A tear rolled down his craggy face as he replied. ‘Men have many kinds of loyalty runnin’ through their veins, lass.’
It was the rawest of truths, and it tore at her. Once again in her life she hadn’t been the one her lover was loyal to. She simply hadn’t been enough.
Arthur led her to the cart, helping her up before climbing awkwardly on board himself and she stared at the little church and the gravestones nearby, knowing this place, this scene, would ever haunt her now.
Then the crows circled the sky as the curse of woman descended on Eve Richards once more and she lay her hand across her stomach. Helpless to change what lay beneath.
The captain and Amanda had debated it endlessly but his final argument eventually swayed her.
‘It’s not the right place for you anymore.’
‘But it’s over now. The troublemakers are all in gaol awaiting trial,’ Amanda had reminded him. No mention had been made of the soldiers or police and the massacre they had performed, nor would the dead be mentioned, especially Kieran Clancy. Eve had known he wouldn’t be. After Amanda’s hysterics at the news of his passing the captain had declared his name not be spoken from there on. Too distressing, he’d termed it.
‘Bah! You can’t trust the rest of that rabble over in the goldfields not to keep stirring up trouble. The area’s become unsafe, my dear; there’s far too much violence on our doorstep.’
‘Too much unpleasantness.’ Amanda had agreed on that.
And so, a decision was made for the household to up and leave with the captain next week when he took his ship to Adelaide, the only Australian town to not be founded on convict settlement. A place worthy of an English sea captain’s family.
And all the while Eve listened on as if from a distance, remembering that other-worldly feeling from days long past. That feeling that comes when you desperately dread something happening, and when it finally does you stop feeling any emotion at all. Because aside from her initial reaction she’d since been dry-eyed. Shocked, she supposed. But emotion would return, as she well recalled, and with it more of those rare comforting tears.
Yet it would take more than tears to cope with the months ahead when she was eventually thrown out, pregnant and alone, or sent back to prison in disgrace. Robbed of a life filled with laughter and love. Eve, the sinner, once more.
Letting her heart rule had destroyed her again but she still believed Kieran had meant his solemn vow, he just couldn’t change who he was, in the end, any more than she could have stopped the inescapable force of loving him. And be willingly chased and caught.
Eve went to the window and stared out at the sky, to where their stars would appear when the sun went down. People said the miners had them on a flag now, she and Kieran’s Southern Cross, brilliant against a sea of blue silk. The very stars Eve had thought would bless them, the ones that would lead him home, had stirred the rebel in his heart to action, and now she faced life alone.
And so Eve would board yet another ship, to start again, on another shore. Time would reveal the truth as her belly swelled and she’d be cast from the garden. Betrayed by that foolish heart; her weak and sinful flesh.
An unnatural life her destiny, after all.
By Any Other Name
Thirty-Seven
Warrnambool, Victoria, December 1854
The gulls were riding high and Liam watched them, mesmerised and feeling their flight as if it were his own as they soared, then dipped and sailed across the gigantic granite cliffs below. It wrenched at his soul more than usual, possibly because of the wildness of the wind that afternoon. It whipped at the ocean as it hurled itself in almighty thunderous crashes against the cliffs, dwarfing the cove entrances and making a mockery of the tiny human who watched on.
Indeed, he felt not only small but humble before such majesty and terror, well knowing the power this southern ocean could inflict on humanity, having seen numerous shipwrecks or at least their aftermath since arriving here six months ago. Whenever the emergency bell rang out from town it made his new preoccupation with loneliness seem insignificant, but it was there, all the same.
It seemed strange to be lonely when you lived with two other adults and three children but somehow Liam was. A new restlessness had begun since they’d moved here, a need for other companionship that stirred and crashed like this mighty sea, and he knew he would have to do something about it, but where to find it…or more precisely her, eluded him. He’d always liked women, of course, but back in Ireland he’d been shy where Kieran had been bold, awkward and tongue-tied where Kieran had been charming, and women had found him almost invisible next to his older brother as a result. But that was in the past now. He’d been living his own life in Australia long enough now to surely step out of his brother’s shadow, as nerve-racking as that seemed.
