SUMMERLINN
A cloudless bowl of cobalt blue arched overhead as Sonnet walked Fable to the quiet country road along which the Noah Vale school bus trundled each morning. Plum stumbled along beside Fable, pulling at her hand.
Fable sat on her school port beside the row of barrel mailboxes doubling as bus stop, and fixed her impassive gaze on the bend in the road. With every whimper from clinging Plum, Fable stilled further. Only the quiver of her chin hinted at hidden turbulence.
Olive had insisted she could drive the girls into school for Fable’s first day, and had been rightly spurned. As if Sonnet was letting her take control of this momentous occasion!
The school bus rumbled into view and instantly Fable was on her feet, straightening her faded uniform and scanning the windows for Adriana’s face. There she was, on the back row, waving Fable imperiously to a saved seat. Fable darted out of Plum’s crying grasp and in the clatter of a door was gone.
Sonnet waited until the red dust had settled, before the smile fell from her lips. For the first time since Mama had passed, the Hamilton girls were going their separate ways. Sonnet swallowed a lump, scooped a protesting Plum onto the angular jut of her hip and turned for home.
*
The morning dragged, plagued as Sonnet was by a gnawing disquiet. Plum wandered forlornly around the house, asking for her sister.
Sonnet busied herself getting to know the ancient Singer lugged out of the hall cupboard. By afternoon, she’d mastered the tetchy machine, even running up some skirts for chubby-kneed Plum, who was now engaged with a grand heirloom doll’s house given over, reluctantly, by Olive.
Mama had purportedly played happy families with the Victorian doll’s house for many years – far longer, Olive had murmured, than most girls were wont to do. Plum had fallen in love with it, too. And each time Sonnet glanced at Plum sitting with the doll’s house in a pool of lacy sunlight, she nursed a glow of smug victory: Olive thwarted yet again.
Olive had originally shown Plum the doll’s house at Heartwood, knowing full well that Plum would demand to stay and play with it in her newly kitted-out playroom.
‘Let her be with us for a few hours,’ Olive had petitioned, as Plum was dragged away, wailing, to the cottage.
Handing Plum over for any length of time was a step too far. Plum had sobbed for the dollhouse each time Olive had visited the cottage – which was, much to Sonnet’s chagrin, still every day.
‘Just checking how you girls are getting on,’ Olive always said, expertly manoeuvring herself in between screen door and frame. After each visit, Sonnet cursed Olive’s name louder still.
I see you chipping away at Plum, at all of us!
Eventually, Olive had confronted Sonnet directly about her unwillingness to relinquish Plum. And Sonnet had replied from the heart. ‘I’m scared of anything happening while I’m not there to protect her. I can’t lose anyone else – the girls are all I have left.’
‘Oh, Sonnet,’ Olive had cried, reaching for her. ‘You’re not alone anymore, you have us!’
‘No, we’re only neighbours,’ Sonnet had retorted, moving safely away. ‘All we Hamilton girls have is each other.’
Nevertheless, the following day, Gav had helped Olive carry the doll’s house down to the cottage for the girls to keep. Conceding defeat, as far as Sonnet was concerned.
Sonnet was putting the final row of rickrack on a basic apron when, through the window, a figure in a blue pinafore caught her eye: Fable, plodding slowly down the hill, afternoon sunlight glinting off her strawberry locks. Imperceptible to another, but not Sonnet’s keen eye, was the dejected stoop of Fable’s shoulders. Sonnet stood for a long moment considering this, as Plum swooped out of the door to meet her sister.
She watched Fable squeeze her baby sister, face contorting against tears. But by the time Fable reached the cottage, and Sonnet, calm had descended over her delicate features.
Fable was largely non-communicative for the remainder of the evening, and the rest of the week. Her teacher was fine, her class was fine, her lunch was fine, her friends were fine; everything was fine. And yet, each day, that shining head dipped a little lower, her shoulders hunched further over as she traipsed down the hill.
When Fable slouched through the door on Friday afternoon, head sunk to her chest, the fist around Sonnet’s heart clenched too tightly to be borne a moment longer. Enough! Outright interrogation might push Fable further into her shell, but it was a risk that must be taken.
Sonnet forced Fable onto the couch as she tried to slink by. ‘Fable, this can’t go on. I know you’re hurting – and I want to know why. Is it Mama? Or is it something else? Are you not fitting in at school?’
Silence.
Masked amber eyes.
More sisterly pleas.
Then, with a wail, the dam broke – dignified guardedness crumbling all at once. Fable wept, face buried in the upholstery, shoulders heaving.
‘Oh, Fabes.’ Gentle now, stroking her arm. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I knew you were upset, but I didn’t want to make you cry. Please tell me, Fable.’
Muffled sobbing continued unabated for several minutes. Plum sat transfixed nearby, mouth lolling open.
‘I’ll get you some tissues,’ Sonnet said, watching tears and snot coagulate on the old couch. As she rose, a slim arm flew out to stop her. Sonnet eased back down.
Fable began on a sob. ‘They say Mama was – oh I can’t!’
‘She was what?’
‘They’re all saying she was the . . . “town floozy”.’
Shock slammed Sonnet back against the couch.
‘That she seduced a married man. And you, Sonnet, you’re his bastard. We’re all bastards!’
