‘Do you know another beach poem?’ asked Mrs Zebediah shyly. ‘I keep thinking of the words of the one you said that day. Jamie told them to me: Break, break, break, on thy cold grey stones, O Sea!’
‘I know a shipwreck poem,’ said Mama quietly. ‘All the time we were stuck on the sandbank its words kept beating time in my head with every wave. But I didn’t dare say them aloud. They were too . . . too right. Except they weren’t,’ she added, glancing at Hannah, ‘because we came to shore safely.’
Which was true, thought Hannah. But Mr Vandergeld had chosen to face the sea again . . .
‘I wouldn’t ask you to say any poem that makes you feel bad, Mrs Gilbert,’ said Mrs Zebediah quickly.
‘It will be good to say it,’ said Mama. She reached out and stroked Hannah’s hair. ‘Good came of our shipwreck, as well as bad.’
Hannah looked at her curiously.
‘We met the Zebediahs,’ Mama explained. ‘And you became a different kind of student, and I a different teacher.’
She turned to Mrs Zebediah. ‘The poem is by a man called Robert Southey and it’s called “The Inchcape Rock”.
‘No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,’ Mama began.
‘The ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.’
That was just what it had been like, thought Hannah. Even though the air had stirred a little, and the sea too, the ship had been so terribly still.
Mama kept reciting.
‘Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.’
It was a long poem, and a wonderful one. An abbot had placed the bell there to warn ships about the rock.
‘That’s just what we need on that sandbar,’ said Mrs Zebediah. ‘A bell to warn ships away. There’s been other ships caught on that bank. Sorry, Mrs Gilbert. Go on. It’s a grand poem.’
But wicked Sir Ralph the Rover cut the bell from its float, so that drowning sailors would curse the abbot. Sir Ralph grew rich from piracy, but as he was coming home from Scotland the fog drifted down over the sea.
‘“Now where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish we could hear the Inchcape Bell.
. . . the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,
“. . . ! It is the Inchcape Rock!”
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
He curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
But even in his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Zebediah at last, ‘I reckon learning to read is for words like that. Newspapers are just what’s happened or might be happening now, and folks will tell you that soon enough at the market. But to be able to read a poem like that — The devil below was ringing his knell — words like that mean something forever.’
‘I reckon the pirate captain heard that bell when his ship was broken up in Pirate’s Cove,’ said Jamie. ‘I reckon they sailed in when the tide was high and buried their treasure up behind the beach where they thought no one would ever find it. But when they sailed out again the tide caught them on the sand, and the bell sounded for them as the sea broke their ship.’
‘And I reckon that’s no more likely than them having a sword fight on the sand,’ said Mrs Zebediah briskly. ‘Because why couldn’t they put their treasure in the bank like Mr Harris does with all his money? What they were doing shipping men for money was evil, true enough, but it wasn’t against man’s law even if it is against God’s.’ She smiled at her son. ‘Jamie likes to think of treasure waiting to be dug up. But I think he’ll do better in life with a good education. Get a job in an office maybe, if he can do his sums and write a good hand.’
Mama looked at Mrs Zebediah, startled. She caught Hannah’s eye, then looked away.
So that was why Mrs Zebediah wanted Jamie to go to school, thought Hannah. For someone like Mrs Zebediah, living here, isolated all her life, going to school and passing exams and writing in a neat readable hand meant you could get a good job in an office instead of clearing brush to plant cane. But no one would give Jamie a job in an office.
Hannah glanced at Jamie. He looked at his mother with love, but sorrow too. Hannah realised that Jamie knew he would never be given a job in an office.
All her study might never lead to a job either, or a university degree. But both of them longed for ideas, for words, for things that mattered ‘for always’.
CHAPTER 14
TRAVELS BY BOOK
Mrs Zebediah did know another way to get home. ‘And it’s a nicer ride too, though it means going through Mr Harris’s paddocks. But I don’t suppose he’ll mind as it’s you.’
‘He did say we were welcome to ride anywhere on his land,’ Mama said.
‘Well, there you are then. When you get to our last paddock go through the gate, then follow your nose till you come to a paling fence. You’ll see Mr Harris’s driveway from there. He does have some lovely flowers, don’t he? And here’s your fish pie, all tied up easy for you to carry.’
Mama looked at it helplessly, then took it. ‘Thank you. But please . . . I think my husband might ask questions if he has too many unfamiliar dinners.’
‘You haven’t told him?’ Mrs Zebediah looked as horrified as if wicked Sir Ralph the Rover had appeared.
‘No,’ said Mama simply.
Mrs Zebediah looked at her thoughtfully. ‘We each know our family best,’ she said at last.
‘Maybe,’ said Mama.
***
The catalogue from the bookshop in Sydney arrived in Friday afternoon’s post, along with the David Jones catalogue. Everyone across Australia who couldn’t get to proper shops ordered from catalogues. In other years Mama had only put in an order each November: a new outfit and new underwear for each of them, Christmas presents, linen to replace any that was getting shabby, embroidery cottons, bolts of calico for the girl pupils to practise making petticoats, and embroidered tablecloths and chemises, as well as dried fruit for the Christmas cake and puddings, crystallised fruits and marzipan. But this year they needed everything, for Papa did not like his family wearing cast-offs, even from Mr Harris.
