*
There was no question in Finella’s mind. She would not spend another day on Shadrach’s farm.
She sat by the late afternoon fire and finger-combed her freshly washed hair. Molly had been a fine helper and considering the day’s dramas and hasty meals, Finella was not surprised the girl now slept. The familiar sight of her dream-lit face galvanized Finella’s resolve.
She had to get out. And she would do it fast. No more thinking or praying. Her gut told her all she needed to know.
With a light tap at the door, Shadrach let himself in.
“Better?” He stood on the threshold, hand still on the door latch.
Finella nodded, but her gesture hardly matched her mood.
Shutting the door to a new wave of rain, Shadrach pulled a chair for himself and sat near her.
“I’m guessing the bath revived you and sent Molly scrambling for bed.”
Finella nodded again. A lump the size of a goose egg crowded her windpipe.
“Shadrach, I want to leave. Tomorrow morning. And if you’ll let me, I want to take Molly with me.” She caught her fingers in the loops of her crocheted shawl.
He stared, mouth open. Then shut. He sat back and looked at her sideways.
“You did knock your head. Are you dizzy?”
“I’m not sick, Shadrach. I’m scared.” She gathered the shawl closer and dropped her hands into her lap. “I won’t stay here another day. And I don’t think Molly should, either.”
“Because you slipped in the mud? You want to leave because of a simple fall? And take my sister with you?” He shook his head, disbelief in his voice. Even to her ears it sounded a little mad, but she would not be moved.
“I can’t live here. I know that now. To you, it’s … it’s only a puddle of rainwater. A small hiccup the sun will fix, someday. But to me….” She bit on the tremble in her lip, but even that could not keep her tears from falling.
She fought against the flood which threatened to shame her and focused on his fists where they tapped against his knees.
“Tell me.” His low plead resonated against the sound of rain on the shingled roof. “Why is this all so hard for you?”
His blue eyes didn’t accuse or force her. His confusion deserved an answer. With her hand still caught in the fringe of her shawl, she brushed at her tears. Could she tell him? Would he care? The fire snapped and so did a floodgate deep within her, long held back by weariness and Aunt Sarah’s version of decorum.
“The winter I was Molly’s age, my parents visited the family of Ben and Alice Brown. They’d had scarlet fever in the house and lost their baby son. It wasn’t far from our parsonage so my parents walked there. Alice was George Gleeson’s sister, and he was visiting too that day, although I hardly knew him, back then.”
She shuddered and the well-known story came to life from where she kept it hidden. “On the road home, two men stopped to ask for directions to an inn just past Chingford Green. Father said they looked like they’d been on the road for days. One was only a youth, the other much older. Both unshaven and dirty. Father pointed them in the direction of the tavern, and the men started on their way but turned back.”
Shadrach leaned in and pressed his lips together, as if to keep his words in, and hers flowing.
Emboldened by his attention, she continued.
“Mother had already delivered the meal so her basket was empty, but the younger one plucked it from her anyway. The older man teased him for grabbing nothing of worth. He said, ‘Watch how it’s done, you whip-shy baby.’ He tried to snatch the brooch at Mother’s neck, but my father fought him off and told Mother to run, and that’s when the thief knocked Father to the ground.”
Flames from the fire rose and tangled with the story in her mind. The heat, already pulsing in her head, grew. She’d never shared the account in such detail. Not with someone outside the family.
But sitting beside Shadrach’s fire, with him sinking into her story, Finella let the words land where they might.
“Mother ran to a nearby cottage. Mara Green lived there then. She never cared for her own person, let alone her house. Birds nested in the roof and the pathways lay in a twist of thistles and puddles.”
Tears filled her eyes and the vision of Shadrach blurred, but not the events of that day.
“Poor Mother must have slipped on her way down Mara’s path, because when Father found her, much later, she was unconscious, the brooch ripped from her collar, a gash in her head so deep they would not let me see her for hours when they brought her home.”
Finella shook her head, still unable to reconcile her heart with her mother’s fate. “She lay on her bed for two days, gray and clammy until life drained out of her completely. All she asked for was his name. The man who robbed her.”
She didn’t dare close her eyes for fear the bandit might appear before her. Like every nightmare in which he’d appeared that winter. “George Gleeson recognized the younger man. He’d been a suitor of his sister’s but had run away to Australia to make his fortune. I remember people whispering he’d come back too late, too drunk, and too poor in the pocket for Alice Gleeson. When no one could tell Mother who the other man was, she whispered, ‘If only we could name him. God have mercy on the unknown soul.’ And that’s when we lost her.”
The fire spat and hissed but Finella’s shoulders shivered with a chill no flame could ever slake. “We lost her. Because a lazy old woman couldn’t keep her yard safe.”
Shadrach cleared his throat but kept silent until Finella looked up at him.
“Finella.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’m so sorry you lost your mother like that. I can only imagine your grief.”
“Then you can also imagine how I never want to see another person snatched the same way.” She tapped at her chest with her fingers. “Nor be that person myself.”
“That’s not going to happen here. I promise.” He gathered her hands, fringe and all in his own and held them tight. “Your mother was running from an evil man. There’s no need to run here. Why, you saw Molly herself, hop and skip across the yard with ease.”
