The Schoolmaster's Daughter Read online

  The small boat that had laboured so hard to get them ashore had sped back to the ship. She could see tiny figures clambering down the ladder to it: Papa in his top hat, and that must be Mr Talbot. Only one figure stayed on the deck, leaning over the rail as if yelling at Captain Jacobs as the men in the boat began to row. Mr Vandergeld, thought Hannah. Had he decided to risk the storm to stay with his precious trunk?

  Suddenly Mr Vandergeld clambered over the rail and clung to the ship’s ladder. The boat changed course, turning back to the ship so Mr Vandergeld could jump down into it.

  Mrs Talbot sniffed. ‘We’d better get those clothes on quick smart. Even Mr Talbot hasn’t seen me in my chemise and we’ve been married thirty years.’

  The women fastened each other into their salty dresses as the boat sped to the shore, four men rowing now. It was already growing dark, though Hannah was sure it was still only mid-afternoon. She glanced up. Papa had taught her the sun rose in the east and set in the west, so where the sun hovered in blue sky above the trees now must be the west. But to the north, nearly above them . . .

  Hannah pulled at Mama’s sleeve and pointed upwards. A vast black cloud, like someone had spilled ink, stretched across the northern sky. Even as they watched it covered the sun, blotting out the light.

  Hannah heard the wind before she felt it, ripping, tearing at the trees. The air grew thick with a strange darkness, as if the light had simply been sucked away. The waves began their throaty roar again. They were so high now that they hid the small boat. It bounced into sight for a second and then was gone.

  The world grew darker. Only the froth on the wave tops glowed: dangling, spitting, rising and falling. Then suddenly someone was stumbling up the beach. Papa, wet but alive, with other figures behind him, pulling the boat up the sand. The men ran to the overhang.

  Mrs Talbot clutched her husband and screamed as the sky cracked open in a flash of yellow fire. Rain, hard and heavy as bullets, swept along the beach, followed an instant later by thunder.

  Night joined the storm now. They heard but could not see the waves that boiled almost to their overhang, thrashing and spitting as the sea dragged them back. But they dared not leave. There was no light to find a way up the cliff, nor into the vine-tangled forest.

  Time and again the storm seemed to ease, then hurtled over them again. At last the lightning became brief flickers over the land, and then was gone. Night sat, cold and dark, across the beach.

  Hannah and Angus huddled in the small warmth of Mama’s and Papa’s embrace. At last, improbably, Hannah slept.

  She woke when Papa gave a sudden exclamation. She opened her eyes and saw him step onto the beach beyond the overhang. Dawn hung a pink curtain across the sea, bright as if the storm had washed it. The first rays of sun slid above the horizon.

  The ship had vanished. So had the ship’s boat.

  Hannah cast a quick glance at the others, yawning and uncurling stiff limbs from sleep. Mr Vandergeld was missing too. And the only prints on the tiny beach were Papa’s.

  ***

  ‘The fool,’ said Captain Jacobs for what must have been the twentieth time. ‘I told him the ship would likely break up, stranded like that. I told him we needed to keep the boat safe so we could go and get help. I told him his dashed chest was too heavy for the boat.’

  Hannah stared out at the empty bay. It was impossible that a big ship could disappear like that. But then it had seemed impossible that all the ship’s power could have been held by sand.

  How had Mr Vandergeld launched the boat by himself in the dark? Hannah vaguely remembered a touch of gold between the clouds. Had he waited for moonlight? Had he made it back to the ship, or had the ship already vanished before he reached it? And what was in the chest that made it so vital for him to bring it to shore?

  They would never know, she realised. She had a sudden image of Mr Vandergeld clutching his luggage as it sank into the storm-thrashed water.

  ‘Fresh water,’ Mama said, a little croakily. ‘There’ll be rainwater in the rock pools. We need to drink from them before the tide comes in again.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Feehan eagerly. Both she and Mrs Talbot were trying hard not to look at Mama’s scars, so obvious in the harsh light reflected from the bay.

  The water was warm, a little salty and wonderful. Hannah drank all she could from three rock pools, then helped Angus find more pools till his thirst was satisfied too.

  She looked up to see Captain Jacobs bashing a rock against the sharp grey shells that clustered nearest the sea.

