The Grace Stories Page 15

  In the evenings, after long days working in the fields, Tom spent time with Beth and the baby. He would lift Alice from the new cot he had made for her so Beth could nurse her. Then they would take turns in holding her and talking to her.

  ‘Well, my little plum,’ Tom would coo, ‘you have cheeks that should be dusted with sugar they are so round and delicious!’ Then he would kiss her little fists and hold her close.

  Grace could see how much Tom loved his daughter and it made her feel sad. She wondered what it would be like to have a father who loved you.

  While Beth always made sure she spent time with Grace, and was just as kind as ever, Grace could see that she was distracted. How Grace missed sharing chores and laughing with her mistress.

  ‘Beth, when will Master – when will Tom take me in the wagon to see Liza and Hannah?’ she asked Beth one afternoon when she had finished her wreaths. Beth had told her not to call her husband Master Tom – that Tom would do fine – but Grace couldn’t bring herself to do it. Tom was her master, not her friend, and Grace couldn’t imagine ever forgetting it.

  Beth patted Alice’s back to burp her. ‘Didn’t he tell you already, Grace? I asked him again and he said he’s taking you next week – the very first week of summer, when he can be sure there will be no rains to drench you on the way.’

  Grace’s heart leapt. ‘Which day, Beth? Exactly a week or nearly a week or a little more than a week?’

  Beth laughed. ‘I’m not sure, Grace, but it will be soon – that much I know.’

  Only one more week to wait! With something so wonderful to look forward to, Grace’s world looked a lot cheerier. Soon she would be listening to Hannah’s stories, seeing her new home, telling her everything that had happened. Hannah would make her laugh and help her to forget her troubles. And Liza might know how Grace could deal with Tom. Maybe she would know some way to help Glory, too. It had been three weeks since Grace had ridden along the East Trail in search of help – three long weeks for Glory to grow sicker and sicker.

  But only one more week until Liza makes everything better, thought Grace, feeling hopeful again.

  When Tom was away for the day working at the bottom of the property, Grace went to look at Glory for herself. As soon as she saw the mare, she could tell something was wrong. Glory did not prick her ears towards Grace as she approached, the way she usually did. She just stood still, as if she didn’t care about what was going on around her. Her coat, which had always been so glossy and sleek, was a dull brown. The shine in her eyes was gone.

  When Grace looked at the wound down her side, she was shocked. It was much more swollen than before and leaking pus. Grace could see the remains of the alcohol swabs that Tom had draped across the wound. It didn’t seem as if they were helping.

  The cut reminded Grace of the days when she was a mudlark back in London. Mudlarks were always cutting their feet on the things they couldn’t see in the mud at the bottom of the Thames. Without shoes, it was easy for dirt to get into the cuts and sores, making them infected. Grace knew the sickness of a wound could get into your blood and spread to the rest of you and leave you very sick. It could even kill you. Jimmy Parley, a mudlark boy she knew in London, had died from an infected foot that had spread the poison to the rest of him. Grace shuddered as she passed her hand over Glory’s coat. ‘Liza will be able to help you,’ Grace whispered to the mare. ‘If she can bring a baby into the world, surely she can save you, too.’

  Later that day, as Grace was sweeping the path at the front of the house, she saw Tom coming from the far field, his arms loaded with firewood. She could see he was busy, but she had to know when he was taking her to see her friends – she couldn’t wait any longer, and she was worried Glory couldn’t either.

  ‘Master Tom,’ she called, her voice as uncertain as it always was when she spoke to him.

  Tom stopped in his tracks. ‘What is it, Grace?’

  Grace walked towards him, gripping the broom in her hand for courage. ‘I was only wondering if you might tell me when we are going to see Liza Clay, sir, so I could make sure I could get all my work done for Beth before we go.’

  Tom frowned. ‘I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘But it will be next week, won’t it, Master Tom?’

  ‘I’m not sure when it will be.’

  ‘But . . . but Master Tom, Beth said that you–’ Grace stammered.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what Beth said!’ Tom snapped. ‘I haven’t the time to be taking you on trips.’ He kept going along the path.

