by Darry Fraser
He checked his thinking. Mrs Amberton knew where that gold was now. And she had guarded it carefully, according to Ben, when they’d come for her.
His arm shook a little again. He lay on his back and he braced his elbow, but nothing more came of it. Waiting a few moments more, he relaxed and flexed his limbs.
The woman’s intense blue eyes, wide, imploring, and proud, came to his mind as he readied to sleep under the night sky. The way she’d pressed against him, the way he’d reacted to her. They were the last things he remembered for the night.
He rose just before dawn. Breakfasting on bread he’d bought before departing Bendigo, and downing water from his flask, he rode on to his home on the edge of the digging fields.
Late in the afternoon, bleary-eyed and weary, weighed down by Joseph’s news, Finn walked his tired mount into the two-stalled stable at Steele and Sons. Ben was already there, rubbing down another of Finn’s horses.
The work cart, empty now and ready for a journey to Melbourne to pick up more supplies, stood outside, timber gleaming, wheels oiled, and clean. A huge canvas tarpaulin lay folded neatly in the back, coils of thick rope on top of it. Ben’s coach nearby rested on its draught poles and chocks of rough-hewn tree trunk were jammed against the wheels.
‘You made it back in one piece,’ Ben said in greeting, and kept rubbing as he grinned up at Finn. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, his baggy trousers stained with oil and axle grease.
‘You could say,’ Finn replied and led his horse to the other stall. He loosened the girth strap and lifted the saddle off, slinging it over the rail with a grunt.
‘Didn’t expect you this side of next week. How’d it go, the lawyer’s visit?’
‘Looks like I’ll be hauling picks and shovels and pans from Melbourne for a while yet.’
‘You could haul what’s left in that musty old store of your pa’s and sell it off if you ever cleaned it out.’
Finn gave Ben the eye. The old man’s store had stood filled to the brim with saleable items. Finn kept putting off throwing the doors wide and trading from it. Instead, he’d shoved the excess merchandise from his trips inside, closed the door and walked away. Now, he might have to face it sooner rather than later.
Finn snorted. ‘Either way, no building riverboats for me in the foreseeable future.’ He loosened the horse’s halter, removed it and tossed it to the back of the stall. Grim, he snatched a rag, and started the rub down.
‘That so? Well, there you are. Good reason to stay and sell off that stuff before you can’t sell it.’ Ben leaned his arms on the withers of a healthy roan, its flank broad and well-muscled. ‘Still, would be a shame—no riverboats.’ He ducked under the horse’s neck to peer over the rail into the next stall. ‘Would be a rollickin’ new adventure.’
Finn grunted as he rubbed, and his horse shied in protest. ‘My father had a small fortune set to come to me after he died. Seems while I was away, when Susan married, it went in a loan to her husband, Amberton.’
Ben’s eyes popped, the irony not lost on him. ‘Jesus. You mean your gold paid for his ride with me that morning?’ He thumbed over his shoulder at his coach.
Finn’s jaw set. ‘I hope to get most of it back.’
‘I’ve still got the nugget he paid with. Don’t worry, it’s yours. But if Amberton took a loan from your father—’
‘Amberton’s got no assets, apparently.’
Ben sputtered. ‘The wife had gold in those bags.’
‘Aye. She did.’ Finn did a quick calculation. ‘Gold is three pounds an ounce, so if Nell Amberton does have my father’s gold, it would weigh nearly as much as she does. She’d never lift it. It would be hidden elsewhere, or perhaps already exchanged. But if the family did know of it, chances are it’s not with her now, anyway.’
Ben gave him a look. ‘I can tell yer plannin’ something.’
Finn knew where she lived. Perhaps, after a night’s sleep in a proper bed, he would venture out. ‘The bags might be hidden in plain sight, at her house.’
‘Daft thinkin’,’ Ben growled.
Finn agreed. ‘True. Ridiculous.’ For now, be calm, man, be calm. He should heed Joseph Campbell’s last few words to him before he’d left his office. ‘Let me deal with the family, Finneas. A letter might be all it takes if the funds are indeed still real.’
