“Have you seen one of these before?”
Molly shook her head.
“No? Well, it’s a very clever glass. It helps us see things which are tiny, by making them bigger. See?” She peered into the glass and held it over Molly’s hand by the mother of pearl handle. The tiniest sliver of wood had pierced the skin, and hung there by a thread. Molly pulled away a little.
Finella dropped a purple scalloped shell into Molly’s curled fist. “What do you see now?”
The young girl extended her fingers to hold it better, allowing Finella to scrape the splinter away with her nail.
“The shell. I see it!” Molly marveled at the magnified distraction. When she remembered to look for the splinter, all that remained was a red pinprick.
“All gone?” Her eyes lit up to match her grin.
Finella grinned back. She opened her mouth to confirm the good news but Molly held her hand high and spoke to an unannounced third in their midst.
“Look, Brother, all gone.”
Finella turned. Shadrach Jones stood behind them, his hands jammed in his pockets. But surprise swam in his smile. How long had he hovered there, watching them? Watching her? A quick thud found a way to her throat.
“I don’t know how you managed it, but I think you may have done the impossible. I couldn’t even catch the minx.”
He crouched by Molly’s feet and eyed them both. But those blue eyes, bluer than the sea, flickered over Molly for an instant. When they were done, they settled on Finella and took her in.
“Well.” Finella fiddled with her chatelaine. “We had a few tricks up our sleeve, didn’t we, Molly?” She shifted back a little on the blanket. Aunt Sarah would have words to say about accidently brushing against Mr. Jones’ long legs and bent knees.
“Good tricks,” Molly agreed with a slow distracted nod, still absorbed by the glass.
“I see you two have become acquainted, then.” Mr. Jones anchored his feet in the sand.
“We have. And we also managed to put the splinter problem behind us.”
His smile faded to match the cloud cover overhead. Finella wondered if she’d done something wrong. Perhaps she should not have touched the splinter.
“Miss Mayfield…” He faltered. He looked at Molly who examined her fingernails with the glass, then back at Finella. He looked like a wave that couldn’t make up his mind about running in or rolling back.
“I wanted to speak with you the day of the funeral but you were being cared for by so many.” He pressed one knee to the sand. “I know it’s been a difficult time for you.”
Instinct reared its head and hummed a warning. He was on his knee. Right in front of her.
“I’m hoping you’ll be receptive to a proposal I’d like to make.”
His voice carried a cautious edge. A trepidation of heart both foolhardly and brave. As if he’d pushed himself up a slippery hill, one he’d rather slide off. And yet, he hung on.
She clenched a handful of blanket in her fist. Surely the man did not mean to propose marriage? Was she not to have one simple day in this country without the assault of the unexpected?
She brushed at a dusting of sand on her sleeve. Her answer would bite, even if she delivered it with the pinch of regret she tried to ignore.
“I would not…be receptive.” If his sister were not sprawled against her skirt in such comfortable fashion, she might have said more.
He refused to look away. “But… you haven’t heard it yet. How can you say no when I’ve not yet made the offer?”
Her cheeks flamed and she hoped the wind were the culprit.
“Mr. Jones, with my father’s encouragement, my correspondence with Mr. Gleeson lasted two years. I agreed to our engagement after much gentle courting, and even then with the knowledge I was agreeing to marry a man I hardly remembered. You cannot suggest I make another, less agreeable arrangement, with him only just buried?” She let her voice soften a little. “I’m not so lacking in choices I would agree to a marriage of convenience. I am not a young widow with children hanging off my apron.” She hoped to convince herself as equally as she hoped she might convince Mr. Jones.
He frowned and opened his mouth to continue but Molly turned to Finella.
“Our George died.” Molly’s words pressed at the wound they all carried. “So did my mum.” She turned her cheek away and found a resting place for it in Finella’s lap.
Her words and warmth proved Finella’s undoing. With trembling fingers she found Molly’s hair and stroked the wind chased strands off her pretty face. And to her horror, right there on the sand with a perplexed Mr. Jones staring at her and Molly pressing her to the blanket, Finella began to cry.
