Elianne Read Free Page A

on the sidelines like a benign monarch, surveying his realm, his subjects and his family with pride.
    The Durham siblings, although no longer among those youngsters so fiercely competing, had shared in the recognition, and taken pleasure in the knowledge that some things hadn’t changed, and some things probably never would. Kate smiled now as she recalled their exchange. Not one word had been spoken, but the glances they’d shared had said everything. They’d been children again: ten or eight or six, no matter, the two-year age difference between each of them had never formed a barrier. Throughout the whole of their childhood, they’d been the three musketeers, and she, in the middle, had been the lynch pin. Kate loved her brothers dearly.
    And as for the hall, she thought, turning to look over her shoulder, well the hall hasn’t changed one bit. The building indeed seemed to belong in a time warp – it had been the same for as long as she could remember.
    Elianne Hall, as it was grandly known, was really just a vast timber-framed building with a tin roof, but for the mill’s workers and extended family it had been a vital hub for generations. Here every form of festivity had taken place, concerts and parties for all occasions, along with birthdays, weddings and wakes. The hall also served as a Sunday school, and not only for the workers’ children. Attendance by the Durham siblings had been mandatory.
    Again Kate wondered why everything seemed so poignant. Is it just because I’ve been away so long? she asked herself. Or is it because I’ve changed? Everything else appears to have remained much the same. It must surely be me.
    She stood. Time to go home. She was hungry now – she’d skipped breakfast for an early-morning walk down by the river.
    Cobber, who’d been dozing in the sun, stretched and joined her as she set off. Ben was nowhere in sight, but she didn’t need to call him. Within minutes he’d appeared and was racing on ahead.
    Across the village green, she could see several girls around fifteen years of age wending their way homewards along the rough bush track. They were animatedly chattering as they returned from their morning stints at Elianne’s cattle yards and dairy a half a mile away. Kate gave them a wave and they waved back. She knew each one of the dairymaids: two were the daughters of the dairy farmer himself, and the third was the butcher’s daughter, who was earning extra money during her school holidays. Their fathers were not seasonal itinerate workers, but lived on the estate running their businesses year-round as many did.
    During the crushing season, several hundred mill and field workers were employed at Elianne, the cookhouse working round the clock to provide dawn breakfasts, packed lunches, smokos, evening meals and shift dinners for the hundred or so accommodated in the single men’s barracks. Throughout the slack season, however, Elianne remained a self-sustaining village catering to the families who lived on the estate. It boasted a general store, a bakery, and a butcher’s shop that was regularly supplied with fresh meat from the nearby piggery and cattle slaughter yards.
    With only two thousand acres of the property under cane, the majority of the mill’s produce came from local farmers, some of whose children worked on the estate alongside others who travelled by foot or bicycle from the settlement of South Kolan, only two miles away. Given the affordability of vehicles and the easy access of modern roads, there were also those who now commuted from Bundaberg, but despite the changes wrought by progress, Elianne remained a community, and a vibrant one at that. Elianne was a family to which people were proud to belong.
    Kate walked on down the road, passing the attractive cottages of South Mill Row with their front verandahs and pretty little gardens. One of these was home to Luigi Fiorelli and his family. There were several such rows of cottages on the estate, but