Open Writing

"You'll have to tell her Ma.'

"No........Father will tell her." Ma and Caroline were working beside the dim light of a single kerosene lamp.

Father roused from his snooze by the fire opened his eyes. "Tell who what?"

“Tell Mother Baker she can’t wear the hat to my wedding." Caroline pouted and squinted over her embroidery. She was carefully, but inexpertly, sewing a petticoat which would form part of her trousseau.

"Humph I doubt she'll listen to me. It's a shame Tommy saved it last summer!"

"He had to! She’d started taking her clothes off to rescue it when the wind blew it into the surf." Caroline giggled.
Father’s whiskers which lay across his chest like a table napkin he had forgotten to remove rippled with his laughter. “What a sight! Imagine Mother Baker in her knickers on the Queenscliff beach with all those snobby tourists watching!"

"Harold! Don’t speak of your mother that way, SHUSH!" But Ma could barely conceal her smile.

Mother Baker’s hat was a serious and constant topic of conversation in the household and a source of amusement in many other homes throughout the town. Ever since Pa Baker’s death she had insisted on clamping the old, unfashionable felt affair onto her thinning grey hair. Once, the thick ribbon around the crown had been a pleasant lilac shade. Now, with years of greasy finger marks, the odd hole, plus the untimely dipping in Port Phillip Bay, the whole creation was a faded and shabby vestige of its former glory.

The family tried to introduced newer and prettier substitutes as gifts and had once even hidden it. This was unsuccessful and they spent a sleepless night while Mother Baker turned the place upside down searching. Eventually, Ma relented and retrieved it from the garden shed where it was hidden near the bags of 'chook' manure.

Mother Baker glaring at everyone wordlessly pulled the now smelly adornment down over her ears; refusing to remove it.
Ma and Father accepted the old lady's eccentricity with some indulgence and made allowances.

Caroline and her brother Tommy, on the other hand, were embarrassed by her behaviour.

Sundays in church were the worst. Often when she prayed with great intensity or nodded off during the long and tedious sermons, it would slide to a rakish angle, toppling to the floor with a thud. The two youngsters knew their friends made bets on when or if it would fall.

************************

Grandpa Baker drowned when his fishing trawler sank during a particularly violent storm in Bass Straight.

Following this tragedy, despite the old lady’s protests, the family moved into her small home. ‘To keep her company’
Already living with her was a small, inoffensive woman, whose sole purpose in life appeared to be taking care of Mother Baker. Aunt Pru as she was known was the family’s maiden aunt and the butt of everyone’s jokes. Particularly after she refused the one and only marriage proposal which came her way.

She cared for Mother Baker diligently and with patience and Ma was grateful for the extra help around the cramped cottage. The two older women shared a tiny room. Mother Baker had a large bed and Aunt Pru' slept on a narrow miner’s couch which was stuffed with horsehair and prickled her sensitive skin. She didn’t mind. The old lady was good to her and often when Pru’ brought her warm milk and port of an evening, the rough hands would take Pru’s thin fingers and pat them saying, " Don't worry, one day you'll be glad of all this. You’ll see....” And with a little smile, she would settle back on her pillow to snore surprisingly loudly for such a small woman.

**********************

As she did each evening, Aunt Pru' sat by the kitchen stove alone.

"Come and join us in here Pru.” Ma called from the parlour.
"No thank you Masie, the light is good enough here to read by."
"What are you reading?"

"I bet it's a romance." Young Tommy sniggered.

"Shhh." Hissed Ma, as Caroline whispered. 'Some hope!" The two young ones laughed.

Aunt Pru' coloured a little, and her hands trembled. She tried to concentrate on her reading, only too aware of how obliged she felt for the roof over her head. She had tried to accept her lot in life and, like the good lady she was, make the best of it. It seemed just a shame she had so little to make the best with.

****************

Caroline's wedding was planned for late November when the town’s gardens would be decked in spring blossoms and the worst of the winter gales over. The inhabitants of the tiny fishing village would be anticipating the influx of summer tourists bringing their fat wallets. This Caroline happily surmised should make the wedding guests generous with their gifts.

