Hills End Read online

  ‘Frances,’ she said to herself, ‘what a wonderful, wonderful day! Perhaps if I’m clever enough I might even be lucky enough to sit next to Paul Mace before he can move away.’

  ‘Paul!’

  ‘Yes, dad.’

  ‘Will you please find your sister and bring her to the breakfast table. If she wants to get out she’s got to hurry herself.’

  ‘Yes, dad.’

  ‘Your mother is getting impatient and once she gets impatient everything goes to pieces. If your mother starts it’ll ruin the day for us. I’ll never forget last year as long as I live. If that happens again, I’ll—I’ll—’

  ‘Yes, dad.’

  Paul tramped into the wild garden because he knew that Gussie would be there somewhere, digging for crickets, or turning over leaves in search of caterpillars, or climbing tall trees to pet the baby birds.

  ‘Guss-seeee!’

  An untidy and pretty little head bobbed up from the grass. ‘Do you want me?’

  ‘Of course, I don’t want you,’ snorted Paul. ‘What would I want you for? But dad wants you and mum’s getting impatient. Breakfast’s on the table.’

  ‘Really on the table?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Gussie sighed. ‘Parents! Every time we go anywhere it’s always the same. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Bustle, bustle, bustle. Everyone gets nasty and short-tempered. I’ve been ready for hours. Hours and hours. Mum sent me outside because I was getting in the way.’

  ‘Come on, come on!’

  Gussie came, brushing the grass from her dress and the dust from her hands. ‘Bah,’ she said, ‘parents chewing on the wood today of all days!’

  * * *

  Big timber was the life in the veins of Hills End. It was a robust little place full of strong men and brave women, and there were more trees in the mountains than they could ever use and the forest seemed to grow again almost as quickly as they cut it down. Ben Fiddler, the timber-mill boss, valued his axe-men, his mill-hands, and his drivers, and treated them well. He knew how hard it was to bring new men in and to hold them. Hills End was a long, long way from the nearest town, and if the timber had not been of such rare quality and so highly valued on the markets of the world he never would have established his industry in the first place.

  Eighty-five miles it was, across the mountains, from Hills End to the town of Stanley, over a dangerous road, never properly formed, yet used for nine months of the year by the heavy jinkers that carried the dressed logs to the mills and the wharves of the big city another two hundred miles farther on. The drivers knew the road and were ever careful, but even they would not venture over it once the rains began. Sometimes for two months, sometimes for three months of every year, Hills End was cut off from the world, except for the occasional hardy or eccentric bushwalker, and the mailman, arriving once a week in his jeep, nerve-racked and mud-splashed, always vowing that he would never make the trip again.

  Added to the hazard of the road was the bridge at Fiddler’s Crossing, fifteen miles to the south of the hamlet. It spanned a frightening gorge cut to an immense depth by a thundering mountain torrent, the River Magnus. But for the bridge the gorge would be impassable. The mailman was always terrified that he would return to the bridge and find it down, and the mere thought of spending the rest of the wet in Hills End was, he said, ‘enough to send any sane man screaming up the wall’.

  Hills End might have been cut off in the wet season, but it wasn’t idle. The axe-men continued to fell the trees when the weather was fine enough; some logs dragged out by the bulldozers even reached the hamlet in the valley and were milled for the next carting season; other machinery was rested and overhauled; and many of the townspeople, knowing almost to the day when the wet would begin, moved out ahead of it to visit families and distant friends or take a holiday at the seaside.

  Life might have been hard in some ways at Hills End, but the people were not poor, or unhappy, or without the better things of life. Their homes were comfortable, and their community shop was well stocked. They attended a social get-together on Friday nights, a film show on Saturday nights, and chapel on Sunday mornings (all in the one building) when Ben Fiddler took the pulpit and usually preached on the sins of city life.

  Over the period of ten years which marked its whole history, Hills End had settled into a comfortable little rut. The people were content, there never had been a theft or a crime of violence, never a really serious accident, and nothing remotely resembling a disaster.

  At seven o’clock on that fateful Saturday, Miss Elaine Godwin, the schoolmistress, put out a saucer of milk for her cat in the shade of her hydrangeas, shut her cottage door—but didn’t lock it because no one turned a key in Hills End—slung her haversack, took up her long and knotted walking stick, and turned down the track to the schoolhouse.

