Dorothy Eden (20 page)

But none of her mother’s judicious words had prepared her for the shocking scream that suddenly pierced her ears, making her snatch her fingers from the door-knob as if it had been red-hot. There was another scream, followed by a shuddering groan.

‘That’s the way, dearie,’ said Mrs Ashburton, unperturbed. Suddenly Mrs Ashburton, to Eugenia trembling in the passage, was a heroine. Somehow she made her stiff fingers turn the door-knob, and push open the door. Then she was within the room, looking at Mrs Jarvis’s flushed contorted face on the pillow, and the large comfortable rear of Mrs Ashburton as she leaned over her patient.

She went forward steadily. ‘Let me help. What can I do?’

Mrs Ashburton straightened and turned. Her face was purple, her grey hair hanging in strands, her eyes bright with surprise.

‘Good gracious, Eugenia! You can’t come in here.’

‘Why not? Aren’t I a woman, too?’

She sat at the bedside and took Mrs Jarvis’s hand. The strong fingers immediately clenched hers painfully. Not wincing, Eugenia looked into the suffused brown eyes and said, ‘If it helps, I’ll stay.’

‘This is no place for you,’ Mrs Ashburton declared.

‘If you, why not me?’

‘Because I’m sixty-five years old, and I’ve seen servants in back bedrooms before today. If you faint I’ll have two of you on my hands.’

‘I won’t faint,’ Eugenia said calmly. ‘Besides, this is something I need to know more about. Mrs Jarvis and I are in the same position.’

‘You don’t need to be that curious,’ Mrs Ashburton said. ‘Well, I suppose I can’t throw you out bodily, can I?’

Mrs Jarvis stirred. ‘It isn’t that bad, ma’am,’ she said, and managed to give Eugenia a reassuring smile before the pain caught her again.

Eugenia was still there two hours later when the doctor, a little red-faced man smelling strongly of rum, burst in. He was rolling up his sleeves before he got to the bedside.

‘Out of the way, miss. Is there plenty of hot water?’ He looked at Mrs Ashburton. ‘You stay. You look as if you know what this is about. Don’t want any fainting young girls in here.’

Mrs Ashburton nodded to Eugenia briefly, indicating the door.

‘But that is not a fainting young girl, doctor,’ she said tartly. ‘She is the mistress of the house.’

Although Molly Jarvis had been touched, and comforted too, by the mistress’s presence, she was thankful to see her go so that she could give way to the agony that rent her. She had had to control herself while that too sensitive face bent over her, she had had to remember not to frighten the young thing out of her wits.

Now she could scream as much as she pleased. But that slim hand so determinedly holding hers had made another bond between herself and the mistress. She was not sure that she wanted that.

For much later there was the other face bending over her, the ridges of weariness cut into the flesh, and her heart was beating suffocatingly.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Jarvis?’

‘Yes, thank you, sir.’

‘The baby?’

‘A girl, sir. She’s small but strong. The doctor said—’

‘I know. I saw him. He says you could have lost your child after what you did last night. I came to thank you.’

Molly could not bear the quenched look in the blue eyes above her. She had to close her own, to hide her tears.

‘That’s all right, sir. I wanted to help. Is the vineyard ruined?’

‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll put it right. And I’m very grateful to you.’

After he had gone it seemed as if sleep would never come to ease her aching body.

It had been a long day for everybody. When Eugenia and Mrs Ashburton and Gilbert sat at dinner that night they were all too tired to do more than make sporadic conversation.

Gilbert had opened a bottle of his best wine. The occasion was not a celebration but a need to fortify themselves against brooding on the day’s disaster.

Although it would be a nice idea, too, to drink to the new life that had arrived at Yarrabee.

‘Will the baby be all right?’ he asked Mrs Ashburton.

‘Oh, yes. She’s small but she’s tough. Like her mother, I would say.’

Mrs Ashburton sipped her wine and nodded peacefully. She alone had enjoyed the day. It had been full of drama. If she had been born to a lower station in life she might have been a midwife. She liked handling those wriggling squalling objects as they made their appearance into the world. She felt powerful and wise and important. That rum-sodden doctor from Parramatta hadn’t really been necessary. He had only given a lot of orders and done nothing.

‘I hope you will allow me to take care of you, too, Eugenia.’ The wine was making her tipsy. She hadn’t had time for a proper meal all day, and she was accustomed to eating heartily.

