Where the Murray River Runs

by Darry Fraser

  The door was thrown open and CeeCee ushered her inside. ‘You look a bit worn around the edges.’

  ‘I am.’ Linley walked ahead down the small passage past the parlour, out the back door and into the tiny kitchen room. Simply furnished with a table and two chairs, a cooking fire and utensils, it was a haven. She checked the teapot for heat and poured a pannikin for herself, lifting it in offer to CeeCee.

  ‘Yes, please, but I think perhaps something a little stronger, Lin.’

  CeeCee had followed her inside after shutting the back door to the main house. She was still in her day dress, a pale green muslin that fell neatly over her compact frame, its cheerful simplicity a reminder of CeeCee’s casual grace. She turned and shut the kitchen door, the warmth in the room snug around them. She pushed her hands into her pinny pocket.

  Linley pulled a face. ‘If we had anything, which we do not. But Madeira would be nice.’

  ‘Indeed it would. Perhaps a tiny splash of rum in our tea, just this once.’ CeeCee produced a tiny flask from her apron and poured a nip each into their tea mugs.

  ‘Aunty.’

  ‘Dreadful, I know. But I have something to talk to you about, and we might need fortification.’

  ‘What is it?’

  CeeCee pulled a letter from her deep pocket. ‘Sit down with me, Lin, then we can finish up and go and fetch Toby home.’ She pulled the single page from its envelope and spread it over the table. ‘This is a note come from Mr Campbell’s office today.’

  A shiver raced down Linley’s spine, as if cool fingertips had feathered a trace along it. She sat opposite her aunt at the little table. ‘Mr Campbell, Mary’s solicitor?’

  CeeCee let a beat pass. ‘Yes.’ She smoothed the letter once more. ‘He says that Mr Wilkin visited him today.’

  Linley frowned at her aunt. ‘But you said that Mr Campbell’s letter arrived here today.’

  ‘Hand-delivered, no less, by Miss Juno, so that tells me Mr Campbell has grave concerns. It appears Mr Wilkin was most upset that Mary had not made provision for him in her will.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Mary made a will and excluded the horrible man. That should be the end to it.’

  ‘If only it were so. Mr Campbell simply says we should be on our guard about Mr Wilkin’s behaviour. He says he doesn’t believe the man has any claim, but if he finds a sympathetic law person, or finds some money, he might just put up a fight. He also thinks the man has addled wits.’

  Linley looked at her hands, clenching and releasing as if on their own accord. She dropped them to her lap. ‘I don’t believe he has any money to fight for anything. We know he was hoping for Mary’s inheritance. She told you that.’

  ‘Well, we know Mary bequeathed it to a trust for her child instead.’ CeeCee had her hands around her mug of tea. ‘As Mary’s solicitor, Mr Campbell is well aware of you as her choice of guardian for Toby.’ She folded the letter and replaced it in her pocket. ‘So I think he is warning us. We should take some measures of sorts.’

  Linley jolted at that. ‘What measures? For what?’

  CeeCee poured another wee nip into her tea and offered it to Linley, who shook her head. ‘I think we should be vigilant, as Mr Campbell suggests. Perhaps at no time should we leave the baby with only just one of us. We should both take him to Mrs Lovell’s and we should both be present here in the house at all times. We should both go to market. Those sorts of things.’

  ‘What about the police? We should inform them.’

  CeeCee took a sip and set down the mug, her hands enclosing it once again. ‘The police.’ She looked to the ceiling and back. ‘The police do not like women residing anywhere without a male family member alongside. The police might actually take Mr Wilkin’s side if he approached them about the baby.’ She looked at Linley. ‘Here we are, two unmarried women tak-ing on another’s baby. A baby who is, by all accounts, a bastard, except for said man’s marriage certificate.’ She sighed. ‘I would venture there are those who would prefer to place the baby with Mr Wilkin.’

  Heat crawled up Linley’s neck. ‘Surely we would never allow that man—’

  ‘Surely. But if it were said that we were not taking great care of the baby, it could go against us.’ CeeCee tapped the table. ‘There are malicious gossipers all around.’

  ‘My blood boils at all of that.’

  ‘Which is why we do what we do as quietly as possible. Now we might have to do it for ourselves.’

