Sunset Ridge (47 page)

 

Sunset Ridge, south-west Queensland, Australia
June 1918

Lily trotted across the paddock from the sheep yards to the homestead, the winter sun warming her flushed cheeks. The new mare was proving to be a solid purchase and the two of them were now a familiar sight roaming Sunset Ridge. The coming spring looked promising. With the sale of the two thousand ewes last year and G.W.'s original mob of cattle culled to retain only the younger cows for breeding, the native grasses were in good condition. If the normal spring rains graced the property, the grass should come away quickly. With a click of her tongue Lily urged the mare onwards. There was still paperwork to attend to and she was yet to make a choice regarding the cloth required for her new riding pants. True to her word, Lily's dresses and skirts had been relegated to evening and house wear only. Every time she walked outdoors now she dressed in riding pants. Cook would mumble something about standards and G.W. appeared outwardly disapproving, though he could not always hide his smile. At the back gate Lily dismounted and, wrapping the reins around the fence railing, walked up the path and collapsed into the chair next to G.W.

‘Well?' he asked, peering over the top of a newspaper.

Shearing was into its second week and, although there were the usual disgruntled employees, the arguments had lessened once the overseer insisted on a dry camp. ‘No problems, my dear, and Mr Cambridge is very pleased with the fleece yields to date and has even given tacit agreement to the slight change in the breeding program that I hope to implement.' She tugged at the leather gloves, freeing her hands.

‘I've been thinking about Taylor, or whoever he was.' Although G.W.'s speech was much improved, he still spoke slowly and deliberately.

Dropping the tan gloves on her lap, Lily turned to her husband. They rarely spoke of the man called Nathanial Taylor. The incident had brought them together again and Lily was so grateful to have the G.W. of old back that she had not pursued her initial concerns after the shocking event, hoping instead that one day her husband would choose to talk of the incident of his own free will. For her part Lily would never forget the fierceness of her husband's attack. G.W. had bashed a man to death, a man who had proved indispensable in the management of Sunset Ridge, despite his lies and threatening actions in the music room. On the other hand, her husband's appalling temper had all but abated since his part in Mr Taylor's death. It was as if all the anger and bitterness and remorse and guilt that had accumulated within G.W. during his lifetime had been expelled from his body with the savagery of the assault. Confusingly, good had come from the man's death.

‘What of Mr Taylor, G.W.?' Lily asked.

Her husband barely lifted his eyes from the paper. ‘If we knew his real name I would make efforts to trace his family, perhaps make some sort of monetary gift, anonymously of course.'

‘An excellent idea, my dear.' This was the first time G.W. had voiced regret for his actions. His acknowledgement loosened something tight within her. ‘Unfortunately I fear that his identity will never be known.'

‘Quite,' he agreed. ‘Even now I can't quite fathom what happened that day.'

‘Nor I,' Lily replied. ‘Mr Taylor was a good man at heart.'

Her husband cleared his throat. ‘My only thought was of you. The thought of losing you after all we'd been through, after what I'd put you through . . .'

He reached out and briefly took her hand. It was a long time since she had felt such joy.

‘It's done now,' Lily soothed. ‘Let's put it behind us.'

G.W. gave her a grateful smile.

At the time, Mr Taylor's demise appeared to be an insurmountable scandal. In the days following the man's death, the distress Lily felt at his murder was gradually replaced by other concerns. She worried not only about G.W.'s brutality but also the damage that could be done to the Harrow family name. She need not have been so concerned. They repaid the investigating constable's discretion with a monetary gift as well as a number of sketches found in the dead man's possessions. The works were instantly recognisable as Miss Waites and although they bore David's signature and were remarkably life-like, Lily did not hesitate to give them away. The drawings were of little consequence in the scheme of things.

At the time Lily did not know how true that thought was, for they were yet to receive the news from France.

‘Hmm, I best be on my feet come spring, lest I become redundant and that new manager takes over.'

‘Never.' Mr Cambridge was proving to be well worth the money. Married with young children, his only concern was one of education. ‘You know that our former governess is employed at the Banyan Post Office? I was thinking of contacting her and asking Miss Waites if she would consider taking up her old position.'

Folding the newspaper, G.W. rested it on his lap. ‘You never liked her.'

‘I never liked her modernist ideas towards education, nor her loose morals.'

‘Did they ever find Rodger?' G.W. asked.

‘No, he seems to have disappeared, into the English countryside, no doubt.'

‘He didn't seem like the type to shirk his duty, not having gone all the way over there.'

