Corroboree (17 page)

‘But to talk to Captain Sturt like that; really. What on earth did he think?'

‘He didn't think I was insane, or anything of that nature, if that's what you imagine.'

‘But you're going through with this ridiculous idea?'

Eyre picked a chicken vol-au-vent from the very top of a mountain of vol-au-vents, and bit into it. ‘Of course I am. Especially now that Captain Sturt seems to think that I could have all the makings of an explorer.'

‘That's nonsense. He was only being polite.'

‘I don't think so,' said Eyre, shaking his head.

‘Well, even if he wasn't, what would you explore?'

Eyre stared at him. ‘What do you
think
I would explore? Australia, of course! There are countless thousands of square miles of quite uncharted territory out there. For all we know, there may be a vast inland sea. Or a huge tropical forest. Or an undiscovered range of mountains.'

They walked along the whole length of the table. There were smoked hams, tureens of white cockatoo soup, wild ducks stuffed with beef and apricots, chickens, Goolwa cockles, roasted emu thighs, and lamb cutlets with crisp golden fat on beds of wild celery and spinach. There were boiled crabs, glistening oysters, and freshly-opened lampreys, as well as silvery smoked sea-perch, baked snapper, and steaming tureens of green-turtle broth. Eyre picked here and there; and forked up tidbits for May and Daisy; while Christopher hovered around him and sulked.

‘I really can't understand why you're so upset,' said Eyre, with his mouth full.

‘You're making a fool of yourself, that's why. Chasing off after Aborigines.'

‘I've invited you to come with me. Then we can
both
make fools of ourselves.'

Christopher said nothing, but forked himself up a slice of emu meat, which was coarse and lean and rather like mutton; and chewed it with concentrated aggression.

Eyre said, ‘I haven't really worked out what I'm going to do yet. Tomorrow, after I've spoken to Captain Sturt again, perhaps I shall know more clearly. But I shall go in search of Yonguldye; and, as I go, I shall chart whatever countryside I come across, and make maps.'

Christopher swallowed his meat, and looked away.

Eyre touched his back. ‘You could come with me, you know. It would be quite an adventure; and, who knows, we might come back from it as heroes. Look at Captain Sturt.'

Christopher shrugged, and still didn't answer.

‘I
have
to go,' said Eyre. ‘I owe it not only to Yanluga, but to myself, too.'

‘If you must,' retorted Christopher.

Eyre hesitated, and then took Christopher aside, where they could be overheard only by a large bronze bust of Matthew Flinders, the man who had discovered the site of Adelaide in 1801. ‘Something is upsetting you,' said Eyre. ‘I think you should explain to me just what it is.'

Christopher looked at him, watery-eyed. ‘It is not an easy matter to explain without your misunderstanding it altogether.'

‘Can you try?'

Christopher shrugged. ‘The fact of the matter is that I have formed a considerable affection for you. Not a physical affection—please don't think that it is anything to do with matters of that nature. But, I suppose I must say that I love you.'

Eyre held his friend's hand. ‘That's nothing to be ashamed of. I love you, too, with all my heart.'

‘Not quite as I do, my dear chap. I love you—' and here he swallowed as if he were still trying to force down his mouthful of emu flesh, ‘—romantically.'

Eyre couldn't find any words to answer him; but he kept hold of his hand, and gripped it firmly, to show that he was neither disgusted nor repelled.

After a moment or two, Christopher said, ‘This has only happened to me once before in my life, at college, and I
never imagined for a single instant that it would ever happen again. But during the year in which I have known you, I have become as attached to you as a young girl might have done. That is why the thought of your leaving on this incredible expedition to find Yonguldye fills me with such dread. There have been many explorers, Eyre; and very few of them have been as lucky and as successful as Captain Sturt. There may be an inland sea. There may be a wonderful forest. But those who have tried to penetrate the interior and survived have come back with stories of nothing but treeless desert, and of unimaginable heat, and death.'

Eyre licked his lips, to moisten them. The dining-room suddenly felt dry, and stuffy, like a brick oven. ‘I have already said that you could come with me. Your feelings about me give me no cause whatsoever to change my mind.'

