Those Hamilton Sisters

by Averil Kenny

  She considered her sisters for a moment, already decided. ‘Fable, dry your eyes. I want you to take Plum to Heartwood. Stay with Olive while I sort this out!’

  Fable snivelled. ‘But where are you going?’

  ‘To the source of the rumour. I’m going to squash her . . . it, for good.’

  Sonnet hurried the girls up the hill muttering perfunctory directives on safe passage and best behaviour, even as her eyes were making a head start for the creek, and the family living beyond it.

  ‘Quick, on you go! I’ll see you in a sec!’

  Sonnet swivelled towards the cane bridge crossing. Swelling rage had become a flood, which could not be contained.

  *

  The Hulls’ grand homestead, proud and regal in the slanting light, was surrounded by mango trees and encompassed by a full-length veranda. A hanging sign announced the property as Summerlinn.

  The woman who stepped out to greet her at the top step was handsomely statuesque, with dark hair swept into a French roll. Still on the bottom step, Sonnet was at a distinct height disadvantage.

  ‘Are you Adriana Hull’s mother?’ Sonnet blurted in her rush to expunge indignation.

  ‘I am indeed,’ she answered, blue eyes scouring Sonnet with the same avidity as her daughter. ‘I am better known, however, as Delia Hull. And there’s no mistaking who you are. You have Esther Hamilton written all over you.’

  ‘Sonnet Hamilton,’ she said, fist clenching by her hip.

  ‘We wondered when we’d finally meet the daughters Esther kept hidden away. I called by Olive’s the other day to see you, but she told us you needed more time, apparently, to settle in. Come inside, won’t you,’ she said, indicating her stylish front parlour.

  ‘No. I won’t stay. I came to voice my disgust with your daughter’s behaviour at school recently, as it concerns my younger sister, Fable.’

  Finely shaped brows arched high. ‘Whatever could you mean?’

  Sonnet stepped onto the veranda and straightened to full height, rectifying the customary stoop of a tall girl accustomed to lowering herself for others.

  Delia waited; a shrewd silence, meted out with expert patience.

  ‘Mrs Hull, your daughter has been waging a campaign of lies against my sister at school. Fable so recently lost her mother – she’s a grieving girl, who only wants to fit into her new school – and to have some chit spreading such rumours about our mama is beyond cruel. I insist you stop her.’

  Delia’s eyes widened. ‘Our Adriana would never condone such maliciousness. What sort of things could you possibly have heard?’

  ‘I think you already know.’

  ‘I assure you, I have no interest in petty playground squabbles. I suggest you rise above it, too.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call the kind of slander your daughter’s been spewing a “playground squabble”!’

  Delia gave a curtly dismissive wave.

  Sonnet took full measure of the woman before her: no one challenged Delia Hull. Her voice shook. ‘Calling our mother the town harlot, accusing her of being a whore and a homewrecker – I can’t imagine where a supposedly well-to-do girl would learn such foul language. Perhaps you can enlighten me?’

  Delia’s eyes flashed. ‘If, as you claim, my daughter had been using such terms, she could only be repeating the general gist of what’s being said all over Noah. What’s been said for years now—’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘Lower your voice.’

  ‘Don’t tell me how loud I can be! You don’t even know my mother!’

  ‘Ha! I knew your mother all right. She was in my sister Beth’s grade at school’ and we grew up together, playing by Serpentine Creek. I knew Esther extremely well – though none of us could have guessed what she was truly capable of. More importantly, the Brennans were our dearest friends. Esther Hamilton was everything you’ve heard. And if your sister’s feelings are hurt by that truth, remember your mother brought it all on herself, and you, too.’

  The Brennans? No, don’t get out of your depth; do not give her the upper hand!

  ‘I am telling you: control your vicious little viper!’

  A hard smile twisted Delia’s lips. ‘I can’t prevent my daughter hearing what she hears. All of Noah is abuzz with the news – how can Adriana be expected to think any differently?’

  Sonnet felt the snarl rising in her throat, and did nothing to stop it. ‘You set the right example, that’s how! You refrain from being a spiteful old gossip. Teach her to think for herself without parroting the stupidity of others.’