  ‘Oysters,’ he said, and held out a lump of tattered greyish meat to her.

  She took it gingerly, and put it in her mouth. It tasted like the sea, and felt like snot, but her stomach said it wanted it so she swallowed. She took the next one he handed her.

  ‘You eat this one,’ she said to Angus.

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Just swallow,’ she said tiredly. ‘We have to have food, and this is all there is.’

  She got the next oyster herself, mangling it when she hit it too hard, but the next was almost perfect in its gleaming iridescent shell. So many of them carpeted the rocks. She fell into a rhythm: bash, eat, bash, hand to Angus. The other passengers were doing the same, except for Mrs Talbot, curled up by the overhang, waiting for her husband and daughter to bring her food. It was almost fun, now that sunlight flickered across the bay and their clothes were dry. Hannah could pretend they were at Coogee Beach in Sydney, like that time Papa had been so shocked that Mama wanted to bathe instead of paddling decorously. Of course they hadn’t bathed.

  At last she realised that the adults were clustered back in the shelter, obviously discussing something.

  ‘Come on,’ she said to Angus.

  ‘I want breakfast!’

  ‘You just had it.’

  Angus looked at her rebelliously. ‘I want a proper breakfast. I want an egg with toast.’

  ‘There aren’t any eggs at a beach,’ she said, then realised that seagulls probably laid eggs. Papa had all the students of his previous school collect birds’ eggs in spring — magpies and bower birds and forty other types. But this was midsummer. Any eggs here would have already hatched.

  ‘I want toast and strawberry jam!’ muttered Angus. ‘Monkey wants some too.’

  Hannah ignored him.

  She glanced out at the bay as she led Angus back to the adults, half-expecting the ship to suddenly appear. Or for Mr Vandergeld’s body to wash up in the waves, said a whisper. She thrust it away.

  Captain Jacobs stood up as she approached. ‘Then it’s decided,’ he said. ‘We men will follow the coastline to Port Harris.’

  ‘But it’s all just cliffs!’ protested Hannah.

  Mrs Talbot sniffed at a girl interrupting her elders. Papa frowned at her too.

  ‘Can’t risk getting lost,’ said Captain Jacobs shortly. ‘The country’s jungle around here.’

  Hannah glanced at the wall of green that lined the beach. It didn’t look like the bush she had grown up with. It looked more like a jungle that would swallow them up if they tried to force their way through it. Or the vines would twine around them and hold them tight until only their skeletons were left. Papa is going to have to battle through that jungle all the way to Port Harris, she thought. It didn’t seem possible.

  Captain Jacobs unrolled a canvas carry-all he must have managed to bring from the ship. He handed Mr Talbot a coil of rope, then passed long, wicked-looking knives to Papa and Mr Foster.

  ‘Canecutters’ machetes,’ he said. ‘Can’t beat them for cutting through the scrub.’

  ‘I still think we should see if there’s a pool inland, or even a farm,’ said Mama.

  Captain Jacobs looked at her impatiently. ‘There’s no fresh water marked on the map, nor have we seen smoke from a chimney the whole time we’ve been here.’

  ‘Many creeks are too small to be marked,’ argued Mama. ‘The map shows there’s farmland south of Port Harris. It w
ould be much shorter to go inland instead of heading around the coast.’

  ‘Aye, and get lost,’ said Captain Jacobs.

  Mama’s voice rose. ‘But if we just kept heading north—’

  ‘My dear,’ said Papa warningly. ‘Captain Jacobs knows what he is doing.’

  Mama subsided.

  ‘You all stay here, where it’s safe,’ Papa added. ‘While we men find help.’

  ‘No!’ Mrs Talbot clutched her husband’s hand. ‘We need a man to protect us here.’

  Captain Jacobs looked tired and irritated. ‘It’s going to be a fair slog cutting our way to Port Harris. We need every man if we are to get there in time.’

  Before we die of thirst, thought Hannah. The rainwater had already evaporated from the pools.

  The captain scrambled up the headland and into the scrub without another word. His crew followed him and, after a moment’s hesitation, so did Mr Talbot. Mrs Talbot burst into tears again. This time no one comforted her.

  Papa pressed a quick kiss to Mama’s cheek. ‘Three days,’ he said quietly. ‘We should be back by then.’

