Midsummer's Eve

Polly bustled and twinkled and laughed; every time I saw her I thought of her lying with Gregory in her bed, making love. It was a repulsive thought-and yet there was Polly, so happy, so pleased with life, talking about little babies. "I reckon," she said, "they're the nicest things God ever thought of. Mind you," she added, "there's other nice things, too. But when I've just brought a little one into the world, I don't think there's anything as lovely as a little baby.”

How strange people were! Polly, the baby lover and the wanton companion of men like Gregory Donnelly. If there had been love I could have understood it, but this was plain lust.

Rosa came in and held the baby. She was such a pretty girl and different from the young girls I had seen about the property. In a way she seemed younger. I expected this was because her mother sheltered her from the crudeness around her. Not an easy task, I imagined.

I thought again: I want to go home. And now that the baby is born we can start making our plans.

There was the baby's name to consider. Helena wanted to call him after John.

"After all," she said, "he is John's.”

"Why not vary it a little? Jonathan is a name used in our family.”

"Jon," she said. "John without the H. That will make his name a little different from his father's.”

So the baby became Jon and we were soon calling him Jonnie.

Our time was taken up with the baby. I was learning a great deal from Polly; how to hold him; how he should be bathed; how to dress him; how to rock him.

"You'd be a good little mother," Polly told me. "Better see about getting one of your own.”

She nudged me and went off into one of her fits of laughter. I flushed painfully thinking again of her and Gregory Donnelly together.

She was shedding her midwife's skin just like a snake does and becoming the flighty woman with promiscuous habits. There was nothing else snakelike about Polly Winters.

Soon she would be gone to some other homestead looking for a little baby to bring into the world and new men to comfort her at nights. And we should be gone, too.

I had seen signs of restlessness in my mother.

I desperately wanted to go. I wanted to get away from Gregory Donnelly. He disturbed me. He aroused images in my mind which I wanted to banish. I supposed that was what people would call life. I wanted to remain apart from it for as long as I could.

There was one thing I would greatly regret on leaving Australia and that was that we had been unable to find Digory. I often talked about him to my father.

"I know how much you wanted to find him," he said. "You wanted to make sure that he was all right ... making a life for himself. He seemed to me a survivor. But I agree with you that it would be good to know. Don't give up hope. We might find him even yet. Everywhere I go I make enquiries, but it is rather like looking for the needle in the haystack. But you never know what's going to turn up.”

Rosa was often in the room we called the nursery. She adored the child. She confided in me that when she grew up and married she intended to have ten children.

"Do you want to be married?" I asked.

"Oh yes. But I've got to wait until I'm a little older.”

"Have you decided on the bridegroom?”

"Oh yes," she said. "I've always known.”

"Oh? Who is it?”

She opened her pretty blue eyes very wide as though astonished by my ignorance. "Mr. Donnelly, of course.”

"Oh ... Mr. Donnelly! Do you ... like him?”

She nodded. "He's the finest man around here. My mother says he's the only one for me.”

I was silent. I could understand Maud's reasoning. Rosa was not for one of the men from the shacks, not for one of the hired hands; she was for the master of them all; and that was Greg Donnelly. That he was a philanderer did not seem to affect Maud. Perhaps she believed that when he was married he would settle down.

She probably thought he would own the property one day. That was his ambition of course, and hadn't she said he was the sort of man who would get what he wanted?

Poor Rosa. I was beginning to understand a great deal. It was not that he wanted me. He wanted the property; and I was the key to the property. It belonged to my father and it was very possible that if Gregory Donnelly married his daughter, the property would be a wedding present.

It was all hideously clear.

I hated the man more than ever.

We were at dinner. In the room which had become the nursery now that Polly Winters had gone, the baby was sleeping. Gregory was dining with us as usual and I had become more aware of him. Every time I looked up his eyes would be on me and he would give me that meaningful smile which embarrassed and infuriated me. He was like a man who was biding his time. I began to dread these meals because of his presence.

My father was saying did we realize that we were already into May?

"It's eight months since we left home," he said.

"And time we were thinking of getting back," added my mother.

"It's been a great time here," said Jacco with a hint of regret.