“There’s nothing to think about. You must come away with me, this night. I won’t have you stay here a day longer than you have to.” She tapped the table, as if it were to blame. Cold and untouched, tea sloshed over the top of her cup and pooled into the saucer. A single drip stained the Christmas cloth Finella had only just laid on the table. The happy start to their festive decorating. Was that only this morning…?
“I know what this is.” Aunt Sarah continued. “I should have thought of it earlier.” She turned to Agatha, as if Finella were not even in the room. “The trauma of losing both her father and Mr. Gleeson must have turned her mind. She’s a sensible girl. Raised better than this. I cannot imagine why else she would agree to live and work, and marry into these conditions.”
She slipped on her gloves. “Come along, Finella. Mrs. Ashe offered me a room for the night. I’m sure the invitation extends to you, too, and I don’t doubt that includes a bath.” She waited, hand held out.
Finella’s lungs felt as if that very hand commanded the air to leave the room. She held onto the back of a chair and tried to breathe.
“I am sensible. That’s precisely why I live here. Caring for Molly is the most sensible thing I’ve done.” And loving Shadrach, but she knew not to waste those words right now.
Her aunt’s face flushed crimson. “And did you cast any thought to where you might eventually put me? Did it not occur to your sensible mind that I would soon arrive and need somewhere to stay?” She viewed the two beds, one in which Molly now lay with her back to their visitor.
“I assume the other bed is yours?”
Finella nodded. At least it was properly made and covered with one of her own quilts. No doubt, Aunt Sarah would have recognized it and known there was no other bed for her in this room.
“We didn’t expect you to arrive for another few weeks. Your letter said in the New Year, and we’ve been busy making bricks for an oven.” Finella heard the rambling in her words. She took a deep breath and started again.
“I hadn’t yet talked to Shadrach about where you might sleep, but there would have been a solution.” She rummaged wildly in her head for one now. “Molly could share Shadrach’s skillion, while you and I sleep here.” Her tepid smile did little to boost her confidence and the quiver in her lips worked against her.
“Regardless, I have no intention of staying. When you wrote to tell me you’d secured work with a local farmer, I assumed a wealthy farmer, with a generous property, other staff, and accommodation suitable for a governess.”
“I assure you, Miss Mayfield, your niece has done a sterling job here.” Agatha ventured. “My husband and I can vouch for the tender care Finella’s shown Molly. The entire community knows it. You have every reason to be proud. And Shadrach Jones is one of the finest men on this island.”
Aunt Sarah breathed through her nose. “Pride is a sin, Mrs. Ashe. In the absence of her father, it’s my duty to point out, she is living under the same roof with an unmarried man.” She turned to Finella. “Did you really think your father would approve of this arrangement?”
Heat and tears welled in Finella’s eyes. “I arrived to much less than you thought I would find, Aunt Sarah. And I made the best of something awful.”
“Be that as it may, you asked me to take you home. And I promised your mother I would never abandon you.” Something gentle tempered her words. “You don’t belong here, Finella, and I intend to remedy that, and make sure your mother and father’s memory is never sullied with an unsuitable match.”
She gathered a basket from the floor and dropped it onto her vacated chair. “Gather whatever of yours is at hand and we’ll send for the rest another day. I shall wait outside,” she opened the door and recoiled, “in whatever vile smell wafts over this place.”
*
Shadrach couldn’t care less about carpets and hat racks. They could rot into sawdust for all he cared. At his sapling door, handkerchief to mouth, Aunt Sarah stood straight as a constable.
“Why’s she outside?” he mumbled under his breath.
“Probably doesn’t like your drapes,” The preacher chuckled softly. “Or perhaps she fancies your fresh sea breeze.”
Shadrach’s chest constricted. He knew Goliah was having fun with him, and after suffering an afternoon with Finella’s aunt, he guessed the man deserved to let off some steam.
“There you are, young man. I do hope it’s no trouble to send you back for the horse and buggy. I assume you’ve only just taken care of the animal, but we are about to leave, if you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Ashe.” Sarah Mayfield adjusted her sleeve cuff.
