A Far Country

by John Fletcher

  ‘I would like to come very much.’ He stole a sideways glance at her. ‘For a number of reasons. But tes impossible, you see.’

  Asta had rung the bell for wine; now she gestured towards the tray. ‘Please pour us both a glass. Come, Mr Penrose, sit down and tell me what’s troubling you.’

  He did so, sitting close to her, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward with his eyes fixed on hers. ‘I can’t afford to turn my back on Wheal Sennen,’ he explained. ‘The moment I do that my creditors will pounce. I can feel their breath on my neck even now.’

  ‘Matlock will make up for anything you might lose here.’

  ‘With respect, ma’am, we can’t be sure of that. The mine is unproven. Besides, tes not in my nature to run away from trouble. I cannot do it, simply cannot.’

  She liked him for that; found that on renewed acquaintance she was liking him very well indeed.

  ‘If you were to receive a good offer for Wheal Sennen, what then?’

  ‘It would put a different complexion on things, of course.’ Momentarily his eyes brightened, then his face fell again. ‘What’s the point of talking about it? Tes not going to happen.’

  Asta had no patience with defeatism. ‘I want you to give me a clear undertaking,’ she told him briskly. ‘If I can solve your problems with Wheal Sennen, will you promise to come and help me develop Matlock?’

  He looked dubious. ‘I’ll come and inspect Matlock, mebbe—’

  She cut him off. ‘Not good enough. Anyone can inspect. I need someone to develop it.’

  ‘What if there’s no ore?’

  Asta did not reply. She was determined he should yield to her, ore or no ore. She fixed her eyes on him and waited for the promise she was certain would come.

  ‘I don’ see what you can do about Wheal Sennen,’ he said eventually, ‘but if you can, then all right, I’ll do it. I’ll help you develop the Matlock mine.’

  It was too soon for triumph. ‘I shall just have to make sure I can do something about it, shan’t I?’

  Lang greeted her in the living room of his house. The room was as stiff as ever, the furniture lined the walls like guardsmen, Lang himself courteous but totally without warmth.

  ‘I heard you had arrived in town. I had thought you might have written to tell me you were coming.’

  ‘I intended to do so,’ Asta said, ‘then decided against it. You are often away from home. I did not want to cause you to change your plans.’

  Lang raised his eyebrows at the idea that anyone, least of all Asta Matlock, might cause him to change his plans. ‘You received last quarter’s reports?’ he asked.

  ‘They were very informative. Thank you.’

  ‘As you see, the mine continues to prosper.’ He smiled maliciously. ‘Unlike some. As a friend I must warn you against investing in Wheal Sennen.’

  It was to be expected that he already knew of her visit to Joshua Penrose. ‘I hear there are considerable reserves still undeveloped,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps.’ His tone discarded the suggestion. ‘I warned your husband at our first meeting, mining is a risky business. It is best left to the experts.’

  ‘You may be right.’

  ‘I am right.’ He sat four square in his chair and stared at her. ‘Are you here on a social visit,’ he asked, ‘or do you wish to talk business?’

  ‘I have some business to discuss.’

  Lang inclined his head an inch. ‘Then I am at your service,’ he said.

  On her way back to the hotel Asta stopped at Mrs Owen’s dress shop and had her fitting.

  She stared dubiously at her reflection in the looking glass. ‘The material is lovely but the dress itself …’

  ‘It is something new,’ Mrs Owen said. Briskly she adjusted one shoulder, her fingers busy with pins. ‘That is all it is. Madam is not used to seeing herself in such a fashion.’

  That was certainly true. ‘But it feels so awkward.’ Asta tried a few experimental steps about the room, the skirt swaying about her legs, the tight waist gripping her firmly.

  ‘It is quite the rage in Europe,’ Mrs Owen said.

  ‘How does one sit down?’ Asta asked.

  Mrs Owen laughed. ‘There is no difficulty in practice. It is just a question of getting used to it.’

  Asta made up her mind. She was a modern woman; it was right that she should dress in the modern way. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I shall take it.’

