Bridie's Fire

by Kirsty Murray

  ‘Billy, look,’ he exclaimed. Lying in the palm of his outstretched hand was a small, dirty nugget of gold. Bridie sat back in the mud, laughing in astonishment.

  ‘I can’t wait to tell Henry and Thomas! They’ll be sick with jealousy.’

  ‘We can sell it right now,’ said Bridie. ‘Let’s take it down to the trader’s and see how much it’s worth!’

  They were halfway across the diggings when Bridie spotted two horsemen at the crest of the road, silhouetted against the burning blue sky. Bridie thought nothing of it until the first rider took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. A chill ran through her body. It was Gilbert’s father, Sir William De Quincey.

  ‘Gilbert—,’ she said. She stopped. If she could distract Gilbert now, before he saw his father, they could go and spend the afternoon in the bush behind Golden Point and Sir William might never find them.

  She looked at Gilbert, studying his grubby, sunburnt face. If she pointed out the riders to Gilbert at this moment, what would he do? Would he run to them with open arms, or would he run away with her? If she gave him the choice, which way would he turn?

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  Bridie drew a deep breath. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing. Gilbert squinted into the sun.

  ‘Father!’ he cried, running down the hill, shouting an excited welcome.

  Bridie followed with dragging footsteps and a leaden heart.

  Sir William leapt off his horse and gripped Gilbert by the shoulders.

  ‘Gilbert, Gilbert,’ he said, his voice choked with emotion.

  ‘I’m sorry, Father, but I had to go. I had to! Please don’t send me away to England. I want to come home, but I can’t bear the thought of going away from you and Mama for years and years.’

  ‘These aren’t decisions you can understand, Gilbert. This country will be the ruin of you. Look at what it’s done to you already – look at yourself, child.’

  The other rider joined them, pulling off his hat as he did so. Bridie felt sick with revulsion. It was Martin Degraves.

  He looked her up and down, and Bridie pulled her cap lower over her face.

  ‘What the blazes—,’ he said. ‘Good lord. Sir William, it’s that little Irish tramp.’

  Bridie stepped back, but he was too quick for her. He dismounted from his horse and grabbed her by the arm, pinching the muscle till it hurt.

  ‘What is the meaning of this, Gilbert?’ said Sir William. ‘Did you really run off with this girl? I hadn’t believed it possible! Explain yourself!’

  ‘Let go,’ said Bridie, furious and terrified in the same instant. ‘You’ve no rights over me.’ She struggled to free herself from Martin’s grip.

  ‘Oh yes we do, you filthy little slut, it’s back to the scullery for you,’ he said, twisting her arm until she cried out in pain. Bridie looked at Gilbert, her eyes wild.

  ‘Father!’ cried Gilbert. ‘Make him stop!’ He launched himself at Martin and sank his teeth into the man’s wrist.

  ‘She’s turned the boy into a damned animal,’ said Martin, shaking Gilbert off and losing his grip on Bridie in the same instant.

  ‘Run, Bridie!’ called Gilbert. They raced between the tents, leaping over camp ovens, ducking and weaving between the miners’ tents and claims.

  Bridie didn’t dare look back as they ran through the creek, pushing past the crowds of prospectors that lined the water’s edge and then up the side of Golden Hill, until they were lost in the maze of tents beyond.

  When they reached the edge of the forest, they crouched down in the shade of a gum and stared down over the field. They could see the two horsemen weaving their way between the tents. Bridie sat back against the tree trunk, feeling sweat run down her face and neck. She wrapped her arms tight around her knees to stop herself trembling. Gilbert put his head in his hands, and then he began to shake, his breath coming in heaving sobs as if his heart was breaking.

  When he looked up, his face was streaked with dirt and tears.

  ‘I have to go home, Bridie,’ he said, as if the words were being dragged out of him.

  ‘It’s all right, Bert. I know.’ She fought down a swell of bitterness and grief that threatened to drown her sympathy. He reached out and took her hand.

  ‘Here,’ he said forcefully, ‘I want you to have this.’

  Bridie stared at the nugget.