  Delia drew back as though whipped. ‘Believe me; Adriana will keep her distance from you Hamiltons. I will personally see to it she has nothing further to do with a ruined woman’s trashy daughters.’

  The front door slammed, stained glass roses reverberating.

  Sonnet thundered from the veranda. She turned back, only once, at the border of mango trees, to holler at the quiet facade, ‘With families like yours, no wonder my mother left this bloody town!’

  CHAPTER 5

  SINS OF THE MOTHER

  T

  he moment she was on the Hamilton side of the creek, Sonnet collapsed. She slammed fists and tears into the peaty earth.

  ‘Damn the Hulls, damn them all to hell!’

  Sonnet picked herself up and sprinted until the tears sluiced clear, and exertion began to purge angst – never before had running felt quite so much like prayer. She did not stop until she’d reached Heartwood.

  Olive hurried down the stairs, arms open. ‘As soon as Fable said where you’d gone, I just knew!’

  Sonnet pushed her embrace away, gasping for air. ‘Why didn’t you tell me what this town’s like? Where was the forewarning?’

  ‘I tried, Sonnet, I did! On the phone, when you were first trying to decide whether to come to Noah, and the other night over dinner, I tried again.’

  ‘Not hard enough! I let Fable walk right into it, with no preparation! She’s gutted. How could any young girl bear to hear her mother crucified like that? I can’t believe I brought her to this hellhole!’

  ‘I didn’t know what your mother had already told you, and you made it abundantly clear it wasn’t my place to pry. You’ve been so determined and self-assured. I tried to not interfere. It’s what you wanted.’

  ‘I feel like you tricked me into coming to Noah Vale! And right now I don’t know who to believe, or what to think!’

  Olive’s eyes glistened. ‘Come up and have some dinner, then we’ll talk. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.’

  *

  Merely picked-at dinner sat in Sonnet’s stomach like a rock as she hunched over the table, waiting for Olive to begin. Across the valley, a cane fire raged against the darkness. From within the house, came the sound of Plum’s squeals and Fable’s restrained giggle as Gav guided them through a comedic washing-up routine, while reciting ‘Mulga Bill’s Bicycle’. Zephyr’s barks completed the cacophony.

  ‘Your mother’s history,’ Olive started, ‘was partly why I pushed so hard to have you girls staying here with us, to cushion your arrival against any reproach.’

  ‘About the Great Big Dirty Secret, you mean? The one you deliberately kept from me before I uprooted my grief-stricken sisters from their home and dragged them to the middle of Woop Woop? The truth you could have given me over the telephone instead of tricking me into accepting our inheritance?’

  ‘You have no idea how I struggled with that decision. You don’t broach the topic of a young woman’s controversial paternity over the phone, so soon after her mother’s tragic passing.’

  Sonnet folded her arms. ‘Get on with it!’

  Olive poured herself a cuppa with a trembling hand, and was waved away when she moved to fill Sonnet’s cup.

  ‘Who had you been led to believe your father was, Sonnet?’

  ‘An itinerant fruit picker, couple of years older, not from Noah.’

  Olive’s face was expressionless. Sonnet hurried to add bolst
ering detail. ‘It was a brief thing and he bolted when he found out I was on the way. Mama didn’t even know his last name if I wanted to track him down one day. But my loyalty is to the parent who wanted me. The shame of being a “bastard” is always there, but when you spend your whole life pretending your father doesn’t exist, paternity eventually ceases to be an issue. Until suddenly it is for a whole town!’

  Olive didn’t reply for a long time.

  Sonnet felt incalculably childish, sick with expectant fear.

  ‘First,’ Olive said quietly, ‘you must understand how Essie came to be in a . . . vulnerable position. Your mother, as you probably know, was terribly bright. Our father often said, “too clever for her own good”. He tried talking her out of continuing her education, after she turned fourteen. What good are books to a girl that beautiful, he reckoned. But Es’s ambitions went beyond us all. She was a talented writer – good outlet for the feelings she couldn’t contain, actually. And she had such dreams for herself. Wouldn’t let anyone tell her to keep her feet on the ground, much less abide Father’s refusal to send her to university. Declared she was going to “write her way out of this damned valley!” And to that end, in her final year of high school, Esther was being tutored for a scholarship . . .’

