【荆棘鸟】第八章 02

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 It was after he had this particular letter that Paddy held a conference in the beautiful drawing room on a night when everyone was at home. He sat with his steel-rimmed reading half-glasses perched on his Roman nose, in a big cream chair, his feet comfortably disposed on a matching ottoman, his pipe in a Waterford ashtray¹. “How nice this is.” He smiled, looking around with pleasure. “I think we ought to give Mum a vote of thanks for it, don’t you, boys?” There were murmurs³ of assent⁴ from the “boys”; Fee inclined her head from where she sat in what had been Mary Carson’s wing chair, re-covered now in cream watered silk. Meggie curled her feet around the ottoman she had chosen instead of a chair, and kept her eyes doggedly⁵ on the sock she was mending. “Well, Father de Bricassart has sorted everything out and has been very generous,” Paddy continued. “He’s put seven thousand pounds in the bank in my name, and opened a savings⁶ account for everyone with two thousand pounds in each. I am to be paid four thousand pounds a year as the station manager, and Bob will be paid three thousand a year as the assistant manager. All the working boys—Jack⁷, Hughie and Stu—will be paid two thousand a year, and the little boys are to get one thousand a year each until they’re old enough to decide what they want to do. 

      “When the little boys are grown up, the estate will guarantee each of them a yearly income equal to a full working member of Drogheda, even if they don’t want to work on Drogheda. When Jims and Patsy turn twelve, they’ll be sent to Riverview College in Sydney to board and be educated at the expense of the estate. “Mum is to have two thousand pounds a year for herself, and so is Meggie. The household account will be kept at five thousand pounds, though why Father thinks we need so much to run a house, I don’t know. He says in case we want to make major alterations⁸. I have his instructions as to how much Mrs. Smith, Minnie, Cat and Tom are to be paid, and I must say he’s generous. Other wages I decide on myself. But my first decision as manager is to put on at least six more stockmen, so Drogheda can be run as it should be. It’s too much for a handful.” That was the most he ever said about his sister’s management. No one had ever heard of having so much money; they sat silent, trying to assimilate their good fortune. “We’ll never spend the half of it, Paddy,” said Fee. “He hasn’t left us anything to spend it on.” Paddy looked at her gently. “I know, Mum. But isn’t it nice to think we’ll never have to worry about money again?” He cleared his throat. “Now it seems  to me that Mum and Meggie in particular are going to be at a bit of a loose end,” he went on. “I was never much good at figures, but Mum can add and subtract and divide and multiply like an arithmetic teacher. So Mum is going to be the Drogheda bookkeeper, instead of Harry⁹ Gough’s office. I never realized it, but Harry has employed one chap just to deal with Drogheda’s accounts, and at the moment he’s a man short, so he doesn’t mind passing it back to us at all. In fact, he was the one who suggested Mum might make a good bookkeeper. He’s going to send someone out from Gilly to teach you properly, Mum. It’s quite complicated, apparently¹⁰. You’ve got to balance the ledgers¹¹, the cash books, the journals, record everything in the log book, and so on. Enough to keep you pretty busy, only it won’t take the starch¹² out of you the way cooking and washing did, will it?” 

      It was on the tip of Meggi’s tongue to shout: What about me? I did just as much washing and cooking as Mum! Fee was actually smiling, for the first time since the news about Frank. “I’ll enjoy the job, Paddy, really I will. It will make me feel like a part of Drogheda.” “Bob is going to teach you how to drive the new Rolls, because you’re going to have to be the one to go into Gilly to the bank and see Harry.” Besides, it will do you good to know you can drive anywhere you want without depending on one of us being around. We’re too isolated¹³ out here. I’ve always meant to teach you girls how to drive, but there’s never been the time before. All right, Fee?” “All right, Paddy,” she said happily. “Now, Meggie, we’ve got to deal with you.” Meggie laid her sock and needle down, looked up at her father in a mixture of inquiry¹⁴ and resentment¹⁵, sure she knew what he was going to say: her mother would be busy with the books, so it would be her job to supervise the house and its environs. “I’d hate to see you turn into an idle, snobby¹⁶ miss like some of the graziers’ daughters we know,” Paddy said with a smile which robbed his words of any contempt. “So I’m going to put you to work at a full-time¹⁷ job, too, wee Meggie. You’re going to look after the inside paddocks for us—Borehead, Creek¹⁸, Carson, Winnemurra and North Tank. You’re also going to look after the Home Paddock. You’ll be responsible for the stock horses, which ones are working and which ones are being spelled. During musters¹⁹ and lambing we’ll all pitch in together, of course, but otherwise you’ll manage on your own, I reckon. Jack can teach you to work the dogs and use a stock whip. You’re a terrible tomboy still, so I thought you might like to work in the paddocks more than lie around the house,” he finished, smiling more broadly than ever. Resentment and discontent had flown out the window while he talked; he was once more Daddy, who loved her and thought of her. What had been the matter with her, to doubt him so? 

