Letty on the Land Read online

  LETTY ON THE LAND

  If Letty wants to keep her job, she must travel with her mistress to a sheep farm in the Blue Mountains, leaving her sister Lavinia behind in Sydney. Letty has heard that the bush is a wild place, full of strange beasts and dangers, not to mention the bushrangers who hide out in it. And as Letty soon learns, life on the land has plenty of challenges…

  Join Letty again on her adventure in the third of four exciting stories about a free-settler girl and her new life in a far-off land.

  Puffin Books

  To my sisters

  And my beautiful nieces –

  This generation of Australian girls

  Special thanks to the people in rural Australia who enthusiastically shared their time and knowledge to help me discover Letty’s land.

  With illustrations by Lucia Masciullo

  Puffin Books

  Letty never meant to board the ship that brought her to Australia with her big sister, Lavinia. It was Lavinia’s dream to start a new life in the colonies, but Letty has come by accident, and still longs for her papa and her family back home. Determined not to be a nuisance, Letty has found herself a job helping out at Fry’s Bakery, and although she misses her best friend, Abner, life in Sydney is looking up. Then a letter in the post changes everything for Letty all over again …

  Contents

  1 SYDNEY

  2 OVER THE BLUE MOUNTAINS

  3 THE ROAD TO ABERCROMBIE RIVER

  4 ON THE SHEEP RUN

  5 THE SHEEP-DIP

  6 VISITORS FROM THE ROAD

  7 THE SHEARING SHED

  8 IN THE MOONLIGHT

  9 ON THE VERANDAH

  10 COOKING IN THE KITCHEN

  11 OVER THE CREEK

  12 RABBIT PIE

  UNTIL the letter arrived, Letty was having a very fine morning. A square of warm Sydney sunshine lit Mary’s lace pillow. Victoria’s baby smiles lit everyone’s faces.

  For the past two months, Letty had been working in the little house behind George Fry’s Bakery. Her job was to help with the housework while Mary recovered from having her baby and the fearful time that had led up to that. Mary still had silent days sometimes, but she was up and about in her neat red dress, instead of hiding in her blanket. Mary’s brother George was very relieved. Although he paid Letty’s wages, he did not bother much about tidiness. So really Letty’s work was lots of cuddling and talking to the baby. Letty felt like a big sister again. She hadn’t been happier since leaving England, months and months ago.

  George came in from the bakery and handed Mary a floury envelope. ‘There’s a letter for you, from the Bathurst mail.’

  Mary laid her lace bobbins down and took the letter to the window.

  ‘Is it from Clem?’ Letty whispered to George. Clem was Mary’s husband, who lived somewhere in the New South Wales countryside.

  George nodded. He and Letty watched Mary’s back. The last letter had made her cry. Then she was wooden and silent for days.

  Eventually Mary turned around. ‘Clem’s sent money,’ she said. ‘For the coach over the mountains. He wants us to come home now.’ ‘Go back to the bush, with the little babe?’ said George. ‘To live in a paddock with convicts and blackfellows? What’s he thinking?’

  ‘I’ve lived there before,’ said Mary, lifting her chin. ‘Clem wants me back. Not every man’s a city toff like you.’

  George rolled his eyes.

  To Letty, the bush was a dark green shadow on the far shore of Sydney, full of strange beasts and dangers. She wanted to stay away from it, and she felt a fierce desire to keep Victoria away, too, far from anything that could hurt her.

  ‘Why do you have to go back?’ she demanded. ‘Why can’t you stay here?’

  As soon as the words were out, Letty knew she shouldn’t have said them. Servants weren’t meant to question their mistresses.

  ‘I want to,’ Mary answered. ‘That’s my home, Letty.’ Her face softened. ‘With Clem and my little boy. I’m Harry’s mama, too. They need me; and it’s where I belong.’

  Mary did not mean to be harsh, but Letty felt as if her words had scratched open an old scab. Letty knew what it was like to have no mother. She knew what it was like to have nowhere to belong. That was how Letty’s life in Sydney had been before George took her in. It was how her life would be again if Mary and Victoria left. George would have no reason to keep employing Letty then. Letty didn’t want them to go, but she couldn’t stop them. She bit her lip and hunched her shoulders.

