‘Of course!’ declared Mama.
Jamie glanced at Hannah. She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
‘You’d love school,’ she told him. ‘Papa is a wonderful teacher. I’m going to learn algebra this year! And study Shakespeare and Homer and all kinds of things.’
He smiled for the first time, but cautiously, as if there was something dangerous about smiling at girls. He had a lovely smile, thought Hannah. Some people just smiled with their mouths but Jamie smiled with all of his face.
‘What’s algebra?’ His voice was soft and tentative, as if he wasn’t used to having conversations with outsiders.
‘A kind of maths, number work, but you don’t get to learn it till you’ve passed the exam.’ Hannah had received top marks in the exam, one of the highest marks in all of New South Wales, Papa had said proudly. ‘But there’s going to be lots of other things to learn at the Port Harris school now that Papa will be the schoolmaster,’ she added proudly. ‘Like geography — that’s about other countries. And astronomy — that’s about the stars.’
She suddenly remembered the astronomy books were at the bottom of the bay, with everything else they owned. But Papa knew so much he’d still be able to teach until new books could arrive.
‘Some schools don’t teach much of anything,’ she added, ‘but Papa knows everything. And Mama teaches poetry and piano and sewing.’
Jamie and Mrs Zebediah looked bewildered.
‘I don’t know about my boy learning sewing,’ she said. ‘Nor how he could learn the piano. The only piano I know about is the one in the Town Hall.’
Mama laughed, and her scar twisted in little ridges. Hannah realised neither Mrs Zebediah nor Jamie had asked about the scar, or even stared at it.
‘We’ve been promised the school will have a piano. Boys don’t learn sewing. Though it wouldn’t do any harm for some of them to find out how to sew their buttons back on,’ Mama added wryly.
‘What’s poetry?’ asked Jamie.
Mama looked surprised. ‘I’m not sure how you’d describe poetry. It’s not just having words that rhyme at the end of every line, though most poems do. Samuel Taylor Coleridge — he was a very famous poet — once said poems were “the best words in the best order”.’
‘The girl,’ Jamie nodded at Hannah, ‘said some words down at the beach. They sounded funny, but they sounded right too.’
Mama smiled at Hannah. ‘I think I’ve passed on my love of poetry to my daughter. The words she quoted were from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “Break, Break, Break”. There’s more of it.
‘And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!’
Mrs Zebediah gazed at Mama. ‘That’s what it’s like with Zebediah gone,’ she whispered. ‘O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still. But I never had a way to say it.’
‘That’s why we learn poetry,’ said Mama gently. ‘So that we have the words when we need them, to understand what we feel. But they can be all kinds of emotions, not just sad ones. Come, my friends, ’T is not too late to seek a newer world,’ she quoted. ‘That’s by Tennyson too. My friends and I used to say that to each other when we were campaigning for votes for women. It seemed impossible we might ever win.’
‘You mean women can vote now?’ asked Mrs Zebediah, looking startled. ‘Jamie and I never get to hear the news much,’ she added apologetically. ‘Just what I overhear at the market on Saturdays.’
‘We don’t have the vote quite yet,’ said Mama. ‘But when the new Federal parliament meets later this year — one for all of Australia, not just the states — they’ll pass a law giving us the vote.’
‘I wouldn’t know how to vote. I’m not too clear on things like states neither,’ admitted Mrs Zebediah. ‘Is that the kind of thing that gets learned at school too?’
Mama nodded. ‘But the first thing everyone learns is reading and how to form their letters.’
‘I can do my letters,’ announced Angus.
‘No, you can’t!’ said Hannah.
‘I can write my name. Monkey can write his name too!’
‘Children,’ said Mama warningly. She turned to Mrs Zebediah again. ‘Angus starts school this year. It will be an honour to teach the young man who rescued us too.’
‘You’re a teacher?’ Mrs Zebediah looked puzzled. ‘I didn’t know women were allowed to do things like that.’