Christopher said, ‘No. I am afraid that such ventures are not for me. If I were to go, I would die just as surely as you would survive. I am not a hero, Eyre, for all of my bombast, and for all of my womanising. You said to me once that you envied me and my ability to court girls without becoming over-attached to them. Well, now you know why.'

Eyre insisted, ‘You
must
come with me; because you will never persuade me not to go.'

‘No,' said Christopher.

‘But we will be properly equipped. Captain Sturt will give us all the advice we need. We will take plenty of water with us, and at least two other companions; and an Aboriginal guide. How can we fail? And if we
do
fail, then all we have to do is to turn back.'

‘Do you think that those poor souls whose bones lie out on the sand-dunes didn't believe the same thing? You know how hot it can be here in the summer: further north the heat becomes more and more intense. No, Eyre, it is a land of death, and when you speak about this expedition I can feel death itself on my shoulder.'

May came over, her white breasts bouncing, and said brightly, ‘You two
do
look serious. For myself, I think this ball has quite recovered my spirits. And that dear Lance Baxter has asked me to dance with him, twice!'

‘A cataclysm,' complained Mrs Palgrave, whose hair had begun to slip sideways. ‘The way they fell upon the food like orang-utangs. All eating with their fingers, greasy lamb cutlets and all, even soup it wouldn't surprise me. Civilisation all gone to pot.'

Daisy pouted, ‘Eyre, you haven't danced with me at
all
yet. I do believe that you're becoming miserable, and mean.'

‘Very well, then, we shall dance,' Eyre agreed. He gave Christopher's hand one last reassuring press, and then he tugged on his white evening gloves so that he and Daisy could gavotte.

Daisy was a peculiarly cater-footed dancer, and Eyre kept finding himself in corners of the dance floor where he hadn't intended to be; but she chattered about all the latest scandal in Adelaide; Mimsy Giles had been sent by her parents to Perth for kissing one of the gardeners; and the Stewart family were in a terrible furore over Mr Stewart's affair with Doris King; and Eyre found the gavotte unusually instructive, even if it wasn't particularly accurate.

Christopher watched them morosely from the corner of the room, but Eyre determined to himself that nobody was going to be sad on his account, for any reason; and he made up his mind that he would persuade Christopher to come with him on his expedition to find Yonguldye, whatever happened.

It was odd, to find himself loved by a man, especially a man he knew so well. But he thought of his father's favourite proverb, from the Bible: ‘Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all transgressions.'

The gavotte was almost finished when Eyre noticed a familiar face on the far side of the room. Big, and boiledlooking, the face of Lathrop Lindsay. He twirled Daisy
around, so extravagantly that she almost lost her balance; searching quickly from left to right for a sign of Charlotte. At first he couldn't see her there, and he began to think that Lathrop might have come to the Spring Ball with nobody but his wife, and left Charlotte at home at Waikerie Lodge.

When the music came to a scraping, irregular finish, however, and he escorted Daisy back to the custody of Mrs Palgrave, Christopher came over and said, tersely, ‘Lathrop Lindsay's here.'

‘Yes,' Eyre acknowledged. ‘I've seen him.'

‘Charlotte's here too.'

‘I didn't see her.'

‘She's taking some supper. But, Eyre—'

Eyre looked at Christopher sharply; but Christopher simply raised his hands in surrender. He wasn't going to interfere in Eyre's affections for Charlotte, no matter how tempted he might be. Nor was he going to allow this evening's admission of his unnatural love for Eyre destroy their friendship. Perhaps it would, in time. Perhaps it would strengthen it. It would certainly alter it irrevocably. But just for this evening, Christopher knew that it was better to leave well enough alone.

Eyre walked into the dining-room, looking around for Charlotte. He didn't recognise her at first, because she was wearing a white lace mantilla over her loose, fair curls. But then she turned, and he saw that remarkable profile, and those long eyelashes; and that half-dreamy innocent-sinful look of hers that had attracted him right from the very first moment he had caught sight of her on the wharf. She was helping herself to fillets of smoked fish, with whipped mayonnaise; and he said not loudly, but clearly ‘Charlotte!'

She turned at once but so did the tall young man standing beside her, a square-faced fellow with the pale golden tan of a natural-born Australian. He was one of those vigorous, healthy, confident young colonists whom later arrivals skeptically called ‘cornstalks', because of the upright way in which they walked about.

