“Everything would have been different if I hadn’t gone to the pool that day. That’s life, isn’t it? One little incident can spark off a train of events … changing people’s lives for generations. It’s an awesome thought.”
“I’d like to change the course of my life, Angel.”
“Most of us would.”
“What I mean is I don’t want events to push me this way and that, because I believe I am the master of my own life. I will push aside those things that threaten me … I will go where I want to. But if only I could live that particular time of my life again …”
“It’s an old complaint, Ben. But when something happens it is there indelibly … forever.”
“It is too late … all those wasted years too late, but I love you, Angel, and I shall never love anyone else as I love you.”
“Please don’t say that, Ben.”
“Why not? It’s the truth. Do you believe me?”
“I am not sure.”
“Do you want to believe me?”
I was silent. I was not sure, and I thought: Yes, I do. Because I love you, too.
Neither of us spoke after that for some little time. I listened to the murmur of the light breeze … ruffling the grass near the creek.
Then at length he said: “Tell me truthfully, Angel. Are you happy?”
“Well … I think I could be if I were at home. Everything seemed all right there.”
“With Gervaise, you mean?”
“Gervaise is one of the kindest people I have ever met.”
He nodded. “I know about the debts. He told me himself. He’s indebted to my grandfather. I understand that.”
“It doesn’t seem so bad as it is Uncle Peter. We know he won’t suddenly descend on us and demand payment or else face the consequences.”
“If he found gold …”
“We could go home.”
“He might want to stay for more.”
“As you did.”
“It would be different. I vowed I would not return until I had my fortune. I found some wealth and it gave me this … But it was not what I had set out for. I couldn’t settle for less. It would be weakness and to a certain extent failure.”
“And you could not be seen to be weak. You have found enough to come home and perhaps start some enterprise. But you vowed to come back immensely rich … because that was the task you set yourself.”
“I do not care to be beaten, Angel.”
“So you will stay here until your goal has been reached … and if you do not hit the target that will be forever.”
“There are two things I want, Angel. That fortune, you know of. I want to find it in my mine. I want to have one of those discoveries which men had in the beginning which brought them out here in the hundreds. That is one thing. But what I want more than that is you.”
“I wish you would not talk in that way.”
“I want to be absolutely frank with you.”
“It is impossible, Ben. I am married to Gervaise.”
“And you don’t love him.”
“I do.”
“Not entirely. He has disappointed you. I can see that.”
He had turned to me and I was in his arms. He kissed me wildly. I was so taken aback that I could not think clearly. All I knew was that I wanted to stay with him, close … like this. I was accepting that which I had refused to face for some time … ever since I had seen Ben again.
Gervaise had been good to me, a kind and tender husband. I had thought I was in love with him. I had been too young and inexperienced to know my true feelings. I had not really known Gervaise. I had only begun to on our honeymoon when I had first discovered his weakness—not only his obsession with gambling, but a certain amoral attitude to life which could allow him to go off without paying the money he owed to people who trusted him, and gambling with money which was not really his.
I was closely bound to Ben. I always should be because of what we had endured together. I began to think about what might have been but for that man in the pool. It all came back to that. I had thought of it ever since it happened as the most momentous event in my life; and I saw now that it had certainly been so. But for it everything would have been very different.
I withdrew myself.
“We must not meet like this, Ben,” I said.
“We must,” he replied, “often. I must have something of you, Angel.”
“No,” I said.
He looked at me intently and replied: “Yes.”
“What good can it do?”
“It can make me happy for a while. You too perhaps.”
I shook my head.
“You love me,” he said. It was a statement rather than a question.
“Ben, I have not seen you for years … and then I come out here …”
“And you knew at once. Don’t let’s waste time denying the truth, Angel. Let’s think what we can do.”
“There is nothing. We shall go away from here. You will stay in your comfortable house until you have made that vast fortune. It will probably take years and years and then we shall both be old enough and wise enough to laugh at this folly.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“What else?”
“I never accept defeat.”
“I can’t imagine what you mean.”
“I am in love with you and you with me. You are married to a nice decent man. He’s a gambler. He’s a loser, Angel. I know one when I see one. Your life with him will be a continual running away from creditors. You feel you can live with that now. It has brought you to this primitive society because you had to run away. Leave him now. I shall be waiting for you.”
“You can’t really mean that.”
“What I mean is that we should not sit down meekly and accept what life deals out. You have married this man. I admit he has charm. He is gracious and courteous, the perfect English gentleman. But I will tell you what your life with him will be. I can see it clearly. I know men. He’s a loser, I tell you. He’s different from your friend Justin Cartwright.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is a man who knows how to win.”
“To win?”
“I’ve heard things. He has good luck at the table. Every time he plays he walks off with some winnings. He’s more likely to make his fortune at the tables than in the mines.”
