The Widow of Ballarat

by Darry Fraser

  So far, no news that Andrew’s loins, from which his uncle had hoped a son would spring, had planted anything. Or perhaps the springs were not as tightly coiled as Andrew would have his men believe. Lewis grunted his scorn.

  Lewis had now seen the blackened eyes of both his uncle’s wives. The first wife had died delivering a dead baby. The evidence of his fists on her poor ravaged body prior to the birth had been unmistakable to the midwives. How was it that the man continually proclaimed that he wanted a son and heir, yet made sure it was very nearly impossible as he badly beat his wife? The midwives had told Lewis that his uncle had exploded in an uncontrollable rage over something Susan had said. Nothing Susan could possibly have said would have caused uncontrollable rage, and certainly not in a true man, a real man. One of the midwives had demanded to be paid for her silence, the other had fled in terror for her own life. The troopers had not come to take his uncle away. Andrew should have stopped there before he risked being committed to stand trial for murder. He should’ve left it at that … He was in no state to beget a child. But no, he had to continue, didn’t he?

  Lewis was now Andrew Amberton’s successor, was he not? The eldest surviving male in the family. Except if there was direct issue, of course … he could still be usurped by law, by pieces of paper, a marriage certificate, a birth registration—if there was to be one—and a will. It was a ridiculous thing. His uncle wasn’t fit in the mind. If Lewis had taken it to a magistrate and ordered the will to be rescinded or revoked, or whatever in God’s name the term was, he’d have had his uncle committed to an asylum.

  The look on his mother’s face when he’d suggested it had stopped him flat. So he took the only other solution he had and dispatched his uncle—without so much as a hitch in his breath.

  He would revisit the situation with the will. His mother had informed him that the lawyer, Mr Campbell in Bendigo, would have it read. Lewis would ask Matthew Worrell, Andrew’s ledgers man, who worked with his cousin the lawyer, to introduce him. Always best if one had an introduction.

  There was, of course, the chance that Nell might well be with child. He hadn’t heard—surely his mother would have said—but if Nell was with child, he would not direct any harm on her. She could be useful—in the face of Flora’s rejection of his marriage proposal, offering marriage to Nell might be the best way forward. A comely wife, a fortune to administer and, perhaps, children of his own.

  After he’d witnessed the damage his uncle had inflicted on Nell the last time, he’d decided he would not wait any longer. Would not stand by and let the possibility of another woman’s death occur at the hands of his uncle. His own mother might turn her eye, but not he. As Lewis proclaimed to himself, the estate would not go to waste under his administration if Andrew were to ‘pass away’ suddenly. His uncle was repugnant, and Lewis would ensure he was assisted off this mortal coil. The injuries inflicted on Nell had simply brought his solution forward.

  So after the massacre, as it was now called, and his little detour with the trooper in the faint early light of morning, he had limped home. It wasn’t far. Then just after dawn, struggling with the nuisance cut in his side, he had checked that the Enfield rifle was secured to his saddle, that the cartridges were in the bags, and had clambered atop his horse. He’d ridden to his uncle’s house, only to see him hastily alight a harnessed coach, after shoving his wife inside, and depart town. All the better.

  Careful, Lewis kept a lookout for any troopers. He’d always known where his best vantage point on this road would be and he headed there as quickly as he could. He took the rough terrain cross country to position himself before the coach rounded the big bend.

  That bushranger could have upset things. But the man hadn’t spooked overly much, except for what appeared to be a short fit after the shots were fired. Only moments later, he’d regained his senses and stood there, talking with Nell, as calm as day, Andrew’s body ignored. Lewis couldn’t make out their words, but it seemed the man was discussing things with his surprisingly composed aunt. Then he’d approached Nell at the coach and Lewis again had steadied his eye at the rifle.

  The bushranger had put the driver’s rifle inside the coach for her, had helped her inside. A gentleman. Absurd, but there it was. No need for more killing, just yet. Lewis needed to leave before that gentleman bushranger decided to come looking for him.

  Now home, again on his bed, he closed his eyes, the relenting need for sleep still catching him unawares. Before he gave in to it, his plans were foremost on his mind. Plans that might now have to include Nell Amberton.

