Lillipilly Hill (4 page)

Harriet glanced away from them, too proud to ask for directions. Mr Burnie lived next to the school, according to Polly, and there was only one house visible on that side, a windowless cottage, also of slabs, but brightened by the little well-kept garden that surrounded it.

Harriet crossed to the white paling fence. A man was digging near the gate, a small, plump man with a fair beard. His smile, when he looked up and saw Harriet, was reassuring—the most hopeful sign Harriet had seen that afternoon.

‘Are you Mr Burnie?' she asked.

‘Indeed I am. What can I do for you?' His voice was English and pleasant.

‘I've only got half an hour, and it's not really long enough,' said Harriet breathlessly. ‘I want to ask you about your school.'

‘Bless you, it's not mine,' said Mr Burnie cheerfully. ‘It belongs to the worthy Department of Public Instruction. I just rent it, so to speak. Won't you come in? Mrs Burnie has just made a pot of tea.'

‘Thank you,' said Harriet, ‘but what I want to ask is a secret, you see.'

‘Mrs Burnie keeps secrets very well,' the school-teacher said. ‘However, if you wish, we shall take our tea on the veranda, which will be quite private.'

In a remarkably short space of time Harriet was seated in a shabby old rocking-chair, behind a lattice hung with roses, while Mr Burnie handed her tea and cake. It was much cooler here, for a gentle nor'easter had crept up during the afternoon, and Harriet's spirits, never low for long, began to return to their usual level.

‘I don't believe we have met,' said Mr Burnie, sitting down on the front step. ‘Certainly you aren't one of my pupils.'

‘I'm Harriet Wilmot,' explained Harriet. ‘We live up there—on the hill. We only came four weeks ago.'

Mr Burnie looked at her with greater interest.

‘Of course—then it must have been your great-uncle who built the house. The district is very proud of him, I believe. I came here just after he died.'

Harriet rapidly told the story of Uncle John's legacy, and her father's decision to accept it.

‘But now, you see,' she concluded sadly, ‘there's not much money left, and our governess wouldn't stay, and Mother thinks this is no place for young ladies to grow up in. Only I don't want to be a young lady, and I like living here, though the others don't.'

‘It sounds very difficult,' agreed Mr Burnie. ‘And how do you think my school could help you?'

‘This is the hard part,' said Harriet, carefully putting down her tea-cup. ‘I wanted to ask you to call on Father.'

Mr Burnie looked puzzled.

‘I shall, certainly, but what am I to say to him?'

Harriet nearly upset the rocking-chair in her eagerness.

‘Tell him—
please
tell him—that you have a school here, and that you could take my brother and sister and me, and teach us everything we would learn at home. And then Father wouldn't have to worry about us not being properly educated—especially Aidan, because he's a boy.'

‘Well now, Miss Harriet, I think I see what you mean,' said the schoolmaster, placidly filling his pipe. ‘But it's not altogether as simple as that. To begin with—have you seen the school?'

‘Only the outside,' said Harriet, staring in sudden gloom at the crimson roses.

‘Inside, it's no better. We have been promised a new building, but no one knows when we shall have it. It's hardly the sort of school you would attend in London, is it? I have twenty-one pupils, the oldest thirteen and the youngest four. They are quite agreeable children, but I don't think your parents would have chosen them to be your companions. And by no means could my school be called an establishment for young ladies.'

‘But why should we be different?' burst out Harriet. ‘Why can't we go to the same school as these other children? We live here too, in the middle of the bush, just like them.'

‘You say you won't be living here for long,' Mr Burnie reminded her gently. ‘Doesn't that show that your father and mother want something better for you? But tell me about your brother and sister, and yourself, and I promise to do what I can.'

‘Aidan's the important one,' said Harriet, with a sigh. ‘He's thirteen, and very clever. Everyone says
so. He reads and reads—not story books, like me, but history and all about Ancient Greece and Rome, and stories of explorers and inventors and people. He wants to be a lawyer. He would have been sent to Rugby next year if we had stayed at home, and he was always at the top of his form at his prep. school. Rose-Ann is ten. She's not clever, but she's pretty, and she can sew and do embroidery, and she was the best in our dancing-class. She likes those things, you see.'