Father was a builder and thought by many, to be quite well off. He did however leave most jobs with a slightly unfinished touch. His clients usually forgave him and used it as an excuse to delay paying the bills. However, the wedding celebrations by the town’s standards, were expected to be a grand affair.
Ma was keen to have Caroline married. It would relieve the overcrowding in the house and make her life easier. It disappointed her as she watched her daughter grow more self centred as the marriage grew nearer. The arrangements were the cause of many arguments and tears and Ma would be glad to have it over.

The church Ladies Guild would ‘do’ the generous wedding breakfast. This ensured the village felt everyone had an input in the celebrations and gave them opportunities for speculation and gossip before the big event.

************************

At last the momentous day arrived. The wind was blowing hard up through 'The Heads'. The Antarctic chill fresh on its lips pushed before it great white and grey blankets of clouds across the sky, occasionally threatening rain.

The guests were up early and bellowing at each other to get out of bathrooms and outhouses. Father and a neighbour chatted over the side paling fence, as they waited for their outside lavatories to be vacated.

Their conversation came to an abrupt end when a scream issued from the Baker’s ‘lav’ and Aunt Pru' came scuttling out, scrabbling to put her clothes to right and near to hysteria.

“Snake!” she was screaming. ”There’s a snake in the lav!”

Father was quick to see Tommy running off and grabbed his collar shaking him like an old door mat. “I thought it was Ivan dad honest!” The boy protested.

Ivan the cousin, who had been visiting, crept out of the wood shed.

Tommy between shakes and yelling explained he had opened the ‘night man’s’ door at the back and using a stick, poked the pink bottom he thought was Ivan’s.

Tommy was given a cuff which made his ears red for hours. Despite his punishment, the two boys ran to the pier their laughter drifting back to everyone on the wind.

Ma was furious. After inspecting Aunt Pru’s bottom and assuring her there were no bites. She administered a large brandy to the mortified lady.

“As if I don’t have enough with Caroline and her tears and temper.” She complained to Father.

Mother Baker presented herself for inspection, resplendent in a deep red coat she had unearthed from a trunk, combined with a large leather handbag and new black boots. However, on her head sat the offending hat, newly decorated with a sprig of orange blossom.

'Oh, NO!....... Mother Baker please wear a different hat." The girl pleaded.

Her face flooding with indignation the old lady scowled at her granddaughter. “T’is a fine hat my girl. I paid one shillin’ and tuppence for it new the week I left Cork.”

"But Mother Baker it’s not new NOW! It's old and it smells!" Wailed Caroline.

"If my hat ain’t good enough, then I don't go." She banged her walking stick on the floor to emphasize her resolve as her cheeks wobbled in anger.

"Leave it dear." Ma begged.

"But Ma....”

"People understand dear." Ma put an arm around Caroline. 'Come on, time to go.” And she led her daughter and a slightly tipsy Aunt Pru to the door.

*********

The service was a bright affair. The organist had practised hard however; excitement and the sight of the crowded church unnerved her. This resulted in excruciatingly discordant notes and made some hymns unrecognizable. No one worried, the day was for pleasure.

Surrounded by a high iron fence, the church stood on a hill overlooking the town. A rough gravel road led down the long winding way to the main streets.

Uninvited guests came to watch and gawk at proceedings standing or leaning on the fence. Caroline's and the bridegroom’s friends came in their finery to flirt and have fun.
A carriage lent to the couple waited outside. The horses were a good looking pair although restive and stamped the ground nervously when sudden gusts blew leaves and twigs in their eyes.

Following the service, Mother Baker walked carefully down the hill on her way to the reception hall. She was wary of the uneven gravel surface and the rough stones. Always fond of horses, she decided to pat the carriage pair.

Just as she reached up to a quivering muzzle the wind gusted wildly lifting her hat from her head and driving it with force into the animal’s eyes. It flew up and across the stony road. Mother Baker cried out in fright and the horses seeing the great dark object flying at them and hearing Mother Baker's cries, panicked. Hard, wildly flaying hooves thrashed the air and crashed the carriage behind them.

Leaping and shuddering they plunged forward and in one deadly movement knocked Mother Baker to the ground. Her head struck the heavy bluestone rock of the town’s deep storm water guttering, killing her instantly.

