A Distant Dream (10 page)

Molly nodded. She liked the man who had said he was her daddy, though she remembered that her daddy lived in a different place, in a different time, when Maggie was there and her mammy who lay on a
palliasse
in a corner. She had lain next to the body of her mammy until some people had come with a box and had taken her away.

A sudden whooping and screeching caused the girls to jump up from the trunk in fear, but it was just the boys crashing through the undergrowth, still energetic in spite of the draining heat. One of them carried a sack and whatever there was in it seemed to be struggling, although it didn't seem to deter its captor at all.

“Come, Molly.” Hannah held out her hand and the pair started to run towards the settlement. By arriving together with the hunters and gatherers, it would look as if they had been with them all the time. The smell of cooking assailed their nostrils and they watched as a fat, brown wombat was tipped onto the ground at the feet of the waiting women. One of the boys hit the squirming animal across the head with a rock and it lay dazed for a moment until its heart stopped and was still.

“Where've you two been?” asked Bessie, listlessly, from her place on the grass where she had stayed whilst watching the two women prepare dinner. She hadn't offered to help, as she could see the pair worked in harmony. Her inquiry to the girls was a mild one; she couldn't summon up the energy to raise her voice. Her head was still hammering, her body clammy, she also felt a little shivery even though the sun was beating down overhead.

“With the boys, Missus” Hannah replied, whilst Molly hung back, having looked at the poor little animal lying there with a certain sympathy. She could still remember the staring eyes of the dead rabbits that her daddy used to hang on the back of the cabin door.

“Don't call me Missus. While we're in this god forsaken place, you're to call me Mammy. Go to the shelter and get me the big hat.”

“Would yer like another mug of water?” Mary asked, coming over with a look of concern on her face at the red, sweating face of her new neighbour. “Do yer not have a better hat than that one? Yer need a shady one, not a bonnet and a straw one is better for you.”

“She's gone to get it for me.” Bessie jerked her thumb in the direction of the shelter. “I will have another water, my throat's gone dry with this heat.” She just wanted to sleep. It was the warmth of the day that was causing her to shiver. It was going to take a day or two to get accustomed to it.

It was alright for these two women, already used to the hateful place, with its dirt and the flies and living a hand to mouth existence. Though if the widow was willing to move from her property in the next few days, she could look forward to a little comfort soon.
Where was Clarence?
She thought impatiently.
He'd
get the run of her tongue when she clapped eyes on him.

“I's hungry.” Molly had walked over to Fiona who was dishing up stew to eager recipients, whilst Mary handed a mug of water to Bessie.

“Of course yer are, little one,” Fiona said kindly. “I'll get yer a bit of something if yer mammy says yer can so. And what about yer sister? What are yer names?”

“She's Molly and I'm Hannah” answered Hannah, having dropped Bessie's hat into her lap obediently then followed Molly, seeing there might be a bit of food going for the two of them. It was obvious that the Filbey woman wasn't going to stir her stumps and make a bite to eat.

“And ‘ow old are yer, Hannah, yer look to be the about same age as me eldest?”

“I dunno, twelve, thirteen mebbe, nobody ever said.”

She watched with growing dread when she thought of the words she'd just uttered. The Filbey woman would kill her if she had let the cat out of the bag. The woman's face, looking sad because she always baked a cake to celebrate her children's birthdays, thought better of questioning her further. There was obviously a mystery surrounding these people who had recently arrived, but being a Christian woman, it wasn't her place to pry.

Clarence arrived back at the settlement just as the two women were packing the dirty dishes into a woven willow basket and were heading to a nearby creek to give them a wash. There was no sign of Bessie. It appeared she had gone to the shelter not feeling very well. The two girls looked half asleep as they lay under a tree together, watching the other children playing a game that involved a lot of shouting.

“Has Mrs. Filbey fed you?” he asked, his own tummy rumbling and the smell of the wallaby stew still lingering in the air. Hannah nodded but told him that it was the nice mothers who had given them food, as
their
mammy was feeling poorly. Clarence smiled to himself when he heard her words; Bessie had suddenly become a mother to the pair of them.

“I saw a place that looked as if it were a grocery when I was comin' up the street,” he said, thinking quickly that if he was to have a reason for leaving the settlement again, he could check on Aubretia at the courthouse. “Hannah, did yer get a bit of cookin' at the orphanage, ‘cos I don't think Mrs. Filbey'll be up to it for a while?”

Hannah nodded. Hadn't she always been the one sent to help in the kitchen, even though it was usually to stir the pot of vegetable stew.

“Good, we'll go and buy a few provisions for our dinner from the grocery, then we'll take a little walk and look around. I suppose I'd best have a look at Mrs. Filbey.”

He saw that Bessie was shivering under a blanket when he crawled into the shelter. He waited for her tirade – hadn't he just spent some time on his own with the widow? He was going to get it in the neck from his wife. Instead she stared at him anxiously, as she had never suffered a day's illness in her life other than the ailments of a child.