  ‘I still think—’ began Mama.

  Papa shook his head irritably, then touched Hannah and Angus lightly on the head. ‘You look after Mama and Hannah,’ he said to Angus. ‘You’re the man of the family now. And do everything Mama says.’

  Angus nodded.

  Papa followed Captain Jacobs. Within seconds the men were invisible, within the jungle. They hadn’t mentioned Mr Vandergeld, or the mysterious luggage that had meant so much to him.

  Hannah suspected no one would speak of him again. Captain Jacobs wouldn’t want to admit he had lost a passenger. The Talbots wouldn’t want to be held up while the police looked for a body. And Papa wouldn’t want to be involved either. A schoolmaster couldn’t afford to be caught up in gossip. Was there a Mrs Vandergeld? Did anyone even know which ship Mr Vandergeld had been on? Maybe no one else would ever know what had happened to him.

  She blinked at a glint of orange in the undergrowth. Was that the ship’s cat? Had Captain Jacobs carried it to shore? But the cat — if it was a cat — had vanished.

  ‘Well,’ said Mama to the other women, ‘we need to decide what we are going to do.’

  Mrs Talbot and Mrs Feehan stared at her.

  ‘But . . . but Captain Jacobs has told us to wait here,’ said Mrs Feehan.

  ‘Captain Jacobs may know the sea, but I know the bush,’ said Mama impatiently. ‘It may take the men a lot longer than three days to cut their way through to Port Harris in country like this, not to mention scaling the cliffs. We might be dead of thirst by then.’

  Mrs Talbot gave another cry.

  ‘There has to be water somewhere here,’ said Mama. ‘Look — the rocks above the inlet are still damp. That means a fresh water spring somewhere. If we follow the inlet inland we may find a creek, and if we follow a creek we may find a farm. At the very least we’ll have fresh water.’

  ‘But your husband said—’

  ‘My husband is not always correct.’

  Mrs Talbot stared at Mama as if she had said that the sun was green.

  Mama stood up. ‘If you prefer, I’ll go a short way by myself. If I find a creek I’ll come back and tell you.’

  ‘No!’ quavered Mrs Talbot. ‘You might get lost. Or there might be wild dogs! Or snakes or natives.’

  She gave a sudden scream and pointed to the inlet.

  A face peered at them over a long, low branch. A black face with woolly hair.

  CHAPTER 4

  STRANGER!

  Mrs Talbot screamed again. But there was nothing frightening about the young man who ducked under a branch and stepped onto the beach, then stood still again, watching them. He was a few years older than Hannah, a string bean of a teenager, barefoot and bareheaded, but his trousers were neatly patched at the knees and his shirt looked ironed.

  He glanced up to where the men had vanished, then back at the women. He could have been looking at us for ages, thought Hannah, suddenly alarmed at the young man’s stillness and silence. Perhaps he waited till all the men had left. Maybe he was a headhunter. Perhaps Mrs Talbot was right to be scared. . . .

  ‘Good morning,’ said Mama, standing up and not sounding frightened at all. ‘Are you from a farm nearby?’

  The young man nodded.

  ‘We . . . our ship was wrecked on the sandbank. We managed to get ashore yesterday but the ship’s boat was lost in last night’s storm. Can you take us to the farm?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Is it far?’

  The young man shook his head.

  Mama shut her eyes briefly in thanks. ‘Let’s hope the men haven’t gone too far,’ she said, then yelled ‘Cooee!’ so loudly the seagulls rose squawking from the beach in protest.

  Papa hated it when Mama called ‘cooee’ to bring Hannah and Angus in for dinner. But Mama just laughed and said ‘cooee’ carried better than yelling ‘dinner’s ready!’

  The sound echoed off the cliffs. The men didn’t appear.

  ‘We need to call together,’ ordered Mama. ‘Coo . . . eee!’

  ‘Cooee!’ tittered Mrs Talbot, a bit like a prim pigeon.

  Hannah doubted anyone could have heard her even at the other end of the beach. She added her own yells to Mama’s, and so did Mrs Feehan and Angus.

  The young man still watched them, silent.

  Maybe he can’t talk, thought Hannah. There’d been a boy like that at Lyrebird Creek. He was deaf and had never learned what words sounded like, though Mama had taught him how to read and write them. But this boy could hear them.

