Summer at Mount Hope (20 page)

She could have, and probably would have once, but not today. A middle-aged woman with her daughter sitting opposite Maude was staring at Phoeba's face, so Phoeba smiled at her. She commented that the weather was unseasonably hot.

‘Yes,' said Maude, ‘it always is in this wretched place. I'm actually from Geelong, are you?'

The mailman popped his head out of the goods van, looked at Freckle, his two friends and the cart and said, ‘Why did you bother bringing that big old cart across for?' He waved his flag laughing uproariously, and Freckle was speechless with fury.

There was no stove. It was one of the mailman's tricks. Then Freckle's face changed, revenge on his mind.

The straw-headed boy said, ‘You still gotta pay us.'

‘We didn't make any money.'

The other boy shook his head. ‘We'll have to burn your house down then.'

‘You're a bunch of bloody extortionists,' said Freckle. He threw his hat in the dirt, dancing in the dust, with his fists circling in front of him. ‘Put your dukes up, come on then.'

‘Right,' said Robert looking at his fob watch, ‘we'll have three rounds at a minute each, no hitting below the belt—'

‘Dad!' cried Phoeba, grabbing the two itinerant boys as they squared up to Freckle. ‘Violence will get you nowhere.'

‘Bugger off, missus, this is business,' said the straw-headed boy, and kicked Phoeba's ankle.

She biffed him over the back of the head; Freckle took a swing at his mate but he missed, and Freckle copped a punch. There was a terrible sound like cracking porcelain and blood ran from Freckle's nose.

Mrs Flynn came thundering across the lane and clouted the itinerant boys with a straw broom, sending them running.

‘I told you,' she hissed, dragging Freckle by the ear. ‘Modern conveniences only bring trouble.'

Robert and Phoeba arrived back at Mount Hope to find the last of the apricots and peaches were stripped from the trees and in the vegetable patch, carrots ripped from the soil, an entire row of lettuce gone, the bean bush torn from its trellis and lying in the dirt and a dozen rabbits grazing on the remaining radish seedlings because the gate had been left ajar. The sound of a fiddle wafted down from the outcrop.

Lilith was nowhere to be seen.

The itinerants were taking everything, bit by bit, but there was nothing she could do. She reminded herself they were unfortunate: the shearers didn't want them, nor did the threshers. Her father needed them to harvest the grapes but they weren't ready to harvest. And the vineyard looked so lush, so promising against the stunted grain crops and the rest of the parched country. In her mind's eye Phoeba filled the entire landscape with great squares of vines. She imagined travellers returning each year to pick her grapes. They would help each other. She knew her family had done nothing to threaten their existence – on the contrary. She imagined an enormous corrugated-iron winery next to the dam, and outside it, the cart overflowing with fat, green bunches of grapes. Spot would be harnessed in front of it. He would be her first employee. But this theft, this pillage: this couldn't go on.

Below, in the yard, her father made his way to the house from the shed carrying his pipe and tobacco, wine jug and slippers. She smiled. With Maude away, he would throw her pillows on top of the wardrobe and put his ashtray on her dressing table.

Lilith was late for tea, rushing in and plopping down, flushed and breathless. The top button on her blouse was missing.

‘I've been out walking,' she declared, spreading a napkin on her lap.

‘You've got grass in your hair,' said Phoeba.

Robert stopped, his mouth open, a fork full of mashed potato and peas in his hand.

‘I lay in the grass to read a book,' said Lilith, brushing the back of her head.

Robert put his fork down. ‘I don't believe you.'

Lilith paled. Phoeba played nonchalantly with the saltcellar.

‘You've never read a book in your life,' he said, and ate his vegetables.

Phoeba checked the animals before she went to bed and her father locked and latched the doors, then took the Collector with him to his room. He leaned the gun against the dressing table and snuggled into bed with his pipe in his mouth and a glass of wine. He pulled the sheet up to his chin and farted long and luxuriantly.

Next door, Phoeba lay in bed with her lamplight low, listening, waiting for the itinerants to come for more provisions – and raid their cellar, steal their goat. Spot would call out to her, she was sure. She looked over at her sister, angelic in the tousled white sheets, her pretty curls spread across the pillow. Phoeba knew what Lilith wanted and knew that nothing would prevent her from getting it. It occurred to her that, in that regard, they were not unalike.