“It could be the sweating sickness” she gasped, having worked herself up into a froth, her hand trembling on the mug of water that Mary had kindly packed her off with. “It'll be this horrible place yer've brought me to, full of flies and creeping things and a heat to burn the end of your nose off. It'll be the death of me, you'll see, Filbey.”

“Nonsense. It's the heat that's causin' the sweats, Bessie, bein' you're not used to it an' all. Ireland was a place of mist and rain and mostly coolish weather. Give it a couple of days, rest and drink a lot of water and you'll be fine.”

“I need a doctor. I need a priest to say the Last Rites over me. I'm hot and shivery and my body's on fire. You'll be sorry that you dragged me here when they're lowering me into my grave.”

Bessie began to cry, making Clarence feel like he was the cruelest man on earth for making his wife suffer as she was. And there was him making sheep's eyes at that young woman while Bessie had been suffering so. Shame on him.

“See, I'll go and ask if there's a doctor. I'll send him along and whatever it costs I'll have him make yer better. I'm sorry Bessie. I thought you'd enjoy a new life in the colony.”

She snorted and pulled the blanket closer and Clarence ran from the shelter for help.

“There's Doctor Poskitt along the street.”

Clarence came across Joseph, newly returned with Fred from the forage for edible food in the forest. “It'll be the heat that's causing it, that and a lack of good food on the emigration ship. Ship's biscuits are not what they're cracked up to be, eh Clarence?”

Clarence agreed hoping that Hannah who was standing nearby, didn't put the man right, with her coming across in steerage and the Filbeys living in a cabin like lords.

“I'll get over there,” he said, shooing the girls ahead of him in case he should have to lie.

“Yer can't miss it. The house is on the right of the street. It's a stone built one just past the Bush Inn and the general grocery; his plate's on the picket fence.”

Clarence didn't know what the plate would be for. Perhaps the wife put out some bread for any beggars that were passing, a plate like they had in the Catholic church on the Sunday whip round, or maybe you put a coin upon it before knocking on the door. He found it to be a brass plate announcing the doctor's name, when he and the girls stood before the squat, one windowed building. Chimney pots stood erect upon either side of the blue slate roofing, the window pane twinkled under large, ornate, wooden eaves and a verandah built in matching limestone ran along the front of the house, which stood on a large plot of land covered with shady trees.
Impressive,
thought Clarence, looking back to where a couple of wattle and daub dwellings sat on land nearby that still needed a bit of clearance.
A bit of money here if I'm not mistaken, not a doctor who would treat the poor.

“Can I help you?” A stout woman with a large white apron on, opened the heavy wooden door and peered down at Clarence and the girls, who after he had knocked at the door, had withdrawn respectfully to the bottom of the verandah steps. He felt nervous, not having had any reason to see a doctor in Ireland, being sound of mind and limb. Then he heard himself sounding like a nitwit, instead of a man soon to be a local property owner.

“Begging yer pardon Missis, tis the wife who's ailin' and in need of a doctor. We're recently arrived at the settlement. These are me two little girls, so they are.”

Why was he behaving like some farm labourer in the presence of his lordship at the Big House?
He had just sailed halfway around the world in the company of the queen's commissioner for heaven's sake.

“Ah, a fellow Irishman” the woman replied. “We came over here in ‘41, that is Doctor Poskitt and myself did. We had a place in Dublin, but what with all the bother of the dissidents and then my parents shifting off the mortal coil, we decided to semi-retire. We work and play in the colonies and I'm the local midwife.”

Clarence could feel his inhaled breath evaporate, although the thought crossed his mind that they must have come over from the old country with a great deal of money, if they could afford to build this property with it being on quite a bit of land.

“The doctor will be back at a quarter past three. He's over at the Courthouse with the coroner. Some poor man has had his brains blown out, so he's there assisting the coroner with his report.”

Aubretia, poor Aubretia. Perhaps he should leave a message for the doctor to visit Bessie at the settlement. It didn't seem right that the poor, bereaved woman should be all alone when the coroner made his pronouncement.
He coughed and put his voice back to his assumed genteel one, the one he had used when talking to Sir Rodney. He was going to be a man of substance soon, maybe even brushing shoulders with these people at social events.

“I'll call upon him later then, Mrs. Poskitt. My wife will probably benefit from an afternoon nap and feel all the better for it. I'd hazard a guess that it is heat exhaustion. We've recently travelled ourselves from Sligo and as you know we've exchanged our cool climes for a hotter one.”

Mrs Poskitt nodded sympathetically.

“It happens to most of the people who hail from Europe, especially if they left in winter and arrived here in the summer. Plenty of water will serve her well, that and plenty of rest, though I'm sure these two young ladies run her ragged. Leave your name and I can inform him of your visit when he returns.”

Clarence nodded, gave his name, then taking the hand of Molly, then Hannah, he walked them through the picket gate.

