The Artist’s Secret Read online

  ‘We’ve a chance to escape for the day, and thought you might come along with us.’

  A shadow crossed by in the hall then, and the squeak of a floorboard decided it for the lot of them. Martha gasped and stepped out into the sunshine in a hurry, pulling the door firmly closed behind her.

  ‘All right, then. Abduct me.’

  She checked over her shoulder one last time, quickly, panicked, and then—hatless and gloveless—she hopped down the step and reached for Elizabeth’s hand.

  ‘We’d better hurry.’

  None of them were giants but Elizabeth could have sworn otherwise then, their feet on the pavers were that loud as they rushed, and the gate to the road seemed just as far away when they were halfway down the path as it did when they’d begun their escape.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell, there’s someone comin’ around the side of the house,’ Alice said in a whisper loud enough to raise the dead, and the three of them moved faster, bumping into each other and stifling giggles.

  Rushing and fretting and stumbling, with Alice playing scout, Elizabeth and Martha finally sneaked past the fence and onto the street and—with the help of Mr Adamson, who’d driven them in—everyone clambered up into the carriage. They were off before they’d even had a chance to settle into their seats.

  ***

  Travelling up Monaro Street posed a definite risk of discovery, but Elizabeth and Alice had decided in advance that skulking around the web of smaller roads surrounding it would only raise more suspicion.

  ‘People will wonder why our carriage is taking off down a side lane,’ Elizabeth explained when Martha arranged her skirts and noticed—alarmed—that they’d passed the river walk and the town’s busiest bridge.

  ‘Best to commit our offences with everyone watchin’,’ Alice added. ‘Makes us look less guilty.’

  ‘I’ll have to take your word for it. It’s good to be away,’ Martha admitted after a short pause.

  Elizabeth arranged her gloves neatly in her lap and watched the town roll by. She saw a few familiar faces, and a healthy crowd at The Dog and Stile. A few currawongs—still at war—chased each other past the vehicle’s windows. Spring might have melted into summer, but the birds still protected their territory.

  And then, from the corner of her eye, she saw Martha suddenly drop forwards with a gasp.

  ‘Oh my Lord, what’s goin’ on now?’ Alice asked, following Elizabeth in a downwards dive, both of them reaching for the collapsed woman before they had a chance to see what’d happened.

  Elizabeth’s mind returned to a time two years earlier, when Martha had been injured, and when, had they dared admit it to each other, not a single person in Barracks Flat expected her to survive. Trembling badly, and with a pulsing in her ears, she gripped her friend by the arm and tried to tug her upright. The space was too small, and all three women were tangled in a swirl of cotton and plaid skirts.

  She could not free herself enough to achieve a thing. She ought to call to Mr Adamson to take them back to the Wright house. This outing was the most horrid idea she had ever had …

  ‘Goodness,’ Martha said then, in a perfectly reasonable—if muffled—voice, ‘that was close.’

  She wriggled free of the other women’s grips and had the decency to look abashed.

  ‘It was that Mr Addison my father does business with,’ she explained, hoisting herself back up onto the seat with all the grace and composure Elizabeth and Alice lacked right then. The women glanced at each other and then at Martha, uncomprehending.

  ‘And he made you faint?’ Alice sounded sceptical.

  Martha seemed only mildly offended at the suggestion. ‘Of course not.’

  As they left Monaro Street and the quality of the roads worsened, it became an effort for the other two women to return to their perches. The vehicle rocked and swayed as they hauled themselves back onto their seats. Alice swore quietly as she was thrown one way and then banged another.

  ‘Then why the dramatics?’ Elizabeth asked once they were back to rights—more or less.

  ‘He spends far too much time with my father these days. If he’d seen me, he would have run off to tattle, and then we’d be chased down by the magistrate and hauled back by force before we even reached the edge of town.’

  Alice plucked a piece of fluff off her skirt.

  ‘Far as I know it’s not a crime for three ladies to leave the house durin’ the day.’

