Broken Threads

by Tessa Barclay

  ‘I’m setting out tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ It was a gasp of dismay.

  ‘No reason to delay ‒ Daniell will sell me the horse I’ve been borrowing and I can get a packhorse at Forbes along with any other equipment I need.’

  ‘Shall I look through your clothes? There may be things that want mending.’

  It was wifely ‒ patient, subdued, gentle. He had loved and admired her as his equal but in that moment when she showed understanding by accepting his decision, he loved her more than ever in his life before.

  When they made love that night it was with a deep and returning passion. In Jenny’s heart there was a whisper that said this might be for the last time. She wouldn’t let herself hear it, but her body was aware of the hidden fear. She responded to Ronald’s demands with a desperate ardour.

  Early next morning he put his neatly rolled gear ‒ his swag ‒ on his horse behind the saddle. He sent messages of goodbye to the people still asleep at the farmhouse. ‘Tell Heather I expect her to be a champion jockey when I get back.’

  ‘When you get back … Ronald, how long do you think you’ll be gone?’

  He looked down at her in the dawn light. ‘Three months? Four?’

  She pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. ‘Take care.’

  ‘Of course. You too ‒ keep busy and don’t worry.’

  ‘Yes, Ronald.’

  A last kiss and a hug. He pulled his wide-brimmed hat over his tawny hair, swung up on the horse and rode away in the long lazy canter he had learnt from the people of the outback.

  She stood still outside the lean-to, listening until the hoofbeats on the parched ground had died away. Then she stole back in her nightdress along the path and into the sleeping house. She found her dressing-gown in the room she shared with her daughter and Baird, pulled it on, and sat on the verandah steps in the cool of the morning.

  Only when Mrs Daniell got up to open up the kitchen range and start the bread-dough did she move. And one glance at her face was enough to keep Mabel Daniell from saying so much as good morning to her.

  At some point in her thinking it had come to Jenny that she ought to go back to Sydney to attend to the various matters of business that waited there. Yet she hated to leave the farm, because it was the place to which Ronald would return.

  When she tried to explain her feelings to Mabel, she was greeted with protests. ‘No need to think you’re leaving! Your room’s always there ‒ why don’t you leave your things in it? You can come back here any time.’

  Baird seconded this. ‘I’ve nothing against Sydney but living in a hotel is no sort of life for a wee lass. Heather loves it here. Why do you not just let her stay here with me, mistress?’

  ‘Do you think she would?’ Jenny asked, surprised.

  ‘We can ask her.’

  Heather was sitting under the ironbark wrestling with the six-times table. She looked up with relief when her mother came to her with Baird.

  ‘Heather, Mama has to go back to the city.’

  The little girl looked attentive.

  ‘Baird says you would like to stay here ‒’

  She shook her head so that her honey-coloured hair bobbed about her ears.

  ‘Wait, let me finish. I’d be back again in a week or two. You could stay here and go on with your riding lessons.’

  This time Heather looked solemn. She put her slate pencil in her mouth and sucked it thoughtfully.

  ‘I’d be here,’ Baird put in. ‘You and me could go for walks thegither, and help Mrs Daniell make the pastry.’

  A pause.

  ‘Well, Heather? Would you like to stay?’

  The child hesitated. Jenny knew it was anxiety about the separation. She picked a leathery leaf from a nearby shrub. ‘I’ll be back before that leaf has withered,’ she said.

  Heather took the leaf, studied it, then looked up and nodded.

  It was settled. Heather would stay, Jenny would go. It was the first separation between them except for the two days when Ronald had left from Liverpool ‒ and the child had been so poorly with measles that she didn’t remember it. So it was a great decision, a great step forward.

  The drive back to Parramatta reinforced Jenny’s anxieties about the country to the northwest. The road to Parramatta wasn’t good but it existed ‒ this was considered ‘easy country’. What it must be like beyond the settlement at Forbes she didn’t care to consider.

  But her husband had told her to keep busy and not to worry. The first was simple enough. Henry Chalmers welcomed her with news of wool auctions due to take place in the following week. Moreover, at her hotel, notes and invitations awaited her. The society leaders of Sydney had ‘discovered’ her ‒ she was asked everywhere.

  ‘Mr Chalmers tells me that you have actually met the Queen?’

  ‘That’s quite true ‒ and the Prince Consort before his death.’