“Leave?” Shadrach wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “Is something wrong?”
She peered behind her and pulled the sapling door shut. “My niece and I will be staying with Mr. Ashe and his wife. We’ll send for her things in the morning.”
“In the…” Shadrach looked from the woman to Goliah. “What?” His pulse quickened.
Aunt Sarah held a handkerchief over her mouth before answering. “I think there’s been a mistake. I won’t stoop to believe there is anything untoward going on here. I see my niece is truly taken by your sister and her affection is honorable. Only, it’s misplaced. Finella is not the kind of girl for farms and…brick stacking.” She waved, as if pestering flies assaulted her on all sides.
Shadrach wasn’t sure the earth didn’t tilt a little, and his vision narrowed onto the woman in the shadows who proposed the opposite of what he’d only just secured.
The aunt’s chin lifted by another degree. “Finella’s been trained for much more, and when she’s ready to hear it, I will tell her of the position I have already found for her. With a young parson in London. He’s looking for a suitable bride. I’m sure you’ll understand, Mr. Jones. You can find a maid, or whatever Finella is to you, anywhere. They’re teeming in Melbourne. I’ve been told.”
Shadrach stared at her. The woman must be mad. It happened to some who sailed over.
“I’m sure it’s not your fault, entirely.” She looked away. “Let’s agree the sudden death of Finella’s fiancé has pushed her to hide away in this pocket of bush. In the confusion she seems to think she belongs here, but I assure you, after a decent rest she’ll find herself once again.”
Find herself? Shadrach’s mouth dried to dust and he swallowed what felt like a fist full of ash.
“With respect, Miss Mayfield. I think you’re confused. Finella does belong here. She’s not hiding. From anything.”
“Mr. Jones,” she spoke as if it were a great imposition just to utter the words. “I am old and tired. I have spent months on a ship which passed over waters where my dear brother is buried. But it’s neither weariness nor delusion which prompts me to speak.” She sniffed. “It’s soot.”
“Soot?” Shadrach and Goliah spat the word out in unison.
She delivered a curt nod. “I know my niece better than anyone. She would rather die than live with mud or dirt. She hates it more than I, if that were possible. And now, only five months after I bid her farewell I find her living in a shepherd’s hut with no regard to the ash on her face and foul stench of this place.” She shook her head. “She needs my care more than I imagined.”
“She doesn’t need you at all.” Shadrach knew his voice rose above what he should use for an elderly guest. But he didn’t care. All he cared for was in his shepherd’s hut and Sarah Mayfield stood between them.
“She needs people to stop making decisions for her and for them to move aside so she can do it on her own.” He wanted to bundle her aboard the first rowboat off the island. “Finella knows what she wants. If you only stopped long enough to ask, she’d tell you so herself.”
Like a slow sink hole the hut door opened.
“I’m ready.” Puffy redness rimmed Finella’s eyes, but her face still held the playful fingerprint he’d smudged there earlier. She gripped a small basket like a shield and kept her eyes down.
“Ready for what?” He ignored Agatha Ashe who shook her head at
him. “Finella? Look at me?” He grabbed the handle and shared the light load with her. “Where are you going?”
Finella’s lip trembled. “Molly’s fallen asleep. I don’t want to wake her. Tell her I…” A small sob escaped her and she took a flutter of breaths. “Tell her…”
Shadrach touched his fingers to her chin and drew her face to him until their eyes met. Tears stuck to her lashes and she blinked through them.
“Tell her my Aunt Sarah needs me, and I owe her…”
Shadrach waited. His heart smashed against his shirt the same way it did when he thought he’d lost Molly in the bush. Only this time, the girl he loved was about to walk away, right under his nose.
“She’ll be resting at the church house with me.” Her aunt moved in and took the basket away from them both. “Thank you Mr. Jones.”
Her lips pinched tighter, if that were possible, and she dug into the basket. “I expect there’s no clean handkerchief in here.” She rooted around and drew a napkin out. “Your mother would upend her grave if she knew, but this will have to do.” She dabbed at Finella’s dirty cheek with one of the Christmas napkins he’d seen Molly admire countless times since she’d washed them.
