OVERFLOW, 1878

  MARIA

  Maria carefully separated a bracket fungi from its branch. It was the size of her hand, striated and nibbled by weevils. She was fairly sure it was the fungi the native woman had been gathering when she’d come upon her five years before. They had communicated by gestures, but it had been enough. This fungi was burned to make bad thoughts calm again and to reduce pain.

  She had tried burning a little of it, as she had been shown, in a precious moment of solitude. It smouldered with a thick, fragrant smoke, which did feel calming, though she had cautiously put it out almost at once, in case it induced sleep, like laudanum, and Ezekiel had discovered what she had been doing.

  Flora’s arrival had put a stop to such experiments.

  She missed Clementine with an almost physical ache, not just the small hands that reached up to ‘A’n Maria’ but the only joy on Overflow, laughter at cockatoos quarrelling for corn droppings, that wide gap-toothed smile at the sheer joy of life each time Maria led her outdoors into the bush that Clementine seemed as fascinated with as her aunt. She missed Clementine like a knife slash. Her arms had been empty for so long. Now they were empty again, with no small warm body to cuddle. And yet caring for the baby had added to her weariness.

  At least now, for a while, with Flora in Sydney, Maria was free: free of conjuring the long meals the Ladies’ Own Companion decreed were essential for civilised life. Her father and brother were content with a stew or roast then syrup dumplings. Maria had enjoyed the chance to cook soups and jellies at first, but not the continuous labour that meant she had to rise before sun-up to find the ingredients, begin the meal preparation and do all the other work necessary before Flora expected her companionship.

  She was free of napkin changing now too, the boiling of bottles and milk for feeding, despite her love for Clementine. She was free too of endless chatter about fashion and people in England who were important for some reason never explained. She was free to order the house as she wished again, no longer seeing Rose’s troubled eyes as she gazed out the window, no longer having to pretend she did not know the girl crept out into the night. And yet, ironically, she missed also conversation, desperately, for Ezekiel rarely spoke to his embarrassment of a daughter, and these days Clancy was too tired to give more than a ‘thank you’ to his sister when she passed him his plate. Mrs Taylor’s small gossip about the workmen on the property, or how the one-horned cow was drying up, was little consolation.

  But now at least her mind was free, no longer dulled with tiredness. Her body was free to walk a precious hour at dawn, before the milking and butter making, or in the afternoon while the men were out in the paddocks. She could even take notes about what she had seen again, writing on the notepaper Flora had left, using the feather pens and mulberry ink she herself made so carefully. She could dry her samples, package them; and whenever there was mail to send to Sydney, Clancy would quietly add hers to it, helpful, as when he told Ezekiel that the letters to M. Clancy were his, a nickname from school that had followed him to adulthood.

  In a few years, she thought, she would be able to teach Clementine all this. The child was quick to learn and fascinated by the natural world. But by the time Clementine was old enough to understand the true nature of mushrooms, part in the light but mostly subterannean, Flora and Clancy might have taken their child back to Sydney.

  She sniffed the fungi again, then placed it in her basket. A lizard peered up at her from a tangle of dead gum leaves. She bent slowly to observe it. It was about a finger long and no wider, with a blunt tail. She was fairly sure she had not seen one like it before, nor seen it described. She must sketch it before she forgot the details, and make a note of where and when she had seen it. She might even write a monograph on lizards . . .

  She did not want Flora’s life, though she envied her beauty. She did not want her brother’s life either. She did not know what she longed for, nor why she cried at night, when no one saw, for if she wiped the tears away she’d have to feel the bulging cheek that kept her from any life but this.

  The lizard was tired of pretending to be a stick. It scuttled under a banksia. Maria stood, refusing to wipe these tears too.

  How could you long so much for something you had never known?

  Chapter 22

  A Pumpkin Chatney (sic)

  1lb pumpkin, chopped, 1lb tomatoes, 1lb chopped onions, 7oz sugar, 1tbsp treacle, 2tsp each of black peppercorns, whole allspice, ground ginger, 2pt vinegar, red wine if possible

  Simmer till thick, and bottle while hot.

