A Waltz for Matilda (44 page)

‘No need to spare a sick old man.’

She looked up, her face hard and white. ‘I’m not sparing you because you’re sick. You killed my father, as surely as if you shot him. I don’t know how many others have died so you could get your way. But James — no, you didn’t kill him.’

‘If I hadn’t forbidden your marriage —’

‘Then James would have stayed, for a while. He was happy to be back and looking forward to working Drinkwater. But he loved
challenge.
Can you really see him staying here, working the land you’ve already tamed, while his friends were fighting over there?’

She took a deep breath. ‘If you had been different — if you had really needed him, he might have stayed. If I had been different, a sweet girl like Florence perhaps, he’d have stayed to look after me.’

He gave one of his snorts, stronger this time. ‘If you were a simpering miss he’d never have wanted you.’

‘No. James died …’ Her voice broke. She took a deep breath and tried again. ‘James died for the same reason my father died. Because there wasn’t justice to protect him. At least this time our government protested what the English did to James. Maybe one day there’ll be new laws …’

She stopped again, gazed outside at the giant oak tree by the window, just starting to turn flame red. ‘You know,’ she went on, ‘it’s easy to think of the … the big side of this. Justice, equality. It’s easier to talk of justice and new laws than to think of James.’

There was silence from the bed. At last he said, ‘Perhaps that is why your father was so passionate about his union and federation. He could fight for one big cause, instead of face the hundred small ones.’

She looked at him surprised. ‘You sound as though you liked him, even at the end.’

‘What? Of course I liked him, girl. Knew him all his life.’

‘But I thought you hated each other.’

‘Hate? No, never that. We argued enough, though. Anger eating us both, at the end, till we both did things we shouldn’t have.’ He shut his eyes. ‘I grieved for him, girl. More than you can ever know.’

His voice was growing weaker. She stood. ‘I’m sorry. You need quiet.’

‘No. I need to talk. I am glad that you forgive me, even if I can’t forgive myself. Matilda, I can’t run the place like this.’

She didn’t bother to deny it. ‘Your foreman?’

‘Farrell? He does what he’s told. If you don’t tell him he won’t do anything.’ He added abruptly, ‘I want you to stay.’

‘What?’

‘Look at me. I have given more than sixty years to this land,’ he said fiercely. ‘Now help me keep it until I die.’

She said slowly, ‘You want me to act as your … your foreman?’

‘No. I can hire foremen. As my partner.’

‘A partner?’ She sat down again. ‘What sort of partner?’

‘The same as you and Sampson. You carry out my orders. We share the profit.’

‘That’s not what happens with Mr Sampson,’ she said dryly. ‘He runs Moura as much as I do. We have different skills, that’s all.’ She looked at him for a few moments. ‘I can run this place, but it would have to be my way.’

‘Why did I suspect you would say that? We will argue it out, then, when your way isn’t mine.’

‘That is going to be a lot of arguments.’

He gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I look forward to them.’

She looked at him consideringly, trying to see how it could work. Sharing the running of the place with a husband was one thing. Running it as a woman was another. ‘The men won’t like it.’

‘Make them accept it. Move your things here, today. The place has been leaderless too long.’

‘Stay here?’

‘Yes. You can run Moura from here, but you can’t run this place from Moura.’

He was right. The sheds were here; the men.

She knew she should ask for time to think it over. But suddenly it seemed right, as though she had known this would happen from the first moment she had seen the place. ‘On one condition.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t do this alone. I need Mr Sampson as foreman, equal to Mr Farrell.’

‘Sampson? You can’t put a native over white men.’

‘Mr Sampson,’ said Matilda.

He gave a silent laugh. ‘It’s up to you. But you won’t get Farrell sharing his job with a native.’

She stood. ‘We’ll see.’

The men stood in the courtyard behind the kitchen. Mr Farrell’s hat was pulled down low over his eyes, and his arms were folded; the six white stockmen and the eight dark-skinned ones were standing to one side. All were staring at her and at Mr Sampson, their faces watchful, their legs far apart in that instinctive male challenge. Two of them chewed tobacco, as though to say they didn’t think enough of her to spit it out.

She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘You have probably guessed why I am here. I’m sorry Mr Drinkwater isn’t well enough to tell you himself. He has asked me to run the property as his partner.’

Mr Farrell raised the brim of his hat a little. ‘Don’t you worry yourself, miss. We’ll do all right.’

Anger sparked at his tone, but she tried not to show it. ‘I know we will do all right. But there will be changes. I may do things differently from the way they’ve been done in the past.’

‘What sort of things?’ Mr Farrell’s tone had more resentment than interest.

‘Lucerne down on the flat by the river, to begin with. We can use windmills to get the water up to irrigate it.’

‘Spending the boss’s money already, are ya?’

‘Mr Farrell, are you prepared to work for me or not?’