  ‘But it’s the only good thing you’ve got out of this. You have to show it to your father, to your brothers, you can’t be giving it to me.’

  ‘No, it’s yours, Bridie.’

  The afternoon sunlight cut across Gilbert’s face and made his blue eyes as bright as the summer sky. Bridie smiled sadly and slipped the piece of gold into the leather pouch that hung about her neck. It clinked dully as it fell against the last of her coins.

  Half an hour later, from the shelter of the forest fringe, Bridie watched as Gilbert swung up into the saddle in front of his father and Sir William put his arms around him. The two horses climbed the southern hill and turned onto the track that led back east towards Melbourne. As they disappeared from view, a bank of cloud moved down the hillside and Bridie felt as if her whole world was about to be submerged in darkness.

  29

  Alone

  It was fine pretending to be a boy when there was another boy to act alongside. But now there was no one to share her secret, Bridie became wary of the other miners. Everyone had liked Gilbert. Big Bill and George had taken to him straight away, and he could talk to all the men with such ease that it had made Bridie easy with them too. But now she felt awkward in their company, constantly aware of the bandages that bound her chest and chafed against her skin.

  The night that Gilbert left Ballarat, Bridie crept up close to George and Bill’s camp but didn’t join them. She slept under their cart and woke, startled and disoriented, to the early-morning sounds of George setting the billy to boil. She felt stiff and sore and filthy. She looked down towards the creek, where hundreds of men were already at work, and sighed.

  Crawling out from under the cart, she set off across the hill towards the forest. She followed the creek far into the bush, scrambling over rocks, scratching her hands on sharp twigs, pushing back the prickly, matted undergrowth, until finally she came to a place where the creek widened to form a shallow pool among the rocks. She stripped off her clothes, shook the dirt from them and then laid them across the top of a shrub before slipping into the cool creek water. Even though it was still early, the morning air was hot and it rippled with the buzz of insects. She shut her eyes. It was good to have the wrappings off – they were so hot, and had grown scratchy with grit and dirt. She put a hand over the leather wallet around her neck feeling the solid shape of the nugget that Gilbert had given her the day before. Suddenly, her eyes filled with hot, stinging tears at the memory. She gasped and plunged her head under water, as if to drive away her painful feelings.

  When she lifted her head from the surface again, she found she wasn’t alone.

  ‘Good morning to you, young Billy Dare,’ said a familiar voice, followed by a low laugh. Standing on a rock on the edge of the creek, his arms full of her clothing, was Jacobus. Marmalade was there too, wagging his tail and watching Bridie with bright brown eyes.

  Bridie gasped and folded her arms across her chest. She smacked the surface of the creek awkwardly with one hand, sending a spray of water over man and dog.

  ‘You devil! You thief!’ she shouted. ‘Put my clothes down and get away!’

  ‘A fine how-do-you-do from a damsel in distress,’ said Jacobus, chortling as he flung her clothes into the creek. Bridie tried to stay low in the water as she waded towards them. She pulled her shirt out of the creek and slipped it back on. Gathering the rest of the soaking wet rags, she crawled out on the opposite bank and hid behind a bush while she struggled into them. She had to walk back through the water fully clothed to retrieve her boots, and all the while Jacobus stood watching her, a crooked smile on his face.


  ‘And where’s his young lordship?’ he asked.

  ‘Where’s Sugar?’ countered Bridie, angrily.

  ‘Touché, my lovely. I’ll be honest with you. Though I liberated Sugar from your young friend with good intentions of returning the pony to him later, I in turn lost possession of the steed. I can only hope the bushrangers who took her from me intended to ride her and not eat her. There are many hungry and unscrupulous men in the hills around here.’

  ‘You’re a devil to talk about scruples, liar and thief that you are.’

  ‘Then you and I make a fine pair. For like me, you’re not what you seem, young Billy Dare.’

  Bridie blushed and sat down to pull her boots back on. ‘I’ve a mind to report you to the troopers,’ she said.

  ‘And I have a mind to do the same of you,’ said Jacobus sharply. ‘A young girl, alone on the goldfields – how long did you think you’d last before some brute took you as his woman?’