‘Well, you may be right.' Lily poured water from the glass pitcher on the table and took a sip. ‘It's only a rumour. But they
were
engaged, so if he is eventually declared legally dead it's possible that Miss Waites could apply to the courts to be a beneficiary of his estate. It appears Rodger's mother was not without funds, and his only brother was killed in 1916.'

‘I doubt she would do such a thing. Still, a moneyed governess.' G.W. raised an eyebrow.

Lily giggled. ‘Heaven forbid, society is changing.' It was good to laugh again. After the shocking end to last year she had truly believed that they would never recover from it. If it were possible to die from grief then surely she had come close to being a candidate. The most miraculous thing about the terrible year of 1917, however, was that G.W. saved her. Despite Mr Taylor's death and the extent of their marital problems, both had paled into insignificance with the earth-shattering telegram that had arrived from the War Department. That single typed line,
we regret to inform you
, would haunt Lily for all the days of her life.

And yet they had endured; mainly because G.W. constantly reminded her of what they still had, of what they could have in the future. Above all she would never forget that moment on Christmas Day when she had sat beside G.W. as he had re-written their sons' names in the Harrow bible. Forgiveness did exist, but at what cost? Beside her, G.W.'s gaze was directed to the line of trees frilling the horizon. ‘Let's have a pot of tea, shall we, and a slice of Cook's treacle cake?' Lily suggested.

G.W. inhaled sharply and reached for his walking stick. The newspaper slipped to the ground.

‘My dear, whatever is the matter?' She followed her husband's gaze out across the paddock. The sky was cloudless, the air so crisp that Lily imagined she could almost count the white cockatoos nestling in a tree down near the stables.

G.W. limped to the edge of the veranda and then stumbled down the wooden stairs, dragging his useless left foot.

‘Wait, G.W., where are you going?' Lily uncrossed her legs. She had been in the saddle on and off for three hours already and was not in the mood for one of her husband's impromptu walks about the house paddock. With a distinct lack of enthusiasm she pushed herself out of the chair and leaned against the timber pillar. She looked to the horizon and saw a thin plume of dust silhouetted against the sky. It grew in size until a wagon appeared through the tree line. Bouncing over the rutted track, it barely slowed on entering the house paddock. Lily could hear the creak of the wagon's wheels and, as it rushed towards them, she lifted a trembling hand to her mouth as the cockatoos near the stable took flight. Then, finally, the unmistakable shape of the driver came into focus.

G.W. clutched at the back gate. ‘It's my boys come home to us, Lily. It's them riding in from the scrub.'

The wagon came to a screeching halt at the homestead gate, and Lily watched as Dave threw down the reins and jumped to the ground. Her youngest was tanned and fit, tall and older, much older, but he was alive as his letter had promised. G.W. dropped the walking stick and reached for him.

‘My boy, my boy, my boy,' G.W. sobbed as they embraced.

Overcome, Lily lifted a hand to her youngest son's cheek. It was then she noticed it. There was no light in his eyes.

‘Mother. Father.' He walked to the rear of the dray and tugged at the canvas cover. ‘I've brought Luther home.'

Lily grasped her husband's arm. After everything the family had endured over the preceding years, she doubted she could face another calamity. By her side G.W. stiffened. This was the moment they had both lived and breathed for, the return of their sons. ‘What's wrong with him, Dave?'

Her youngest rolled his lips together and gave a self-conscious smile. ‘He's drunk.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banyan, south-west Queensland, Australia
February 2000

For a moment Madeleine didn't believe the two women. Yet here they were corroborating each other. ‘Are you telling me Luther survived the war?'

The old woman nodded.

‘It's not possible,' she argued. ‘My mother said Thaddeus was killed on the battlefield on the Western Front and Luther died a few months later in an English hospital from wounds he received in the same attack.'

The old woman raised a muscle where an eyebrow once would have been. ‘That's right about Thaddeus. But as for Luther – well, the first bit's true enough, eh, Sonia?'

‘And how would you know?' Madeleine asked, her voice tight.

The old woman gave a cackle. ‘Because I married him and cared for him until his death from those same wounds in 1921. My girl, I'm your great-aunt, Corally Shaw.'

In the heat of the kitchen, with the stench of the bull mouse that could be heard rustling in the papers at her feet, Madeleine could only think of one phrase, the phrase Sonia had used:
white trash.
She picked up a dusty magazine and fanned her face as she stared blankly at the birdlike creature opposite her. In the background the screen door screeched and the weather-beaten woman from the museum walked in.