  The hamlet lay beneath her, not far away, and smoke from the morning fires now drifted across the flats until it vanished in the vapour haze over the great River Magnus. The Magnus poured from the mountains, fed by a thousand springs and streams, rushed onwards over the rocks to the north, through the gullies and the gorges, on towards the distant plains.

  When the mill was silent, except for the slow beat of the big diesel engine that generated light and power for Hills End, a keen ear could hear the river talking to itself, sometimes sighing, sometimes chuckling, sometimes growling, and occasionally crying out in warning. It was a peculiar thing about the Magnus—before rain it always began to rise. Those hundreds of little springs throughout the mountains began to run faster and the river opened its throat and stretched itself.

  No one in Hills End, that morning, seemed to have noticed that the Magnus was restless and strangely swollen. It wasn’t the wet season. This was the dry and dusty season, anyway, it was Picnic Day, and Hills End was too full of the voices of children and their parents.

  Before she had reached the bottom of her track, Miss Godwin could see the cars and the trucks lined up outside the hall. She could distinguish the McLeod children and the Buchanans, and even Ben Fiddler and his foreman, Frank Tobias, full of good humour, lifting the children onto the backs of the trucks and helping the womenfolk into the cabins. Almost the entire population of Hills End was already bustling round the hall or standing in family groups waiting for their particular call to board the car or the truck allotted to them. In another fifteen minutes the township would be empty and the long and exciting drive to the annual picnic races at Stanley would have begun. But it wouldn’t have begun for Miss Godwin. She was not going.

  She paused at the foot of her track and leant on her tall walking stick and smiled over this little township of hers. She loved it and its people so much. She loved its simple houses, its smells, its sounds, and its untidiness. Its straggly growth had offended some people, but Miss Godwin was not the type of person or the type of teacher who expected everyone, always, to be spick and span and on their best behaviour. She knew it was hard for boys to wash behind the ears and for growing girls to be gentle and ladylike. She knew it was difficult for men to control their gardens when there were no fences, and that it was almost impossible for women to keep their houses clean when all the roads and tracks were cut up by bulldozers and tractors and timber jinkers, and when every passing vehicle raised a cloud of dust. She liked people to be natural. She’d rather have them happy and carefree than frightened of a little healthy untidiness.

  She did like people to be happy, as they were now. She realized that in some ways she was a very lonely person. She had been a schoolteacher for so long, working with children, that she simply wasn’t relaxed in the company of adults. She sought her pleasure in the beauty of the earth, learning its story in the rocks and the plants and the tiny creatures she found along the river bank or in the mountains. Miss Godwin was writing a book about the mountains. She had been writing it for years. She knew every word of it by heart and was sure that some day it would make her famous. Miss Godwin didn’t know that it was as dry as the dust at her feet.
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  Paul wasn’t sure how it happened, but he found himself talking to Frances. Normally, he wouldn’t have been seen dead talking to Frances, or to any other girl, for Paul, dapper fellow of thirteen that he was, was one hundred per cent boy. All girls were considered by him to be sub-human, a peculiar form of animal life that messed up an otherwise agreeable world. The most striking example, of course, was Gussie, that younger sister of his. He lumped all girls together in a group with Gussie. Girls were a pain in the neck.

  So, that he should have been talking to Frances was a distinctly unusual event. Frances, though a born lady, had placed herself well.

  ‘What,’ she heard Paul say, ‘is Miss Godwin doing up there?’

  ‘Watching us go, I suppose.’

  ‘Even I can see that,’ he snorted, ‘but everyone’s going to the picnic this year.’

  ‘Mr Tobias isn’t.’

  ‘Well, someone’s got to stop at the mill. That always happens, and it’s Mr Tobias’s turn this year. I reckon we ought make her go with us.’

  Frances smiled. She wasn’t really a child. ‘You couldn’t make Miss Godwin do anything. She’s going up to the cave that Adrian found, the cave with the pictures in it. She’s been dying to get up there.’

  Paul made a noise that was probably a grunt. ‘Pictures! Adrian tells so many whoppers. It’s a story he made up to get himself out of trouble. He was away all day and he had to think of something or he would have got a hiding. It was the first thing that came into his head.’

