Dorothy Eden (27 page)

She frowned a little.

‘No, I don’t think I will ever need to worry about him. He’s so healthy. And Mrs Jarvis takes such good care of him. But he has an awfully strong will, Gilbert. He has very naughty tantrums. You will have to take him in charge shortly.’

Gilbert laughed. ‘He’s only a baby.’

‘He’s nearly two years old. It’s time he learned to obey.’

‘We’ll settle that on our return. Young Christopher shall learn his manners. I must confess I dote on the little fellow.’

‘He’s exactly like you, that’s why,’ she teased him. ‘You’re seeing yourself all over again.’

‘Am I as vain as that?’

She gave her little curling smile that always delighted him.

‘Perhaps. At least you boast enough. About your wine, your home, your family. You quite embarrass me sometimes.’

‘I’m an honest fellow. I say what is true, no more, no less. With you, I have to guess at all your unsaid thoughts.’

Eugenia evaded answering that by saying, ‘When I come back I intend to take over Mrs Bourke’s charities. There’s a great deal to be done. I shall need to drive to Parramatta at least once a week.’

‘Well, that’s a fine way of not answering me.’

She laughed and said mischievously,

‘I am very proud of my home and my boastful husband and my pretty babies. There. Is that better?’

It was unfortunate that Kit caught a cold just before they were due to leave. It made him fretful, and he screamed loudly when he saw his mother dressed in her travelling clothes.

‘Mamma! no! Mamma, no!’

Eugenia gathered him into her arms where he clung to her, sobbing.

‘Put the boy down,’ Gilbert ordered. ‘You’re perfectly right, he is spoiled.’

‘No, Papa! No, Papa!’ The little boy’s yells grew to a crescendo as he was taken from his mother’s arms.

‘Gilbert, he isn’t well. His forehead feels hot. I don’t think I should leave him.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with him but a sniffle. Christopher, stop that noise at once.’

Such an imperious voice from his father struck enough awe in the child to dry up his sobs. He stood hiccuping miserably, his angry blue eyes fixed imploringly on his mother. He was very flushed, but that was probably from his rage.

Eugenia tried to loosen the hot fingers that clung to hers.

‘Gilbert, I am a little alarmed. Could we not postpone our trip and catch the next vessel?’

‘That’s out of the question. I have my wine being loaded on board. I want to see that the barrels are lashed down securely. What sort of a wine can I present if it’s been tossed all ways on the voyage? It has to be treated carefully, like a baby. I’ve explained that to you before.’

‘Your son is a baby, too.’

‘And I don’t want him mollycoddled. Where are the servants? Get Ellen to take him to the nursery.’

‘Now I wasn’t being too hard,’ Gilbert said as they sat side by side in the buggy. ‘The child has a cold, and he was shrewd enough to play on it. You told me yourself that I needed to take him in hand. So don’t sulk now that I have made a beginning.’

‘Anyway,’ he added presently, in a milder voice, ‘he has Mrs Jarvis, who has plenty of common sense, and Mrs Ashburton.’

‘Mrs Ashburton!’ Eugenia said worriedly. ‘Haven’t you noticed how much wine she drinks? She’s practically in a stupor every night.’

‘What of it? She’s an old woman. It comforts her. I like to see her enjoy it.’

‘And you encourage her, my love.’

‘Certainly.’ Suddenly Gilbert was in a good humour again. ‘I encourage everybody to drink Yarrabee wine. I intend to have it served at the captain’s table every evening of the voyage. And I hope you will show the ladies in Sydney that a glass of sauterne or a light burgundy is a very suitable drink for the fair sex.’

The firm conviction that she should not have come clung to Eugenia until they were on board the
Tasman Star.
Then the cool sea breezes and the lift of the deck beneath her feet exhilarated her and her anxiety began to fade. Gilbert was perfectly right. She was a too anxious mother. The babies would do very well without her. She needed the stimulation of a sea voyage. It was so wonderful to get away from the parching dusty heat, and to be surrounded by sparkling blue water. She was a good sailor. She enjoyed the dip and swell of the waves. There was room in the little cabin to unpack and hang her gowns. She would wear her prettiest one tonight, and drink Gilbert’s wine to please him. She would even try not to think too much about her children.

