Dreaming Again

The Jacaranda Wife by Angela Slatter

Sometimes, not very often, but sometimes when the winds blow right, the summer heat is kind, and the rain trickles down just-so, a woman is born of a jacaranda tree.

The indigenous inhabitants leave these women well alone. They know them to be foreign to the land for all that they spring from the great tree deeply embedded in the soil. White-skinned as the moon, violet-eyed, they bring only grief.

So when, in 1849, James Willoughby found one such woman sleeping beneath the spreading boughs of the old jacaranda tree in his house yard, members of the Birbai tribe who had once quite happily come to visit the kitchens of the station, disappeared. As they went, they told everyone they encountered, both black and white, that one of the pale women had come to Rollands Plain station and there would be no good of her. Best to avoid the place for a long, long time.

Willoughby, the younger son of an old Sussex family, had fought with his father, migrated to Australia, and made his fortune, in that order. His property stretched across ten thousand acres, and the Merino sheep he’d purchased from John McArthur thrived on the green, rolling pastures spotted with eucalypts and jacarandas. He had a house built from buttery sandstone, on a slight rise, surrounded on three sides by trees and manicured lawns, a turning circle out the front for carriages. Willoughby made sure the windows were wide enough to drink in the bright Australian light, and filled its rooms with all the finest things that reminded him of England. His one lack was that of a wife.

He had in his possession, it must be said, a large collection of miniatures sent by the parents of potential brides. Some were great beauties - and great beauties did not wish to live in the Colonies. Some were obviously plain, in spite of efforts the portraitists had gone to imbue them with some kind of charm; these girls were quite happy to make the arduous journey to a rich, handsome, dark-haired husband, but he did not want a plain wife. He had not made his way in the world to ornament this place with a plain-faced woman, no matter how sweet her nature might be.
The silver-haired girl he found early one morning was beyond even his dreams and demands. Long-limbed, delicate, so pale he could see blue veins pulsing beneath her skin - for she was naked, sleeping on a bed of brilliant purple jacaranda flowers, crushed by the weight and warmth of her body. As he leaned over her, she opened her eyes and he was lost in their violet depths.
Ever the gentleman, he wrapped his proper Englishman’s coat about her shoulders, speaking to her in the low, gentle voice he reserved for skittish horses, and steered her inside. He settled her on his very own bed, the place he had always hoped to bring a suitable wife, and called for his housekeeper.

The broad, red-faced Mrs Flynn bustled in. She was a widow, living now with Willoughby’s overseer in a fine arrangement that suited both of them. In Ireland, her three sons had been hung for treason against the Crown, and the judge who sentenced them decided that a woman who had produced three such anarchists must herself have strong anti-English sympathies. She was arrested, charged, tried and sent to live in this strange land with an arid centre and a wet green edge. She’d been allocated to Willoughby, and although her heart would always have a hole in it where her sons had been torn away, she had, in some measure, come to feel maternal about her master and directed her energies to making him happy as only a mother could.

The sight of the girl on the bed, lids shut once again, and the mooncalf look in her master’s eyes troubled her but she held her tongue, pushed her greying red hair back under its white cap and began to bustle around the girl. Willoughby sat and stared.

‘She’s perfect, Martha. Don’t you think?’

‘Beautiful for sure, Master James, for all she’s underdressed. Who is she? Where’s she from?’ Mrs Flynn surreptitiously sniffed at the girl’s mouth for a whiff of gin. Finding nothing, her suspicions shifted; surely the girl was addle-pated. Or a tart, left adrift by a client of the worst sort. Or a convict on the run. Or a good girl who’d had something unspeakable visited upon her. She’d check later, to see if there was any bleeding. ‘Perhaps the doctor …’

‘Is she hurt?’ The urgency in his voice pierced her heart, and she winced like a good mother.
‘Not that I can see, but we’d best be sure. Send for Dr Abrams. Go on now.’ She urged him from the room, her hands creating a small breeze as she flapped at him. Turning back to the girl, she found the violet eyes open, staring around her, without fear, and with only a mild curiosity.

‘And what’s your name, little miss?’ Mrs Flynn asked, adjusting the blanket she’d laid over the girl. The eyes widened, the mouth opened but the only thing that came out was a noise like the breeze rushing through leaves.

Martha Flynn felt cold all over.

Extract published courtesy of HarperVoyager, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
© Jack Dann