  Olive veered away, regathering herself.

  ‘Maybe if I’d still been living at home, I’d have seen warning signs in your mother, before it was too late. But your grandparents never suspected a thing. When she wanted to, Esther had a way of dazzling you – like light shone in your eyes, big shadows behind it.’

  Sonnet shivered, thinking of another Hamilton daughter, and her adamantine mask, both light and shade hidden.

  ‘No one saw it coming. I was newly married to Gav in those days, and we were living above his shop. I was wrapped up then in my own . . . troubles.’ Anguish twisted Olive’s face.

  Sonnet had no sympathy – only impatience.

  Olive took a breath, and launched. ‘Sonnet, I’m sorry, your mother was not involved with a fruit picker passing through. In fact, he was one of our best-loved townsfolk. Esther was having an affair with her vice-principal. He was ten years older. And married, with young children, including a very complicated boy who required constant care and supervision.

  ‘The affair was finally revealed in the most appalling circumstances. They were discovered at the Graduation Ball doing . . . that . . . on the school stage. Someone had . . . the curtain was pulled back.’

  Sonnet looked away, fixing her gaze on the firelit horizon.

  ‘It was a shocking scandal. Just shocking.’

  ‘And then I came,’ Sonnet said, voice leaden.

  ‘Not straightaway, no. The fallout from the affair was bad enough. One of our best-loved teachers sacked! The family left Noah Vale. Within weeks of the affair being revealed, they were gone. But he was the fortunate one – disappearing into the big smoke, where he was anonymous. Your mother, meanwhile, was left pining for her lover, thrown out of school, reviled by her parents, and trapped in this town with all the judgement and outrage. And then she was sporting a swollen belly on that tiny frame of hers.

  ‘It wasn’t long before Esther got wind of Father’s plan to send her to a home for unwed mothers. She wouldn’t hear of it! Father was offering her the opportunity to shed herself of . . . the very stain of sin. But Es would never surrender when she took her mind to a thing. Said they’d have to pry you from her dead hands first. Father called her the “valley whore” and threw her out. Not long after, Esther fled, never to return . . .’ Olive’s tale ended on a low, weak note. She studied her niece for a reaction, but Sonnet was a cold, carefully blinking statue.

  Within: a blizzard.

  It hurt Sonnet to utter a single word. ‘Is that the sum of it?’

  ‘The whole sordid tale.’

  Sonnet had an extraordinary urge to pick up Olive’s cuppa and dash it in her face. ‘So, you’re saying my very existence was the end of an esteemed teacher’s career, presumably the finish of his marriage and family, too, that Mama spent the rest of her life alienated from her family, wandering the earth like some leprous biblical prostitute, and as if that weren’t awful enough, I have come to the one priggish place on earth where I am most despised for it?’

  Olive reached to take her hand, but Sonnet was faster to withdraw. Olive did not, Sonnet noted, deny her summary.

  ‘That’s it – we’re leaving!’ Sonnet cried, pushing back her chair, ready to fly away and pack.

  ‘No, no, you mustn’t blame yourself! Your mother’s mistakes were her own; no one in this town will blame you.’

  ‘That’s funny, Olive. Because it sure seems like they do!’

  ‘They can be judgemental busybodies, but they don’t blame you girls. Memories are long in this town, but forgiveness, no, acceptance, will come quickly despite this initial reception.’

  ‘It doesn’t look promising from where I sit.’

  ‘Be patient, and you’ll see. I promise.’

  Sonnet ground her teeth, gauging the weight of Olive’s assurance. ‘So, what, I’m supposed to lie low, and just wait for them to get over themselves?’

  ‘Something like that. Have you heard the saying: “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar”?’