  OVERFLOW, 1879

  CLANCY

  Horatio Clancy rode along the river bank — or, rather, along the dune of sand that edged increasingly fetid waterholes, where snake and wallaby drank together, too desperate even to worry about the horse that trod so near.

  Worry lived with him now, like a shadow who shared his horse. Worry for Overflow, the sheep gaunt, the lambs picked off by dingoes. The wool clip this year would pay for the shearing, the men’s wages, but that would be all. He needed to write to Flora, not to order her to come home, but to tell her that there would be no more bank drafts from Overflow and suggest — only suggest — that when he joined McIntyre’s team to drove the sheep that they must sell, at far less than they had paid for them, he could escort her and Clementine back to Overflow, even if Margaret intended to stay longer.

  He worried for his father too. Ezekiel’s dreams had diminished. He clung merely to the survival of the great estate he’d established, for the continuation of his family name. While Flora stayed in Sydney there could be no grandson. His eyes accused Clancy every meal.

  Clancy worried for his daughter, about the typhoid, dysentery, measles and other fevers that still ran rampant through Sydney every summer, even if the plague-wracked convict ships came no more.

  He was anxious about Flora with a depth that was beyond worry, for worry implied that a pleasant path might be found for those who one worried for, and there was none he could see for Flora. While the drought continued — and possibly it would, for a decade, or more — there would be no wealth for Flora Clancy, no house that even faintly possessed the grandeur of Rosemere.

  He and Flora were bound forever. She could not even return to England where her father had died and from where her brother still sent querulous letters demanding payment of his debts. That brother would not welcome a sister and her child. It was even doubtful that by the time she arrived there, her brother would be able to support her. Nor would Clancy allow her to take his child to England.

  Clancy worried about Maria too. For the first time in her life she’d had educated female company: not just the stockmen’s wives, but a woman who could share reading with her, who would appreciate her beautifying the homestead with vases of lyrebird feathers, the approximation of elegant meals she created from kangaroo, flour and lard. She’d had a child to love, holding the child far more than Clementine’s mother did.

  Yes, Flora would return. There might even be other children. But Maria would still be restricted to the house where she’d been born, to caring for nieces and — God willing — nephews, to hiding her face even from the Afghan trader who arrived with his laden camels, his carpets, bolts of cloth and saucepans every spring.

  For Maria there was no way out. No hope to grasp at . . . he pulled at the reins as his horse shied at a bundle of rags by one of the pools, then pulled it to a stop, looked longer, then quickly dismounted. The dogs barked away the crows. Clancy ran towards the pool.

  The heap was a man: his flesh red, shiny and swollen; his eyes lost in a football of a face. One cheek was already crow pecked. Impossible that he was alive, but when Clancy bent, he could hear the faintest of breathing.

  An escaped prisoner? A Drinkwater stockman, who had come too far? It didn’t matter. He was a man, and so must be helped. Clancy grabbed the water bottle from his saddle, poured a few drops into the man’s mouth, was relieved to see him swallow, poured a little more, and more again. Finally he hefted him in his arms and laid him face down in front of his saddle.

  The position would make it hard to breathe; the extra heat of the sweating horse might kill him. The man might die anyway. But there was no other way Clancy could get him home, not before the circling crows gouged out his eyes, or a dingo came for tongue and entrails.

  It was dusk by the time he got him back. He yelled for the men. Maria too came running. ‘What . . . who . . .?’ she asked.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Some ne’er-do-well,’ said Ezekiel, making his way more slowly down the stairs.

  Clancy shrugged. ‘Put him in my room.’ The only other spare rooms were Clementine’s nursery with its little crib, and the lean-to where Rose had slept — too hot.

  ‘A bath,’ said Maria sharply to Mrs Taylor, coming out to see what was the commotion. ‘Cold water. We need to cool him down. Clancy, get him inside and strip his clothes off. Mrs Taylor, sugar water, cold as you can get it — take the water from the safe, add half a spoonful of sugar and a pinch of salt to the cup and stir it well, then add a teaspoon of brandy.’