  Grace felt her face flush with anger. Tom had made a promise to Beth. And besides, if it weren’t for Liza, Beth and Alice may not be alive at all.

  ‘Master Tom!’ Grace called.

  Tom swung around to face her. ‘Grace?’

  Grace heard the challenge in her master’s voice. Anger made the blood rush through her body. ‘Beth said you would take me. It isn’t right that you have changed your mind!’

  ‘It’s not Beth who makes the decisions around here! And who are you to tell me what’s right? You were lucky to be chosen to work here at all. Now get back to your chores!’ Tom turned on his heel and walked away.

  Grace threw the broom aside and sat down hard in the dirt. It didn’t matter how much she tried – she always seemed to lose the ones she loved. Her mother, Pegasus, Dorothy, Liza and Hannah . . . it was never going to change. Grace knew that speaking so boldly to her master was risking her position at Wattle Park, but it seemed it didn’t matter how good she was, she still ended up losing. What difference did it make? Grace kicked at the dust around her feet. No difference at all!

  Later that same day, Grace was digging in the vegetable garden, grabbing roughly at the weeds and grubs. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck and flies buzzed around her eyes.

  ‘It’s not fair!’ she said to herself, swatting at a particularly stubborn fly. ‘Liza and Hannah are so close but I’m not allowed to see them. I didn’t mean to hurt Glory. I was trying to do the right thing!’ The more Grace thought about it, the less fair Tom’s treatment of her seemed. Beth said Tom promised, Grace thought, and it wouldn’t be so hard for Jerry to take me in the wagon – and now Tom has broken his promise as if it didn’t mean anything. Grace felt desperate.

  As she looked out towards Glory’s paddock, Grace sensed that she was being watched. Somebody was moving behind the trees just beyond the cleared land. Her heart pounded. Tom was working on the fences on the bottom border of the property and Beth was inside with Alice. She had no idea who might be watching her.

  Grace stared into the forest, her nerves tingling. She saw the dark figure move again.

  Mulgo! It was Mulgo, Beth’s Aboriginal friend who sometimes visited Wattle Park. Grace felt relieved. She hadn’t seen Mulgo for weeks now – not since she had come with her small boy, Muggadung, and shown Beth how to make the sweet drink, bool, that came from the nectar of the brush flowers. That was before Beth had her baby.

  Grace stood and called ‘Mulgo!’ But the forest was still. Nobody moved in the trees. Mulgo was gone. I must have scared her away, thought Grace, sadly. She would have liked to see Mulgo again. Grace had been curious about Mulgo and her beautiful child. Tom had warned her to leave them alone and that they couldn’t be trusted, but as she remembered Mulgo’s wide smile, she couldn’t believe it was true.

  Mulgo was clever and knew all sorts things about the land. As Grace squatted back down by the vegetable patch, she remembered Beth saying that Mulgo had used bush medicine to help with Beth’s morning sickness.

  And then Grace jumped to her feet with a rush of excitement. If Mulgo could help Beth with medicine from the forest, was there a chance that she could help Glory?

  THE next morning, Grace stood at the stove and stirred the porridge for Beth, who lay on the bed with Alice. ‘I saw Mulgo yesterday,’ she said, sprinkling a pinch of salt over her bowl, ‘but she disappeared into the trees when I called out to her.’

  ‘Ah, Mulgo . . . she must be
wondering what’s happened to me.’ Beth rocked Alice on her knee. ‘You have yet to meet Mulgo, my little angel. I am sure she’ll like you very much and no doubt she’ll make you biscuits from some sort of flower or berry that’s growing wild right under our noses.’ Beth turned back to Grace. ‘Don’t worry, Grace – it took months before she would stop and speak to me. She needs more time to get used to you.’

  ‘Do you think she will come again soon?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Oh, I never know when she’ll come. Sometimes she’s gone for many weeks, other times I’ll see her three days in a row.’

  Grace stopped her stirring. ‘Where does Mulgo live? Is it near here? Does she have a home?’

