Esme looked fearfully into Sylvia's face before throwing Rose a withering look.
“Sylvarnia most of the time,” said Sylvia as if she hadn't heard. “Varnia sometimes for short.”
She was walking fast with her chin up and lowered eyes and the others were fully taxed trying to keep up with her and read her expression.
Lennie dropped the case suddenly in the middle of the road and stood legs apart. The others halted and Sylvia too slowed a little.
Lennie blew out his cheeks and looked as if he might say something. Esme pleaded with her eyes not to. But Lennie had lowered his to look at the case and fix his gaze on the label attached to the handle. He turned it towards him and putting his head slightly to one side read it silently. It said “Miss Sylvia McMahon, Passenger to Berrigo”.
Lennie picked up the case almost with a smile on his face and walked with new energy. Esme raced to Sylvia and took her hand.
“We should have a car to come and meet you,” she whispered for none of the others to hear.
“I thought Father might have bought one,” said Sylvia.
Father. That was a new way of addressing him who had been Dad as long as Esme could remember.
She looked anxiously back but the others had not heard. They marched in a little army with Lennie bent sideways by the case.
Esme saw with surprise they had reached the big gate to the farm with the cream box on the roadside. She looked into Sylvia's face for signs that she might have remembered collecting bread and groceries there, crushed inside to shelter from rain, or sitting with dangling legs for a rare visitor who might otherwise miss turning in. But there was nothing to read on Sylvia's thick white skin, bluish lidded eyes and folded red mouth.
There was not much of a walk now to the house, a few dozen yards with saplings and dog bush obscuring the view, then into the clear and there it was inside its crooked fence, small and grey like a crouched mouse.
There were only two real bedrooms. The other for Frank and Lennie was a closed-off end of the verandah that did not keep out the weather and when there was a big storm the boys, bedding and all, were moved into the sitting room to finish their sleep among the table, chairs and chiffonier legs.
The girls and Jackie had the second bedroom and the thought hit Esme now that Sylvia would not take too kindly to making a fifth in the already overcrowded space.
“You'll be having my bed and Mum'll make a bed for Vonnie on the couch,” Esme said but the whisper was clearly heard by Yvonne whose seven year old face creased with anger.
“You keep slipping off!” she said.
“I'll sleep with Rose and Jackie and you can have the bed to yourself,” Esme said ignoring the outburst.
The thought of someone with a bed to themselves sobered and silenced the McMahons and they held onto this small miracle while they trudged a few more steps.
But it did not stay with Yvonne too long.
“You're making all that up!” she cried.
Esme was about to shout a denial when they saw Mrs McMahon had come onto the verandah her two hands on the rail.
“She's come!” cried Esme unnecessarily.
Soon there was nothing but a narrow flower bed between Mrs McMahon and Sylvia.
In books, thought Esme, Mrs McMahon would have leaned over and clutched Sylvia and the flowers would have been trampled uncaringly in the embrace.
“Come round,” said Mrs McMahon, “Don't tread on the bulbs.”
When they were bunched together and Mrs McMahon close enough to touch Sylvia, Mr McMahon and Frank in their old milking clothes stepped up onto the verandah from the other end.
Frank was carrying a bucket with the house milk in it and he held it out as if to say this was the real reason for coming.
“Put that milk on the kitchen table with a cover over it,” said Mrs McMahon.
“Look at her, Dad!” cried Esme.
Mr McMahon was looking. His eyes were level with the top of her head and hers with his chin. His chin and her chin had the same cleft. Their eyes though not quite meeting were washed with the same toffee brown liquid. Each mouth quirked slightly with the same shy smile.
Mrs McMahon stepped between them like a bustling hen leading chickens to somewhere else.
“There's things for all of you to do!” cried Mrs McMahon taking her apron from a chair and pinning it rapidly on.
The children lingered somewhat dreamily some of them leaning against chairs as if they thought it more appropriate to sit but Mrs McMahon pushed the chairs under the table and the guilty ones had to move fast to avoid being pinned there too.