  Martha fixed her bright blue gaze on Robert’s wife. ‘You’d think not, wouldn’t you?’

  They were almost free, almost around the corner and headed past Church Lane, beyond the leafy and quiet side streets of town that felt a world away from the bustle of Monaro Street and the bridges crossing the river. Martha had just mustered the courage to peek out the window again, and Alice had barely finished muttering something about weeds taking over the park, when Elizabeth straightened, peered around the corner and tapped the carriage’s roof.

  ‘Oh, stop a moment! Mr Adamson! There’s Mrs McCoy.’

  And so they added two more passengers to an increasingly cramped carriage. Moira and David McCoy, wife and son of one of Endmoor’s stockmen, had picked up what looked like a year’s worth of parcels in town and were headed out the same way the rest of them were. On foot. It was going to be a long and uncomfortable walk back.

  Naturally, it was only polite to offer them a ride. Of course it was too stifling for five people stuffed into the carriage, but with Elizabeth’s persuasiveness, Martha’s quiet charm, and Alice’s bloody-minded determination, the pair were overwhelmed and overruled.

  The first half of the journey was a study in awkwardness and uncomfortable sideways peeks and dull comments about the drought. Parcels were stashed in every corner and under their feet, alongside the picnic basket the women had prepared before setting out.

  The McCoys, the young son as much as the grown woman, were both so intimidated by the presence of Miss Martha Wright in the same vehicle they were, neither one could stop themselves sneaking glance after glance at her perfectly formed features, and at her lovely posture, despite her overly pale face. Not that the boy tried especially hard not to stare, Elizabeth noticed.

  Nobody relaxed until they’d passed the last of the houses, a half-constructed row of terraces, and the bush came into sight. Not a single other person dared to dive onto the carriage floor for any purpose now; it was far too cramped for that.

  They spoke of the drought long enough to bore themselves thoroughly silly, and Alice rescued the lot of them from uncomfortable silence with a story she’d heard involving the priest and a cassock with a rip in a disastrous location.

  ‘At least half of it’s even true,’ she assured them when she was finished.

  It was when they passed the first farm gate that the discussion moved to the selling of property and land.

  ‘Da’ll need to give up on it sooner or later,’ Mrs McCoy said of her own family plot.

  It was the first Elizabeth had heard of anyone selling land on the outskirts of Endmoor. In recent years people were in the business of acquiring more land, not relieving themselves of it.

  ‘He’ll have to? Why?’

  The boy, piped up. ‘He falls all the time. He keeps lyin’ about it, but when we see him he’s always got a new cut or bruise, or he’ll be wearing something hot and woolly in summer to hide a new bandage.’

  ‘Davie …’ his mother tried, but the boy had warmed to the topic.

  ‘What d’you think he’ll have done today?’ he asked her. ‘Gash on his head? Broken leg?’

  ‘Davie.’ She regarded the others with an apologetic smile. ‘What I think is that I’ll need to find someone to help with the selling of the land.’

  Struck by inspiration, Elizabeth spoke before she thought.

  ‘Mr Rowe might be able to assist with that. I don’t know the particulars of his work, but he clearly does it well. I’ve heard no complaints from anyone. If you’d like, when he returns from the city, I’ll ask him
about it. I’m sure he’d be happy to assist.’

  White fluff sailed by the window, a distant cow lowed—and nobody said a thing in response. Elizabeth didn’t trust those carefully bland expressions looking back at her.

  ‘What’s the matter? What did I say?’

  Mrs McCoy felt an immediate need to fuss with her son’s collar; in turn the son tried to politely swat his mother’s hand away.

  Martha looked as pleased as punch. ‘Mr Rowe sounds pretty special, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I reckon she fancies him,’ Alice said to the carriage at large.

  Martha sat taller and slanted her eyes Elizabeth’s way. ‘I reckon you’re right.’

  Chapter 9

  Peter had been away from Sydney just long enough for it to feel foreign and familiar in equal parts. It was a thought that occupied his mind from the instant he stepped into the office in his father’s house.