‘Ben, it was gold my father found as a squatter.’ He rested his arm on the horse’s flank. ‘He’d hidden find after find on his property near here in the late forties. Others would have known there was gold too and hidden their finds.’
‘It’s a wonder word never got out then,’ Ben said. ‘Gold brings all them blasted loudmouths.’
Finn shook his head. ‘Might have been rumoured here or there but the New South Wales colony had jurisdiction and it suppressed any real news. My father was lucky, and shrewd. He kept it quiet. But afterwards, it was too big, it wouldn’t stay quiet. The Ballarat diggings became a frenzy. And here we are.’
‘Good thing Victoria got up as a colony,’ Ben said. ‘All that gold goin’ off to New South Wales woulda been criminal.’
Finn nodded. Victoria had become a separate colony in 1851 and that’s when his father had set up the merchandise store in Ballarat. Two years later John applied for a digger’s license, enabling him to own the gold he’d found before and, cautiously, go public. His funds grew substantially. He bought and sold well.
‘At some point,’ Finn said, brushing down the horse once again, ‘my pa’s mind must have started to go, probably after ma died.’ Finn hadn’t noticed the decline in his father; he’d had his own grief to deal with after Louise had died from an aggressive cancer. He’d gone to England in a blur of heartache and numbness by turn. ‘I didn’t see it. I left. But Andrew Amberton must have seen it and pounced.’ That he’d missed the old man’s crumbling state of mind sat sorely on Finn.
Of everything his father had worked for, the merchandise store was all that was left, it seemed. A store of jumbled tools, and hard memories. He’d have to face it.
After a last rub on the horse’s rump, Finn said, ‘I will think more on what to do. If there’s anything, any gold to fight for, I won’t let it go without a fight. Mr Campbell wants to try something first, but he better be quick.’
He blew out a long breath. Had Nell given him a performance the other night? Had she been ahead of him, played him for a fool? Any strategy he would plan around her was a matter for another day. Joseph Campbell’s strategy would have to suffice for the moment. It gnawed at him, having to wait, having to follow the law, but his mind needed to be clear. Today, he had a business to run, had money to earn, and so far, had good health returning.
He flung the rag into a corner and turned back to Ben. ‘So, for the time being, Seymour’s Implement and Merchandise needs to hire Steele and Son’s Coach and Cart for a buying trip to Melbourne.’
Ben threw his hands in the air. ‘All right. You know I’m yer driver. And then after that, we fix that store of yours.’
Finn grunted. He wasn’t sure if he agreed or not.
Nell had pleaded for the afternoon off. Flora waved her away grumbling, extracting a promise from Nell that she would return before lunch on Sunday, the next day. Most of the single men who could not afford laundry services did their own on that day before church. Those who would go to church, that is. On Sundays, Flora and her mother would convert her fires to cooking fires, and roast many potatoes and a joint of meat for grateful diggers who were happy to pay. Nell would be a welcome extra hand.
Hurrying from Wilshire House, Nell slung a tote-bag over her head and shoulder. It swung ungainly, empty except for a sewing kit neatly tucked inside, until she held it close. Walking smartly over the dusty road, she headed towards Amberton House. Hot and breathless as she pushed open the front door, she headed straight for the pitcher of water she’d left in the kitchen the last time she was here. Pouring barely a cupful, she gulped some down. Tepid, but it would have to do.
/> Working quickly, she plucked at the plug of timber in the hollowed mantel. Teasing out the closest nuggets, she sank to the hearth. Unpicking the hem of her day dress, she tucked a nugget into it, deftly sewed it closed, tucked another nugget alongside and sewed it in. She tried for another five or six nuggets around the width of the skirt, then stood to gauge the weight of her dress.