  When she reached the hotel she sent out a boy with a message for Mr Penrose. Twenty minutes later he came back with a note inviting her to dine with Joshua that evening.

  Asta arranged with the owner of the hotel to hire a carriage; with her new dress it was impossible to ride and she lacked the courage to walk through the town wearing it.

  As before Penrose came out to greet her. She went ahead of him through the front door. Her skirts were so wide that she could barely manœuvre her way through the opening, neither could she sit in the narrow chair she had used before. As Mrs Owen had promised, sitting down was no problem but the width of the skirts forced her to choose a low-backed settee where there was room to accommodate her dress.

  ‘A handsome dress, ma’am,’ Penrose said. ‘Very striking.’

  ‘It is the latest fashion,’ she told him.

  When she had met him two days earlier Asta had known that Joshua Penrose was as attracted to her as ever. She was determined to take full advantage of the fact. It was why she had bought the dress, as part of her campaign to lure him to Whitby Downs, but now she suspected there had been a great deal more to it than that. The fact was that she was attracted to him too, much more so than she had thought, and wanted him to admire her, not as the owner of a promising mine but as a woman.

  ‘Your note said you had news,’ he said, mind on matters other than dresses.

  ‘I have indeed.’ She smiled coquettishly at him. ‘You remember your promise? If I can solve your problems here you will help me develop Matlock?’

  ‘I remember.’ His face was tense. ‘But only if we can sort out Wheal Sennen first.’

  She had planned to tease him a little, keep him waiting for her news, but seeing his expression she remembered how much he had hanging on this business and decided to put him out of his misery. ‘Walter Lang has agreed to make you an offer for Wheal Sennen,’ she said.

  ‘An offer.’ He was cautious; weeks of anxiety would not be disposed of so easily. ‘How much?’

  It was the moment she had been waiting for. ‘Eight thousand pounds,’ she told him, and smiled as his mouth fell open.

  ‘Eight thousand … I can’t believe it. Tes true?’ he asked, suddenly anxious. ‘You’re not just saying it?’

  Asta’s nose went up. ‘Do you think I would lie to you?’

  ‘Of course not. Forgive me. But eight thousand—’

  ‘It seems that Mr Lang also believes there are additional reserves at Wheal Sennen,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, the mine is worth it. If I had enough capital I would never think of selling. But for Lang to make such an offer …’ He seized her hands. ‘It is beyond my wildest dreams,’ he told her. ‘I shall never be able to thank you for what you’ve done.’ Suddenly diffident, he asked, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t be willing to tell me how you managed it?’

  She laughed, delighted by his reaction. ‘Our conversation was very interesting,’ she conceded.

  It had been a lot more than that. For a long time she had thought she was getting nowhere. Lang drove a hard bargain at the best of times; negotiating with a woman was a new experience and he had expected to browbeat her quickly into submission. He had been displeased and offended when he found he could not.

  ‘But why should he agree to pay such a price?’ Penrose wondered. ‘You said yourself he’d only to wait and the mine would have dropped into his lap like a ripe plum. A ripe plum!’ He shook his head, baffled as always by the mysteries of business negotiation.

  Asta smiled but was not willing to slake his curios
ity. She sensed that something was growing between them and was happy about it but would never again allow herself to answer to a man. Some secrets were best kept hidden; it would not do for him to know too much about her.

  She let her mind dwell pleasurably upon the tactics she had used to win what she wanted from the formidable Walter Lang.

  ‘I might decide to invest in Wheal Sennen myself‚’ she had said to Lang.

  He had shrugged indifferently. ‘I have already advised against it. If you wish to waste your money that is your affair.’

  ‘So you had not thought of investing in Wheal Sennen yourself?’

  ‘I do not believe in partnerships.’

  ‘Yet you are in one. I own one half of Neu Preussen.’

  He watched her carefully. ‘What have you in mind?’

  ‘I have copper on my land.’

  ‘Perhaps‚’ he said. ‘Perhaps not.’

  ‘I have faith.’

  ‘Then let us hope you are right.’

  ‘If I am to develop the mine I shall need capital.’