It was possible that she could even escape from her dream about Colm O’Connor, and the letter that came every two or three months, by whatever means Colm could find to send it. Her own replies were a long satisfying outpouring of her spirit. She sometimes wondered if she could exist without this mental communication. It had become a necessary release.

She had moments of despising Gilbert for being so entirely unaware of her secret life.

And moments of deep remorse, when she determined to make greater efforts to please him.

The trip was a great success. They stayed with the Kellys, who now had five children, visited other old friends, talked round dinner tables until the early hours. Everything was growing so rapidly. The country was being opened up, and men such as Sturt and Hume were beginning to explore. There was talk of the possibility of finding gold. The future was unknowable.

Anticipating its riches produced a constant state of frenetic excitement. It seemed that there were valleys thousands of miles away to the south where grapes might be grown even more successfully than in the Hunter River area. But in the meantime there was nothing to stop the enjoyment of Yarrabee wines. Gilbert had tremendous pleasure in persuading even the hardened rum and whisky drinkers to pronounce favourably on his claret.

On their last evening in Sydney, Gilbert presented Eugenia with diamond ear-rings to match her brooch. She made herself shut out the thought of the unpaid debt to Mrs Ashburton, and thanked Gilbert warmly. The ear-rings were beautiful. She would have the greatest pride in wearing them.

She also made a private resolution to be less critical of Gilbert—for instance it had been mean-minded of her to think of Mrs Ashburton’s debt. Gilbert was impulsively generous and deserved a generous response. She must also be practical and philosophical about the more intimate aspect of this gift. Gilbert would expect a loving wife in his arms tonight, and there was no use in allowing her whole body to stiffen with the knowledge of her disloyalty to Colm. This was how her life was, and she must now decide to make the best of it.

Besides, she had lately formed the surprising notion that if Colm were not so vividly in her mind, she might be able to turn to Gilbert whole-heartedly. That old nightmare was no longer so irrevocably associated with him. It was strange how it was slipping away. All the same, she was desperately eager to get home to her children. And to her writing desk.

Her thoughts were pleasurably occupied with the possibility of there being a letter awaiting her at Yarrabee as the
Tasman Star
dropped anchor in the little harbour at Parramatta. Ellen had instructions that if any traveller arrived, as one had done several times previously, carrying a communication from ‘a friend in Bathurst’ she was to take personal charge of the letter until the mistress returned.

Unexpectedly, Ellen was one of the little group waving from the jetty.

Eugenia saw her at once and clutched at Gilbert’s arm.

‘Gilbert, there’s Ellen! Who can have given her permission to leave Baby? I wish they would hurry with the gangway. I can’t wait to hear about the children. It’s been so long. Not a word for three weeks.’

‘You knew that had to be, my love. Be careful! Don’t fall overboard.’

Gilbert pulled her back as she leaned too far, struck by a stabbing fear. For she had suddenly noticed that Ellen’s round face was wet with tears. And Mrs Ashburton, dressed in black, stood beside her.

‘There’s something wrong,’ she said. ‘It must be Kit! You remember he had a cold. Oh, please don’t let it be—’ She was biting her gloved fingers, her mind filled with all the small graves that were talked about so much, with Marion Noakes’ empty face, with Bess Kelly stoically filling a too suddenly vacated cradle.

Gilbert leaned forward, calling vigorously,

‘Mrs Ashburton! Everything all right?’ He put an arm round Eugenia. ‘You jump to conclusions too quickly.’ But his grip was unnaturally hard. He had felt the tension, too. There wasn’t a smile among the small waiting group of people.

He called again, attempting a joke. ‘Don’t tell me that Yarrabee has burnt to the ground.’

Mrs Ashburton started to say something, but her voice came out in an unintelligible croak. She was a great plump crow in her black garments in the brilliant sunshine.

The gangway was secured. The passengers began to press down it. A hand held Eugenia back.

‘Mrs Massingham.’ It was the captain. His round red-bearded face was suddenly different, seared with compassion.

‘Will you step into my cabin? I have some news for you.’

‘Tell us here,’ Eugenia said tightly. ‘It’s our little boy, isn’t it?’

‘Not your little boy, ma’am. He’s recovering. It’s your baby. Your friends have sent a message asking me to break the news.’

Eugenia put her face in her hands. The blackness surged up inside her. Behind her closed eyelids a picture was printed so vividly, that she might have been standing in the dried cracked bed of the creek, reading the inscription burnt into the crooked cross. The child’s grave. And the letters now read
Victoria
…

She had always known that grave lay there waiting for one of her babies…

‘My love! Come and sit down. The captain’s sending for some brandy. Come.’