  Linley fiddled with the cuff of one sleeve, picking at a slight fray. She might be in need of another day dress soon. She would wait a bit longer before mentioning it to CeeCee. ‘Mr Campbell knows that Wilkin handed Toby over to my care. Wilkin practically threw the poor babe at Miss Juno.’

  ‘I am certainly grateful to Miss Juno for acting as your agent. She is a brave girl.’ CeeCee nodded. ‘Wilkin thought, no doubt, that his marriage to Mary was all he needed to secure her inheritance.’ She held up the letter. ‘Mr Campbell also says that the baby is not yet registered and that Wilkin was informed of that.’

  ‘What?’ Linley’s gaze snapped back to her aunt.

  ‘Probably has no clue that’s what’s supposed to happen.’

  The scoff burst from Linley’s throat. ‘Even if it was his, he would not want him.’ She felt the colour rise again and looked away. ‘I will register Toby to me and—’

  CeeCee interrupted. ‘Except now he gets no money unless he’s the guardian.’ She reached over and patted her niece’s hand. ‘Lin, you must try and harden your sensibilities a little. You are by far too … ladylike in this business.’ She sat back, withdrawing her hand. ‘He might now believe he is better served by having the baby …’ Her voice drifted off.

  ‘That cannot happen.’ Linley glared at her aunt.

  CeeCee studied her for a moment. ‘And you are sure the baby’s real father knows nothing of him? Is there no chance he might suddenly appear and—’

  ‘No. No chance of that. He doesn’t know about the baby.’ Linley’s face burned and she knew without looking that her aunt would know she was hiding something.

  CeeCee let a few moments pass. ‘Clearly you know who the father is, Linley, and that is going to be a great burden for you to carry as you bring up little Toby.’

  Linley hesitated. ‘You would not think very highly of him if you knew.’

  ‘My dear, it hardly matters to me who he is. Why would it? Except for your having to carry the weight of it all alone.’

  Linley pressed her lips shut in case she said something she didn’t want to. It was bad enough she knew the identity of the baby’s father, she didn’t want to add to her own anguish by having to tell CeeCee that the man she’d loved since childhood had—

  ‘And you’re sure Mary didn’t tell the baby’s father she was with child?’ CeeCee tilted her head to catch Linley’s downcast glare.

  ‘If she did, he clearly hasn’t bothered to step up,’ Linley burst.

  CeeCee sighed. ‘A sore point for you and exactly what I mean.’ She tapped the table again. ‘But what if Mary did tell him?’

  ‘He should’ve married her then,’ Linley snapped then huffed out a loud breath. ‘We have been over this.’ She had to calm herself. Somehow. Breathe. Take deep breaths.

  ‘We have. And I’m only trying to help, to find any solutions to the situation.’

  ‘I will take Toby away.’ Linley couldn’t help the shrill in her voice. ‘I could go to your place in Echuca. I will go there with him and no one will know.’

  CeeCee nodded her approval. ‘Glad you think that way. I’ve been thinking for some time it might have to come to that, and I know exactly what we can do.’

  Linley started. What? CeeCee had showed no surprise … ‘Do you know something more? Something I should be aware of?’

  ‘No, no, my dear girl.’ Another pat to Linley’s hand. ‘Just be aware. If you feel you have to run, we have to have a plan. Oh, now, I can see by your face I’ve frightened you.’

  ‘We
ll, I—what plan?’ Her heart pounded, and a throbbing began behind her eyes.

  CeeCee sat back in her chair, nursing her tea. ‘From here, there are only two places. Melbourne, of course, or Echuca as you say.’

  ‘And go to whom? I have no money except what you provide. I would have to call myself a widow, and masquerade to avoid—’

  ‘We don’t need quite the melodrama just yet.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘Let’s not talk of that right now,’ CeeCee insisted. ‘We should go and get our baby before the night is any more gone.’

  ‘CeeCee …’

  ‘No more just yet.’ Her aunt stood, opened the kitchen door and poured out her tea onto the dirt. ‘Come along. You’ll need a shawl.’

  Linley watched as her aunt headed back into the main house. What on earth could she mean? And such a mystery—either Melbourne or Echuca. Did she mean to the shelters?

  Oh my lord—have I just become a woman in need of shelter?

  She was staring at the open door of the main house when CeeCee’s sharp command jolted her out of her thoughts.

