A Changing Land (6 page)

Sarah and Shelley were chopping down jade near the back gate. The plant was overgrown and it was taking quite a lot of muscle to saw through the thick woody stems. Bullet sat nearby, occasionally looking up as if to join in on the conversation.

‘So it's that serious then?' Sarah asked, wiping perspiration from her forehead. It was a mild 20 degrees yet by midafternoon a southerly change would be upon them with the temperature due to drop to six degrees overnight.

‘Serious enough to be talking marriage.' Shelley was almost coy.

‘Marriage,' Sarah squealed. Extricating a wrist-thick trunk of jade she threw it on top of the pile in the wheel barrow and gave Shelley a hug. ‘And it took the whole weekend for you to tell me?'

Shelley removed her black sweater and retied her recently dyed hair. This year blonde was her colour of choice and considering she was finally in a great relationship and had been promoted to senior consultant at the recruitment firm where she worked, clearly it
was the pick of the five different shades she had road-tested over the last three years. ‘Two reasons. Firstly I figured it was bad luck to say anything before I was officially engaged.'

‘Couldn't help yourself?' Sarah teased.

‘Secondly, well, I don't want a long engagement.' Shelley hesitated, ‘I don't think it's necessary, not if you really love someone.' She looked pointedly at Sarah as her friend began sawing through another fibrous branch.

Sarah passed her the saw. ‘Here, you have a go.'

‘Please don't get angry, Sarah, but are you happy? Really happy?' Shelley stared at her, the saw dangling from her hands.

‘Of course, silly. I just don't see the rush. We're not exactly over the hill. I'm not quite twenty-five.' Retrieving the saw Sarah attacked another section of the jade. Shelley always managed to push her buttons. ‘Besides, there's been a fair bit for me to come to terms with and I just haven't been in the right place to go forward.'

‘But I heard you arguing this morning and you rarely come down to Sydney anymore and what happened to your photography? It was your profession and you were damn good at it. I don't want you staying here for a bunch of ghosts,' Shelley said sullenly. Her closest friend was like a frog in a sock and she didn't even realise it.

‘I'm not an employee, Shelley.' Sarah snapped. ‘Look, Wangallon is a big business and I'm in charge.' Taking a breath, she calmed. ‘Actually I've just started taking a few shots again.'

‘Well good, but what about the visits to Sydney? Why can't you leave Anthony to mind the fort? He's been running the place for long enough and he's as obsessed with this pile of history as you are.' If Sarah didn't stop sawing there was only going to be a stump left. She touched her arm. ‘Well?'

‘I'm not going anywhere, Shelley. There are only a couple of months to go before we know the property is safe. Believe me, I've done my best not to think about Grandfather's will since his death but with spring only a matter of months away I feel like I'm one of
those bomb disposal experts who suddenly doesn't know whether they should be cutting the red wire or the blue.'

‘I'm sorry. With all the time that's elapsed I forgot about the inheritance debacle. What does Anthony say?'

‘Nothing. At least nothing helpful since we argued about it eighteen months ago.
The morally correct thing
is his standard answer. We haven't talked about it since. Frankly it's been easier for me to bury it and I'm still hopeful it will go away.'

Bullet rushed out the back gate. Matt and Anthony were trotting up the road on horseback. Sarah looked up, frowning. ‘Something's wrong.' She took off her gardening gloves and moved towards the men.

There was a dog lying across Matt's lap; a ten-year-old kelpie christened Ferret, because of his habit of sticking his nose into everything. Anthony slid off his horse, took Ferret from Matt and both men strode up the back path.

Shelley looked at the blood dripping onto the cement path. There was a spreading stain of bloody wetness on Matt's thigh and his face was set like cracked concrete.

‘He needs a vet,' Shelley stated, hanging back from the rush to get the hurt animal inside.

‘Sarah, I need to set the leg. It's busted. Plus he needs to be stitched up. He's lost a lot of blood.' Anthony's face was creased in concern as he took the back steps in a single leap.

‘Righto.'

With the dog on the kitchen sink and water boiling, Sarah sterilised the needle while Anthony washed the wound with Pine O Cleen. Ferret whined softly, his eyes never leaving Matt, who, with Shelley's help, was slicing a piece of thick plastic tubing lengthways.

‘What happened?' Sarah asked as she mopped blood around Ferret's wound while Anthony sewed stitches into the dog's hind leg. The air was taut with unsaid words. Clearly Ferret's accident hadn't lead to any mutual bonding.

‘He jumped off my horse into some long grass,' Matt answered. ‘Shouldn't have had him on there what with his arthritis, but he loves it. Don't you, old mate?' Matt stroked Ferret between the ears.