Perhaps it was time for a trip, as Rory had astutely suggested the other day, a visit to Melbourne or Adelaide to see if he could summon the courage to talk to a woman somewhere, somehow. Lord knew there were few of them here in this tiny new town of Warrnambool.
Liam walked back along the road towards home, still deep in thought as Eileen waved frantically from a distance and he sighed. What on earth was his sister panicking about now, betting one of the children had wandered off exploring again. But it seemed there was real news that had stirred her as she held up a newspaper and called out.
‘Hurry!’
Liam picked up his pace then, jogging to the front porch, out of breath as he took in the headlines.
‘There was a rebellion, right near where Kieran is, hundreds of miners up against armed soldiers and police. It was a massacre, Liam.’
Rory stood beside Eileen, putting his arm around her. She was shaking visibly. Shock never came easily to her these days.
‘Five soldiers gone, and thirty-four injured with twenty-two dead among the miners,’ Rory confirmed as Liam scanned the headlines. ‘Parsons says there’s rumours of butchery after they surrendered.’
Parsons was the local storekeeper and the fount of all knowledge in the village, or so he had anointed himself.
‘Any lists of the casualties?’
‘Not that Parsons has heard of. And they’d no’ have any idea how to contact us,’ Eileen said, wrenching her handkerchief in her consternation.
‘I’ve written Kieran letters that have our address,’ Liam reminded her.
‘But what if he didn’t have them on him?’
Liam ran his hand through his hair, his mind working fast. ‘Surely his mates would have identified him, that Dave or the other big fellow we met…Striker. Someone would have let us know.’
‘Not if they were injured or killed too.’
Liam stared at his sister, acknowledging there was logic in that. ‘He said he wasn’t going to fight because of Eve,’ he said gently.
‘We all know him too well to believe that,’ she said, eyes full now. ‘Liam…’
‘Aye, I’ll go up there, Eiles,’ he said, holding her shoulder briefly and looking up at Rory. ‘But I’m sure he’s fine.’
His brother-in-law nodded and agreed but the look he returned was anything but reassuring.
Liam packed quickly and was on the road within the hour, Eileen’s worried tears prolonging his farewells, and he kept the horse at a trot, trying not to imagine the worst. But memories from Kilrush pricked at his senses and he could barely block them out: the sight of a broken body, the putrid stench of dock refuse. And the groan of near-death on the lips of the only brother he would ever know.
It took a full day in the saddle but as Liam entered Ballarat it felt far longer and he hurried to ask the first person he met where he could find out about casualties from the stockade.
‘You related to a digger?’ the heavily bearded man asked warily.
‘Aye,’ Liam said, ‘although I’m hoping not to be related to anyone on that list.’
‘It’s pinned outside the traps’ station, although they’re still adding a few here and there.’
Liam wasn’t sure if knowing there were casualties whose lives were still in the balance was a good or bad thing but he pushed the thought aside to ride over to the traps’ station, staring at the list that held news of his brother’s fate from several feet away before slowly dismounting and approaching. It fluttered in the breeze as if it were a mere advertisement for selling a horse or buying soap and Liam had a bizarre moment of non-reality considering the enormity of what it truly contained. Devastation. Eternal heartache. Gut-wrenching grief.
It felt as if he’d stepped out of himself and he squeezed his eyes shut, unable to face whatever was on there. Fear was driving him to the point of nausea, but he knew he had to do this now. Sooner or later he had to know. He opened his eyes slowly, scanning the first name, the second. He’d almost got to the end when the two words leapt out and they seemed to burn through his retinas and straight into his brain, searing it with instant, unthinkable pain.
Kieran Clancy.