Moving back and forth, Nell paced until satisfied that the nuggets were not too cumbersome and didn’t noticeably drag on the dress or bang against each other as she walked. She could comfortably go back to the other house without staggering under the weight of them. Now for the other nuggets left in the mantelpiece …
She reached in and coaxed out the others; the last one she needed to guide out with a long twig from the kindling basket. She tucked what remained into her tote-bag and slung it again over her head and shoulder, a little more clumsily than when she had set out from the other house. It was weighty, no question, but it disguised its contents well enough not to alert a passer-by to her mission. The bars that were tucked into the wall under the water barrel would have to wait for another day.
Steady on her feet, she went into the bedroom and emptied the tall-boy drawers of her few underthings, stuffing them into the tote. At least if Enid hovered when she got back there, she had the cottons to prove she’d done what she said she would. There were no letters to retrieve, no papers as she had said, so if asked about them she would say she’d burned them as unnecessary rubbish. She still had the old envelope tucked close to her person, the dot of gold and promissory notes safe for now.
Back in the kitchen, she stilled, willing herself to concentrate on whatever else might be here for her to take. Only bad memories, she decided, and they could well remain. Gulping the last of the water, she left, pulled the door shut on her life with Andrew Amberton, brief as it was, and walked away, her steps measured, her breathing calm.
Her mind blanked then filled with a spark of hope. Finding a hidey-hole in her current abode at Wilshire House would be nigh on impossible, but hiding gold in her new tent on the goldfields might just be a stroke of genius.
And now she desperately needed to write to Mr Campbell.
Each night since the riots, life had steadily got back to normal, everyone had got back to being liquored up again, and this Saturday night was no different. Drunks and their carts, carriages and horses straggled back and forth between establishments. The curfew having been lifted, or barely enforced, meant Finn was free to roam where he wished. On foot, he had no trouble easing his way unnoticed through town to the small timber cottage where he knew Mrs Amberton had lived.
Cautioning himself about the wisdom of these stealthy visits, he told himself he would stop after this one. Someone might eventually note his loitering and besides, he wouldn’t jeopardise whatever Joseph might have put in place.
He’d have to be careful this last time, more than usual. He steered clear of any sightings of troopers. They and the traps, the foot police, were still a dangerous bunch of thugs and some, guilty of the massacre and having deserted, had not so far been found. Finn knew most folk didn’t expect that they’d be brought to justice. He’d be on the lookout.
The setting sun took its time. He walked past Mrs Amberton’s house, well after twilight had lost itself to a dark but starlit night.
He didn’t see any sign of life in the house. No glow of candle from room to room showed through the uncovered windows. No movement detected. She had not returned.
Either side of her house was cleared space, the dirt tumbled in places, rocks and stones jutting out of the dry earth. On one side, it was clear that there was to be another abode built. Sawn timber, pots of nails, and roofing iron were stacked on a horseless cart a short distance away.
Finn wondered where she was, the woman with the bright eyes and hair the colour of pale corn-silk. It seemed she wasn’t here now, but until he got a closer look, he wouldn’t know if she still lived in the house.
Crossing the road at a normal pace, he headed for the back of the small house. He wondered if Amberton bought it from the proceeds of his father’s loan. He stuffed that thought down as the ire beat at the back of his throat. He doubted Amberton owned it, for Joseph had said the man had only creditors, and no viable assets other than his mining licenses. For Finn, that was next to useless. If you paid your thirty shillings for the license each month, you owned the right to mine. If Amberton’s nephew continued to pay, the licenses would be in his name, not his dead uncle’s.
No dogs barked close by, no humans shouted at him, he heard no noise except the carousing of some pub revellers in the distance. Flattened against the wall of the house by the back stoop, he listened for signs of life inside. Nothing. The kitchen room was in darkness.
The good Mrs Amberton was not here. She must still be at the other house, the one he’d escorted her to. He tested the door, turned the handle and opened it. No low glow from the cook stove. It was clear, now that he was inside, that no one lived here any longer. Finn relaxed, and a long breath escaped. Adjusting to the dark, he headed straight for the stove. Cold to touch. No fire had been kept alight here for days.
In the shadowy dark, his hand swept over the table. He reached out for a shelf of the hutch beyond. Nothing on it. Nothing to sweep aside. He pulled open two drawers under the shelf, felt all the way up to the back of them. Nothing.