‘No. An’ I’m not takin’ orders from no native, neither.’ He gestured at the cluster of men. ‘An’ they won’t, neither.’

‘They can speak for themselves. Well? Who is staying, and who is going?’

Mr Farrell looked at her with fury. ‘No one is talkin’ about goin’. But I ain’t doin’ nothin’ without the boss’s say-so.’

‘I am the boss. So do you stay or go?’ She could never let them know how nervous she was really feeling.

‘Go,’ said Mr Farrell. ‘Me an’ all the boys. You go tell the boss that, and see if he still wants you to give orders then.’

She knew she could use her anger as a weapon, as she had when the swaggies tried to steal her things, so many years ago now. ‘You’re sacked. Mr Sampson, you’re foreman of Drinkwater as well as Moura now. Farrell, pack your things and be gone by lunchtime. You can take your horse,’ she added.

She put her hands behind her back so they wouldn’t see them tremble, and looked around at the stunned faces. ‘Anyone else who doesn’t like it is to be off Drinkwater land by sundown. And Moura. Anyone here tomorrow will be working for me.’

She turned her back on them, slowly, deliberately, her heart thudding like a horse’s hooves, and strode away.

She was eating lunch in Mr Drinkwater’s room when Mrs Murphy tapped on the door. ‘Miss Matilda? Sampson wants to see you in the kitchen.’

‘Mr Sampson.’

Mrs Murphy looked at her for a second, then nodded. ‘Mr Sampson.’

‘Tell him to come up here. Mrs Murphy … is your husband staying? I’d be sorry to lose him. And you.’

The big woman gave a small smile. ‘Murphy will do what I tell him. We’ve got our house nice here now. I ain’t leaving it. So he ain’t either.’

‘I … thank you, Mrs Murphy. Please tell him I’m glad. And ask Mr Sampson to come up.’

She looked back to see Mr Drinkwater smiling. It was the first real smile he had given since he had heard of James’s death. ‘You’re enjoying this,’ she accused.

‘Life hasn’t been this interesting since your father called me a pock-faced old, er … biscuit and tried to get every man on the place to strike.’

‘My father was right.’

‘And you’re his daughter.’ He nodded as the door opened. ‘Sampson.’

‘Mr
Sampson,’ said Matilda.

The old man looked at Mr Sampson assessingly, then nodded. ‘Mr Sampson.’

‘Mr Drinkwater.’ Not ‘Boss’, Matilda noticed. ‘Sorry you’re crook.’

‘Well?’ asked Matilda. ‘How many are staying?’

‘Farrell, Grahams, Fat Harry and young Spud have left. The rest,’ he shrugged, ‘they’re staying. For now.’

‘Can we manage?’

‘For now.’ He hesitated, glanced at Mr Drinkwater, then back at her. He pulled a letter out of his pocket. ‘This came for you. Peter brought it up from Moura.’

A once-white envelope, creased and stained. Her hand shook as she took it.

The handwriting was James’s.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll be down in a minute. Mrs Murphy will give you a cup of tea. We’ll go through what needs to be done then.’

He nodded, and then shut the door behind him.

James. She held the letter against her cheek, forgetting where she was and who was with her. She opened it carefully, trying not to tear the paper, then remembered the old man in the bed. Another shock might kill him.

He was staring at her, his knuckles white as they gripped his sheet.

She longed to run with it, to read it herself first in private, over and over till every word was hers. Instead she forced herself to take the old man’s hand and kiss his cheek before she began to read it out loud.

The letter sat in the pocket of her shirt — her new shirt, a man’s shirt, not an old one of her father’s. Ginger Murphy had driven her to town in the Drinkwater car.

She bought shirts and trousers from the men’s section at the General Store, feeling eyes upon her, the first time she had dared to buy men’s clothes for herself. The district was already gossiping about her. Let them gossip about this too.

Mr Doo himself took her order for three windmills, a dozen stock troughs and lengths of piping, all on the Drinkwater account. She reckoned she could double the carrying capacity in six months — if she could find the men to do the necessary work.

But even Mr Doo and Patricia said nothing about James or Drinkwater, though they made polite conversation about the lack of rain.

What could they say?
Congratulations on taking over the station from a sick, sad old man? We are so sorry your fiancé was shot as a murderer by the English?

What words could anyone possibly have for what had happened to her or Mr Drinkwater in the past two months?

The stares bored into her all along the street. It was good to sit back on the leather seats of the motorcar, see the last of the houses vanish behind them on the road, see the familiar arch of branches out the window again. It was good to drive past land she had walked over herding sheep to be shorn or dagged, or to gather the ewes for joining with the rams, land she had watched with Auntie Love, seeing the seasons change. Not just the heat and cold but the more complex seasons that Auntie had shown her, each signalling itself in different ways.