Читать книгу Up the Country - Miles Franklin - Страница 17

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Both young Philip Mazere and Charlie Slattery had been absent at the diggings for about a year the day that Cornstalk Bill Prendergast came in from Gundagai talking of the rising flood. Charlotte had been more than three years married, much of which time she had spent as a leading member of the Three Rivers household.

She followed the children into the great kitchen. Her voice was rarely heard unless specially invited, but her hands were usually first and most capably employed in any practical need. When she appeared, undertakings generally received an impetus.

"Goodday, Bill! Any hope of it giving up?"

"Goodday, Mrs Philip! Not a ghost of a chance as far as the signs go—looks like we'll soon want the Ark. There won't be any weddin' for a few days, if it depends on a parson."

"That means that everyone will be staying longer, and we'll want more food," said Charlotte. "How's the oven, Ellen?"

"Just about ready."

Charlotte was a striking figure in her voluminous skirts. Her glossy black hair, satin smooth, was looped back over her ears and confined in a knob. Her clear dark skin bespoke health, her steady movements strength; she was a woman made to wear in soul and body. She turned back her sleeves, tied on a large apron and went to the fireplace where there still were hanging in the chimney some of the smoked hams of bacon and mutton that had abounded there at the beginning of the winter. With a poker she swung the lid off the great camp oven of cast iron which, set upon its triangle, commanded a large subsidiary fire of coals in one corner of the mighty fireplace that occupied nearly the whole head of the big flagged room where most of the domestic operations took place. In the oven two monster turkeys and a couple of fat ducks were sizzling. After turning them with a fork—blacksmith made and of almost satanical appearance—she basted them with an iron spoon of similar origin and proportions and then turned to the boilers, her face reddening in the heat of the open fires in a temperature reduced by the rain from 112° in the shade to 100°. The boilers swung above the main fire of logs and contained families of plum puddings of various sizes.

Then Ellen removed the door of the brick oven which protruded from the side of the kitchen, and its cavernous mouth revealed an apartment big enough to shelter a robber. The floor was spread with a mass of glowing embers from the bark of the native apple tree, which was so well suited to this purpose that a forest of these trees now stood ringbarked and dying between Three Rivers and the township.

"Another twenty minutes and it'll be just right," said Ellen, distributing the fire to the furthest corners with an L-shaped implement on a six-foot handle.

"I'll have the pies ready by then," responded Charlotte, placing an enormous pastry board and roller on the table. Taking the fruit that was coming to the boil in an array of commodious saucepans, Ellen filled pie dishes big enough to bathe an infant, while Charlotte adjusted roofs, ornamented them around the eaves and cut roses for the centre. They were filled with plums, peaches, Kentish cherries and nectarines. Bill looked on, fascinated by the ease of the performance.

Ellen next scraped out the coals and ashes and in went the pies. With them, on a vast iron sheet beaten into a tray, went scores of tartlets, some spotted with currants, others to be later enriched with honey or jam. Last to go in were the juicy turnovers. With fifty guests invited and the possibility of anything up to a dozen casuals calling in, food had to be supplied as for an army.

Isabel Stanton now came to announce that the great work of icing the cake had just been completed by herself and Amelia. Everybody, Bill included, trooped off to the hall of the Big House, selected as the coolest spot for this operation, to see the masterpiece.

The Big House was a modest structure when all was said and done, but in those days it was the wonder of the district. When men were their own architects and builders, designs were of necessity simple; while a house with its various additions might stretch in sweet abandon over as much as an acre (each successive edifice being separated by some yards so that in case of fire, a man did not run such danger of being deprived of his entire homestead in one fell swoop), it never went upwards more than one storey, owing to technicalities that were beyond the capacity of the amateur builder. But Philip Mazere had announced, "I'm sick of these colonial beehives and rabbit hutches. I must have a house fit for a man to live in." The Big House had resulted. Of stone, with the usual bull-run narrow hall straight through, it was built on the skillion pattern with a large room on either side of the front door and two smaller ones at the back. It was dignified by a splendid verandah on three sides, which finished in a little box of a bedroom at each end. But the pride of the place, setting it apart as a veritable castle, were the narrow breakneck stairs (in fact, little better than a ladder) that ran up to the fabulous upper storey. Upstairs, there were four bedrooms and a large square landing for linen-cupboards and, though towards the outer edges of the rooms the ceiling was not above six feet from the floor, this fact did not detract from the superiority of the place. Young people—and old ones too—were thrilled to stay with the Mazere girls, just for the experience of going upstairs to bed.

So Mr and Mrs Mazere, their daughters and youngest son took possession of the Big House while the rambling Old House became the special domain of Hugh, male guests and the married members of the family when they were in residence. The Big House in time was also outgrown. Mr Mazere grew tired of being so crowded at his own hospitable board that he hadn't room to flap his elbows when attacking the mammoth joints. Carving in those days was no dilettante exercise. So he had recently built a dining room, facing the kitchen, upon his wife's insistence. It was a veritable squire's hall with ample space for most gatherings.

Mazere Senior, with his sons Richard and Hugh and son-in-law George Stanton, now returned, soaked and talking volubly of flood prospects, from the flats over the river.

"The punt won't be safe much longer," George was saying.

"And those poor devils over on the flats will be in for it," ventured Richard.

"It will most likely lift about sunset," said Mazere, "but unless Labosseer has the parson on this side of the Murrumbidgee by now, I shouldn't be surprised if the wedding doesn't come off tomorrow. How was it as you came along, Bill?"

"Must have been much heavier up the other side. The Bulgoa was a fair banker at two o'clock an' risin' fast."

"Another hour or two will decide."

