‘Is Jack ’ere?’ Annie whispered.
‘He is,’ Eliza said, adding, ‘keeping out of the way.’
A smile curved Annie’s generous mouth. ‘Look at ’er, Miss Penrose. She ain’t Jennings’s. She looks just like Charlie.’
It took a moment for Eliza to get her meaning. Charlie was Tehan’s niece, Tehan’s blood. ‘You mean she’s Jack Tehan’s child?’
‘Only one of two men could be ’er da and if it ain’t Jennings …’
Eliza found Tehan out in the stable, grooming his horse.
‘I couldn’t take her screaming,’ he said, without looking around. ‘Never felt so bloody useless in me life. Is it over? Is she …?’
‘She’s fine and so is the baby. She wants to see you.’ To her shame, Eliza began to tremble uncontrollably, tears pouring down her face. ‘I thought we were going to lose her.’
‘We breed them tough in Tasmania,’ Tehan said. He clapped a hand on her shoulder and squeezed as he passed her. ‘You did grand, Miss Penrose. Thank you.’
Eliza followed Tehan into the hut, watching from the doorway as the man bent and accepted the child from Annie.
‘You ’ave a daughter, Jack Tehan,’ Annie said.
‘Does she have a name?’ Ellen Bushby asked.
‘Sarah, after me ma,’ Annie answered.
‘Sarah it is,’ Tehan said.
He had eyes for no one else in the room, just the little bundle in his arms. Eliza had never seen a man so captivated. Maybe one day it might be Alec and the child in his arms would be theirs.
She turned away from the tableau at the bedside and stood fighting back the exhaustion, arms wrapped around herself. The man, the woman and the two children were as far removed from a perfect family as they could be and yet they looked as if they belonged together.
She wiped the shaming tears from her eyes as a horse came cantering up the road and Dr Sims halted in front of the hut. She went forward and took the reins as he threw himself off the horse, reaching for the bag strapped to the back of his saddle.
He looked at her face and shook his head. ‘Too late?’
She nodded and his shoulders slumped.
‘No … I meant Annie and her baby are still with us,’ Eliza said.
Sims huffed out a breath. ‘Doesn’t mean they’re out of danger,’ he said. ‘Take me to them.’
Charlie lay curled up on the bed next to her mother. Jack sat beside her, the baby in his arms. He looked up at the doctor. ‘Ain’t life grand?’ he said to no one in particular.
‘That’s as may be, but the doctor needs to see to Mrs O’Reilly. Everyone out,’ Ellen Bushby ordered. ‘Miss Penrose, could you make some more tea?’
As Eliza set the kettle to boil once more, Jack subsided into a chair and lifted Charlie on to his lap. The child’s eyelids fluttered and in a minute she was asleep.
‘What now, Jack?’ Eliza asked.
He glanced at the curtain, behind which Dr Sims and Ellen Bushby were speaking in low voices. ‘I thought when I brought her over from Tasmania I could make things better for her, but I failed.’
‘Is that why you involved yourself in my uncle’s schemes?’
He nodded. ‘I was saving the money to buy us a farm, but I guess I need to find another job now.’
‘Leave Maiden’s Creek? Leave Annie and the girls?’
‘You think I should marry her?’ Jack said. ‘Well, it ain’t for want of asking. She won’t have me. Besides I think I need to make meself scarce. Last thing they need is me banged up in gaol. I could do with something a bit stronger than tea. Annie’s got a whiskey bottle in that cupboard. Let’s wet the baby’s head.’
The doctor and midwife came out from behind the curtain. They glanced at each other.
‘Mr Tehan, I gather you are Mrs O’Reilly’s next of kin?’ Sims said.
Tehan transferred Charlie to Eliza’s care and rose to his feet, thrusting his hands into his pockets.
‘She’s not out of danger,’ Sims said. ‘She needs proper care and rest and she’s not going to get it here. Is there somewhere in town she can lodge?’
Jack looked at Eliza, his face blank.
‘Maybe we could ask Mrs Burrell. She’s taken Charlie in before now and she has as kind a heart as anyone,’ Eliza said.