“You can’t make that promise.” She shook free. “What if Molly decides there is a reason to run. You and I both know, anything can happen with her. In a heartbeat. It happened to me.”
She rubbed at the bruise on the back of her head.
“Finella.” He pleaded and leaned closer. “This is different. So many things are different here. Please, don’t go. Molly needs you.”
“That’s why I want to take her with me. Mrs. McLachlan might take us in. I can find work in Melbourne until my aunt arrives.”
“And then what? Take her back to England with you?” He shook his head. “I promised my mother I would take Molly. Not give her to strangers.”
“I’m not a stranger, not anymore. She trusts me. And I have a soft spot for her, too. Please, Shadrach. Think about it for a minute. You can work here unencumbered, and Molly can mix with other people, learn to fend for herself. I would never put her in harm’s way.”
He rested his elbows on his knees and pressed his forehead to the tightly coiled fist of each hand.
“No.” He looked up again. “Absolutely not. I won’t allow it. We had an agreement. You and I. Until your aunt arrives, you will teach her, here.”
He scraped the chair back a fraction and let his pointer finger rest on the table beside them. “I never offered anything else but work for you here. If you want to leave, I won’t hold you to your promise. I’ll drive you into the village as soon as the rain stops.”
Molly mumbled and nestled into a new position, gathering the covers closer.
“But you can’t have her,” he whispered.
Finella expected the fight.
She’d lined up her arguments hours before like ammunition, yet still, the thought of hurting him slowed her down. But she couldn’t let it stop her.
“She needs a woman more than she needs you. Not because you don’t care
for her, but a young girl needs a woman to help her enter the years ahead. Believe me, I know this bitter lesson firsthand.”
“Then stay here and be that woman. That’s always been our agreement.”
“I never agreed to live in a bog. My shoes are wet all the time, Shadrach. Our hems forever damp and now I have a lump on the back of my head. I don’t want to face anything worse.”
He straightened against the back of his chair. “Would you still feel like this if the rain stopped and everything cleared by tomorrow morning?”
Finella played with the button on her sleeve cuff. “That’s not going to happen though, is it? You’re the one who told me the rain is God’s business.”
“And who better than God to sort it all out, then?” Half a smile played on his lips, but Finella would not let him sweeten the argument with talk of God. Where had God hidden deliverance when her own mother lay in the mud with a cracked head?
“I’ll wait. Another two weeks. If there’s still a mud pit every time I step outside that door, then…”
The soft tap of rain filled the silence and the unspoken settled around them.
“So it’s two weeks, now?” He knotted his arms over his chest. This tall farmer, who was used to swinging his farm gate open or shut when he pleased.
Finella tried not to look at him. “Or, you can let me take Molly to Melbourne sooner. Give her a finer future than she’ll ever have here alone with you. I’ll write you letters every week and tell you how she’s faring. And you won’t need to tie her up to do your chores when I’m gone.”
She knew it sounded harsh, but her head throbbed now and she was in no mood to look for kinder words. She rubbed at a bruise on her elbow. “We both know I’m not here forever.”
He exhaled softly. As though he might start with a fresh argument. Instead, he stared at her until it almost hurt as much as the bruising.
He stood. “Two weeks then. Unless God intervenes.” He tucked the chair back under its place at the table where it scraped like an angry groan against the packed dirt floor.
“Let me know if your head hurts. I keep some powders in the skillion where Molly won’t find them.”
And with that he slipped into the steady rain leaving Finella to finally understand what her aunt meant by a hollow victory.
16
Days of constant rain kept Finella and Molly indoors and trips to town or church remained well off the calendar for another fortnight.
Trapped by weather determined enough to lift an ark, the ever-growing pools outside their door grew, and kept Finella and her young charge busy with the lessons Shadrach required. Finella carried too many bruises to forget how much trouble she’d faced the last time she ignored his instructions.
Not that he issued many more. He appeared at the table for hurried meals, his hair often plastered to his head from working in the rain.
How the man dried without a fire, Finella could only guess. Blue and shaking, he sought the hearth each time he came indoors, but hardly lingered once he’d finished his food.
They spoke no more words about Finella leaving, but the sky whispered the inevitable everyday in sheets of misty rain.
While Molly still refused to cook by the fire, she no longer avoided the vegetables Finella brought her to dice and chop, and so food preparation delivered the girl to her seat at the table, where she now peeled apples.
Against a steady stream of rain to lull the senses, drowsiness stole into the hut each afternoon as sure as the overflowing gullies and tracks which gurgled through the farm.
Finella paced the one room house, littered with drying washing. Thunder rumbled overhead and she pressed articles of clothing strung above their heads to her cheek to feel for dryness. She hung a shirt over a chair again and stood with her back to the fire.
Something sounded different. More than rain. A noise she didn’t recognize spilled into the yard with a whoosh and crash.
She opened the door. Shadrach stood shovel in hand before a pile of white rocks. Water cascaded from the top of his head, down his neck and into his soaked shirt. Old Lou and the wooden dray stood not too far off with a larger load of the same rocks.
