Broken Threads
Page 31
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
‘She … she accepts that it’s all over. But Ronald, she’s such a sad girl.’
‘Sad?’
‘Yes, hoping and longing for something she hasn’t the ability to get for herself. It’s such a waste! As beautiful as she is, she ought to have the world at her feet.’
He said nothing, and she understood that he couldn’t discuss Dinah in that way. He saw her as a mistake in his life, one he wanted to put behind him. He might be sorry for her, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it.
This masculine wisdom had to be adopted.
Dinah Bowerby might be talked about but only as something in the past. Her future was her own, to make of it what she could. If Jenny had fellow-feeling for her, it was better not to speak of it.
While he finished his shave and put on a clean shirt, she talked to him about possible plans. ‘I sent a message by the driver so we’re not expected back at once. But I ought to get to Sydney, Ronald, because I kept our hotel rooms there ‒’
‘But that’s not important, is it?’
‘No, but I want to keep in touch with which ships are sailing ‒’
‘Surely you don’t want to rush straight back to Galashiels?’
‘I left the mill in the hands of Charlie Gaines, Ronald.’
There was no need to enlarge on that. Ronald understood how inadequate Gaines would be except in the most everyday situations.
They fell to discussing the mill, its problems of the moment, its prospects. By the time they had strolled up to the house they were deep in a discussion of percentage costs per bolt for export.
Bob Daniell was back from his day’s work. At the sight of Ronald he at once began asking for news, the main interest of every dweller of the outback. Ronald told of his stay with the blackfellows, shook his head over the chances of getting supplies of the herbs and barks they used for cloth-dyeing, and then went on to talk about the eucalyptus distillers, men known to the Daniells through occasional visits.
‘Albert was saying, they’d be packing it in in a day or two, as soon as that batch had run through.’
‘Whaffor?’ Daniell said through a mouthful of mutton stew. ‘There’s always a demand for eucalyptus oil.’
‘Yes, but they were telling me, there’s been gold panned-out on the Lachlan.’
Mrs Daniell paused in offering more potatoes and frowned at her husband. His face creased up in dismay.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ he groaned, ‘that means half the stockmen in the district will take off for the Lachlan.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Jenny asked. ‘Someone’s discovered a gold mine?’
The men began explaining both at once. In the end Daniell, who knew more about it, took up the word. ‘If anybody wants my opinion, gold is the curse of this country! All the men go rushing off after it, and who the devil’s going to look after the stock and the harvests if they’re all off searching for El Dorado? And you weren’t here, of course, but eight or nine years ago they had to call in government troops to keep order at Lambing Flat ‒ I can tell you, that was something, seeing armed troops riding past the farm!’
‘But that was because of the swindling that went on in the gambling tents, dear ‒’
‘That’s what I mean ‒ all kinds of bad things come after goldhunting. You see, Mrs Armstrong, after somebody boasts of picking up a nugget or two, hordes of fellers come crowding after him. The trouble is, surface gold is easy ‒ alluvial gold, found near or in the rivers. It’s washed down from some vein somewhere and at first everybody’s splashing about with pans trying to pick out “colour”.’
‘Colour, that’s enough gold to mean it’s worth going on,’ Ronald put in. ‘I hear there’s often traces even in British rivers ‒ but it doesn’t mean there’s any gold worth prospecting for.’
‘After a bit,’ Bob Daniell resumed, ‘all the easy gold’s been picked up or panned and then the mob starts looking for the vein it came from. Naturally, the first man to find the vein and stake a claim might turn into a millionaire, and they all lose their heads. At first they were happy with a nugget or two or some gold dust, enough to buy themselves a house and some land. But the craze takes them, and they want the source of the gold, and they hang around digging and searching, and then they get bored at night, and they play cards with the nuggets they’ve pocketed, and they lose them ‒ and that’s where all the trouble starts.’
