by Darry Fraser
‘Much has happened since.’
Flora sighed. ‘And much has stayed the same.’
They both looked across at the laundry tubs.
‘That’s true enough,’ Nell said, and gave a short laugh. ‘And it won’t do itself.’
Flora flicked a hand at the tubs. ‘Sit awhile. Your boss says it’s all right.’ She dunked a pannikin into the billy and set it down for Nell and did the same for herself. ‘I heard you’re going to the Subscription Ball.’
‘Though not for want of trying to get out of it. Lewis is insisting for some strange reason. I can think of nothing worse than going to a ball. Widow weeds, and all that, and then there’s Enid.’ Nell looked at Flora. ‘And how did you hear I was going?’
Flora dusted off her apron over the soft folds of the wide bloomers. ‘Lewis found me at the butcher’s tent before he went to Bendigo.’
‘Did he now?’ Nell took up her cup and gave it a gentle swirl before sipping.
‘Aye, he did. Said he couldn’t find me here, so he came lookin’. Says he wants to walk out with me again.’ Flora studied her hands, palm up, palm down. ‘Says you asked him to be occupyin’ Amberton House.’
Nell was surprised Lewis had said anything to Flora. ‘I did. But if I tried walking from there to here before dawn,’ she waved a hand at the tubs, ‘and walking back after dark, I would have rocks in my head. If the laundry doesn’t kill me, the walk to and fro Amberton House would.’ Not to mention the dangers of walking alone, in fields pock-ridden with holes, mullock heaps, tents, and drunken men. ‘When I asked about Amberton House, he said to wait until after his visit to the lawyer.’ It was a fair answer in the scope of things.
‘You can still put a tent here.’
‘I might have to.’ Nell frowned. If Flora had agreed to see Lewis once more, Nell wouldn’t be confiding in her, especially about Andrew’s gold. ‘And so, you agreed to see Lewis again?’
‘No, and not sure I will. He returns today from Bendigo, no doubt the big man of an estate.’ Flora blew in her tea to cool it. ‘He would be coming back far too well-to-do for the likes of me, and I think that’s where I’ll be leavin’ it.’
Nell smiled a little at that, remembering Lewis’s comments about Flora. ‘He will certainly have a job to manage the businesses, if the way Andrew always went on and on about it was any indication.’
Flora took a swallow of tea. ‘Does it not bother you now, not having the life Andrew married you into?’
Nell stared at the low flames and the embers glowing under the billy. She lifted the pot away from the fire and dunked her cup again to top up. ‘What life was it? If I even cared, there’s naught to do about it. Enid has made herself clear. And to answer you directly, no. I have no wish for it. But Lewis hasn’t said what he’ll do.’
‘I think he would be kind, Nell.’
‘Do you?’
Flora made a face. ‘He’d look after his own first, o’course. Like I would.’
Nell looked at her. ‘Then in that case, it might be best for me to put a tent here.’ She drew in a breath. ‘And will you be going to the ball?’
Flora looked skywards a moment. ‘To be sure,’ she said, wryly. ‘Me and me mam here will bring out our finest flounces and ribbons and pop along.’
‘Anyone can go if they pay their three pounds, you know,’ Nell said, chiding.
Flora snorted. ‘I’ll not be wastin’ my hard-earned cash on the frivolous goings-on of a ball. But I am happy to donate to the cause. I’ll give you a sixpence to take for the pot.’ She stood up, dashed the dregs of her tea into the embers. ‘We best get along. As you said, that lot,’ she pointed at the tubs, ‘won’t do itself.’
Seventeen
Crushed under the weight of Mr Campbell’s news, Lewis had found a pub in Bendigo. He had sat and brooded for hours before he’d decided to ride into the night for home. At first, he’d chugged down the rum, but then he considered the ride home and the ugly hangover he’d have if he didn’t stop the drinking. He’d also save his coin, which would be more prudent than ever.
Now he sat opposite his mother in the kitchen of their house. He was dog-tired, dirty, and he could smell himself, but that was the least of his worries.
In the early evening light, Enid’s face was ashen, the colour his own must have been when Mr Campbell had uttered the words that shocked him.
