Jarulan by the River

by Lily Woodhouse

  The bedroom fireplace was of unadorned pale stone, and the iron grille clean, used perhaps for a month or two of the year. On those nights cold enough for fires Matthew would have joined his wife here, sometimes, on the little settee drawn up beside it. And on chilly mornings when the fire was lit for him to dress by, he would have stood here warm from his bed before he went out to give the orders to the hands and stockmen. Evie stroked the marble of the mantelpiece, white and veined like a woman’s breast, indeed, very like her own breast, she couldn’t help thinking, but cold, cold to the touch, which hers wasn’t. Surreptitiously, she took stolen glances to examine the bed her lover would have lain in with his wife.

  When she was mistress it would be hers, with its carved posts and little steps, pretty linen and embroidered net, its view over the river to the forested hills, perhaps even a glimpse of the distant roofs of Clunes. What were you to see if you lay down against the pillows — could you see as far as that?

  ‘Poor it,’ said Louisa shortly, taking a seat at the dressing table while the German knelt before her to lace up her riding boots. It took Evie a moment or two to realise that Louisa was not offering sympathy to any living animal — Llewellyn’s dog, perhaps — but speaking directly to her. Pour it. The eggshell cup threatened to tip with the first stream; the coffee splashed a little.

  Louisa drank it down in two or three gulps like a man, while Rufina opened the hatbox and took out a fine lady’s straw, which had to be pinned through the shining chignon and then a veil arranged around the brim.

  Quick, light footsteps were heard along the corridor and Mr Fenchurch appeared at the bedroom door.

  ‘Hurry up for Pete’s sake, Louisa. We’re all wai — ’ He halted midstream, and Evie hoped it was because he had noticed her standing with the tray, waiting for Louisa’s empty cup. She could see herself reflected in the tall Cheval mirror, her old dress, tatty shoes and untidy curly hair — and she saw how her lover’s eye swept over and past her and arrested on the smooth profile of Rufina, who was carefully fastening the white muslin to protect Louisa’s snooty face from sun and insects. She saw how Rufina bobbed in his direction, a curtsey, how she lowered her shining head.

  Mr Fenchurch laughed, that same single loud astonished crack of a laugh as he had that day she’d held his horse’s head on the driveway. Only weeks ago. It felt like years. Years and years.

  He was hers.

  ‘A curtsey! We don’t stand on ceremony here.’ He took off his hat and came into the room properly. He had bathed, put on new moleskins and a clean, faded blue shirt. Even with the expanse of rug between them she could smell his clean skin, smell the sunshine on him from the yard.

  ‘My maid, Rufina,’ Louisa said and there was a pause, as if her father had thought she would go on, as if Louisa was introducing a woman who was his equal.

  ‘Matthew Fenchurch,’ he said. ‘Louisa’s father.’

  ‘A pleasure to meet you.’

  Rufina’s voice was just above a whisper but her accent sounded stronger and her dress, Evie saw now, was plain but beautifully made, expensive, a close-fitting dark blue that made her elegant, like one of the toffs, but old-fashioned. Leather boots showed beneath her too-low hem, a small gold locket dipped at her white throat. She was a Cinderella. She was a nob fallen on hard times and she was looking right into Mr Fenchurch’s eyes and she was smiling, smiling and smiling.

  The bitch.

  Louisa didn’t appear to have noticed, since she was rummaging among her things in an enormous trunk — it was the biggest of the luggage Evie had seen on the wharf — and coming up with a small leather case, which might contain a flute, or a very small violin, but it was a riding whip, a pretty red lady’s crop, with a forked tongue.

  ‘Come on then.’ She took her father’s arm.

  ‘You’re never going to ride astride in your condition! Sulky’s all rigged and ready to go. You can sit up with Jean.’

  ‘This is the twentieth century,’ she said to him, and she said it like a quote, as if she was imitating someone with an American accent — Mrs Fenchurch, of course. Mr Fenchurch laughed, fondly, and they went out and along the corridor towards the stairs, leaving Evie and the German maid alone.

