A Changing Land (27 page)

Claire swallowed, the pills catching at her insides all the way down. What if she wasn't with child? What if what ailed her was something far more sinister. Good gracious, she had heard the most unfathomable stories; twisted bowels and blocked bowels and growths in stomachs and troublesome appendix that burst when least expected.

‘Are you all right, Mrs Gordon?' Mrs Stackland asked, her pale eyes narrowing.

Claire fiddled with her wrap, hoping she had not been muttering her concerns aloud. ‘Of course, Mrs Stackland.'

‘You will promise me that you will eat.' The question hung in the air as the housekeeper waited for her response, which Claire gave dutifully.

Later in the night Claire awoke to the sound of footsteps. Her tray, the food partially eaten and the madeira consumed, was gone. Feeling a little better she opened the bedroom door quietly and glanced up one end of the hallway and then down the other to where a candle flickered. Elongated shapes were shadowed against a wall. One of the maids was tapping lightly on her husband's door. Claire caught a glimpse of long dark hair and bare feet. There was the squeak of a brass doorknob and the creak of cedar and then the girl disappeared inside. For a moment Claire was unsure what she had witnessed. She stepped backwards into her room and shut the door, her teeth clenching together so hard they grated sideways. Guessing at her husband's proclivities and witnessing them firsthand was more shocking to her person than Claire could have imagined. While aware that men had certain appetites and, according to Mrs Crawford a devoted family man of Hamish's stature was a rare occurrence, Claire never dreamt his liaisons to be so rudimentary. She drew her wrap around her shoulders and threw Mrs Aeneas Gunn's detestable monument to resilience at the bedroom door.

Matt Schipp waited at the rear of Wangallon Homestead. He was leaning against the fence near the back gate, scruffing the dirt with the toe of his boot, his arms crossed. Anthony figured there had been some balls-up with stock, a broken fence perhaps, which had led to different mobs getting mixed up or maybe one of the new bulls had damaged himself. That was all he needed – an expensive bull with a broken pizzle. ‘Problem, Matt?' Anthony called from the back door, trying to curb the anger in his voice. A sleepless night had done little to restore Anthony's mood. He was bloody furious with Sarah. None of this was Matt's fault though, regardless of whether Anthony thought he was overpaid and milking his injury. ‘Come in and have a seat.' Anthony opened the screen door. He needed a drink of water and a couple of panadol for his hand.

‘No, I'm pretty right. Thanks all the same.' Matt hovered on the back path. He was rolling a cigarette, his damaged fingers having trouble with the tobacco cupped in his palm.

Matt was a quiet bloke yet he always looked a person straight
in the eyes, all the time … except for now. ‘You wanna buy some tailor-mades, Matt,' Anthony suggested, aware of a growing tension between them. ‘Make it a whole lot easier for you.'

‘Probably. You heard from Sarah?'

Anthony's eyes flickered with interest. If Sarah had called Matt first … ‘Maybe you better come inside.'

Matt shook his head, looked at him squarely. ‘Toby and his boys will be here to muster up the cattle on Boxer's Plains in a couple of days. They want to be on the route by the weekend.'

‘Righto. Just make sure they shut the gates behind them as they walk them through. I don't want those young heifers getting out of their paddock in case one of the bulls gets in with them.'

‘I'll double-check them myself. I heard about the clearing job.'

Anthony's mouth hardened into a thick immovable line. ‘That was quick.'

‘Well Bruce was up at the pub last night talking about running out of fuel.' Matt took a puff of his cigarette, shoved his spare hand in his pocket. ‘We both know that's a tall one.'

Anthony shrugged and looked blankly at his head stockman. He wasn't inclined to fill Matt in. He was only staff after all.

Matt grimaced, dropped his cigarette on the path and ground it flat. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to give you a piece of advice, mate.'

Anthony recalled Neville's words from the day before; something about delusions of grandeur.

‘Just let things lie for a week or so, wait till this inheritance thing is cleared up. The Gordons are a rare breed, mate, and once they have a bee in their bonnet, well –'

‘I think I know the Gordons better than you.'