  They were delighted with her. She had brought new fashions with her, new topics of conversation. Almost every evening for the next few weeks she was out, in the surprisingly fine houses on the shores of Sydney Cove. The gardens here were superb. Although the harsh dry weather continued, water was easily available to hose the precious flowers every day. Nothing was more pleasant than to sit on a lamplit terrace after dinner, with the scent of blossoms and the sea mingling on the breeze.

  To the businessmen she presented an opportunity to make money. After about a month of looking at the wool still on sale at Circular Quay, she began to see the good sense in having control of the original product. The best clip had clearly been sold at the very beginning of the season, and before any outsider had a chance to bid for it. What was now coming to market was good, but it was not the best of the crop.

  Her murmurs about buying a sheep station and having it managed by an experienced man were listened to with interest. She was taken to the Camden Park Estate to see what the Macarthur family had done for sheep-rearing. It was impressive, but as she remarked on the fifty-mile drive back to the city, ‘It’s more than I want to do. I don’t want to raise a prize dairy herd or lease out farms to other breeders. I just want to be in control of my wool supply.’

  Over the next few weeks she went to look at several farms. Mr Wolfe, a wholesale merchant of Maitland and a very shrewd speculator in wool, eventually recommended the farm that she decided to buy. It lay about eighty miles north of Sydney, consisting of about ten thousand acres. The present owner had poor health and no children to leave it to. His manager, a married man with one child, very much wanted to remain in his post. When offered a share in the profits in addition to salary if he would take sole charge, he agreed almost without negotiation.

  Mr Chalmers recommended a Sydney law firm, Lionel and Martin Hignett. Contracts were drawn up, and the deal was done. Jenny arranged a small celebratory dinner. The guests were Henry Chalmers and an actress friend of his from the Royal Victoria, Mr Wolfe and his wife, Mr and Mrs Lionel Hignett and the former owner of Giddiring Station.

  Although astounded at being asked to lay on a business dinner by a lady, the landlord of the Australia Hotel made a special effort. He hired out a recently repainted parlour at the back of the ground floor. His housekeeper even produced some silver épergnes in which to make floral decorations for the table.

  It was an agreeable affair. The actress, Lisette Barron, pretended to be a French comedienne, but the occasional slipping of her accent betrayed London origins. Nevertheless she was a lively lady, full of gossip which she heard through a multitude of men friends.

  ‘You know Joseph Mallory ‒ ze reporter for ze Morning Herald?’ she remarked, after her fourth glass of wine. ‘He tol’ me quelque chose de tres interessante at lonchtime.’

  ‘Really? What?’

  ‘If it’s about Susan O’Farrell we don’t want to hear it,’ Mrs Wolfe put in. ‘I’m sick to death of reading about what a marvellous horsewoman she is ‒’

  ‘No, zees is somesing really new ‒ eet only came in ze
es morning. ’E was, how you say, writing it up for tomorrow’s journal.’

  ‘Well, what, my dear?’ asked Mr Hignett, the lawyer.

  ‘You know ze goldrush camp up by ze Lachlan Rivaire?’

  Henry Chalmers sat up and looked at Jenny with some apprehension. Tales from mining camps were generally salty. Jenny waited eagerly for the gossip.

  ‘What about it?’ she urged.

  ‘Joe says eet has been burned out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wait,’ Jenny said faintly. ‘I didn’t quite catch it because of your accent. The camp of the gold-diggers has been burned?’

  ‘Mais oui! Quel drame, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘Was anyone … anyone hurt?’

  ‘But yes! Many dead, and some very badly burned. It was, how you say, un feu-forestier ‒’

  ‘Cut it out, Miss Barron!’ Mrs Hignett said with unladylike sharpness. ‘Mrs Armstrong’s husband is up on the Lachlan.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Lisette, real distress superseding all the pretence. ‘Oh, poor dear ‒ I’m so sorry! If I’d known I wouldn’t for the world ‒’

  ‘Do you know any more?’ Jenny asked in a faltering voice. ‘Did your friend have a list of …of the dead?’

  ‘He only had the bare bones of the story. I’m sorry, Mrs Armstrong, the news just came in with an ox-cart team who arrived in the morning. They’d heard it from the Abos.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ Mr Hignett took up the questions that Jenny couldn’t utter.