Back outside, he tested the door to the main house and once again, it opened freely. Without the stars to give him even some dim light, he waited until his sight adjusted.
He stood in a hallway. This was the same as other houses of its type—four rooms, two to the left and two to the right. Inside the front rooms, the windows allowed him to peer out into the night. He turned back and as he stood, his back to the street, he didn’t believe there was anything of value left in the house.
He turned for the hallway, listened for sounds other than his heartbeat, or his breath, or the soft footfalls of his boots. Floorboards barely creaked, iron on the roof had finished contracting after the day’s sunlight and heat. It was silent.
But he couldn’t help imagining the sounds of Amberton’s punches. Landing first on his sister, Susan, whose light frame and lithe form had not withstood such beatings.
His mind reeled. Susan. No one deserved to get what you did. They’d let him see her before her burial, and his guts had churned at the pathetic, battered sight he faced. There wasn’t much a goldfields mortuary could do to cover it up, and when they placed the lid over her, Finn turned away and threw up his horror. He’d seen a dead body before, plenty recently, but none had been a family member in such a state.
Amberton said Susan had fallen at the house, and bedridden with premature labour delivering a dead female child, had passed away. Then at her funeral, there was the bloody smirk on the bastard’s face. He’d stood over her grave, flicked his wrist and tossed the clod of earth on her coffin without a backwards glance. Finn’s tremors had seized him, but he didn’t miss the jeer Amberton flung at him, nor the blank stare of the vacant eyes as he stalked past.
Finn squeezed his eyes shut at the memory, fell against the wall, hands clenched as frustration and futility tore through him. Then rage screamed up from his innards. He opened his mouth to howl his anguish silently into the night and a tight band constricted his chest. He slumped, had to breathe, had to keep his temper capped and his mind safe from the poison that had been Andrew Amberton. Susan was gone. There was nothing he could do now, nothing to avenge for her.
But Finn couldn’t leave those thoughts behind. The new Mrs Amberton, though a little taller than his sister, would not have fared any better. When he’d first seen her at the coach, she seemed slight, but not weakened. Her eye had recently been blackened, but her pluck was evident. What horror had she endured after Susan? How much longer would she have survived …? What had she said at the hold-up? I would gladly have done it, had I the capability.
Suddenly he couldn’t go where his mind would take him. A
mberton, the monster. Now beyond Finn’s revenge. He thudded through the house, out through the back door, which he slammed shut. He held his elbow, just in case, but as he hurried off the property and back onto the dusty road for home, he knew his body would not vex him tonight.
He should have strangled Amberton with his own hands and stared him in the eye until he was dead.
Nineteen
Outside Melbourne
Finn squinted skywards into the wide expanse of blue and the unrelenting glare of a bright, late summer sun. He whipped off his hat, wiped his forehead, and jammed the hat on again. ‘Maybe one more trip before the rain comes,’ he remarked to Ben alongside him on the cart. He flicked the reins and the horses trudged forward, only a little faster.
‘Perhaps two more trips if it stays dry. Depends on how quickly you move this lot off.’ Ben thumbed over his shoulder to the stacked implements piled high in the back of the cart. ‘Then I say we get into that store of yours and clean it out, once and for all.’
‘In time.’
‘Finn. There’s a lot of stock in there your pa bought years ago. You have to get it sold,’ Ben said. ‘It’d mean you wouldn’t have to make so many bloody rushed trips. It would tide you over for winter and beyond. Keep you in front.’
‘And how is it you have a head for my business all of a sudden?’
‘Hardly “all of a sudden”. You moped around it before you left, and you’re still mopin’ around it. Time to get on with it.’ Ben flicked his hand in the air.
Finn had heard Ben’s case before. Facing what was in his father’s shop was proving difficult. It felt like he’d lose what was left of his father, of his legacy. Selling off the stock would somehow set the past free and he wasn’t sure he could let it go. And yet, he heard his father’s voice, loud and clear. It’s stock, Finneas. And stock is money.
