‘Who knows that Jessica is pregnant?’ Hester now asks Joe.
‘Only the doctor,’ Joe grunts.
‘Can we trust him to keep quiet?’ Joe shrugs, not looking up at his wife. ‘He said it were in confidence. You should bloody know, he’s your family doctor.’
Hester sighs, and then suddenly bursts into tears. ‘You wicked, wicked girl, how could you do this to us? How can you think to so utterly destroy us?’ she wails, her lips spit-flecked. She points at Jessica, stabbing a bony forefinger repeatedly into the air. ‘You whore! You filthy whore!’ she screams. Rising from the table she rushes over to Jessica and beats her fists against her shoulders and head. ‘You dirty little slut!’
‘Father! Father!’ Jessica howls, pulling her arms over her head to protect her from her mother’s flailing blows. But Joe remains silent and Hester stops as abruptly as she has begun. Her daughter has reduced her to using a word which has rarely passed her lips and one she never thought she’d use against either of her daughters. She stands over Jessica, panting, her entire body trembling, and then says slowly, ‘We must be rid of it! The filthy thing. That creature’s vile thing inside of you! Kill it!’ Jessica starts to cry. ‘Mama, I don’t want you to kill it. Please don’t kill it!’ she sobs.
Meg has stepped into the kitchen, and it is quite apparent that she’s been listening all the while at the door. ‘It’ll be mad like its father,’ she says.
‘You hold your tongue, Meg,’ Joe commands.
‘Please, Father. It’s mine, don’t let them kill my baby,’ Jessica sobs, her voice barely above a whisper. She looks up at Joe, pleading. ‘Please, Father?’
Hester leans over Jessica and shouts, ‘You’ve done enough damage already, you’ll do as you’re told!’
Joe looks up suddenly and, half rising from his chair, bangs his fist hard down on the table. ‘Silence all of you! Not another word from you lot!’ he thunders.
Jessica continues to sob, her head buried again in her arms. Hester and Meg, brought to silence, look to Joe, stunned.
‘Jessica, your mother’s right. If it gets out that you’re pregnant to Billy Simple we’ll all be destroyed. It will be the end of us as a family. Nobody is ever to know you’re in the family way. You hear me, girl? You will not be seen by anyone. You’ll not show your face anywhere. You will not leave this house.’
Jessica looks up at Joe again, appealing to him. ‘She’s not going to kill my baby, then, Father?’ Jessica turns to Hester. ‘I swear if you try, I’ll tell the whole world you done it, you killed my baby!’ she howls.
‘Ha, she’s mad!’ Hester snaps, turning her back on Jessica.
‘Jessie, go to your room,’ Joe commands. ‘You stay there until you’re called. Meg, you go to yours too, I want to talk to your mother.’
Jessica gets up from the table and walks towards her bedroom. Her nose is running and her eyes are red and swollen from crying all day. She lets out an involuntary sob as she passes Meg, standing with her arms folded, the hint of a cruel smile at the corners of her mouth. ‘Now you’ve gone and done it,’ Meg says smugly, so that only Jessica can hear. ‘You’ve got a bastard in your stomach.’ Jessica is too forlorn to answer her and continues past her to her own room. ‘You’re disgusting, a whore,’ Meg hisses after her.
In the kitchen Joe sighs. ‘Perhaps it’s someone else’s,’ he says hopefully.
Hester looks up sharply. ‘Whose?’
‘I dunno — there’s other lads she works with at Riverview Station.’
‘She’s had no work at Riverview for months now. Except for going to Wagga for the trial, she’s been here working with you.’
‘Maybe someone she met at the trial? I wasn’t always with her. It were a boarding house where we stayed - other men were about.’
‘Joe, the trial was one month ago. She’s two and a half months gone!’ Hester looks knowingly at her husband. ‘He’s the only one Jessica’s been with alone. It was two and a half months ago she spent the whole night with Billy Simple when she took him to Narrandera. Your daughter’s no heroine, Joe, she’s a tart, a floosie, call it what you like. I dare say she’s been doing it with him for some time. I can’t even think about it, it’s that horrible. I should have listened when Ada Thomas, God rest her soul, said Jessica was always around the monster when she went over to work at Riverview.’
Joe looks up at his wife. ‘That’s because they were mates. I don’t believe you, Jessie’s not like that. Maybe something happened on the way to Narrandera, but it would be only the once.’
Hester sighs. ‘Once is quite enough. It doesn’t matter if it’s once or a dozen times, she’s pregnant to a monster, Joe. What will the child be like, have you thought of that?’
‘Whoa, wait now, Billy Simple weren’t born a wrong ‘un. It were the horse kicked him that done his brain in.
He were a strappin’ lad, no fool neither — his children will be normal as you and me.’
‘Joe, he’s a murderer and an Irish Catholic. There’s b
ad blood there and that’s passed on,’ Hester says darkly.
‘What about young Jack? It could be him, they’re out alone in the bush often enough,’ Joe says. ‘He’s been over here from time to time, brought the bull over once, took it back, that’s twice. There were other times. We could tell him Jessica’s pregnant. If he’d done it to her he’d say so, he’s a decent enough lad. He’d do the right thing.’
‘Joe, don’t you dare! Nobody must know about this, least of all Jack Thomas. It would ruin Meg’s chances.’ Joe looks at her. ‘What chances? It’s too late now. She’s done her dash — he’s off to Sydney on Sunday.’