‘This is Sue-Ellen Evans, Corally's granddaughter,' Sonia introduced tersely
.

‘Didn't you give us a right shock showing up like you did the other day at the museum? I should have seen the similarities, but I've only ever seen pictures of the Harrows, and with you lot never coming into the village, well, how's a woman to be sure?' Sue-Ellen shut the kitchen door and switched on the refrigerated airconditioning unit built into the wall. ‘Gran doesn't like the cool, she ain't used to it.'

The refreshing breeze wafted around the room. ‘You were married to my great-uncle?' Madeleine asked Corally, looking to Sonia for clarification.

‘It's as she says,' replied Sonia.

Corally pointed irritably to a plastic container near the Aga. ‘Well, go on, Sue-Ellen, go fetch it for the girl.'

Sue-Ellen did as she was told, sitting the thick scrapbook from the container on the kitchen table.

‘Go on, girl, have a look.'

Wiping the perspiration from her face, Madeleine opened the book. There, on the inside page, was a charcoal sketch of Luther Harrow.

‘Handsome man, wasn't he? That was the last sketch Dave ever did of a soldier,' Corally explained. ‘Luther said he drew hundreds during the war. The men wanted them to send home to their loved ones, but of course every time he drew a soldier they were usually killed. Dave took it real hard, as if the drawings were bad luck. Luther said he begged to have his portrait done because he didn't expect to survive the war.' Corally sounded wistful. ‘In a way he didn't.'

‘Why didn't my mother tell me about any of this?' Madeleine asked.

Corally lifted her birdlike hands. ‘Jude probably doesn't know the truth. Luther and me, well, we were an embarrassment to the Harrows – individually and together. Me because I wasn't good enough and Luther because he wasn't the returning hero that the family expected. They'd already lost Thaddeus and they couldn't understand why Luther couldn't get his act together and live a normal life on his return from the war. Old G.W. never got over how changed Luther was. He died a few years after Luther passed and that proved too much for Lily. They say she only stayed on for your grandfather's sake. Dave was a changed man as well and he had his own share of problems after the war ended, but they ran the place together until her health got the better of her and she moved to Brisbane.' Corally blew her nose, then tucked the tissue up the sleeve of her blouse. ‘I think that after so much tragedy your grandfather chose the best bits to pass on to your mother. The Harrows were a real proud family back then – stuck-up you'd call them nowadays. It was pretty obvious that Luther wasn't right in the head when he came back from the war and when he left Sunset Ridge for good and then took up with me.'

The old woman rolled her eyes. ‘Well, how shocking,' she said dramatically. ‘Lily visited Luther a few months before he died, but G.W. stayed away. He was mightily embarrassed by the whole thing. Your grandfather,' the woman cleared her throat, ‘probably thought it best if everyone thought Luther died over in France.' She looked blankly at Madeleine. ‘In a way, he did.'

Madeleine digested this. ‘But what happened to Luther?'

Corally nestled her hands in her lap. ‘It's difficult to explain. It's like Luther left part of his mind over there. Everyone said he drank too much and that was what killed him but I knew it was his nerves – that and the shrapnel they couldn't remove from his spine. He drank to numb the pain. Except the real pain was in his head. Shell-shock. Every so often Luther would go walkabout and I would find him naked under a tree trying to wash himself clean with dirt. He told me in the weeks before he died that Thaddeus and his mate Harold Lawrence were blown to bits in front of him. They were trying to protect Dave by huddling around him, but in doing so they made themselves a bigger target for the Germans. When they were hit Thaddeus and Harold were splattered all over Luther and Dave.'

Madeleine felt as if she'd been winded. Sue-Ellen sat cross-legged in front of her grandmother.

‘I never knew that.' Sonia was white.

‘Me neither,' Sue-Ellen said.

Corally tapped the hospital trolley impatiently. ‘Luther knew he was different when he returned home. It didn't matter what Dave said, there wasn't any way he was going to stay out at Sunset Ridge. It was too quiet, he reckoned, and his parents' attempts to act as if everything was normal only increased his anxiety. He used to imagine the Germans were approaching across a red ridge, readying to clamber over the homestead fence at dawn. During those hallucinations he'd lie in wait on the homestead veranda with a loaded rifle. Eventually Dave realised that his brother would end up shooting someone, so he convinced their parents that Luther needed to leave the property for a while until he settled down. That's when he moved to the boarding house where I was living. And that's how Dave got friendly again with Miss Waites.'