  ‘In other words, be nice no matter what? I doubt you’d be giving the same advice to a nephew. Only women are expected to be nice all the time. Don’t think this comes as a surprise to you, but I’m not a laying-low kind of girl.’

  ‘Think of it as “killing them with kindness” then.’

  ‘The killing I can do.’ Sonnet matched Olive’s pursed lips with thrusting chin. ‘I mean it! The next time someone humiliates my sister, they’ll have me to deal with!’

  ‘I can understand the impulse, even if it’s counterproductive. If you flounce around Main Street ruffling feathers everywhere, you’ll only breathe new controversy into the memory of Esther Hamilton, make it harder for them to see you girls in your own light.’

  ‘If this town is hell-bent on making us feel unwelcome, I’m taking the girls out of here.’

  ‘Give us a try, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘I already did!’

  ‘A proper try, dear. Don’t quit at the first hurdle.’

  Sonnet glowered. How quickly this woman had learned her tender spots.

  ‘Look,’ Olive said, placating now, ‘you’ve claimed your inheritance, you’ve got enough money to set yourselves up wherever you please. You don’t really need us, or this town. But give us a chance. We are family, like it or not, and I think we’ll be good family to you. Don’t cast us in with the sneering gossips – let us prove we’re different. In the end, this was Esther’s home.’

  Sonnet mulled this over. She truly wasn’t indebted to this town, but she was hungry, after so many rootless, roving years, for a home and community of her own. Noah Vale had offered a place of belonging, at last. And maybe waiting out small-town prejudices was a bearable price to pay.

  She sighed. ‘So, I’m supposed to take the bad with the good, until the ruckus dies down?’

  Olive nodded, hope gathering at the corners of her mouth.

  ‘But then they’ll forget about Mama?’ It was a warning, more than a question.

  ‘I promise. You won’t regret it, Sonnet. Hang in there, and you’ll come to love Noah Vale as much as we do.’

  Sonnet did not look convinced. ‘There’s one more thing. Then I won’t ever speak of this with you again. I want to know that reprobate’s name.’

  Olive flinched at this insult. Sonnet enjoyed the effect.

  That’s right, you heard me: reprobate!

  ‘His name was Archer Brennan,’ Olive said. ‘He came to Noah Vale as a new teacher, fresh from college. Was meant to be a short-term rural posting, but the town and students adored him. Then he married a much-loved local girl – one of the Logans. Archer was made vice-principal by the time he was twenty-six.’

  ‘And
he had children?’

  ‘Two boys. They’d be, oh let’s see, a few years older than you. Their younger boy was born with severe issues. I’ve often wondered how they got on with that poor lad. Archer was devoted to him – as wonderful a father as he was a teacher. That’s why it was so shockingly out of character for him to have taken up with a schoolgirl, why people accused Esther of having bewitched him. And for Delia Hull, it was quite personal. She was—’

  ‘Stop! I don’t care what that harpy thought of Mama! I only wanted his name so I don’t have all Main Street laughing at me as I run smack bang into the man who sired me.’

  ‘There’ll be no chance of meeting Archer. I’m sorry to tell you he passed away about two years ago. Cancer – he was riddled with it. The funeral notice appeared in our paper. It was tragic to see your mother’s name in the same column only a year later, like a sad epilogue.’

  Sonnet extended her chin. ‘Enough. Don’t ever mention him again.’

  ‘You’re a brave girl,’ Olive said, ‘stronger even than I first gave you credit for. I think you’ll lead the next generation of Hamilton girls into a beautiful new future in Noah.’

  Sonnet harrumphed, shrugging off Olive’s mawkish words. But that was exactly what she planned to do. One of Mama’s favourite quotes drifted to her then, as though carried on the breeze of burnt molasses: ‘My drops of tears, I’ll turn to sparks of fire.’

  Yes, Mama. We’ll show them all, the whole bloody lot of them!

  *

  Unseen and unheard on the veranda, Fable’s slim shadow eased away from the open shutters.

  PART TWO

  ‘But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.’

  Jane Austen, Persuasion

  CHAPTER 6

  THE GREEN WOMAN

  Winter 1955