Dorothy Eden (43 page)

‘If you’re referring to—well, you know, that was doctor’s orders and so on. And as for these arguments we have, the truth is, I like you most when you complain about the vines and are righteous about the children. It shows how you’re involved in it all. I don’t know what I’ll do when you’re away. You’re the life of this house. When I look up and see you coming down the stairs my heart lifts up. Believe what I’m telling you. None of this nonsense of wanting to be different. You are you and I am me, and we’ve had the good sense not to try to change each other. Though I must say, you’ve had a good attempt now and then.’

He laughed, expecting her to do the same. But she couldn’t and he exclaimed, ‘All the same, I don’t care for you when you get intense. I hope we are not to have too many of these moods before your departure.’

How was it possible for two people to live together for so long and know so little about each other? Or so much, but not the truly vital things.

S
TARLIGHT AND THE CARRIAGES
rolling up to the front door. Ellen and Emmy in crackling white aprons peering down the stairs. Miss Higgins in her best black bombazine nervously clasping her hands and wondering who would talk to her if she went downstairs. The mistress had insisted on her coming down. She must see her pupils in their finery, Master Kit a handsome gentleman with his fair side whiskers and air of assurance that he copied from his father. Miss Adelaide with crushed red geranium petals rubbed on her cheeks and lips, and all the assurance in the world. Miss Lucy as sweet as an angel with her downcast eyes and little hands gripping her fan so tightly it would probably break. Funny timid little thing that she was. You’d think she must have seen a ghost when she was born.

The three of them were handsome enough, but they couldn’t touch their parents for looks if the truth were to be told.

Miss Higgins’ adoring eyes took in every detail of the mistress’s appearance, and thought she had never looked more beautiful. Her piled-up hair was greying, it was true, but that added to her distinction. She wore a cream brocade gown cut low over her slender shoulders. She looked like a lighted candle. So Miss Higgins remarked fancifully to Emmy, who for once didn’t laugh at her friend’s romantic flights.

She whispered back, ‘Don’t she and the master make a lovely pair?’

Then the first guests began coming in and Emmy and Ellen had to hurry down to take wraps and show the ladies upstairs. Mrs Jarvis was somewhere in the background. She never craned her head over the banisters. She was much too superior.

The musicians had come from Sydney. They knew all the latest dance tunes. In no time at all the first quadrille had been formed. Marion Noakes was saying to Eugenia, ‘Is it true you are really getting your trip home at last?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Gilbert has written to the shipping company. The manager is a friend of ours. Good gracious, Eugenia, this country is still a village for gossip.’

‘When is Philip going to let you have a trip?’ Eugenia asked.

‘Never. I don’t want it. Look at me. Dried up. An old hag. It’s different for you. You’ve kept your complexion. Heaven knows how, but you have. You really are the most pampered woman in Australia, Eugenia.’

‘Me! Pampered!’

‘From the moment you arrived. And if you don’t know it, then I’m sorry for Gilbert.’

‘Oh, tush! I’ve had as many troubles as anyone else.’

‘Well, I can only say they’ve sat very lightly on your shoulders. You have a look still—I can only call it innocent—and laugh at me if you like.’

Eugenia did laugh as merrily as possible.

‘And me the mother of three great children. I’ll be a grandmother before too long, I have no doubt.’

Marion’s eyes sharpened with curiosity. She was joined by Bess Kelly, fatter than ever, looking the way Marion obviously thought a mother of grown children should look.

‘Has Kit someone in view, Eugenia? Is he in love?’

Eugenia shrugged. ‘Now don’t ask me. You know that mothers are the last to be told these things. But I don’t think so. He wants nothing more than to rush off to the goldfields. Gilbert won’t allow it, naturally.’

‘After tonight, can he stop him?’ said Bess. ‘He’ll be of age. When are we to sample this famous claret?’

‘At supper. Gilbert and Jem have tasted it and pronounced it excellent.’

‘Jem?’

‘Jem McDougal. He helps in the winery.’

‘Oh, I remember. He’s the lad who was a convict.’

Eugenia frowned slightly.

‘He got his freedom long ago, but he wanted to stay at Yarrabee. He has a natural instinct as a vigneron, Gilbert says. He’s over thirty now.’ She sighed. ‘Everything seems so long ago.’

‘He hasn’t married?’ Bess was over-curious about eligible bachelors. She had three daughters to marry.

