Ruby and the Country Cousins Read online

  ‘Baxter, Aunt Vera.’

  ‘Oh. We weren’t expecting you to bring a dog, but I suppose . . . Come inside, both of you. Did you have a good trip? Don’t worry about the luggage. Walter and James will bring it in later. You must be famished.’

  She led them inside and down the hallway. Their footsteps echoed on the bare floorboards. The hollow sounds made Ruby feel even more dismal. How utterly frightful, she thought. They don’t have carpets or electricity. Probably they don’t even have a bathroom.

  Halfway along the hallway a door opened onto a big room with a dining table at one end. A hanging lamp threw a circle of light over the table, which was set for supper.

  Ruby put Baxter down and unclipped his lead. Immediately he set off to explore the room, nose down, sniffing busily.

  Uncle James frowned. ‘That dog had better not step out of line,’ he said.

  ‘He won’t,’ said Ruby. ‘Baxter! Get away from that curtain!’ She rushed forward and grabbed his collar. ‘Sorry, Uncle James. He’s usually very well-behaved. Sit, Baxter!’

  ‘Walter! May! Bee!’ called Aunt Vera. ‘Aunt Winifred and Ruby are here!’

  A small birdlike girl crept into the room and stood there, wide-eyed. That must be Beatrice, Ruby thought. She was about three the last time I saw her. She looks as if she’d like to be somewhere else, and I know exactly how that feels. ‘Hello, Beatrice,’ she said.

  ‘You can call me Bee if you like,’ Beatrice said, shyly. ‘Everybody does.’ She moved over to Aunt Vera, who put an arm around her.

  Soon there were footsteps in the hallway, and in came Ruby’s older cousins, Walter and May.

  May had grown since the last time Ruby had seen her, but even so the floral dress she was wearing was much too big for her. Ruby recognised it as one that Mother used to wear.

  ‘Hello, May,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Ruby,’ said May. Her short curly hair was tied back with a cotton scarf, as if she was in the middle of doing housework. ‘How was the trip?’

  ‘It was all right, thank you.’

  Walter, May’s brother, was fourteen, a skinny boy almost as tall as Uncle James. ‘Welcome to the Kettle,’ he said to Ruby with a friendly grin. ‘Jolly bad luck, what happened to Uncle Harry –’

  ‘That’s enough, Walter,’ Aunt Vera said. ‘We don’t need to talk about it.’

  ‘Oh, well, sorry,’ Walter said awkwardly.

  ‘Fool of a boy,’ Uncle James said. ‘Stop your blathering and help me with the luggage.’

  Ruby could see Walter’s face go red. Looking sullen now, he went out of the room with his father. May and Ruby accidentally glanced at each other, and then looked away again.

  Bee, who had been staring at Baxter, turned her face up to her mother and said, ‘He’s in the house.’

  ‘Hush, Bee,’ Aunt Vera said. ‘Both our dogs are working dogs,’ she explained to Mother. ‘We don’t allow them inside.’

  ‘I can never understand why not,’ said a voice. ‘When I was a bairn our dogs always lived with us. Good for cleaning up scraps, and better than a blanket on your bed.’

  An old woman hobbled towards them. She had floaty grey hair pinned up in a bun, and she wore a long black skirt, a black shawl and old-fashioned button-up boots. In one hand, to Ruby’s astonishment, she held a small black pipe.

  Oh my hat, Ruby thought. She’s a witch! All she needs is a broom. And she must be Scottish – she sounds exactly like Miss Macdonald, at my school. At what was my school.

  ‘Winifred, I don’t believe you’ve met James’s great-aunt, Flora Cameron,’ Aunt Vera said to Ruby’s mother. ‘She used to live on the family farm at Riverton, but when her brother Tam died the place had to be sold. It had become very run-down,’ she added, in a lower voice, ‘and it was hugely in debt.’

  ‘Kettle Farm belongs to me,’ Aunt Flora said, putting a bony hand on Mother’s arm. ‘It was left to me by my father, who owned several properties half a century ago. James will inherit it when I die. Until then he and Vera have to put up with me.’

  ‘And it’s our pleasure,’ Aunt Vera said quickly.

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Aunt Flora. ‘I never had any children,’ she told Mother. ‘No husband, either. That’s why I’ve lived so long. Shall we eat?’ She turned her piercing eyes on Ruby. The last time she’d been to the zoo, Ruby had seen a wolf prowling around its cage, and there was something in this old woman’s long face that had the same look.