*
Shadrach had no idea how it had gone so horribly wrong. He stretched his legs in front of him, careful not to touch her. Were all attempts at conversation with Miss Mayfield to end in misunderstanding and tears?
False as her assumption of marriage may be, it came with a stab of rejection.
Less agreeable arrangement, she’d called it. Well, for her information, he wasn’t offering marriage.
At least, not today.
The temptation to tell her exactly what George suggested occurred to him, but only for an instant. He wasn’t that cruel. Being parceled from one groom to another would not bode well for any girl, and right now he needed to set her straight.
Molly comforted her the only way she knew how. By resting in Miss Mayfield’s lap. Or was it Miss Mayfield who comforted Molly? Something about the way they slumped together stirred a new hope in him. Deep in the chest where she’d just kicked him.
“You have no fear of a marriage proposal from me, Miss Mayfield.” Not today, that is. “Mrs. Lawson told me you were on the beach and I came looking for you.”
He waited for her to look at him but she kept her eyes on his sister.
“I’m offering a position as companion to Molly.”
Her fingers stopped moving and she stared at Molly’s shoulder. If she saw the scar, she didn’t ask questions he was not prepared to answer.
“In the month she’s been with me, we’ve worked out an adequate daily routine, but it would be better for her to have the guidance of a woman. Someone to teach her how to manage. To take better care of her own needs.” To show her how to live.
He let his words trail off. Was she even listening? Red blotches stained her face, but those lashes, heavy with tears, barely moved until she looked from her hands to Molly and finally to him.
“You’re offering work?”
“I am.”
“As companion to Molly?”
He nodded. “And teacher. Not school work. Household tasks.”
Until such time I can honor my promise to George and convince you to look at me as a more ‘agreeable arrangement.’
“Where would I live?”
“With Molly. In my house. I’ve a skillion next door. I built it last winter for storage. I can throw myself a bedroll on the floor. I’m gone most of the day so I’d expect you to teach Molly the duties of keeping a home. She’s capable of learning but I’ve not had the time to show her yet.”
Miss Mayfield blinked against the wind. “How is it your mother didn’t teach Molly?”
“Our mother worked for a Ballarat laundry business. As a washerwoman she could only afford to live in a boarding house.”
He stopped. Miss Mayfield’s mouth had slipped open, as if he’d confessed they’d once lived in the Tower of London.
“Ballarat? You mean the goldfields?”
“Yes. But not during the rush. Later, anyway…” Why did that even matter? Shadrach focused back on Molly’s story. “Simple meals were part of their boarding fee. Molly knows how to scrub clothes but there are many things I’ve discovered she doesn’t know. Mum kept her close, in a way I can never do and work my farm.”
Miss Mayfield swallowed. Hard.
“I can’t offer paid work. My farm is only starting to yield a living. Enough to keep us fed a
nd warm, but you’re welcome to share in whatever we have. I know you can’t stay in the church house much longer, and I need someone for Molly. I thought perhaps we could be of help to each other.”
She looked to the sea. “I’ve already written to my aunt in London. I’ve asked her to come and get me as soon as she is free to travel.” A fresh wind played over the shore and Miss Mayfield shivered in its path. “I never wish to journey by ship alone again.”
Shadrach nodded. He must have said something right. So far she hadn’t said no.
“If I were to accept, it would be a temporary appointment. I suppose I could teach Molly, but you must know when Aunt Sarah arrives, I shall leave. If all goes well I expect that will be in three months. That’s all I can promise.”
Shadrach unwound a smile and hoped it stayed put. If George believed Shadrach had it in him to look after Miss Finella, then three months under his roof should give him ample time to convince the lady herself.
“Agreed. Until your aunt arrives.” He tapped his sister’s shoe with his knuckle.
“Miss Molly, we have chores waiting for us.” And three months to keep a promise to George. The terms might be hers today, but he’d work to change all that.
“How about we collect you from the church house tomorrow afternoon?”
Miss Mayfield breathed in a deep, slow breath as if she gulped for the antidote to dread. “I’ll need to help Mrs. Lawson pack the last of George’s things, but we should be done by then.” She brushed Molly’s shoulder and his sister stirred.