  ‘Oh,’ was all she managed to say. She looked away from Mary, at the baby wrapped warm and safe in her basket.

  Mary sat down beside her. ‘We’ll be fine, Letty. The bush isn’t that bad.’

  ‘When are you going?’ George asked.

  ‘As soon as you can get us seats on the Bathurst coach,’ Mary replied. ‘I need to speak to Letty’s sister Lavinia, too.’

  ‘Christ.’ George ran a hand through his hair. It stood up like a cockatoo’s crest. Letty almost laughed, but she was too choked up. She would miss George as well.

  ‘What am I going to do without you ladies to look after me?’ George moaned.

  ‘Ha! Find a wife of your own,’ said Mary.

  Could that be why Mary wanted to speak to Lavinia? George was sweet on Letty’s sister, everyone knew. Perhaps Mary thought she’d hurry things along. Mary didn’t know Lavinia then, Letty thought.

  Lots of people wanted Letty’s beautiful sister. But hardly anybody wanted Letty.

  Mary, George and the baby came along for Letty and Lavinia’s Sunday stroll. Lavinia tossed her long curls when she saw George, and made Letty walk between them.

  They went through the Domain, down to the point with a view of the open ocean. Letty sighed. The world was so vast. Way across that hazy blueness, far out of reach, were the rest of her family. Somewhere on the ocean, perhaps all the way to China by now, was Letty’s best friend, Abner. And now Mary and her baby would be leaving Letty, too. It was like losing her family all over again. Letty felt like a stray seabird, blown out of the nest and off-course by one gust after another.

  Lavinia gave Letty a searching look. ‘You’re quiet today,’ she said.

  Letty didn’t want to say anything in front of George and Mary.

  ‘How about you and I sit down for a rest?’ Mary suggested to Lavinia. ‘George, you take Letty to look at the Governor’s new house.’

  George looked disappointed. But he doffed his hat to Lavinia and offered Letty his arm.

  At the top of the hill, they glimpsed the white outline of the building below.

  ‘Right-o,’ said George, after a two-second look. ‘We’ve seen that. I think the view’s better back there, don’t you?’ He winked at Letty. ‘Let’s sneak up on them, eh? Find out what secrets our sisters have.’

  Letty laughed. She and George walked soft-footed down the slope, shushing each other. They crouched behind a bush where they could hear Mary.

  ‘… so we’re going on the Bathurst coach next week,’ she said.

  ‘Hmph,’ muttered George, unimpressed.

  ‘Oh,’ said Lavinia. ‘So soon.’

  Letty thought so, too. What would she do? Lavinia’s employer up on Cumberland Street hadn’t wanted Letty to work for them. The Immigrants Home, where she had stayed before, wouldn’t take her either – it was only for girls who were new to the colony. Fear knotted her stomach.

  ‘Letty is a good child,’ Mary continued. ‘She’s trustworthy and hardworking.’

  ‘You’ve been good to her,’ Lavinia said.

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ Mary said. ‘I’m not the easiest person to be around.’ She paused. ‘Clem suggested something else in his last letter.’

  What? Letty wond
ered. She and George leaned forward.

  ‘Would you allow Letty to come back to our sheep run with me?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Oh!’ said Lavinia.

  Letty’s eyes widened.

  ‘Clem would pay the same wage, and she’ll live in the homestead like one of our family.’

  George grinned, patting Letty’s shoulder.

  Letty didn’t know what to think. She wanted to stay by Mary and the baby, but she didn’t want to leave Lavinia and Sydney for the unknown.

  ‘It’s kind of you to offer, I’m sure …’ said Lavinia carefully.

  ‘But what?’ said Mary. ‘But not with a madwoman like me?’

  ‘Well – ’ said Lavinia awkwardly, ‘I would miss her … But – it’s so uncivilised out there. Something might happen to her.’

  Letty wanted to hug her sister for her concern.

  ‘And what would happen to her in Sydney?’ said Mary.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lavinia admitted. ‘She is a bit of a problem for me.’

  The women were silent. George frowned. Victoria gurgled in Mary’s arms. Letty wanted to scoop up the baby, breathe in her milky smell and shut out the world. Letty was crushed. Lavinia loved her, but she was still a nuisance. She hated to be a problem for anyone.