Anthony glanced at Sarah. ‘Reckon that's how he busted his leg. The cut came from the bore pig he was chasing. He's got some buggered tendons here by the looks of it.'

Shelley peered over Anthony's shoulder. ‘Are you a vet?' She grimaced at the ooze of blood and stringy muscle.

Anthony frowned at her. ‘No, but I have a brain.'

‘
Sorry
.'

‘Damn pigs.' Sarah rethreaded the needle. ‘The bloody lot of them should be culled. Sure you don't want me to take him to the vet, Matt?'

Matt shook his head, his pale eyes glassy and tired-looking. ‘Tendons buggered in one leg, the other busted up. He's as good as lame. The best I can do is tie the old fella up under a tree for a month or so and see how he heals.'

Anthony placed a thick smear of Rawleigh's salve over the wound and then bandaged it up, smearing a globule of the gooey antiseptic on his jeans.

The broken leg was a far less messy affair. Matt held Ferret as Anthony gave the dog's hind leg a rough yank. There was the click of bone and a whinny from Ferret. Then the dog was silent.

‘He's dead,' Shelley sniffed. The only dead thing she'd seen recently was a cockroach in her apartment. She experienced an urge to reach out her hand and poke the dog in the ribs. Instead she watched as the restraightened leg was bandaged. Matt then proceeded to slip the thick rubber tubing around the break. It was
a snug contraption held in place with black electrical tape. ‘There you go, boy.'

Shelley was stunned when the dog lifted its head as if in gratitude.

With Ferret on the back porch wrapped in a blanket, the mess tidied in the kitchen and Sarah's offer to care for Ferret accepted, Shelley was surprised when coffee was refused by both men.

‘Something I said?' Shelley asked as she watched Matt and Anthony walk down the back path to their horses. She had to admit it she was admiring more than the cut of their jeans. ‘Cute buns.'

‘Thought you were about to be engaged.' Sarah cut two wedges of thick cheese and plonked them on a couple of crackers.

‘Well you know what they say. It doesn't matter where you get your appetite from as long as you eat at home.'

‘Those two have a bit of a love hate relationship going on at the moment.' Sarah took a bite of her cracker. ‘Actually, they're like young horses that both want to lead.'

Shelley sat down at the kitchen table and peered knowingly at Sarah over her coffee. Someone couldn't see the forest for the trees.

Hamish escorted Claire to the picnic rug that lay beneath the spreading arms of a gum tree and deposited her next to the bank manager's wife, Hilda, and her two daughters, Henrietta and Jane. A picnic after their fortnightly church service was a regular event during the warmer months and the one held in honour of Christmas was a mildly entertaining one. It surprised him that Claire, always complaining about the dearth of social opportunities, never attended these gatherings with more enthusiasm. The grouping was select, with invitations only extended to six families, a communal picnic table set up for all to enjoy. Hilda Webb inclined her chin coquettishly at Hamish as only a woman assured of her position in society could do. She fluttered eyelashes grown sparse, Hamish surmised, from overuse and bade him a fine day. As bank manager, her husband Reginald scaled the hierarchy of social class in terms of importance and Hilda dictated that it was only proper she and Claire sit together.

‘You'd be looking for rain,' Reginald stated when Hamish
managed to extricate himself from Mrs Webb. ‘I, myself, am grateful for the dry conditions.' He took a pinch of snuff from an ornate royal blue and sterling silver box and snorted the powder up each nostril. ‘I must say I do believe that doctor in Sydney was correct. This dry air has improved my lungs substantially.'

‘Indeed, although I doubt your current seat can compare with the sandstone edifice of the Bank of New South Wales,' stated Hamish. ‘However, in answer to your question, yes, I do hope for an early break to the season.' Hamish sated his thirst on the rather sickly punch sitting on the white clothed wooden table and waited for the maids to unpack something a little more suitable to his temperament.

‘And how's your son Luke?'

Hamish embarked on a detailed description of the herd's trek southward, relying on his own past experience and not the detailed reportage Luke refused to write him. ‘I've been thinking of approaching Crawford again,' Hamish revealed, reliant on Reginald for any snippet of information. The bank manager carried the fateful trait of honesty, which assured Hamish of correct in formation. However, it also meant that Crawford would eventually hear of Hamish's renewed intentions.

Reginald took a sip of punch. ‘The man's employed a new stud master, Jacob Wetherly. So I doubt he'd be interested. However I believe there is a settler's block coming up again to the east of your holding. Shall I investigate?'

‘Yes, do. Wetherly, you say. The name is familiar.'