  ‘And be sure to lock that kitchen door after you.’

  Linley swept from the room, slammed the door, turned the key in the clumsy lock, and clutched it until she was inside. She slung it onto the dresser in the hallway and picked her shawl off the umbrella stand.

  CeeCee was at the door, her own shawl wrapped around her. ‘Hurry along, miss, we have a baby to fetch. And we will not talk of this as we walk. There are gossips listening everywhere.’

  CeeCee paid Mrs Lovell for her care of Toby and only once he was sleeping in Linley’s arms did they decide it was time to take the walk home.

  ‘And Miss Seymour …’ Mrs Lovell reached across the kitchen table and handed CeeCee a small cooking pot. ‘Thank you for the loan of the pot, but my big girl has worked for one. Mrs Lee at the bakery found herself with more than she needs, so my lass was able to buy it. So, this is yours back, scrubbed clean and all. No marks from the cooking fire.’

  CeeCee took the long-handled pot. ‘If you’re sure, Mrs Lovell. But could you not use a second pot, especially now with another little one?’

  Mrs Lovell appeared to bristle. ‘Quite sure, thank you. You see there, we have our own now.’ She lifted her chin in the direction of the hearth and the pot hanging from its handle underneath the mantelpiece.

  ‘Very good.’ CeeCee let the pot dangle from her hand as there was no other way to carry it home. Had she overstepped the mark? Oh well, it was just a pot. ‘We should be off then.’

  Mrs Lovell stood up, her stature made more stout by her buxom, bountiful bosom, and held up a hand. ‘Wait, Miss Seymour. My lass enquired further about something I overheard at the market.’

  Linley cradled the baby and swayed to and fro as she stood. ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Well, it might put me out of a job, but it would make things a bit easier all around, I’d reckon.’ Her bright blue eyes crinkled almost closed as she smiled down at the sleeping baby.

  ‘In that case, we’re all ears, Mrs Lovell.’ CeeCee stood at Linley’s shoulder, but she was impatient to leave for the walk home.

  ‘It’s that tinned milk for babes, Miss Seymour. Been around a while. It is in Bendigo and your baby has had a good start with mother’s milk.’ She pressed her lips together and moistened them. ‘I can’t afford the tinned stuff, mind, but neither do I need it.’ She looked down at her ample chest. ‘My own baby needs me.’ She lifted her chin towards the cot in the corner of the room. ‘But it might interest you ladies, for Toby, because, well, to save you here and there. You know, for feeding him.’

  Ah. It seemed Mrs Lovell wanted to finish up feeding Toby.

  CeeCee glanced at Linley who coloured flaming red again. What is it with that girl? ‘Thank you, Mrs Lovell. Of course we’re interested to hear about it.’

  ‘It’s called—’ She turned her head and yelled over her shoulder. ‘What’s that milk called, Nellie?’

  A flat young female voice answered from somewhere else in the house. ‘Condensed Milk. Gold Medal.’

  Mrs Lovell turned back. ‘Condensed milk, Miss Seymour.’

  ‘Ah. Yes, I know of it.’ CeeCee wrapped her shawl a little tighter, and clutching the cooking pot, turned for the door. ‘I’m sure Mr Wallace will have some at his shop.’

  ‘Yes, he does, miss.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Lovell. And thank you again for looking after Toby. We couldn’t have saved him without you.’ CeeCee edged towards the door to let herself out. ‘We will certainly look into purchasing the milk.’

  ‘Um, yes, thank you again, Mrs Lovell,’ Linley said.

  CeeCee heard Linley offer her bewildered thanks, and abruptly turned back. ‘And Mrs Lovell, if I can ever do anything for you, at any time, would you be sure to let me know?’ She reached out and took the woman’s hand.

  Mrs Lovell stopped in her tracks, her hand seemed imprisoned in CeeCee’s. ‘I am only too glad to—’

  ‘You’ve done us a great service, Mrs Lovell, so if at any time …’ CeeCee pressed.

  Mrs Lovell nodded, reddened and was about to bob.

  ‘And please, don’t do that. We are just extremely grateful.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Seymour.’ Mrs Lovell dipped her head.

  CeeCee smiled and nodded, and sailed past Linley who sailed after her.

  ‘What was that all about? The poor woman looked mortified.’ Linley wrapped the baby inside her shawl, hugging him to her chest as she trotted alongside her aunt.