  ‘I’m only a girl. I’m not fourteen years old yet.’

  ‘Not a girl for much longer, my dear, judging from what I’ve just seen.’

  Bridie blushed angrily and felt her scar blaze.

  ‘How much longer do you think you can keep your little secret?’ asked Jacobus.

  Bridie couldn’t answer. She wanted to fly at him and scratch his eyes out, but she couldn’t bear the thought of him touching her, so she crouched low in the grass and glared at him mutely.

  Jacobus turned and headed back towards Golden Hill, whistling as he slashed at the undergrowth with his cane to clear a path. Bridie waited until he was out of view and then set off for the goldfield, dripping wet, furious and lonely, lonely in a way she’d never known.

  Later that morning, as she squatted by the creek, watching the water swirl hypnotically in her pan, she thought about Jacobus’ taunts. She had to find more gold. If Gilbert could find a nugget, she could too. If she could only gather enough gold to buy a new life for herself, then this nightmare could come to an end. Little beads of perspiration ran down her neck and were soaked up by the muslin wrappings that she had carefully put back on, damp and itchy and heavy as they were. She longed for a simple shift and a clean skirt. She thought of her box of clothes back at Beaumanoir and how she would never be able to return and claim them, and she fought back the sob that was forming in her throat.

  In the late afternoon, Bridie trudged back to Big Bill and George’s camp. Everything was in turmoil. The tents were torn down, the cart had been dragged out into the roadway. Tools and timber lay scattered all over the site.

  ‘Hey there, young Billy!’ called George. ‘You and Bert had better be finding yourself another place to doss down. We’re sinking a shaft directly over where you boys were sleeping. Big Bill found a nugget, right here in camp!’

  All Bridie’s possessions were piled up alongside Gilbert’s. She bound the two swags together and heaved them onto her back. The men were so busy sinking the shaft that they didn’t say a word to her as she turned and walked away. She found a place at the far end of the creek among the new arrivals, keeping her distance from everyone so that nobody would draw her into conversation.

  The next day was Sunday and the smell of roasting mutton wafted across the hillside. Miners sat in groups, smoking their pipes and drinking sweet black tea. Somewhere up on the hill, men were singing hymns, and their voices resounded through the gully. A man sat in the shade of a gum tree playing a bagpipe while a group of other miners stood around, listening, their eyes half closed. In some camps, men knelt before tubs of water and scrubbed their clothes. Makeshift lines were strung up everywhere, with shirts and worn trousers stirring gently in the morning breeze. Along the creek, men were rinsing out their sluices, but few were panning for gold on the Sabbath.

  Bridie heard that a priest was conducting Mass in a tent somewhere in the goldfields, and she thought if she could get down on her knees and pray, if she could confess herself to a priest, maybe she would discover what she was meant to do next. She packed up her swag and set off in search of him, but when she finally found the priest’s tent, Mass was over and she couldn’t bring herself to talk to him. Mrs Arbuckle was probably right. She probably was putrid with sin. The acts of contrition that she’d have to perform would be endless. She turned away from the priest’s camp and stumbled back along the road. At least if she was alone, she was her own master.

  She walked the full length of the gully, wrestling with her unhappiness. A strange musky odour, like flowers and spice mixed in with the smell of exotic foods, made her realise she had strayed into the Chinese area. Sunday made no difference here. Chinamen with long black plaits and golden skin were hard at work with their cradles or digging their claims. She couldn’t decide whether she was shocked by the fact that they were working on a Sunday, or relieved that there were worse sinners in the world than herself.

  At the end of the Chinese camp, she came across the Chinese doctor. He was sitting at a small table outside his tent, grinding something in a mortar and pestle. He looked very calm and peaceful, reaching out to add a pinch of something from a bowl and add it to the mortar as he worked. He looked up at Bridie, and nodded as she passed.

