by Darry Fraser
Rosie spun back towards Mr Milton.
He sighed as if in relief. ‘That’s true, Miss Goody. I reckon two, three hours at the most.’ Looking Peppin over, he said, ‘He looks to be in good nick. He should do it easy. But if you’re to get there before sundown today, I shouldn’t keep you any longer. Will you be staying there a while?’
‘We’ll be on our way—to Naracoorte—as soon as we can be,’ Elsa said.
He looked at Rosie. ‘I hope you’re feelin’ better, soon, Mrs Putney. I’ll be sure to tell Frank that I saw you, so close to Penola and safety.’
At the well-meant offer Rosie swallowed down a wail. She finally managed a tearful, ‘Thank you, Mr Milton.’
He batted at flies before he held up a finger. ‘But I must make mention, ladies. When you come back, it’ll be time for you to address your father’s will. I still look after a few old clients, and your father was one of them.’
Elsa was surprised. ‘We have his will with us, Mr Milton,’ she said.
Mr Milton gave her a look, stroked his beard and picked out a bug or two. ‘That so? A formal will?’
‘It looks to be.’ Elsa fumbled for the toolbox in the back.
‘Should Mr Putney not have it for safekeeping?’ he asked Rosie, pointedly.
‘He is far too busy at the bakery,’ Rosie said, sniffing. ‘Too busy to even visit the farm to ensure its security, so we brought it with us.’
Elsa was impressed by that. She reached into the box, pulled out the will envelope and held it up for him to see.
He leaned over and squinted. ‘Can’t read it from here but it does look like my seal.’
Elsa wasn’t about to give it to him; she could barely trust herself with it much less anyone else. ‘It is your seal, dated two years ago,’ she said, tucking it away again.
‘Wait a moment.’ He dipped his head, thinking, and his saddle squeaked as he shifted his backside. ‘I have Curtis’s will in my safe at home, I’m sure of it. Oh, Lord, my memory. When you return be sure to check with me before you open that,’ he said and stabbed a finger at the packet. ‘One of them will precede the other. And right now,’ he grumbled, ‘I can’t remember what will was done when.’
‘We will, Mr Milton.’
Mr Milton put on his hat, still frowning. ‘Good day to you both,’ he said, and with a wave galloped off.
Elsa snapped the reins and Peppin got going.
‘Why did you tell him Penola?’ Rosie burst, any semblance of tears gone.
Elsa shot her a look. ‘Where else could we have been going on this road?’
‘He’ll no sooner get back to Robe and everyone will know where we’ve gone, not just Frank.’
‘For heaven’s sake,’ Elsa cried, glaring at her sister. ‘Everyone will know already. And besides, I said we were going on to Naracoorte.’
Rosie threw her hands in the air then thought better of it as the cart rattled along. ‘Then you’ve got us going all over the countryside,’ she said, exasperated. ‘All I want to do is get to this Mr Jones and find out if George left—’
‘Yes, and by saying we’re going to Naracoorte, it will put people off following us through Penola. They’ll go in that direction, and not into Victoria.’ Elsa, annoyed, glared across at her sister. ‘Keep up, Rosie.’
‘Oh.’ Rosie chewed her lip. ‘Yes. I see.’
‘And when we get through Penola, I have another idea, just to be on the safe side.’
Her sister groaned. ‘Oh no, what now?’
Elsa flicked the reins and Peppin sped into an even trot. ‘When we leave Penola, we don’t stay on the main road to Casterton. We find tracks and cut through to the road up from Mt Gambier. If anyone comes after us from Robe, we won’t be on the same road.’
Shaking her head, Rosie said, ‘Not only taking us all over the colony, but now intent on getting us lost as well.’ Her mouth pinched. ‘We’ve eaten everything. We could die out here.’
Elsa was glad her sister hadn’t wailed, but exhaustion was giving rise to doom and gloom. ‘There’ll be places to buy food in Penola, Rosie. I noticed the other day you had a handful of money, so we won’t starve.’
‘It won’t last forever. We’ll have to find that tin of sovereigns, or some work somehow, somewhere.’ Rosie shuffled on the seat. ‘I have no mind to starve.’
