‘Those few stupid sheep, as you call them, are our living!’
‘And your wife and niece are unimportant?’
Gavin was in the wrong and knew it. ‘For God’s sake, woman, stop nagging me!’
Asta had something further to say but knew better than do so at the moment. That evening, however, sitting in front of the fire, after the Bungaree party had departed and they were alone again, she brought up what was in her mind. Deliberately, however, she came at it from the side.
‘You do not like me talking about business,’ she said. ‘Why is that?’
Gavin’s feet were stretched peaceably to the flames but all his senses came abruptly awake at her words.
‘It’s not a woman’s place to worry about such things.’
‘Why is that?’
Despite himself Gavin felt exasperation mounting. ‘A man concerns himself with business, a woman with the home. That’s the way it’s always been! I want no changes in my house.’
‘You think the success or failure of the business does not affect me, too?’
‘Of course it does—’
‘Then it is right you should discuss it with me, is it not?’ Her smile as warm as a northern glacier. ‘It is your decision, that I understand. But to talk first, is it so unreasonable? Who knows, I might even contribute some useful ideas.’
Gavin thought that was unlikely. ‘And what words of wisdom do you have for me tonight?’
He heard the sarcasm in his voice. It outraged him to discuss with Asta something that by rights should have been none of her concern. It was a reflection on himself, a sign of weakness that he did not have proper control over his wife.
If she noticed his tone she gave no sign. ‘The money from the shearing. What had you thought to do with it?’
He watched her cautiously, trying to read her thoughts. ‘Ian was talking about buying more land.’
‘And you? What do you feel?’
‘I was thinking of trying something different.’
‘Not to leave here?’
He laughed. ‘Certainly not. But spread our risks a little.’
‘Into what?’
‘There’s money in mining. That German in Kapunda wanted me to invest with him.’
‘Walter Lang. I remember the name. You said he was not an easy man.’
‘Not easy at all but I reckon he knew what he was doing.’
‘Does he still want capital?’
‘One way to find out.’ He looked at his wife, the flames flickering golden across her face. He took a deep breath. ‘What do you think?’
It was the first time he had asked Asta’s opinion about anything to do with business. He was surprised how easy it was.
‘I think it is a good idea. Write to him, why not? Go to see him, if he sounds interested.’
The next day the cousins met again.
Ian said, ‘This business of the blacks will have served one good purpose, anyway.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’ll have made up your mind about the black boy. You won’t be keeping him now.’
It was bad enough hearing this sort of thing from his wife; he was not about to take it from his cousin.
‘Why shouldn’t I keep him?’ Letting his exasperation show a little.
Ian laughed. ‘Not if you want to sleep at nights.’
‘I went and talked to him, while Jason was looking for Asta and Alison. He was still working, good as gold. I see no reason to get rid of him just because of what his mates in the bush have been doing.’
‘You’re off your head.’
‘When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it.’
Ian stared, anger rising. ‘Now wait a minute—’
‘No, you wait a minute.’ The frustration of having to put up with Asta’s interference had bitten deep and he was not about to take it from anyone else. ‘This is my run. I’ll do what I want on it.’
Ian breathed deep. ‘Not if it endangers the rest of us! My daughter could have been killed.’
‘But wasn’t. And the man who saved her was obeying my instructions.’
‘By chance.’
‘Not by chance! By my specific orders. I don’t recall you doing much.’
They glared at each other, anger spilling over after the trauma of the previous day.
‘You’ve said enough,’ Ian said.
‘No more than I should have said long ago. You don’t run this place nor are you likely to. I reckon you’d best stay away until you remember that.’
FIFTEEN
Three months later, after the exchange of several letters, Gavin set out to meet Walter Lang in Kapunda.
He took Asta and Jason with him. The journey on horseback took them north around the top of the gulf to Port Henry, already renamed Port Wakefield, then south down the drovers’ road, even more rutted and dusty than when Gavin and Asta had seen it last.
A week after leaving Whitby Downs the travellers reached the summit of the last range of hills and rode down into the smoke and commotion that was Kapunda. In the midst of a group of buildings a tall stone-built chimney belched clouds of acrid smoke. Supervised by a pale-faced boy in rags, an undernourished horse drove a creaking whim round and round amid piles of grey stone. Everywhere was steam and the clatter of machinery.
‘Doesn’t look much of a place,’ Gavin said.
Jason stared with interest at the scurrying figures of men. ‘Got a bit of life about it, though.’
Gavin had brought Jason to provide extra firepower, should they need it on their journey. Blake or one of the shepherds would have served as well, possibly better, but Jason was more easily spared from the run. He had also wanted very much to come and that, too, was important: Gavin was uncomfortably aware how much he owed him for saving Asta’s life.
Asta, too, had pushed him to bring Jason along—pushed to the point where he had almost said no—but it had made sense and at last he had agreed in spite of her.
Gavin beckoned to a man blinking suspiciously from the open door of one of the shacks.
‘How do I get to Mr Walter Lang’s house?’
The man scratched his head. ‘Up along,’ he said, pointing beyond the belching chimney. ‘Tesn’t likely he’ll be thur now, mind.’
