‘May we not have him come out for a bit of tea?’ Hester persists.
The colonel sighs, his impatience at Hester’s constant questioning now obvious. ‘No, you may not, Mrs Bergman.’
Jack Thomas is waiting outside the colonel’s office and walks with them to the barracks gates, where Meg draws him aside and kisses him tearfully. ‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ she whispers, ‘but you won’t regret this, I promise you,’ she pleads.
‘Meg, you know you’re the wrong sister, don’t yer?’
Jack says, so that only she can hear and then turns away, not wishing her to see his anguish.
Meg brings her hands up to cover her face and begins to sob, so that a grim-faced Hester comes running over to her daughter. She takes Meg’s arm and draws her away from where Jack is standing with his back to her. ‘There, there, my girl, we’re not beaten yet,’ she whispers into her daughter’s ear. She has already decided the marriage must take place, even though Jack, or rather his bloody interfering uncle, has crushed her every hope for Meg’s future.
‘He hates me, Mother,’ Meg sobs.
‘He’s going off to the war — we may never have to care if he does or not,’ Hester hisses, though in a voice only Meg can hear.
Joe, who has not seen the exchange between Jack and his daughter, finds himself strangely cheered as a result of the interview with Jack’s commanding officer.
It is as though a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. The grant of land, the precious five hundred acres of riverfront for Jessica in the document he carries under his arm, proves that Jack has thought to provide for her in the event of his death. Even though the specific terms and Meg’s inability to comply with them make it impossible for Jessica to benefit, it proves to Joe once again that Jack Thomas loves Jessica Bergman, and wanted to marry his little girlie. Perhaps, he thinks to himself, despite her pregnancy to Billy Simple, things may be sorted out when Jack returns from the war, for surely Meg’s marriage to Jack cannot now take place?
Joe decides there and then to tell Jack the message Jessica has asked him to deliver.
‘Jack, a quick word, mate?’ he says, and takes Jack by the arm and draws him aside. ‘Son, I’ve got a message for you,’ he says a little above a whisper. ‘It’s from Jessie. She says to tell you .. .’ Joe hesitates. ‘I’ll say it just how she said it to me, she said, “Father, tell Jack: Tea Leaf will be here when you get back.” , ‘Oh, God, what have I done?’ Jack chokes, clutching at the tunic pocket covering his heart. Joe sees the sudden tears that well in the young soldier’s eyes.
CHAPTER TEN
Two days after Meg’s wedding and only three hours off the train, Joe turns out of Dolly’s yard at Narrandera and heads for home. They’d taken the train overnight and despite Hester’s pleas to rest up for the day with Dolly Heathwood, Joe insists on staying only long enough for Dolly to pack them a hamper for the road and to allow him to get the pony and sulky from a nearby stable yard. Shortly after eight o’clock, with the sun already hot enough to chase away the morning chill, they are back on the road home.
Joe has hardly spoken since the wedding and is back into his darkness. The three of them form a cheerless little group, with Meg spending most of the hours since the nuptials sniffing and weeping. Meanwhile Hester grows increasingly bad-tempered with her and not a great deal better disposed to her morose and silent husband.
‘For God’s sake, daughter, stop your snivelling. Have we not done what we came for? Are you not Mrs Jack Thomas? Buck up, girl!’ Hester is no longer able to abide either of them for their lack of gumption. ‘But Mama, it has all come to nothing,’ Meg wails.
‘Nothing? Mistress of Riverview. You call that nothing?’ Hester snaps.
‘But I’m not! The colonel said .. .’ Meg gulps. ‘What about the piece of paper he made Father sign?’
‘Ha, paper!’ Hester says dismissively. ‘You’ve got a gold band on your finger, that’s a lot better than a piece of paper.’
‘But it means we can’t move into Riverview unless I have Jack’s child!’ Meg looks up at Hester. ‘And I don’t have his child, do I?’ Meg looks at her mother, distressed. ‘Do I, Mother?’
‘Oh do be quiet, Meg,’ Hester admonishes her. ‘You don’t have his child yet.’
Meg looks at her mother in astonishment. ‘Yet? Whatever do you mean?’
‘You heard me the first time, I will not repeat myself.’ Hester will comment no further, leaving Joe to his silent misery, and Meg no less weepy than before.
They had not been able to talk in the crowded second-class train carriage. On the long ride to Narrandera, seated on the train’s hard wooden seats, Joe and Meg seemed miraculously able to sleep but Hester could, at best, snatch a few minutes’ sleep at a time, waking at each jolt and halting of the engine, so that she had ample time to think about the predicament into which they had been placed by Jack’s wily uncle.
They had taken the milk train, which stopped at every station throughout the long and wearisome night until time and space seemed to be filled with clickety-clacks, shouts, shunts and the clanking of trucks at lonely sidings.
Sudden shrill whistles, the weary huff and puff of driving steam, the acrid smell of smoke and the sharp, metallic taste of coal dust. Hester was exhausted by the time they came into Narrandera in the early hours of the morning, but she was determined on one thing — that come what may, Jack’s commanding officer, the man they called Cunning Tom, was not going to defeat her. As far as she was concerned, her daughter was now Mrs Jack Thomas and that was just the beginning.
Now, on the road home from Narrandera, Hester tries unsuccessfully to engage Joe in conversation. After hours of badgering, Joe begins to make replies beyond a cursory grunt. By now he is numb with fatigue. Hester seems somehow to have recovered and is sharp and clear as ever. She wants Joe to agree to a course of action concerning Meg before they reach home.
She has persisted all the while with a single question until Meg, exhausted by her mother’s pestering and Joe’s stubborn silence, begs her to stop, putting her hands to her ears. But Hester continues. ‘What will you tell Jessica?’
Joe’s answer comes at last. ‘Nothing. I ain’t sayin’ nothing, you bear?’
‘But you must tell her that Meg is now married to Jack Thomas.’ ‘Why?’