Gilbert answered, ‘I intend to have Doctor Noakes here, but if Eugenia should have a premature birth we will be at your mercy, Mrs Ashburton.’

‘You mean Eugenia and the baby will.’ Mrs Ashburton’s lace cap was slipping sideways, her many chins were tucked into her neck. ‘You will make yourself scarce, my lad. No place for men. Your wife did very well today, did you know?’

Gilbert looked surprised.

‘I told you not to go in there, Eugenia.’

‘Why not? Although I wasn’t of very much help, I’m afraid. But couldn’t we talk of something else?’

‘Certainly,’ said Mrs Ashburton. ‘In the first place, I am a rich old woman with only one son who, if he lives to receive my fortune, will go through it in a year. This pleases me even less than it would have pleased his father who worked considerably harder than most men nowadays to make his money. He was an agent for the East India Company, and he died of cholera when he should have had a long and peaceful retirement ahead of him. And he’ll have no joy in eternity if Godfrey wastes his inheritance.’

The tight look in Gilbert’s face had relaxed. He was a little flushed. He, too, had had little time to eat that day. Suddenly he began to laugh.

‘I believe you’re enjoying my wine, Mrs Ashburton. That’s more than my wife does. I wish I could persuade her to like it more.’

‘Never mind Eugenia, Gilbert. If she doesn’t care for wine it can’t be helped. It will leave you so much more to sell, eh?’

Mrs Ashburton, pleased with her logic, began to rock backwards and forwards with laughter. ‘I am a practical woman. I face facts. You should have married me, Gilbert.’

‘I believe I should have,’ Gilbert said amiably.

This appeared to be immensely funny to Mrs Ashburton. Tears of laughter rolled down her cheeks.

‘I declare to goodness! I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I suppose I realized today that I was still of some use in the world. And now I’m a little tipsy. I’m only trying to say that since my son has gone off into the blue leaving his old mother alone, you two are now my family. And I want to replace your vineyard, Gilbert. I don’t want you mortgaging the place, or getting yourself into debt with your bank. I am prepared to finance you until you repair last night’s damage. Please don’t say no. I owe you a great deal. You have given me a roof over my head, friendship, company. Where would I be without you?’ She was quite serious now. Her big protuberant eyes stared at Gilbert. ‘I confess that I wish you were my son. I’d dearly like to be a grandmother in three months’ time. When is Godfrey going to make me a grandmother? I should suspect never. Or at least not officially. So there it is. A loan, a gift, whatever you prefer. But enough to save your vineyard. You’re not going to reject a lonely old woman, are you?’

Gilbert, refilling her glass, said, ‘Do you really think this is my best wine, Mrs Ashburton? It was put down in twenty-six.’

‘I like it mightily. Will a thousand pounds be enough?’

‘Mrs Ashburton, I hardly know what to say—’

‘Say nothing. You have an expensive place to keep, you’re ambitious. I like that. Why shouldn’t you be? I shall have the greatest pleasure in keeping you out of the hands of the moneylenders. It will be my privilege. Now I can rest.’ As good as her word, the old lady sank back, closed her eyes, let her chin sink more deeply into her chest, and fell asleep.

Eugenia stared in dismay. Gilbert began to roar with laughter.

‘That’s Yarrabee wine. It performs miracles.’

‘Gilbert, I believe you have deliberately made that silly old woman drunk. I believe you’re drunk, too.’

‘Haven’t I the right to be?’ His eyes were lazy slits. ‘It’s been a long day, and now Yarrabee has a reprieve. I won’t have to go begging to a penny-pinching bank manager.’

His carefree face was so far removed from the tragic mask of the early morning that Eugenia wondered if she had imagined it, or the rejection of her own sympathy. For Mrs Ashburton had been successful in removing Gilbert’s pinched look of disaster in as short a time as it took to say a few judicious words.

‘Does this mean,’ she asked thoughtfully, ‘that we will have Mrs Ashburton as a permanent guest?’

‘If she wants to stay. The house is big enough.’

‘It couldn’t be why you asked her in the first place, because she is rich and could be an insurance against disaster?’

Gilbert shook his head emphatically.

‘Never! I give you my word. Is that what you think of me?’

‘You’re very ambitious.’