  Oh, dear God. Flora, what will become of us? Flora.

  Six

  Ballarat, Christmas Day 1854

  Noise from the streets was restrained; life after the killing fields of Eureka Lead and the stockade remained quiet. A stillness had descended on the town, shrouding the misery. The camp itself hummed with a low energy, like a grumbling dog not yet ready to rise again.

  At the diggings, the burned tents had been cleared. There was a dreadful discovery of bodies that had been caught and burned in the night’s fires as the deadly soldiers and troopers stormed through Eureka Lead. It was a horror witnessed by the survivors and reported indignantly by the Geelong Advertiser (for Mr Seekamp, the editor of Ballarat’s own newspaper, the Ballarat Times, had been imprisoned for sedition after the battle). What other dreadful atrocities had been inflicted that were now only coming to the light of day? The troopers, and those who condoned their cowardly acts, should be damned for eternity.

  Nell watched as Enid dabbed at her reddened eyes once again. It had been weeks since Andrew was killed, and his sister was clearly still much overcome by it.

  Now the woman glanced a watery eyeful at Nell. ‘I am glad we did not prepare to have Christmas. Wouldn’t be right,’ Enid said, picking up her fan and flapping it a few times in front of her eyes. ‘After the death of my dear brother. And your husband.’

  It was hot, more than one hundred degrees. Nell lifted her own fan. It would have been far too stifling in this heat to have readied any sort of Christmas celebration. Not that it would have been a particularly festive one. ‘I am certainly happy we did not prepare for Christmas. Very happy,’ Nell answered, her glance veiled.

  Enid’s eyes leaked tears, it seemed all the time. There hadn’t been any agonised weeping. After screaming the first time upon hearing of Andrew’s death, she had been somewhat dignified and had held most of her woe inside. Her face would stretch in the distress of high emotion, distraught and pained, but in silence.

  In that, the woman was certainly not like her brother, neither in stature nor in temperament. Yet her features were an eerie reminder of the monster that had been Andrew Amberton. Enid had her brother’s low forehead and wide eyes, a nose, which, when her emotions were high, flared at the nostrils. Her hair, the same pale ginger as her brother’s, and receding the same way, was thin and drawn back from her gaunt face in the fashion of a decade past.

  A sigh turned Nell’s thoughts. One day, when she was free of all this, free of these people, she hoped she would have a child, a wanted child. Perhaps one with kind, searching green eyes, and chestnut-coloured hair, like that of the man she’d thought of for weeks. Perhaps her boy would have the same auburn-tinged brows, and long lashes the colour of the darkest night. Maybe when he got older, his razor-scraped cheeks would show a fine shadow, or a stubble glinting with grey and flecked with red after a day or two without a shave. Her heart gave a little leap and her cheeks heated up.

  Nell closed her eyes and sat back in the chair, a cushion at her back and her feet on a little stool. The window was open and the wisp of a breeze, warm and dry from under the shade of a gum tree outside, teased at her neck. Wilshire House had a far more pleasant outlook than the home she and Andrew had occupied.

  ‘You seem to get a cooler breeze here through the warmer months,’ she murmured to Enid. ‘I’m grateful you offered me a room here. I was uneasy after the first night alone and seei
ng that mysterious shadow. Perhaps it was not danger at all, only my excitable nerves.’

  Enid sniffed. ‘Lewis felt it was the right and proper thing to have you here for the interim. But you will return once our affairs have been settled.’ The fan flapped again.

  Nell nodded absently. ‘As soon as I can.’ She could feel Enid’s sour glance.

  In the weeks past, she’d accepted the room here at Wilshire House, knowing it certainly hadn’t been offered out of the goodness of Enid’s heart.

  Enid had stared frostily at her when Nell had agreed to take it up. ‘If you would return the gold that Andrew left, as well,’ she’d said, politely, as if it were just another ordinary subject of conversation. ‘It will be kept in trust, of course, and Lewis will administer it once the estate has cleared probate.’

  Lewis, reading the Geelong newspaper at the time—the local Ballarat Times hadn’t been printed since the Eureka debacle—had glanced up, startled. ‘Gold, Mama?’

  Nell had only shrugged. ‘Andrew left me no gold.’ Which, she reasoned, was true.