Two words so dear, so agonising now, for they belonged only to the hole being torn in his heart. Suddenly he needed to see where his brother lay more than anything in the world, for surely those two words lied. Such an impossible fact simply couldn’t be true.
‘Where are they buried?’ he asked the same miner from before, who had followed him over on horseback.
‘Most are up near Eureka. Which one was it?’ he asked, compassion softening his rough Australian accent.
But Liam couldn’t say those two words aloud. To do so would make them true.
‘Come on then,’ the miner said, seeming to understand. They rode off and the miner directed Liam to a stand of great gums where a fresh row of graves lay. They walked along past a particularly small one then Liam paused in front of a far larger mound beside it. Someone had scrawled those two precious words on a temporary, rough cross and he felt a desperate urge to scratch them away.
‘When did…did they…’
‘Pretty much straight away. What those bastards did…anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard.’
‘Aye,’ Liam said, his throat closing now as tears pushed their way through.
‘Brother, was it?’
‘Aye,’ was all he could manage again.
‘Lost mine too,’ the man admitted, looking along, ‘although he didn’t take as long to bury as yours. I heard one of the traps say it took three men to dig the hole. Guess it doesn’t run in the family.’
Liam was confused and stared at him. ‘Whose family?’
‘Yours,’ the man said, looking confused at Liam’s lack of comprehension. ‘Can’t say I ever met him but apparently your Kieran was huge; even his cap was tiny on his head. But, of course, you’d know that. Didn’t anyone send it to you or get in contact? I saw the bloke who collected it, if that helps.’
‘A…a…cap?’
‘A grey felt one with the name written along it in big letters; read it myself, sorry to say. Kieran Clancy alright, no mistake.’
He said it slowly as if fearing Liam had lost his mind a bit, which perhaps he had because suddenly he was digging with his hands at the grave.
‘Hey…hey! Mate, ya can’t be doing that. Come on now,’ the miner said, grabbing and pulling his shoulders but Liam shrugged him away, desperately flinging earth now until a face started to appear, the pallor of death a sickening sight. But despite recognising it and being disgusted, Liam actually let out a gasp of relief, collapsing to sit in the dirt and simply stare.
‘You…you right there, mate?’ the miner said, looking almost frightened of Liam now. ‘I know you’ve had a shock and all but I really think looking at him isn’t gonna help.’
‘I’m not looking at him,’ Liam said, shaking his head as he stared at the familiar face.
‘Yes, you are, I’m afraid,’ the miner said, talking as if to a child now. ‘That’s his name on the cross, see? Kieran Clancy.’
‘I’m not looking at him,’ Liam said again, ‘because that isn’t my brother.’
Thirty-Eight
‘Are you sure?’
‘They don’t make mistakes over something like that.’
Liam stared at the list of names of the men on trial as announced in the newspaper he held, wishing futilely his brother’s name was on this one. But, as it turned out, he wasn’t in a Melbourne gaol, nor was he in any of the surrounding bushland near Eureka that Liam had scoured, nor the goldfields, nor Ballarat. He’d asked every man he met but they’d either not been involved or they hadn’t seen him there. His best hope was that he’d be among the hundred or so about to be released from the barn where many rebels had been locked up.
‘Here they come,’ the bartender said as the diggers began to walk down the street and Liam ran out to watch them, scanning every face until he had to accept Kieran wasn’t among them. But he thought he recognised one man in a green waistcoat.
‘Dave,’ he called out, taking the chance, and the miner stopped and walked over to peer at him.
‘Do I know you?’
‘I’m Liam Clancy, Kieran’s brother.’
He looked exhausted, and blood stained the waistcoat, but Dave’s smile was warm as he shook Liam’s hand. ‘So you are! Are ye here visiting Kieran then?’
‘No…that is, I can’t find him. Was he…did he fight with you?’
‘No, no. He came to warn us though, just before. It was his wedding day though so he had other plans.’
Liam was shocked to realise he hadn’t known about that. Kieran hadn’t mentioned it was any time soon let alone a date, probably because he couldn’t really invite Eileen and therefore the rest of them.
