The Artist’s Secret Page 7

  She was dragged from her wool-gathering as Alice looked up from a page of petunia illustrations and let out a small sound of exasperation.

  ‘Duncan, no. The horse’s upside down. It’s—Lord, here, I’ll turn him up the right way.’

  A lot of banging and chattering ensued; the hobby horse was at risk of losing his elaborately painted exterior before he’d been in the house half an hour. For his part, the infant did not end the exchange convinced he wasn’t right.

  The men and Elizabeth watched the exchange end when Duncan gave up on being cross and took a firm interest in the pattern of the parquetry floor, and again she felt her brother’s eyes rest on her a fraction too long.

  She pulled a face at him and it did the trick. Seemingly convinced there really wasn’t a thing to worry about, Robert bent to scoop an increasingly cross and tired son from the floor for a walk about the room.

  The inevitable gossip began, and Elizabeth again set her present in front of her, contemplating the selection of colours. The paints were of the highest quality. It was a luxury beyond anything she’d ever find in such an isolated part of the world as New South Wales. Perhaps now she’d be able to mix the exact blue shade of the local parrots. She’d been attempting to create it for so long …

  ‘And that’s why I came via Victoria,’ John said in response to something she missed.

  ‘Victoria!’ The name really was inescapable.

  The room fell instantly silent at her vehemence; all of that effort Elizabeth had put into appearing composed and normal evaporated. Drat. Robert would again feel obliged to play the part of concerned older brother.

  John spoke first. ‘Not a fan of our Queen?’

  Elizabeth didn’t think much of the Queen either way—they were quite a long way from London. She wasn’t, though, about to correct anyone’s assumptions.

  ‘She wears too much black.’

  ‘I can’t argue with you about that.’ John glanced around. ‘Now. Where’s this Mr Rowe you keep speaking of? Have I been permanently replaced, or is there room for three of us in our business?’

  ***

  Peter found the man by the water.

  He was old and wiry but looked like he’d once been much more formidable.

  The stirring inside him wasn’t suspicion as much as anticipation. It took everything he had to not approach the fellow immediately, and to watch him instead, gauging his welcome.

  With the river so loud and so close there was enough distance between them that neither could hear the other, and Peter trod carefully through the grass as the man disappeared behind a rock, and then a tree, and then re-emerged slightly south.

  He watched as he paused to take a drink from a flask and then set off again, clearly familiar with the land, a weather-beaten white man treating it as his own.

  Peter moved faster.

  A group of currawongs, mad with the need to protect their territory, chased each other around the sky, their deafening calls further disguising the sounds of Peter’s approach. He was within yards of the man when the birds moved their dispute on to another part of the valley, and finally the swishing sounds of his boots in the grass alerted the stranger he was no longer alone.

  He stopped still in an instant and turned slowly, cautiously, holding his ground.

  After so long, after decades of imagining and wondering, of inventing elaborate histories for himself when he thought real answers would never come, at the sight of the man’s face Peter found he could hardly take another step.

  A wattlebird made its odd unmusical call, and then launched off from a gum tree in a rustle of feathers and leaves. Cicadas sent up near-deafening chants in every direction around them.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he began when he was in easy earshot, ‘I was wondering if you …’

  He lost track of his words then, as the other man shifted slightly, just enough for the light to reveal the details the shadow of his hat had not.

  A gasp of air passed between them; it might have been Peter who made the sound of surprise, but he suspected it was not. It was only a hint here and there, but what he saw in the stranger’s features … there was something very familiar there. Not unlike what he saw in the mirror every day, but at the same time so different, so confusing.

  ‘I was wondering,’ he tried again, but again the words in his mind evaporated.

  In the shabby, grubby, wizened fellow he saw in front of him, exactly the sort of person he’d expect to find wandering the bush, Peter saw someone who might have answers about the past. And, for a fraction of a second, it seemed the man might bolt.

  Peter didn’t move. He didn’t dare.