  Now would be the time to warn her off. Evie watched as Rufina went around the room, tidying and straightening, returning the day dress to a peg in the closet. She was pretending Evie wasn’t there, as if she didn’t approve of her, as if Evie was somehow beneath her, less than her, when it was the German who was the intruder, the woman on the make, and it was people like her that had killed Llewellyn and thousands of other Australians.

  She put down the tray and was across the wide room in a single bound, her fingers weaving themselves into that thick blonde hair, her lips close to the ear. ‘Keep away from him.’

  Rufina reared back, her bun scattering iron, glaring at Evie, at once scornful and pitying. She was taller by a head, her shoulders broader. Stronger, better fed. Better. Better. Better.

  Thinks she is.

  Evie lifted her fist to job her one but the German maid was pushing past her, rapidly crossing the room and picking up the tray.

  ‘Put it down,’ said Evie. It was her tray.

  Halfway across the rug with everything jingling, the heavy coffeepot sliding on the tray cloth, Rufina said something in German, which sounded dismissive, superior, so Evie ran after her and yanked at the back of her dress, not as hard as she could have. She could have pulled her over. She could have kicked her head. She should have. Why hadn’t she? Hardly altering her stride Rufina was disappearing, her fast clip sounding along the bare wooden floor of the corridor. She would go downstairs and nark on her to Nan. Of course. It was inevitable. Evie’d have to come up with a good story between now and whenever she was next looking at Nan.

  Louisa’s hairbrush lay at the foot of the bed, an ivory-backed hand mirror beside it. The bed was unmade, undergarments strewn around. The silk chemise, soft and creamy, folded away to nothing, an inch square, easily concealed in Evie’s pocket. On the dressing table was jewellery in a pink quilted box, a string of jet beads hanging half out, a diamond watch, a silver bracelet set with blue stones, a gold ring with flashing green — an emerald, thought Evie. There was a cameo brooch and gold filigree earrings with red gem drops that sparkled and caught the light. Rubies. She would take something. Something that wouldn’t be noticed straight away. The earrings.

  No, not both. Just one. Louisa would think she’d dropped it. Evie would give it to Bridgie to tie around her neck or pin to her dress.

  Just as she dipped for it she saw a movement in the mirror and felt herself observed. Behind her at the door, low down, a child was watching her, one of the grandchildren perhaps, or was it Rufina crouching and spying, not gone downstairs at all but waiting in the corridor, tricking her, biding her time, knowing that Evie would be tempted?

  Clasping the earring she slipped to the door and looked out. No one. Nothing. There hadn’t been time for a spy to vanish down the long corridor and around the corner to the stairs, and she’d heard none of the heavy wooden doors into the bedrooms open or close. The house was quiet. She must have imagined it.

  At the other end of the corridor against the far wall there was a flight of narrow steep stairs, more like a ladder, leading to an upper floor. Evie had never been up there. The belvedere, they called it, where the children had played early this morning. A week ago, before all the horrible family had arrived, she had asked Nan, ‘Where is Mr Fenchurch today?’ She’d seen them setting up a tick gate for cattle coming through from the wet river pasture to be checked, and she thought he’d be there working, but Nan had answered, ‘The belvedere. He’s always up there these days.’

  Carrying her shoes now to lighten her tread Evie hurried along to the foot of the stairs and looked up into the well of light, the rounded roof and high panes showing speeding clouds. There was a curious soft scraping sound from the floor above, more like a rolling of small wheels, like a tea troll
ey or a carpet-sweeper. The sound came in short bursts, as though whoever was operating it was checking now and again that the wheels were working properly. Matthew, was it, fixing an old toy for the grandsons?

  She went up quickly to the top, stepping into the long bright room. The sound came insistently, quietly, from the far end where an old wing chair stood at the westernmost window, a small table set beside it. There was a wet mopped patch on the floor and a sparkle of broken glass. They’d missed a bit. Nan wouldn’t go butcher’s hook at her if she went downstairs carrying the shard — she could say she’d found it on her way downstairs, that one of the children must have dropped it. As she hurried to pick it up, running lightly down the long empty, echoing place, the noise stopped or passed out of her hearing. Perhaps it had been more of a rasping noise, something to do with one of the farm machines, a blade being sharpened outside the barn, the sound lifting. Or an insect trapped in the room, banging against the glass.