      She was so ashamed of herself she felt like jabbing the big darning needle into her leg, but she was too happy to contemplate²⁰ self-infliction of pain for very long, and anyway, it was just an extravagant²¹ way of expressing her remorse²². Her face shone. “Oh, Daddy, I’ll love it!” “What about me, Daddy?” asked Stuart. “The girls don’t need you around the house anymore, so you’ll be out in the paddocks again, Stu.” “All right, Daddy.” He looked at Fee longingly²³, but said nothing. Fee and Meggie learned to drive the new Rolls-Royce Mary Carson had taken delivery of a week before she died, and Meggie learned to work the dogs while Fee learned to keep the books. If it hadn’t been for Father Ralph’s continued absence, Meggie for one would have been absolutely happy. This was what she had always longed to do: be out there in the paddocks astride a horse, doing stockman’s work. Yet the ache for Father Ralph was always there, too, the memory of his kiss something to be dreamed about, treasured, felt again a thousand times. However, memory wasn’t a patch on reality; try as she would, the actual sensation couldn’t be conjured²⁴ up, only a shadow of it, like a thin sad cloud. 

     When he wrote to tell them about Frank, her hopes that he would use this as a pretext²⁵ to visit them were abruptly²⁶ shattered. His description of the trip to see, Frank in Goulburn Gaol²⁷ was carefully worded, stripped of the pain it had engendered²⁸, giving no hint of Frank’s steadily²⁹ worsening psychosis. He had tried vainly to have Frank committed to Morisset asylum³⁰ for the criminally insane, but no one had listened. So he simply passed on an idealistic image of a Frank resigned to paying for his sins to society, and in a passage heavily underlined told Paddy Frank had no idea they knew what had happened. It had come to his ears, he assured Frank, through Sydney newspapers, and he would make sure the family never knew. After being told this, Frank settled better, he said, and left it at that. Paddy talked of selling Father Ralph’s chestnut³¹ mare³². Meggie used the rangy black gelding she had ridden for pleasure as a stock horse, for it was lighter-mouthed and nicer in nature than the moody³³ mares or mean geldings in the yards. Stock horses were intelligent, and rarely placid³⁴. Even a total absence of stallions didn’t make them very amiable³⁵ animals. “Oh, please, Daddy, I can ride the chestnut, too!” Meggie pleaded. “Think how awful it would be if after all his kindnesses to us, Father should come back to visit and discover we had sold his horse!” Paddy stared at her thoughtfully. “Meggie, I don’t think Father will come back.” “But he might! You never know!” The eyes so like Fee’s were too much for him; he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her more than she was already hurt, poor little thing. “All right then, Meggie, we’ll keep the mare, but make sure you use both the mare and the gelding regularly, for I won’t have a fat horse on Drogheda, do you hear?” 

      Until then she hadn’t liked to use Father Ralph’s own mount, but after that she alternated to give both the animals in the stables a chance to work off their oats. It was just as well Mrs. Smith, Minnie and Cat doted on the twins, for with Meggie out in the paddocks and Fee sitting for hours at her escritoire in the drawing room, the two little fellows had a wonderful time. They were into everything, but with such glee and constant good humor that no one could be angry with them for very long. At night in her little house Mrs. Smith, long converted to Catholicism, knelt to her prayers with such deep thankfulness in her heart she could scarcely contain it. Children of her own had never come to gladden her when Rob had been alive, and for years the big house had been childless, its occupants forbidden to mix with the inhabitants of the stockmen’s houses down by the creek. But when the Clearys came they were Mary Carson’s kin², and there were children at last. Especially now, with Jims and Patsy permanent residents of the big house. 

      It had been a dry winter, and the summer rains didn’t come. Kneehigh and lush, the tawny³⁶ grass dried out in the stark³⁷ sun until even the inner core of each blade was crisp. To look across the paddocks required slitted eyes and a hat brim drawn³⁸ far down on the forehead; the grass was mirror-silver, and little spiral whirlwinds sped busily among shimmering³⁹ blue mirages⁴⁰, transferring dead leaves and fractured grass blades from one restless heap to another. Oh, but it was dry! Even the trees were dry, the bark falling from them in stiff, crunchy ribbons. No danger yet of the sheep starving—the grass would last  another year at least, maybe more—but no one liked to see everything so dry. There was always a good chance the rain would not come next year, or the year after. In a good year they got ten to fifteen inches, in a bad year less than five, perhaps close to none at all. In spite of the heat and the flies, Meggie loved life out in the paddocks, walking the chestnut mare behind a bleating⁴¹ mob of sheep while the dogs lay flat on the ground, tongues lolling, deceptively inattentive. Let one sheep bolt out of the tightly packed cluster and the nearest dog would be away, a streak⁴² of vengeance⁴³, sharp teeth hungering to nip into a hapless heel. Meggie rode ahead of her mob, a welcome relief after breathing their dust for several miles, and opened the paddock gate. She waited patiently while the dogs, reveling in this chance to show her what they could do, bit and goaded⁴⁴ the sheep through. It was harder mustering⁴⁵ and droving cattle, for they kicked or charged, often killing⁴⁶ an unwary dog; that was when the human herdsman had to be ready to do his bit, use his whip, but the dogs loved the spice of danger working cattle. However, to drove cattle was not required of her; Paddy attended to that himself. But the dogs never ceased to fascinate her; their intelligence was phenomenal. Most of the Drogheda dogs were kelpies, coated in rich brownish tan with creamy paws, chests and eyebrows⁴⁷, but there were Queensland blues⁴⁸ too, larger, with blue-grey coats dappled in black, and all varieties of crossbreds between kelpie and blue. The bitches came in heat, were scientifically mated, increased and whelped; after weaning and growing, their pups were tried out in the paddocks, and if good were kept or sold, if no good shot. 

 

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