“Are we going for a walk now, Mr. Filbey?” Hannah asked, feeling the need to skip and jump, now that this nice man was holding her hand.

“We are so and you can call me Dada now we're going to live in a nice house together and run a plot of land.”

“And Mrs. Filbey?”

“Yes, Mrs. Filbey too. I'm sure she'll soon get better.”

“And Molly? We're to be like sisters together and never go back to the orphanage?”

“Yes and Molly.” Clarence squeezed Molly's hand affectionately and she smiled up at him hesitantly. “And you'll never have to live in an orphanage again.”

He had noted the grocery store as he had passed it earlier. It was similar to the
shebeens
, the unlicensed houses that sold goods and liquor from the front rooms back home in Ireland. Not that he imagined that the place he had just passed sold
poteen
, an alcoholic drink made illicitly, as there was the Bush Inn to serve the thirsty, but he'd pay the place a visit later, on the way back to the settlement anyway. They'd need a few provisions to tide them over until they moved to the Aldridge place; they couldn't rely on the settler wives.

He saw Aubretia in the distance. She was hurrying, her boys clasping her hands, running beside her. She was at the top of the road to Aldinga by the time they had caught up with her and he could see that she was crying and trying to get away from prying eyes.

“We'll come with you” he said, his own heart beating like the clappers as he listened to the gasps of the girls who still hadn't become accustomed to the heat.

“You don't have to” she said, though her face said different and she didn't murmur when he and the children accompanied her along the road. She didn't speak, except to say a polite “hello” when Clarence introduced the girls as his daughters. They hung back and walked in silence; this was another situation to get used to in their young lives.

“It was the bullet from William's gun” she said later, as she took off her bonnet and slumped on a chair on the verandah, after asking her elder boy to keep his eye on his brother and take the girls into the yard. “The coroner recorded misadventure after I stood up for Jackie and told him how hard he had worked here and that he was a valued member of our family. There was no apology from the troopers for the shooting of that other man and neither he nor my husband will get a Christian burial.”

Her tears began to start again and Clarence almost took her in his arms to comfort her, but knew she wouldn't want him to.

“The coroner has released William's body and they're burying him tonight in the cemetery when the sun goes down. We didn't know many people in Willunga and I can't afford to get someone to make him a headstone. I can't even afford the price of a coffin” she said, her voice muffled now as she had her head in her hands. “So they're putting him in a hessian sack, just like you would if it were an animal.”

His heart went out to her as he gazed upon her trembling frame. He could afford a coffin for her husband if she wanted one, he wouldn't hesitate to help her in anyway he could, but somewhere in his mind was the possibility that the coroner had recorded misadventure when he could have recorded suicide had he a mind to. His verdict would avoid the family's ostracism, as taking one's life was a crime.

“Begging your pardon, Mrs. Aldridge.” Clarence hated himself for bringing up the subject but Bessie would give him the length of her tongue if she didn't get to move onto the property soon. “Have you given any more thought to the circumstances?”

“The circumstances?” A tear-stained Aubretia looked at him inquiringly. “My husband's burial, you mean. No, I couldn't face watching him being buried like that.”

“No, I'm sorry, if I were you I wouldn't want to neither, no I meant have you given anymore thought to letting me purchase this place?”

“I've done nothing but think about it, Mr. Filbey. I would like to stay of course, for the welfare of the boys and the birth of my unborn child. As you pointed out, it is a long way to travel with a newly born infant if I was to book a berth on an England bound ship, but I could be able to afford to pay for lodgings and a midwife in the city, once we have come to a fair agreement on the price.”

“How much were you thinking?”

He waited whilst she struggled with the embarrassment of talking about money to a stranger, when it had always been her husband who had handled these things.

“I had heard from William that land is selling for one pound per acre. I believe that this would amount to ten pounds for the land we have here. I thought five pounds for our home, which would include what bit of furniture William made and any household possessions that we have accumulated whilst here, though it wouldn't include the livestock. Those and the horse and cart and the growing vegetables, I would need you to state a separate price for.”

Clarence considered.
Was he to be like Colooney, taking advantage of a situation that could only
line his pockets in the long run? Could he live with his conscience if he was to offer her a pittance, agree with her price for the house and the land, but a meagre amount for the rest?

“Perhaps twenty three pounds would cover it,” he heard himself saying.
What was he thinking, Bessie would go mad? “
But I still think you should take a few days to consider leaving here in a hurry. I can get a couple of men to build another room; it would be up in a trice if I'm not mistaken.” He could hear himself. He was sounding too eager. Why would anyone put themselves out in this way for someone they had only met that day? She was looking at him curiously, before gasping a little, as a tiny foot or hand began to kick her in the ribs.

“See, there's another little life besides your boys you must consider.”
Please take up my offer of
taking care of you.

“It might be wise to stay a little longer, Mr. Filbey. Yes, I think I'll agree and stay.”