‘Exactly my sentiments, sister,’ Elsa said. She hoped the sinking feeling in her stomach wasn’t despair.
By the time Penola came into view, Elsa’s stomach was cramping with hunger. Rosie had fallen silent over the last, long miles of dusty road and low, wooded plains. From time to time the only communication between the two was a glance, or an encouraging smile.
The sun had dropped, so it was late afternoon by the time they turned into what looked like the main street and pulled up at a hitching rail and a horse trough. Peppin wasted no time.
‘Over there on that corner,’ Rosie said. ‘A hotel. Perhaps they’ll have lodgings. It looks big enough.’ She took off her pinny, using it to slap dust and dirt from her clothes.
Elsa began to worry that this was a plan that could go very wrong. She slumped in the driver’s seat and considered the unwelcoming building, a single-storeyed ugly thing, squat and sturdy. A pub. A few men hovered around the front door. She hoped, if nothing else, there was a restaurant inside and that the menu would be hearty—she could eat the side of a bullock. She climbed to the ground after Rosie.
Her sister marched across the road to the arched doorway of the building. ‘Good afternoon. Is there a meal and lodgings at this establishment?’ she asked one of the men.
The four men standing there tipped their hats. A man with a dark straggly beard and a pipe between his teeth took off his hat. ‘There is, missus. But ye and yer daughter might be better off askin’ the Josephite sisters for rooms.’
Elsa bit her lip as Rosie stiffened. Her sister adjusted her collar. ‘Thank you. So long as this place has a good meal and a good room it will suffice.’
Sucking her cheeks to stop a burst of laughter, Elsa was glad Rosie hadn’t corrected the man. Being seen to be mother and daughter would help, but clearly her older sister had been taken aback. Still, bless her heart, Rosie squared her shoulders and spoke to her.
‘Come along, Myrtle. We shall go inside and speak to the publican.’ Rosie swept by the men who stood aside in deferential, though short-lived, silence.
Myrtle.
When they entered the hotel, the smell of beer—yeasty and sweet—fell over them like a mist. Raucous laughter came from one of the rooms they passed, and tobacco smoke drifted out, along with the strong odour of hard-working men. Rosie strode by. Another room was closed, and further along there was a larger saloon. She stopped in the doorway, aware she wasn’t allowed into the bar, and called out over the rumble and hum of boozy conversation.
‘Would there be someone in charge to rent us lodgings?’
As the notes of a female voice rang out over the confabulating, the immediate hush, taciturn and sullen, delivered a room full of belligerent stares towards them. Elsa glanced at Rosie, who had her own imperious stare directed their way.
Finally, an aproned gentleman approached the doorway. The hair on his head was slick with oil, parted on one side, the over-comb not quite covering a gleaming bald patch. A pencil nestled over one ear. His moustache, prolific in its growth, was thick and black.
‘I’m the publican, I can do that for you. If you’d come this way?’ He indicated with his hand that she should step back and let him pass. ‘Excuse me, missus,’ he said to her. His glance then fell on Elsa. ‘Excuse me, miss. This way. This way.’
With the threat of female trespass now removed from sacred space, the important palaver in the bar continued, at first as if recovering from shock.
Elsa had to admire her sister.
They followed the gentleman to a reception counter, its window covered with a curtain drawn across it. ‘Wait here a moment.’ He took out a large key, opened a door t
o the side and disappeared only to reappear as he swished aside the short drape. ‘Now then,’ he said, taking the pencil from behind his ear as he opened a ledger book and peered at it. ‘One room is available with four beds.’
‘We don’t need four beds,’ Rosie said. ‘There is only my—daughter and I.’
‘If you don’t want to share the room with other female guests, you have to pay for the four beds.’ He waited a moment before raising his brows as if annoyed. He replaced the pencil behind an ear that had more hair on it than he had on his head and closed the ledger.
As if there’d be other guests. ‘Do you have a room with one double bed? My mother and I don’t mind sharing,’ Elsa said sadly. ‘We have travelled very far to inform dear relatives of two deaths in the family, and we are so very exhausted, we could sleep on the floor.’
Rosie blinked but her high-and-mighty gaze stayed on the publican.