“The place for that's in the bedroom,” said Mrs McMahon of Sylvia's case and Lennie having just dropped it thankfully picked it up again.
Mr McMahon suddenly looking as if he wanted to get his face out of the way hurried off with Frank following.
The kitchen had emptied of all of them except Sylvia, Esme, Rose and Yvonne.
“Sit on a chair,” said Esme to Sylvia.
Sylvia sat and took off her little round black hat and held it on her knees.
They saw her fluffed-out black hair with the deep wave running right round it.
“Let me do it!” cried Esme her hands hovering over Sylvia's head as if they already held brush and comb.
“We've got to set the table!” said Rose.
Sylvia tilted her face and shook her thick, beautiful bouncy hair.
“I'm having it waved when I get back. Little waves all around my face.”
She drew with her two forefingers a scalloped edge to her cheeks.
“Oh, oh!” cried Esme looking to Rose and Yvonne to say with her eyes how splendid this would be.
But Rose and Yvonne setting the table frowned at the knives and forks.
“We'll tell Mum you didn't help!”
“You pair of pimps!” said Esme nearly leaning against Sylvia.
“Nellie Wright might be over to play tomorrow,” said Rose with lowered eyes and significant cunning.
“She wouldn't like Arnold now!” cried Esme.
Sylvia's face said nothing and her long fine fingers stroked the crown of her hat.
“I'm dying to see all your things,” whispered Esme.
“I didn't bring everything,” said Sylvia. “They would've been crushed up in the case.”
To have dresses and hats to leave behind! Even Rose and Yvonne finishing the table setting lifted their heads at this.
“I'm sitting next to you at supper,” whispered Esme turning her eyes towards Rose and Yvonne daring them to dispute this.
They each made a half toss of their heads putting the sugar bowl and milk jug each with a beaded cover and the jam and butter with great care in the centre of the table.
Esme did sit next to Sylvia at supper but she would have been better next to Lennie.
“Ask Varnia to pass the bread,” he whispered in an aside to Yvonne which Esme heard.
She reached past Rose and Yvonne and pulled at the shirt on Lennie's shoulder twisting it about.
Fighting at the meal table, even talking to excess was not tolerated by either parent and Mr McMahon slapped the bread knife so sharply on the table some of the things rattled about.
Esme with swift eyes towards Sylvia noticed how fussily with her lovely slender hands she put her bread and butter plate back in its place and straightened the pudding spoon which had gone askew. Esme immediately made similar adjustments at her place.
“Look at her,” whispered Rose to Yvonne.
“You've asked God's blessing on this food. Don't make a mockery of it!” said Mrs McMahon and although she didn't look Sylvia's way Esme felt Mrs McMahon was laying the blame on her.
Esme sneaked a hand down to touch the cool waistline of Sylvia's dress.
Sylvia brushed some breadcrumbs on the tablecloth into a little heap and dropped them onto her plate and laid the knife at a perfect angle across it.
Esme wanted to but daren't do the same at her place.
After supper they did the usual things like washing up and Mr McMahon, Frank and Lennie went out in the half dark for more wood, to see that the dairy was locked against dogs and fowls and that calves in their paddock had no chance of joining mothers and sucking them dry by morning.
Esme would have liked her father to have suggested they all go to the sitting room and light a fire there and let Sylvia entertain them with stories of her life in the city.
Esme pictured Sylvia at the table with its ruby red cloth stroking it with her fine white fingers and the lamplight making a cameo of her face with her hair lost in the shadows.
Perhaps she would change her dress for them. People in books changed their clothes a lot particularly in the evening. The best that could be expected of the McMahons was for Mrs McMahon to take her apron off and Mr McMahon to discard his blucher boots for an old pair of patent leather shoes he danced in during the early days of their marriage. The children under a rigid rule changed into old things no longer worth mending as soon as they came in from school or church.
But Esme thought it was best to leave the idea of a family gathering a dream.
Mrs McMahon's face had tightened more than once at supper when Esme talked about her job and flat in Sydney. Esme thought her mother rose unnecessarily and sharply a couple of times to put the teapot back on the stove bringing about a break in the talk.