  On his return home the blessed relief of anonymity had wrapped around him immediately. He’d not realised exactly how much he’d missed it, how on display he’d felt from the moment he arrived in the tablelands to the moment he left the day before. He’d allowed himself to be swept up in the bustle of the busy city streets, enjoying little things he hadn’t even realised he’d missed.

  That morning, feeling frivolous but knowing it was necessary, he’d taken himself down to the nearest cove. Alongside a motley crowd, he’d dipped his feet in the ocean. Yes, many of the people beside him had been several decades younger, the tops of their heads only reaching the vicinity of his hips; and—yes—he’d felt decidedly silly about the whole thing, but it had been a compulsion he’d been unable to bat away.

  He’d even stopped on the way to the Paddington terrace to have his shoes thoroughly polished. There hadn’t been much call for that where he’d just come from. Not much point in a man having his boots buffed when they’d only be covered in dust again —or worse—two steps down the unpaved street.

  Father and son sat now, talking about everything and nothing in the distant way their conversations always unfolded. A festive angel, tinsel twined around her skirts, hung from the window, sparkling madly in a small concession to the season. Daisy must have sneaked the thing into the office when their father wasn’t looking.

  Beyond the window and past the ordered little garden between his father’s terrace and Glenmore Road, a steady stream of traffic bustled one way and the other. From another part of the building strains of a piano reached his ears. One of Chopin’s Nocturnes, Peter guessed. His sister had retreated to give father and son some space.

  What was it Elizabeth had said to him that first day back in September? ‘You’ll find the country as loud as the city, I think.’

  One thing was certain: they were different.

  ‘I’m hearing South Australia is thriving. Making a decent name for themselves in riesling and even sherry.’

  While Peter had been wool-gathering, his father hadn’t ceased speaking. He tried to force himself to concentrate, but the mention of sherry sent his mind back to a different house and the overpowering scents of currants and sugar.

  One of the first things he’d discovered upon arriving on his father’s doorstep that day was that Mr Rowe, senior, had inexplicably but not unexpectedly found the time to educate himself about Australia’s burgeoning wine industry. And, as ever, he’d opinions to share.

  ‘I’d say we’re several years off that sort of success,’ Peter replied ruefully, well aware his father’s brows had raised at the mention of we.

  He was a little curious about the slip himself.

  ‘Farrer and Stanford are still only in the early stages of establishing the vineyards. Grapevines don’t grow overnight, and convincing people of influence to give them a chance will probably take even longer.’

  ‘Yes, well. They won’t want to miss out and be robbed of success by the South Australians. I’d say they’ve got a lot of hard work coming their way.’

  ‘They do. We do.’ Peter braced himself.

  ‘We?’ his father repeated faintly.

  ‘Robert Farrer asked if I’d be interested in a more permanent position at Endmoor,’ he admitted, and tried to gauge what his father thought about that.

  The older man grunted and pressed his fingertips together, forming a peak as he thought. The mantle clock ticked more and more loudly, and Peter felt rather a lot like a boy who’d been dragged in front of his instructors for misbehaviour.

  ‘We’re inundated here,’ his father said.

  Peter’s attention had again been snagged, this time by the sight of a seagull perched on the low brick wall that ran between one terrace and the next. The bird had found an enormous lump of bread somewhere and attained a determined mien, picking the whole thing up in its carmine-coloured beak.

  He forced his attention back to his father. ‘Who’s inundated?’

  Maurice Rowe was probably entitled to the chagrined sound he made.

  ‘Us. The business. Rowe and Son,’ he replied with exaggerated patience. ‘I was thinking on taking on another man or two.’

  His father went on about his plans in some detail. Clearly he’d been thinking about the situation for some time.

  The gull would not be deterred by the colossal size of his prize. Head tipped back, small beak open as wide as he could manage, he attempted to choke the entire thing down in one go—and failed miserably. Peter tucked both his smile and the silly little story away to tell Elizabeth later.