‘Do you know where he was going after that?’
‘He’s building a house, down the river. I can show you if you like.’
Liam looked over at the crowd of noisy diggers now piling around the bar. ‘Don’t you want to have a few ales first?’
‘Aye, I wouldn’t mind,’ Dave said, ‘but how about I just grab a bottle or two for the road?’
He was on the second by the time they were on their way in a borrowed cart and Liam was filling him in about the list and Striker.
‘Aye, I saw it happen, cowardly bastards. Took four of them to kill him in the end.’ He took a swig of his beer, his anger evident. ‘And then they killed his little wife Betty while she tried to stop them. The poor wee girl,’ Dave said, shaking his head against the tears that were forming at the memory. ‘Anyway,’ he said, wiping at them with his sleeve, ‘it’s done now. I hope they at least buried her next to him. She was always right by his side.’
‘There was a small grave near his,’ Liam told him, remembering.
Dave nodded. ‘That’s something, I suppose. But what a right shock it must have been for you to see his name and then to find out it wasn’t him.’
‘I’m still reeling from it, to be honest, but once I see him I’ll be alright.’
They were approaching the river now and Liam leapt down with Dave to investigate the half-built construction near the bank but there was no sign of activity. Tools lay inside, and a few boxes, but it was obviously uninhabited.
‘It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for a while,’ Dave said, checking out the cold ashes in the roughly stacked stone fireplace. ‘That’s strange.’
‘Maybe they’ve gone on a honeymoon,’ Liam said.
‘He said he was staying here; besides, Eve wouldn’t be able to leave anyway. I mean, you know she’s…er…’
‘Aye, aye, I know.’
They stared at each other, both confused and Liam’s levels of worry were increasing again until Dave clicked his fingers.
‘I just remembered I know where she works. Come on.’
They leapt back on the wagon Dave had borrowed and made their way up the road until they reached a laneway. It was a pretty place, lined with flowers, but Liam took scant notice as they hurried to the door of the farmhouse and knocked.
A man answered and Liam breathed a sigh of relief that this home, at least, held peopl
e inside.
‘Can I help ye?’ the man asked, his Scottish accent thick.
‘Sorry to trouble you, sir, however I’m looking for a servant of yours, a Miss Eve?’
‘A friend, are ye?’
He looked suspicious, so Liam simply nodded. ‘The name’s Liam and this here is Dave.’
‘Barney,’ he told them, seemingly satisfied as he continued. ‘She don’ live ’ere no more, lad. The whole family up and left on account o’ all the trouble. I only jus’ found out meself yesterday – left me a note asking me to keep an eye on things here, indefinite like.’
‘But…but she was getting married. Did her husband go with her?’
The man shook his head again, his expression falling. ‘A terrible sad business. He ne’er showed up. They thought she’d been left at the altar but then they found out the lad had been killed down at that stockade.’
Liam sucked in his breath. ‘Because of his name being on the list?’
‘Aye, they gave her his cap an’ all. Written there plain as day: Kieran Clancy. They say it fair broke the poor lass’s heart.’
‘But he didn’t fight at the stockade,’ Dave said.
‘And he wasn’t the one wearing the cap. I’m his brother, sir, and I can tell you for a fact he’s not the man buried in that grave.’
The man stared at them both. ‘Well…well then why didn’t he show up? The family took a good week to up and leave so he’d plenty o’ time to come explain,’ he added, looking from one to the other. ‘She’s a right beauty, that girl – seems a cruel thing to do.’
‘He never would have done that to her,’ Dave said firmly. ‘Wild horses couldn’t have kept him away.’
‘Something did though,’ the man said, ‘because I was there that day and I’m telling ye: he ne’er showed up at that wedding.’
Liam looked over at Dave, a silent dread passing between them, because there were very few possibilities of what that something could be. And none of them held much hope.
In a Great Southern Land Page 26