‘But that doesn’t have to happen, Bob,’ Ronald protested. ‘It’s all perfectly orderly and well-managed at Parkes ‒’
‘Yes, because they’ve gone on to reef-mining there with a properly organised mining company. You should have seen Parkes when the first news broke about the fortunes waiting to be picked up in the soil.’
‘Albert and Dave said they’d talked to a fellow who picked up a nugget worth two hundred pounds.’
‘I’m sure,’ Bob said, nodding. ‘And if that feller had the sense to go home at that point, there’d be less harm done.’
‘So you believe there really is gold?’ Jenny asked, half-incredulous at the talk. Finding gold was the kind of thing that happened at the other side of the world from her home ‒ to be actually close to a goldfield seemed unbelievable.
‘Aw, there’s gold on the Lachlan all right,’ Bob agreed. ‘But what I’m trying to say is, the real future of this country is in farming ‒ wheat and wool and beef. So long as men keep running off to make a quick fortune, we won’t build up the farming industry.’
‘All the same, I can understand the fascination,’ Jenny said. ‘Gold is romantic. Farming isn’t.’
‘You wouldn’t think it was romantic if you’d seen the gold camps I have,’ her host grunted. ‘Dirty, stinking, immoral muckheaps.’
‘Now, Bob, don’t lecture us,’ his wife soothed. ‘I’ll tell you this ‒ if Tim or Limpy pick up their swag and run off in the next day or two, they needn’t ask for their jobs back when they turn up broke in six months. And the same goes for any of the men on the north pasture.’
Mrs Daniell coaxed him into talking about the problems over stockmen for his square miles of pasture. Jenny found it impossible to come to terms with farms measured in square miles rather than acres. She listened with awe to his tales.
‘The worst worry is rain. The creeks dry up and the sheep get desperate for water. Of course, the farm here is on a bore-hole ‒ there’s plenty of water below the surface hereabouts, you can always get it by digging. But that’s no use to cattle and sheep, at least not at present, though the time may come when we’ll construct tanks with water pumped up every day to trickle into troughs. But that costs money.’
‘How long since it last rained?’ Jenny inquired. In these high temperatures and dry winds, she found herself longing for the cool soft air of the Scottish Borders.
‘Not a drop all summer ‒ but that’s all right, we’ll get by until the winter rain. Clouds’ll start building up in a week or two. Usually we get the first good downpour at the end of March.’
When she’d helped clear up after the meal, Jenny went for a stroll with Ronald. They went back to the conversation they’d been having earlier, about Waterside Mill. Jenny was eager to involve him in its problems again. The more he could be made to think about them, the more ready he would be to go home. She’d been a little alarmed at his demurring when she spoke of finding out about sailings for home.
Gunder came back the following day. He found them standing at the rail of the paddock watching Heather learning to put her pony into a canter. ‘Done all you told me, missus,’ he reported. ‘An’ I got somethin’ for you.’
He had brought a manila envelope. Inside was a note from Henry Chalmers saying he would send on her designs and her letter as soon as possible. With it were two letters from home.
She opened the more important one at once. It was from Charlie Gaines. He began reassuringly by saying all was well at the mill for the moment. Then came the worrying part.
‘Trouble?’ asked Ronald, watching her face. She handed him the letter. He read it while she opened the second one. It was from the London factor who marketed tweeds and tartans on behalf of William Corvill and Son. Nothing urgent, but it contained news she ought to act on as soon as possible.
‘The Marlborough House Set now contains a young American millionairess who saw and liked the plaid worn by the Princess of Wales at the launching of a ship recently. Miss Reinmann has ordered my entire supply of your plaids to be sent to her father in Chicago. He is the owner of a chain of stores. This lucrative connection is being pursued by me as vigorously as possible but it would be a useful compliment to Miss Reinmann if you could design a plaid for her exclusively. I remain Yrs Etc, Donald M. Wilson pp Wilson & Co., East Dockhouse Road, London.’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Jenny, refolding the letter and pushing it into its envelope. ‘How can I design a plaid for a woman I’ve never even seen? Men are ridiculous!’