‘Nothing?’ she asked, short of breath, her small eyes as wide as possible.
‘Only debt,’ he answered, flatly. ‘For the most part, I can operate the mine and pay off the rent on the houses. Hand one of them back to its owner after that.’
‘And good riddance to Nell Thomas,’ Enid hissed.
‘Nell Amberton, Mama,’ he corrected. ‘She legally has Andrew’s name and will remain here in this house with a roof over her head. The problem lies squarely with Andrew. None of this is Nell’s fault.’
‘It’s her fault, all right—’
Lewis fist hammered on the table. ‘He was the worst type of scoundrel to her, and to poor Susan if you would care to remember.’
Enid ignored him. ‘It was in his will that she is not to be supported—’
‘What have I just finished telling you?’ Exasperation caused his voice to rise and he went on. ‘There is no will. There is no fortune. No grand houses. No estates. No land anywhere. Only large debt.’ His side pained with a quick, deep sting, and he calmed himself. The ride home had been bad enough without stirring up more aches to bother him. ‘And Nell is rightfully his widow.’
His mother’s colour returned in a rush. She picked up her fan and flapped it in front of her face.
‘This debt,’ he went on in her haughty silence, ‘is a debt I have somehow guaranteed. And how is that possible, eh? The man must have forged my signature.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘The mine will have to deliver, we will have to explore more ways to extract the gold.’ His thoughts jumped from possible solution, to improbable outcome, and back to blame. ‘He was a liar, damn him,’ he snarled.
Enid flinched, swallowed down her emotion.
‘He was a thief,’ Lewis stormed on, his brows taut. ‘He was cruel, and controlling, and it was good—’ He stopped. He was too close to announcing the murder he’d committed.
His mother hiccupped, and wiped her nose with a handkerchief.
He burst out instead, ‘But what possessed him to forge my signature on a document like this?’ He flattened a palm on the agreement to repay the loan, which was spread out on the table. ‘Five thousand pounds, Mama. It’s a monstrous amount of money. Did he say a word to you, about any of this sort of thing?’
Enid pressed the handkerchief to her eyes. ‘No.’
Sitting forward, his head in his hands, he let out a breath. ‘What possible reason would he have?’ He looked up, bleak. ‘Unless he intended to betray us as well. Unless he intended to keep this money to himself all along and ride off.’ He stopped, stared at his mother’s crumpled face, but hardly noticed it.
He’d shot and killed his uncle—a mercy to all those who suffered, certainly. And yes, yes, there was a small matter of Lewis being bypassed for succession, of inheritance, but now there was nothing to inherit. Had never been. Had he been outwitted by Andrew all along?
Enid sobbed soundlessly into her handkerchief, her shoulders hunched.
Lewis knew his signature on the loan document was fraudulent, illegal. He had no funds to take it before a magistrate and declare the guarantee invalid—even if there were a magistrate to be found who could give a damn. In the present climate over the goldfields it would be nigh on impossible. But he’d put it to Mr Campbell to challenge it as soon as he could think straight.
The lawyer had simply said, ‘Let’s see your signatures,’ and asked him to sign his name on a loose sheet of paper for comparison. Sliding the papers side by side, they both stared at the signatures, Lewis’s fresh one against the one on the loan document. Lewis knew he was in trouble. The forgery was very goo
d. He looked at Mr Campbell, who just shook his head. Even the signature and name of the witness—which neither of them recognised—looked to be as fraudulent as it was illegible.
He was now in debt to the tune of five thousand pounds and he was thinking fast.
‘It was a special kind of madness,’ Lewis mused aloud, staring past his mother and into the cast iron gloom of the old stove.
‘I presume you are speaking of Andrew,’ Nell said as she stood at the door, just in from working at Flora’s laundry. She held her boots in her hand and had slipped her feet into house slippers before entering the kitchen.
‘I am.’ Lewis nodded, and stood, facing her. ‘There is some terrible news, Nell.’
Nell looked at Enid. Her sister-in-law rocked a little back and forth, her face covered by hands bunched around her handkerchief. The silence of it sent a hollow feeling to her stomach and she glanced back to Lewis.
‘What is it?’ she demanded.