‘Yes, he should be joining us today. Wetherly's highly regarded in the sheep breeding business although he's a southerner. Don't go much on them myself. The further one travels south in this great country of ours the more the landed become enmeshed with delusions of grandeur.' Reginald slurped his punch and patted his moustache with a snowy white handkerchief. ‘Damn awful stuff.'

Hamish accepted a French brandy and a dry cracker from a maid and ensured Reginald was attended to. ‘That's better,' Hamish announced, finishing the glass and calling the maid back for a refill.

‘Indeed,' Reginald agreed. ‘Crawford's determined to increase the greasy fleece weight of his flock. The market's certainly holding its interest.'

‘A trend only,' Hamish remarked. ‘The competition that has been growing among producers will weaken eventually. Those Vermont imports from Spain will soon go out of favour. The greasy wrinkles in the skin make the battle with flies interminable. We never had those blasted green maggoty blowflies before the Vermont arrived in this country.'

‘Still,' Reginald reminded him, ‘greasy fleece weight is where the money is and Wetherly was getting results until he embarked on his own mating program.' He narrowed his eyes for emphasis.

Hamish was not one to go against the vagaries of the market when said market was paying top dollar. Besides which, his last clip had topped the selling season. As for Crawford's plans for his flock, nabbing the highly regarded Jacob Wetherly would put an end to that. And while employing Wetherly may not increase the chances of Crawford selling up, it was an opportunity to remind the Englishman of the undeniable benefits of the open market, especially if Oscar Crawford persisted in living next to Wangallon.

The maids began laying food on the table. Hamish and Reginald eyed parrot pie, small damper rolls, sliced mutton, potatoes, the usual fatty dish of fried fish provided by the minister's household, and a duck and quail casserole. Hamish poured more brandy as the women came forward to be served. He greeted Hilda Webb and her red-haired daughters, chatted to the minister's wife, Mrs Ovendale, and even felt gracious enough to comment on the storekeeper's recent business investment into timber. A mill to service the demographic increase of Wangallon Town was a common-sense plan.

‘Here is Jacob Wetherly now,' Reginald announced as a dapper figure approached the parkland surrounds on the banks of the creek. ‘Of course Crawford can never be persuaded to venture forth for an outing.'

‘Pity,' Hamish agreed sociably, although personally the opportunity for information gathering was the sole reason he bore such engagements. Wetherly tethered his horse to the branch of a shady gum. ‘I believe I will offer him a position,' Hamish announced to the bemused bank manager.

‘A position? I doubt that he would … but of course, come then,' Reginald offered, ‘let me introduce you.'

Hamish was askance. Did the man think he would follow? ‘You can bring him to me,' he stated formally, picking up a plate and dishing up some of the quail and duck concoction. He never was one for mixing meats, but one had to make do occasionally.

Claire tired of Hilda's ongoing description of how markedly fine her daughter's matching set of hair tongs, curlers, shoe buttoner and shoe horn were, and looked with disinterest about the scattered picnic rugs. The shopkeeper's family, the Stevens, sat with an English couple who owned a pleasing amount of land to the south of Wangallon Town. Further away reclined the minister and his family – the three sons of whom were off, no doubt, making mischief with Angus. Sally Foster laughed delightedly at an anecdote shared by Mrs Ovendale. Claire would like to have extended an invitation for Sally to join her, however, having married a Baptist some years ago, she'd fallen foul of Hamish who believed that a Scot's Presbyterian should stay with their own.

Claire brushed at the line of ants crawling across the picnic rug and shifted her position. Her whalebone corset was troubling her today, a usual occurrence during summer, and she pined for the
coolness of her bedroom. She untied the chiffon scarf securing her curved brimmed hat and let the air waft about her.

‘Mr Stevens has invested in timber,' Mrs Webb began by way of conversation, cutting through Claire's daydreams. ‘I find the very concept of a trade abominable. Do you not, Mrs Gordon? The very thought of such a life, well,' Mrs Webb gave a convulsive shiver. ‘Some say he is clever. Who can be clever in a small town is my response, for there is none to compare the man with.' She ate a morsel of salted mutton and sipped at a warm glass of punch. ‘I find him altogether too shrewd, particularly as the foundations for another hotel are being laid almost diagonally opposite the current one. Besides which those that own a general store always know who has money and who does not. To my thinking that is most unpalatable.'

‘A big fish in a small pond?' Claire remarked.

‘Exactly.' Hilda patted Claire's gown. ‘I saw that very ensemble in the Grace Brothers' catalogue. I myself have never been one for all white.'