  ‘. . . lot of trouble for a stranger . . .’ muttered Ezekiel, wandering back inside to his congealing dinner.

  But he did not object. This man — swollen, red — was still a white man. What else could they do?

  Chapter 23

  How to keep eggs fresh for cooking

  Eggs will keep for a year or more if they are gently covered with a coat of clarified butter or candle wax or a mixture of candle wax and paraffin wax, then wrapped in newspaper.

  OVERFLOW, 1879

  MARIA

  She let Clancy and O’Hara bathe him or, rather, leave him to soak in cold water while Clancy spooned sugar water into him. The man was still unconscious when they lifted him onto the bed, naked, at her instructions, for he must be kept cool. She knew this meant all of him, including the parts that should, in decency, be covered. Decency was not possible if this man was to live.

  She spent that night sponging him — all of him — fetching water herself at two am from the well the men had dug when the river stopped flowing and the pools began to stink. Now and then she spooned in sugar water too. She dozed for a few hours while the cool breeze did the work for her; woke when the man began to mutter, sponged again.

  She left Mrs Taylor to make breakfast, with orders to make beef tea when the plates were cleared.

  ‘And what’s beef tea when it’s at home, miss?’ demanded Mrs Taylor.

  Maria hesitated. She dared not suggest they kill the cow — Clementine would need its milk, and Ezekiel would protest the cost. Surely, despite the receipt, kangaroo meat would be as good. ‘Boil a kangaroo tail,’ she said. ‘With just a little salt. Skim off any scum and after four hours strain it through two layers of muslin.’

  ‘Ain’t got no muslin in the kitchen.’

  Not the cheesecloth — it was too precious to kitchen economy and Ezekiel might not allow her to buy more. ‘Through a tea towel or a sheet,’ Maria said wearily. ‘Whatever is clean. Put the cloth on the stove to simmer afterwards to clean it and bring the tea to me. I would like some bread and dripping too,’ she added, for Mrs Taylor had not thought to bring food into her.

  She went back to sponging, fanning him now as the day’s heat grew, spooning in the not-beef tea. Suddenly his eyes opened. She flinched, for she was not wearing her veil. But his eyes seemed unable to focus. She reached for her veil, hesitated, left it off, then spooned in more tea.

  His eyes stayed vacant, but he swallowed easily when she spooned in the cool liquid till his eyes drifted closed again and his changed breathing told her he was asleep or, if unconscious, at least not as close to death as before. She kept on sponging till she fell into a doze, waking only when Mrs Taylor, looking put upon, brought her in roast mutton flap — a ewe must have died, for them to be eating mutton again — watery mashed pumpkin and even more watery cabbage, a cup of tea, and another cup of the not-beef tea. Maria covered the man with a sheet until the stockman’s wife had left.

  She ate; sponged him; fed him spoonfuls of liquid again. Once again he seemed to half wake. This time he drank more eagerly, so she propped him up, still with his eyes shut, and held a cup to his lips. He drank a cup of the meat liquid, another of sugar water, one of plain water, then of his own accord nuzzled back into the pillows.

  She sponged again. She was feeling uncomfortable pleasure watching, touching his body: physical discomfort, moral discomfort and shame too that a creature like herself could look like this at a man who was whole, even if swollen, shiny red and unconscious.

  It was midnight, perhaps, when she fell asleep herself, not a doze this time, but a deeper sleep. The cuckoos’ dawn call woke her. She opened her eyes and found him watching her.

  She gave a cry and reached for her veil. ‘No need.’ The voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘I’ve been watching you for a while. I remember you too. You’ve been tending me quite a time.’

  ‘Two nights. My brother found you.’ She averted her face.

  ‘Don’t look away. Yes, your face is a shock at first. I suppose most people recoil. But I was too weak to, and so I looked, and I saw kindness and beauty too.’

  She sat speechless.