  He sat very still, his whole body watching, listening. ‘So?’

  ‘So I need capital and you say you do not like partnerships. Very well. I have the solution to both our problems. Buy me out.’

  Walter Lang’s face was utterly expressionless. ‘And what price did you have in mind?’

  ‘That is something we must discuss.’

  Discuss it they had. The price she wanted for her shares; the fact that buying Wheal Sennen was going to be part of the deal. Lang had paced about the room. He had bawled, thrown his arms in the air, his face bright red as he had first mocked her, then threatened her, but Asta had stuck to her price and in the end she had won. Or had she? Perhaps she was as mad as Lang obviously thought her, to give up a half-share in a profitable mine for a venture that might prove as barren as the sea. But it was too late to think of that; resolutely she put the thought out of her mind.

  ‘So’‚ she said now to Joshua Penrose. ‘Eight thousand pounds. It is agreed, then?’

  Now it had come to the decision itself he was uncertain. ‘Tes a hard business,’ he muttered, ‘turning your back on your own creation …’

  Asta had no time for sentiment, either. ‘If things carry on as they are you will have to sell, anyway‚’ she said brutally, ‘and for a lot less than eight thousand pounds.’

  ‘You’re right, of course.’ But still dithered, reluctant to commit himself, until Asta, unable to bear the delay any longer, told him to make up his mind or she would drop the whole thing.

  He sighed, capitulated. ‘So be it, then.’

  ‘And you will come to Whitby Downs?’

  ‘Why not? There’ll be nothing to keep me in Kapunda now.’

  ‘I will tell Lang in the morning‚’ she said. ‘Now we would both enjoy a drink, don’t you think?’

  While he fetched the wine she thought about what she was taking on. He was a good man, a decent man. He knew about mining yet she could not help wishing he were a little more forceful. It was ironic. All along she had been determined to be the one to make the decisions in whatever their relationship might become yet now she wondered if she would not in time grow tired of his amenability.

  ‘God knows we humans are hard to please’‚ she said aloud.

  Joshua heard the tail end of it as he came through the door. ‘To please what?’

  ‘Ourselves‚’ she said. Smiling, she extended her hand to him. ‘That is what we have to do in life, is it not?’

  He did not know what she meant. He took her hand gingerly, as though it might bite him. Deliberately he changed the subject. ‘Your dress … Very becoming. I have seen nothing like it before. Does it have a name, this new fashion?’

  ‘This?’ She stroked the silk gently, feeling the thin steel hoops beneath the billowing skirts. ‘It is called a crinoline.’ She saw that she must once again take the initiative if she were to bind him to her, as she intended. She looked at him. He was so diffident. What she was about to do meant taking a great risk but she could see no other way of being sure of him. Ever since Gavin died she had spent her life taking risks. What was one more? It is not only for business, she told her conscience. I want him, too.

  She took his hand and led it to the fastenings of the dress. ‘And this‚’ she said, ‘is how you take it off.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Within three months of Asta’s and Joshua Penrose’s arrival back at Whitby Downs the Matlock mine was well into development. A confusion of gantries and pulley-driven lines led to the shaft. Twenty yards away three drays were lined up, waiting to load. These apart, there were as yet few signs to show that the mine existed at all. There were no huge mounds of broken rock, no horse-driven whims turning. It had proved a rich find with little to do but shovel the ore straight from the ground into the waggons, and the main shaft, although driving deeper by the day, had not yet reached a depth where de-watering was necessary.

  Jason Hallam emerged from the small hut used as an office and crossed to the headworks of the new mine.

  At the head of the shaft he came face to face with the sturdy figure of Joshua Penrose, just returned to the surface after his daily inspection of the mine workings.

  ‘All well?’

  They usually went below together but today Jason had been busy preparing production figures for Asta.

  ‘All very well‚’ Penrose said. ‘The ore body’s still heading straight down. No sign of any fractures at all.’

  The two men walked together to the loading area where heaps of dressed ore waited for the carriers.