He looked from Elsa to Rosie and sighed. ‘Well, it’s a slow time, and not many travellers. I could let you have the room and only charge for the two beds.’
Elsa brightened. ‘Oh, sir, you are kind. My mother and I do thank you.’ She noticed Rosie’s mouth set in a line. ‘We also need to stable our horse and secure our cart, if you would let us know …?’
‘For a shilling more I can get a lad to do that for you. Now then, how many nights will you need?’
‘Just the one, thank you,’ Rosie said.
‘Sign and put your names here.’ He turned the ledger towards her, pushed over an ink pot and nib pen and waited until she’d signed—an illegible flourish—and printed Mrs Conroy and Miss Conroy on the page. Taking back the ledger, he peered at it then handed her a door key dangling from a wooden tag, the number three carved into it. ‘Just down there and it’s on the right, Mrs Conroy. You’ll be able to get water for the pitcher at the well out the back, and you’ll find the outhouse further along the path.’
‘And where might we purchase a meal, sir?’ Elsa asked.
‘Across the hall,’ he said, pointing to a closed door. ‘It opens at six-thirty. The fare is simple. I think tonight it’s mutton stew with boiled potatoes, green beans and gravy.’
Elsa’s mouth watered. She glanced at the clock on the wall behind him. Only an hour to wait, thank goodness. She sighed. By the time they found the room, found where Peppin and the cart would be stabled for the night, had a wash and a tidy up, the hour would fly by.
‘Come along, Myrtle,’ Rosie said, and swished along to the room.
‘Yes, Mama,’ Elsa answered, holding in a laugh as Rosie marched ahead of her.
The room was stuffy, and the four beds were barely far enough apart to step between. But when Elsa sat on one, the relief was welcome. ‘It feels wonderful.’
Rosie put her nose to the covers. ‘Except for a little dust, it smells clean enough.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be all very fine, Mama,’ Elsa said.
‘Don’t push it, Elsa.’
Retrieving what little they wanted from the cart to bring inside for the night, they washed their faces and dusted themselves down as best they could. Oh, how delightful to get rid of the dust. Now to present for the evening meal. They were the only diners, but the dinner was hearty, and Elsa ate fit to bursting.
Rosie asked to purchase a bag of bread and fruit, some fresh local cheese and some ham, ‘So that we can be on our way early in the morning to, um, Naracoorte,’ she told the waitress.
That organised, they made their way to their room, slipped out of their dresses and shoes, washed again, this time a more lengthy affair after Elsa had found another bowl to cart water from the well. Even with only cold water, Elsa scrubbed gleefully. They climbed into their beds. Daylight was fading fast, but it would have only been about eight in the evening.
As she settled under the covers, Elsa felt the weight of grief crawl through her; thoughts of their pa, and George, crowded her head and her heart. She clamped it down, wanted to soothe it away but it was a hard, tangible thing that gnawed at her, plumbed depths that she’d forgotten she knew. Too deep for even tears to rise to the surface now, she just took a couple of swallows.
Rosie sighed loudly. ‘Oh, I imagine this is what heaven feels like,’ she said, her voice muffled as she turned onto her side. ‘A lovely bed, and all to myself.’
Distracted, relieved, Elsa mulled over what Rosie could mean. Perhaps now was a good time to appease her curiosity, to slip into conversation with her older sister who would be a font of knowledge and experience. ‘So, if being alone in bed feels like heaven, what’s it like to share a bed?’ At first, she thought Rosie hadn’t heard her. ‘I mean—’
‘I know what you mean.’ Rosie still faced away. ‘I think.’
Still there was nothing, so Elsa pressed on and said, ‘To—sleep by the side of a man.’
More silence, then, ‘The sleeping part is the easy part, if you can get to sleep over the snoring, and the farting loud enough to rival Peppin’s.’
Elsa cracked a laugh. ‘Rosie!’
Her sister turned onto her back. ‘I think what you’re asking me is what our ma would have told you once you were old enough, but she didn’t live long enough to do it. Is it really up to me, now? I suppose it is. You’re old enough to know, well over marrying age. Nearly an old maid, I should think.’
‘Not true,’ Elsa retorted knowing it was a tease but felt the creep of a blush on her face all the same. ‘It’s not that I don’t know what happens.’