He would’ve offered his hand to the two young women but they helped each other stand. Molly silent, just when he needed her to cheer, and Miss Mayfield, equally thoughtful.
“Molly and I are grateful you’ve agreed. You may have come along just when we needed you most. Isn’t that right, Sunny?”
Poor in enthusiasm, Molly had little to add. Even after he used her favorite pet name. Lost in her own thoughts she stretched and looked beyond his shoulder to the sea.
The notion of Miss Mayfield coming to live with them had not landed in Molly’s heart the way it did his, and he tried to ignore the small thrill spinning in his chest. But it rattled, all the same, like a prized jack-bone he’d won as a boy and toyed with in a loose fist for days.
Miss Mayfield shook the blanket and folded it. When it sat neat and straight in the crook of her arm she turned to Shadrach, her eyes wide, her breath short, her voice a whisper.
“Sunny?”
“Our mother used to call her that, sometimes.” He reached for his sister and brought her closer. “She drifts easily. I use whatever I can to draw her back.”
Miss Mayfield nodded, but her fingers trembled and she buried them in the blanket.
“I know what it feels like to lose a mother at fourteen. Unlike Molly, I had my aunt and father to keep our home as I’d always known it.”
She straightened her shoulders, much like the blanket she folded into readiness for whatever service it might offer next. “So, I agree to be a teacher and companion to your sister, Mr. Jones, because I believe God is offering me the chance to lift someone who needs me. My aunt taught me there’s always someone who needs us. If I didn’t believe this was my calling I would never have agreed to come to Australia in the first place.”
Molly screwed her heels into the sand and Miss Mayfield steadied her with a touch to the arm. “Perhaps, for a season, that someone is your sister.”
7
October 4
I have cast away my mourning clothes. Locked them away in a trunk and I am not ashamed to have done so.
Not to mourn any less, but to offer some gladness to Molly. Besides, I cannot suffer that crinoline hoop a moment longer and I swap it for a simple white shirt and lavender skirt to please the young girl.
Sometime this afternoon, Molly will become my charge, to be cared for as one of Mr. Gleeson’s lambs. I will do this in tribute to him.
To mark this day I add to my Everlasting its first bloom. Petals from the Little Noonflower. Mrs. Lawson tells me it’s common in these parts and grows well in sandy soils. I fan open its tiny purple petals and hope God will see in me the same desire to open my heart to Molly.
I have stood where she stands. Motherless girls should never be alone. Least of all one such as Molly. It took her one afternoon on the beach to wriggle into my lap, and further still, into a crevice in my soul I didn’t know existed.
No one comforts me the way she does. She offers no words to dismiss my sorrow. No instruction to put away my tears. And I hear no mention of the will of God.
Instead, she lays her head against my knee and without shame cries and stays there, pinning me so I have nowhere to run or hide and I find myself wrapped in God’s comfort anyway, and with a heart full of tenderness for Molly Jones.
*
Finella helped Mrs. Lawson pack George Gleeson’s remaining belongings. Together they braved the threat of rain to add them to the items in Mr. Jones’ already crowded wagon. He’d collected her trunks from the jetty, and little room remained in his wagon for what they crammed under a dirty oilcloth.
The good people of George’s congregation deemed it only right his possessions should pass to Finella. But even greater generosity prevailed in the heart of Mrs. Lawson who wrapped two loaves of her own bread, along with a pan of lemons and a jar of honey. A final wink from her as they pushed off failed to reassure Finella.
“Huddle under the oilcloth.” Shadrach Jones covered his sister’s shoulder and beckoned for Finella to take the corner. “There’s a dumping of rain coming.”
Finella shivered, and as if by instinct, Molly snuggled into her under their makeshift tent. But it was not the cold which shook Finella.
The fault lay firmly on the soles and sides of Molly’s shoes. Slippery roads and pathways did not make for a warm welcome and Finella’s heart churned at the sight of Molly’s well-worn boots, encrusted with a generous slap of mud. Red mud.
Their house must be surrounded by it. Finella’s heart skidded.