  ‘It’s all dependent on how the Farrer situation works out,’ his father said, and Peter abandoned the bird to its quandary.

  ‘If you’re asking me for a definitive answer on that, you might be disappointed. At this point I’m not even sure if the Farrers know how the business will go. There’re plenty of people who’d be happy to see the enterprise fail. Wine, they’re told at every turn, is something they ought to let the Europeans handle.’

  Another noncommittal grunt came from across the desk.

  ‘And you can stand it out there? Not bored yet?’

  Before Peter gave the first answer that came to mind, he gave the question serious thought.

  Several carriages clattered past on the road outside, and in the side of his vision Peter saw a streak of white as the gull was frightened off.

  ‘It’s … not Sydney, that’s for certain.’

  His father chuckled and let out a breath. ‘I’ll believe you on that. Know a thing or two about the country myself. Bored senseless, are you? I know I was, in the past. Does that mean you’re ready to give up on riesling and make a return to Cascade Street?’

  Peter looked across sharply.

  ‘Is that what you’re expecting me to do?’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  Peter closed a fist around the arm of the chair.

  ‘It was incredibly convenient that you, of all people, heard of a position available at the foothills of the Brindabellas.’

  His father’s smirk was swift and sneaky.

  ‘Son, I’ve never not kept track of the goings-on in the tablelands. I thought … one day after your mother was gone …’

  Nothing more needed saying. The senior Mr Rowe suspected that one day one of his children would want some answers about the part of them that wasn’t white.

  ‘You’re right,’ Peter said after a pause, attention drifting to the portrait behind the desk. It was a decent likeness of his mother, he thought, even though the years had softened his memories. She’d been a difficult woman to know, and talk of her life before Sydney had been strictly, silently forbidden. She’d been beautiful.

  Chopin drew to an end, amplifying the sounds of the shouts from the road outside as they drifted in the open window. They ricocheted around the room as the final notes faded away.

  The boy, the one who’d shined Peter’s shoes, passed by the gate, a large smudge of polish streaked black across a prematurely ruddy cheek.

  ‘Barracks Flat, the whole region, it’s growing fast. Too fast, some might
say, but there’s no stopping it now. If you’re willing to rusticate there a little longer, maybe you’ll take to it.’

  ‘You can’t stop change,’ Peter murmured. People always tried all the same.

  His father grunted. Another seagull cawed, and Peter’s eyes instinctively moved in that direction, to the abandoned hunk of bread. A breath of breeze stirred the angel in the window. The tinsel glittered like a thousand crystals as she twirled.

  ***

  Once they were free of town streets cluttered with gossips and busybodies, and after the McCoys had been safely deposited at a fork in the country road, the women continued on past Endmoor, where there were visitors at all times of the day, at every moment of the year. There was no point in an abduction without the adventure.

  The carriage could only be taken so far as the road became a track and then became something else entirely. Farrer land became free land as they continued westwards, and then the women hopped down with Mr Adamson’s assistance.

  They left the carriage at the place where the road had long ago been abandoned to nature, and left Mr Adamson along with it. The servant produced a wrapped sandwich from somewhere, devoured it in the time it took everyone to organise the basket and the blanket, and had put his feet up and lowered the brim of his hat for a nap by the time the lot of them waded off into the bush.

  ‘Is this too far to walk?’ Elizabeth felt obliged to ask Martha when they were halfway to their chosen—secluded—spot. She knew how much it irritated her friend to be the constant invalid; she also knew that it would be a tall order for her and Alice to carry Martha all the way back if she fainted.

  ‘I’m fine,’ her friend said, shaking herself free and pointing at the basket. ‘If you two deal with the burden of that, I’ll follow behind you, offering suggestions and motivation.’

  They sneaked in through a track they’d used a lot more often as girls than in recent years, breaking orders to take turns to furtively prop Martha up as they went, slowing their pace to match her steps. They were surprised to find the place missing a few of its old eucalypts. Someone had been at work clearing the land.