‘Really? Have you—’
‘No,’ Elsa was quick to say. ‘But I’ve had enough experience on the farm watching the animals. I got the—general idea. It never looks a pleasant experience for the female.’
There was a silence again. Then Rosie said, ‘The mechanics are the same, so to speak, but the delivery is not always violent. I’ve heard it whispered that it can be pleasurable, but I can’t imagine it. Sometimes it’s not even noticeable.’
That relieved Elsa, but also confused her.
‘I didn’t know what to think when I first married Frank. I do wish our ma had said more than “close your eyes and it won’t feel so bad”.’
Elsa felt the blush burn.
Rosie went on, her voice flat. ‘She didn’t say anything more than it was to be endured, and that it is a duty. And believe me, that’s all it is. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have to.’ Then she gave a short laugh. ‘And now I don’t have to.’
Elsa chewed her lip. ‘Does it hurt?’
A hesitation. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Why do we have to do it?’
‘Don’t be thick, Elsa. That’s how babies come.’
‘Clearly not always,’ Elsa shot back and then regretted it. ‘I mean, we are told to be so strict before we marry because we might become fallen women, yet once married, it doesn’t always follow that doing … it, means we get children.’
‘Ma had five.’ There was the silence again. ‘And have you been strict, Elsa?’
‘Of course.’ Elsa didn’t say that no one had approached her. Well, not seriously. Henry made her squirm a bit, made her want to press her knees together when he looked at her that way, but it didn’t make her feel unpleasant, in fact the opposite—but he was too young. Mr Southie made her feel unpleasant, and her mouth twisted at his image. Shying away from that, and emboldened, Elsa asked, ‘So what exactly does happen, Rosie?’
Rosie drew in a loud breath. ‘Oh Lord, why me?’ she muttered and exhaled just as loudly. ‘You’re in your bed, the one you share with your husband. On your back. He climbs on top of you, pushes a sweaty hand under your chemise and he feels about between your legs—I presume so he knows where to put his man-thing.’
Elsa cringed. Man-thing.
‘Then, he lifts his own nightshirt and his man-thing springs against you. Hard, sometimes. Not always. Sometimes not for long, either, before he gets to you, and then it won’t work.’
What does that mean?
‘If it’s hard enough, he opens yo
ur legs and pushes it into you.’
Elsa’s legs tightened.
‘Then he thrusts a bit with his hips, makes a loud groaning noise, spills himself either inside you or on your leg, then falls off you.’
Spills himself.
‘Then he goes to sleep. Snoring, and … et cetera.’
‘What does he spill?’
‘I thought you said you watched the animals. Spills the stuff that makes the babies.’
‘Oh.’
‘Then you have to clean yourself up, otherwise you’d have to sleep in it.’ Rosie waited a beat. ‘Are you suitably disgusted? That, sister, is duty, and we must endure it in order to have children. I can think of no other reason why we are ever talked into it, or worse, forced into doing it. It is not pleasant.’
Elsa’s lip curled. ‘After what you’ve just told me I don’t think I’ll ever do it.’
Rosie gave a little laugh. ‘When you know you can’t get out of it, you’ll do it.’
‘Perhaps I won’t marry,’ Elsa said. ‘And you, never having had children—does that mean you did your duty all for nothing?’
Rosie sniffed and cleared her throat. ‘Most likely. But I had thought at one time to find other means to—’ She stopped abruptly.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ She blew out a breath. ‘Besides, I must have been getting too old because lately Frank has hardly seemed interested enough to bother me. Which is a good thing because clearly since I’m not able to have children, I don’t miss all of his huffing and grunting on me. Oh, it was just awful. Thankfully, the last time was well over a year ago.’ She stopped again and sighed. ‘And now that I’ve painted you that charming picture, if it’s not enough to give you a sleepless night, I don’t know what is.’ Rosie turned away on her side.
Elsa propped on her elbow. ‘You were going to say something about other means. Other means to do what?’
‘Oh, never mind that.’
‘Other means to do what?’ Elsa insisted.
‘It’s late,’ Rosie railed.
‘It’s not. Are you going to tell me what you were about to say?’ Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light in the room. Rosie began to turn back and then stopped.
