A Waltz for Matilda

by Jackie French

  All my love, my darling,

  James

  The letter sat in the pocket of her shirt — her new shirt, a man’s shirt, not an old one of her father’s. Ginger Murphy had driven her to town in the Drinkwater car.

  She bought shirts and trousers from the men’s section at the General Store, feeling eyes upon her, the first time she had dared to buy men’s clothes for herself. The district was already gossiping about her. Let them gossip about this too.

  Mr Doo himself took her order for three windmills, a dozen stock troughs and lengths of piping, all on the Drinkwater account. She reckoned she could double the carrying capacity in six months — if she could find the men to do the necessary work.

  But even Mr Doo and Patricia said nothing about James or Drinkwater, though they made polite conversation about the lack of rain.

  What could they say? Congratulations on taking over the station from a sick, sad old man? We are so sorry your fiancé was shot as a murderer by the English?

  What words could anyone possibly have for what had happened to her or Mr Drinkwater in the past two months?

  The stares bored into her all along the street. It was good to sit back on the leather seats of the motorcar, see the last of the houses vanish behind them on the road, see the familiar arch of branches out the window again. It was good to drive past land she had walked over herding sheep to be shorn or dagged, or to gather the ewes for joining with the rams, land she had watched with Auntie Love, seeing the seasons change. Not just the heat and cold but the more complex seasons that Auntie had shown her, each signalling itself in different ways.

  This was her land, hers to understand with a depth that a man like Farrell could never comprehend; hers to plan for in a way that he would never have done. Her land …

  She bit her lip. Would the old man still let her manage Drinkwater when he grew stronger? Or would he take back the partnership even sooner, if a lack of stockmen meant his sheep couldn’t be dagged or even kept from straying over the Drinkwater boundaries?

  We need more fences, she thought. I should have put in an order for that new barbed wire. More fences meant fewer men to herd the sheep, more control over joining, lambing.

  Fences needed men to put them up.

  The car slowed down. She peered ahead. There was a wagon in front of them — a familiar wagon. Mr Murphy began to swerve around it.

  ‘No. Stop.’

  He drew the car to the edge of the road, fifty yards past the wagon. Matilda got out, and waited for it to draw closer again. Two men sat on the front seat; three sat in the back on their swags.

  ‘Mr Gotobed!’

  ‘Hello, girly.’ Mr Gotobed spat out a plug of tobacco. ‘Bad do about your young man.’

  ‘Man’s got a right to shoot the enemy,’ said Bluey.

  Curry and Rice swung himself out of the wagon, and shook Matilda’s hand, as though she was a man. ‘I reckon that Kitchener ought to be strung up.’

  Matilda said nothing. There were words to say about James, she realised. These words, said with understanding.

  ‘Heard you were lookin’ for stockmen,’ said Mr Gotobed. ‘Two quid a week and all found, right?’

  ‘One pound ten shillings,’ she said automatically, then, ‘You want a job? But you’re shearers.’

  Mr Gotobed shrugged. ‘Man gets tired of travelling from shed to shed. Time we settled down.’

  ‘Man’s got a right to settle down,’ said Bluey.

  ‘Told Tiger and Jessup here that your dad were a right good ‘un. A union man to the end.’ Mr Gotobed pulled out another plug of tobacco and began to chew it. ‘I were union rep down on the Barcoo. They’ll work where I work.’

  ‘You understand that you’ll take orders from me,’ said Matilda slowly. ‘And Mr Sampson is foreman now.’

  ‘Old Sampson?’ Mr Gotobed exchanged glances with the others. ‘Well, he joined the union, didn’t he? Stood up to old Drinkwater too. Reckon we can give him a go. Two quid a week, right?’

  ‘One pound ten shillings. Ten pound bonus after shearing. If you’ve earned it. Fruitcake for smoko.’

  ‘You’re on,’ said Mr Gotobed. He paused, ‘That Mrs Murphy’s fruitcake or yours?’

  ‘Mrs Murphy’s.’