  ‘Ruby, is it?’ Aunt Flora said. She continued to stare at her for so long that Ruby couldn’t help squirming. Was her petticoat showing? Had the train journey left her with smudges of soot on her face?

  ‘I knew a girl called Ruby once,’ the old woman said at last. ‘Dreadful creature. I hated her.’

  AT the supper table the grown-ups talked about the weather, the farm, and what was happening to Australia. All of them agreed that the Prime Minister, Mr Scullin, wasn’t doing nearly enough to save the country from financial ruin, and the drought was making things much worse.

  ‘It’s the war being over that’s the problem for us sheep farmers,’ Uncle James said. ‘It was a blessing when it ended, God knows, but no more war means no more soldiers. No more soldiers means no more wool needed for soldiers’ uniforms. So there’s no profit in wool anymore, d’you see? I lost an arm for my country. Now my country can’t support me, and that fool Scullin will put us all in the poorhouse.’

  Ruby listened for a while, but soon grew bored. Nobody was taking any notice of her, so to pass the time she looked at the people sitting around the table.

  Aunt Vera seems quite nice, she thought, but that scary great-aunt is frightfully rude. May isn’t very friendly – I think she’s ignoring me, or else she’s pretending to be a giraffe. Bee looks like a mouse, nibbling away at that crust of bread. Walter’s still sulking because Uncle James was horrid to him. Uncle James scares me a bit, too. He seems so angry, and he has dreadful table manners. Just look at him digging his own dirty knife into the butter dish!

  Ruby knew, because Mother had told her, that a real gentleman always used the butter knife, even if he was dining alone. Dad was probably eating alone right now. Poor Dad – he’d be so lonely, missing her and Mother.

  She stared down at her plate. The spread of cold mutton, boiled potatoes, bread and pickled gherkins wasn’t the lovely hot meal she’d been hoping for, and she’d quickly lost her appetite. She picked through the slices of meat, cutting off bits of fat and gristle.

  Aunt Flora looked at her disapprovingly. ‘I don’t like to see children playing with their food, lassie,’ she said. ‘A bit of fat never hurt anyone. A wee sheep died so that you could eat. Think about that!’

  Under Aunt Flora’s fierce gaze Ruby didn’t dare spit out her mouthful of tough meat. After chewing it for several minutes she managed to cough the stringy lump into her hand and slide it to Baxter, who was lying under her chair. As she did so, she realised that Bee was watching her. Ruby opened her eyes wide and made a ‘Don’t-say-anything’ face. Her little cousin responded with a shy, understanding grin.

  Bottled apricots followed the cold meat, and then May brought out a plate piled with slices of sultana cake while Aunt Vera poured tea from a big enamel teapot.

  ‘This cake is really good,’ Ruby said. It was the first time she’d spoken since the meal began.

  ‘I made it for Father’s birthday yesterday,’ May said.

  ‘Oh, well done,’ said Ruby. ‘I made some biscuits once, but they got burnt. I think it was the oven –’

  ‘All girls should learn to cook,’ Aunt Flora interrupted, spraying cake crumbs. She pronounced ‘girls’ as ‘gerruls’. ‘I was baking bread when I was seven years old.’

  ‘I’m a hopeless cook,’ Mother said, with a little laugh. ‘I suppose I’ve been spoilt, because for many years we had our wonderful Mrs Traill, the best cook in the world. My own skills are very limited.’

  Aunt Flora snorted. ‘That’s not something I’
d be proud to claim,’ she observed. ‘And it’s a poor example you set for your lassie here. You’re all fur coat and no trousers, Winifred, and you’ll feel the chill when the wind blows.’

  Ruby could hardly believe her ears. Nobody deserved to be insulted like that! She glared at the old woman, who had now lit her pipe and was puffing smoke all over the remains of the cake.

  ‘You may be right, Miss Cameron, but I hope I’ll be able to help in some way,’ Mother said bravely. ‘We want to pull our weight, don’t we, Ruby?’

  ‘Pull our weight?’ Ruby was still thinking about Aunt Flora’s rudeness. ‘Yes, of course. There are lots of things we can do. I could walk the dogs!’

  Uncle James choked on his tea, and even Walter lifted his head and laughed. ‘I don’t think so, Ruby,’ he said.