  ‘I think about a week ago.’

  ‘Look, Mrs Armstrong,’ said Mr Wolfe, ‘the Lachlan’s a long river. There’s no proof that this particular camp is the one your husband is at.’

  ‘But it’s where the gold was found ‒ that’s right, isn’t it, Miss Barron?’

  ‘Well, yes … Joe said it was the diggers’ camp.’

  ‘But the news could have been exaggerated ‒’

  ‘To be sure, that can transpire,’ Chalmers agreed. ‘There is a regrettable propensity to magnify events.’

  ‘When does the paper come out?’ Jenny asked, trying to regain her sense of the practical.

  ‘Oh, as to that,’ Chalmers got up. ‘I’ll go and ask Joe what he elicited. He’ll either be at their office in Pitt Street or at his lodgings.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Jenny said, half-rising. And then, recalling that she was hostess to the party, she sank down again. ‘Oh, I’m sorry ‒’

  ‘Not at all, Mrs Armstrong ‒ you go ‒ don’t stand on ceremony.’ The men were on their feet, pushing back their chairs, clearing a way for her to the door. Jenny, after a momentary faltering, took them at their word. She seized Henry Chalmers’ arm and went hurrying out with him.

  The stars were out, the breeze from the sea seemed much cooler. Jenny, in her thin dinner-gown of paper silk and lace, shivered. It was colder ‒ winter was coming. Even to sunny Sydney, winter was coming. Or perhaps it was just fear of what she might learn that made her feel cold.

  In the hall of the Herald the porter said that Mr Mallory was still in the building, down by the printing presses where the last of the news was being set up. He was inclined to argue when Chalmers headed for the stairs down to the printing office, but the glint of silver changed his mind.

  The noise in the printing department was deafening. Accustomed though she was to carding and weaving machines, Jenny almost cowered back from the presses. A tall skinny man with a shock of black hair was leaning over a flat bed of print with an aproned man by his side. He had to be tapped on the shoulder before he was aware he was wanted.

  ‘Can we go outside?’ Chalmers shouted in his ear. ‘We need to ask you something.’

  ‘I’m busy Henry!’

  ‘This is important. Important!’

  Unwillingly Mallory left his work and went with Chalmers to the door where Jenny hovered.

  ‘This is Mrs Armstrong,’ Chalmers said, in his anxiety forgetting proper form. ‘Tell her what you know about the fire on the Lachlan, Joe.’

  ‘It’ll be in tomorrow’s edition.’

  ‘Come on, my friend, show some consideration. Mrs Armstrong’s husband ‒’

  ‘Oh yes, I heard he’d gone up there … I’m sorry, ma’am, there’s almost nothing I can tell you. The men with the wagon team had stopped at an Abo camp on their way in. They said the Abos told them there had been a big fire ‒ they heard of it from some of their tribe who were out hunting and saw the smoke.’

  ‘You mean that’s all ‒ they didn’t go into the camp themselves?’

  ‘Didn’t need to. They climbed a tree and had a dekko. You know what their eyesight is like. They said there were a lot of bodies lying about and some men crawling as if they’d been hurt.’

  ‘Didn’t they go to help?’ Jenny broke in, aghast.

  ‘Well, ma’am, I daresay they were scared ‒ there are fellers in the bush who set upon miners in their camps for the gold they’ve found. White men get up to some funny tricks and if the Abos get in their way, the Abos tend to come off worst. ’Sides, they had freshly killed game they wanted to take back to their womenfolk.’

  ‘So all we are cognisant of,’ Chalmers said, ‘is that the camp has been burnt and men are hurt or … or … ’

  ‘Or killed. Yes, that’s about it.’

  ‘When will we hear more?’ Jenny asked.

  The reporter looked at her with surprise that changed to pity. ‘Gee, ma’am, news comes in from places like that more by chance than intention. It might be a coupla weeks before we hear more.’

  ‘But isn’t anyone going ‒?’

  ‘Yes, I reckon there’ll be a rescue party. The Herald is putting up fifty pounds towards medical supplies and equipment ‒ you’ll see it in the paper tomorrow. There’ll be an appeal to the readers for help.’

  ‘Dr Vance will volunteer,’ Chalmers said.

  ‘I reckon. He’s generally first to offer ‒ can’t settle down to doling out cough syrup to old ladies.’