  Mr Gotobed nodded. ‘No offence, missy … er, Boss. But her cake’s better ‘n yours.’ He tipped his hat to her, then climbed back into the wagon. He lifted the reins, then paused. ‘I reckon your dad’d be proud of you.’

  The horse began to walk, the wagon wheels rolling in the dust.

  Matilda watched them go; the breeze was whispering the song again.

  ‘And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong …’

  The billabong was gone, but her father, it seemed, watched over her still.

  Chapter 53

  JUNE 1902

  My dear Matilda,

  We have DONE it! You should have been with us yesterday when we heard the news. Sister baked her sponge cake and I opened the last of the elderberry cordial and EVERYONE in the League brought a plate. My dear, we simply FEASTED, and sang songs and toasted the Uniform Franchise Act and Lord Hopetoun and DEAR Mr Deakin until quite ten o’clock at night, and then had to call taxi cabs to take everyone home, and it is quite a haul up the hill for the poor horses.

  Just think, next year you and I and the women of Australia will actually VOTE for the next federal government! I have heard too that Miss Goldstein of the United Council for Women’s Suffrage intends to stand for the Senate in Victoria. We of the Women’s Temperance and Suffrage League must hurry and find our OWN candidates.

  I will write more fully next week, my dear. Just now I am almost too excited to hold my pen to paper. It has been more than twenty years of struggle, but we have DONE it! Now if we can only win the crusade against spirituous liquor too.

  Yours in all joy,

  Alice Thrush

  The westerly battered the windows, and sent the tree branches rattling against the roof. The drawing-room candle flames flickered in the draughts. Matilda stood up. ‘I’ll get a lantern from the kitchen. You can’t read in this.’

  Mr Drinkwater nodded, his eyes on the ledgers in front of him. Every Friday they checked the accounts together, and she told him her plans for the next week.

  He was able to come downstairs now, though any exertion made him pant. He drank more whisky than she liked — more even, she suspected, than he’d drunk before. He said it eased the pain in his heart. She suspected he drank to make other pain bearable as well.

  He was quieter these days, and not just from his illness. He was also stooped so far over that for the first time he was shorter than Matilda. But she thought he was content.

  She looked out the window at the sunset as she placed a lantern on a mat on the polished table.

  Was she content as well? Happy, sometimes, certainly, watching the ducks rise off the river in the early morning light or the sheep trail back to the water troughs at dusk.

  Fulfilled — yes, she felt that too. They’d be able to keep all the lambs this spring — less income to begin with but it would be more than repaid after next year’s wool clip. Despite the worsening drought both the bigger Moura and Drinkwater were doing far better than any of the properties around.

  Mr Drinkwater moved back to lie on the sofa. The wind’s dust and heat were hard on him. ‘So what’s happening next week?’

  She moved to an armchair next to him. ‘I want to write to a new lot of agents in England.’

  He looked at her under his bushy eyebrows. ‘What’s wrong with the agents we’ve got? They gave us the best price yet last year.’

  ‘Nothing, probably. Wool of all classes has been getting higher prices these last two years, but those rams have made a real difference to our quality. It won’t hurt to have two offers for our clips next year.’

  ‘Very well.’ He reached for his whisky. ‘What would you have done if I’d said no?’

  ‘Argued till you said yes. Anyway, you don�
��t say no. You argue till I agree you’re right.’

  ‘A healthy discussion is not an argument.’ He lay back against his cushions. ‘First time I’ve really been able to talk about the place to anyone.’

  She stared. ‘Not James?’

  ‘He was a boy. Then when he was a man …’ He looked down into his glass. ‘We had three weeks, and one of them he spent chasing you.’

  She had to change the subject. ‘Your wife didn’t talk about farming?’

  He gave a bark of laughter. ‘Margaret? No. She hated it out here. You asked once how many I’ve killed. Well, maybe she was one of them. Died when Bertram was born, but I think it was the loneliness and heat that killed her.’

  She thought of her own mother. ‘She could have gone back to the city.’

  ‘I wanted my boys here, and she didn’t want to leave them.’ His voice trailed off. ‘Justice of a kind, I suppose. Now I have neither of them.’