Enid’s nose blared into her handkerchief. She reached for another in her lap and wiped her eyes with it.
Preparing herself, Nell set her boots outside the door and asked again, ‘What is it, Lewis?’
‘Before I explain,’ Lewis said, and indicated she should sit at the table, ‘I would ask if you ever saw my uncle’s will?’
Nell sat in a chair at the table and took another glance at Enid. Her sister-in-law stared at the broad, black cooker squatting in the bricked alcove. Its heat, necessary but overwhelming in the small room during summer, made Nell’s armpits trickle and her scalp crawl. She felt the dirt of the day gritty on her skin.
‘I did not. I never saw any papers to that effect,’ she answered. ‘He said he sent it to be registered just after we were married.’
Lewis sat again. ‘It was never registered, if indeed there ever was a will.’
His words took a moment for her to comprehend. Nell rested the palms of her hands on the hard timber table, its smooth well-worn surface cool to her touch. She leaned in a little. ‘It was all he talked about near the end,’ she said.
Enid sniffled.
‘About that, and his land, and these two houses,’ Nell continued. ‘Of the mining. Of how great a man he was.’ She heard the bitterness of her words and stopped, sinking back in her chair. ‘I don’t know what it means if he has no will.’
Lewis thrust a hand through his hair. When he looked at Nell, she saw his usually calm, clear eyes were shot with red, the rims bright against the white. ‘No will, no inheritance, and no money. No holdings, no houses. Nothing except a huge debt of five thousand pounds owed to his previous father-in-law, John Seymour, and the family want it back.’
‘Five—? John Seymour, Susan’s father?’ Could that be where the gold had come from—Susan’s family? Breath hitched in her throat. There could easily be that amount in gold in those bags. That she still had hold of it sent waves of shame through her. Fear came fast on its heels. Her thoughts rushed over the bags of gold, what she’d hidden, how much there might have been. The certainty of its true ownership struck her dumb.
‘Yes. Susan’s father. There’s nothing else, not a farthing, only what comes in from the diggings, is all. I must take up the licenses to ensure we have that income, at least.’
Enid straightened, shot a look at Nell and bristled. ‘We?’ she asked.
Nell ignored Enid. ‘No houses? Not this one or the other?’
Lewis shook his head. ‘Not owned. Rented only, and with much rent outstanding.’ He looked at her. ‘It means I will have to surrender one of them to the owner. I will try to find the back rent for it, but Nell, it will have to be the one you had hoped to occupy.’
‘Of course.’ She clasped her hands over the table. ‘Of course,’ she repeated, thinking quickly. ‘I have some possessions there.’ She looked at Lewis. ‘Nothing I can’t carry in a basket, some clothing only. A few papers, old letters.’
‘There was nothing there when I checked that day,’ Enid snapped, her handkerchief coming away revealing angry, thinned lips.
‘But there is now. As you know I had intended to leave this house and live there again. I had taken a few things back. I will need to retrieve them, and soon, that’s clear,’ Nell replied as evenly as she could. Good God, she would have to go back to the house and retrieve the bars and nuggets, hide them somewhere else, somehow. That gold was not Andrew’s to have, nor Lewis’s to keep. Nor hers, for that matter. She was certain it belonged to her predecessor’s father and should rightfully go back to his family.
Some of John Seymour’s money must have been exchanged for Nell and paid to her father by Andrew Amberton. She was now sure that’s what had happened. Stunned, Nell stared across the room.
Enid pushed away from the table, took a nub of candle and poked it into the stove to light its wick. She lit others from it, and their low glow softened the night’s arrival as the sun began to set. Insects flew to the candles; some perished, some escaped only to return. Mosquitoes buzzed lazily overhead.
‘What do we tell people?’ Enid said to her son, turning back, a candle in her hand. She set it on the table and took her seat again.
‘Nothing,’ Lewis said. He tapped his fingers on his knees. ‘Say nothing. The miners will still dig for our gold. We will pay out the rent, first on the other house. We will have to be frugal from now on, and for the foreseeable future.’
‘I will not be able to face the ladies—’
‘Mama, no one need know any different.’
