It all felt wrong. You shouldn’t need a path to walk through the bush. Papa and Captain Jacobs might take weeks to get to Port Harris if they had to slash their way through vines like those. And without water.
The young man led the way now, with Mama holding Angus’s and Hannah’s hands. Mrs Talbot and Mrs Feehan walked together, holding up the trains of their old-fashioned dresses, which were so much longer than the new style Mama had bought for herself and Hannah in Sydney. Mrs Talbot panted red-faced in the stays she had insisted her daughter lace for her, despite the heat.
Up a small rise, then down into a gully. The tree ferns were twice as tall as Hannah here, like strange silent sentinels guarding a small pool reflecting treetops and a slash of sky. Its dark banks were worn with animal tracks.
‘Fresh water,’ Mama breathed. She looked at the young man. ‘Is it safe to drink?’
He nodded.
Mama bent and tasted the water, then gestured to Hannah and Angus to drink too.
Hannah knelt and drank thirstily, then splashed water on her face, cool and fresh and wonderful.
Mrs Talbot hung back. ‘You don’t know what’s been drinking here!’ she objected.
‘The same things that drink from any water supply, even if it comes out of a tap,’ said Mama briskly. ‘Is it far now?’ she asked the young man.
He shook his head, then walked on, at times pushing the vines aside for them all to pass.
Hannah glanced behind them. It was impossible to tell the beach was so close; only the looming headland was visible. Any smoke near here would have been hidden from the captain’s eyeglass.
The pool soon narrowed to a trickle of creek meandering through ferns. The scrub closed around them again, seemingly unending. The path grew slowly steeper. Mrs Talbot was wheezing like a horse after a gallop by the time they reached the top.
And suddenly the ceaseless monotony of trees and tree ferns stopped. This was a human world, changed and tamed by humans, a shock after the silent vastness of the forest.
This world grew distant rocky peaks, like starved mountains, their cliffs gleaming sunlight, and below them gentle hills, grass covered, where the forest had been cleared to reveal their shape.
The land in front of them was carved into straight lines: a rectangular orchard with trees sloping down the hill; a paddock of neat rows of corn, the cobs already fat; another paddock sloping upwards with tough-looking grass being lazily cropped by half a dozen brown-eyed Jersey cows.
‘Moooo?’ One of the cows stepped towards them, as if hoping for apples, just like the house cows did at Ferndale, Hannah’s grandparents’ property and Mama’s old home.
And there on top of the hill was a house. Not a stone mansion like Ferndale, or a stone or brick cottage like most of the houses at Lyrebird Creek, but a single-storey house made of unpainted sawn planks with a shingled roof. A cluster of wattle and daub sheds stood behind it, and a long rough stone building like the dairy at Ferndale. A thread of smoke wisped from the house’s single chimney.
Mrs Talbot gave a cry and ran towards the house, lifting up her skirts. Mrs Feehan followed her.
Mama took Angus’s hand, then Hannah’s. ‘Thank you,’ she said to the young man. ‘You saved our lives. Do you work here?’
‘Yes.’ It was only the second time he had spoken. ‘You better go down to the kitchen. A cuppa tea’s better than a drink from the creek.’ His English was clear and unaccented.
‘You’re not coming?’
‘Got something else needs doing.’ He turned and began to run back down the path to the beach.
It was strange, but everything was strange now. Hannah and Angus followed as Mama strode through the orchard as if she didn’t mind that her hat and veil were gone and anyone could see her scars, or her bedraggled skirts with their sandy hem. Hannah looked at her own white dress. Somehow it had become streaked with reddish brown. Angus’s sailor suit was filthy too. But there was nothing they could do about it.
The farmhouse’s door opened. A woman looked out. She was Mama’s age perhaps, in a dress that might once have been any colour but was now a faded grey, and an apron that had once been a hessian sack.
‘Jamie?’ she called, and then saw the women, ‘Oh, my dears.’ She ran towards them.
Mrs Talbot sank to the ground, sobbing. Mrs Feehan tried to comfort her.
Mama blinked away tears. ‘We’re safe,’ she whispered. ‘Safe at last.’
And for the first time Hannah realised how scared Mama had been too.