‘Not yet,’ said Eugenia. ‘I doubt if he ever will. He’s even more obsessed with the making of wine than my husband is. Here are some more guests arriving. You must excuse me.’

Yarrabee at its peak, its crowning. The scent from Eugenia’s lovely garden drifting through the open doors, the lighted candles in the sparkling chandeliers shining on the gay scene. The chink of glasses, the music, the faster and faster swirling of the women’s skirts. They were so much wider this year. The fashion of the crinoline had arrived from England. Everyone was hopelessly old-fashioned who still wore those ridiculous bustles. One needed several stiffened petticoats to make the skirt stand out in a circle, and it was all much too hot in this climate. Not that the women were any hotter than the men in their high starched collars and embroidered waistcoats. Faces grew redder and damper and it was with some relief that a temporary cessation of dancing was announced. It was eleven o’clock and time to drink Kit’s health.

‘At this precise time twenty one years ago,’ Gilbert announced solemnly, ‘Christopher Massingham was born. The next day I bottled the wine with which I now ask you to drink my son’s health. Yarrabee claret, eighteen thirty-one.’

Ellen was tugging at Eugenia’s sleeve.

‘Ma’am, there’s a late arrival.’

‘S-s-sh!’ whispered Eugenia, watching the red stream Gilbert was pouring into a glass. This was Kit’s own wine. For once she had to enjoy drinking it. ‘Who is it?’

‘A young lady, ma’am. Alone.’

The repressed outrage in Ellen’s voice communicated itself to Eugenia. She looked round and saw the girl standing in the doorway.

Ostentatiously alone, in the dramatic black cape that covered her from chin to feet. Changed, but familiar. One could never forget that three-cornered face with the slanting eyes, the winged eyebrows, the sallow skin. Rosie!

How dare she come uninvited! The impertinence of her! Eugenia’s first reaction was rage. She didn’t know how to conceal it, but somehow she must do so, for Kit, who quite clearly must have been expecting the girl, had crossed over to her and welcomed her ardently.

‘Mamma, look who’s here!’ he called, taking Rosie’s hand and drawing her across the room. ‘Papa, another glass. We have one more guest.’

‘How do you do, Mrs Massingham,’ Rosie said curtseying primly. Her eyes were anything but prim. They gleamed with the most outrageous mischief. ‘I’m sorry to be so late. I came by mail coach to Parramatta and then I had the greatest trouble in finding someone who would drive me here.’

Before Eugenia could speak, Gilbert’s hearty voice cut across the babble.

‘Rosie! Well, that’s extraordinarily nice of you to come to drink Kit’s health. And right, too, since this claret was laid down in the year of your birth. Where’s your mother? She must drink with us.

‘Yes, go to the kitchen and get your mother, Rosie,’ Eugenia said clearly, and was totally unprepared for the shaft of fury and hostility from Kit’s eyes.

‘Stay here, Rosie. You’re my guest. Ellen will go.’ With deliberate care he divested Rosie of her wrap and handed it to the still-outraged Ellen.

The ball was ruined, of course. It was the second ball that Rosie Jarvis had ruined.

Not only Rosie, Eugenia had to admit. Gilbert had something to do with it by insisting on Mrs Jarvis coming to the ballroom so that mother and daughter looked like honoured guests.

Mrs Jarvis had appeared to come reluctantly, hesitating in the doorway, but Gilbert had gone forward and taken her arm, and Kit had promptly taken Rosie’s, and there they were, the men of her family, with those two servants.

Not that they didn’t look extraordinarily handsome. Rosie, wasp-waisted, in a green gown of very good taste, her narrow angular head held high, Mrs Jarvis in neat black silk with an amethyst pendant Eugenia had never before seen round her neck.

It must have been a gift from Rosie.

It was clear that most of the men present had plenty of admiration for the two women, and were pleasantly titillated by the situation. Only Gilbert Massingham would do a thing like this. Though why shouldn’t a toast be drunk to a loyal servant, that handsome woman, Molly Jarvis, and why shouldn’t young Kit have a fancy for the daughter? This was Australia and various of the guests could look back to their own lowly beginnings.

Eugenia’s face ached from smiling, and her neck ached from holding her head that necessary inch higher than usual.

She drank the toast to Mrs Jarvis with genuine goodwill. But Rosie—that was too galling. How dare she come, making that deliberate late entrance, behaving as if she were the guest of honour, no less!