The four of them sat in the parlour after dinner and marked the clothes they wanted, putting their initials against the desired items, then Mama filled in the order form. It was the first time that whole week that they had spent time together as a family, instead of Papa vanishing to his study and coming out only for meals.
Hannah gazed as Mama slowly turned the catalogue pages. That white dress with cherries on it, and that blue one for parties, those cardigans, nightdresses, ribbons, a new hairbrush . . .
‘Handkerchiefs,’ declared Mama. ‘I nearly forgot! A dozen plain white ladies’ handkerchiefs and a dozen lacy, two dozen plain white men’s and a dozen blue-edged. And the children need something to play with. Why don’t you choose one thing each?’
‘Can I have a spinning top?’ asked Angus. His had vanished with the ship.
‘Yes,’ said Mama, just as Papa said, ‘You’re too old for spinning tops.’
Mama hesitated. ‘What about a set of model lead soldiers instead? You can buy them painted, or unpainted with the paints to put their uniforms on yourself.’
‘Unpainted,’ said Angus. He pointed at a collection of lead soldiers, ‘Can I have those?’
‘That’s the whole Battle of Waterloo!’ exclaimed Mama. ‘Every army that was there, even the Prussians.’
‘It would be educational,’ said Papa indulgently. ‘We can paint the soldiers together, and I’ll show you where the main troop movements were. Then one d
ay when you are at high school you can impress everyone with how much you know about Waterloo and military uniforms. Hannah, what would you like?’
Mama passed her the catalogue. The tiny theatre looked fun, with tiny mannequins and a stage where you could let the curtains down. She could write plays for them to perform. But she could do that without the theatre too. In fact there wasn’t anything she wanted in the toy section.
I am growing old, she thought.
No more toys to unfold
I want ideas, bright and bold
Adventures breathless to behold . . .
It was terrible poetry, because who cared if she was growing up, except herself and her family, and ‘bright and bold’ were boring words used in a boring way. ‘Breathless adventures’ sounded all right till you realised that if you tried an adventure without breathing you’d suffocate.
At last she pointed to a set of skittles. ‘What about those? We could all play with them.’
‘An excellent choice, Hannah,’ said Papa. He glanced outside. Darkness fell fast here, as if Port Harris had never heard of twilight. ‘Angus, would you get the telescope from my study, please? We should get a good view of the stars tonight.’
It had been months since Papa had shown them the stars. The four of them stood on the veranda, just as they had stood together watching the sky so many times in Lyrebird Creek. Papa’s hand rested on Angus’s shoulder and then on Hannah’s as he showed them Mars, high and red in the sky, and Venus, silvery on the horizon, and the mountains of the Moon, and explained yet again how to tell a star from a planet by the twinkle. He passed the telescope to Mama just as the Southern Cross rose in the sky. It was almost as it used to be.
Papa has forgiven us, thought Hannah, as she slipped beneath the sheets in her nightdress. Both he and Mama seemed to be making an effort to be a happy family again.
Tomorrow was Saturday. Saturdays had always been a day the family spent together. They’d collected wood for the school fire, but there was no need for a fire here. And Mr Harris’s handyman kept the schoolroom floor swept and the desks polished, so they didn’t have to do that, either. The handyman even topped the dunnies up with cold wood ash every afternoon. Back in Lyrebird Creek Papa had explained how we had to be careful with wood ash, because a hot coal could make the methane explode. Then he’d explained what methane was too.
But now on Saturdays, Mama and Hannah went to the market while Papa and Angus played cricket — junior cricket for Angus first, and then the adult game afterwards. Mrs Murphy had already complained about having to bleach and starch and iron not just one but two sets of cricket whites, as well as removing the mud and grass stains.
The air felt so heavy here, even at night. It was too hot even for a sheet. Hannah pushed hers off . . . and the book catalogue fell to the floor. She reached for it.
Mama must have put it there for her, for the ‘secret order’ of whatever books she wanted. Papa, had already put his initials next to many books, with six copies and four copies written next to books he might want his pupils to read. Papa’s choices included familiar and loved books they had lost in the shipwreck: Treasure Island by Mr Stevenson, the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and books by Mr Dickens and Mr Kipling, and poems by Mr Lawson, Mr Paterson and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Mama had put her initials against books as well, including simple boys’ adventure stories she must be buying for Angus and all of Miss Austen’s books.
But Mama’s initials were also against books like The New Woman by Winona Branch Sawyer and The Awakening by Kate Chopin, and all of the Brontë sisters’, who Papa did not approve of. She’d also marked Latin and French grammars and workbooks, and texts on mathematics and physics and chemistry that looked far more advanced than any lesson Hannah had heard Papa give. There was even a Short History of Astronomy, General Zoology and Mr Gould’s Mammals of Australia, as well as books on ships and horses that possibly had been chosen for further reading for Jamie or even Angus.