  She was alone. She felt a wave of disappointment; she had hoped the wing chair concealed him from her view as she hurried along — it didn’t. But in consolation was the view he favoured, over the long carriageway with his fields on either side, up to the road, the river running beside it for miles and the bush-covered hills on the other side. It was beautiful, peaceful, but she felt sorry for him that his favourite place to sit was here, all alone, sad and lonely. He was lucky he had her to keep him company as much as she did. She had more to give if he wanted it. Did he ever move the chair to the far end to look east, she wondered, over the top of the dry fountain with its strange naked writhing figures that made Evie uneasy whenever she looked at it? Did he ever look over the first fence to the farmhands’ quarters, then the paddocks, the dam, the field of lucerne, and beyond that a sagging collection of roofs and ruins that were the Tyrells’?

  Likely as not.

  There were flashes of colour below the canopies of the gums on the carriageway, moving along until the last bend, where the family emerged at the end of the avenue, almost at the stone lion gates. Mr Fenchurch and Louisa were at the head; he was riding Flora and Louisa the tall gelding that had been Llew’s, which obviously didn’t get ridden enough. Skittering and shying, it refused to take Louisa’s direction to turn out onto the road. Louisa gave it a larruping with the crop. The little whip flashed.

  Behind them came the sulky, driven by Jean, with a small girl sitting either side and the older boys standing up at the back, waving and jumping, joshing one another. They looked as though they were going on a picnic, or a visit, not to look at a gloomy memorial, which Evie could see rising at the crossroads, peak and thrust like a small steeple, with its cross and eye of red glass. The stonemason and his boy were low to the ground, laying paving. It looked as though trees had been felled to improve the view of it from the house. They had! They’d cut down a ghost gum. And some others too. The hill looked bare.

  She laid the shard on the narrow sill and yawned. It was warm, still, and she felt as though she could go to sleep in an instant.

  One of the children had left a toy on the chair, a little tractor. It was red with yellow wooden wheels and levers that responded when you pushed or pulled them. Pulling the silk chemise and ruby earring from her pocket, Evie sat down with the tractor on her lap. Imagine if she could go home with all of it. The tractor would belong to the rich children, to the pointy-faced boy. Cedric. He would have a hundred of them and wouldn’t miss it. Imagine if she could go running the two miles across the fields and give it to Malachy, her youngest brother. Imagine his face, his delight in it. Imagine if she could give the chemise to her mother and what she would say. She held it up now to the light. Lace trimmed the square neck and arms. The silk was so fine that you could see through it. Ma would treasure it always. Evie could tell her it was a castoff. ‘Miss Louisa gave it me,’ she’d say. ‘We’re more friends than anything else, you know.’

  And the earring. The precious wisp of gold, the ruby of the exact same red as the glass brought all the way from Venice for the memorial. She wanted to relish the jewel now, let the drop of frozen blood spin in the sunlight and cast its glow around the room and imagine her sister’s surprise and pleasure.

  It had disappeared. She stood up, searched the old leather chair, the floor around it, shook out the chemise, shook the tractor upside down. She shunted the chair, so that the old wooden legs squealed on the polish.

  There — a glint — but it was another piece of glass, smaller than the shard she’d laid on the sill. She felt into the seams of her dress, her pocket. She tore the dress off, shook out her hair — had it caught there somehow when she pulled the things from her pocket?

  Lost.

  She must have dropped it coming up the stairs. Yanking her dress back on, she tucked the chemise into her bloomers as the best hiding place and retraced her steps, keeping her gaze close on the floor. Halfway down the stairs a small cupboard was set into the wall; it was probably used to store a lamp or candles should a Fenchurch decide to come up here after dark. The hasps and lock were rusted stiff. It looked as though it hadn’t been opened in years. She prised it ajar, slid in the tractor and shut it tight. She would come back for it if she could.