Caked with a thick layer, Molly left a rusty smear wherever she set foot. Finella imagined Mr. Jones did the same. If their shoes carried inches of farm dirt, Finella’s first task would be to scrub the front step and teach Molly to wash the door from lintel to stoop.
“Good thing, this rain. Most folks ’round here just seeded their fields. Last night’s downpour was heaven sent.” Mr. Jones didn’t seem to mind not sharing their oilcloth. Instead, he looked very pleased with himself. Against a grey sky, his blue eyes flashed at her like gems. She looked at them for a moment longer than she should. Long enough for him to grow his smile into a grin.
Oh no you don’t.
Finella buried her head under the cloth and determined to keep it there. Was Shadrach Jones looking for smiles? While they dodged a slow but persistent rain and his horse negotiated the slippery road ahead?
The track became a water-filled ditch and her stomach dipped when the wagon rattled ahead with a huge splash. Molly drew closer.
“We’ve got mustard,” she whispered. “On our farm. And chicory.”
Finella smiled. How long had it been since she’d shared a secret whisper under a cover like this?
“Do you?” She whispered back.
Molly nodded. “And I’ve got shells.”
“You must be a very busy girl, Molly. Are you ready to learn a few new things?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Shad said I didn’t have to.”
“I said nothing of the sort.” Mr. Jones snapped the reins and hurried them through a puddle the size of a duck pond. “Don’t let her tell tales, Miss Mayfield. She knows you’re here to keep her company and that includes learning a few things, too.” He leaned into Molly, “And you’ll learn them with none of your mischief.”
Steady rain set in and Molly drew away from her brother while Finella pulled the oilcloth even tighter.
“You don’t spin tales do you, Molly?”
Molly smeared mud on
the board at their feet and shook her head. She nursed her lie as if it were a newly hatched gosling, impossible to hide in her lap.
“I hope not. My Aunt Sarah says, the truth is a heavy load to carry, but those that do are free.”
A drip of rain fell from the tarp overhead and landed on her nose. She wiped it away with her wrist before Finella could remind her to use a handkerchief. If indeed she even had one. Right now, she sucked on the end of her braid, the tip lodged in her mouth.
First thing I’ll teach you, Molly Jones, will be to wipe your shoes clean on wet grass, at our earliest opportunity. All other good manners will follow on those clean heels.
Rain dribbled through the eucalyptus branches. With the neat wooden houses of Cowes behind them, they now passed freshly plowed fields. Clearings where wet animals huddled together in soggy pastures gave way to thick groves of tea tree and the smell of camphor filled Finella’s lungs. That and wet earth, fresh mud, and damp oilcloth.
Soon, Mr. Jones turned his horse onto a narrow red track. It wound under trees Finella didn’t recognize. White bark with a pink underbelly hung in strips from the trunk.
They stopped for him to open a farm gate. The simple entrance marked by a rough hewn crossbar on a homemade hinge.
She tried to spot wildflowers for her Everlasting, but nothing caught her eye. They must all be ducking the weather. She was not surprised. She had deliberately kept her head down for most of the journey and even with eyelids half closed all she saw was the rain and the road ahead.
And Molly’s dirty shoes.
*
“Go straight in. I’ll load these things into the skillion.” Mr. Jones jumped into a large puddle. Splashes of mud didn’t slow him down and Finella found herself roused from her huddle with Molly, and deposited on the ground.
She lifted her boot to the squelch of brick-red putty. The pull of the fat clod matched the sinking of her expectations and repulsion raced through her body. She inched her way along the wagon to a drier patch of earth. It wasn’t a puddle but it was no cobblestone pathway either.
A wattle and daub hut sat in the midst of the same mud which lapped at Finella’s hem. Mr. Jones must have thought it much grander than that. He called it a house. He urged Molly to take Finella in and they both slipped through the mud to lean on the outside wall and secure their slow steps. Finella’s fingers touched the same dried mud which now clung to the sole of her shoes. It was everywhere. Underfoot at every step, and in every horizontal crevice of every wall. Only the wood shingled roof escaped the same treatment.
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