  ‘We don’t thank people enough, Linley. Without people like her, Toby would be dead.’ CeeCee’s pace picked up.

  ‘I know, but what was it about the pot, and the milk and all the “thank yous”? She only had to—’

  ‘Mrs Lovell is a proud woman working for a living and she has every right to be proud.’ CeeCee felt the swell in her chest cramp her breathing as she thought of the hardship Mrs Lovell and others like her had endured since time began. Why, if the law, and the men who made the law had any clue …

  Oh, some changes had been made, just not nearly enough. She gathered more speed. ‘And there but for the grace of—’

  ‘God?’ Linley finished for her, trying to keep up. ‘Slow down, Aunty. You seem to have upset yourself. Swing that pot any higher and it might fly from your hands.’

  ‘God has a lot to answer for. And God was not of whom I was thinking.’ CeeCee still kept her pace, but slowed the swinging pot to rest it against her thigh.

  Linley skipped a little to keep up and looked down at her bundle. ‘Indeed.’

  But for the grace of her hard-working, thrifty, gold-mining parents who left the digging fields of Ballarat when CeeCee was barely four years old, her lot in life might well be the same as Mrs Lovell’s.

  Time spent with these women propelled her forward once more to push for better lives for women and girls. She must write another letter to James. She must get back to business. Especially after the letter from Mr Campbell. What if she needed to get Linley out of Bendigo in a hurry? She should advise James that it could be imminent …

  ‘Slow down, CeeCee. I can barely see my feet as it is. I don’t want to fall into a pothole as big as China.’

  … And she really needed to extract from Linley exactly who was the father of this baby. If it was not Wilkin—which every-one agreed, including the insidious twerp himself—then perhaps some other man would try and make a claim once word got out about Mary’s inheritance.

  The baby squawked and Linley hushed him and cooed, rocking as she skipped. ‘Aunty!’

  ‘Sorry. Sorry, Linley.’ CeeCee forced herself to slow down. ‘You know how agitated I get when I think of the lack of help for these poor women, and their families, the little children—’

  ‘Please get agitated after we’ve had a pleasant walk home.’ Linley hummed a tune and Toby settled. ‘And I don’t know why you do. You help everyone you come across.’

  As they rounded the corner a
nd headed down the street to their cottage, the last of dusk had all but fallen away and the cloak of night spread across the sky. The air cooled quickly and they hurried the last few yards, the warmth of the kitchen fire on CeeCee’s mind.

  ‘I will be heartily glad of home tonight.’ CeeCee looped her arm through Linley’s and hugged her close. ‘I am most times somewhat unsettled at Mrs Lovell’s. I am always glad to see home.’ She reached across Linley to lift the latch on the little gate.

  ‘I will be glad to put this little man to—’

  A growl from a beast behind the gate interrupted Linley. A rush of prickles scurried up CeeCee’s arm. Her hand tightened around the handle of the pot and then the little house gate swung violently against her. Her breath knocked out in two loud grunts and she staggered back heavily against Linley and the baby.

  A wiry forearm crunched her cheekbone and drove her further back towards the fence, Linley caught behind her.

  ‘Out of my way, you slut of a woman.’ The voice squeezed from clenched teeth, his arm a solid rod, the fingers of his other hand trying to grip her shoulder.

  Linley let out a cry and the baby let out a yell. CeeCee lurched forward into the spittle and stink of the man who tried to get himself between her and Linley. Her breath rushed in, force-filling lungs stunned by the gate, her voice hoarse as air screeched back through her mouth. In her own ears she sounded like the devil’s mistress shrieking her fury.

  The man reeled. ‘Wha’?’

  His violence ignited a scorching flame in her. Double-handed grip on the pot, she threw her weight against his arm and shoved the gate back with her hip, and left all the space CeeCee needed to swing the pot up in one move and thwack him under the chin.

  His teeth crunched. Drops of warm liquid fell on her face. Still her lungs sucked air and her laboured voice sounded hoarse and maniacal in her throat. Dimly she heard a baby wail, and Linley scream for help.

  The man lurched back, yowled, and dived quickly to avoid the next wild swing of the pot. Caught on the side of the head, he yowled again, his hands flung up to ward off another attack. He stood, bent a moment, swayed—