  ‘Where does Dr Vance live?’ Jenny demanded.

  ‘Where? In York Street, on the opposite side to the Market Sheds. You going to offer him funds for the first aid party?’

  ‘I’m going with him.’

  ‘You what?’ said Mr Mallory, shocked. ‘Listen, lady, that’s not the kind of thing a woman ought to ‒’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ Jenny said curtly as she turned away. ‘If there are injured men they’ll need nursing, won’t they?’

  ‘Yes, but ‒’

  ‘Will you show me the way to Dr Vance’s house?’ she said to Chalmers, leaving the reporter’s protests behind her as she led the way out.

  Dr Vance proved to be a young man with a face much battered by his love of boxing, wrestling and steeplechasing. When he heard the news from his unexpected visitors, he immediately began opening cupboards in search of items he ought to take with him to the Lachlan. ‘Fifty pounds from the Herald?’ he muttered. ‘We ought to be able to buy plenty of bleached cotton and laudanum after we’ve paid for the wagon and food supplies ‒’

  ‘I’ll pay for the wagon,’ Jenny broke in. ‘I was going to travel tomorrow in any case ‒ I try to visit Daniell’s farm every week or ten days so I had made arrangements.’

  ‘Good on you,’ enthused the doctor. ‘We’ll take the wagon you were going to use ‒ you can get something else for your trip easily enough ‒’

  ‘Just a minute. I mean, you can use the carriage and take me on the trip.’

  Dr Vance let his broad-lipped mouth fall open. ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Oh yes. I’m going, Doctor, whether I actually travel with you or follow along behind you. Wouldn’t it make more sense if we rode together?’

  ‘Now look here, Mrs Armstrong, I quite see that you’re anxious about your husband, but believe me, it’s not the kind of thing a woman should ‒’

  ‘Oh, how can you talk such nonsense!’ Jenny cried. ‘Miss Nightingale and her nurses went to the Crimea ‒ was that the “kind of thing a woman
should do”?’ She banged a fist on his desk. ‘I’m going to the Lachlan River. I ordered the carriage to be waiting for me at Parramatta at nine, so get your supplies to Redfern Station tonight so they can be put aboard first thing in the morning. We’ll transfer them to the cart as soon as we get to the other end.’

  ‘Look here ‒’

  ‘Shall I come with you, Mrs Armstrong?’ Chalmers inquired meekly.

  ‘You don’t mean you agree with this?’ Vance exclaimed in indignation.

  ‘I’ve come to realise that Mrs Armstrong knows what she’s doing. And what she says makes sense ‒ Gunder and his carriage will be waiting, you can get your necessities aboard in ten minutes, and who knows how long it might take if you started on your own hiring a wagon from Coffill’s ‒’

  ‘Well, that’s true, but all the same ‒’

  ‘I won’t be a nuisance,’ Jenny promised, modifying her tone to one of quiet good sense. ‘I’m used to travelling ‒’

  ‘But we don’t want to waste time going to Daniell’s ‒’

  ‘No, no, I quite understand. I’ll send a note to my little girl’s nurse to let her know I shan’t be coming for a while.’

  It was arranged that Chalmers should approach a widow-woman of his acquaintance to go too ‒ a capable soul who had taught school in the outback and knew how to deal with emergencies. Next morning they set out with boxes and hampers loaded in the luggage van of the train. At Parramatta Chalmers and the doctor hired horses while the porters and Gunder loaded the supplies on the cart. Jenny had already written to Baird. She gave the letter to a travelling haberdasher to deliver, with a florin for his trouble.

  By nine-thirty they were on their way. The weather was cooler though not cold by Jenny’s standards. A strong gusty wind blew, dust rose up to plague them and get in their eyes, their nostrils, and in the food they ate when they stopped for a breather. Mrs Gray showed Jenny how to eat with her back turned to the wind and her dish held in the protective lee of the cart.

  It was almost a week’s travelling ‒ long hard days and cool nights by a welcome camp fire. Jenny tried to contain her anxiety to be getting on. She knew it was no use overstraining or injuring the horses by useless effort in failing light. It was the month of May ‒ Jenny kept trying to envisage what the countryside would be like around Galashiels now, the lush young grass springing in the river valleys, the trees in new leaf, the Gala Water rushing in its bed in full flood. How different from this vast terrain.