‘Eyre!' said Charlotte, blushing. ‘I didn't imagine that you would be here!'

Eyre defiantly looked across at Charlotte's escort, and kissed Charlotte on both cheeks. ‘I came to see Captain Sturt,' he said. ‘Christopher arranged it.'

Charlotte drew the young Australian boy forward, and in a flustered voice, announced, ‘Eyre, this is Humphrey Clacy. Humphrey, this is Mr Eyre Walker. Humphrey is a friend of the family, Eyre; son of a Sydney family with whom father does business.'

‘How do you do?' Eyre asked Clacy.

Humphrey Clacy said, uncertainly, ‘Well, thanks.'

‘Can we talk?' Eyre asked Charlotte. ‘Your father's busy for the moment, trying to make himself known to Captain Sturt. Perhaps we could go out on the terrace.'

‘Eyre, really, I don't think I can,' said Charlotte, hesitantly.

‘Charlotte, we must talk; even if it's only for a moment or two.'

Charlotte took his hand. ‘Eyre, please. It's all so difficult.'

‘I'm only asking for two or three minutes, Charlotte. But I must tell you what I plan to do.'

‘Eyre, you must understand. Father was so adamant that you and I should never see each other again. I've—I've grown resigned to it. Well, I've
tried
to grow resigned to it. You don't want me to go through any more pain, do you? You don't want me to suffer any more than I have already? Please, Eyre, I do love you; I'm terribly fond of you; but if we can never be together, what is the point of torturing ourselves so? Believe me, my dear, I'm thinking of you, too.'

Eyre breathed crossly, ‘Charlotte, for goodness' sake. All I want to do is talk to you for five minutes.'

‘Eyre, I'm sorry.'

Humphrey Clacy laid his arm around Charlotte's shoulders, and said in a strong ‘flash' accent, ‘I think you'd better leave the lydy alone, Mr Walker.'

Eyre stared at him in exaggerated surprise. ‘He speaks!' he cried.

‘Eyre, please, don't make one of your scenes,' begged Charlotte. ‘We can talk later perhaps; or tomorrow. But, please, try to think of the pain that I've been feeling. It must be as sharp as your own. Please, let it be; and leave us.'

‘Come on, Mr Walker,' Humphrey Clacy urged him; his cheeks suddenly firing up. The other guests were beginning to turn around now, and whisper to each other, and over in the far corner somebody dropped a plateful of potato salad on to the carpet.

‘He speaks again!' Eyre shouted, angrily. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this indigenous animal has the power of communication!'

Charlotte hissed, ‘Eyre,
please!
I must do what my father says. Eyre, please don't make me cry.'

‘Ah, but that's the trouble,' said Eyre. ‘I never make
anyone
cry. Not real tears, anyway. You can only cry for those you love, and those you respect; and neither you nor your father ever respected me, my love, for all of your sentimental words.'

‘Eyre, of course I respect you.'

‘You don't, Charlotte! You don't! Not for one moment! And I will never believe that you do until your father does; for you will never stand against him. A clerk, at the port? A newly-arrived burrower? You don't respect me in the least. All you cared for was my nonchalance, and my bicycle, and most of all the fact that I irritated your father.'

Humphrey Clacy took hold of Eyre's shoulder, and twisted his jacket. ‘Mr Walker,' he said, in a tone which he obviously believed was very menacing, ‘if you don't leave here immediately, and allow Miss Lindsay to finish her supper in peace, then I regret very much that I shall be obliged to hit you.'

Eyre looked this way and that, in furious mock-astonishment. ‘I declare that it's miraculous! Why, I knew they could dig; and I knew that they could drink; and I knew
that they could spit. But nobody told me that they could come along to parties, and make real conversation, even if it
is
offensive to listen to.'

There was sudden laughter. Eyre realised that he might be drunk. He was certainly very angry. The orchestra struck up with a polonaise, erratic and harsh. There was more laughter. And then Lathrop Lindsay appeared through the throng in the doorway of the dining-room, his face volcanic.

‘Colonel Gawler, sir!' he called.

Somebody said, ‘Fetch the Governor.'