Oscar and Lucinda

Mr Ahearn thought that wishing for a governor went too far. Mrs Ahearn thought not. Their excitement made them quite insensitive to the feelings of the young heiress whose eyes were slitted to contain her anger. How dare they. They would dress her up in silly frippery and never once think how her Papa and Mama had worried and fretted over every pe

Lucinda Leplastrier was leaving Parramatta and going to Sydney. She was going against the most passionate advice, but she could not bear to be in Parramatta any more. Everyone wished to steer her this way and that, have her sit down, stand up, while all the time they smirked and thought her simple. She thought her simple. She thanked her God in heaven that she had money and was not at their mercy. And now there was this one final series of misunderstandings and she would be gone. Her crinoline cage bumped and swayed against the pressure of Mrs Ahearn's wobbly-ankled perambulations. Everyone encouraged her to see this crinoline as an

"improvement." She thought

irtA ^

Ascension Day

them ignorant. The impracticality of the garment made her angry. She also had a silly hat. No wonder they stared at her.

Mr Ahearn had it into his head that she should on no account travel down to Sydney with the hoi polloi aboard the packet. He was one of those men who must always deliver you safely to his friend, his associate, his colleague. If you are going to Woop-Woop, he will know the bank manager of the Australasian or the dog-catcher or Jimmy Jones, the sergeant of police. As for Sydney, he was not quite so knowledgeable, but he had a letter of introduction to Petty's Hotel and to Mr James d'Abbs thé accountant-a fu

Lucinda, imagining the expression referred to her red cheeks, was mortified, but Mr Ahearn had liked the expression for its sound, not its verisimilitude-the hat was not too small, nor her cheeks too red. He was a silly puritanical man who wished to show that he cared for her, but had no proper way of doing it, and his attempts resembled his wife's wobbly walk-all that bumping and shoving when all he intended, as she did, was solicitude. It was already noon, late for a weekday market trip, but not for a

Oscar and Lucinda

Saturday when there was a night market in Sydney. The cauliflowers would be sold under gaslight. But there was no heat in the sun and the shadows of the ramshackle timber warehouse behind the little party seemed, to Lucinda, to be filled with the most hostile and uncaring cold. There was a smell of bad fish and a confusion of noises, steam whistles, human voices, the heavy thwack of river timber against wharf iron rings. There was a dinghy caught beneath the wharf and in danger of being sunk by the rise of the tide. There were boatmen calling for its removal, and others, in mid river, jockeying so they might take their turn at the busy wharf. Sol Myer was the subject of abuse for not shifting his boat on. There was now a rush to have Lucinda aboard.. She hurt her ankle jumping down. There was no time-thank God-.> for tears, embraces (she thought of that cardiganed stomach-it was " as repulsive as a governor's) or recriminations about her actions.]

She stood straight on the deck with her arms by her sides.

Chas Ahearn could not see the expression on her face. When she; saluted him, as formal as a sentry, he did not know how to take it, | A barge carrying a shining black donkey engine now blocked his view.] It was a large engine and when the men gathered around it to effect its *

transfer to the wharf, he completely lost sight of her. In any case, it. was only a very small smile, and it is unlikely he would have seen it from that distance.

'..""".' 32 U",:,;,/'

Prince Rupert's Drops

There was a small roofed section on Mr Myer's boat, but it seemed that this was more intended for the shelter of the engine than the driver and, in any case, it was decorated with so many oily cans and rags that she thought it better to pretend an affection for the bracing air beside the cauliflowers. A thin sheet of cloud began to materialize in the sky — the smoke from

Prince Rupert's Drops

burning hedgerows on farms along the banks — and it was soon so general that the river, in response, assumed a pearly yellow sheen. She had never been on a boat before. She had never been to Sydney. She sat on a rough packing case in the bow, her hands in her lap, shivering. Sol Myer, like all of Chas Ahearn's clients, knew the story of the tragedy. He saw the way she held herself-the straightness of the spine, the squareness of the shoulder. He had not missed the irony of her last salute, but he was most conscious of her dignity, of her solitariness — both qualities being emphasized by her small stature-and he felt, as he did not often with strangers, that he knew her.

He would like to give her something, a gift. It would give him pleasure. He imagined it, his face creasing. But he had nothing except cauliflowers, and these, look at her, she was stealing from him in any case.

She sat so straight, such a good back, such a proper back, a back you would trust in any crowd, and there was her hand-a different animal entirely-scuttling off down, a tiny crab with its friend the snake, gone stealing little florets of cauliflowers.

Sol Myer started giggling. You could not tell a story like this. A story like this you could only feel.