A River Town by Thomas Keneally Read Free Book Online Page B

Tim.
    “Yes, the hawker. God Almighty, that wouldn’t have been a particular comfort to Bert.”
    He found himself in defence of Bandy Habash. “He behaved very, very well, Mrs. Sutter.” For one damn thing, he dealt with the horse who would have still been thrashing and heaving out there if he hadn’t. “He’s not a bad little chap.”
    “Yes, but I know that you directed the rescue,” she said.
    She didn’t know what a pitiable state Bert had been in. Bert in his ending needed the help of all parties.
    Tim said, “I brought his two children with me. Both of them areindoors with yours. The girl Lucy. More presence than a judge, that Lucy. And then the poor little boy.”
    He saw tall Mrs. Sutter, whose face poor de-faced Rochester had dwelt on, look away. He knew it was bad news. It astounded him the way women could set limits. The mothers and the motherers, and yet they always had definite ideas about what could be done with ease, and what the boundaries of content were.
    Mrs. Sutter inhaled and was gathering herself for an answer when three or four children burst from the back steps. A boy, three girls and the children with whom he was now as familiar as if they had emigrated with him. Lucy, Hector. The oldest Sutter boy had proposed some sort of roughhouse, some racing around. Lucy stood back, weighing what it meant. Sharp-featured and calm. What a daughter! She did not blunder into things like the boy Hector. Every course she took a chosen one.
    They all went shrilling off around the side of the house towards the front. Towards the Tradesmen’s Entrance. Lucy ran behind them, inspecting the Sutter yard as if she’d never seen it before.
    Mrs. Sutter took a pair of child’s bloomers out of a basket, pegged them to the line, but then seemed to need to hang on to them for a sort of support. She stared very hard at the wet fabric.
    “I’ll take the boy. But Bert wouldn’t have expected me to take the girl. She hates me. I’ve got no affection for her.”
    “Is there someone else then?” asked Tim. “Who can take her? I have a third child on its way, and then my sister-in-law is emigrating, due here on the Aberdeen Line …”
    “There’s no one else I can think of. I wondered would the nuns take her? Get somewhere with her? You know the nuns, don’t you? Wonderful music-teachers.”
    He waited for her to say she could help with the expense. He was damned if he would mention it and draw her grudgingly into some undertaking. She let go of the bloomers and stood up and looked at him directly.
    “
She
was the problem with Bert and me. She didn’t like me and did brutal things to the other children. Just to keep me in my place. She’s a brutal little thing.”
    “I hadn’t noticed that.”
    Mrs. Sutter looked away across her well-ordered backyard. Hergarbage heap far off at the back fence. Her woodheap in order against the side fence. You could bet Bert had cut the wood and stacked it for her a week back, on some visit. The palpable benefits of marriage. Stacked wood, cut in regular sizes. A mound of kindling and a tidy little wall of split softwood. Tears appeared on Mrs. Sutter’s long lashes.
    “But for her I would have been widowed twice, I suppose. I can’t live with her. Take her to the nuns. She is a destroying little soul. You’d think they would extend their charity to her and do her some benefit. I’m sorry about all this when you’ve already been so good …”
    But however sorry she might be, Mrs. Sutter was implacable. She went on pegging her clothes.
    “It occurred to me though,” said Tim. “Whether you’d buy the farm.”
    “Oh no. No, there’s nothing for me in the farm. There’s something for the bank.”
    Five minutes later, out the front by Tim’s wagon, the two Rochester children were making a supervised farewell to each other.
    Hector cried, but Mrs. Sutter’s son and four girls began to distract him. Mrs. Sutter herself issued formal instructions from a distance.