Midsummer's Eve

Helena tried to comfort me. She surprised me. She came right out of her lethargy to share my grief. Maud, Rosa, all of them-and particularly Gregory Donnelly-seemed to have undergone a change. He was quiet, gentle, and above all strong. But I wanted none of them. There was only one thing in the world I wanted and that was the return of my loved ones.

They had found the remains of the boat. It was washed up on the shore and Jacco's body with it. My father and mother they did not find.

I lived on in that strange half world from which I could not rouse myself; nor did I want to for to do so would have brought me face to face with the enormity of what had happened to me.

There was one terrible day when a man came to see me. He insisted on talking to me.

He wanted to know about my father mainly. At first I talked and then suddenly I was so overcome that I begged him to go away.

He talked at length to Maud and Gregory and most of the people on the property. I learned afterwards that he was from the Sydney Gazette.

The story was headline news. My father with his wife and son were drowned. He had come out as a convict to serve a seven-year term at the end of which he had acquired land; then he went home to claim estates and title in the Old Country. However, Australia and his past had lured him back ... to his death.

It was a story, of course, which appealed to the readers. It went on prominently in the papers for several days.

These papers were kept from me for a while, but in time I discovered them and I read them through my tears.

I was too numb to care what happened, what they said. I could make no plans. I just wanted to stay in my room and try not to think.

Sleep was my only relief and they made sure that I had it. They gave me something ... and I was grateful for that.

And then I was ill.

That was perhaps a blessed relief. It was some sort of fever. They cropped my hair and for a long time I did not know what was happening to me, nor where I was.

Nothing could have been better for me really. What I craved was forgetfulness. I wanted to go into a long sleep and never come out of it.

It was August before I began to get well. The tragedy was a little farther away but I knew it would be with me all my life. I was like a different person with my short hair which was beginning to grow in a short bob which just covered my ears.

My only real interest was the baby. He was now nearly four months old, a beautiful child, a little like Helena. She used to come in in the mornings and put him into my bed. He would pull at my short hair and try to catch my nose in his chubby fingers.

He helped to soothe me and to a certain extent he did charm away some of my sadness.

"He knows you," Helena told me.

How kind everyone was to me! Rosa used to come and sit with me land talk to me; she showed me her embroidery which her mother [was teaching her. She was learning how to keep house. "I shall have I to when I get married," she said. She was clearly looking forward to I the day when she would be. She looked upon Gregory Donnelly as a I god almost. I supposed that was how her mother had brought her up [to regard him. That was wise, no doubt, for if the day ever came I when she married him, he would be sure of her uncritical devotion. I had hardly been aware of him during the weeks of my misery. I | had indeed been aware of no one except the baby and Helena who [had been with me most of the time and had taken on a new stature in tearing for me, so that she no longer seemed the helpless creature she jhad been.

Maud made special dishes for me.

"Come on," she would say. "Just try a little to please me ... to |please us all.”

I would eat just for that reason. I drifted along not caring about J anything, trying not to remember. I wanted to forget everything of I the past for there had been very little of my past in which they did I not figure. They had always been there ...

my beloved ones ... I they had cared for me, guided me, watched over me, given me their very special love.

I used to make up fantasies. They had been picked up at sea; a ship had taken them somewhere far away. One day they would walk in. But Jacco was dead. They had found his body. But my father and my mother ... where were they? I knew in my heart that I should never see them again.

I cursed the boat. I cursed the wind ... everything which had taken them from me.

Then the letter came.

It was from the lawyers who had taken over from Rolf's father when he had died and Rolf had decided he did not wish to go into law.