  ‘Give me a mortgage on Moura.’

  ‘What!’

  She almost smiled. She could never have found a better way to change his mood. ‘I want to borrow 600 pounds. Moura is worth that.’

  ‘In the right hands,’ he said slowly. ‘I doubt a bank would give you 600 pounds for it.’

  ‘That’s why I’m asking you.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. The bank won’t lend to a woman. Not even you.’

  ‘Mr Hawkins might, just to make me stop pestering him.’

  ‘Possibly. But he still has to answer to head office. So, why do you want 600 pounds?’

  ‘To buy more stock next winter. More land.’

  He stared at her. ‘You’re already running the biggest spread in the district. How much land do you want, girl?’

  She tried to find the words to answer. ‘You built up this place. I’m just running it — running it well, but it’s still yours. Moura — well, it was Dad’s before it was mine. I want something of my own.’

  ‘Buying land with money borrowed from me isn’t exactly doing it on your own,’ he said frankly.

  ‘It would be if it was a real loan, with interest. I’ll pay it back within two years. If I can’t, then Moura is yours.’

  ‘You’re insane. You can’t make 600 pounds in two years.’

  ‘I think I can. Well, will you lend me the money?’

  ‘Only if you tell me how you think you can make 600 pounds.’

  There was no point hiding it from him. ‘The drought is going to break next winter.’

  ‘What?’ He peered at her from under his white eyebrows. ‘Why are you so sure it will rain, girl?’ Then he added, ‘Was it Love?’

  At first she thought he meant ‘love’ — her love for James or the land. She had always thought of Auntie Love as Auntie, never Love.

  She could lie or refuse to tell him. ‘Yes.’

  He lay back again, his eyes shut. ‘Old Love, eh? Well, she’ll be right.’

  She hadn’t expected that.

  He shut his eyes, smiling at the memory. ‘Love told me when it was going to rain way back in the forties. That was how I made my money, first time round. Every man and his dog was selling sheep for less than they’d bring as tallow. You could buy a farm for a spit and a handshake. Love said it would rain.’ He opened his eyes. ‘So I borrowed and I bought every sheep I could. And then it rained.’

  She stared at him. ‘Auntie Love made you rich?’

  ‘No. That was the beginning though. The gold rushes sent the price of meat up, and then the war in Crimea meant the price of wool rose too. Money means you can make more money. But that first fortune — that came from Love.’

  ‘She was your housekeeper?’

  ‘No. She was my wife.’

  She stared. ‘But … but that’s impossible.’

  ‘Is it? Look in the desk drawer. No, not that one, the other one.’ He took the sketch that she pulled out, gazed at it, then passed it back to her.

  It was of a young woman, brown eyes, black hair in curls down to her shoulders, a white dress, with lace. She was beautiful, and there was a hint of the old woman she would become too.

  ‘You were really married to Auntie Love?’

  He lay back, his eyes distant with memory. ‘Yes. Married properly too. Minister only came every three years back then. Didn’t want to marry us. But in the end he did.’

  Matilda tried to work out the dates. ‘But she can’t have been Bertram’s mother, or James’s.’

  ‘No, of course not. I married Margaret, oh, thirty years ago now. Love left me after … after our daughter died. Just walked out one morning. Never said a word, then she was gone.’

  She said slowly, ‘Her people can’t stay where someone has died.’

  He stared at her. ‘What?’

  He looked out the window — looked further than that, she thought. ‘I didn’t know that. If only I’d known back then. I thought it was me, kept trying to think what I could do to get her back. I’d done things she hadn’t liked …’

  ‘Of course,’ said Matilda wryly.

  ‘I rode the entire district, day after day. Kept thinking for years she might come back to me. If she was alive she would come back, that’s what I told myself. She’d just gone walkabout. Took ten years maybe before I gave up hope. I never saw her again till the day at your house.’

  ‘The time she took off her clothes?’

  ‘That was Love telling me who she was. We had a dozen years together, and every one of them I spent trying to turn her into a white woman. She wore dresses for me, but I never could get her into shoes, except on our wedding day.’