Amid the sobbing of the women and the sad quiet talking of the men, her small broken body was lifted gently into the undertaker's cart which now stood beside the still nervous animals of the wedding carriage.

Walking miserably across the road Ma picked up the infamous hat, hardly able to believe it had caused the old lady’s death.

**********************

Some days later, while cleaning Mother Baker’s bedroom, Ma found the pretty garnet necklace the old lady had worn for her own wedding many years previously.

She gave this to Caroline. It would look nice on her young neck.

Grandfather’s gold watch went to Tommy. He found it necessary to check the time constantly and did it with an important flourish of his arm, holding the watch aloft to read. Then with a loud click of the case and portentous announcement of the exact hour and minutes, whether anyone inquired or not, replaced the cherished timepiece back in his pocket. He repeated the performance so often the family were eventually fed up and telling him to "shut up" each time his hand strayed toward his pocket.

Ma was about to throw the hat which had been the cause of so much discord and misery, into the rubbish.

“Oh Masie, please let me keep it for a little while.” Aunt Pru called, holding out her hands.

“How can you be sentimental about it Pru?” she asked. But seeing the look on her face, she relented.

Aunt Pru placed the hat on the cleared dressing table and that night enjoyed the comfort of the large bed for the first time.
***************

To the family’s surprise they were asked to bring the hat with them to the solicitor’s office. The air in the room had a disagreeable mustiness on such a hot and dusty day and they sat stiffly on the hard chairs provided. The hat, looking like a dead animal’s carcass, reposed on the large leather topped desk between gold plated ink wells.

Mr Stoop the solicitor had been droning on for so long the Bakers were becoming eager to get to the gist of the will and go home to change into more comfortable clothing. They felt some sympathy for a moth trying to escape the closed window. Eventually, the family learned of a piece of land ‘The Old Dear” as Mother Baker was now being called, had bequeathed them and a large sum of money.

“Now, Mrs Baker made a rather unusual Will you understand,” He stopped speaking long enough to look at each one separately. “ Evidently.” He continued. “Evidently, she has left this er..hat, to Miss Prudence.”

The youngsters laughed and Ma and Father pressed their lips together very firmly, trying hard not to join in.

Aunt Pru grew red to the tips of her ears.

Ma was thinking how lucky it was she hadn’t thrown it out. Aunt Pru may not have received anything.

Aunt Pru was chastising herself about her feelings of disappointment. Surely after all her years of care and loyalty there might have been some small thing for her!

Tommy whispered to Caroline that maybe she could have it stuffed.

Pa glared at him and “Humphed” loudly.

“Evidently.’ Mr Stoop repeated yet again, seemingly unaware of the mirth that was barely being concealed. “It contains something quite valuable.”

“OH?” Ma was first to recover. “That old thing?”

Mr Stoop nodded as he surveyed the object with its torn rim, faded ribbon and dried, dejected orange blossom which not long ago, looked so jaunty.

“Yes,” Mr Stoop picked the hat up unable to disguise his distaste in having to handle it. “Allow me to show you.”

With a pair of scissors he cut at the stitches of the ribbon eventually making an opening large enough to remove a small leather pouch and a long thin rolled piece of fine pigskin leather from which he undid a tightly folded document.

“This, Miss Pru is yours.”

Aunt Pru leaned forward and with great uncertainty her shaking fingers took the paper uttering a long “Ooooooh.” as she read.

“Your mother Mr Baker,” Mr Stoop explained. “Has left the deed of the house in which you have all been residing, to Miss Prudence along with this bag of gold and an extra fifty sovereigns.

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” Father slapped his knees.

Ma didn’t quite know how to feel. She was glad for Pru of course, but they had always taken it for granted the house would be theirs.

Father leaned back in his chair laughing. “The old biddy! No wonder she was willing to risk her life for that monstrous old thing! Ah well, Ma, looks like you’ll get that new house you have been hankering for all these years. We’ll build it on the nice piece of land she left us. That’s if Aunt Pru doesn’t mind us staying on while I build it.”

“Oh, Harold.” Prudence, now a woman of property, bowed her head graciously. “You may stay just as long as it takes.”