  Lavinia went on, ‘But she is my little sister. I can’t send her into the wilds.’

  Letty came out from behind the shrub and stood up.The blood rushed into her cheeks.

  ‘You don’t have to send me,’ Letty said. ‘I choose to go myself.’

  A WEEK later, Letty mounted the coach to Bathurst, with Mary, Victoria and their luggage. Letty was wedged in between Mary and a tubby gentleman in a top hat. George parked a basket under Letty’s feet.

  ‘Here’s my goodbye present,’ he said, giving Letty a peek inside. ‘Rabbits. As a change from mutton, once they’ve grown.’

  ‘Rabbits, eh?’ said the tubby man, spreading his legs across the seat and squashing Letty’s knees. ‘They grow like topsy out here. Just the climate for them. Along with sheep, children and bushrangers – ha ha ha!’

  He seemed to think himself very funny. Mary smiled politely.

  The man introduced himself as the new district judge. ‘I’m off to Hartley’s courthouse,’ he said, ‘to bring the rule of law to this country – put the felons back in irons. But not the children or the sheep – eh!’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ Mary said. ‘We’re getting offin Hartley, too.’

  The coach rumbled off down Bathurst Road. Mary and Letty bounced and rattled past sandstone houses, fields and grazing animals for hours. We must be nearly there, Letty thought. In England you couldn’t travel a whole day without reaching another town.

  The coach stopped at a roadside house in the late afternoon. Letty stretched in relief as the driver unharnessed the horses. But neither Mary nor the judge seemed excited.

  The judge held open the door for Mary. ‘I’ve heard the bed bugs in this inn are nearly as bad as the bushrangers outside it – ha ha!’

  So this was only an overnight stop on the way, Letty realised. She didn’t laugh.

  The next morning the man again took up half the seat, and the road jolted Letty up and down on the same bruises it had made the day before.

  The coach jerked up a hill, into a forest.

  ‘Australia’s an ugly place,’ said the judge. ‘Full of odd beasts and criminals. Time for some shut-eye.’ With that, he pulled down the blinds on both sides of the carriage. He left them there all day.

  ‘Can we open the windows?’ Letty whispered to Mary. She wanted to see where they were going.

  ‘Better not,’ said Mary, looking at the openmouthed man. ‘It’s wintry out. I don’t want to get the magistrate offside, in case we need him sometime.’

  Eventually the coach rolled in to another inn. It was already dark, and foggy. Straight after dinner, Letty fell asleep with Victoria in a bed that smelt of mice.

  The fog did not lift next day. The coach got very stuffy. The man filled the cabin with loud, sticky snores. Victoria got grizzly. Mary fed her again to keep her quiet.

  Not long after that, Victoria added her own wet noises to the snores, from her bottom end. Letty giggled and Mary pulled a face.Victoria needed to be changed. Before long, the smell became almost overpowering.

  ‘It can’t be long now!’ Mary peered around the blind. ‘We’ve been heading downwards for miles. Can you take Victoria for a bit? I want to tidy my hair.’

  Letty held Victoria in the crook of her arm. ‘Soon you’ll see your big brother and your papa,’ she told the baby. Letty felt a pang for her own family. ‘Soon, soon, soon,’ she sang softly.

  Victoria was not comforted. She clenched her knees into her chest and screwed up her face.

  Oh no, thought Letty, who knew what that expression meant.Victoria had had too much milk. Her nappy overflowed, down Letty’s sleeve and onto her dress.

  ‘Mary!’ Letty whispered urgently.

  Mary didn’t reply. Sometimes she did not like other people bothering her, Letty knew. Mary re-pinned the last loop of her black hair, and lifted the corner of the blind again.

  ‘We’re coming into Hartley!’ she exclaimed.

  The coach drew up in front of Hartley’s smart white courthouse, and Mary jumped down into the arms of a tall, muscular man. The judge pushed past Letty.

  She was left in the doorway of the coach, holding a grizzling, smelly baby. Letty lifted her skirt, then she wrapped Victoria and her own arm with it, to hide the leaking mess. But that meant Letty’s petticoat and skinny legs were exposed for everyone to see. She felt dirty and bare. Her face went redder than Mary’s dress.

