Dorothy Eden (34 page)

Or perhaps another reason for the relaxed atmosphere was that Mrs Jarvis had taken to singing softly as she worked. She was in her middle thirties now, a plump handsome woman with her smoothed fair hair and her warm brown eyes. Eugenia sometimes reflected that she had never seen Mrs Jarvis out of temper or otherwise than quietly capable. Though she was strict with the maids, and even stricter with her daughter. Rosie had been banished from her mother’s room to sleep alone at a very tender age. That, Mrs Jarvis said, was necessary since the child had to learn to stand on her own feet. She would not have a nurse and a governess at her beck and call as had Miss Adelaide and Miss Lucy. Certainly she shared the schoolroom lessons with Master Kit, but these would end when Master Kit went to school and the schoolroom was occupied by the two little girls.

Not necessarily, Eugenia said, and asked Mrs Jarvis to sit down while she told her her plan. When Kit had gone to boarding school Rosie should stay on in the schoolroom to be educated to the extent of Miss Higgins’ ability. Then she could go out into the world as a teacher herself. It was fairly certain that for many years there would be a great shortage of teachers in the colony.

But why was Mrs Jarvis crying? Eugenia had never before seen her in tears.

‘You’re too good, ma’am. I so dearly longed to learn things when I was a child. I never thought the day would come when people like us got a chance.’

‘Oh, that day will come, I’m certain. We’re already making a beginning. I’m going to form a committee in Parramatta. We’ll get a piece of land and build a school. I intend talking to the Governor about it at the first opportunity. I think the native children should be taught, too, if we can persuade them to come to school. Though Mr Massingham thinks that very ambitious and unwise of me. But you remember Yella. Her child shouldn’t grow up completely ignorant.’

‘You’re a good woman, ma’am,’ Mrs Jarvis said again, earnestly.

‘No, no, far from it, Mrs Jarvis. I have enough shortcomings. But since it seems that I’m to spend my life in this country I feel I must do what I can for it. If that’s being good—I’m afraid Mr Massingham simply thinks it’s making me a blue stocking.’ Eugenia paused, studying the pleasant face before her. Fifty years later in Australia’s history, they might have been friends. For, judging by a lot of the people arriving to settle here, there would not be too much reverence for the class system. But she was what she had been brought up to be, the mistress of a house, and this pleasant woman with the damp cheeks and downcast eyes was her servant, in spite of what they had been through together.

There were changes taking place in the colony. It was rumoured that the English Government was not going to send any more convicts to the land they still called Botany Bay. It would mean the end of cheap labour. Gilbert was too honest to hide his dismay. He believed that he was one of the best employers the convicts had. During the years he had lived at Yarrabee he had helped to rehabilitate many men. He fed and clothed them decently, saw that they attended church, seldom used the lash. He also attempted to cure them of their rum-drinking habits, his most notable success being young Jem McDougal. But then the lad had been too young to have acquired bad habits.

Eugenia, however, made no attempt to conceal her relief.

‘I’m so thankful. Now we can have decent honest men on the place, and sleep safe at nights.’

Gilbert’s eyebrows rose.

‘Since when have you not slept safe?’

‘I have to confess I have always been nervous. I have always felt half fear and half pity. Some of the men have looked so desperate.’

‘Only because they hadn’t trimmed their hair and beards. Cut all that fungus off and they look as tame as anyone else.’

‘But are not always. You know that they can murder and steal and terrify people.’

‘Not ours on Yarrabee.’

‘Perhaps not, but even sitting in church I’ve felt their eyes full of resentment like needles in my back. I’ve wondered if they would lie in wait for our buggy on the drive home.’

‘Now where could they lie in wait on a perfectly flat plain, without even a thorn bush to conceal them. You’re being fanciful, Eugenia. You should have told me about this long ago,’ he added.

‘And you would simply have told me I was being fanciful, as you just have.’

‘I expect you have never forgotten that night at the inn. I should understand that. Only it seems so long ago. Well, we have three long-termers here, and the rest have sentences up to four or five years to complete. By that time, the vineyard will be doing well enough for me to afford high wages. It looks like being a record vintage this year by the way the vines are bearing. But there’s still time for hailstorms or blight, or a plague of locusts.’