She knew at once that Gilbert was intensely relieved that the victim was not his son. She could hear the relief in his voice.

It was natural. He loved his son, and he hadn’t yet got to know the ineffable sweetness of his daughter. She had been like one of Peabody’s white rosebuds.

Had been!

A storm of violent rage swept over Eugenia. All her old prejudices were back, nothing had altered. She tore herself away from her husband’s protecting arms.

‘I told you Kit was ill. But you couldn’t stay, you said your wines would be spoiled. They were the most precious thing. We had to think of them first. So we sacrificed our baby instead!’

Her voice was so wild that everyone was staring. Gilbert tried to take her hands, telling her to hush, but she snatched them away, and pushing her way through the curious knots of passengers, fled down the gangway and ashore.

‘Hush, little one, hush!’ Mrs Ashburton’s voice was infinitely loving and soothing. ‘It was the scarlet fever. She didn’t suffer long. And Kit is almost himself again.’

Mrs Ashburton’s black bosom smelt of stuffiness and lavender water. Her purpled face had aged shockingly. Eugenia had to lift her heavy eyes and contemplate the change.

She turned to Ellen.

‘You cared for her, Ellen?’

‘I held her in my arms, ma’am.’

‘You might have caught the disease yourself.’

‘As if I cared!’

Gilbert had joined them.

‘Let us all go home as quickly as possible. Has Sloan brought the buggy?’

Eugenia said with automatic courtesy, ‘Mrs Ashburton and Ellen must have had a dreadful time. While we were—’ Her voice trembled uncontrollably.

‘Now don’t you blame yourselves for anything,’ Mrs Ashburton said vigorously. ‘We would have sent for you if we could. But since we couldn’t, we had the doctor stay three days until Kit was out of danger. That Rose, that charity child,’ she added vindictively, ‘didn’t even get a spot on her. And if the Lord in heaven thinks that is fair, I don’t.’

W
ITH SOME OF THE
proceeds of the sales of his wine in Sydney, Gilbert had an expensive tombstone in the form of an angel with folded wings erected over the baby’s grave. He was unhappy that Eugenia would never go to see it.

She preferred to walk down to the creek instead, holding her parasol at its habitual elegant angle over her head, and sit for a long time beside the poor grave of the unknown child with its nailed sticks for a headstone. When she came back to the house her face was sad and empty, her manner vague. Doctor Noakes had come from Sydney. His advice to Gilbert was to give Eugenia time to recover. Women took these things hard at any time, but especially when they were in exile.

But Eugenia would be all right. After all, she still had the boy, and she would have more children. Just give her time. The excessive antipathy she had towards the vineyard would also lessen. At the present time she had to fix the blame on something.

Actually, Eugenia had made a difficult apology to Gilbert for her thoughtless and unfair remarks. It was not his wine but her own deep love for the baby that was to blame. It gave her a feeling of guilt that she had dared to love anything so much.

She would grow out of that morbid notion, Gilbert was sure. All the same he was deeply uneasy about her. He had gone wrong somewhere with her. How? He had been a good husband, generous, more tolerant than most. He had had to stop that nonsense with the Irishman, but that was over long ago. And he understood that he had a wife of excessive sensibility, but he had been long-suffering enough about that. Occasionally, after the baby’s birth, he had sensed her almost within his reach. If she didn’t fly into his arms, at least she didn’t shrink from him. There was often a warm laughing gaiety in her eyes. Then this damnable tragedy had happened and she had removed herself so far from him that she might have been perched on some chilly star.

Patience, Phil Noakes had advised. But he was getting sick and tired of patience.

It was 1833 and the convicts continued to arrive in greater numbers than ever. The ships, with their strange assortment of living creatures, convicts in fetters, sheep, goats, pigs, turkeys, ducks, pigeons, as well as their unofficial cargo of rats and cockroaches, set sail from Portsmouth and three or four months later came up Sydney harbour, a pleasant sight with their billowing sails. Closer inspection was not to be recommended. Their cargoes had deteriorated appallingly. The surviving human population was skin and bone with vermin-filled hair, rotting teeth, diseased bodies. It was quite difficult to find an able-bodied man or woman who would be capable of a reasonable day’s work.