CHAPTER 5
MRS ZEBEDIAH
The woman introduced herself as Mrs Zebediah, and led them to a water trough to wash the salt from their arms and faces. Mama explained about the men cutting their way over the headlands.
‘Don’t you worry about them,’ said Mrs Zebediah, handing them each a soft towel, made from old flour sacks. ‘There’s a track goes right over the headlands from Port Harris. There used to be a timber camp there. Your men will meet up with the track soon enough.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s terrible thinking of you spending the night on that beach when you could have been safe and warm here.’
‘I don’t suppose you have a horse and cart we could hire?’ asked Mama, making sure Angus’s face was clean.
‘We’ve only a handcart,’ said Mrs Zebediah apologetically. ‘But if you don’t mind waiting till late this afternoon the Harris plantation’s railway line is only just over the hill. The men have been clearing new cane fields under Eagle Rock.’ She nodded towards the nearest of the skinny mountains, bald and shiny as a needle among so much green. ‘The train only runs during harvest to haul the cane down to the mill, but the foremen use the trolley to go back and forth to the fields. Jamie can signal them to take you to Port Harris. It’s only an hour’s walk from here, but you poor things look too done in to walk it. And I reckon you’re all perishing for a good cup of tea.’
‘A cup of tea would be wonderful,’ said Mama longingly. Mrs Talbot and Mrs Feehan nodded.
‘I’ll have fresh scones for you in five minutes,’ promised Mrs Zebediah.
‘Scones!’ said Angus. ‘With jam and cream?’
Mrs Zebediah smiled. Even with a side tooth missing it was a lovely smile. ‘There’s cream from the cow, and jam from the trees.’
‘Monkey loves scones,’ Angus informed her.
The kitchen took up half the house, a wood stove at one end, a scrubbed wooden table and plain wooden chairs at the other, as far as possible away from the stove’s heat, with windows placed to catch a breeze. The floor was stone, the windows curtainless, but the room smelled of countless good meals, and the tea was sweet and milky, even if served from unmatched crockery. And the first batch of scones was ready in five minutes, just as Mrs Zebediah had promised, and then another batch and then another, served with a cracked bowl of thick cream, a tub of butter in a bowl of water to keep it cool, and two kinds of jam; one dark and one light orange, and both wonderful.
Angus gulped down what might have been his twentieth scone. ‘May I be excused to take Monkey to meet the cows please?’
Mama glanced at Mrs Zebediah. ‘The lad can’t come to any harm out there,’ she said. ‘Them cows eat from my hand. Here, take a few scones to feed to them.’
Angus and Monkey vanished out the door. Hannah wondered where the young man who’d led them here had gone, and if they’d see him again before they left. Was he the ‘Jamie’ Mrs Zebediah mentioned, or was Jamie her son or another farm worker?
‘I’m just sorry I don’t have any bread to offer you,’ apologised Mrs Zebediah, putting another plate of scones on the table.
‘Don’t you worry about that, my dear,’ said Mrs Talbot graciously, scraping the last of the jam from one of the pots.
‘Your scones are a hundred times better than any bread,’ said Mama gratefully. ‘You are so kind, caring for us like this.’
‘I’m just doing what anyone would have done,’ said Mrs Zebediah, bringing out another jar of jam f
rom the cupboard. It had been sitting in a tray of water to keep the ants away, and she wiped it quickly before setting it on the table. ‘It must have been a nightmare, stranded on the sandbank like that. Pirate’s Cove has always been treacherous. None of the fishing boats will go there.’
‘Pirate’s Cove?’ asked Mrs Talbot, suddenly tremulous again. She glanced around as if she expected a pirate crew to dive through the open windows waving cutlasses.
‘I reckon he wasn’t no real pirate,’ said Mrs Zebediah quickly. ‘Just a ship’s captain who made a fortune trading in the islands. But his ship stuck on the sandbar, just as yours did. The ship was lost but the captain brought the treasure to shore and buried it, right there in the cove.’
‘Did he ever dig it up?’ asked Hannah.
‘Ah well, it was long ago, before my time. But people say the first mate made it to shore too. They quarrelled—’
‘A sword fight!’ put in Hannah eagerly. ‘Just like Treasure Island!’
Mrs Zebediah shook her head. ‘Never heard of that place. But anyways the captain and the first mate killed each other, so no one knows where the treasure was buried.’