“How do you know this?”
“They play at the saloon. Old Featherstone runs a profitable business with his saloon. He’s one of those who has a way of making money and isn’t winding up the windlasses either. There are all sorts of ways to fortune and your friend Justin is not too bad at one of them.”
“Perhaps he’ll want to go home. He is worried about Morwenna.”
“I think that’s likely. The London clubs would be more profitable than a township in the outback. Prospecting for gold by day and winning at the tables by night … well, it’s a pity for Gervaise’s sake that a little of Justin’s luck doesn’t rub off on him. Angel, you’ve got to leave him. Tell him. If we talked to him and told him how things were he would understand. He is that sort.”
“I think you are mad, Ben.”
“Yes … mad for you, Angel. I knew it would be like this between us as soon as you stepped off that ship. I thought of you often … but as a little girl. I was attracted then … I knew there was something between us … and when I saw you again I was sure of it.”
“We should not be talking like this.”
“My dear Angel, you are not in your parents’ drawing room now. Are you going to let life buffet you which way it wants to?”
“I am married to Gervaise. I love Gervaise. I will never leave him. He is a good man. He is kind and he has been good to me.”
“You will always be at the mercy of his obsession with gambling. Believe me, I know. I have seen this sort of situation before. It mustn’t happen to you, Angel.”
“And you? Are you not obsessed? You vowed to make a fortune and you
say you will not leave here until you do. Isn’t that rather the same?”
“No. I am going to. … He never will.”
“How do you know? He might strike gold tomorrow.”
“Suppose he does? Suppose he goes home? I guarantee that he would lose the lot in a very short time. A couple of years … perhaps three. That’s the pattern of a gambler’s life.”
“I do not want to talk like this, Ben.”
“I never sit down and accept defeat,” he told me vehemently. “We were meant for each other. Never forget that.”
“It is foolish to talk in this way.”
“It is truthful. I love you. I want you. One day we shall be together.”
As he spoke he picked up a handful of earth and let it slip through his fingers. “I’ll find what I seek in this land,” he went on. “And one day you and I will be together.”
I said: “We must go back now. I don’t want to leave Morwenna too long. Look at your hands. What do you expect, playing with the soil like that?”
He looked towards the creek and said: “I’ll wash them in there.”
I watched him, as he knelt by the creek, and I tried hard to subdue the disturbance he had created in me.
He was right. I loved him. I knew that full well now. I doubted his faults were any less than those of Gervaise; but his would be the faults of strength; Gervaise’s those of weakness. Gervaise acted not because he wanted to but because the weakness in him made him submit to his obsession; Ben acted through strength and the certainty that the world was made for him. What was there to choose? From a point of morality … nothing. It was a matter of strength and weakness. But what sense was there in making comparisons? Love came without being bidden. One did not really love for that sort of reason.
He was a long time at the creek. I saw him dabbling his hands in the water. I rose and, going to my horse, untethered it and mounted. I must get back to Morwenna.
He seemed reluctant to leave the creek.
“I’m going now,” I called.
He rubbed his hands on his coat as he turned.
He was very quiet and seemed to be deep in thought as we rode back to the house.
He is regretting his outspokenness, I thought. He is realizing that he should never have said what he did.
I was glad he had, though. It was a warning to me. In view of those feelings he had expressed for me and mine for him, I should have to take care.
The next day there was excitement throughout the township.
One-Eye Thompson and Tom Cassidy had found gold—not just a speck or two but the real thing.
One-Eye—so called for obvious reasons, but no one seemed to know how he had lost his right eye—was a man who did not mingle very much with his fellows. He lived in a shack which he shared with his partner, Tom Cassidy; they were usually a taciturn pair, and they were rarely at the saloon unless it was to drink a mug of ale and then depart immediately afterwards.
They had worked steadily and, until this time, without success.
The news spread rapidly. If someone had found gold in any quantity it could mean that there were still rich alluvial deposits in the neighborhood. Hope ran like a fire through the settlement.
One-Eye had little to say but Cassidy could not contain his joy.
“It’s come at last,” he said. “We’re made. Soon it will be Home for us … millionaires.”
Feverishly they worked raising the wash-dirt from the bottom of their shaft, then taking it to the stream to be panned … that the dross might be separated from the precious gold.
Everyone was talking of One-Eye’s and Cassidy’s luck. There was no other topic of conversation.
For three days they worked furiously turning out the gold. But it did not last. It ceased as suddenly as it had begun.
“Never mind,” said Cassidy. “Our fortunes are made.”
It was going to be Home for them.
The gold was in bags ready to be taken to Melbourne. There it would be valued; and there was no doubt that they had become rich men overnight.
As was the custom when anyone, as they said, “struck it rich,” there was a celebration throughout the town.