Ronald had just finished the letter about Kennet. ‘Charlie sounds as if he’s getting cold feet.’
‘There’s no need. Nothing needs doing about contracts or leases. Poor Mr Kennet … And poor Mrs Kennet. I wish I were there to help comfort her.’
Ronald moved restlessly, then set off towards the house. ‘You’re longing to go back, aren’t you?’ he said over his shoulder.
‘Longing … No, it’s not as bad as that. But I do miss it all, Ronald.’ She hurried to catch up with his long stride. ‘Do you think you might want to start for home in the near future?’
His long narrow face took on a stubborn slant. She felt anxiety rising within her. She, of course, saw Galashiels as home, the place of comfort, happiness and safety. But to Ronald it held painful memories ‒ of a marriage gone wrong, of family quarrels and constraints.
‘There are still things here that need doing, Jenny. I came over to sort out the best way to buy our wool ‒’
‘Yes, of course, we ought to go into that, but perhaps it needn’t take too long ‒’
‘But where’s the hurry?’
‘Well,’ she ventured, uncertain how it would be received, ‘Mrs Fowler out at Durramurra said it would be better for Dinah if you packed up and left. She said the story would die all the quicker
if you weren’t in the district.’
His glance darkened. ‘You mean I’ve got to run away with my tail between my legs.’
‘Oh, Ronald lad, it’s not that at all ‒’
‘I don’t give a damn what the old tabbies say about me ‒’
‘No, but think of Dinah ‒ it’s always worse for the woman ‒’
‘That’s not my doing. It’s the way people look at it.’
They had come to a standstill as the argument began to gain pressure. She could tell that he was unsettled, ready to take offence.
‘I know people can be unfair, but all the same it would be better if you weren’t here ‒’
‘So I’m to go back home and settle down into the old rut, is that it?’
‘Ronald!’ She was hurt at the expression. ‘I didn’t think you felt like that ‒’
‘How do you expect me to feel? Dammit, what am I, when you come to examine the situation? I’m a paid employee, that’s all ‒’
‘But darling, you made your own terms with Ned when you first ‒’
‘If I’d known what it was going to be like, I’d have started out differently! You don’t really think I enjoy being referred to as “Miss Corvill’s husband”, do you?’
‘Nobody calls you that.’
‘Not to my face, no. But everybody is well aware that you have all the money ‒’
‘I haven’t, Ronald! You know I haven’t a penny of my own, really ‒ it all belongs to Ned, that’s the way Father left it in his will.’
‘All right then, I’ll rephrase it. All the money is on your side of the family. I contribute nothing except my work ‒ and that puts me on the same level as any other charge-hand in the mill.’
‘But that’s just your way of looking at it. Nobody else thinks like that ‒’
‘No? You haven’t heard the kind of jokes that go round the Galashiels Gentlemen’s Club! If you think I want to go back and be just the man who married you for your money, you’re mistaken, Jenny.’
She swung round, away from him. ‘I don’t know how to talk to you when you’re like this!’ she cried, her hands up to her mouth as if to check an outcry. ‘What is it you want?’
He made no reply, and the pause went on for so long that at last she turned back in concern.
He was standing with his hands in the pockets of his drill trousers, his head bent, the sun glinting on his tawny hair.
At length he looked up. ‘I want to have something of my own,’ he said.
‘But what does that mean?’
‘I want to have funds to use as I see fit. I’m not sure how I’d use them but I won’t be tied to William Corvill and Son by a paypacket any more. So I’m going to the Lachlan.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to look for gold on the Lachlan River.’
Chapter Twenty-one
It was as if the breath were knocked out of Jenny’s body. She stood as if struck to stone. Ronald, who had looked away as he spoke, walked on. She stared at that tall spare figure moving away from her, and something like rage engulfed her. She ran to him, seized his arm, dragged him round to face her.