‘You make it sound Biblical.’

Gilbert’s eyes got their intense almost fanatical light. ‘It is. They were making wine when Christ sat at the Last Supper. And centuries before that.’

‘And getting drunk,’ Eugenia said.

‘Easing their cares.’

‘That’s merely an excuse. What cares does Mrs Ashburton have, for instance?’

‘A fear of dying, perhaps?’

‘The way she’s behaving, she’s hastening her death.’

Gilbert said with impatience, ‘Don’t be so logical. And don’t tell the old lady that. Let her enjoy her remaining years.’

‘If the vintage is going to be so good you will be able to repay her the money you borrowed, won’t you? I find it so humiliating being in debt.’

‘Mrs Ashburton doesn’t look on it that way, my love. She regards herself as being in our debt. What is money or hospitality between friends? Must we argue about that?’

The fine weather continued, the grapes hung in abundant green clusters, waiting for the long warm days to swell and colour them. Anticipating a record harvest Gilbert intended to hire all the extra help he could. But once again his unlucky star was shining. Without warning the price of wool dropped disastrously. In Cornhill in London where the traditional bidding took place by the measure of a lit candle—when it had burnt down an inch bidding was closed—almost no voices were raised and the wool, the wealth of the colony, went for so low a price as to be ridiculous.

The impact of this disaster shuddered across the world to the enormous sheep runs and the laden bullock drays with their suddenly unwanted cargo. Thousands of hopeful settlers were faced with ruin. Banks began to fail, sheep were being sold for sixpence, farmers with the panic of despair, gave away their runs and moved into the towns. If this sort of thing went on few were going to have the price of a mug of beer, let alone a bottle of wine.

Gilbert found himself besieged by gaunt-faced men begging for work. This, he realized, was only the beginning. If the slump continued the colony would be bankrupt. He could store his wine and market it at a more propitious time. He was fortunate in that, unlike livestock, wine cost nothing to keep and improved with keeping.

But as always he was dogged by the lack of ready cash. Yarrabee was an expensive place to run. There were too many servants to be fed and paid, he had no intention of allowing his wife and children to grow shabby, and the greatest reluctance to reduce his comfortable style of living.

Fortunately he still had cheap convict labour.

And Yarrabee’s permanent guest, Mrs Ashburton.

He was genuinely fond of the bibulous old lady. They had spent many evenings sitting over their burgundy or claret talking while Eugenia played the piano or stitched at her embroidery. It was an irony that Mrs Ashburton, listening to his reminiscences, knew him better than his wife did. There were so many things that he could not or would not tell a sensitive fastidious woman like Eugenia. It wouldn’t be right.

But Mrs Ashburton had an honesty and a touch of bawdy humour that came out as the wine relaxed what few inhibitions she had. She understood a man’s world. He told her he would erect a magnificent tombstone in grateful memory over her grave, and she rocked with appreciative laughter.

It was only to be expected that when the disaster of the slump hit him she should come to his rescue once more.

‘Say nothing,’ she commanded him when he tried to thank her. ‘I’m leaving you and Eugenia my fortune, anyway. You’re only getting some of it in advance, and I enjoy being here to see you do it. I won’t see anything when I’m under that grand tombstone, will I?’ Her bleary eyes moistened ‘Now keep this from Eugenia. She’s a proud creature, a rare delicate thing for this raw country and you must reassure her.’

The old lady was getting a bit maudlin. Gilbert patted her hand, sharing her sentiments entirely.

‘I do that already.’

‘Then go on doing so. D’ye hear me?’

In spite of the slump and the pessimism, the vintage that year was a merry one. For a week there was singing and dancing and riotous behaviour. Everyone was well fed, well paid. Many got drunk on raw wine and forgot the troubles that lay ahead. The vats, scrupulously cleaned by Jem McDougal who was intensely proud of the trust put in him by the master, were bubbling with fermenting wine. What the impoverished market could not absorb would be kept in casks or bottled and laid in racks. For the first time the cellars were filled to capacity. It was a sight Gilbert had dreamed about. This was his wealth. He was almost happy that he did not need to part with it at present. He would enjoy gloating over it when he turned the bottles at suitable intervals and made records.