  ‘Tom told me that the native camp is somewhere in the forest on the other side of the old cornfield, towards the creek. He stumbled upon it by accident when he was hunting for kangaroo,’ Beth answered, as she swaddled the baby. ‘He says there are about twenty people living together there. He didn’t hang about. We’ve been told the camp is one of the last ones left in the area – most of the natives around here have been got rid of. But Tom says we don’t want any trouble with them – we’ll leave them alone if they leave us alone.’ Beth laid Alice in her bed. ‘Don’t go asking too many questions about the natives, Grace, it will only lead to trouble with Tom. He doesn’t want me to have much to do with them, especially since there have been more theft and more killings. Most of the settlers feel the same way.’

  ‘Are you ready for your breakfast?’ Grace brought the steaming bowl of porridge down to her mistress, hoping she wouldn’t notice that Grace hadn’t responded to her words of warning.

  ‘I’d better eat it before Alice is ready for her breakfast.’ Beth smiled gratefully as she took the bowl from Grace.

  ‘Where is Master To – where is Tom working today, Beth?’ Grace asked as she poured a little extra milk into Beth’s bowl. ‘If he’s not so far away I could bring him some fresh damper for his lunch.’

  ‘Oh, that’s thoughtful of you, Grace, but Tom is still working on the fence on the far south border. We’ll be lucky if he’s back by nightfall – though I’ve told him he’ll be in trouble if he isn’t!’

  ‘Perhaps next time when he’s closer . . .’ Grace felt guilty. She was only asking about Tom to make sure he wouldn’t be close to the property that day. Grace had been thinking about Glory all night, and had come up with a plan. But she knew that if Tom were to discover it, Grace would have to leave Wattle Park immediately. He couldn’t find out.

  When she could see that Beth was busy eating her breakfast, Grace took a small calico bag from the shelf and spooned half of the remaining sugar from the sugar pot inside it. Guilt turned her stomach. I am stealing from my mistress, she thought. Grace remembered the apple she had stolen in London. She had known it was wrong to steal, but she had known, too, that if she didn’t eat she might die. And if Glory wasn’t helped then she might die, too. Grace pushed the bag deep into the pocket of her pinafore.

  After she had placed some damper into the coals in the fire and made sure Beth was sleeping peacefully with her baby, Grace left the house. She followed the trail down to the cornfield, her heart beating hard.

  When Grace stepped from the far end of the empty cornfield and walked into the bush on the other side, she felt as if she’d entered another world. She was enveloped by towering gum trees, ferns and tangled vines. Moss-covered branches lay across her path. She watched as the sun cast patterns of light and shade across sandstone boulders, fallen logs and rotting bark. Birds called to each other; the bush rustled and buzzed with insects.

  Though she thought it very beautiful, Grace was aware of how much of a stranger she was in this land and it made her feel as if she was intruding. She turned to look back through the trees, hoping a glimpse of the cottage with its spiral of smoke rising from the chimney might comfort her. But the bush blocked her view.

  The creek was somewhere at the bottom of the hill. If what Beth had said was true, if Grace headed down in a straight line from the far end of the cornfield, surely she would find the camp. It couldn’t be too hard.

  The further Grace walked into the bush, however, the more she began to doubt herself. How would she find Mulgo when she had never seen a native camp before? What would Mulgo do when she saw her? Would she even want to help her?

  Grace’s skin itched and stung as branches caught at her dress, in her hair and scratched her bare arms. She felt herself sweat in the early summer heat – a heat she had never experienced in England. The air was steamy, and made it difficult to think. She wondered how she would ever find her way back to the cornfield.

  Grace didn’t know how long she had been walking – the bush around her all looked the same. The trees loomed tall over her head, their pale trunks making Grace think of the ghosts from the stories Hannah used to tell her when they were on board the ship. I wish Hannah was with me now, Grace thought. This is a terrible place to be alone. What if night fell and she was lost in the bush? She might get tangled in the vines, or bitten by spiders and poisoned, and nobody would ever find her . . .

  Suddenly, a creature with a thick, scaly, grey body as long as a man’s leg darted up a tree in front of Grace, flicking its tongue at her.