He straightened and arched his back. “Did I wake Molly?” he called.
“No. She’s peeling apples.”
He flicked the hair from his eyes. “I might make more noise the closer I get to the house.” He had to yell to compete with the downpour. “Go back in. You’ll get wet standing there.”
Finella squinted against the spray. Had he gone mad to work in a flood of rain?
“What are you doing?”
“I said, go inside.” He motioned with his hand for her to get back. “Can’t a man do his chores without having to give reason? Beside, this is between me and God.”
Finella pushed at the door until only a crack remained. The cold wind bit into her cheeks but curiosity kept her watching. Shadrach jumped onto the bed of the dray and scraped the contents onto the ground.
Molly snuck her head under Finella’s arm.
“What’s Brother doing with shells?”
“Shells?” Finella peered. “I thought they were rocks.”
“No, that’s shells.”
Perhaps the man had gone mad. Why else would he work in drenching rain? But shells? She shut the door. Had her request to leave with Molly pushed him so far? Is this why he hardly spoke to her anymore?
She knew people who lived in the bush could lose their minds for lack of someone to talk to, but surely this was not happening here? Was it?
She opened the door again. “Shadrach.”
Crashing shells fell with the rhythmic dig and toss of his spade. Chalky colored mounds littered the yard like anthills, and still the load in the dray looked like it had hardly been touched.
She cupped her hands and screamed into the cacophony. “Shadrach!” How could she compete against wind, rain and… shells?
Either he couldn’t hear her or didn’t want to. With his back to the house he continued to work until Finella shut the door and faced Molly.
“If he’s not already sick, he’s going to be. Very soon.” She banked the fire, thankful the farm’s stack of kindling and logs kept dry under an oilcloth. She snatched all of hers and Molly’s damp things from where they hung and brought anything of Shadrach’s closer to the hearth. Finally, she pulled the kettle over the fire and prayed it would not take an eternity to boil.
“Do you know what he’s doing?” she quizzed Molly.
“Maybe he’s bringing me more shells. He only lets me take a pocketful each time. Maybe he wants me to have more.”
A louder crash and rumble sounded from the yard, this time just outside the door. Molly dragged the chair to the wall and pushed Finella’s newly hung lace curtain aside.
Finella followed, but she couldn’t see much. Tempted to look out again, she squeezed at the latch and inched the door open.
From the other side, Shadrach threw a spadeful of shells in her direction. They crashed just short of her feet.
“Shut the door, Finella.” Water dripped off his trembling lips and chin but he didn’t break his shoveling. Another scoop landed in her direction.
Finella slammed the door shut and backed into it for good measure.
This wasn’t a simple bad turn. This was delirium.
*
Shadrach shoveled as if fuelled by a furnace. He’d mourned the loss of drier days, more suited to burning and crushing his shells into dust, and wrestled with God, the giver of rain, for too long.
No, he would not be fixed with misery a moment longer.
If she wanted a yard where she could walk from one end to the other and not risk even the tip of her shoe on one blade of wet grass, he would give it to her. Or he would die trying.
At first he wanted to rip shell pyre apart and snap each timber into splinters. It did him no good, sitting there soaked and useless. Then he saw it for what it could be.
He’d pulled each branch out, collapsing
the structure he’d labored to build, until a small mountain of shells remained. Not enough to fill the yard, but enough to make a good start.
But he wanted more than a good start.
So he’d visited Rhyll beach again and filled the dray with more. Days of driving rain slowed his efforts but failed to hamper his resolve.
With Old Lou now in the barn, he swapped his shovel for a rake and drew the shells into long lines. Wide paths he’d give her, wide enough for her and Molly to walk side by side. Arm in arm, if she wished. And if he were lucky, she might even take his arm as well.
From her door a path would snake to the left, all the way to the garden, the outhouse and down to the beach track. One to the right would pass his skillion, all the way up to the barn. And one more would lead from the house, across the yard to the orchard where, if the weather allowed, she could hang the wet clothes that filled the house today.
He added another generous spadeful to the puddles nearest the door and watched the rain wash every trace of red earth off the shells and back into the clay below.
He tried to focus, but the paths blurred. He blinked away raindrops that clung to his lashes. Tomorrow he’d walk Old Lou over each pathway and crush it down.
Today… a wave of dizziness washed over him and he grabbed the rake to keep steady. Today, he just needed to sit. Today, was all he had left.
*
“Brother? Wake up.”
“Molly, don’t poke him. Here, put this on his brow.” Finella handed Molly another cool cloth. “Is he still hot?”
Molly touched her cheek to his. “Burning.”
Finella turned to the fire where a pot of broth simmered. She didn’t know what to do if he didn’t wake soon. No matter how much she stirred the soup, it did him no good if he couldn’t eat it.
She’d done everything she knew. Dragged his body in with Molly’s help and stripped every piece of soggy clothing off him, covering him in great haste with a dry apron from her makeshift indoor washing line.
In a frenzy she’d pulled her own mattress onto the floor, dragged it by the fire and lugged him onto it.
Covered with her quilt he lay there for hours, under the vigilant watch of his sister. If he did ever choose another dog, it would never love him as faithfully.
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