  Enid had not been deterred. ‘Lewis and I will check the house for ourselves when we come to collect you. Andrew might not have wished to bother his dear wife with such things.’

  Nell had swallowed down a retort. Mildly, she’d said, ‘Of course.’

  When Lewis arrived with the hired cart to transfer Nell to Wilshire House, Enid herself had gone through Amberton House with a fine-toothed comb. She hadn’t found any gold. Lewis had been satisfied with that.

  For the few anxious days and nights that she’d remained at Amberton House before the move, Nell had secreted bars and nuggets throughout the house and the yard. She’d sewn the smaller nuggets into her skirt’s hem. The day they’d had come for her, Nell had been relieved that the gold pieces hadn’t clack-clacked softly as she’d made her way into Wilshire House.

  The remaining gold at Amberton House would wait for Nell to retrieve it when she could. It was safe in its hiding places for the time being.

  Now, Nell couldn’t wait to go back to Amberton House. She was ready, her bruises healed, her appetite returned. The gloom of Amberton House would have to be endured, for it was the lesser evil at present.

  Today, she wore a plain skirt of black linen, and a blouse of dark cotton over a chemise, all fresh from the clothesline. She refused to dress in anything more drably respectful for her mourning attire. If she’d ventured out, which she had rarely chosen to do, Enid had loaned her a black jacket to cover herself. It was too damned hot to wear that dreary dark fabric, so it was easier not to venture too far.

  However, of late, she’d become restless. Trying to keep modest in this heat was an effort for every minute of the day and night.

  ‘I will be glad of some new clothes, I have so little as it is,’ she said, idly. ‘These mourning weeds are too hot, by far.’

  Enid made a noise. ‘You should be thankful my brother insisted on good clothing for you. He might not have been the richest man on the fields, but his tastes stretched to the best he could afford,’ she shrilled.

  Or steal, Nell thought. ‘I have hardly any clothes,’ she corrected. ‘A few undergarments. So a couple more pieces will do me.’

  ‘You were to have a tea gown, he told me,’ Enid went on, a huff in her voice. ‘I, myself, have never had a tea gown.’

  Nell didn’t bother looking at her sister-in-law. ‘A nice thought, Enid, but I can assure you, it had not been about to happen. He would never have bought me a tea gown.’

  Andrew wouldn’t have risked purchasing a tea gown for Nell; that would have been far too expensive and would have put her above her station, and questions would have been asked about Andrew’s dealings. He wouldn’t pay his workers fairly, and men were imprisoned for stealing from other men—he was very aware of that. It appeared he’d fled the fields rather than pay up. Fled while his miners, men he’d mistreated himself, bore the brunt of the troopers’ savagery.

  Enid sniffed, dabbing again at her nose. ‘It was to be a Christmas gift, he said.’

  Nell riled at the haughty statement. ‘I wonder where he put it then, for clearly neither of us has found it,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s better that such a gift was not made. Many families will have foregone Christmas this year because good people have gone unfairly to their graves.’

  ‘Yes, he was a good man, but you sound ungrateful for all his generosity towards you.’

  Nell shot her a look. ‘Don’t believe your own lies.’

  Enid flushed. ‘Well. You can be thankful you’re back in rude health after the ordeal at the hands of that bushranger. My brother was not so lucky.’

  Nell’s ordeal with Andrew had been far worse than any bushranger could have imposed on her. ‘I am glad to be in rude health, Enid, and all I yearn to do is to laugh again, to be free to choose my own way.’ She would remain as civil as she could.

  Dabbing her handkerchief some more, Enid said, ‘We should not quibble. We should be more concerned with that terrible turn of events.’

  ‘Which of the terrible events?’

  ‘That we should have had to bury him with those rebel men,’ Enid said.

  I would sooner have left him for the crows. ‘It was best,’ Nell replied. ‘Others have had to suffer it as well for there were too many deaths for one undertaker. And too hot this year. Most had to be quickly buried in the mass grave.’

  ‘There’s nowhere to mourn him. And who will bring his killer to justice?’

  Nell decided to refrain, but if she’d been a blaspheming woman, she would’ve told Enid to go to hell.