His children growing, his wife losing her look of excessive fragility, Molly Jarvis warm, voluptuous, discreet, undemanding, a paragon of a woman, his vines healthy and his cellars full. Yarrabee was going to ride out the economic storm, and other storms, too, please God. Life still appeared hopeful and felicitous.

Until Mrs Ashburton turned against him.

But that was a long time later.

S
UDDENLY TIME WAS RUNNING
away so fast. Kit was eight years old and it was time for him to go to school. Just as well, too, for he had had a passion lately for digging holes wherever he could find sandy soil. He was prospecting for gold, he said, but instead he nearly died from snakebite. If Peabody hadn’t been near to hear his scream, and then, with long-acquired knowledge, to suck out the venom, they would have lost the boy. As it was, he was dangerously ill for several days, and his mother developed a nervous horror of anything that moved in the grass.

Dearest Sarah, [Eugenia wrote when this crisis was over]

We have just returned from taking Kit to school. It was my first visit to Bathurst and now I look forward to many more as I found it a most attractive place. It is an arduous journey over the Blue Mountains. We took three days on the road, camping at nights, which Kit thought the greatest fun. The air was so sharp and clear and frosty that I quite thought myself in the Welsh mountains.

Kit behaved very well until the moment of departure came, and then his lips trembled and the tears could not be controlled. He suddenly looked so young and I felt what monsters we were abandoning our baby like that. Gilbert was strong, of course, but I believe he had painful feelings, too. He was silent for a long time on our journey home, and his face had the preoccupied look which I know better than to disturb. However, the school is very good, and Gilbert insists that it will make Kit a man. His playmate Rosie is disconsolate but she will have to grow accustomed to his absence. She is getting to be a big girl, and must begin doing tasks in the house.

The little ones are bonny. Gilbert dotes on Adelaide and I, to be honest, do the same with my darling Lucy. She has so completely taken my little lost Victoria’s place in my heart. How I wish you could see her, for none of my sketches do justice to her, the way her hair curls round her little face and her big eyes are so solemn. She is very shy. Her tender feelings are all to easily hurt. I keep her at my side a great deal. Whatever happens I will not allow her to be sent away to school, not even the one for the daughters of gentlefolk which has been opened in Parramatta by the Misses Chisholm.

They teach music and drawing and dancing and other refinements, and are filling a need in this culture-less country. I have every intention of sending Adelaide there when she is old enough, as she is the sort of child who will benefit from this kind of establishment.

We are hoping that at last the dreadful slump is over. Poor Sir George Gipps, who is the Governor now, has been blamed for everything, from his method of allotting land, to his reputed convict sympathies. Even the droughts are blamed on the poor man. And he is very incensed about the way some squatters shoot down natives. It is barbarous. But I think this country will always be barbarous to some extent. It is much too big to be tidily civilized.

Eugenia bit her pen, pausing at the end of the closely written page. It was sad that for so long now she had had to have secrets from Sarah. It would have been unbelievable when they were girls together. But Sarah continued to live her sheltered spinster life with no anxieties except the care of ageing parents. And she, in the years since leaving England, had experienced so much.

Her pride forbade her to tell Sarah that Yarrabee had weathered the slump, and she had not been deprived of comforts solely because of Mrs Ashburton’s continued financial help.

And that although her health had now been restored she still, except for very occasional nights, slept alone in her charming bedroom.

Eugenia was secretly perplexed by Gilbert’s behaviour. He had never been an austere man. She did not think he could become one overnight. He seemed too cheerful and relaxed to be practising self-discipline. His noisy games with the children when Lucy had to fly and bury her face in Mamma’s skirts because Papa was too rough didn’t suggest an unhappy man. His voice could be heard all over the house when he shouted for one of the maids, or when he embarked on one of his long reminiscent conversations with Mrs Ashburton who had grown deaf. His face had the brick-red healthy colour of days spent in the burning-glass of the sun, his eyes were merry and sparkling.

All this suggested a man with desires that could scarcely be satisfied by the occasional visit to her bed, and his now careful inhibited handling of her. He had not been at ease with her since Lucy’s birth—or even before that. There had been something in his eyes, an uneasiness that communicated itself to her, and left her frustrated and often in tears.