Gavin struggled to understand the man’s speech. ‘Where can I find him?’
‘This time o’ day he be underground, I blaw.’
‘Underground? But he is expecting me.’
‘Don’ know nuthin ’bout that,’ the man said. He turned an indifferent back and went into the shack. The flimsy door clapped shut behind him.
Gavin’s tight mouth expressed exasperation. He turned to Asta. ‘I’ll drop you off at the hotel and go on to the house myself. There’s bound to be someone there who can tell me where he is.’
The house, stone-built and substantial, was surrounded by open land set with strictly disciplined bushes and young trees, a patch of what looked like vegetables standing to attention in one corner.
Gavin rode up the driveway, dismounted and knocked on the door.
‘Mr Matlock for Mr Lang,’ he told the maid.
She stared suspiciously at his travel-stained clothes.
‘Moment.’ She disappeared into the house, closing the door firmly behind her.
A minute later and she was back.
‘Please to come in,’ she said in a heavily accented voice. ‘Herr Lang will see you.’
She showed him into a room crammed with furniture as heavy and solemn as a troop of dragoons. The walls were papered in maroon silk and hung with a myriad of small portraits—oval frames, square frames, rectangular frames—and knick-knacks of various kinds. In one corner a palm in a large copper container thrust leaves like sabres halfway to the ceiling. The windows were small and shaded by the overhanging roof of the outside veranda. Even the air held its breath.
‘Please to wait,’ the maid instructed him. ‘The master will come.’ And went out. The door closed behind her.
The silent room, ponderous with the manifestations of wealth and power, conveyed to Gavin the message that was no doubt intended, that Walter Lang, late of East Prussia, was a man of consequence, a personage of weight and influence.
Gavin was not a man easily intimidated. He strolled to a window and stared out. The house overlooked the mine. What view it had was of earth scarred by workings, a wilderness of broken stone beneath a pall of steam and grey smoke.
He couldn’t imagine anything worse than living in such a place, however smart the furniture.
He turned away from the window as the door opened. Walter Lang was physically as imposing as the heavily furnished room: stout and tall, with big shoulders and a strong neck, eyes hard and commanding in a square face framed by mutton chop whiskers. He came forward, feet soundless on the thick carpet, powerful hand outthrust.
‘Mr Matlock, how good it is to meet you at last.’
His grasp was firm, too firm perhaps, but Gavin was no weakling and gave as good as he got. Honours even, they smiled at each other, recognising in each other a potential opponent as well as—possibly—an ally.
‘You had a good journey, I hope?’
Gavin shrugged. ‘Long.’
‘Then you will have some refreshment.’ He rang the bell. ‘Come … Sit, sit.’
The same maid came, Lang barked instructions in what Gavin assumed was German, she withdrew to return a minute later with a silver tray: two small glasses and a bottle containing a colourless liquid.
‘Schnapps.’ Lang filled each glass to the brim. He raised his, waiting until Gavin had followed his lead. ‘Prosit!’
He tossed the contents of the glass down his throat. Gavin did likewise. It was the first time he had tasted anything like it and its harsh heat caught his throat. Somehow he managed to avoid coughing.
‘Strong,’ he said, smiling into the hard eyes assessing him above the empty glass.
‘A man’s drink. Another?’
Gavin nodded, not trusting his voice, and held out his glass. Lang refilled it and settled back in his chair. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you also are a victim of coppermania, is that so?’
‘I wouldn’t say so,’ Gavin said, ‘but I’m not averse to making a mining investment if the returns are there.’
‘The returns are very good,’ Lang told him, ‘but only with a successful mine. It is a speculative business, you understand.’
‘You seem to have done all right out of it,’ Gavin offered.
‘Neu Preussen is a good mine. New Prussia, you understand? You speak German, perhaps?’
‘No.’
‘Ah. Well, it is unimportant.’
Gavin thought it was perhaps more important than Lang was prepared to admit.
‘When we corresponded before I left for the peninsula you told me you were interested in outside capital to develop the mine. From our recent letters I understand that is still the position.’
‘The position has changed,’ Lang said. ‘When we wrote originally I was by myself but since that time I have gone into partnership with Mr Joshua Penrose, a mining engineer from Cornwall. His knowledge is very useful to me.’ Lang’s smile glittered like sunlight on ice. ‘That and his capital, ja? But now we are thinking of expanding further, so additional capital will be needed. We had thought to raise it from our own resources but if a suitable outsider wished to make us an offer …’ He shrugged: take it or leave it.
Gavin saw he was in for a long, hard bargaining session.
‘What inducements do you have to offer an outside investor?’ he asked.
‘Inducements?’ Lang laughed: ho, ho. ‘Risk we offer our investors,’ he said. ‘Danger. The possible loss of capital. Mining is a risky business. More people lose than gain. Especially those lacking the technical knowledge,’ he added, ice-floe smile glinting.
No-one hearing Lang would have guessed that Gavin had come to Kapunda in response to his specific invitation. Perhaps it was time to remind him of that. Gavin drew Lang’s letter from his pocket and opened it slowly and deliberately.