At bedtime Esme and even Rose and Yvonne were disappointed that Sylvia shook from her case the nightdress her mother made her to go away.
“You can see right through my new ones,” Sylvia said.
Oh.
Mrs McMahon came in with the lamp and blew out their candle. She wasn't making up a bed on the couch for anyone but taking Jackie to share the double bed with his parents.
Esme raised herself in bed.
“She's wearing the nightie you made her,” she said.
Mrs McMahon raised the lamp.
“It's ironed up very nice,” she said.
“A woman at the flats did it for me,” Sylvia said, “She brings in my clothes from the line and irons them all and puts them outside my door.
“She would do anything in the world for me.”
Mrs McMahon turned to leave.
“Don't talk but get right to sleep or your father'll be in with the strap.”
Esme crushed her cheek on Sylvia's shoulder hating her mother.
“Not you,” she whispered.
She laid an arm across Sylvia's waist.
“We can whisper,” she said. “They won't hear.”
Light from the window outlined Sylvia's features and her spread hair.
“Tell me all about your little flat,” Esme whispered.
“It's not little. The sitting room is as big as all this house.”
Mindful of the rule about not talking Esme's gasp went inward.
“As big as this house except for the kitchen,” Sylvia amended.
“And where you work?” Esme whispered.
“It's big too. Everyone has their own desk. I have the best.”
“How do you know what to do?” whispered Esme and the heads of Rose and Yvonne rose like fish from a lake.
“I know. I show the new girls when they come.”
She lifted her hands from the bedclothes and held them up to catch the light and arranged them as if they were to be painted.
“You typewrite, don't you?” whispered Esme.
“I'm fast too,” said Sylvia.
“Are there boys?” whispered Esme.
“Men!” said Sylvia too loud and the larger bedroom heard.
“I warned you!” called out Mrs McMahon and Mr McMahon winced.
“It's natural she'd talk,” he said.
“Skite!” said Mrs McMahon. She wriggled her body so that Jackie fitted into the curve between stomach and thighs.
Mr McMahon wriggled too.
“Put him on the other side of you,” he whispered.
“They'd hear,” said Mrs McMahon.
Through the wall Esme put her lips close to Sylvia's ear.
“Do they want you to you-know-what?” she whispered.
“Of course,” said Sylvia.
Esme drew back to study Sylvia's lovely remote profile.
“You don't?” she said.
Sylvia was silent.
So was Mr McMahon with his profile also outlined by the moonlight.
Across Jackie Mrs McMahon saw.
His lips tucked in at the corners were finely sculptured like Sylvia's.
She rose slightly in bed but he did not turn his head.
Angry she pulled at her pillow.
“I'll get her working tomorrow!” she said. “Sitting about with her hands in her lap! Lady Muck! She'll work the same as the others do!”
“She'll probably do it well too,” said Mr McMahon.
Very still he felt he was about to leave his warm bed and step into the icy flooded current of Berrigo Creek.
“She's a housemaid.”
“A what?” shrieked Mrs McMahon and to quieten her he put a hand across Jackie and laid it on her thigh. He felt it quiver like the flesh of a young horse he was breaking in.
“She's got an office job!” said Mrs McMahon.
“She couldn't get one. Bess wrote and told us.”
“Us? Why don't I know?”
“Bess wrote when she left there and said it was a good place. It's not to say she won't get an office job when times get better.”
“Bess pushed her out! She was frightened she might get something better than their Margaret. I know that one! She'd be glad she's only a maid!”
Only a maid, thought Mrs McMahon her flesh no longer quivering.
I was a maid.
“You were a maid,” said Mr McMahon, “You were all right.”
Mrs McMahon for a moment wanted to steer his hand towards her inner thigh. But she raised her knees and it slid away to lie indifferently on Jackie's stomach.
“You knew all that time and you didn't say! I see where she gets her lies and deceit from!”
“Bess wrote and I got the letter in the mail one day when I picked it up. Just by chance.” Mr McMahon a fairly devout Catholic appeared still grateful to God for organizing this.