“You can’t take that.” Molly crept out. “That’s my mum’s napkin. You can’t take it away.”
“Molly, dear.” Finella whispered. “Go back to bed, dearest one. You’re probably dreaming still.”
“But …” Molly rubbed her eye with a soot covered fist. “The napkin…”
Shadrach wanted to grab his sister’s dirty hand from her eye, but Finella beat him to it. He wanted to lock them in his one room house and tell everyone else to move off before he forced them off his land. More than anything, he wanted time to erase the last hour and take them back to a world where a little soot on one’s collar hardly mattered.
Finella cradled Molly’s hand. “Remember when we washed the Christmas apron? Remember I said my mother made it when I was a very little girl? She made the napkins too.”
Molly shook her head. She wriggled until her hand came free and pointed at Aunt Sarah. “You can’t steal from us. The napkin’s not yours. And neither is Finella, and we won’t let you take her away.”
36
Finella couldn’t walk away from her girl like this. Not even with Aunt Sarah breathing instructions into her ear. Confused and babbling on the doorstep they’d learned to call home together, the young girl looked to Finella for answers.
So did Shadrach.
Like a captain about to issue orders lest his ship capsize, his heaving chest threatened a bellow of words. Finella didn’t know who to turn to first.
Didn’t any of them know how hard this would be for her? Did they think she could just bid her aunt farewell, after so many months and losses they’d not yet grieved together?
Finella concentrated on the weakest in their midst. If she could shepherd Molly back to her bed, and spend a day in Agatha’s sweet smelling parlor with Aunt Sarah, perhaps she might plead her case and return with her blessing.
To Molly and the farm by the sea, and the man whose blue eyes begged her to never leave it.
She crouched beside her girl. “Molly dear, Aunt Sarah doesn’t mean you any harm.”
Molly frowned. “She told me, Finella. My mum did. She said her name was Bessie, but when she was a baby they called her Elizabeth. And it says right there on the napkin. E for Elizabeth. I’m M for Molly, but my mum was E. Like this one. Aunt Sarah can’t have it because it’s my mum’s.”
Finella tried to follow the logic. Her head ached and the push and pull at her ankles sent a shake into her limbs she feared would only grow. “The napkin?”
“Perhaps they look something like you remember of your mother’s.” Aunt Sarah leaned in. “But I promise you; this is the handiwork of Finella’s mother, Emma Mayfield. I sat with her while she stitched them. All six of them. Finella was only a baby that Christmas. And I packed them myself into her possessions before she departed.”
Molly raised her head. “Six?” She snatched Finella’s basket from Aunt Sarah. “One, two… three, four, five.” She dropped the basket and collected the napkins to her belly like an owner cheated of her possessions.
Finella stood. There had been six, but now there were five. How had that memory stolen its way into this day? She wrapped her arm around Molly’s shoulder.
Aunt Sarah looked at Agatha. “The set is incomplete now, but I can vouch they were made by my sister-in-law.”
Molly scrunched them into a ball at her chest. “That’s a lie. You can’t have everything.” She spat her words at Aunt Sarah, who reeled and flattened her palm to her chest.
“You can’t take my mother’s napkin, and you can’t take our Finella. Her name is on the brick.” She choked on a sob. “Brother’s going to marry her and you can’t tell us what to do.”
Molly pushed through the small crowd of people, stumbled to the safety of Shadrach’s skillion and slammed the door behind her.
And no one stopped her.
*
Finella reached into the skillion first. Heavy with tears, her eyes burned only a little less than her heart. As expected, the girl crouched on the floor in a corner. Scattered around her, Finella recognized the possessions she’d once unearthed in her hunt for a tablecloth. Who knew what she searched for now?
Sucked into the corner of her mouth, the end of her braid didn’t stop her from crying.
“Molly, dear.” She squatted beside her. “Please don’t cry. Aunt Sarah can be a little frightening, but she didn’t mean to scare you away.”
Molly wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Aunt Sarah lied.” Her words caught on another sob. “Look.” She thrust the napkins into Finella’s lap. “See? Six. I know my numbers. Up to ten.”