  ‘But dogs need to be exercised,’ Ruby said. ‘I don’t see what’s funny about that.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that our dogs get plenty of exercise,’ Aunt Vera said, but she said it quite kindly. ‘This isn’t the city, Ruby. We do things differently here.’

  ‘You’ll be sleeping in this room with me and Bee,’ May said, putting down the lamp she was carrying. ‘Your mother has my bedroom now, and Walter has the sleep-out. With Aunt Flora living here, we don’t have another spare.’

  ‘I didn’t think I’d have to share a room,’ Ruby said, disappointed. ‘We have five bedrooms at home . . . I mean, we had five bedrooms at home.’

  ‘This room is quite big enough for three,’ May said, as if she wasn’t listening. ‘I hope you don’t snore, though.’

  ‘How would I know if I did?’ Ruby looked around the room. It contained three beds, a chest of drawers and a big gloomy wardrobe that took up most of the back wall. It was the sort of cupboard where you’d expect to find ghosts or bats, she thought. Perhaps Aunt Flora lived there during the day, hanging from a hook like an old black overcoat.

  ‘There’s plenty of space for your things in the wardrobe,’ May said. ‘And you can have the two bottom drawers in the chest.’ She looked at the bulging suitcase on Ruby’s bed. ‘You’ve got a fair bit, haven’t you?’

  Ruby undid the clasps on the suitcase and opened the lid. The tightly packed clothes spilled out – nightdresses of Swiss cotton, soft woolly jumpers, dresses of silk and cotton and linen. Underneath them all was Ruby’s school uniform, and right at the bottom was the pink Cinderella frock she’d worn at her fancy-dress birthday party last year. Carefully wrapped in a scarf were two of her favourite things: her camera, and the little china fox terrier Mrs Traill had given her last Christmas. It was special to Ruby because it reminded her of happier times, when kindly Mrs Traill had looked after them all.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Bee, who had come in with a candlestick and perched on one of the beds. ‘You’ve got as many clothes as a . . . as a princess!’

  ‘You won’t need them,’ May said. ‘We don’t go to the theatre much here, and there aren’t too many parties.’

  Was May being sarcastic? Ruby wasn’t sure. She closed the suitcase and dumped it on the floor. ‘I’ll put everything away tomorrow,’ she said.

  Walter poked his head around the door. ‘Ruby, I’ve put your dog in the laundry. He was trying to tear down one of the curtains. It probably smells of possum, because we had one come inside the other night and it ran up the curtain before we could catch it. Dad’s getting a bit upset, though, so it’s best to keep him out of harm’s way. Your dog, not Dad.’

  Ruby was mortified. It was too bad of Baxter! ‘Thank you, Walter. Um – where is the laundry?’

  ‘Down the back,’ Walter said. ‘May’ll show you.’

  ‘It’s next to the bathroom,’ May said. ‘You can wash if you want to, but you can forget about having a bath till next week. There are pots under the beds, and the lav is outside. I’d better show you.’

  She picked up the lamp and Ruby followed her along the hall and out through the back door. At the end of an overgrown path was a small, creeper-covered wooden building. The door was open, and May’s lamp shone on ragged curtains of cobweb with black spiders lurking inside. The lavatory itself was a timber slab with a round hole in it.

  ‘Oh, it smells,’ said Ruby, holding her nose. ‘And how do you flush? There’s no chain to pull. And there’s no paper.’

  May moved the lamp to show her a pile of newspaper. ‘There’s plenty of paper,’ she said. ‘When you’ve finished, you throw down some ash. It’s in that bucket there. You’ll get used to it.’

  I didn’t think people still lived like this! thought Ruby. What on earth have Mother and I got ourselves into?

  RUBY slept badly. The mattress on her bed was hard and lumpy, and the wire mesh beneath it sagged. The pillow was lumpy too, and although the sheets smelled fresh, the blankets were threadbare. Ruby longed for her comfortable bed at home. Then she realised that this was practically the first time she’d ever gone to bed without a goodnight kiss from Dad, and tears trickled from her eyes and soaked into the horrible musty pillow.

  The unfamiliar sound of a rooster crowing woke her from a terrifying dream. She was trying to escape from an angry mob of people. The crowd was pushing her forward and she was struggling to get back and trying to call for her mother, but making no sound. Then somehow Baxter was there too, and he was being trampled by an enormous police horse, and he was whimpering with pain. He was hurt – he was dying! Baxter!