‘Stupid, stubborn, wrong-headed fool!’ she cried. ‘Did I come all this way just to lose you again?’
She began to hammer at his chest with her fists. Amazed, he fell back a step. She hit out at him blindly. ‘I hate you, I hate you!’ she shouted.
He captured her flailing fists, then dragged her arms down to her sides. ‘Jenny!’
She glared up at him, eyes wide with anger, like a cat waiting to spit at him. ‘I hate you, do you hear me!’
‘Good God, lassie, what’s come to you ‒’
‘You can ask me that? When you’ve just said you’re going away again ‒ without even discussing it?’
‘There’s nothing to discuss ‒’
‘Oh, you’re so stiff-necked and proud ‒’
‘Surely it’s easy to understand? I don’t want to go back to Galashiels with the same few pounds in my pocket ‒’
She seized on that. ‘If that’s the reason,’ she begged, ‘if you don’t want to go back ‒ we can stay here, we can get some land ‒’
‘Stay here?’
‘You wanted to buy a farm ‒’
‘But that was for Dinah ‒’
‘I could learn to farm, do the things that Dinah could do.’
‘But why should you? What was it you called her ‒ a “sad girl”. Why should you dwindle away to be a “sad girl”, lost in the farmlands, your name forgotten, your talents wasted? The sacrifice would make you hate me before too long.’
‘I’d never complain, Ronald ‒’
‘And I would never forget,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You weren’t meant by nature to live in a pioneering country where women have to take second place. It would change you, and we’d both regret it.’
She sought about for some other argument. ‘You don’t have to go to the goldfield. There must be some other way ‒’
‘Jenny, I’ve thought it all out. I didn’t sleep much last night, I had too much on my mind. Out on the Lachlan, I’ll just be a man who’s looking for his good luck. When people here mention me, they’ll say, “I hear Armstrong went out to the goldfield,” instead of, “I hear Armstrong’s wife had to extricate him from that affair with Dinah Bowerby”.�
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‘Oh God,’ she groaned. ‘And I thought I was being so clever!’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘You were, my love. I don’t believe I could have got Dinah to see reason. All the same, it makes me look a fool, doesn’t it?’
‘No ‒’ But she broke off. Perhaps she had made things more difficult for him by coming in search of him. He had pride ‒ how could he let himself be dragged off home at his wife’s apron-strings?
Yet she knew if she hadn’t come she might well have lost him. This long journey round the world to him had been the proof he needed that she really loved him. And now she had to give him yet another proof ‒ by letting him go again.
‘It’s so far,’ she mourned. ‘And Mrs Daniell says it’s half-desert. A friend of hers settled there about seven or eight years ago and was driven out by drought.’
‘It’s not as bad as all that. I’ve talked to men who’ve been there, and some of the blackfellows have described it to me. The river gets low sometimes, of course, and there are forest fires ‒’
‘Forest fires!’
‘No, now, calm down. Winter’s coming, the rain will damp it all down. And as for it’s being so far ‒ it’s only a few hundred miles to the northwest ‒’
‘A few hundred miles! That’s the length and breadth of the British Isles!’
He shrugged, giving up the pretence that it was an easy trip. ‘It’s not a cosy little district like Berwickshire back home,’ he agreed. ‘But people have settled and raised sheep there, and got the wool back to market. From what I hear, it’s not so bad getting to Forbes. From there it should be possible to travel by boat.’
‘But you heard what Mr Daniell said about the diggers’ camps ‒’
‘You have to make allowance for his religious scruples. It’s true that the camps aren’t exactly halls of virtue, but men have gone to the diggings and come back quite safe and sound. And some have come back with a pocketful of gold.’
It dawned on her that it was a lost cause. He was determined to go, for subtle reasons that couldn’t be gainsaid.
She took his arm and began to walk with him towards the house, and after a moment asked him when he thought of going and what he would need to pack.