  There was no answering call from the headland.

  Mama looked at the young man again. ‘My husband and the other men climbed the headland to get help. They must be over the other side by now. Could you follow them and bring them back, please? It should be easy to follow the path they made.’

  The young man shook his head.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Mrs Talbot.

  The young man didn’t answer her, or even meet her eyes. He just walked back to the inlet and lifted a branch, showing them a path, a proper path following the bank of what might be a creek when it rained; the kind of path made by people, not wallabies or wombats scrambling under bushes.

  If Captain Jacobs had known there was a path he might have brought us ashore earlier, thought Hannah. Mr Vandergeld could have taken the ship’s boat back and fetched his precious trunk, and would still be alive. Yet Captain Jacobs had used his eyeglass and said there was no smoke to be seen, which meant there was no farmhouse nearby, because how could you cook without a fire?

  Mrs Talbot eyed the path and the young man suspiciously. She whispered something to Mrs Feehan, who shook her head.

  Maybe the track didn’t lead to a farmhouse. Maybe the young man was a headhunter. That was why he wouldn’t go and fetch the men. He couldn’t overpower Papa and the others by himself, or even the group of women, but this path could lead to a headhunter village of grass huts with grinning skulls on spikes, just like in the book on Papa’s ‘not suitable for young people’ shelves. The headhunters would take them captive.

  Hannah tugged at Mama’s skirt. ‘What if he’s a headhunter?’ she whispered.

  Mama looked almost amused, despite her weariness. ‘I’ve never heard of headhunters in northern New South Wales,’ she said, keeping her voice too low for the young man to hear. ‘I don’t think cannibals wear darned trousers either. And we can’t stay here.’

  Hannah looked at the now smooth waves, rushing in and out. Suddenly the terror of last night overtook her, and this morning’s despair when they saw that the ship and the boat and Mr Vandergeld had all vanished.

  ‘Break, break, break,’ she recited quietly.

  ‘On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!

  And I would that my tongue could utter

  The thoughts that arise in me.’

  The beach was sand, not stone, nor was it cold or grey. But somehow the
words expressed exactly how she felt.

  She looked back at the young man. He was gazing at her, his eyes wide, his expression impossible to read. Had he understood her words?

  Hannah flushed. Everyone else was looking at her too. She’d grown too used to being able to say poems aloud back at Lyrebird Creek. Even on the boat her words had been drowned by the noise of the engine.

  ‘This is no time for poetry, my girl,’ sniffed Mrs Talbot. ‘Do you really think it’s safe to follow a native?’ she asked Mama.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mama quietly.

  Mrs Talbot snorted with annoyance. ‘Very well then. Hurry up, boy! Take us straight to your master or mistress. We have been through a terrible ordeal.’

  The young man looked at Mrs Talbot so angrily that Hannah was afraid he might let the branch fall and vanish into the undergrowth.

  ‘It’s just that we’ve been frightened and are hungry and thirsty,’ said Mama quickly, to make up for Mrs Talbot’s rudeness. ‘Please . . . we’d be very grateful if you’d take us to a farmhouse, or anywhere where we can find fresh water and shelter.’

  The young man looked from Mama to Mrs Talbot and then back to Mama again. At last he gestured for them to walk under the branch to the path.

  Mama smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’ She took Angus’s hand, then Hannah’s. They turned their backs to the sea, and stepped towards the path.

  ***

  The path turned out to be a track cut through the forest, large enough for a cart. Huge, dark-topped trees, their buttresses almost as big as a hut, shaded tree ferns and a carpet of maidenhair ferns. Old tree stumps rotted slowly into soil. Vines as thick as her wrist twined like vast snakes up the tree trunks.

  It was strange to be under leaf dapples instead of the dazzle of sun and sea; to hear silence after so long with the crash and suck of waves. No, not silence, Hannah realised, for birds sang. The air smelled of wet earth and hot trees.

  Suddenly something large slunk away between the ferns.

  ‘Crocodile!’ whispered Angus.

  The young man grinned. ‘Goanna,’ he said. So he could speak.

  The inlet had become a rocky creek bed, though apart from a few damp patches there was no sign of fresh water.