  She opened her eyes. Slowly the fear drained away, but she could still hear Baxter whimpering. Where was he? Then she remembered: Walter had shut him in the laundry last night. The minute she was up, she’d go and rescue him. She realised that she’d been having her nightmare about the Victoria Square riots again – that awful time when she and Mother had been caught up in the middle of a protest march.

  May, a dark mound in the bed next to her, stirred and swung her legs out of bed.

  ‘Bee!’ she whispered. ‘It’s half past five!’ She pulled back her little sister’s blanket, ignoring her muffled protests. ‘Come on,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s our turn to do the milking. Walter and Mother did it all last week. You know how angry Father gets if we’re late.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Leave her. She doesn’t have to get up. She probably never gets up till about eight o’clock anyway.’

  Ruby couldn’t miss the scorn in May’s voice. What cheek! she thought. May and Bee wouldn’t get up this early either if they didn’t have to!

  While her cousins got dressed in the semi-darkness, Ruby pretended to be asleep. As soon as they left, she jumped out of bed, stubbing a toe on her suitcase. She squealed and hopped around for a while, then put on her dressing gown and made her way to the laundry.

  Baxter was lying next to an overturned dish that had once held water. Clearly he had spent some of the night killing a towel, which he must have dragged from the wooden clotheshorse. It was lying in tattered pieces all over the concrete floor.

  When he saw Ruby, he got slowly to his feet, stretched, and wagged his tail.

  ‘Oh, Baxter,’ Ruby said, looking at the mess. ‘Oh my hat. If Uncle James sees this, you’re in the most awful trouble.’

  She heard voices in the kitchen: Uncle James and Aunt Vera must be up. There was no time to think. In the dim light she saw a bag with the word MENDING embroidered on it hanging from a nail on the back of the door. Quickly she gathered up the torn bits of towel and stuffed them into it. She’d come back later and try to find a better hiding place.

  ‘I should be cross with you, Baxter,’ she said. ‘But it’s not really your fault, is it? Poor darling, you’re bored to sobs. I’ll let you out for a run.’

  She went to the flywire back door and opened it, Baxter pushing eagerly ahead of her.

  Too late Ruby saw the furry huddle of cats on the verandah.

  There was a loud screech, and a scuffle. The cats leaped away in all directions, hissing and snarling. A big black cat flashed out a paw, and Baxter yelped as a claw raked do
wn his nose. The cat streaked away. Baxter raced after it.

  Ruby stood on the stone doorstep, wondering what to do. Very soon she decided that going after Baxter was pointless. Apart from that, her feet were cold and she wasn’t wearing slippers.

  She closed the door and tiptoed back to bed.

  The chip heater in the bathroom was lit only once a week for baths because, as Mother explained, Uncle James couldn’t afford to waste either water or fuel. All the water came from a bore and had to be pumped up into the house tank.

  Shivering in her shell-pink rayon petticoat and matching drawers, Ruby dabbed at bits of herself, dipping her face flannel in a puddle of cold, tea-coloured water in the rust-stained basin. She didn’t want to touch the large orange block of carbolic soap, which was grimed with grey streaks and smelled like tar.

  How can I ever get used to this? she thought. It’s too bad. I don’t want to be poor. I hate being poor. I wasn’t meant to be poor. But May calling out, ‘Get a move on, Ruby!’ and hammering on the door made her so cross that she forgot to be sorry for herself. She stormed out of the bathroom, her head held high.

  Breakfast was porridge, served with salt, the Scottish way. ‘Porridge sets you up for the day like nothing else,’ Aunt Flora told Ruby. ‘I hope you don’t ruin it with sugar.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Ruby took a mouthful of the porridge, and gagged. ‘Oh . . . it’s horrible!’

  She poured herself a glass of milk and drank it to take the taste out of her mouth.

  Uncle James glared at her, his face twitching. ‘In this house children don’t help themselves,’ he said. ‘If you want something, you ask for it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ruby, putting down her glass. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’ Should she pour the milk back into the jug? She decided to drink it anyway.

  ‘And you’d better mind that dog of yours,’ Uncle James said. ‘He kept me awake half the night with his noise. Damn thing shouldn’t be in the house.’

  ‘But he’s a house dog,’ Ruby said. Her heart began to race: she’d forgotten that Baxter was still on the loose. She remembered the ripped towel, and prayed that Baxter wasn’t doing anything else that might upset her uncle. ‘He’s not used to living outside.’