The successful partners would be hosts to the entire community. There would be a roasted sheep; it would be out-of-doors. There would be dancing and singing for when one man experienced such luck it stressed the fact that this could happen to any of them. It was the whole meaning of the life; it brought fresh optimism to the site for everyone knew that if someone had found leads to a “jeweler’s shop” there must be others.
“Gold will be as plentiful as it had been in fifty-one,” they said. “It is just that it is farther down and more difficult to find.”
I remember that occasion well. The excitement was intense. It was impossible not to be part of it. Even One-Eye expressed his jubilation; Cassidy was obviously in a state of bliss.
Gervaise was delighted. “Theirs today and ours tomorrow,” he said. “Soon we’ll be out of this place. There’s gold there. You can smell it.”
“I have a feeling that we shall soon be lucky,” said Justin.
“Everyone has that feeling,” I told them. “I only hope it is true.”
The heat of the day was over; the night was pleasantly warm and the stars brilliant in the velvety sky … the Southern Cross to remind us that we were far from home. Fires were lighted for roasting the meat. Dampers were cooking in the ashes. It seemed that everyone in the town was assembled.
“You will see,” Ben told us, “how a really big find is celebrated here. After months of depression when people begin to feel that the good days have gone forever, someone has a find like this and hope springs up.”
I could see that there was a change in him. He too was deeply affected by this find. He had the gold fever as intensely as any of them.
Gervaise was in specially high spirits.
“Just think,” he said. “It could have been us.”
“If only it had,” I sighed.
“If only …” repeated Justin.
They were two words which seemed to be in my mind a great deal lately. Ben’s confession had had a profound effect on me. I told myself I ought to get away. I felt unsure of myself.
Some of the men and women had begun to dance. Two of the men had brought violins with them and they were always in great demand. One of them had a very good singing voice.
It was a strange night. The light from the fires set a glow over the shacks endowing them with a mysterious quality they lacked by daylight.
Morwenna was of course not with us. She was not well enough and hourly we were expecting—and hoping—for the child to be born. We never left her alone. Always one of us was within call, holding herself in readiness. Meg was on duty at this moment and her husband with her. He would fetch Mrs. Bowles immediately if there was any sign of the child.
I was seated on the grass, Justin and Gervaise with me.
Gervaise was talking enthusiastically of the find. I knew that his desire to go home and his need to find gold were grappling with each other. I do believe that had it not been for the debt he owed Uncle Peter he would have wanted to leave by now. As Ben had said, it was easier to make money at the card tables in London’s Clubland than in the goldfields of Australia.
This find had probably made him change his view. “There must be more,” he kept saying. “It is like that. If you find traces it must mean that there is more not far off. It could be anywhere under this ground. We are going to find it. I know we are.”
“Soon, I hope,” I said.
“I heard a rumor,” said Justin, “that Ben Lansdon wants to buy land from James Morley. What do you think he plans to do? To graze sheep?”
Gervaise said: “He doesn’t seem like a grazier to me.”
“To open up another mine?”
“Why on Morley’s land?”
“Who knows? Do you think he has come to the conclusion that the present one is worked out?”
“
There have been poor yields for some time.”
I thought: Yes, he has the gold fever as much as any of them. He will never give up any more than the others will.
I saw Ben among the crowd. With him were James Morley and Lizzie. Ben was talking animatedly to them. James was laughing and Lizzie smiling happily. She looked quite beautiful in the firelight with that lovely serene expression which seemed to indicate complete contentment.
They came over to us.
Ben took my hand and pressed it firmly.
“Well, what do you think of our jamboree?” he asked.
“Exciting,” I said. “The township looks different in the fire-and starlight.”
“It casts a rosy glow. I think One-Eye and Cassidy are very happy men tonight.”
“We shall miss them,” said Gervaise.
“Others will take their places, never fear.”
“And there will be more disappointments,” said James Morley. “I reckon it would do most of them more good to get hold of a piece of land and raise sheep and cattle.”
“They might not all have your success, James,” said Ben.
“They would if they worked. All this dig … dig … dig and perhaps there is just nothing at the end of it. It’s making a mess of good grazing land.”
“You have one aim in mind, James,” said Ben with a laugh. “Return to the land.”
“Yes, and give up this gimcrack notion. Gold there might be … but there is not enough to go round … and I say leave it be.”
“Yours certainly seems to be a happier way of life,” I said.
“You see before you one of the most successful graziers in Victoria,” said Ben. “Not all are so successful. And show me two happier men tonight than One-Eye and Cassidy.”
“They are happy,” I said, “because they are getting away from it.”
“But, darling,” put in Gervaise, “think of the joy of tilting your pan and seeing it there … and realizing that you have stumbled on it at last.”
“Yes,” I told him, “I can imagine how they feel. But how often does it happen?”
Pool of St. Branok Page 27