  The old man’s jaw firmed and the ragged beard covering it shifted as his expression did. And still he stayed mute.

  ‘I’m Peter Rowe,’ he began again, the simple introduction sounding inane to his own ears.

  Disinterest warred with something older and more powerful in the man’s face. Skin that would once have been pale had tanned to the colour of leather, and deep crevices marked his features. He was a man used to solitude; that much was plain to see. Conversation wasn’t designed for someone who’d long ago given up company for isolation.

  ‘Vernon Towner,’ the man replied in an indistinguishable accent, as though they were meeting at a garden party. And then, with certainty, he continued.

  ‘You’re Charity’s boy.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  There was a good six feet between them, but it might as well have been a mile. A fly buzzed around Peter’s face. The horse, almost forgotten now, snorted once from where it waited behind him.

  ‘Huh,’ Towner said. ‘I’d say you’ve a few questions for me.’

  Chapter 8

  For a man who took pride in order, Peter found himself standing in the centre of his Endmoor cottage one stifling December afternoon, wondering how he’d accumulated so much mess.

  A generally neat person, both by nature and schooling, it was quite the surprise to see just how corrupted he’d become in two and a half months. Cups and a decent collection of Minton plates and bowls borrowed from Mrs Adamson were stacked on the table and yet to be returned. Books had continued to migrate from Endmoor’s library, and covered many surfaces—they could be excused, he’d reasoned more than once. A man had to do something during the evenings he declined invitations to stay in the homestead after the evening meal. The Farrer family didn’t need him intruding on every moment of their time.

  He added some trousers to his pile of clothing and glanced at the mantle.

  The growing assortment of oddities from the land was a little harder to justify, but also difficult to throw away. An old hinge, more rust than metal now. A feather, blue-tipped with indigo, from a bird he’d yet to learn the name of. A gold sovereign, dated thirty years earlier and with a significantly younger Queen Victoria in profile on its back, had been discovered in the dirt at the bottom of one of the new grapevine trellises. He paused in his packing to pick it up, using a fingernail to flick specks of dirt from the grooves of the monarch’s hair.

  ‘Absurd,’ he told the room, and then forced his mind back to the task at hand. It was difficult to prepare for a journey when a man hadn’t any idea how long it would be.

  The jangle of reins near the cottage caught his attention. Even though Christmas was upon them, the estate continued to work as it always had. It was impossible to explain a holiday to a sheep.

  He set the coin back alongside the rest of his odd little collection and reached for the next garment that would travel with him back to his family in Sydney.

  A dull thwack came from somewhere outside and he paused in the middle of laying out an overly formal wing-tipped shirt. What was that?

  When the echo died away he shrugged and turned back to the shirt. What had he been thinking bringing it in the first place? Barracks Flat was hardly a place of balls and soirées, though he supposed there might be a time or two the Ladies’ Auxiliary threw something respectable together.

>   Trunk or valise? He was still undecided. The trunk seemed a little excessive if he was only to be away for a few days. Another thwack, and he paused again. When the tail end of a giggle reached his ears he decided he wasn’t in imminent danger.

  He might as well take the shirt back to Sydney. The mere sight of that starched collar made him want to expire. The relentless sunshine was oppressive. It made a man want to snooze over his ledgers.

  He set a waistcoat on top of the shirt and swiped a hand across his sweaty forehead, contemplating the valise again. With the afternoon sun hitting the cottage from every direction, the place felt more than a little like a furnace. Or like the depths of that Hell his childhood tutors had constantly warned him about.

  Another thwack came as he picked the gumnut up off the table and tried to remember what had been so important about the blasted thing that he’d kept it. Superstition, maybe.

  Whack.

  Something glanced off the side of the cottage, surprising him into a stumble. His thigh clipped the edge of the chair, sending it clattering, and sending the contents of his Gladstone bag scattering and coins bouncing and rolling across the floor.

  Not an absolute disaster, he supposed, but not exactly what he needed right then. He’d a long letter in there, the pages not fastened or numbered.

