Fortune's Son

by Jennifer Scoullar

  By dinnertime the invitations were dispatched to the Hobart printer. Elizabeth inspected the grand ballroom – an impressive space with a sprung oak-panelled floor and massive chandeliers of German crystal. Servants were using beeswax to polish the floorboards into a brilliant shine. Elizabeth found herself caught up in the excitement. After all, whatever the circumstances, this was Belle’s one and only engagement party.

  ‘Is the piano well tuned?’ she asked. ‘And we’ll need a violin, a cello and at least one cornet, don’t you think?’

  They moved off to the dining room, Belle’s pregnancy remaining the great unmentioned.

  CHAPTER 31

  When Daniel and Davey reached Tiger Pass, they found Luke camped in the entrance cave marked by the towering pine tree.

  ‘Whatever are you doing up here, Adam? What of the cubs?’ asked Daniel, as Davey helped him off with his pack.

  ‘There’s good news, Mr Campbell. They’ve hunted each night without fail for the last week, even independently of Bear. I’ve been keeping this lazy bloke well fed on wallaby meat, haven’t I, Bear?’ Luke ruffled the dog’s coat. ‘Bear’s been camping up here with me. We go down in the morning to check on the cubs. Each time we’ve found them sleepy and content with full bellies. I’ve seen their tracks around fresh kills, proving it’s our tigers that are responsible.’

  ‘Why, that’s wonderful. Better than we could have hoped for. But you say the evidence points to our tigers? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

  Luke grinned. ‘I am, Mr Campbell. There are others in the valley.’

  Davey failed to see what all the excitement was about. His grandfather had achieved some renown as the first official tiger man to be employed by the Van Diemen’s Land Company back in the thirties, paid to guard farmers’ flocks. The snaring of each thylacine had reaped a rich reward, and the title of tiger man conferred a romantic, heroic status.

  As a child, Davey had dreamed of this sort of fame, and he did not embrace his employer’s strange love of the pests. Yet all talk now seemed to be of the damned tigers. On top of that, Davey had enjoyed the undivided attention of Mr Campbell during the trip to the pass. Now he’d been relegated to second place. From the very first, Davey had envied Luke his favoured position in the household. All the old resentments came flooding back.

  The next morning Luke and Daniel made the climb down to the valley floor. The cubs now disapproved of Daniel, hissing at his approach. They were becoming truly wild.

  ‘Show me where you found the gold-panning dish,’ Daniel said.

  They set off along the creek.

  ‘How are things at home?’ asked Luke. ‘I hate that we can’t really talk when Davey’s around.’

  Daniel bent down and fossicked around in the creek bed. When he stood up, a bright golden nugget the size of a thumbnail sat in his silty palm. ‘I warrant this is what our visitor was after.’

  Exciting though this find was, Luke was desperate for news of home, news of Belle. Daniel did not seem inclined to talk. Luke kept pressing, and was finally rewarded with a progress reports on the devils and pups. ‘And Mrs Campbell . . . Belle. How are they?’

  ‘Ah . . . Mrs Campbell sends her love. Plans for Belle’s seventeenth birthday consume most of her time.’ Daniel strode on again, apparently unwilling for the conversation to continue.

  ‘Shall I return with you? The cubs don’t need me now.’

  Daniel shook his head. ‘The time isn’t right.’

  There was a puzzling finality to his tone. Luke felt utterly rejected. ‘When are you leaving?’

  ‘In the morning. You’ll come home next time. It won’t be too long.’

  A wall had risen between them and Luke didn’t know why. He’d done all Daniel had asked of him, hadn’t he?

  They spent a strained day searching for more evidence of intruders in the valley. A little further upstream, Daniel found a piece of charred timber, the remains of a campfire.

  ‘No more than a year or so old, I’d guess. What do you think?’

  Luke nodded, uninterested. All that mattered was that Daniel was excluding him.

  The next morning Daniel and Davey left. Until the very moment Luke waved them goodbye, he believed Daniel would change his mind and ask him to come home. Or at least provide him with a satisfactory explanation as to why he must remain up at the pass. Daniel did neither.