‘But we will not be able to go to the ball, and people will ask why not, especially as we have accepted to go,’ she reasoned weakly, her eyes on her son.
Lewis stood up. He reached over to the mantel and took another stub of candle, lighting it from the ones on the table. His lip curled. ‘If I so chose to use an excuse, we would have poor dear Andrew’s demise to hide behind. But I do not choose. We will all still go to the ball. The tickets are paid for, and we have them as proof of payment. We will not allow any of this to escape this house and will carry on. As normal.’ He walked past Nell to the doorway. ‘I am going to wash and then I will go to the pub. Pity the Bentley’s hotel was burnt down before the riots. It would have suited me well to be seen tonight in Ballarat’s finest establishment.’
Ballarat’s finest? Nell wondered at his patronage of the Eureka Hotel, now gone, and its owner James Bentley, who’d at first been exonerated for the murder of a drunken Scotsman, then incarcerated for manslaughter. Talk was it had justified the diggers’ actions. It had fuelled the disastrous events of the stockade battle, unified the miners against the corrupt government and police. Had Lewis more to do with the darker side of life on the diggings than she had imagined? She would need to be more vigilant. An eerie flutter spread through her chest, as if a cool breeze had entered her body.
Lewis headed out but turned back and looked at them. ‘Best foot forward, ladies. We will sleep on plans to secure the future.’
Enid stared after him. ‘He goes to the pub,’ she said, ruefully. ‘He acts as if this is not the worst thing to happen for us.’
Nell didn’t answer. If this was the worst to happen, Enid was a fortunate woman.
Eighteen
Five thousand pounds. A fortune. Since departing Joseph Campbell’s office with the news—the crippling news of his father’s loan to Amberton—it had bedevilled Finn. He’d thought of nothing else.
Shaken, and numb with the futility of rage, he’d left Bendigo immediately instead of enjoying the town on Saturday and Sunday as he’d planned. He’d ridden for Ballarat and, long hours after dark, dismounted at a stand of gums that reached high to the moonlit sky. Small scrubby bushes dotted around what looked like a natural clearing, and he’d found a hollow that would suffice as a place to sleep. Leading his gelding off the road, he checked the night sky, and, not fearing any thunder and lightning tonight to bring limbs crashing down, tethered him nearby. He rubbed the horse down, gave him water poured into his hat from a travelling flask. He bunkere
d down in the hollow, his saddle a pillow.
The night was warm. A breeze would drop over him and move on, so he hadn’t needed to pull the horse blanket over him. Before sleep came, an intense tremor shook his arm. It pulled his chin to his shoulder and curled his fingers into a painful fist. As it passed, and muscles relaxed, his fingers released, the echoes of bullets whining by his head and canon shot booming in his ears receded. He thanked God he was by himself. Bad enough it had to take him over in Joseph Campbell’s office, but he knew he couldn’t hide it from everyone. It set upon him with no warning, and it wasn’t mindful of the company he kept.
He’d take his chances if the tremors erupted in public, unannounced. There were folk who knew he’d returned from armed combat near the Crimea, but none other than very few knew why he had been discharged. Some folk were known to say of these afflictions, that if there was no physical wound, the afflicted man must be soft in the head. These men must have been, they said, so greatly disturbed by fear that its manifestation was made apparent for all the world to see. They were not war cripples, they’d said. These men were cowards. To be wrongly accused of cowardice simply because his body shook inexplicably enraged him. Yet he could do nothing except bear it. The tremors would lessen over time, he was sure of it, hopeful of it. He’d try to find someone who could advise medically and confirm that hope.
Finn took deep breaths. His mind was whirling away his reason and he had to stop it. He was no cripple, no coward, and would press on through these tremors, make light of them where he could. He hoped that a catatonic state did not descend on him as he knew had happened to others.
He had to focus on getting his father’s loan repaid. And he knew without a doubt that the gold in Amberton’s coach was his by rights. Over the years, his careful father, John, had secreted much away, he knew that. But the loan papers Joseph had shown him horrified him. Amberton had somehow wheedled the loan, had stolen his sister, killed her and then had died at the hands of another. Had Finn only known of the loan at the time of the holdup, he would have taken the gold there and then. Justice done.