‘And you?' prompted Mr Burnie.

‘Oh, I'm the middle one. I had my birthday on the ship, on the way out to Sydney. I'm twelve. I hate sewing and dancing, but I do like reading. I can't quite decide which is my favourite story—
Lorna Doone
or
At the Back of the North Wind.
I've read them both four times.'

‘They're very different, aren't they? Remind me to lend you a new story—it's called
Treasure Island
, and I feel sure you will need to hide it from your brother if you want to keep it. But to return to your problems—I think Aidan will be easiest of all to teach. I could tutor him for a scholarship to the Sydney Grammar School, which is an excellent establishment. I already have one scholarship pupil—Charles Farmer, the minister's boy. He's the same age as your brother. I would explain all this to your father in detail, of course.'

He paused, puffing at his pipe, and watching the shadows stretch over the garden. Harriet had an uneasy feeling that it must be quite late.

‘What about Rose-Ann and me? At home we learnt things like writing and spelling and history and geography, and we had music lessons and sewing as well.'

‘If your father and mother ever consented to your attending this school—which, I am afraid, I rather doubt—you would certainly learn how to spell and write and all the rest of it, but I would never venture to give lessons in music or any other such extra. There are no dancing-classes even in Blackhill. How could you hope to find them in Barley Creek?'

Harriet rose, and tied on her sun-bonnet.

‘Thank you very much, Mr Burnie, and I'm sure Father will be pleased to see you. And would you be able to call tonight, as he will be going to Blackhill early tomorrow, to arrange about the sale of the house?'

Mr Burnie laughed.

‘You are still quite hopeful, then? I promise I shall do my very best for you. Good luck, Harriet.'

Harriet marched off down the path, head held high, refusing to recognize the fact that the schoolmaster regarded her quest as more than a little forlorn. She was so busy with her own thoughts that Mr Burnie had to call after her twice before she heard him.

‘Your book, Harriet—you've forgotten it.'

Once out of the gate, with
Treasure Island
tucked safely under her arm, Harriet began to run. She sped past the schoolhouse, pulling a face at it as she went, past the post office and store and church, disregarding the stares of one or two startled townsfolk, and found the track along the creek. Her noisy progress put to flight a dozen unseen creatures in the bush beside her—lizards and snakes and bandicoots, and the ugly, leathery goannas basking on the sunny rocks. Harriet heard nothing but the thudding of her boots in the dust, and saw only the tunnel of trees ahead.

Aidan sat exactly where she had left him, but of Rose-Ann there was no sign. Aidan greeted his sister with a frown.

‘Wherever have you been? Rose-Ann went home—she said she was frightened of snakes. I took her as far as the front gate, so I expect no one will worry.'

‘I didn't mean to be so long,' panted Harriet. ‘But I've got lots to tell you.'

‘No time now,' said Aidan, rising. ‘After tea will do. Where did you get that book?'

‘It was lent to me by a friend,' replied Harriet loftily. ‘I might let you read it when I've finished.'

After her long run from the township, and a rapid scramble up the hill with Aidan, Harriet was too breathless to eat her tea. She sat hunched over the cedar table in the dining-room, a dark slit of a room next to the kitchen, and gazed without enthusiasm at the bread and butter and the tall jug of milk.

‘Polly said we were to have currant cake,' she protested.

‘Mother said no cake if we were late home from our walk,' said Rose-Ann. ‘And you and Aidan
were
late. So I didn't get any cake either.'

‘I'll ask Polly to give you some afterwards,' promised Harriet. ‘And really Aidan ought to have some too, because it wasn't his fault.'

‘I don't mind,' said Aidan generously. ‘But you must tell us what you were doing this afternoon.'

‘I can't tell you here,' said Harriet mysteriously. ‘It's very, very private. Let's go down to the Ruins after tea, and I'll tell you there.'

It was half past five when the children climbed through the sliprail into the orchard, and followed the path between the rows of trees, apple and peach and apricot, which spread down the eastern slope of Lillipilly Hill. Half-way down Harriet led the procession off to the right, for the Ruins had been her discovery, and were almost her own property. No one else but
the children visited the tumbledown, weed-choked remains of the stone huts which Uncle John had built to house his convict labourers, fifty years ago.