‘Single women can teach the infants, or at a school with only a handful of students, but you’re right. A married woman isn’t allowed to be a teacher. Women who are married to a schoolmaster usually help at the school though. I wanted to be a teacher once.’ Mama brushed back the hair that had come out of the neat bun she’d fixed the day before. ‘I was sixteen, and Mr Gilbert had just come to teach at the school on my parents’ property. My brothers were at school in Sydney and I had a governess.’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘I used to stand on tiptoe and watch Mr Gilbert through the window. I fell in love with him through that window. There were two Aboriginal students in that school but he didn’t seem to notice the colour of their skin. He didn’t even seem to notice my scar.’
‘Nothing wrong with a scar,’ said Jamie unexpectedly. ‘Shows you’ve lived.’
‘You are a wise young man,’ said Mama softly. ‘I wish the world was as wise as you.’ She looked back at Mrs Zebediah. ‘School term doesn’t begin for another two weeks. But don’t worry about Jamie being behind the others. There are always pupils who begin school late: girls who’ve had to look after younger brothers or sisters, or boys kept to work on the farm, till the school inspector finds out and says they need to go to school.’
Jamie looked at his mother with desperate eagerness. ‘Can you manage here without me, Mum? I could get up real early to do what’s needed here first.’
‘Miss a chance of you going to school? Of course we can manage,’ Mrs Zebediah said, then added to Mama, ‘You . . . you really think Jamie can read and write? Read newspapers and write letters?’
‘I don’t just want to read newspapers,’ said Jamie, with his first hint of defiance. ‘I want to learn poetry too.’ He nodded at Hannah. ‘I want to learn all them other things she talked about.’
‘Like what the moon is made of, and where you’d be if you sailed in a straight line from here and just kept going, and why trees are green,’ said Hannah softly.
He stared at her. ‘How do you know I want to know those things?’
‘Because those are things I asked Papa. He said we don’t know what the moon is made of, but it isn’t green cheese like some people say, and that if I sailed in a straight line I’d hit New Zealand. But that was back home — our old home — so maybe it’s different if you sailed from here. My . . . my book with maps of the world is under the sea now.’ She tried not to think what else was under the sea.
‘What about trees being green?’ Jamie asked.
‘That’s because they have chloroform—’
‘Chlorophyll,’ corrected Mama.
‘And they use that to turn sunlight into energy to grow by photosynthesis. But that’s complicated to explain.’ Nor could Hannah quite remember Papa’s explanation.
‘I can find out all that stuff at school?’ Jamie asked.
‘At my papa’s school you can. He likes people asking questions.’
‘And there’ll be poetry?’ insisted Jamie.
Why was he so insistent about the poetry, Hannah wondered, if all he’d ever heard was the bit she’d recited on the beach? She loved poetry, but she’d grown up with it. When she’d been small Mama or Grandma had recited a poem to her every night before she went to sleep.
‘I give the pupils a new poem to learn each week,’ Mama was saying. ‘That way they always have the words if they need them. We usually begin with “Beth Gelert” — it’s an exciting poem, as well as a sad one.’ She looked seriously
at Jamie. ‘I think you will be our star pupil.’
The look Jamie gave Mama in return made Hannah cry. She wiped the tears away angrily. She was tired, that was all, and shaky from the terror of that little boat and the giant waves and the roar of the storm in the night. There was nothing to cry about!
Except Mr Vandergeld and the poor lost ship and all her books, their pages waving underwater, and the ship’s cat, still somewhere near the beach. And a boy who had never even learned to read but now would be able to, with Papa as the schoolmaster.
She looked up to find Mrs Zebediah looking at her sympathetically. ‘It’s been a long day for you, hasn’t it, love? And more still to come. Jamie, you go and pick some tomatoes and lemons and corn, and I’ll have the fish done in three shakes of a cat’s tail. Then you best go and wait by the train line in case the men come back early.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
Jamie turned away from pretending to hold a scone to Monkey’s mouth to make Angus laugh and headed out the door. Mrs Talbot and Mrs Feehan, still behaving ostentatiously, turned their heads away from him as they spoke in whispers to one another.