‘Let us talk some more about the contents of your letter,’ he said.
Alone in her hotel room Asta stripped off her travel-stained clothes and stood naked, looking about her. The mattress on the brass bed was lumpy, the water cloudy in the washing jug, but Asta had long grown used to worse inconveniences. She poured water into the china basin and sponged herself all over, scrubbing her skin until it glowed. She dressed herself in clean clothes, putting on some of the garments, fashionable once, that she had brought with her. Her dark green satin dress had a tight-fitting, boned corsage adorned with a fan-shaped piece of blue silk and full-length sleeves puffed moderately at the elbows. Kapunda might not be much of a town but was the only one Asta had seen for years and she was determined to make the most of it.
Finally she brushed her fair hair until it gleamed, put gloves on her hands, a hat with a small peak and decorative feather on her head and was ready to face the town and whatever it had to offer.
She went out of the room and knocked sharply on Jason’s door.
‘Come,’ she said without opening it, ‘let us go and see this town.’
He opened the door. He had not washed, was wearing the same dusty, creased clothes in which he had arrived.
‘After you have smartened yourself up,’ she said.
Jason scowled but she took no notice of that, had indeed expected it. Clothes for him had been a problem from the first. When he had arrived he had been wearing nothing but a kilt made out of skins. It had been patched, filthy, fit only for the fire. Asta had taken the kilt, nostrils fastidious, and destroyed it. She had not asked his permission, had been determined that from the first he would be clean, at least. Gavin was twice Jason’s size but she had taken some of her husband’s old shirts, a pair of breeches, and fashioned them to fit the new arrival. She had presented them to him, he embarrassed and hostile. She had wondered if he would refuse them, would perhaps confront her without clothes at all, but he had not. Fortunately his savagery seemed no more than skin-deep.
‘You have another set of clothes,’ she instructed him now. ‘We should make ourselves smart before we go out to see this new town.’
‘Town?’ Jason was derisive. ‘Rat hole, more like.’
But went back into the room, having learned respect for this strange woman and her whims. She was quite capable of dressing him herself and he was not prepared to risk that.
‘And wash your face,’ she hectored him through the closed door.
Outside the hotel they paused, deciding which way to go. It didn’t seem to matter. In either direction the view was the same: piles of grey stone, rutted tracks, sparse vegetation scorched black by fumes, the groan and clatter of machinery.
‘How people live in such a place I do not know,’ Asta said.
‘I’ve lived in worse than this,’ Jason said, remembering the stews of Hobart Town.
It was the first time he had volunteered anything about his past and she willed him to go on but he did not.
‘People like you don’t know what it’s like to be poor,’ was all he said.
Passers-by, some ragged, some sturdy, clumped along heavy-booted. Women in sacking aprons stood at the doors of the hovels that lined the rutted lane. All of them stared as Asta and Jason passed but none of them answered when Asta, feathered hat and quality gown, greeted them.
‘Are they deaf?’ she wondered.
‘They dislike us. You in particular.’
Asta stared at him, astonished. ‘Why should they dislike me?’
‘They think you’re some rich woman slumming it.’
‘I am not rich.’ She laughed at such an absurd notion.
‘You don’t have any money but in your head you’re rich and it shows.’
‘How do you know such things?’ she asked him.
‘I was born in a place a lot worse than this. In Hobart Town I had nothing at all.’
‘Did your parents not look aft
er you?’
He laughed bitterly: the only answer she needed.
Pensively she resumed her walk. ‘It seems you know more about these things than I do,’ she told him.
‘Why exactly have we come here?’ he asked.
‘Mr Matlock is thinking of going into partnership with the mine owner.’
‘What does he know about mining?’
Asta did not reply and Jason wondered why he had bothered to ask. Whatever the Matlocks did would not affect him one way or the other. However friendly Mrs Matlock was, the gulf between them was unbridgeable. At heart, without even knowing it, she was rich, with the attitudes and assumptions of the rich, whereas he was poor and would always be poor, never mind how much money he might accumulate in his life. The way of life of the people they saw about them in this raw mining town was utterly foreign to her whereas to him it was like coming home.
‘These are my people,’ he said with satisfaction.
She thought, I do not care what your background is. We are your people now, not these slum dwellers. But had the wisdom to say nothing.
I shall win him over, she told herself, as confident of this as she was of all things concerning him. It is just that he does not know it yet.
‘We shall go back now,’ she said.
At Lang’s house the two men had finished their initial discussions. There would be many more talks before a deal could be struck but they were both satisfied with how things had gone so far.
‘Perhaps you and your wife will honour me by coming here to dinner tonight?’ Lang suggested.
Gavin hesitated, testing the invitation for possible dangers, but could find none. ‘That would be very civil.’
‘And perhaps the young man you have with you.’ Lang smiled genially.
It had been too much to expect that Lang would not have been aware of everything about them from the moment they had entered the town; he owned a goodly proportion of it, after all, along with Dutton and Bagot who had been the first to discover the rich lode of copper on which the various mines were now based.
A Far Country Page 20