‘But if they killed each other how did anyone even know there was treasure there?’ demanded Hannah.
Mrs Zebediah laughed. ‘You’re a clever girl. That’s just what I said first time I was told that story. It’s a tale, that’s all. But I just feel so bad that Jamie didn’t see your ship before. He usually goes down to the beach every day — he keeps his fish nets down there. But he’s been picking strawberries all week — you have to pick them every day or they rot in weather like this — and I was making jam to take to the market.’
‘He’s a well-behaved young man for a darkie,’ ventured Mrs Feehan.
Mrs Talbot sniffed.
She probably thinks he should have bowed to her and said, ‘Yes, madam’ and ‘No, madam’, thought Hannah.
‘Has he been with you long?’ asked Mama quickly, before Mrs Talbot could say anything insulting.
‘All his life,’ said Mrs Zebediah shortly. She pushed the new jar of jam towards them. ‘Try this one. It’s rosella.’
Mrs Talbot tasted it. ‘It’s a bit like plum jam. Your butter is excellent too. There was only salt butter on the ship, months old if I’m any judge.’
Mrs Zebediah’s expression lightened. ‘I sell jam and butter in Port Harris every Saturday. That and fresh fish and vegetables. It’s all we produce here now.’
‘Not sugar cane?’ asked Mama.
Mrs Zebediah shook her head. ‘Not since my parents’ time. Dad cleared this land. He planted out twenty acres of it. But after he died the mill wouldn’t take our cane anymore.’ She didn’t explain why. ‘My husband and I grew bananas for a time, then he died too. Bananas are too much work now it’s just Jamie and me. We only grow enough cane now to boil up to make my jams. But we get by.’
But only just, thought Hannah, looking at the stained rag rug by the hearth, the mismatched mended china. Even the chairs and table and bench were made of bush logs, sanded smooth, but still showing bits of bark and uneven edges. Butter, cream and milk seemed plentiful though, and flour from the sack in the corner, but they seemed to have no other food, apart from a giant bunch of bananas hanging from the ceiling, green on the bottom and ripening on the top, and a couple of strings of onions.
‘Mum?’ The young man reappeared, a sack over his shoulder. ‘Here you are. I netted you a bag full. The fish are really running after the storm.’
He emptied out eight big fish and a few small ones onto the bench opposite the door, as well as a giant crab that immediately tried to escape down onto the stone-flagged floor. He grabbed it, and thrust it into a bucket.
Mrs Zebediah’s face lost some of its worry. ‘Fish! Thank goodness. I was afraid all we’d have for lunch would be corn and potatoes, and that’s not fit for company. Set the table, there’s a good lad.’ She turned to the women, smiling. ‘I’ll have a fish stew ready for you in the time it takes to dance a jig. Oh, you’ll like my fish stew. I put tomatoes in it—’
Mrs Talbot ignored the words, staring at her. ‘Did that native boy call you Mum?’
Mrs Zebediah flushed under her tan. ‘Yes. Jamie’s my son.’ Her voice was proud, apologetic and apprehensive. She looked at the three women, waiting for their reaction. Jamie watched them too, his face expressionless.
Mrs Talbot stood quickly, as if cockroaches were climbing up her legs. ‘Come, Letty. This is no place for decent people.’ She took another two scones, well buttered and already loaded with jam, and marched from the room.
Her daughter gave Mama a quick apologetic look and ran after her. They carefully didn’t look at Jamie. He stood totally still, as if hoping if he didn’t move he would be invisible.
Her son, thought Hannah, staring at the young man, and then at Mrs Zebediah. How could a white woman have a black son?
Mrs Zebediah covered her face with her hands. She began to sob.
‘Oh, my dear.’ Mama moved her chair and put her arm around her. ‘I am so sorry. Such poor repayment for all your kindness. Jamie is a fine boy.’ She flashed the young man a smile. ‘One any mother should be proud of.’
Jamie stared back at her, still expressionless.
Mrs Zebediah lifted red eyes to meet Mama’s. ‘I am proud of him,’ she said, but her voice shook.
Hannah looked at the boy again. He carefully didn’t meet her gaze, his expression still impossible to read.