  Luke stood forlornly in the shade of the old pine tree and watched the men head off. He considered walking along with them for a while, but changed his mind. It felt lonelier now to be with Daniel than to be alone. Bear whined and pushed his head into Luke’s hand.

  ‘Come on, boy. Let’s do some prospecting. If I make my fortune in gold, nobody will stop me from marrying Belle.’

  A shiver of longing ran through him. Tiger Pass was no longer his haven. It was a place of banishment.

  CHAPTER 32

  Molly took the lid off the battered blue biscuit tin she’d found under Adam’s bed. Since Angus died she’d had no energy to clean and the formerly spotless cottage was thick with grime and littered with waste. Mine management always wanted widows out to make room for new workers. On Monday she’d begin her new job as a scullery maid in the Abbott household.

  Such work was easily come by. The assortment of servants at Canterbury Downs amounted to a small army, and harsh conditions combined with low pay ensured a swift staff turnover. Molly had a sixteen-hour workday to look forward to and wages of but a pound a month, but with bed and board provided she could still add to her nest egg. But she couldn’t take Scruffy. She’d have to leave him with Adam. The boy had been by twice already, demanding the terrier, saying he’d be better off at Binburra. It grated to admit he was right.

  Scruffy whined and Molly bent down to stroke him. What a comfort he’d been, this little dog, in the dark days since Angus died. At night she drew his warm body close, burying her tears in his wiry fur, trying to recapture something of the essence of Angus. She’d lost so much, and now Adam would have the only important thing she had left. Who was Adam anyway? Molly had met Angus’s brother at the memorial service for the drowned miners. He said Angus never even had a nephew.

  Adam hadn’t bothered to attend the service. He was too busy recuperating, first as some sort of a hero at the Abbotts’ stately mansion, then at Binburra. Hero? Traitor more like it, Molly seethed, her heart a ball of bitterness and grief. She resented Angus for lying to her. She hated the prospect of losing Scruffy. Worst of all, she blamed Adam for leaving her poor Angus to drown. Something sharp lodged in her throat, making it hard to draw breath. Somehow, someday, he would pay.

  The task of cleaning house could be put off no longer. Molly dreaded discarding the bits and pieces of her life, so she’d started in Adam’s room. There was less of Angus there.

  Curiously, she examined the contents of the biscuit tin. Letters. Dozens of them, all addressed to My dearest mother in Adam’s distinctive copperplate hand. How extraordinary. According to Angus, Adam’s mother was dead, but if Angus had lied about Adam being his nephew, she wasn’t sure what was true. The lie still hurt.

  Molly took the tin into the kitchen and sat down. Reading was a slow and laborious task, but she persevered. Perspiration beaded her forehead. Time slipped away. Hours later she put down the last letter, trying to absorb what she’d learned. That Adam was certainly not Adam. He’d signed the letters Luke. That he’d escaped from gaol. That he bore a bitter hatred for Sir Henry Abbott.

  In spite of herself, Molly was moved by these heartfelt letters from a son to his mother. Written, but for some reason not sent. Clearly he loved his family and missed them terribly. Molly understood this – how one could so terribly miss loved ones. Just as she missed her own family, her dead babies, her departed husband . . . just as she missed Angus. That thought hardened her heart. She reinspected the tin.

  Beneath a ragged square of linen at the bottom of the tin, she found what she was looking for. A neatly addressed envelope b
ore the name Mrs Alice Tyler at a Melbourne address. The surname rang a bell. It was the surname of that escaped prisoner, the one Sir Henry had posted such a large reward for, the talk of the whole town for months. Luke Tyler.

  None of it made any sense. Why would Angus deceive her, bring an escaped convict and danger into her home? Harbouring a felon was a crime in itself. She lay down on her bed and wept.

  CHAPTER 33

  Luke wiled away his days in the wilderness, pressing the rusty gold-panning tin into service. Angus had taught him the technique. Scoop up some earth, hold the dish on a slant and swirl it in the creek. Water carried away light grains of sand. Heavier gold particles sank to the bottom. He soon had a measurable quantity of bright gold dust in a little pouch, together with a few tiny nuggets.

  Now and then, the young tigers accompanied Luke up the river on his expeditions. Through the calm, early stillness, scattering after fish in the shallows and playing hide-and-seek with Bear. As the sun rose higher, a yawning Mindi and Bindi always shook themselves dry and retreated to their cave for sleep.