Clucking insults like a pair of old chooks probably, thought Hannah. After today she hoped she’d never have to see them again. Soon Hannah and her family would be in their new home at Port Harris. The school year would begin again. A new bigger school for Papa, a new life with reading and poetry for Jamie, and happiness for his mother, and a new nation of Australia.
And everything would be wonderful.
CHAPTER 6
THE HARRIS PLANTATION
‘Good morning to you, Miss Gilbert,’ said Mr Harris’s maid, Catherine, in her strong Irish accent as she placed a bamboo tray with its glass of fruit juice and a plate of biscuits on the table by Hannah’s bed. The young woman wore a black serge dress with a white apron and frilled cap, like a waitress in a café.
Hannah blinked up at her from the pillows, still half-asleep. ‘Good morning. Is my father back safely?’
‘They’re all back, safe and sound as can be,’ Catherine said as she gathered up the vast white mosquito net that covered the bed into a neat bundle.
It was a gorgeous bed, with a heavy silk bedspread that Catherine had pulled back for Hannah last night, and soft linen sheets — all that was needed in this house high on the hill with carved breezeways above each door to catch the sea breezes. Hannah propped herself up on the big feather pillows, and smiled. The wonderful new life had begun!
Catherine stepped over to the windows and pulled back the curtains, letting in a sun that was too strong, but not as fierce as the light reflected from the sea. Tall-trunked palm trees waved outside, sending dapples across the rich reds and blues of the Persian mat on the polished wood floor.
Hannah had never seen a room like this before. Its walls were polished wood too, instead of being covered in paint or wallpaper. The ceilings were higher than she had ever known, with long canvas fans across the ceiling to make a breeze when you pulled one of the ropes by the bed or the door. The window was the biggest she had ever seen too, taking up almost all of the outside wall, except it wasn’t really a window but a door because it opened out onto the veranda.
‘Your bath will be ready in your dressing room next door when you want it,’ Catherine said. ‘I’ve been laying out a fresh dress too.’
‘But . . . but I don’t have any other dresses.’
‘Oh, you needn’t be worrying about that. Mr Harris has so many guests there are cupboards full of spare clothes. He asked me to look some out for you last night. They’re in the wardrobe if you’d like to choose one different. Just pull the bell and I’ll be coming to iron it for you. Breakfast is at nine.’
‘What’s the time now?’ Hannah asked.
‘Oh, about eight I should think, but you’ll be hearing the gong at a quarter to.’ Catherine bobbed a small curtsey — Hannah had never been curtseyed to before — then left the room.
Hannah sipped the orange juice and ate two buttered wheat biscuits, gazing out the window from the bed. She felt like a princess in her borrowed silk nightdress.
She could see gardens from here, long bushes covered in red flowers that lined the steep driveway, and beyond that paddocks of cane or horse pasture. She could just see the town too: a hundred roofs of corrugated iron close to the pier that stretched out into the broad river that gave Port Harris its name.
She lay back, still nibbling a biscuit. All yesterday’s terror and hardship seemed like a dream.
Jamie had come back to the farmhouse with two white men, who somehow avoided talking to him or Mrs Zebediah, but expressed horror and concern for the stranded women. They’d led them to their strange trolley on the train tracks, and the women had perched on it, tucking in their skirts, with Angus on Mama’s lap. The men had stood on either side of a giant lever, pushing it up and down so fast the contraption sped along the rails.
Eagle Rock and the Zebediah farm were soon behind them. The land became flat again as they flashed through fields of cane that looked like a cross between corn stalks and bamboo. Some stands were as tall as Hannah, while other fields that had been recently planted were only knee high. In between the cane fields were stretches of huge thick-topped trees hung with vines like vast snakes, and then more cane.
Evening had spread across the land before the trolley reached the sugar-processing mill on the edge of town. It was bigger than any factory Hannah had seen in Sydney, a large dark shape against the stars, its massive metal furnace still blazing red like a glimpse into hell.
The factory manager sent out men on a cart with two horses to find Papa and the others from the ship, with flaming torches to light the way and signal them. Another horse and cart took Mrs Feehan and Mrs Talbot to the hotel, where they could stay until they were able to arrange their passage on a boat north or south. But Mr Harris himself had driven Mama, Hannah and Angus in his shiny automobile up to the Harris house.