Matt looked at him with an air of disbelief. ‘It's nothing personal, but you haven't been around for as long as I have, Anthony. Geez, some of the stories I've heard.'

‘Yeah and in some of them,' Anthony reminded him, ‘I've played a leading role.'

The expression on the older man's face didn't vary. ‘Not eighty years ago, not one hundred years ago. You don't get it, do you? It's all about the land. It's only ever been about the land and their control of it. Sarah can't help it.' Matt sorted through the words in his brain. ‘It's genetic.'

‘And you're the expert?' At this point all Anthony wanted to do was shut the door on both Matt and Wangallon.

‘You own a share, Anthony. But you'll never own Wangallon, not the way Sarah does, because the property owns her. It's in her. Look, I'm trying to help. It's not my place to take sides.'

‘But you bloody well have, haven't you?'

Matt looked at him for a long minute. He was starting to get pissed off. ‘If you're asking me where my allegiance lies, then yes, it is to the Gordons: To Angus Gordon particularly.'

Anthony drew his eyebrows together. ‘He's dead.' He watched Matt walk away. He reckoned Neville was probably right about Mrs Kelly. Matt would have been the type of kid you needed to tie a chop bone to his ankle to get a dog to play with him.

Matt walked down the cracked cement path shaking his head as he went. He was annoyed with himself for the way he handled things, but even more surprised at Anthony. He knew Anthony was in an ordinary situation, but if he had a few brains he'd let sleeping dogs lie. Take off for a couple of days until Sarah got things sorted in Sydney. Yeah, that would be the smart thing to do.

Hooking the chain around the back gate, Matt called to Whisky. The dog was camped under the back tyre of his Landcruiser. He stretched and whined before falling in beside Matt like a well-trained foot soldier. ‘Things are starting to get a bit interesting,' Matt commented to his dog, opening the driver's side door. Whisky jumped in first.

‘You right?'

The dog positioned himself in the passenger seat, looked briefly at Matt before facing the windscreen.

‘Seems everyone has a bit of attitude today,' Matt commented as he drove down towards the cattle yards. The new loading ramp had arrived yesterday and not before time. The previous one had seen thousands of head through it and been in need of an upgrade. The timber structure was so old that recently a charging steer managed to crash though one of the railings and one of the forcing gates that could be slid behind beasts to stop them backing up had broken off its hinges. Matt drove past the yards, admiring the shiny new metal. A good loading ramp was vital. It allowed the ease of movement of cattle in and out of the large road trains that transported them to market and also to various parts of the property when the distance to be covered was too far to walk.

Matt scratched his head, wondering what he'd really signed himself up for when he'd accepted this job. It sure wasn't quite what he'd imagined. Whisky wangled himself across the seat of the Landcruiser, nuzzled in the crook of his arm.

‘Righto, mate. We're off.' Despite the situation Matt couldn't stop a smile edging at the corner of his mouth. In a couple of days Edward Truss was due out to inspect some sale steers and tomorrow Jack and one of the contractors were helping to bring in the lambs. Matt wanted them drafted up and moved to a different oat paddock a good six weeks before they were to be sold. This time round he didn't need to have a kitchen table conference about the proposed lamb sale or wait down at the yards until the ram buyer finished his cup of tea at the homestead. Reporting to a couple of young ones almost half his age and taking orders from Anthony remained a daily pain in the arse. Things would be a whole heap easier if Sarah was in charge.

It was true he'd had thoughts of easing his way out of the whole shooting match, as his dad used to like calling avoidable disasters,
but well, that day on the verandah pretty much sealed him up as neatly as a brown paper parcel and string. The old fella, Angus, had him by the balls to the extent, Matt mused, that he couldn't even scratch one. All he could do was keep his mouth shut and see what happened next and wait for the payout at the end of the day. He drove slowly back to West Wangallon and was contemplating whether he had time to put a frozen pie in the oven for lunch when he saw he had company.

Tania Weil was sitting on the bonnet of her white sedan. Matt reckoned a good four years must lay between now and the last time he saw her. It was the day he resigned from the spread up north.

‘Last time I saw you, my paperback westerns were scattered across the lawn.'