  He added, ‘I seem in desperate need of a chamber pot, but I do not think I could stand up for one.’

  She brought him a ginger beer bottle. He managed to hold it himself, then handed it back to her. Its warmth was an intimacy that made her blush, as did the knowledge that he was naked under the sheet and he must know she knew it, had been touching him for two days.

  Did he think she was a frustrated spinster? ‘I apologise for any intrusion,’ she said stiffly. ‘It was necessary to cool you down.’

  ‘I know.’ He’d shut his eyes again. ‘He stole my horse, my bags, my purse, even my shirt and boots.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘No idea.’ His voice was growing slower with weariness. ‘He had a gun.’

  A bushranger, she thought. There were fewer now that the gold had finished. Maybe just a swaggie taking what he could, though swaggies rarely carried firearms.

  ‘You should sleep,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t need to sleep yet. Just keep my eyes closed. It is good to talk . . .’

  She tried to find a topic of conversation. ‘What were you doing out here?’

  ‘I’ve been staying at Drinkwater. They said the next property was Overflow, so I headed in that direction.’

  ‘You are at Overflow now.’

  He must have taken in the small room, the shabbiness, the lack of servants. ‘Really?’ Then quickly, ‘I’m sorry. You have been so kind.’

  ‘You have business with my father or brother?’

  He laughed softly, his eyes still shut. ‘Nothing that they would recognise as business. My father settled an income on me on the condition I stay away from England. I study plants, collect them, then send samples and my paintings of them back to Kew Gardens.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do I collect plants, or why must I stay away from England?’

  ‘I think I understand the plants,’ she said slowly. ‘A plant can tell you so much about the land. My sister-in-law’s roses die here, apart from the yellow banksias, the ones named for Mr Banks.’

  ‘You know his work?’ The weariness in his voice had suddenly vanished.

  ‘Yes.’ She did not say that her kind brother bought her every book in the catalogue on the subject, nor refer to her own correspondence with others in the society. ‘But why must you stay away from your home?’

  ‘Because it is not my home. My mother is an actress — a famous one. My father is an earl and prominent in government. Both are married, but not to each other. My mother was fond enough of me to allow me to be brought up in England, but once I reached my majority my identity would embarrass them both.’ He changed the subject quickly. ‘I very much look forward to meeting your brother, Miss Clancy.’

  ‘Horatio?’

  ‘Your other brother. I’m sorry, but I only know him as M. Clancy. He writes most interesting treatises on terrestrial orchids that behave quite unseasonably in this country. I had the privilege of reading one of them to a meeting of the society.’

  Admitting she was M. Clancy would probably end all correspondence with England’s horticulturalists and botanists — the only female yet admitted to that select group of scientists had been the goat who had accompanied Lieutenant Cook on his momentous voyage south, and even she had been of such senior years and snappish disposition that there had been little chance she might pollute one of the lectures by attending one. Maria’s correspondence was her deepest pleasure. To lose it would be . . .

  She did not want to think what it would be like to lose it, to have no purpose now in hunting out new specimens nor trying to work out their lives and place, beyond her own knowledge. But nor could she lie to the man on the bed. The last couple of nights had formed a strange unspoken intimacy.

  ‘I am afraid I am M. Clancy,’ she said stiffly. ‘Maria Clancy.’

  His eyes opened, all signs of tiredness vanished. He stared, not in shock but in delight. He struggled up onto one elbow and grabbed her hand. His still felt too warm, but much of the swelling had gone down. ‘I must shake your hand then, madam.’ He took two fingers and kissed them. ‘My reason for choosing New South Wales over Victoria or Western Australia — the flora there, thought toxic, seems fascinating indeed — was to meet M. Clancy. And here you are!’ He laughed. ‘And I asked if you knew who Banks was. My name is Ethelred Fitzharris.’

  She had read articles by E. Fitzharris — she could understand why he too preferred to use only his initial — if, indeed, this was the Fitzharris who had written that fascinating monograph on bougainvillea, and another describing the desert flowers of the Kalahari after rain.