‘His father . . .’ stammered Mrs Zebediah, then seemed to find her voice again. ‘His father came from the islands, brought here for the sugar cane. Dad had ten workers from the islands back then. But after Dad died I had no money to pay them, so Mr Harris took over their contracts. Mr Harris wanted this land, you see. That’s why he wouldn’t take our cane at his mill, and there’s nowhere else to take it. But I wouldn’t sell, not after Dad and his brother slaved to clear the land and build this house. But Zebediah didn’t leave with the other workers. Zebediah said the contract had been with my dad, and anyway I needed him, even if he got no wages. And so he stayed.’ She looked at Mama with a touch of despair. ‘I know it was wrong, him and me marrying, but he . . . Zebediah was so kind. I couldn’t have managed without him. And then Jamie was born and . . . and no one would work here after that.’
‘No one visits neither,’ said the young man suddenly, looking at his feet instead of at Hannah or Mama. ‘I’d leave if I could. Then people would talk to Mum again. But she’d have no help with the farm if I left. It just ain’t fair on her.’
‘It isn’t fair on you either. But the world isn’t fair,’ said Mama softly. ‘Yet how can love be wrong? We’re all the same under the skin. Come and sit down, Jamie.’
He blinked at her. ‘At the table with you, missus?’
‘My name is Mrs Gilbert. Yes, of course. Sit here with me and my daughter and have some of these scones. You must be starving after rescuing us and catching all those fish just now.’
‘Fish is easy in a net.’ But he sat gingerly between her and Hannah and reached for the teapot. He poured himself a cup without bothering with a saucer, hesitated, then passed the plate of scones to Hannah.
She smiled at him. ‘No thank you. But they are delicious.’
He nodded cautiously, meeting her eyes for the first time. He had lovely eyes, big and brown. His hands looked too big for his body, the palms lighter than the rest of his skin.
‘It breaks my heart,’ said Mrs Zebediah softly. ‘What future has Jamie got here? The townsfolk and farmers won’t talk to him either.’ She looked out at Mrs Talbot and Mrs Feehan, who were sitting on the post-and-rail fence, their backs turned ostentatiously to the doorway. ‘They won’t want to be eating my fish stew, I’m guessing,’ she added bitterly.
‘I’d love to eat your stew,’ said Mama, with an angry glance out the door. ‘I suspect they will too when they get hungry. But we’ve imposed on you enough already. Insulted you too.’
And e
aten your food, thought Hannah. Mrs Zebediah had said that selling jam and butter and vegetables was how she made her living.
‘Mrs Zebediah, I am more sorry than I can say that ignorant people,’ Mama carefully didn’t look at the women outside this time, ‘judge you like this. Back on my parents’ property down south, the best stockmen have dark skin, and our housekeeper, Mary, too.’ Mama smiled. ‘She brought us all up. Mother prefers horses to children.’
‘Mama, Monkey wants another scone.’ Angus raced back in, full of energy despite all that had happened. He clambered onto Mama’s lap while she buttered a scone for him.
‘What brings you north then?’ asked Mrs Zebediah. She stood up and pulled some onions from their string, then began to slice them. ‘Are you taking up a plantation?’
‘My husband has been appointed schoolmaster at Port Harris,’ Mama explained, handing Angus his scone.
‘School,’ said Mrs Zebediah wistfully, putting the sliced onions and a slab of butter into a blackened pan on the stove top, and stirring them with a long wooden spoon as they softened. ‘I wish with all my heart Jamie here could get some learning. He might really be able to do something then. Work in an office even! But I don’t have none to teach him.’
‘You’ve never gone to school?’ Mama asked Jamie, surprised.
Jamie shook his head, his face expressionless again.
‘Mr Andrews wouldn’t have him,’ said Mrs Zebediah simply. ‘There’s no school for any of the Islander children. And there weren’t no school at Port Harris when I were young, so I can’t read, or write neither, except for my name and Jamie’s.’
‘What? But that’s appalling. The Education Act says that every child in Australia must be allowed to go to school.’
‘Not at Port Harris,’ said Mrs Zebediah, still stirring.
Mama’s gaze hardened. ‘Well, things will be different with my husband there.’
Mrs Zebediah gazed at her with desperate hope. ‘My Jamie could go to school?’
The Schoolmaster's Daughter Page 3