  ‘See there‚’ Penrose said, pointing, ‘tes about a hundred percent pure, what we’re lifting at present. That won’t last, of course. When we get deeper we’ll have to start blasting to get at the ore, but for the moment tes like picking plums out of a pudding.’ He rubbed his hands. ‘Does a man’s heart good to come across a patch o’ ground as rich as this.’

  ‘Not everyone’s as pleased as you are‚’ Jason said. ‘Blake Gallagher’s as sore as a bull over missing out on it. I expect he’s still hoping it’ll come to nothing. That way he won’t have missed so much.’

  ‘Can’t say I blame him‚’ Penrose said. ‘I’d have been mortal sick myself, missing out on a strike like this. Richest ground I ever saw. They tribute workers be coining a pretty penny‚’ he added ruefully.

  It was a sore point. Tribute workers received a percentage of the value of the ore they lifted: the richer the ore, the richer the tribute. As was traditional in the mining industry, rates had been fixed when the mine opened and had only the previous month been renewed for a further period of two months. They would be adjusted downwards at the next fixing but for the moment the men were making a killing. It was a source of grievance to Asta.

  ‘You set the rate too high‚’ she had complained.

  ‘No choice with a new mine‚’ Penrose had told her. ‘If the miners hadn’t seen the chance of a good return I wouldn’t have been able to get them here.’

  She knew he was right but it frustrated her, nonetheless, and she wasn’t slow to say so.

  The two men walked together to the office. For an hour they went over the figures in detail until Jason was satisfied that he had all the answers to the questions that he knew Asta would throw at him.

  ‘Though I daresay she’ll think of something I’ve missed‚’ he said.

  ‘Getting downright pernickety‚’ Joshua agreed comfortably. It didn’t seem to worry him. Nothing did; he had settled into his relationship with Whitby Downs and its owner with as little disturbance as a fish in a pool.

  ‘The only way to make a fortune, I suppose‚’ Jason said. Unlike Joshua, he found the new Asta hard to take. She insisted on knowing everything, repeating the same questions over and over again until she was satisfied with the answers. If she noticed his frustration she did not care.

  ‘Copper is down again. Why don’t we stockpile the ore until prices go up?’

 
‘Because we don’t know if it will go up. Burra Burra is flooding the market. Kapunda, too.’

  ‘Everything is so expensive.’

  ‘We watch every penny.’

  ‘Watch closer, then.’

  It wasn’t just the mine; her control over Whitby Downs was just as tight, perhaps more so. She was more at home with sheep, had a better idea of what questions to ask. She demanded estimates: the number of animals, the expected rate of lambing, the current price of wool, the future price of wool. The fact that it was impossible to produce such figures did not deter her. She would accept no excuses for failure to give her the information she wanted. She drove Jason mad.

  When Cato Brown had returned to tell Blake that he had won the race to Adelaide yet had still lost the mine Blake had been so angry that he could not think straight. Without pausing to consider he had thrown a saddle across Sceptre’s back and ridden furiously to Whitby Downs to confront Asta Matlock.

  ‘Robbery‚’ he raged. ‘I wonder you got the nerve to make the claim.’

  ‘It’s your own fault. You cheated Hargreaves out of his fee and he paid you out by backing me instead. If you’d kept in with him I would have known nothing about it.’

  Being told what he already knew did not improve Blake’s temper. He thrust furious fingers through his long blond hair. ‘I found the ore‚’ he said. ‘But for me there wouldn’t ’a’ bin no mine. At the very least I deserve a share.’

  ‘Cato Brown found the mine‚’ Asta said, tart as an apple, ‘on my land. You tried to cheat me out of it. Be thankful you’ve still got a job, never mind a share in a mine that was never yours in the first place.’

  Blake glared at her, incoherent with rage. Whitby Downs was hers by right of inheritance. Because of the legal paper she could get from Mary she was in a position to control Bungaree, too, if she wanted. Now, on top of everything else, she had the Matlock mine.

  The unfairness infuriated him, but fury didn’t help. ‘There are no prizes in coming second‚’ Asta told him. ‘You should remember that.’