  Sometimes King stayed on longer, intent on securing a plump spotted trout for breakfast. One such morning, Luke was fossicking where the stream flowed close to the cliff-face. Baffled by the quicksilver swiftness of his prey, King splashed out of the stream in disgust, flinging himself down in the entrance of an arching cave.

  ‘I reckon he’s got the right idea, eh, Bear?’

  Luke flopped down beside the grumpy tiger. He poked King in the ribs, hoping to provoke a play fight, one of their favourite games. King gave an impatient growl and raised himself, kangaroo-like, on hind legs. His ears were cocked beyond Luke to the rocks behind. Without warning, King launched himself right over Luke, landing on a boulder and flushing out a spotted quoll hiding behind it.

  The quoll fled, bounding up the wall and shooting into a granite fissure above Luke’s head. King rocketed after it, slamming into the narrow space with such force that his head and forequarters became firmly wedged in the gap. He let out a series of piercing cries, while his hind legs scrabbled vainly for purchase on the smooth stone wall.

  Luke stopped laughing and tried to help. Grasping King’s flailing back legs, he tugged with increasing force. This produced a fresh chorus of yelping, but the tiger remained stuck fast. Luke picked up a sharp stone and painstakingly chipped away at the ledge, gradually widening the gap. Eventually he managed to extract the tiger. King licked his bruises for a while in an embarrassed sort of way, touched noses with Bear and slunk off home.

  Luke stood on his toes and peered into the crumbling breach in the wall, hoping to spot the quoll. Something half-hidden in the gloom caught his eye. An odd shape with contours too soft to belong to the rocky hollow. Luke reached in. His fingers closed on a coarse hessian sack. Another lay behind it. He dragged the bags from their hiding place: one large and weighty, one small and light, both coated in inches of dust.

  Luke moved out into daylight and opened the larger bag. He couldn’t believe his eyes. A treasure trove of coins and gold nuggets, some as big as hen’s eggs. Luke opened the second sack. Bundles of pound notes spilled to the ground. Stunned, he carefully replaced the money and fastened both sacks with their frayed ties. Angus’s words came to him: Clarry had a fortune hidden away somewhere . . . Stashed in the bush, he told me.

  A sudden fear of being observed made him raise his eyes to the cliffs. He saw nothing but their rugged outline against the sky, heard nothing but the desolate cawing of crows.

  Luke put the bags in his swag and whistled to Bear. As he turned to go, a thought struck him. What if there were more? He returned to the cave and inspected it more thoroughly. Right at the back, where it was hard to see, he found pick-axe marks in the walls. He narrowed his eyes and poured a little water from his flask onto the scored rock, rubbed the moist surface with his sleeve. A vein of gold gleamed in the faint light.

  Back at the entrance, Luke made a makeshift footstool of rocks, which allowed him to get a better look inside the hollow. Another bag lay in a shadowy nook. He pulled it out and looked inside.

  What he found made him spring back in alarm. Dynamite, perhaps ten sticks. And blasting caps too. Old explosives and detonators could be highly unstable and blow up at the slightest disturbance. Judging from the dust, this bag must have lain hidden in the rock for years. With the careless way he’d hauled it out, he was lucky not to have been blown to kingdom come.

  Luke inspected the dynamite. A crystalline substance coated the sticks – nitroglycerine leached out over time. Some of it had pooled and hardened in the bottom of the bag. With exaggerated care, Luke lifted the sack, positioning it as safely as he could at the back of the cave. Then he surrounded it with a protective ring of rocks. The last thing he wanted was for some unfortunate animal, particularly one of his tigers, to inadvertently trigger an explosion.

  Luke picked up his swag and headed back to the home cave. A kaleidoscope of possibilities whirled through his mind. He was rich, very rich, for surely it was no crime to take a dead man’s gold. Rich enough to do whatever he wanted. Rich enough to marry Belle. Their wild dream of a future together would come true after all. For a short, painful moment, he wished Angus were alive to share this good fortune. He could have bought Molly a dozen shops.