Tania smiled and slipped off the car bonnet. A spray-on pair of white jeans, black T-shirt and white cap emphasised the weight she'd lost. Even her hair was different. It was still the same dull brown, although the curls and length were gone. Short and straight suited her angular features.

Matt walked towards her, avoiding a kiss by holding out his hand. ‘How did you find me?'

Tania laughed and, ignoring his hand, managed to kiss his weathered cheek. She rubbed at the smudge of beige lipstick with a glossy white thumbnail. ‘Once a month you're in the rural papers, Matt. Buying or selling stock, hanging with your pretty boss or socialising after a sale.' Tania glanced around at the breadth of lightly timbered country, then back at West Wangallon Homestead. ‘You certainly managed to fall on your feet.'

‘Didn't know I hadn't been standing upright.'

Tania looked pointedly at his hand. ‘You know what I mean. How is it?'

Matt held both hands up as if examining a sale item that he didn't want. ‘Buggered.'

‘You miss me?'

Matt looked her up and down. He had to admit Tania was looking pretty damn good. ‘Nope.'

‘Sure you did. Invite me in, Matt. You can make me some lunch and tell me if it's true that the Gordons are going to lose some of their land thanks to a father that couldn't keep his dick in his pants.'

Despite a bad sense of deja vu, Matt led the way down the cement path.

Claire walked her horse carefully across the paddock, her gloved hands loose on the reins. The morning sun was bright and hot, offering only a few precious minutes before she would need to retire indoors. She needed to escape the dreadful vision in the hallway and the whiff of illness that still encircled her. Yet barely twenty minutes in the saddle and she was exhausted. Her mind kept returning to Hamish's words, to the black girl entering his room in the dead of night. Once again she wondered if he'd ever truly loved her. She shifted in the side saddle. She was of a mind this morning to pull on a pair of Hamish's trousers and ride like a man, like she used to, thirty years ago. Instead, convention saw her don a riding suit complete with veiled hat, cropped jacket and black-heeled boots. Ridiculous, she now thought, as her legs and back began to ache, her stomach swelled in anger against her tight corset and the perspiration on her skin formed a sticky barrier next to her clothes. A final muscle twinge in her lower back ended Claire's thoughts of continuing on and,
unhooking her leg from the side saddle, she slipped off the horse to stand in the tufted grass.

‘Claire.'

In the midst of lifting her veil, Claire looked to where Luke was riding towards her. Despite her discomfort and her annoyance at his recent absence, a flutter of pleasure greeted his arrival. His wide-brimmed hat sat laconically on the rear of his head, his hair looked damp and lay plastered to his forehead. Claire lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the homestead, its whitewashed walls shining brightly behind him.

‘Morning ride?' It was a rare sight to see a woman on horseback around these parts, particularly one garbed as if she were about to join an English hunt. Luke swallowed his amusement. ‘Dressed for the occasion I see,' he drawled, looking down from his horse, although she cut a fine figure with her snug-fitting jacket and jaunty hat.

Claire finished poking the black netting into the grosgrain ribbon banding the hat. ‘Where have you been?' They'd not spoken since Christmas Eve, apart from the unsettling glance that had passed between them the day prior to Hamish's departure. Claire was unsure as how to proceed.

Luke dismounted and fell into step with her. ‘I went trapping.'

She looked at him suspiciously. Luke tied the reins of her horse to his own. ‘I needed you and you weren't here. Nobody was. Not that I suppose it matters.' She sniffed. ‘Anyway, we really don't see you when you're here.' Claire began walking towards the homestead.

‘Is everything all right?' Half-moons of darkness highlighted her eyes. ‘Claire?' She gave a questioning look that made him sorry for his absence and pleased he was needed. ‘Is it Hamish?'

‘Your father,' she politely corrected him, ‘has –'

‘Returned from his walkabout?' He wondered if Crawford Corner was now part of the great rural monolith that belonged
to Hamish Gordon. They walked on for some minutes, their slow pace enticing myriad small black flies to land on backs, faces and hands. Their horses shook their manes, swished their tails, causing the flies to rise in a mass and then resettle. Claire pulled the netting down across her face. ‘Two days he was away, with no word. Then he returns, almost a changed man.' She recalled Hamish's harsh words – they could not be repeated. She stepped slowly through the grass. ‘I'm worried.'