Sims collected his hat from where he’d thrown it on to the table. ‘I must get back to Maiden’s Creek, so I will speak to Mrs Burrell. In the meantime, can I ask you to remain here and keep her as comfortable as possible? Mrs Bushby will stay too. Let’s get them both through the night.’
‘What’s the news from the mine?’ Eliza asked.
Sims frowned. ‘I suppose you haven’t heard. Your uncle has absconded. Packed his bag and went at first light today. From what I heard, he has been up to his elbows in dirty dealings and it had gone past the point where he could cover it up any longer. McLeod’s owed an apology by the town. When I left they’d put him back in charge at the mine.’
‘Have they got the men out yet?’
Sims shook his head. ‘There’s been another collapse and hope is fading.’
Thirty
2 August 1873
Netty and Amos Burrell came to the hut in the early hours of the morning, in a wagon drawn by one of the coach horses. Annie had no strength to do more than protest feebly as Tehan carried her out to the cart, where a mattress had been laid. They wrapped the woman and the baby in blankets and Charlie snuggled in beside them. Eliza covered them all with the patchwork quilt.
Tehan collected and saddled the horses and, as Ellen fussed over her patient, Tehan helped Eliza mount her horse.
‘Are you coming?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘Time to go, before Maidment comes looking for me. Just got to pack me bags.’
‘What about Annie and the children?’
He scratched his beard and shrugged. ‘I’ll send money when I can.’
‘Jack …’ Eliza began, but he had already mounted and turned his horse on to the track to Pretty Sally. She wondered if she or Annie or Charlie would ever see him again.
They reached Maiden’s Creek in the dead hours before dawn. Burrell carried Annie into the house and settled her and the baby in their spare bed. Netty made up a little trundle bed for Charlie and Eliza fell asleep on the day bed in the parlour, too tired to even take off her boots.
She woke to the smell of eggs and bacon cooking. Netty handed her her travelling bag and after a wash and a change of clothing, Eliza felt more human. As Netty served up breakfast she looked in on Annie, surprised to find the woman propped up in bed with the contented baby happily nursing. Charlie sat cross-legged on the end of the bed, reading a book. She looked up and, seeing Eliza, flew at her, wrapping her scrawny arms around her.
‘And good morning to you too,’ Eliza said, disengaging the child. ‘Annie?’
Annie managed a wan smile. ‘I’ve been better, Miss Penrose, but I don’t want to be imposing on Mrs Burrell—’
‘Nonsense,’ Netty said, bustling in with a tray. ‘Now, I want to see all of that eaten up. Yours is on the table, Eliza.’
‘Is there any news from the mine?’ Eliza asked as she sat down to a plate heaped with eggs, bacon and fresh, crusty bread.
‘No. Amos has gone up there this morning to see if he can be of any help, but the word around town is there’s not much chance of finding ’em alive now.’
Eliza set her fork down, thinking of the Morgan children and Bert Marsh and Joe Trevalyn, who could now be without fathers, and pretty Jenny Tregloan, whose child would never know a father … and Ian, who should never have been in the mine. Ian with his wisdom beyond his years and his love for Susan Mackie.
She stood. ‘I’m going up to the mine.’
Netty didn’t attempt to stop her and Eliza set off with a purposeful stride, conscious that she was Charles Cowper’s niece and his disgrace was now reflected on her. But the watchers at the gate, huddled beneath makeshift shelters, only lifted weary eye
s to her. After nearly five days, they were probably as exhausted as the rescuers.
The door to the manager’s office stood open and she stepped inside.
Alec was at the table studying what seemed to be a plan of the mine. He looked up and the exhaustion lifted from the lines in his face.
‘Eliza!’
She stumbled toward him and he took her in his arms. She closed her eyes as she leaned against him, breathing in the scent of damp earth and sweat. At that moment, she did not wish to be anywhere else.
‘Amos Burrell told me that Annie and the child are safe,’ Alec said.
‘Yes, the whole family is with Netty now.’
‘Best place for them. Tehan?’
‘He’s gone. I don’t know where.’
Alec nodded and let out a breath. ‘When I saw how bad Annie was, I feared the worst. It all came back to me.’
‘Catriona?’