  Beyond the Chinese camps, at the far fringe of the fields, was a small group of Aborigines sitting under a lean-to of branches. Two of the men were selling big sheets of bark to the miners for building huts. Some naked children were playing nearby, and they watched Bridie walking past and laughed at her. Bridie kicked up a cloud of dust and walked on, to the very edge of the forest. A flicker of movement caught her eye and she screamed as a big black snake slithered towards her. One of the black girls leapt forward and grabbed the snake by its tail. She swung it through the air like a whip, bringing it down so swiftly that its head smashed hard onto a rock and split open. The other children ran up and talked at Bridie in a rapid tangle of sounds. Bridie couldn’t understand, but something drew her to follow them.

  Back at their camp, the girl flung the snake straight onto the embers of the fire. At first Bridie thought this was just to dispose of the body, but once the skin began to smoke, the girl pulled it from the flame and peeled off the charred skin, picking out pieces of white meat. She offered some to Bridie, and when Bridie refused she laughed and put the piece of snake in her own mouth.

  Mrs Arbuckle had once told Bridie that the blacks were worse than the Irish and not even baptism would save such heathens from hellfire, but as Bridie watched the girl and her family, she felt a swell of longing. The girl knew Bridie was still watching and she came back again with a second offering of snake meat. This time, Bridie ate it. The meat was sweet and tender, and Bridie was surprised at how good it tasted.

  When the family walked into the bush, Bridie hid her swag near the edge of the scrub and followed. One of the women turned and shouted something, gesturing Bridie to go away, but the girl who had killed the snake looked back and smiled. Bridie followed at a distance as the girl and her family moved deeper into the bush, until they came to a deep, still pool of water, the colour of black tea. Some of the adults took off the remnants of clothing or possum-skin that they wore but the children were already naked and they leapt into the water with shouts of pleasure. Bridie felt hot and miserable as she watched the family in the water together. She turned and ran back the way she had come, following the trail through the low shrubs and long grasses.

  She sat staring out over the diggings as evening settled over the landscape. She could hear a woman singing over her family’s evening meal. Everyone seemed to have a mate to work alongside, or they were part of a team or a family or group of miners. Everywhere she turned, people seemed to be connected to each other in some way. Everyone, except Bridie.

  30

  The night fossicker

  Bridie strode up to the store where Mrs Anmonie was sitting under a stretch of canvas, sucking on a cigar and weighing the nuggets that miners brought to her for sale. Mrs Anmonie carried a pistol in the waistband of her dress and everyone was afraid of h
er. As well as buying gold, Mrs Anmonie ran a sly grog shop. Alcohol was illegal on the goldfields but there were never enough troopers to enforce the law, and often as not the troopers were among her best customers. When trade was slow, Mrs Anmonie would wander around the diggings with big bottles of whiskey strapped under her voluminous skirts, and the miners would pay her to fill their tin mugs.

  Bridie opened the pouch that she wore around her neck and took out Gilbert’s nugget. She’d spent the last of her coins that morning and there was almost no food left in her swag. The nugget had looked so big when Gilbert found it, but as Bridie offered it up to the buyer, it seemed tiny. She stared disbelievingly at the coins the woman offered in exchange.

  ‘I’d heard eight pounds an ounce was fair,’ said Bridie.

  ‘Show us your licence then, boy,’ said Mrs Anmonie, shifting the cigar to the other side of her mouth.

  Bridie eyed her coldly and put her hands on her hips.

  ‘You think I’m a duine le Dia?’ she asked angrily. ‘Women and children don’t need no miner’s right,’ she said, holding her ground.

  ‘Four pounds,’ said Mrs Anmonie, throwing more coins onto the pile.

  Bridie scraped the money off the table, her face expressionless.

  ‘Oi, you have to sign here,’ said the dealer.

  Self-consciously, Bridie dipped the pen into the inkwell and placed her mark on the contract of sale.

  Every day, new miners arrived at the fields, and with them more troopers sent by Governor La Trobe to gather up the licence fees from the miners. Bridie kept her distance. If anyone discovered she was a runaway servant, she’d be sent straight back to Melbourne. Servants who broke their indentures were the only people not allowed on the goldfields.

  Bridie wandered aimlessly through the fields with no clear ambition. Each night she found a different place to roll out her swag, never stopping two nights in the one place. It was strange to have no occupation, no master to answer to, no chores to do. Every day the little pile of coins in her pouch grew lighter.