Luke laughed – the idea of someone being worried about Hamish Gordon was quite a novel thought and he was sure his father would feel the same way.

Claire cocked an eyebrow. ‘Not for him. For Angus.'

‘Angus?'

‘You wouldn't understand.' She walked on, her body stiffened by resolve. ‘Sometimes I wish you were more like the rest of us.'

Luke grabbed at her wrist, slowing her walk. ‘What is that meant to mean?' Beneath her riding jacket was a high-necked white blouse with fine pleats running the length of it. The stark whiteness of the material contrasted vividly with the darkness of the jacket and Luke found himself holding Claire's wrist for a moment longer than necessary.

‘You've always come and gone as you please.' She stepped over some fallen branches, taking his arm for support. ‘The conventions of society – companionship, respectability, social acceptance – these are meaningless to you. While I on the other hand cultivate this family's place in society for the benefit of –'

‘Angus,' Luke finished for her. ‘And you're wrong, Claire. If things had been different …' But what could he say? That he too craved the comforting normality of family? Family was something that he'd only glimpsed and most of the time it seemed as if that life never existed at all. A sheen of moisture covered Claire's fine features. He wondered at how different his life would have been if he'd been boss of Wangallon. ‘You're wearing my comb.'

Claire glanced at him, her eyelashes fluttering as she looked away.

‘Are you feeling all right?' Luke asked, slipping a supportive arm around her slim waist as she stumbled.

‘I will be fine once I reach the shade of the house.' She felt her breath constrict and with renewed energy shook his arm free of her. It was the heat, Claire decided, berating the tightly laced whalebone corset that nipped in her waist and cupped her breasts. ‘I know your father is not what people suppose him to be.' They reached the gateway and the gravel path leading through Wangallon's garden to the homestead. ‘You know what he once did?' Claire began tentatively. ‘The stealing of sheep, cattle, perhaps –' she hesitated – ‘worse?' She looked at him directly, searching for the truth.

‘Do you really want to know?'

Claire looked towards the house as if someone may hear them. ‘Yes.'

‘I expect he did what any man did fifty years ago to carve himself a place in this world.' Except, Luke thought, he did it better and more ruthlessly.

Claire lifted her skirts to climb the stairs leading to the verandah. Luke was his father's son and whatever she expected to discover she would not hear from this man. There was no one moment that led to her revelation that Hamish Gordon was not as he seemed. It was more an awakening to the attitudes they received when first they ventured out into society as man and wife. It fell to Claire to cultivate female companionship and, by extension, introductions to those members of society she believed her husband should be mixing with. It was a painstaking, lonely process, filled with small slights, whispered innuendoes and strangely missing invitations. Their ostracism coincided with a number of stillborn children, leaving her in such a state of melancholy that she'd condemned herself to being both child
less and virtually friendless. Yet her perseverance eventually paid off some years later when a season in Sydney saw their Centennial Park terrace positively flooded with invitations. Suddenly they were in vogue.

It was a well known Sydney matron who whispered sweetly behind the sanctity of her fan at a ball one evening:

Your husband is most charming, Mrs Gordon. I must compliment you on subduing the brigand of New South Wales.

It was such a short statement, yet that one word carried so much potency that Claire would never forget it. And so she had made Hamish promise that however he accrued his fortune, henceforth she wished to hold her head high in public. Indeed they both did the following year when, at the introduction of the doyenne of society, Mrs Oscar Crawford, they were invited to Government House. To Claire's mind the Gordons' rise in society had taken far too long; however, having been taken under the rather ample arm of Mrs Crawford, their place would not be rescinded. Yet it came too late to be enjoyed for any length of time. Hamish had drifted apart from her. Although they played at their relationship, only in appearance were they successful. In truth she was like a cat scrabbling with an inanimate toy.

‘Things have been good for the family, Luke. I don't want anything to jeopardise everything I've worked for.'

Luke slipped their horses reins about the smooth railing and, tying a loose knot, joined Claire in one of the wicker chairs ‘You think Hamish has something on his mind apart from the purchase of Crawford Corner?'