  ‘I believed him,’ said Frances. ‘And so did Miss Godwin.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been to those caves a dozen times and I’ve never seen any aboriginal drawings—hands and devil men and snakes and things. Phooey! And it’s pretty hard getting up there. Miss Godwin probably won’t be able to do it without someone to show her the way, and then it’ll be for nothing.’

  ‘Why don’t you show her the way?’

  Paul stared at Frances. ‘Don’t be silly. It’s Picnic Day.’

  ‘So you’re not worried then, are you?’ said Frances.

  ‘But I am. Miss Godwin’s a good sport. It’d be awful if anything happened to her. Are you sure that’s where she’s going?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. She was telling us about it yesterday in history period. You were there.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ said Paul. ‘I was up at her cottage splitting firewood…By golly, if this is another of Adrian’s whoppers and if anything happens to Miss Godwin—’

  Paul went looking for Adrian, and Frances, with a hand to the tail of the truck she was about to board, was suddenly unhappy. She respected Paul and she liked him much more than any other boy, and Frances would be content to wait for years and years—as she would have to do—until Paul realized she was waiting. Suddenly, she didn’t want to get on the truck, not until she knew that Paul had forgotten that silly thing she had said—‘Why don’t you show Miss Godwin the way?’ She shouldn’t have said it. The climb to the caves was dangerous, she felt sure, and she didn’t want Paul in danger any more than she wanted Miss Godwin in danger.

  Adrian was already installed in the first truck, best seat in truck, best view, and best dressed. King of the kids was Adrian, handsome and spoilt by everyone. After all, he was Ben Fiddler’s son, the boss’s son, and any friend of Adrian’s was a friend of the boss’s. And Adrian, if he was nothing else, was lovable, impulsive and reckless.

  ‘Hey!’ yelled Paul, beating against the side of the truck. ‘Did you know that Miss Godwin was going to the caves?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ said Adrian. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘You’re sending her off on a wild-goose chase. You know as well as I do there aren’t any drawings. All she’ll get out of it is a broken leg or a broken neck. You’ve got to tell her.’

  Adrian’s handsome young face had reddened. ‘Are you calling me a liar, Paul Mace?’

  ‘If the cap fits, wear it!’

  ‘You can’t talk to me like that. I’m not a liar.’

  ‘I say you are.’

  ‘And I say I’m not.’

  Adrian couldn’t find the right words. Suddenly, he lost his temper because he was guilty and frightened and had to cover up. He leapt over the side of the truck, his cheeks flaming and his conscience smarting, sure that already he had been disgraced in front of everyone. There truly weren’t any drawings and he wondered just how many people knew it. He went over the truck side on top of Paul and bore him down into the dust, shocked, even then, by the silly impulse that had made him do it, terrified while he punched and shouted.

  The place was an uproar of women’s and children’s shrieks and outraged bellows from two or three men. Paul and Adrian were dragged apart and jerked to their feet.

  They were filthy and Paul was as frightened as Adrian, because he had fought the boss’s son, and there was the boss, now, hanging on to his son, glaring at Paul.

  ‘Well,’ demanded Ben Fiddler, ‘what’s the reason for this disgraceful display?’

  ‘He called me a liar,’ hissed Adrian: ‘No one calls me a liar, dad. And with everyone listening, too.’

  ‘Did you?’ Big Ben glared into Paul’s eyes. ‘Did you call my son a liar?’

  It wasn’t fair. That was how it seemed to Paul, because no matter where he looked no one seemed to be friendly, not even his own father and mother. They didn’t look friendly. They looked embarrassed.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he stammered.

  ‘And is he a liar?’

  What could a thirteen-year-old boy say to that? Because Adrian was his friend. Adrian, for all his faults, was good fun and a good friend. But it was true that there was more at stake than honour. There was Miss Godwin and those dangerous caves; the water that sometimes rushed out of them and the loose rocks and the tricky climb to reach them. He didn’t want to hurt Adrian, but he didn’t want Miss Godwin to kill herself, because a woman could never climb paths that were not easy for nimble-footed boys.

  ‘He said something, sir,’ murmured Paul, ‘that wasn’t true. I’m sorry, sir, but he told Miss Godwin that there were old aboriginal drawings in the caves and Miss Godwin’s going to look for them and she’ll be hurt.’

