not much other news. Your father and I have an invitation to look at a new steam tractor next Sunday after church. It is strange, he almost treats me as your fiancée. Sometimes I think he is simply waiting till you come home to tell you he will accept our marriage. Other times I wonder if he just doesn’t want to have his family’s private affairs gossiped about.
The new Australian flag flies now over the Town Hall. I do not know if you will have seen it yet. It has the Union Jack in one corner and the Southern Cross. I liked the design with wool bales and gum trees best, but my father would have liked the Southern Cross. I remember him telling me it would be on our flag one day, and of how he told the time at night by watching ‘the cross turn over’. Your father, though, thinks the official flag the best.
I had better take this down before old Jack passes with the mail or I won’t be able to post it till next week. I will write again, as always. Stay safe, dear James.
With love,
Matilda
She held a candle in the embers of the stove for a moment, pressed a blob of wax onto the envelope to seal it, then wrote the address: Lieutenant James Drinkwater, Her Majesty’s Service, Bushveldt Carbineers via Pretoria, South Africa.
She didn’t bother saddling Timber — the big horse was quiet enough to ride just with his bridle, especially down to the mail box on the road. Hey You ran at the horse’s heels, casting an expert eye over the sheep as they passed. His coat was strongly flecked with grey now, and he slept a lot of the time too, but still padded at her heels when she went out to check the stock, or worked in the corn or vegetables, unless she told him to stay. He was a shadow dog, accustomed to stay with his master, his loyalty to her now.
It was still impossible to realise she would never see the old woman again. Even now she would see a flicker of movement between the trees and expect the old woman to trudge out through the dust on those hard, splayed, ever-silent feet.
The road stretched white and dusty on either side of the mail box. Would she never see a speck in the distance that was Tommy, bicycling out from town? She had just shoved out the spider who lived in the letter box, and stuck up the stick that meant ‘mail to be collected’ when she noticed a rising cloud of dust on the road from Drinkwater.
A horse and rider galloped into view.
She pulled Timber around, and waited for the rider to pass. It was rare to see a galloping horse — cantering or trotting, but no one galloped for long distances, except in a race.
She recognised the man as he drew closer. One of Mr Drinkwater’s stockmen, Henries, that was his name, a white man who she suspected was mostly drunk. He looked drunk now as he reined his horse up next to her. ‘Miz O’Halloran!’
‘What is it?’
‘You got to come. Come now. Mr Drinkwater, he’s taken sick.’
‘You need the doctor!’
The man nodded, out of breath. ‘Goin’ ter get ‘im now. But he wants you. Mr Drinkwater sez, tell you.’
‘I’ll go there now. And slow down. You want to kill that horse before you reach town?’
She dug her knees in to bring Timber to a canter, Hey You running at their heels. Half her mind was filled with worry for the old man; the other, unbiddable, was thinking, if Mr Drinkwater died now what would happen to his land?
She glanced down at Hey You. The dog was panting, but refusing to lag behind. She pulled her horse up, then lugged the dog up before her, holding him on the horse with one hand while she held the reins with the other. It was awkward, but there was no help for it — Hey You would run till his heart burst rather than be left.
Two stockmen sat on the verandah as she rode up the Drinkwater drive: unthinkable, at any other time — workers went round the back. But they were looking out for her. One took Hey You from her and put him down, the other took the reins.
She ran up the stairs, Hey You at her heels. She stopped when they reached the verandah. ‘Sit. Good dog.’
‘Good dog. Good dog.’ The cockatoo danced on its perch. Hey You lay panting by the front door. I’ll have to ask Mrs Murphy to bring him water, she thought, or will the stockmen do it?
She had forgotten to ask where Mr Drinkwater was. But the door to the parlour was open. He lay on the sofa, still in his work clothes, his boots on the floor beside him, his eyes closed. But they opened as she came in.
She kneeled beside him. ‘What’s wrong?’
His breathing was laboured, his face white under its tan and sweating with pain. He made a vague gesture toward his heart.
‘I’m sorry. Don’t talk. The doctor’s coming.’
‘Nothing he can do.’ The whisper was almost too faint to hear.
‘Shh. We’ll see.’ She pulled up a chair, sat and took his hands. They felt cold. Working hands, one nail black, the tip of his little finger gone, despite his wealth.
He took a deeper breath, and then another as though it hurt to breathe. ‘On the table. Read it …’
For a moment she didn’t understand, then saw the mail on the table, a scatter of letter
s, a newspaper, one letter opened, good paper, written in a hand she didn’t recognise, with a newspaper cutting next to it.
‘My dear … my dear, I’m sorry.’
Suddenly she knew. ‘James?’
But there has been no battle lately, she thought, no casualty list. No telegram to say he had been killed or injured. No, she thought, I won’t believe it. He’s going to come home. I will marry him.
Tears slipped along the wrinkles under the old man’s eyes. He shut them tighter, as though he could stop the flow.
‘Shh. Lie quiet.’ She forced herself to settle the cushions under his head before she took the letter and the newspaper cutting from the table. The headline stopped her before she could even glance at the letter.
Australian Shot by Firing Squad and then the smaller headline Prime Minister Protests.
Pretoria, South Africa
At 6 a.m. Australian Lieutenant James Drinkwater of the Bushveldt Carbineers was shot by firing squad after a sentence ofdeath was proclaimed by a British High Command Court-Martial for having shot two Boer officers who had surrendered.
Her legs turned to water. She sat, staring at the paper, trying to make the words say something different.
Lieutenant Drinkwater had pleaded not guilty to all charges, claiming that he was following the orders of Lord Kitchener in shooting all Boer rebels who wore the British uniform. No such written orders, however, were produced at his court-martial.
Prime Minister Barton has sent a telegram to the British High Command expressing outrage at the trial and execution of an Australian without informing the Australian government, and demanding that a copy of the records of the court-martial, claimed to be missing, be at once sent to Melbourne. It is understood that even Lieutenant Drinkwater’s family was not informed, despite a statement by the British High Command that a telegram had been sent to them.
Lieutenant Drinkwater is the son of Cecil Drinkwater, one of the largest landholders in the county of St Andrews. He was born in …
A Waltz for Matilda Page 31