  Rather, she murmured assent to Enid’s whining, which had become a habit. Nell almost didn’t hear Enid’s grief, and could barely spare her any commiseration. When Enid had visited Amberton House, she had not so much as offered a sympathetic hand clasp when Nell would appear, her face swollen, or her eye blackened at the hands of the woman’s brother.

  Her sister-in-law’s only saving grace was her son, who had taken leave after his breakfast this morning. To rest, he’d said. Lewis had taken to ‘resting’ in his room through the day for some time now, Nell had noticed. She’d wondered if his slight stoop and a shortness of breath lately was an indication he was unwell. He had always been polite towards her, so if he was an ally, tentatively speaking, she hoped he was not becoming ill. Lewis would be the sole trustee of the estate. Perhaps he would be kind to her.

  Thoughts drifted as the breeze, only a slight respite from the heat of the day, tickled at her throat.

  ‘I should have insisted,’ Enid went on. ‘I should have made them give him a separate place in the cemetery.’

  Nell glanced over. Enid’s face was splotchy and damp, probably not so much from weeping as from the hot sweats she endured from time to time. They were doubly terrible in this heat, Nell was sure. Enid’s eyes were swollen, and her nose, chafed by hours of wiping, looked sore.

  ‘It’s too late to lament it,’ said Nell. ‘Perhaps you can purchase a plot in the cemetery. Erect a headstone over it once the will is read, and his estate belongs to Lewis.’ She held her breath. So far, Enid didn’t know there was no baby.

  Enid shot her a quick glance. She frowned then the squint disappeared. Her mouth pulled a little as she spoke. ‘At least his affairs ensure you won’t have to go and find work in this town derelict of decent men and women.’ She moved her shoulders, stiffened her spine.

  There seemed to be no doubt in Enid’s mind that she was the only law-abiding person left alive.

  ‘I am sure there are plenty of decent men and women here,’ Nell said mildly, without looking over. ‘If I asked for it perhaps there are some who would take me on to work for them.’

  She heard Enid’s catch of breath. ‘You will not go to work. We must press on for the sake of the future. For the child.’

  In the moment’s silence, Nell could almost feel Enid’s thoughts. She waited.

  ‘If there is indeed a child,’ Enid finally muttered.

>   Inhaling deeply, Nell kept her tongue.

  ‘You are not showing,’ Enid said, another pointed remark.

  ‘How would I? It is so early. But if it is so, and all goes well, he will be delivered early August.’ Again, Nell kept her voice mild, a soft but firm confirmation.

  Enid blinked. No doubt doing her count. More dabbing at eyes, more pulling of her mouth. ‘We will have a doctor confirm—’

  ‘That would be best.’

  ‘And you don’t know it will be a “he”.’ More of Enid’s clever deductions.

  ‘A manner of speech. And no matter if not. I will find my own way.’

  Enid scowled, her mouth thinning. ‘You wouldn’t survive without us. Without the name.’

  ‘Hence why I would have to find work. And I assure you, if I didn’t have to carry this name, I would not.’ Nell turned to look fully at her sister-in-law, who, after some seconds, turned away, her mouth pinched, her eyes narrowed.

  Fully aware she had to take some steps to garner against poverty—for surely Enid would adhere to her dear brother’s wishes—Nell closed her eyes and let out a deep, silent breath. There would be a way to keep safe and secure. It just hadn’t shown itself yet.

  She settled back, and at once saw the searching gaze of those kind, green eyes. She revisited the idea that Mr Steele held some clue to the identity of her bushranger. Her bushranger. Was her memory becoming crowded with silly thoughts because her belly tingled and her heartbeat sped up when she thought of him?

  He was not a thug. She knew it as much as she knew herself. What had he said—that his mask was to protect her, that he knew Andrew because of … of who? Nell searched her crowded memory, but no name came forth. Why was it still so foggy?

  But she remembered the awful tremors as he clutched his elbow, his arms crossed over his abdomen, as he bent double. Remembered the struggle he had trying to control them.

  Awful tremors. Shaking uncontrollably.

  With a little start, and a flush heating her cheeks, she inhaled a sharp breath as her memory tweaked again. Had she seen him somewhere before?