  ‘Only a small disaster,’ he muttered.

  Another laugh—louder and far more childish—sounded. Curious, he collected the papers and sorted them into a messy pile as he wandered over to the door, pulling it open to let a stream of sunlight through.

  Miss Farrer stood half in the shadow of a tall rose bush, her little nephew perched on a blanket nearby, waving what looked to be a miniature, homemade cricket bat in a manner more suited to a man charging into battle than a connoisseur of the sport. Peter watched as she laughed at the child’s antics, which in turn made the boy squeal with the smugness of one who knew he held someone in his thrall.

  Peter set the papers aside and stepped out of the cottage, pausing on the step.

  The baby was in the throes of an excitement only one so young could manage, delirious with the effect of bashing the miniature bat onto the pavement beyond the blanket, and then onto the nearby trellis—and on his own shin, squawking with outrage at the impact of the third hit, and then looking about as though there was another person to blame for the insult.

  ‘Did that hurt?’ Miss Farrer asked, kneeling and doing an excellent job of masking her amusement with concern.

  The infant waved the bat again, and Peter stirred.

  ‘You might want to help him with his backlift. The technique’s a little off.’

  She turned and beamed at him.

  ‘Mr Rowe. What do you know about cricket?’

  He started towards her.

  ‘Nowhere near enough to justify that hopeful look on your face.’

  He spotted the ball beneath a drooping plant. Bending to retrieve it, he gave it a squeeze, relieved to find it was far softer than those used in a normal cricket match. Rising, he approached her, taking in the pink of her cheeks and how she inclined her head in thanks.

  The tip of one of his fingers brushed hers when he offered her the ball.

  ‘Um,’ she said drawing her hand back, ‘I’m sorry. Were we distracting you from your work?’

  ‘Not at all. You’ve given me a perfect excuse to procrastinate. There aren’t many things I dislike more than packing.’

  A shadow crossed her expression. The little bat whacked against the paving stones again and both of them, with obvious determination, fixed their attention on Duncan. They watched the child as he continued his enraptured inspection of the wrong end of the toy.

  ‘He enjoys the game, or so Robert assures me. As long as I do all the throwing and the catching, that is.’

  ‘To be fair, the general consensus seems to be that a fellow should be able to stand on his own before he’s sent out onto the pitch.’

  ‘I figured as much. Don’t tell my brother, but if this is the future of colonial cricket, then England is in no danger. He certainly deserves an award for his enthusiasm, however.’

  Peter took pity. ‘He’s no Billy Murdoch yet, but give him a chance. He’s not a year old, is he? I daresay he still has the time to learn the handle end of a cricket bat from the toe.’

  Miss Farrer shifted the ball from one hand to the other, squeezing gently.

  ‘You do sound like you know what you’re talking about. Perhaps you could help him learn. Are you a good player, Mr Rowe?’

  Peter debated—and discarded—a fib.

  ‘I’ll say I am, just as long as you don’t ask for a demonstration.’

  ‘Perhaps you could at least teach him which end is to be held. I don’t think he believes I’m right.’

  He grappled. He’d not been a star batsman at Sydney Grammar.

  ‘Uh, I might not be the best person to ask. I’ve … I’ve an injury. A strained hamstring.’

  He shouldn’t be discussing his thighs with a respectable lady—his father would be appalled. However, instead of taking offence, Miss Farrer laughed; the baby laughed in turn.

  ‘I suppose I could give it a try,’ he conceded, and knelt.

  ‘That,’ the woman beside him said smugly, ‘was very elegantly done for a man with such a grave injury.’

  Child and man regarded each other. The boy was still young enough to be fair in that way of many small English youngsters. Soon enough he’d sprout, and the babyish fair fuzz would no doubt darken to something more worldly. Peter hadn’t the largest family in the world, and—as yet—not a single nephew or niece to educate him in the ways of small children. It was a terrifying moment, but it wouldn’t do to let the woman watching him know it.