But what should she choose for herself? The catalogue only had a few lines of description for each book. She knew she wanted poetry, but Mama’s initials were already against almost every poetry book in the catalogue.
At last Hannah put her initials next to The Time Machine by an author called HG Wells, because travelling in time sounded interesting and safer than travelling by boat, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott because it was written by a woman even if it sounded a bit boring, and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, even if that didn’t look too interesting either.
Her candle was beginning to gutter as the last of the wick burned. She pinched it out and put the catalogue under her pillow. She would look at it again tomorrow and on Sunday too, before giving it back to Mama to fill out and post on Monday, when Papa was at school. The books would be delivered by the postman while Papa was at school too, and some of them would probably be stored in the linen cupboard or some other place where Papa wouldn’t see them.
All at once Hannah’s anger flickered at Mama for dividing the family again with this catalogue after the peaceful night they’d had looking at the stars together. And yet these books would be Hannah’s to read, and she longed for books. Mama had said she was free to read any book she wanted now. Could she do that and please Papa too?
CHAPTER 15
THE PATTERN OF DAYS
Dear Grandma,
I hope you are well. Thank you for sending me Mr Lawson’s stories. We are still waiting for the books Mama ordered to come from Sydney. The stories look very interesting. I am glad that Australia has writers and poets, just like England and America does.
We are all well. It is still very hot here. The air doesn’t move at all in the morning, then suddenly in the afternoon it’s as though a giant has pushed clouds together and dumped buckets of water through them.
Mama is still teaching me algebra.
Hannah paused to blot the sentences before the ink spread. She couldn’t tell Grandma about the school in the dairy, or Mrs Zebediah or Jamie, in case Grandma mentioned them in a letter Papa might read. She couldn’t tell her that none of the girls here would even speak to her, and that there were no invitations for Mama either, except to dine up at the Harris Plantation House when Mr Harris had visitors staying there. Instead there were whispers behind them at church, and Hannah had heard Mama called ‘that uppity southerner in fancy dresses who thinks she’s too good to teach our children’.
After Sunday lunch, sometimes Papa and Angus are invited to go fishing or to see someone’s new horse. They weren’t going anywhere today so we all went for a walk through the town, but there aren’t many shops and none of them sell anything we need to buy.
The sugar mill is on the edge of town. It is noisy, as if there is a dragon inside, and you can see the red glow of the burning as they keep it going even on a Sunday. The chimneys burp out black smoke and everything smells of molasses and the air feels sticky. The port is more interesting. It has wharves for many ships, but mostly there are only small fishing boats now, with their own little wharves further down the river. Papa says the port will be busy in the main cane-cutting season though.
Papa is reading us Mr Dickens’s Great Expectations after dinner. It is very interesting. I am embroidering tea cloths for my new hope chest. I am sorry the sandalwood hope chest you gave me was lost when the ship went down. It made everything in it smell lovely. I am still not good at embroidery but I am trying.
Next Saturday Mama and Papa will go up to Mr Harris’s again for dinner and dancing. Mama has a new dress of yellow silk and I am going to help her do her hair. She will look beautiful.
And odd, of course, in her small silk hat with the veil on one side. But Grandma would know that.
Mr Harris has invited us all to a picnic with his guests on the Sunday afternoon. It is kind of him, but it is very hot and there are no children at his picnics except for me and Angus.
What else? That Mrs Murph
y’s bunions were playing up? Or that Boodle had got loose again this morning and left a big dropping on the back stairs, and Mr Murphy had come to collect him and had winked at Hannah when Papa wasn’t looking, and that he frightened her a little, though she wasn’t sure why. Or that every evening all the mosquitoes rose in a grey whining cloud as if they had an alarm clock to wake them up.
There was so much she would have liked to say, and so much she couldn’t. At last she wrote:
I had better go now to help Mama make dinner. We always have bubble and squeak on Sunday nights because we have roast lamb for Sunday lunch after church. Roast lamb always makes me think of Ferndale. Mama cooks lots more roast potatoes and pumpkin with the roast because we all love bubble and squeak, and Angus likes to watch us as we fry it, waiting to hear it squeak.
I wish you weren’t so far away. I miss coming to Ferndale.
Your loving granddaughter,
Hannah
She blotted the letter again, then cleaned the pen’s nib with the pen wiper, capped the ink, and put everything neatly back on the desk in her room. It was really just a table but she liked to call it a desk, and imagine that maybe one day she’d write something that was worth having a desk for.
A crack of thunder sounded, so loud the house shuddered. Rain fell in a vast splash, so thick Hannah couldn’t even see the big old tree that Papa said was a native fig. She should have told Grandma about the bats that roosted in the tree, how they hung upside down then flapped out every night to hunt for fruit. Next time maybe.
There was so little to write about. There was so little she could write about. Because the heart of her life was a secret, out at the farm.
Every morning Hannah’s world would split apart as she and Mama left the house and school and Port Harris behind, and Smokey clopped his way across the grass and past Eagle Rock, which shone every morning like Mrs Murphy had polished it, and to the farmhouse, where Mrs Zebediah would be conjuring up a passionfruit sponge or jam roll to welcome them.
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