  The tall man hugged Mary and swung her round. His trousers were tucked into long, shiny leather boots, and his shirt was tucked in by a polished belt with a brass buckle. Everything about him was straight, strong and neat. That must be Clem, Letty decided. She could see why Mary liked him.

  But what would Clem Grey think of his new employee, so embarrassingly dirty? Letty wished she could be invisible.

  For the moment, Clem didn’t even look in her direction. Instead he lifted a small boy off the seat of a cart and carried him over to Mary. The boy was about three or four, Letty guessed, still young enough for a smock. He leaned into his father’s body and turned his face from Mary’s kisses. He looked like Mary. Something about him also reminded Letty of the rabbits on the coach. He was small and soft, but tense – ready to spring away. That must be Harry, Letty thought.

  ‘Now, where’s my little lady?’ Clem asked. He put the boy back on the cart, and looked up at the coach. His eyes met Letty’s. He took in Letty’s scuffed boots and mended petticoat.

  But it wasn’t her he was looking for. It was the little girl in her arms. Letty held Victoria out to her father. Clem took his baby daughter carefully from Letty. He held her at arm’s length so her dirty dress was well away from him. Her little feet kicked in mid-air. ‘Burst your banks, have you?’ he said, planting a kiss in the middle of her forehead.

  Mary laughed with him.

  ‘The servant didn’t come?’ Clem asked, looking for someone to pass the grubby baby to.

  Mary beckoned for Letty to get down from the coach. ‘This is Letty Beddows,’ Mary said. Letty stood in front of them, her eyes glued to the big orange stain smeared from her sleeve to her hemline.

  Clem looked at Mary with a slight frown. ‘She’s only a waif.’

  Clem Grey doesn’t want me, Letty thought.

  ‘She’ll do well, you’ll see,’ Mary told him. ‘She’s very good with Victoria.’

  ‘She stinks more’n a daggy sheep,’ the little boy said. ‘That yucky baby does, too.’

  ‘That’s not nice, Harry,’ Mary said.

  Harry pouted. ‘You’re not nice!’

  ‘Put a lid on it,’ growled Clem. ‘Let’s get a move on.’

  Letty hauled herself up into the Greys’ vehicle with a heavy heart. She hadn’t made a very good start
with the male side of the Grey family. She hoped she would make up for it soon.

  THE Greys’ sheep run was much further than Letty expected.

  Mary changed the baby on the back of the cart, amidst sacks of flour and tea and several rolled blankets. Letty also changed into her only other dress – a summer one, cut down from one of Lavinia’s shifts. She shivered in the wind that swept along the track. She began to wish she was back in the stuffiness of the coach.

  ‘It’s cold here,’ Mary remarked.

  ‘That’s a reason to like it,’ said Clem, smiling. ‘None of Sydney’s sticky summers. Or mouldy drawing rooms. I’ll get a swag for you and the babes.’

  He unrolled a blanket and draped it around Letty and Victoria. Harry watched sideways. Letty saw he had long, soft eyelashes and he was shivering.

  ‘Come under here,’ Letty invited him.

  Harry inched his bottom towards the far end of the seat.

  Oh dear, thought Letty. Making friends with Harry might take a while.

  ‘Do we have far to go?’ she asked Clem and Mary.

  ‘Only to the Abercrombie River district,’ Clem replied. ‘We’ll be there in a couple of days. I could do it in one on horseback, but you can’t hurry a cart.’

  Another couple of days! Letty felt the space between herself and Lavinia stretch out even further. Sydney had disappeared like a ship over a far horizon.

  As they travelled, Clem told Mary how everything was at home. ‘I want to get the flocks sheared soon,’ he said.

  ‘How’s that new shepherd going?’ Mary asked.

  ‘Hogan?’ Clem snorted. ‘Passable. I have to keep on his back – he’s sloppy. But he has three more years to go. I can’t get anyone else.’

  Letty wondered what being sloppy meant to Clem. She thought of the pooey dress bundled up in the back of the cart, and whether she was sloppy, too.

  Mary changed the subject. ‘The judge in the coach was talking about bushrangers.’