Sunday, January 28, 1894

T
hey woke to find nothing amiss. Spot followed Phoeba around the grapes and she discussed going to church with him.

‘I should go to support Henrietta and Hadley. It's Widow Pearson's wedding day. But people will stare at my face and I'll have to talk about the bolting horse and describe the accident. Besides, we haven't been invited, so Mrs Pearson will think we're just coming to stickybeak. Or is that being too petty, Spot?' She looked into Spot's dark eyes but saw only her own reflection, long and top-heavy. ‘We'd better go and break the news to Lilith.'

Robert was back in bed with his pipe and the newspapers. Lilith sat at the stove with her cold curling irons in her hand, rocking and wailing, ‘But I need to go.'

‘You can pray for your soul here,' said Phoeba, knowing it was the pain of missing the wedding – and Marius Overton – that had upset her. ‘Why don't you harness Angela and go?'

‘I don't know how to drive the sulky!' Lilith spat.

‘It's the same as a brougham only there's half as many wheels, horses and reins, but the church is the same as it always was and it's still opposite Mrs Flynn's shop.'

‘You just wait until Mother gets back, Phoeba. I'll tell her —'

‘You will do no such thing!' Robert stormed into the kitchen, threatening to tie Lilith to the sewing machine and throw her in the dam if she didn't shut up.

‘I hate this rotten place,' screamed Lilith. ‘I can't wait to get married and leave!'

‘Neither can we,' said Phoeba and followed her father to the vineyard. His thumbs poked in his waistcoat pockets, Robert gave her her second lesson, on sampling.

‘Sampling is a means of testing the sugar, acidity and taste of grapes about three to four weeks before harvest.'

Phoeba eyed the hard, green berries. ‘But it'll be weeks before they even start to ripen.'

‘And you, Miss Grape-Expert, will then begin sampling. Avoid collecting grapes from end vines and outside rows. Always select berries randomly from various parts of the vine, for example …' He pointed to one grape berry from the crown of a top bunch, one from the outside of a bunch, one at the bottom of the vine, and one from the inside of a middling vine. ‘Place it in your mouth, burst it over your tongue then write down for me exactly what it tastes like. We'll compare notes.'

He issued her with her instructions for the day; she was to scare birds, make lunch, cut thistles and at sunset turn the irrigation on for one hour.

‘What will you do?'

‘I have a sign to make,' he said, and went to the shed.

When the general congregation had left the church, Mr Titterton led his fiancée, wearing her mustard frock and green hat, to the altar. Hadley and Henrietta sat tight-jawed in the second pew. Mrs Overton, Marius and the three Temperance women were the only other guests.

The vicar took his place and looked down at the bride and groom. Henrietta felt unwell, like she had when she'd tried to get drunk with Hadley and Phoeba by eating grapes. Hadley lowered his forehead into his hands. Please God, don't let Mr Titterton retire and breed swine at Elm Grove.

The vicar placed his finger on the open page of his prayer book.

Mr Titterton sensed his fiancée next to him trembling with emotion, so he took her small hand and looped it through his elbow. She was, he felt, such a frail, helpless little thing. For the first time ever, Widow Pearson wanted to loosen her corset. But Henrietta had tugged it very firmly that morning. The Widow felt as if her ribs had met under her breastbone and were grating against each other.

The vicar read: ‘ “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this small congregation to join together this man and this woman in Holy matrimony”.'

A sob laced with spittle burst from Henrietta and the vicar paused. Hadley, looking as dignified as he could under the circumstances, put his arm protectively around his sister and rubbed his knee with his other hand. He prayed: Please God, don't let Mr Overton go broke and sack Mr Titterton.

The small convoy headed back to the manager's house for the wedding breakfast. Mrs Overton excused herself but Marius attended. He stood against a wall behind a frond of potted Phoenix palm on a walnut canterbury. As soon as he could, Hadley excused himself from the Temperance women and joined Marius, turning the conversation to the strike.

‘Yes,' he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. ‘It was a rum affair but we showed them, didn't we?'