And how dare Kit play this trick on his mother, knowing how it would upset her! He was looking across the room at her now, an audacious twinkle in his eyes. He was like his father, tonight. She had often wished he had shown more of his father’s arrogance and audacity, but not because of a situation like this. She had a deeply uneasy feeling that this was much more serious than an adolescent escapade in the shrubbery.

Mrs Jarvis had drunk her wine and, with her impeccable manners, turned to go. Kit, however, laid his hand on her arm, stopping her.

‘No, don’t go yet, Mrs Jarvis. I have something to say.’ In a perfectly natural way he tucked one arm in Mrs Jarvis’s, the other in Rosie’s, and flanked by the two women announced, in a loud voice:

‘This is my birthday and I intend to commemorate it in a more important way than drinking my father’s claret. Rosie and I are announcing our engagement.’ He flushed deeply, lost his formality and cried jubilantly, ‘We’re going to be married. Mamma! Papa! Young Addie, where are you? You’ve all got to come and kiss the bride.’

He was drunk, Eugenia thought dazedly. He must be. Otherwise how would he have the impudence to play a trick like that?

Gilbert had come across to her and taken her arm.

‘Buck up, my love!’ he whispered. ‘You must say something.’

‘It’s a joke!’ Eugenia burst out, but felt herself propelled across the floor. All eyes were on her. There was nothing for it but to hold up her head and behave as well as she could. She and Mrs Jarvis with their dedication to good manners, she thought ironically.

She could even look into Rosie’s eyes, brilliant with triumph, and say,

‘My dear. I am much too surprised to take in such momentous news now. We must talk in the morning.’

Gilbert, however, had to kiss the girl heartily on each cheek, and then wring Mrs Jarvis’s hand as if he were highly delighted about the whole thing. Perhaps he was.

‘Well, Mamma?’ said Kit.

‘I think you are a very impetuous young man. The extraordinary thing is that I hadn’t realized you had grown up. Isn’t that ridiculous?’

‘Tonight, as ever was,’ Kit said gaily, and added in a low voice, ‘Bravo, Mamma.’ His eyes had exactly the same look of critical admiration that Gilbert’s frequently had.

For a disastrous evening, it remained very noisy and merry. No one seemed to want to stop dancing or to go home.

‘Why are you so against it, Eugenia?’ Philip Noakes asked as they became partners in a dance. ‘Rosie seems a nice enough girl. Smart. Good looking. Educated, thanks to you.’

‘And both her mother and father convicts,’ Eugenia said bitterly.

‘Heavens, that’s a quarter of a century ago. Rosie’s an Australian. Like Kit.’

‘She’s also Kit’s foster sister.’

‘They’re not exactly committing incest. You’re a snob, Eugenia.’

‘Am I? I just can’t bear the convict taint. It represents everything I have so hated and dreaded in this country. I sent one of those poor wretches to his death, do you remember? How can I let the memory of those unhappy times be perpetuated in my own family?’

‘Have you hated it so much?’

‘More than anyone knows.’

‘Yet you’ve made such a success of living here.’

Eugenia raised her aching eyelids. He really believed that. Dear Doctor Noakes, who knew so much about her body, knew nothing whatever about her mind.

‘Have I?’

‘You have, indeed. You’re one of our great pioneer women. History books will have your name in them.’

Eugenia suddenly pulled away from him, crying painfully, ‘Then I’m a fraud. Let that be recorded as well.’

But of course Kit was only joking. He had played this prank to punish his mother for refusing to invite Rosie to the ball. He would tell them so in the morning. Rosie would go back to her governessing and Kit would set himself to finding a suitable wife.

That was the frail hope Eugenia clung to. It was soon to be dashed.

Kit was not joking, but he did not stay to tell his parents so. After his outrageous gesture last night he lost courage, for he had another blow to administer. He took the cowardly way of writing a letter for them to find when they came downstairs.

Dear Mamma and Papa,

Rosie and I are just leaving. We are borrowing the buggy, but will leave it in Parramatta, where I have horses waiting for us. We are going to the goldfields, and will find a parson to marry us there. This will save Mamma the embarrassment of thinking she had to arrange a big church wedding for us.

I am sorry, Papa, about the vineyard, but you must have realized by now that I am not interested in the wine business. I have no talent for it. I have always only wanted to explore, and I am convinced I will make my fortune. Even if I don’t, Rosie is quite happy to be the wife of a working man. We have always loved each other. Please, Mamma, try to understand.