Six napkins? There hadn’t been six since…. Finella’s legs crumbled and she could not have held herself up if they’d been girded with iron rods. Her skirt folded over the linens and together with Molly, they drew them out. One by one.
Three in Molly’s grip and three in Finella’s.
“How, how can this be?” Six, not five napkins, all with the same cherub and trumpet and embroidered E in one corner.
“Which one is yours?” Finella’s heart bled a sickening beat.
“This one.” Molly sniffed. “Mother hid it in her sewing. She said it was special. It’s because it has an E for Elizabeth, isn’t it? They called her Bessie, but she was really Elizabeth. She told me.”
Finella dropped the others and held Molly’s find up to the light of the open door. Elizabeth, Emma. Was it possible another woman with the same initial had worked the same design? It matched the pieces of the incomplete set Finella never imagined would find its missing sixth. Only this one carried a peculiar mark. A stain, not present in the others. A rusty blood-like wipe.
Shadows filled the doorway and Finella lowered the linen. Aunt Sarah and Shadrach crept in, while Goliah and Agatha remained just outside.
Aunt Sarah reached for her hand. “You’re greyer than an ash pit. Give me that.”
Molly’s crying stopped and Shadrach leaned against the doorframe. Time and sound stood still.
Aunt Sarah turned the handiwork over. It trembled in her withered hand, and Finella saw for the first time, how it matched the sadness in the old woman’s aged jowls. Perhaps it was the shadows in Shadrach’s small skillion, or the memory of happier days, but Aunt Sarah withered right there when the lifeblood drained from her body and out of her hand. She passed the napkin back.
“This is your mother’s work,” she whispered. “I would stand in a court dock and testify I watched her stitch it.” She laced her fingers together and pressed them to her mouth. “But it’s been missing since the day a thief stole her basket and left her for dead.”
Finella looked around the room, miles from her childhood home in Chingford Green. “But, how would it come to be deep in your mother’s belongings?” She trained her eyes on Shadrach. “How?”
He
shook his head. “I don’t know how.”
Molly leaned on Finella’s shoulder and stood. “Mum wrapped the spider with it. She let me hold it sometimes when my head hurt. She said the spider would buy Shadrach a home for us.”
“A spider? What’s the girl talking about?” Aunt Sarah extended her hand for Finella to rise.
“Brother knows.” Molly looked to Shadrach. “Remember, the spider with the gems. The one Mum gave you.”
Shadrach looked at the floor as if the answers to their quandary were written in the dust.
“It wasn’t a spider, Molly. It was a bee, with a ruby body and seed pearl wings.”
Aunt Sarah snapped her head around. “Did you say a bee? With seed pearl wings and two,” she held up her own two fingers like pincers, “garnet eyes. Tiny stones?”
Shadrach looked from Finella to Aunt Sarah. “Yes, a ruby body and red eyes. Didn’t look too friendly, no wonder Molly thought it a spider.”
“Never mind that.” Aunt Sarah straightened. “How in God’s good name did you come to have these in your possession when the last time they were seen were on Emma Mayfield, the day she was attacked?”
“My mother gave them to me, when I left for Melbourne. She gave me two things. A pouch of gold dust and the brooch. Made me promise I’d sell only if I came across a place to make a good home for Molly. When these lots came on the market, I bought the land with a pouch of gold.”
“And you didn’t wonder where she got it all?” The tremble in Finella’s voice rose in an audible quiver. She was not sure she wanted to hear the answer, but someone had to ask the questions. “Shadrach? Do you know how your mother came to have my mother’s embroidery and brooch?”
Shadrach ran his hands through his hair and sat on the edge of his pallet. His long legs jutted out like the limbs of a trapped colt in a pen not his own.
“She gave it to me the day I left Ballarat. My dad had only been back a few months and I couldn’t bear to be in the same house with him. She pressed it all into my hands in one of her own handkerchiefs. Told me it was never hers in the first place, but I always thought she’d found it in someone’s pocket. She’d found gold that way too.” He looked up at Finella.
Carry Me Home Page 25