  At the bottom of the steps she dropped to her hands and knees and searched the narrow space beneath the open treads, where an earring could have landed, kicked aside on her rapid ascent. Dust had collected in shanks, an old bedhead leaned against the wall, a rolled carpet gave off a smell of must and old wool. There was the desiccated corpse of a small bird, dull green and yellow, a poor honeyeater who had got stuck inside one day when a window was open.

  But no earring. When she stood up her knees were brown. She remembered the piece of glass then and would have run up to fetch it if the sound hadn’t started again, directly overhead, the rolling and scraping.

  Even as she told herself it was an insect burring or a kookaburra banging and rolling a lizard or a snake on the upstairs verandah to kill it, the hairs rose on her arms. It was sounding faster than before, more insistent, and there was a patter of small feet running, even though the older children had gone on the expedition to the memorial and the babies were with the nanny.

  Or rain. Was it just the rain beginning? She went back to the lower step and peered up towards the light — the windows at the top of the stairs were clear, unspeckled. Her foot on the stair coincided with the belvedere falling silent for a second or two until another sound started, a kind of tuneless humming, which didn’t sound human since whatever was making the noise didn’t need to stop for a breath.

  As soon as the thought occurred to her, Evie ran as fast as she ever had in her life, down the corridor, down the stairs, across the kitchen yard and out into the paddocks, until she could find a perspective on the house that would allow her to see the kookaburra on the roof murdering its prey. The problem was that whenever one part of the roof became clear another was obscured, and in the end she whistled to her dog and set off towards the river to try to put it out of her mind.

  14.

  THE OLD BLACK MARE PULLING THE SULKY WAS STEADY AND could mostly be relied on to get on with the job, for which Jean was grateful. She had been a favourite of their mother’s for the same reason — her strength and phlegmatic nature. Watching Louisa struggle to control Llewellyn’s Boss — aptly named, she saw now — she wondered why Louisa had insisted on riding him, or at all, unless it was to show off her new habit, bought specially for the holiday, now spattered with rain. When Jean had admired it, Louisa had told her it was from France and how much it had cost. Jean had felt the oxygen drain out of the air at the amount, and hadn’t been able to help fingering the delicate wool of the divided skirt, the polished silk of the blouse, before her sister led Boss to the mounting post.

  On the sulky seat her niece, Lorna, snuggled in on one side of her and her daughter on the other.

  ‘He’s a naughty horsie,’ pronounced Lorna clearly, as Boss swerved for the fence-line and dropped his nose to the long grass.


  ‘He is,’ Jean agreed, bringing Blackie to a stop. Her father was waiting further up the road, looking back, his face shadowed by his hat. The rain would pass. There was a lot of blue in the sky.

  ‘Come on, Jean,’ he called, ‘come up. Louisa can follow.’

  But Blackie didn’t want to pass Boss, who was cropping enthusiastically at roadside grass. She stood firm and wouldn’t budge until Matthew rode back down the hill and took hold of her bridle.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said gently, ‘come on, girl.’

  The sulky’s wheels spun on. Boss lifted his head as it passed and Jean fancied that she could read his expression — he did not want to be left behind. He leapt immediately back to the road, cantering past them in the narrow gap and rose to a gallop as he disappeared over the crest of the hill, with Louisa clinging on and shouting. Matthew went on after her in a flash and Jean found herself left behind with the four children, the little Arkenstalls bellowing with alarm and Tom leaping with excitement on the back of the sulky. Her own Clara was silent, thumb in mouth, watching events unfold while clamped to Jean’s side. She was used to calamities, perhaps. At three she had seen a man slice his arm to the bone one day when Jean took her along with the billy and midday sandwiches to the cane fields. Tom had helped carry everything out then vanished to find one of the cutters who was always ready for a yarn with him, and so had been spared the sight. How much Clara had seen or understood Jean wasn’t sure, but adults shouting and running made her so quiet now she barely breathed. Jean gave her a little joggle and the thumb popped free.

  ‘Naughty horse.’ It was pronounced in the same tones as Lorna had a moment before, Lorna now wailing loudly. ‘Ma-ma!’

  Blackie hung her head.