  Luke couldn’t stop thinking about Clarry, while walking the same track he’d walked. The old bloke had lived like a hermit, when he could have led a privileged life in Hobart or anywhere else for that matter. What could drive a man to embrace that sort of deliberate isolation? Luke reflected on his own circumstances. If not for Belle and Daniel, he might have ended up the same way.

  Luke looked at his watch. Two-thirty in the afternoon. He could be gone by three, with hours of light left. What day was it? He’d lost track. He went to the carved notches on the wall that served as his calendar. Wednesday. With luck, he’d be home by Saturday night. A few days early, maybe, but what difference could a few days possibly make?

  CHAPTER 34

  The celebration was in full swing. Sideboards groaned with lobsters. Guests feasted on truffles and oysters, foie gras and squab, while speculating on whether or not this was more than a birthday party. Their idle curiosity was soon laid to rest. A short speech by Daniel, proposing a toast on the occasion of his daughter’s seventeenth birthday. Then a long speech by Henry, announcing his only son’s engagement to Miss Isabelle Campbell. Much polite applause, accompanied by knowing nods. The odds had always been in favour of this union.

  Elizabeth knew it was asking for trouble, seating Henry and Daniel at the same table, but convention demanded it. Tensions ran high between the two men during the cock-a-leekie soup. By the time the beef Wellington arrived, their voices were raised. Jane looked across the table at Elizabeth in alarm. There were still eight courses to come.

  With agonising slowness, the procession of dishes marched on: venison, loin of lamb, chartreuse of duck, quail eggs in aspic, baked trout. The diners washed their food down with copious quantities of champagne and claret, sherry and port. Henry seemed well on the way to drunkenness. A dangerously long break until dessert allowed for much sniping across the table. Afterwards, the orchestra would strike up to introduce the main event of the evening – the ball. It couldn’t come quickly enough for Elizabeth. Belle quietly appealed to her father to ignore Sir Henry, but not quietly enough.

  ‘So, my soon-to-be daughter-in-law thinks to ignore me,’ said Henry. ‘Once married, she’ll change her tune and become as obedient as my own son.’

  Edward went red, and Daniel opened his mouth to reply.

  ‘Hold your tongues,’ scolded Jane. ‘Both of you.’

  Henry and Daniel lapsed into glowering silence. The timely arrival of desserts defused the situation: pineapple-cream cake, ginger pudding, wine and walnut trifle, colourful ices and fresh fruit salad in glittering crystal punchbowls. A truce settled on the table.

  At long last the orchestra struck up, signalling the conclusion of the meal.
Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief, and followed Belle and Edward to the ballroom, her arm through Daniel’s. As guests of honour, Belle and Edward led off in a minuet. He was an ideal partner, his steps perfect. The next dance was a lively polka. Edward spun Belle around the floor in a flurry of giddy twirls, leaving her flushed and shining. Elizabeth looked on approvingly. There was no hiding it, Belle was enjoying herself.

  Ignoring Elizabeth’s protests, Daniel retreated to the verandah. He gazed across the valley to the remains of an orange sunset. No breeze stirred the birches, yet above him high winds tore the clouds to shreds. A logging burn-off smouldered in the ranges, causing the rising moon to glow a dramatic bushfire red. Thin ribbons of pink-satin smoke scudded sullenly across its face. What an unusual sky. Ominous too. Like a beautiful stage curtain shielding an audience from the shocking scenes being prepared behind it.

  Luke paid no attention to the strange moon as he and Bear hurried down the waterfall track to Binburra. All he could think of was Belle. A barking chorus greeted him as he headed for his room at the end of the cart shed. The double-brougham was missing. Damn, the family was out.

  Sasha bounced out to greet them. Bear trotted off with her, no doubt to reacquaint himself with his puppies.

  Another dog dashed from the shadows. ‘Scruffy?’ Luke picked up the little terrier, who squirmed with delight and licked Luke’s face. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Davey hopped out of the shearing shed, trying to put his boots on at the same time. ‘I could ask you the same question. You’re supposed to be up at the pass.’

  ‘Where is everybody? Where’s Belle?’

  Davey’s lips curled in a leer. ‘Belle, is it? I suppose you don’t know then. They’re all at Canterbury Downs for the engagement party. Miss Isabelle and Edward Abbott. Getting married, they are.’