The men went off to change and the kitchen was again invaded by the women and children, the visiting servants from Mungee and Nanda being set to work peeling a large tub of potatoes. The task of creating the floral decorations, which had been left till last, was now out of the question. "We can get up early in the morning," said Emily.

Mrs Mazere came in from the dairy which, with the fowl-run, was her domain, and announced that the thunder had soured all the cream. "The cows will have to be milked at daylight to get cream in time for the wedding breakfast," she said.

After he had changed into dry clothes, Mazere called for the mail bag, which no one else ever opened unless he was absent. He took out the few letters, insisting on knowing who they were from as each person addressed laid claim. Then he settled down with the newspaper, reading out aloud, as was his custom, interesting items to his wife. The colonial generation was not interested in politics or philosophy or public events, and Mazere frequently deplored their lack of conversation. Though he enjoyed dominating any discussion, he found the monosyllabic responses he was wont to receive from some victim anxious to escape to discuss horses and dogs with his bullet-headed cronies, somewhat discouraging. George Stanton and he hit it off all right while they went round the station and farms, but in the evening Mazere liked to throw aside his day-to-day concerns and talk on more challenging subjects.

Towards sundown the rain ceased. "It may run off in time to allow the parson and Labosseer to get through by hard riding and an occasional swim," said Mazere optimistically.

"I don't believe the rain has properly started yet," George Stanton demurred.

Bert Pool and his sister Louisa arrived in time for the evening meal, and Tim Brennan Junior came to discover if Labosseer had got through. Mazere had consented to the presence of the two Pools, on probation as it were. His wife gave Bert a cordial welcome, for he and she had become great "mates" on the jaunt from Pool's Creek to Mungee.

"Well Bert, it's good to see you again—what a great fellow you have grown," she exclaimed as she patted his shoulder. "And here's little Louisa, grown taller than myself. Charlotte has been looking out for you for days. Emily, you must take great care of Louisa."

This Emily was very ready to do. She looked with romantic interest at Bert who, after the years of Miss Mayborn's direction and with his exceptional physical endowment, had turned out quite a dandy. Louisa was an eager, gentle girl, slightly younger than Emily, and shyly enraptured with every turn of this great romantic adventure.

Emily took Louisa up the wonderful stairs to the upper storey where the bridal finery occupied a room to itself. Bert went off to the Old House with the men. What a splendid company presently appeared around the table that was laden with meats, fruits, vegetables, preserves, pickles, bread, butter cakes—all the good things of the earth in abundance. When the hearty appetites were all satisfied, the family set about a variety of tasks, guests lending a hand according to custom, more necessary now than ever since the rush to the diggings had depleted the number of "hands" available.

In case the rain came on again and the river rose any higher, Mazere gave instructions for all the gates and sliprails leading from the low banks along the river both on the Yarrabongo side and at the junction of the Bulgoa to be left open, so that the stock would have access to the high ground surrounding the house and stretching away for miles behind it. Even the pigs were let out of their sties. Then everyone settled down to pass a sociable evening. But no sooner had the children been sent off to bed than a terrific thunderstorm seemed to concentrate on the valley. The rain pelted down and the thunder and lightning were phenomenal.

"Surely this is the final shower," said Mrs Mazere. "It must have rained itself out by now."

But at the end of an hour the racket on the roof was so deafening that they had to shout at each other to be heard. It seemed as if the roofs must give way under the weight. Some of the men tried to go out to reconnoitre, but were driven back drenched, hardly able to stand in the rain. They all remarked on the peculiar character of the lightning.

Little Joseph Mazere was wakened by the noise and lay in his bed, fascinated by the queer flashing light. As it entered over the door, he caught a glimpse of the big tarantulas huddled there, for the light lingered strangely about the lintel, like the blue flame on the Christmas pudding after the match is put to the rum.

"Something's struck," murmured Richard.

"It's a water spout," said Mazere. "It can't last long." But it went on unabated.

At about eleven o'clock, Grubb, the gardener, and his wife and family appeared at the kitchen, drenched like water-rats.

The flood waters had reached the bottom of the orchard where his cottage was situated. "With our young children, I'm afeard, sir, to wait till it comes any nearer," he said.

"That's right, Grubb, the mistress will tell you where to shake down," said Mazere. "God above," he added, "it must be the Flood itself. We'll all be drowned if it keeps on much longer." But it kept on and on.

"God have mercy on the poor people on the flats! I hope they have sense like Grubb to get away to some neighbour," said Mrs Mazere. Then, as no one could settle to anything, she called the household together for the usual evening service of Bible reading and prayer.

At about two o'clock in the morning the roaring downpour eased off, though steady rain continued. The Bulgoa could be heard roaring like Niagara, and there was a considerable torrent rushing past the back gate where hitherto no watercourse had been known. Bill Prendergast was not able to go to his lodging in the loft above the coaching stables and was given a shakedown in the billiard room adjoining the dining room, most other rooms being crowded with family and the verandahs being sopping wet, the water having broken the spouting in many places and cascaded inwards.

It was a moonless night, and through the windows they could see nothing in the howling blackness. The rushing waters sounded like the ocean itself.

"Well," said Mazere finally, "there's nothing to be done but go to bed and wait to see what the morning will bring us."

In the kitchen, with one last task to carry out before going to bed, Charlotte took a great batch of beautifully browned loaves from the oven. Louisa accompanied her for a sisterly talk. Mrs Mazere went to Rachel's room to comfort her lest the girl should be perturbed about the bridegroom's safety. Kissing her good night and blessing her, she said, "He'll come through as soon as he can, my child and, in any case, you'll begin married life quite soon enough."

Soon the whole household was asleep, with the easier rain as a lullaby.