‘Mother thinks it decadent,' Henrietta stated prettily. Jane took a bite of her parrot pie, the pastry crumbling down the front of her somber grey blouse. ‘Decadent,' she repeated as if the food she ate had somehow intrinsically weaved its way into her vocal chords.

Claire, having never seen Hilda in anything other than black, patted the older woman's hand. ‘Nonsense, white would suit you very well.'

Hilda gave a dimpled smile and then pounced on the arrival of Jacob Wetherly. ‘My dear husband promised us some entertainments today, did he not, my girls?'

‘Yes, Mama,' Henrietta and Jane answered with the synchronicity of rehearsed obedience.

‘A fine style of a man, Mrs Gordon,' Mrs Webb observed. ‘He's been employed down south on a highly regarded property for some fifteen years. They say he fell afoul of the owner.' Hilda leant
conspiratorially towards Claire. ‘There is talk of a liaison with no other than Mrs Henry Constable.'

‘No,' Claire whispered. ‘How impossibly salacious.' And not at all surprising, Claire decided, as both she and Mrs Webb lifted their fans and under cover of much fluttering stared blatantly at the new arrival. ‘Mrs Henry Constable must be –'

‘Forty-five in the shade my dear, with five children. Oh he is a fine form of a man,' Hilda said breathily.

Claire couldn't disagree. Jacob Wetherly was tall and wore his clothes well. Dark-haired and straight-backed with a becoming dark tan to his skin, his was a welcome addition to their gathering.

‘There is also the whisper of an estate in England.' Mrs Webb tapped Claire on the forearm, ‘although there is disagreement as to his actual worth. It would seem Mr Gordon has taken to him.'

It was true, Claire observed, fascinated as Mr Webb provided introductions. Hamish led the man aside, gesturing with his hands animatedly. Claire had witnessed such persuasion before although at the moment she was unsure as to the nature of this particular exchange. Jacob Wetherly's expression alternated from surprise to interest to momentary quiet. Finally the two men shook hands. Claire lowered her fan. Mr Wetherly was looking directly at her. She averted her eyes, for once grateful of Henrietta and Jane's prattling and her curved brim hat. Claire busied herself with the fried fish Mrs Ovendale helpfully suggested was for those with a tendency towards overheating.

‘They are coming over to join us,' Mrs Webb announced with an excited tremble to her voice.

Claire dabbed at her greasy lips with a white linen napkin. Hamish and Mr Wetherly were indeed walking towards their shady retreat, with Reginald following.

‘Sit up straight,' Hilda advised her daughters. ‘Don't say anything silly,' she challenged Jane. ‘Remember you are both unmarried and it is a disappointment to me,' she patted Henrietta's arm, ‘
but
it is a
disappointment that could be rectified with effort.' Henrietta plastered on a serene smile. Jane brushed crumbs from her bunched skirt.

Jacob Wetherly declared himself honoured to be included at their picnic and commented on the becoming nature of Mrs Webb's daughters, who in turn dropped their mouths open so that pink tongues and white teeth became the extent of his remembrances of them. It was only after pleasantries were exchanged that Claire enquired as to his visit to Wangallon Town.

‘New and I might add unforeseen prospects,' he answered mysteriously. His eyes were grey, made more intriguing by a deep scar etched on his forehead and an aquiline nose a debutante would die for. Claire was positive a wink escaped in her direction, but unsure as to whether this was a premeditated manoeuvre or some undiagnosed tick she took refuge behind her fan. She could not, however, escape the brushing of his lips across her hand, nor the positively languorous way in which he released his grip. It was proving to be an entertaining afternoon, she decided.

‘And what are your plans for Christmas, Mrs Gordon?' Mrs Webb enquired when the men strode away to another group of picnickers and their foursome had calmed themselves sufficiently enough to accept Jane's offer of slices of apple pie. Claire was pleased to find herself discussing her thoughts of a large scrub turkey with roasted vegetables.

‘Yes, and mutton,' Mrs Webb added. ‘We can look forward to mutton chops for breakfast, roasts for dinner and cold cuts for tea before it is salted, cured and placed in the meat safe. Oh, when do you think we will have one of those glorious ice chests such as the city folk enjoy? Now that is something the shopkeeper should be investing in, not timber.'

‘We could have ices, Mama,' Henrietta suggested.

‘Oh yes, with fresh lemon cordial.' Jane sprayed her sister with morsels of apple and pastry.

Henrietta brushed at her blouse. ‘You are not fit for polite society.'

Despite her best intentions Claire found herself glancing in Jacob Wetherly's direction, before drifting off as Mrs Webb began an extended explanation on the digestive benefits of stuffing and gravy.