‘We'll go round to the back,' decided Harriet. ‘There are some good stones there to sit on, and no one can see us.'

Certainly they could feel quite alone here, perched among the blackberries, with the fading sunlight on their backs. Before them lay no faintest sign of human habitation, beyond the wire fence of the orchard. Grey-green hills rolled on into blue distance, ending in the darker line that was the sea. Far to the right, light gleamed on the long inlet known as Blackhill Bay, whence the steam packets sailed daily for Sydney, fifty miles to the south.

‘Miss Oliver will be in Sydney now,' said Rose-Ann wistfully. ‘She leaves for London on Monday.'

‘There's no use your wanting to go back home, Rose-Ann,' said Harriet positively. ‘We're not going.'

Aidan stopped slapping at mosquitoes to stare at her.

‘How do you know? Did Father tell you?'

‘No,' said Harriet grandly. ‘It's all my idea. I've thought of a way to get us all properly taught, so we won't have to go back to London to school. I don't want to go, and I don't believe Father does, either.'

‘But
we
want to go,' cried Rose-Ann. ‘Mother and Aidan and me.'

‘It's all very well for you, Harriet,' said Aidan, with that cold condescension which his sister greatly disliked. ‘You're just a girl, with no career to think about. You like it here, because you can do all sorts of things you wouldn't be allowed to do at home. But I want to go to a good school, and then to study law. How can I do that here?'

‘I know a way,' said Harriet stubbornly. ‘I've met the schoolmaster, and he says he will tutor you for a scholarship to the Sydney Grammar School. I'm sure he's just as good a master as the ones at home.'

‘You mean you went to see him, all by yourself?' gasped Rose-Ann.

‘Yes, this afternoon. His name's Mr Burnie, and he's coming to see Father tonight, to tell him all about the school, and scholarships, and things.'

She could see that Aidan was impressed, although he would not admit it. If she could win Aidan over to her side, then the battle would be half-won already. Rose-Ann's opposition was not likely to be very strong.

‘And would we go to this school, too?' asked Rose-Ann.

‘I don't know yet,' said Harriet. ‘Mother will have to decide. But I want you to ask if we can go, Rose-Ann—Mother might agree if we both seem pleased about it.'

‘But I'm not pleased a bit!' wailed Rose-Ann. ‘I've never been to a school at all, and we don't know anything about this one.'

Harriet leant forward so that her face almost touched her sister's, and lowered her voice.

‘Just think, Rose-Ann, if we have to go home, you'll have to stay on that ship again, and it will be even worse than last time, because you won't have Miss Oliver to look after you!'

Rose-Ann stared in horror at Harriet's intent and unrelenting face. The memory of the voyage out to Sydney was still all too clear in Rose-Ann's mind—thirteen weeks of seasick, homesick, bewildered misery, divided between pitching decks and stuffy, overcrowded cabin. Rose-Ann was fond of comfort of all kinds, and her spirit quailed at the thought of another sea voyage so soon. Even her beloved dancing-classes could not make up for it.

‘Stop frightening her,' ordered Aidan. ‘You're just trying to make her do what you want, Harriet. It's not fair.'

‘It is! You're the ones that aren't being fair!' cried Harriet. ‘You want to run away from here just because you can't have the same things that you'd have at
home! You like reading about explorers, Aidan, but you could never be one yourself—you wouldn't dare. You're
afraid
of this place!'

Aidan rarely lost his temper. He simply went his own quiet, leisurely way, treating others with cool aloofness when they annoyed him. But now his pale, clever face was red with anger.

‘That's not true! And I'll prove it! I'll go to your wretched little school, and I'll work harder than anyone, and I'll get that scholarship. But don't ask me to like it, and I don't feel like speaking to you ever again.'

He hurried away through the darkening orchard, his footsteps breaking into the twilight chorus of crickets and frogs.

‘Now we won't see him for days,' said Rose-Ann tearfully. ‘Oh, I wish we'd all stayed at home!
Why
do you want us to live here, Harriet?'