‘I would have given the blood from my veins to save her.’ He pushed away from Eliza, sinking onto a chair, his face buried in his hands. ‘I swore on her grave that I’d not … I’d not risk my heart again.’
The breath left Eliza’s body as certainly as if he’d punched her in the stomach. What did he mean?
He looked up at her. ‘And then you stood in my path, Eliza Penrose.’
She crouched in front of him, taking his hands in hers. ‘No one is meant to be alone, Alec, and sometimes we just have to take a risk.’
‘Would you be willing to take a risk on me, Eliza? I’ve not much to offer except my heart.’
She smiled and laid her hand on his chest, her fingers firm over the steady beat. ‘And it is a good heart, Alec McLeod. Yes, yes, I would be prepared to take such a risk.’
He cupped her chin in his hand and drew her face toward his. Her lips brushed his in a question that he answered by pulling her to her feet. Time and space seemed to merge into the soft winter light, leaving just the two of them.
The clanging of the mine bell and a clamour of voices forced them apart. Alec threw open the outer door as Williams and half-a-dozen men came running across the yard.
‘They’re alive,’ Williams said. ‘We heard ’em calling out. They’re alive, McLeod.’
It seemed to Eliza that every man, woman and child in Maiden’s Creek were converging on the mine from all directions. The exhausted rescue crew emerged from whatever corner they had found to rest and the courtyard filled with people eager for news.
Eliza pushed through the crowd to reach the crib room where the women waited with the exhausted wives. Unfortunately the first person she encountered was Flora Donald.
‘Miss Penrose, I heard you were safe,’ she said. ‘You want to make sure you’re not dragged into your uncle’s disgrace.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t mean anything,’ Flora said. ‘But you and your brother before you … It might be said you knew what he was up to.’
Eliza said nothing. She wasn’t going to lie for Charles Cowper but neither did she need to share the whole sordid story with Flora Donald.
A commotion went up and standing on her tiptoes, she could just make out Alec standing at the entrance to the mine but whatever he had been trying to say was drowned out by the noise. He held up a hand and the crowd went silent.
‘We’ve cleared enough of the rubble to get within striking distance of where the men are trapped. We don’t know anything about their condition and we won’t until we can get through and for that we need a volunteer, someone small enough to crawl through the space we’ve cleared—’ His voice rasped with the dust and exhaustion.
‘Me, sir!’
Eliza recognised Bert Marsh pushing his way to the front of the crowd.
‘Not you, lad.’
‘Please, sir, it’s me dad in there. Me name’s Bert Marsh,’ the boy said.
‘No—’
‘I have to do it for Da.’
Eliza pushed her way to the front of the men. ‘I’m small and I know mines as well as any man here. Let me go.’
Alec stared at her. ‘Eliza, no!’
‘Not a woman,’ one of the miners said.
Eliza rounded on the crowd. ‘This boy has his whole future in front of him. I have no one. Let me go.’ Her gaze held Alec’s, silently pleading with him to understand that what she had just said was not true. She had this man, this extraordinary man.
Willliams shook his head. ‘Miss Penrose, it is too dangerous.’
‘But you would let a boy go? I know mines. I’ve lived around them all my life.’
Alec stared at her, his face unreadable. ‘Eliza, Williams is right. It’s too dangerous.’
She held his gaze. ‘I have to do this, Alec. It’s one thing I can do.’
‘Find her some clothes,’ Alec said, and turned back into the mine.
Ten minutes later, dressed in rough trousers, stout boots and a heavy woollen shirt that was far too large, Eliza presented herself at the head of the mine shaft. She had tied her hair in a tight bun and jammed a workman’s cap on her head. Williams handed her a pair of thick leather gloves that swamped her hands.
Alec drew her to one side. ‘Eliza, please don’t do this. I can’t risk … I don’t want to lose you too.’
She laid a hand on his arm. ‘I have to do it, Alec. Don’t you see? I have to make it right with this community.’
‘You are not responsible for your uncle’s actions.’
‘But I am tainted by them.’
He studied her face for a long moment before giving a brisk nod of his head. ‘Follow me.’