Guttural sobbing took over.
‘Who says this!’
‘Everyone.’
‘No, be specific. It’s a vicious lie. Who?’
Big, glittering eyes locked tragically with hers. ‘Christy Logan to begin with – she spread it round the first day of school. Then she and Adriana ganged up on me, and now they’re all saying it about Mama . . . and us. No one wants to talk to me, they all hate me, and Adriana won’t even look at me, except to sneer. The story’s been getting worse every day – we’re homewreckers and Mama was a harlot! I didn’t even know what that meant until I found it in the dictionary . . .’ Her face coloured.
Rage blew Sonnet physically from the couch. ‘That snake in the grass! How dare she come round here pretending to be a friend then spread such lies! Backstabbing, malevolent little—’ She checked herself. ‘Well, it’s not your problem anymore, Fabes.’
She considered her sisters for a moment, already decided. ‘Fable, dry your eyes. I want you to take Plum to Heartwood. Stay with Olive while I sort this out!’
Fable snivelled. ‘But where are you going?’
‘To the source of the rumour. I’m going to squash her . . . it, for good.’
Sonnet hurried the girls up the hill muttering perfunctory directives on safe passage and best behaviour, even as her eyes were making a head start for the creek, and the family living beyond it.
‘Quick, on you go! I’ll see you in a sec!’
Sonnet swivelled towards the cane bridge crossing. Swelling rage had become a flood, which could not be contained.
*
The Hulls’ grand homestead, proud and regal in the slanting light, was surrounded by mango trees and encompassed by a full-length veranda. A hanging sign announced the property as Summerlinn.
The woman who stepped out to greet her at the top step was handsomely statuesque, with dark hair swept into a French roll. Still on the bottom step, Sonnet was at a distinct height disadvantage.
‘Are you Adriana Hull’s mother?’ Sonnet blurted in her rush to expunge indignation.
‘I am indeed,’ she answered, blue eyes scouring Sonnet with the same avidity as her daughter. ‘I am better known, however, as Delia Hull. And there’s no mistaking who you are. You have Esther Hamilton written all over you.’
‘Sonnet Hamilton,’ she said, fist clenching by her hip.
‘We wondered when we’d finally meet the daughters Esther kept hidden away. I called by Olive’s the other day to see you, but she told us you needed more time, apparently, to settle in. Come inside, won’t you,’ she said, indicating her stylish front parlour.
‘No. I won’t stay. I came to voice my disgust with your daughter’s behaviour at school recently, as it concerns my younger sister, Fable.’
Finely shaped brows arched high. ‘Whatever could you mean?’
Sonnet stepped onto the veranda and straightened to full height, rectifying the customary stoop of a tall girl accustomed to lowering herself for others.
Delia waited; a shrewd silence, meted out with expert patience.
‘Mrs Hull, your daughter has been waging a campaign of lies against my sister at school. Fable so recently lost her mother – she’s a grieving girl, who only wants to fit into her new school – and to have some chit spreading such rumours about our mama is beyond cruel. I insist you stop her.’
Delia’s eyes widened. ‘Our Adriana would never condone such maliciousness. What sort of things could you possibly have heard?’
‘I think you already know.’
‘I assure you, I have no interest in petty playground squabbles. I suggest you rise above it, too.’
‘I wouldn’t call the kind of slander your daughter’s been spewing a “playground squabble”!’
Delia gave a curtly dismissive wave.
Sonnet took full measure of the woman before her: no one challenged Delia Hull. Her voice shook. ‘Calling our mother the town harlot, accusing her of being a whore and a homewrecker – I can’t imagine where a supposedly well-to-do girl would learn such foul language. Perhaps you can enlighten me?’
Delia’s eyes flashed. ‘If, as you claim, my daughter had been using such terms, she could only be repeating the general gist of what’s being said all over Noah. What’s been said for years now—’
‘How dare you!’
‘Lower your voice.’
‘Don’t tell me how loud I can be! You don’t even know my mother!’
‘Ha! I knew your mother all right. She was in my sister Beth’s grade at school’ and we grew up together, playing by Serpentine Creek. I knew Esther extremely well – though none of us could have guessed what she was truly capable of. More importantly, the Brennans were our dearest friends. Esther Hamilton was everything you’ve heard. And if your sister’s feelings are hurt by that truth, remember your mother brought it all on herself, and you, too.’
The Brennans? No, don’t get out of your depth; do not give her the upper hand!
‘I am telling you: control your vicious little viper!’
A hard smile twisted Delia’s lips. ‘I can’t prevent my daughter hearing what she hears. All of Noah is abuzz with the news – how can Adriana be expected to think any differently?’
Sonnet felt the snarl rising in her throat, and did nothing to stop it. ‘You set the right example, that’s how! You refrain from being a spiteful old gossip. Teach her to think for herself without parroting the stupidity of others.’
Delia drew back as though whipped. ‘Believe me; Adriana will keep her distance from you Hamiltons. I will personally see to it she has nothing further to do with a ruined woman’s trashy daughters.’
The front door slammed, stained glass roses reverberating.
Sonnet thundered from the veranda. She turned back, only once, at the border of mango trees, to holler at the quiet facade, ‘With families like yours, no wonder my mother left this bloody town!’