‘Crawford Corner?'

At Claire's repetition of the property name Luke faltered. ‘You didn't know?'

‘No,' she replied, smoothing her skirt over her clammy knees. She undid the row of buttons on the jacket of her riding habit, would have escaped to the coolness of her room had she not
realised how desperately alone she felt. She'd done her best at being his wife. Rarely had she earned his scorn, except perhaps in the matter of child-bearing. What was it about his man she'd entrusted her love to?

Luke poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on the table, replacing the doily over the top of it to keep the flies out. ‘He has always been changeable in character. You know this. The wonder of it is that you have been happy for so long and for the last ten years or so he has behaved himself.'

‘In matters of business?'

‘Look, the mail has arrived,' Luke diverted. Knowing the delight Claire received from a newspaper or fashion catalogue, he passed her the bundle sitting on the wicker table. As she sorted through the pile he considered telling her of his plans, of sharing his excitement of his proposed new life in Ridge Gully.

‘Luke, there is one for you.'

The letter was addressed in handwriting unknown to him, although the address given was that of Ridge Gully. He peered closely at the cramped writing, deciphering the name Shaw-Michaels. His chest tightened with excitement. This then was the news of his new life. At the thought he looked across at Claire.

‘They expect Deakin to be elected prime minister again,' read Claire from the newspaper headlines. ‘Oh, and Dame Nellie Melba is planning on giving a series of concerts this year.'

He sat forward in his chair, opened the envelope. There were two letters inside.

Luke glanced down at the signature. It was from his grandmother, his dead grandmother.

‘And what do you think about this, Luke, the government of New South Wales is thinking about reintroducing assisted migration.'

Luke reread the contents before reading a second letter from his grandmother's solicitor. He had been left out of her will. The entire amount had gone to some acquaintance of his grandmother's. Stunned, he reread her letter again.
Your father is in agreement.

‘Did you know?' Luke finally asked when the reality of the letter sunk in. ‘Did you know I'd been robbed of my grandmother's inheritance?'

‘Inheritance?' Claire let the newspaper drop to her lap. She was just beginning to feel a little better. ‘What inheritance?'

‘Did you know?' Luke demanded, his fingers scrunching the envelope.

‘No, no … I had absolutely no idea.' Claire touched her temples.

‘You're sure?'

‘Of course I'm sure, Luke. What are you talking about?' Yet she didn't want to know, not really. There was already too much in her life. In the space of a week she'd discovered she may be pregnant, wished her baby dead, silently admitted to her girlish infatuation regarding Luke, fallen ill and been berated by her adulterous husband. Now there was another element for her brain to contend with, a loneliness that appeared to have crept up on her like a snake and she could have wept with the realisation that her life was a mirage. Claire took the letter with shaking fingers, managed to read the brief contents though the words shifted and weaved into almost unmanageable forms. ‘Your grandmother must have good reason for this, Luke.'

‘My grandmother? I think you are mistaken, Claire. It is my father who has had the final say in this matter. Have you not read that properly?'

‘Of course I've read it. I just don't believe that your father would –'

‘You don't believe it? It's there in black and white!'

Claire read the letter again. ‘Luke, I know you're upset, but you have Wangallon. You are a part of Wangallon, it's your home. You can't honestly have wanted to leave here.' How could she placate him? A wrong had been done, but surely it was not Hamish's doing. ‘Luke, where are you going?' His riding boots struck the wooden floorboards sharply as he strode away from her. ‘Luke, please?' Claire went to follow him.

‘This is the person you married, Claire.' He turned, took a step towards her. ‘Do you really want to know what he is like? Do you?'

She backed away from his temper.

‘He has stolen, cheated and murdered for his own gain!' He flung his hands outwards in exasperation, ‘and you worry about respectability, about what people think. You would need at least another generation to dilute what has come before and even then, the name Gordon will always be tainted.'

Ready tears came to Claire's eyes. She willed them back. ‘Everything your father has done, he has done purely for the wellbeing of his family.' In reality she wasn't sure anymore.

‘He has done for himself,' Luke said sharply. ‘How is colluding with my own grandmother going to help me?'