She descended into the dark shaft, her heart hammering. A circle of filthy, exhausted men gathered at the foot of the ladder. They stared at her but none of them made any comment. She could see the damage extending down the tunnel to her right, a heap of broken rock and spoil.
‘We’ve cleared a way across the void,’ Alec said. ‘What we need you to do is find a way through the last few feet.’
She nodded, too nervous to trust herself to speak.
Alec tied a rope around her waist and handed her a pick, a miner’s lantern and a flask of water. ‘We’ll be at the end of the rope,’ he said. ‘Give three tugs if you need help—’
‘Four if you get through,’ another man said.
Alec drew her into his arms. ‘Not too late to change your mind,’ he said.
‘I haven’t,’ she replied.
‘Eliza … come back to me,’ he whispered in her ear and released her.
She scrambled up the fallen spoil heap, picking her way on hands and knees through the gap that had been made. The light from the working face of the collapse disappeared as she moved cautiously forward. She reached a wall of rock and dirt; now the only connection she had with the men behind her was the rope around her waist. She took the pick and knocked. Holding her breath, she waited, letting out a gasp as she heard an answering knock. It sounded close.
She surveyed the rubble in front of her and carefully began to chip away at the softer earth closest to where the collapse had occurred. It was hot, dusty work and she took a small swig of the water, conscious that the precious liquid should be saved for the men, who had a greater need of it than her.
A scrabbling noise on the far side of the spoil caused her to halt and she heard a voice, the lilt of a Cornish accent. Trevalyn?
‘You’re nearly through. Keep digging, lad.’
Hope lent her strength and she hacked at the hole she was making, expanding it, listening to the sound of someone else digging from the other side. She broke through with a triumphant cry. Heard an answering cry.
She held up the lantern, illuminating a man’s face, almost unrecognisable beneath the grime.
‘Put that down,’ Trevalyn said. ‘We’ve had no light and it’ll blind us. Who’s that?’
‘Eliza Penrose.’
The man gasped.
‘Bloody pleased to see you, Miss Penrose. Pardon the language.’ Trevalyn paused. ‘We’re all here, but young
McLeod and Tregloan are both in a bad way. The air’s not good and we’re in water up to our knees. To be honest, I don’t think we could have lasted much longer.’
Eliza remembered the instructions and gave the rope four sharp jerks. Distantly she heard a cheer.
‘Now, lass,’ Trevalyn said. ‘You go back to McLeod and tell him to go careful. We’ll get the youngsters out first. They need the doc.’
Eliza passed him the water flask and the pick. ‘I need the lantern,’ she said. ‘But I’ll come back with light and food.’
Trevalyn chuckled. ‘A little while longer in the dark won’t hurt us.’
The crawl back the way she had come did not seem to take as long and as she emerged at the end of the shaft, she was greeted by another cheer. Alec caught her as she slithered down the last few feet.
‘Well?’
‘Ian’s alive,’ she said, ‘but not in a good way. We need to get him and Tregloan out first.’
‘We don’t need to do anything,’ Alec said as relief flooded his face. ‘You’ve done more than enough. Go back up, Eliza, and tell everyone out there what you’ve told me and then have a rest. You’ve earned it.’
She would have protested but he had already turned away, ordering the men to continue the clearance.
Eliza climbed the ladder and walked to the end of the long tunnel, where the crowd waited for her news.
Over the next few hours, the men worked with a feverish energy, clearing a pathway wide enough to allow air to the trapped men. Food, water and lanterns were passed through, but it would still be some time before the rescuers had secured a safe space to allow the men to come out.
Chafing with impatience, Alec could stand by no longer and took his turn at the excavation. A man came behind him with timbers for shoring and props. They worked in silence except for the grunts of their effort and moved with agonising slowness. Sweat poured from Alec, his skin caked with dirt that turned to mud. He had dust in his eyes, his mouth and his ears. And despite the gloves he wore, his fingers bled. None of it mattered. He worked like a man possessed with one end in mind: getting Ian out of this hellhole.
Others offered to take his place but he ground on, determined to see it through. He only paused when he heard voices and the faint light from the lantern that had been passed through to the miners. Laying his head on his arms, he took a deep breath.
The Goldminer's Sister Page 31