He knew it was he who'd shown them and he wanted to be acknowledged for his bravery again. Marius had done nothing to confront the troubled shearers: he'd gone driving to see Lilith Crupp. The man's heart didn't seem to be in being a pastoralist, thought Hadley.

‘Of course, negotiation is a matter of engagement,' he said, but suddenly Henrietta and Marius disappeared and Hadley found he was talking to a potted palm. He turned and saw why. The vicar was heading towards him to discuss raising funds to line the church ceiling. Hadley suggested he raffle one of Maude Crupp's plum cakes.

‘They are,' he said, ‘rich – and she's making so many these days.' But though the vicar knew Mrs Crupp's cakes were very good, he wasn't sure about the family: the oldest girl was inclined to be pithy.

Later, as the honeymooners waved from their departing train, Hadley and his sister pondered their future with a new father – he would build a new house to retire to and if Hadley went away classing, as both his mother and Mr Titterton seemed to want him to do, then Mr Titterton would run Elm Grove. And as long as Mr Titterton was at Overton, Henrietta had her instructions to adhere to customs in the manager's house that reflected the high standard in the main house. She was even supposed to see the housekeeper for a uniform that afternoon.

‘My life is over,' she said.

Hadley patted his sister's shoulder as if he was testing wet paint. ‘We will look out for one another, Sis,' he said, but his voice was cracking.

Spot moved to the gate, took the apple gently from Phoeba's palm and chewed, the woody noise echoing in his long skull. He sniffed her pockets for more while she bridled him, then she stood in front of him and showed him the scythe.

‘You may come to cut thistles, Spotty, but if my hem gets wet I will give you to the itinerants and they will slice you into thin strips and toast you over their campfire for dinner.'

She rode him bareback but only at an amble – he kept pausing to take in the view or to sniff green tufts of grass. He stepped sideways, giving the Sunshine harvester a wide berth, but kept on, his pace suddenly quickening, heading for the dam.

‘No,' said Phoeba, pulling his head the other way. But Spot walked on. She begged, kicked and threatened, cursed and told him he was mean but he just turned circles, reversing and then going forward, until he had worked his way to the water. Resigned, she raised her boots to his rump and lay flat with her arms around his neck as he splashed into the water. She surveyed the thistles and Salvation Jane. She watched the Melbourne ferry steam across the bay. She pondered Robert's new sign: Please travel slowly dust ruins grapes, R. Crupp.

She was watching dragonflies hover over the dam surface, her cheek against Spot's hot, smelly neck, when she heard a horse neigh softly.

Rudolph Steel and his sturdy mare sat on the dam bank. Phoeba felt a rush of delight at seeing him.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Crupp,' he said formally.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Steel.' She rested her head on Spot's mane again.

‘I see the hot dry weather continues.'

‘Yes,' she said, ‘so it's reassuring that the stock dam is quite full.'

He smiled and shook his head. ‘Why do you think he does it?'

She was suddenly conscious that she was wearing her father's socks and that her skirt was riding up, but there was nothing to be done.

‘He's always liked water,' she said, ‘but the older he gets, the more he likes it.'

‘How are his shoes?' said Rudolph.

‘The farrier at Overton does them.'

‘That farrier should have been a coach painter.'

They waited in the hot sun discussing this and that and Spot didn't move.

‘How's Angela?' asked Rudolph.

‘We didn't go to church today so I don't really know.'

Steel nudged his horse towards the dam, Spot suddenly splashed through the water to the sweet grass by the inlet. Rudolph followed, got off his horse and put his hand up to Phoeba – she could have easily swung down on her own but she accepted it. His coat smelled of sun-warmed wool.

Rudolph ran his hand down Spot's neck, across his sloppy breast and down to his front hoof while Phoeba tried to think of something to say rather than just staring at his nice hands and admiring the way he touched her horse. There were feathers poked into his hatband.

‘Did you collect all those on your walk down from Broome?'

‘Some.'

‘What breed is your horse?'

‘It is a Holstein, German. They're renowned for their excellent legs, and good, hard feet.' Rudolph stood up, wiped his hands together and smiled at her. She smiled back, like a small girl on her birthday.