  ‘I know all about the drawings,’ barked Ben Fiddler. ‘So does everyone, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be there. If Adrian says they’re there, that’s where they are. You will apologize to my son.’

  Somehow the right words seemed to be there and Paul said them like a man. ‘I will apologize, sir, if Adrian will come with me and lead Miss Godwin to them. If we don’t lead her she’ll be hurt.’

  Now Ben was a good man and a fair man. He was stern, he was master, but he had his affection for Paul because Paul had grown up with his own son and Paul’s parents had come to Hills End at the very beginning, ten years ago. Ben liked Paul and somehow, at this moment, had never liked him more. This lad was in earnest, and he did know that Adrian could be a little devil, and if Paul was prepared to give up his picnic to prove his point Adrian could do the same.

  ‘Very well,’ said Ben, ‘it’s not much use my preaching to you on Sunday mornings if I can’t do the right thing on Saturday mornings. Adrian, you will do as Paul says. You will go together with Miss Godwin and take her to the drawings. Then Paul can publicly apologize—or you can!’

  Adrian was flabbergasted. ‘But it’s Picnic Day. This is our Picnic Day.’

  ‘So it is. But if the pair of you choose to settle your arguments like savages—just look at yourselves, you couldn’t possibly come as you are—if you act like savages you can do without the pleasures of civilization. And, far from your presence being necessary to protect Miss Godwin, I’ll be happy to leave you both in her safe-keeping.’ Big Ben turned to Paul’s father. ‘All right by you?’

  Paul’s father nodded. There wasn’t much else that he could do.

  ‘Settled!’ Big Ben clapped his hands together and boomed, ‘Everyone aboard! Let’s get ’em rolling.’ He turned back then to his
own son. ‘Adrian,’ he said, ‘I’ll be disappointed if those drawings are not there. I want to see your name cleared. Off with you, the pair of you. If you don’t get up to the schoolhouse Miss Godwin will be gone without you.’

  Adrian didn’t know what to say. He had trapped himself in his own lie. There was no way out except to follow the path his father had laid down for him. He’d have to go through with it in the hope that something would turn up to straighten things out. And to miss the picnic—that was punishment. That was cruel. His father had been cruel. Paul had been cruel. Life at that moment held no joy for Adrian. If he had been alone he would have cried.

  But he wasn’t alone. Gussie, that dreadful sister of Paul’s, suddenly fastened on her brother’s arm. Paul was taken aback; but he shouldn’t have been. Perhaps they squabbled like cat and dog, but there wasn’t a soul living more loyal than Gussie. She hated her brother and loved him to distraction. She called him every word she could think of but she worshipped him. If Paul were condemned to die Gussie would die with him. She clung to his arm and tears were rolling down her cheeks as she said that if Paul couldn’t go to the picnic she wouldn’t go either, and that started it.

  That started it. It certainly did.

  2

  Miss Elaine Godwin

  That she was the source of this argument, Miss Elaine Godwin was unaware. She had entered the schoolhouse, and with the door shut and the windows closed, nothing could penetrate but the deep-seated rhythm of the big diesel engine down at the mill.

  There were two of those engines installed side by side so that one could be rested and maintained while continuous electrical power was supplied. The beat of one engine or the other was always there, but rarely heard. It was so much a part of the township that few ever noticed it, not even the observant Miss Godwin as she sat now, for a few moments, in the chair she had occupied for nine years.

  The classroom was empty of children, yet they were there in the memories that were her only wealth. Children had come and gone; some had stayed at Hills End, but most had gone out into the world and many had never returned. Some had become labourers, some tradesmen, a handful had entered the professions. A few kept in touch with her, but most had vanished into the distant towns or the still more remote cities. In their minds she was an occasional memory, a quaint little spinster quietly dressed, thin but not frail, with her seemingly nondescript hair woven into a tight bun. They never realized how beautiful her hair was, but sometimes they glimpsed a picture of her face, fine, thin, of great kindness but of resolute will. She was not a softie. She had more character than most of her pupils would ever have, but she remembered them with the affection and the humour that one would expect of her. She had had her favourites, the boys and the girls she had loved like a mother, but no one had known, least of all the children themselves.