  He smiled again at the memory. ‘She wore them for me then. I found the dogs chewing them the next day. Love never argued. She just did things. If I went too much my own way she’d just go native on me. Take off her clothes, all except the ring I gave her, put on those necklaces of hers.’ He shook his head. ‘She was my wife. My one real wife. There has never been anyone like Love.’

  He looked around the polished wood of his drawing room, the velvet curtains with their golden tassels. ‘I wonder what life would have been like if I’d known. I’d have built another house for her. How could I not have known?’

  Because you didn’t listen, thought Matilda. Just like your son. You loved her, but you only heard what you wanted to hear.

  ‘Mr Drinkwater, Auntie Love was still alive when you married again.’

  ‘So I am a bigamist. Or was. Yes, my dear, I do realise that. Marrying Margaret was a risk. But not much of one, even with the faint chance that Love was alive. It wasn’t usual for white men to marry natives, not legally at any rate. The minister who married us was long gone by then, safe back in England.’

  ‘Then Bertram and James were bast—’ She couldn’t say the word.

  His lips twitched. ‘Biscuits? Illegitimate? Yes. It didn’t matter. I can leave my wealth to anyone I want to.’

  ‘So that’s why you didn’t want Auntie around,’ she said slowly. ‘In case she told anyone she was your wife. That James and Bertram were … illegitimate.’

  ‘No. Never in a million years. Love would never have turned on me like that. I could have had her sent away just by clicking my fingers, and you know it. I just wanted her back. Can you understand? Never mind that the district had changed, never mind what my sons or sister thought.’

  She remembered the strength, the love of the woman they had both known. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I can understand.’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘I loved her,’ he said abruptly. ‘That’s what I called her. Love. Half killed me when she left.’

  He had named her after his own feelings, she thought. Had he even once truly understood hers?

  ‘But you still went shooting natives?’

  He snorted. ‘That has nothing to do with it. Love wasn’t some wild native. She learned English. Wore proper clothes.’ He smiled. ‘Most of the time.’ He looked out at the hills again without speaking. At last he said, ‘You looked after her.’

  ‘She lo
oked after me.’

  ‘Maybe she needed that, more than the tending when she was ill. So,’ his eyes were sharp and blue, ‘you want to buy land from poor unsuspecting, er … biscuits who don’t know it’s going to rain. And you want to buy us sheep.’

  ‘Us?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll take the mortgage on Moura. But in return you’ll buy sheep for me before it rains next winter too.’ He smiled, almost the man she had first met, nearly eight years ago. ‘I’m not too old to make another fortune, girl. Not yet.’

  Chapter 54

  JUNE 1903

  Dear Mrs Hindmarsh,

  I do hope you and your husband are well, and that it was a wonderful honeymoon. It still seems strange not to write to ‘Miss Thrush’!

  It was a lovely wedding. You looked so beautiful in your navy-blue dress.

  It was strange being back in the city. It is bigger and dirtier and noisier even than I remember, but in a funny way smaller too. I have been used to hills and cliffs, and even the tallest building seems small after them.

  On the last morning I took a cab and had the driver take me past Aunt Ann’s house. It was good to see the garden so well loved. I think another happy family must live there now. We went past Mrs Dawkins’s too, but she no longer lives there. Even the factory where I used to work is a mechanic’s shop.

  I also tried to find my friend Tommy’s mother — she used to live only a few streets from the factory — but the neighbours said that she moved three years ago, and they didn’t have her new address.

  It was a little sad and strange to see the old places, but I still enjoyed the visit enormously, and bought a shockingly expensive hat. It is white with green and white feathers. I had myself measured for green shoes to match it, and a silk dress with a green skirt and white bolero, and an evening dress of grey silk shot through with blue. Hopefully the parcel will reach me any day now, so I can astonish Gibber’s Creek with my city finery.

  It is good to be back at Drinkwater. Mr Drinkwater managed with Mrs Murphy to care for him, and Mr Sampson of course is a tower of strength, but I think they were as glad to see me as I was to see them.