  The boy seemed amenable to the lesson, watching intently and silently as Peter, feeling the idiot, carefully extracted the little bat from a set of chubby hands and turned it around, demonstrating.

  He was halfway back to his feet when Duncan, with impressive concentration, turned the bat back around and again slammed the blunt end of the handle onto the paving stones. He was clearly delighted with the racket it made as he did it again and again.

  ‘Oh dear. Don’t worry. You did better than I managed.’

  The baby paused in his play to give the two adults a curious look, and then stuck the end of the bat in his mouth and gave it an experimental gnaw.

  ‘Ah well, he’ll make an excellent spectator one day.’

  Miss Farrer glanced beyond him, giving the interior of the cottage a swift, discreet perusal.

  ‘You’re packing?’

  ‘I am.’

  It felt like there was something more to say. An explanation of—or an excuse for—why he had to go. He’d nothing to feel guilty about, he reminded himself. Nothing.

  That huge family cat ambled past, not the slightest bit interested in the discomfort in the air, and they were saved by the infant, who managed in his garbled way to inform them he needed the ball placed back in front of him. Immediately. Elizabeth lay it within his reach, and then they waited to see what would happen. The child appeared as curious about the outcome as the adults did.

  ‘No, Duncan. It’s not for— oh for goodness’ sake, you’ll injure yourself and then your parents will have to thrash me, and then Christmas will be ruined before we even decorate the tree. It’s for—’

  The three of them watched in abject fascination as the ball—bumped rather than hit—rolled off sideways into the dirt.

  Peter chuckled.

  ‘I think that was more luck than skill, but I don’t want to crush the poor fellow’s spirit. I’d better leave the two of you to your test match.’

  Miss Farrer nodded, seemingly distracted, and he set off back the way he’d come. The valise, he decided while the thwacking and chortling began again.

  ***

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Martha Wright asked two days later, her voice hushed as she glanced over her shoulder to the presently empty entrance hall of
the grand Wright house, and Elizabeth sighed with relief.

  The stars had aligned. Bessie was watching the baby, Alice was tired of looking at her browned, sun-roasted garden, and Elizabeth had not only completed an oil painting of the ridgeway but was also hugely pleased with it. It was time for a break.

  And now, continuing their good fortune, they’d arrived in Barracks Flat to discover that not only was Martha up and about and looking relatively well, but she answered the knock on the door herself. Things had gone perfectly so far.

  Too perfectly?

  Feeling eyes on her back and a silly guilt at sneaking about that should have been beneath either woman at their age, Elizabeth fought the urge to duck behind the rose bush beside the door and drag her friend along with her. Digging for dignity, she leaned closer and whispered.

  ‘Where is everyone?’

  Taken aback by the furtiveness, Martha glanced over her shoulder; there was nobody there. It was when she turned back that she spotted Alice slinking down the path, appearing as suspicious as she should, all things considered.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Wright,’ Robert’s wife called.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We’re abductin’ you,’ Alice, who’d promised to stay in the carriage, announced cheerfully, ‘if you’re willin’ to go along with it.’

  ‘Like Romeo an’ Juliet,’ Alice had commented as they’d hatched their plan on the way in from Endmoor. ‘But with too many Juliets.’

  Martha looked from one woman to the other, face pale, a frown between her brows. A single ivy ribbon to mark the season hung above the door, the leaves stitched carefully enough they wouldn’t dare rustle in the breeze.

  ‘Abducting me?’

  Alice was taken aback by Martha’s tone. ‘Don’t look at us like it’s a crime.’

  Elizabeth stirred. ‘Alice, I’m fairly sure it is a crime.’

  ‘Yes, but only if the victim isn’t willin’. You’re willin’, aren’t you, Miss Wright?’

  A simple outing was about to dissolve into chaos thanks to Alice’s enthusiasm and Martha’s obvious reticence. Elizabeth struggled for a way to save it.