In 1875, when Richard and Alice were coming forty-seven and Jane nineteen, Richard had a nasty accident with a scythe. Afterwards he couldn’t have said how it happened, knew only that the blade had gone down to the bone and his leg wouldn’t be healing any time soon.
‘Gunna be a cripple, that’s what,’ Richard said. ‘A right bugger.’
Enough to make a bloke mad. The trouble was, he was right, which meant they would have to get help.
There was a man called Jake Hampton, not young but strong, who knew his way around a farm. He turned a tough face to the world but Alice suspected that underneath he was a lot softer than he made out. They took him on and things worked out well.
Time passed and Alice began to notice that Jake’s eyes lingered more and more frequently on her daughter. She had the idea Jane fancied him too: not that Jane, powerfully inclined to secrecy, would ever say anything about it. Alice said nothing, either; in that department things would work out or they wouldn’t. In the meantime Jake was a good worker, which was just as well, because as the months went by Richard’s leg didn’t mend.
‘Feels like it’s on fire,’ he told Alice.
Alice could feel it when she put her hand on the leg, which was swollen and throbbing and a red colour she didn’t like.
They got the doctor in and he looked grave and talked about deep-seated infection and in the end did no good at all.
‘I’ll bet he charged, though,’ Richard said.
‘He’s got to live too,’ Alice said.
‘You got to wonder why,’ Richard said.
He was sinking. They both knew it, with the deep-seated infection, as the doctor had called it, spreading. The swelling was up into his groin now, and he was feverish and in constant pain.
Alice did what she could which was more or less nothing.
‘Face it, girl,’ Richard said. ‘I’m a goner.’
A week after his forty-seventh birthday he proved himself right.
Alice’s world was a desert, a desolate place of screaming birds, swirling in black flocks against a lurid sun.
What happens now? she thought. She had never expected she would be the one left behind; she had planned things differently, even to the point of asking herself how he would manage afterwards. But there it was.
She thought to appeal to God, Jane, the empty and merciless hills, but what was the use? Richard was dead.
She sat alone. If she wept she was unaware of it. Jane came and sat with her. She looked at her daughter. Jane too was lost. Jane too needed to find her road into the future. Alice drew a deep breath. She remembered fighting the terrors of the mineshaft as she forced herself to climb up from the blackness. She remembered the hours in the loft at the John o’ Groats, barely daring to breathe while the soldiers searched the room below. She had been strong then. She would be strong now. She knew that from this day loneliness would be her destiny but she would not let it get the better of her, or her daughter.
She would survive; Jane would survive; the farm, such as it was, would survive. She considered what she must do. Two weeks after the funeral she spoke to her daughter.
‘Jake Hampton,’ she said.
‘You fancy him.’ It was not a question.
Rose-pink Jane would not look at her mother. ‘He’s all right,’ she said.
‘How does he feel about you?’
Rose pink had turned to crimson. ‘He’s never said.’
‘But you must have an idea.’
‘I think maybe he likes me.’
‘Does he know how you feel?’
‘How could he?’
‘There are ways. He’s not a bad bloke. You could do a lot worse.’
‘What can I do? I can’t say anything. It wouldn’t be proper.’
Jane had had a bit of schooling from Mrs Worsley, down the lane, and Mrs Worsley had been hot for what was proper in a young lady and what was not. Alice had never had time for that: being proper wouldn’t have got her far in Ballarat.
‘Let him see how you feel. You don’ have to say anything. A smile would be a start.’
Jane looked doubtful. ‘It seems so cold-blooded, somehow.’
‘You like each other. That’s a good beginning. If you’re lucky and work at it, love may come. No reason it shouldn’t. But in the meantime you need someone to help you run the farm; I won’t be here for ever.’
Alice gave it another week, then spoke to Jake. It was hot summer, the air hay-scented and heavy with flies.
‘You got any plans?’
‘About what?’
‘About staying? Going?’
‘I hadn’t thought of going anywhere,’ he said. ‘If that’s all right with you.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Jane will be glad too. She’s very fond of you, you know.’
He looked startled. ‘You reckon?’
‘I’m sure of it.’
‘A bit old for her,’ he said.
‘Shouldn’t she be the one to decide that?’ Alice said. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.’
‘It would be my dearest wish,’ Jake said.
‘Then speak to her, Jake. Why don’t you? You may find she’s more willing than you think.’
It would be the best thing for her, Alice thought. She misses her dad. Jake is fond of her, young enough to work the farm and keep her safe, but also able to be the father figure she needs. I think it’s the right thing. For her; for all of us.