‘And I use the means to my hand. Certainly. But not to the extent of using rich old women as my prey. Good heavens, Eugenia, what a thing to accuse me of. I owe Mrs Ashburton a debt of gratitude for looking after you on the journey out, and anyway I like her. She’s amusing, she’s good company. She’s a welcome guest. And if it gives her pleasure to help to save my vineyard, why deny her it? Don’t be so intense, my love. Don’t take everything so seriously. Just bless the old lady, and let’s get her to bed.’

Fortunately, at that moment, Mrs Ashburton opened her eyes and stared about her in perplexity.

‘Bless my soul!’ she exclaimed. ‘Did I take a nap? I must have overdone myself today. If you will excuse me, Eugenia, I think I would like to retire. I’ll be as fresh as a daisy in the morning.’ She attempted to rise, swayed, clutched at Gilbert’s arm. ‘Thanks, my boy. That’s remarkably good wine. Yarrabee wine. I think a small glass by my bedside tonight? It will make me sleep.’

She tottered out of the room on Gilbert’s arm, a rotund little vessel tacking in a strong wind. Half-way up the stairs, Eugenia heard gales of laughter. She sat staring into her own half-finished glass of wine, reflecting on its handsome ruby colour, praying she was not always going to find it as hateful as she did at this moment. It was a dreadful thing to wish that the whole vineyard had disappeared overnight, so that Gilbert would be forced to turn to sheep or cattle which were so much less complicated. Or decide to give up the Australian adventure and return to England.

But that last thought was one she didn’t dare to dwell on, or she might begin to weep from the wave of longing and homesickness that swept over her.

C
HRISTOPHER JOHN GILBERT MASSINGHAM
was born at Yarrabee in the province of New South Wales on the nineteenth day of November eighteen hundred and thirty-one.

A weak fretful baby, too small for Gilbert’s liking, but fortunately tiny, otherwise either he or his mother might not have survived.

The ordeal was something Eugenia tried to forget. She had clung to the carved headboard of the French bed until the skin on her hands was lacerated. Although Doctor Noakes had arrived several days beforehand and had been with her throughout the birth, and although Mrs Ashburton, too, had kept appearing above her, and disappearing, a huge floating balloon, neither could mitigate the intensity of the twenty-four-hour agony. She was ashamed to hear herself screaming in a way Mrs Jarvis had never done.

But afterwards she made amends. She would not allow Gilbert to see her until she had the strength to have her hair brushed and to be changed into one of her prettiest nightgowns.

Then he came in the room on tiptoe, his face full of such anxiety and humility that Eugenia heard a breathy sound that was her own laughter.

‘Why are you looking so worried, my dearest? I have given you your son.’

He knelt beside the bedside, hiding his face in her breast. Eugenia touched the crisp springing hair and summoned up all her strength to say,

‘It was a perfectly normal confinement. You mustn’t worry so much the next time. I’m much stronger than you think.’ The tension was slackening out of his body. She was aware of her own small stirring of tenderness and triumph and intimacy. ‘Aren’t I to be allowed to give Papa a kiss?’

It was a good moment. So was the one when she first held her baby in her arms. They were the things she would remember when so many of her vexations and anxieties were forgotten.

It was fun to wear her pretty gowns again, and play at being a matron, although she frequently felt much too young and inexperienced.

It surely must be inexperience on her part that caused her small Christopher to cry so much, when Mrs Jarvis’s baby had always been plump and contented. Nothing could pacify Christopher. Eugenia would walk up and down with him, and when she tired, Mrs Ashburton trundled him about, crooning to him in her hoarse voice.

He still cried, and seemed to grow thinner, his angry blue eyes staring out of his ludicrously small scarlet face. When he did fall into an exhausted sleep the flush died out of his face leaving it too pale, almost bluish.

At the end of six weeks Eugenia was in despair. She wrote urgently to Bess Kelly for advice. Bess wrote back briefly, ‘Is he hungry?’

How could he be hungry? He tugged at her breasts until he fell asleep, exhausted. But only to wake in less than an hour screaming once more.

Mrs Ashburton gave him a sugar rag to suck, and Mrs Jarvis suggested that Doctor Noakes should be consulted.

Gilbert wanted an elaborate christening party arranged. Although he had not forgotten his nightmare anxiety during the birth, he was secretly gratified that Eugenia fitted so completely into the pattern of delicate highly bred women who suffered severely at childbirth. Now that she was up and about and looking remarkably lovely—the lingering frailty suited her—he wanted to show off both her and the baby.