‘Can’t have the schoolmaster’s wife mixing with the riffraff at the hotel,’ he’d said, ignoring Mrs Talbot’s offended sniff behind him. Hannah realised with relief that she would never have to hear Mrs Talbot sniff again.
Mr Harris was as old as Grandpa, with a fringe of white hair under his wide straw hat and a big white moustache that wriggled when he talked, like two white mice on either side of his face. His automobile was magnificent, with seats of soft leather and even a silver vase filled with fresh flowers. Hannah had seen automobiles in Sydney, but had never been driven in one.
Angus bounced on the rear seat between her and Mama as Mr Harris drove them up the hill. The automobile’s headlights shone brighter than the town’s gas lamps, illuminating fields of cane on either side, and then the house itself, the biggest house Hannah had ever seen, even if it was only one storey high. It perched right up on top of the hill, with verandas stretching all round it.
Mr Harris’s housekeeper had ushered Hannah and Angus away to warm baths, then to bed, with chicken soup and bread and butter on a tray, while Mama went to change into borrowed clothes to dine with Mr Harris. Hannah would have liked to stay awake till Papa was back safely, but sleep claimed her as soon as she had eaten the soup.
And now Papa was back, and life was an adventure, but a perfect one this time.
Hannah bathed again in the round china bath, this time washing the salt from her hair too. She pulled the bell for Catherine to help her button her dress. It was white linen with pink silk embroidery, the most beautiful dress she had ever worn. There were even white Chinese silk slippers to replace her buttoned boots, which were stiff from salt and water. Catherine plaited her damp hair and tied it with pink ribbons.
‘Mrs Frogmore asked me to tell you that breakfast is being served out on the veranda today, Miss Gilbert,’ said Catherine, as the sound of a gong reverberated through the house. ‘No, not that one,’ she added, as Hannah headed towards the veranda door in her bedroom. ‘Follow me and I’ll show you.’ She smiled at Hannah. ‘It’s confusing in th
is big house, to be sure. I kept getting lost the first week I was here. It’s bigger than the whole orphanage back home!’
‘You’re an orphan?’ asked Hannah sympathetically.
Catherine nodded. ‘Four years in the orphanage and then I was sent here. Ah, but it’s a lovely place, and Mrs Frogmore is a darling to work for, all the meat and butter we can eat and cake every day, and sunlight instead of the rain and fog back home. Mrs Harris pays for two orphans a year to come out to Australia to be trained up as maids.’
‘Mrs Frogmore is the housekeeper?’ Hannah had been too tired to catch her name last night.
‘That she is. Mrs Frogmore came out from Ireland as a maid herself forty years ago, and has been housekeeper here for twenty.’
‘Mr and Mrs Harris must have a lot of servants if you get two more every year,’ ventured Hannah, as Catherine led her down a long corridor that was all wood — the polished floor, the walls, even a wooden ceiling. The wood was all the same deep brown red colour, relieved only by the long Persian runner on the floor and portraits along the wall.
Catherine laughed. ‘They would have if we didn’t keep getting married. I’m getting married meself come Christmas, to John McKee. He’s one of the foremen. Oh, he’s a lovely man. We’ll have a cottage just down the hill and . . .’
‘Where is Mrs Harris?’ There had been no sign of their hostess last night.
‘Oh, she stays down south,’ said Catherine, as though ‘down south’ was another country. ‘She comes up for a few months each winter, when it’s not so hot. That’s the library,’ she added as Hannah peered into a long room with shelves of books from floor to ceiling.
‘It’s wonderful!’ breathed Hannah. ‘Mr Harris must love reading.’
‘You know, I’ve never seen him with a book in his hand,’ Catherine said. ‘Mrs Frogmore does the book ordering, once a year from Sydney, all the new books suitable for a gentleman’s library. I suppose you read books though, with your Pa a school teacher and all.’ She opened a door onto a wide veranda. ‘And here’s breakfast. You eat up well now, after all you’ve been through.’
The Schoolmaster's Daughter Page 4