  ‘Ah!’ Grace cried out. She froze, her eyes glued to the monster. Grace had seen tiny lizards around the house but this one was big enough to eat her! Her skin prickled with fear, but she couldn’t look away. Was the creature going to attack her? Did it have deadly poison in its flicking tongue, like a snake?

  The lizard blinked slowly, then crawled higher up the tree. Grace let out a sigh of relief, her knees shaking. She wondered what other dangerous animals lurked in the forest. How she wished she hadn’t come at all, and that she was safe in the hut . . . But there was no point in looking back. If Glory was going to get well for Tom, she had to keep going. Grace set off again.

  Then, unexpectedly, the forest cleared, and Grace found herself standing at the creek as it wound its way between the clay banks at the bottom of the hill. The steady stream of water comforted Grace. If she needed to find her way back to Wattle Park, all she had to do was follow the creek until she came to Beth’s washing place. Now she just had to choose which way to go from here.

  I went left when I rode the East Trail and I never saw any native camp, she thought. This time I’ll try the other way. Picking up her pace, Grace walked west along the creek. But it wasn’t long before fear crept up on her again. What if Beth wakes up and finds me gone? What if she needs me? she worried. What if she tries to get up and falls? What if Alice needs something, and Beth isn’t strong enough to do it for her? Grace imagined she could hear Alice’s frantic cries calling for her. The faster she walked, the louder Alice’s cries became and the faster the questions ran through her mind. She felt short of breath, hot and panicky.

  Grace squatted by the creek, cupped her hands and filled them with water. The blue ribbon that Beth had given her darkened as it grew wet around her wrist. Seeing it there made Grace long for her mistress.

  Just as she was lifting her hands to her mouth to drink she felt a stinging sensation in the back of her neck, as if something had hit her. She whipped around.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she called out. Her voice sounded scared and out of place. She stared anxiously through the forest. ‘Who’s there?’ she called more loudly. ‘Is somebody out there?’ There was no response. Of course there’s nobody, Grace told herself.

  Grace splashed her face with water. But as she sat back on her haunches, a tiny stone hit her on the face. She cupped her stinging cheek. Her heart was beating so hard she could almost hear it. Somebody had thrown something at her. Somebody didn’t want her here.

  I was wrong to come! she thought. I must get back to Wattle Park, to Beth and Alice. Grace stood up and took off, running uphill, away from the creek. The bush around her seemed to spin as she ran, and she couldn’t drag enough breath into her lungs. It was as if the branches were living spirits, grabbing at h
er arms, her dress, her hair, to stop her escaping. Something caught at her foot and she stumbled, falling forward onto her face in the dirt.

  When Grace opened her eyes, she saw the calico bag of sugar lying on the ground in front of her. It must have spilled from her pocket when she fell. Sugar spread across the dust. She looked up and gasped.

  Four native boys about the same age as Grace encircled her. They held sticks and looked down at Grace with fierce eyes. Grace lay frozen.

  She was surrounded.

  One of the boys said something to her that she didn’t understand, but she could tell the words were angry. The tallest boy stepped closer, shaking his stick over her head. Grace was unable to move or speak, she was so frightened. Were the boys going to kill her for coming onto their land?

  The tallest one spoke to her again – every word as hard as the stones he had thrown. The boy on the other side of him pushed at his arm. Now they were pushing at each other, as if they were disagreeing. They jostled and shoved, their angry words interspersed with harsh laughter. Grace was reminded of boys on the streets of London, boys in Newgate Prison, boys on the barges on the River Thames. Maybe boys are the same everywhere, she thought, even in this forest.

  Then a fifth boy she had not seen at first, smaller than the others, stepped out from behind the legs of one of the older boys. Grace recognised him immediately. It was Muggadung!

  MULGO’S little boy looked as startled to see Grace as she was to see him. He stood and stared at her as if he didn’t know whether to show that he recognised her or not. Seeing a familiar face gave Grace the strength to speak. ‘Muggadung – it’s me, Grace. You remember me, don’t you? Grace.’

  Muggadung pulled at the arm of one of the older boys and said something. Grace could hardly breathe. The boys looked down at her. One of them shook his stick again.