He gave a grin of amusement at the term. ‘I may get “dissatisfied” again,’ he agreed. ‘I can’t guarantee I’ll be as “good as gold”. But I think I may put up with things if I can buy a partnership in William Corvill and Son.’
‘A partnership!’ The idea startled her, because all her life the weaving trade for her had been William Corvill and Son ‒ nothing else.
‘I don’t expect to be equal with Ned,’ Ronald said quickly. ‘It’s his firm and however unjust I may think that, I don’t argue with it because I know you want to respect your father’s will. But there’s no law that says the firm can’t accept an investment from someone else.’
‘I suppose not,’ she admitted, trying to come to terms with the notion. ‘But whether Ned would agree …’
‘You’ve still got power of attorney, haven’t you?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘You could accept as junior partner someone who wants to invest eighteen hundred pounds?’
‘I … suppose I could …’ She thought about it. ‘But Ronald, we couldn’t change the name. Corvill and Armstrong wouldn’t have the same prestige as William Corvill and Son.’
‘I’m not troubled about what the firm is called. I just want it known and acknowledged that I’ve got a share in it.’
It was a matter of pride, his pride, the stubborn stiff-necked pride that had parted them in the first place. She gave in without further argument. It mattered little to her who actually owned the firm so long as she was permitted to see to the making of the cloth, the fine cloth that had made them famous. Let it be financed by money left by her father, let it be financed by money earned by Ronald’s hardships in the outback ‒ the important thing was that they should make good cloth.
Already, now that she had Ronald with her again, her thoughts were reaching out to new ideas, new shades she had seen here on this strange continent. Her mind teemed with new patterns that would combine the soft grey-blue of the gum-trees, the yellow of the wattle, the rose-pink breast feathers of an Australian robin, the reddish-brown of a native cat glimpsed by the poultry coop, the thunderous silver-grey of the rain clouds sweeping over the tableland.
And there were the pigments Ronald had gathered on his outings with the Aborigines. Perhaps when he got home and could analyse them he might find usable dyes ‒ new, original, challenging.
Bob Daniell rode in at nightfall, wet, tired, but full of eagerness to see them. The blackfellows had told him strangers had arrived at his farm and he had guessed their identity. That night he sat up late with the two men, listening to the story of the burned-out camp and toasting Ronald’s success as a gold digger.
They stayed a week at Daniell’s farm, resting and waiting for the road to improve. Baird entertained herself by trying to repair and refresh the clothes Jenny had almost ruined during her stay on the Lachlan. Heather spent all the time she could with the pony, well aware that soon she must part with him.
Before they left, Jenny had a private word with Mabel Daniell. ‘Is there any news of Dinah Bowerby?’
Mrs Daniell shrugged. ‘I heard she’d had a quarrel with Mrs Fowler and walked out. Somebody said they saw her on the mail coach for Newcastle but I don’t know how true it is.’
Jenny thought it likely. She remembered trying to encourage Dinah to get out of the rural environment where she felt so trapped. Newcastle, she recalled from a short visit to that town, was a busy centre for the shipping of coal, just like its counterpart in Britain.
‘What would she do in Newcastle?’ she asked Mrs Daniell.
‘Oh, Dinah can always get a job. The problem is whether she’ll stay in the job she gets. She’s a difficult girl, you know. She’s got ideas above herself.’
Jenny smiled ruefully. That was exactly what Dinah had said people thought about her. ‘She has a right, you know,’ she ventured, ‘to want to better herself ‒’
‘Now it’s not for you to bother your head about Dinah Bowerby,’ Mrs Daniell scolded. ‘She got herself into a stupid situation and you sorted it out ‒’
‘But only so that Dinah came out worst ‒’
‘Good lord, what other way was there? She’d got herself involved with a feller without first seeing the wedding band on her hand. That was bad enough ‒ my man was very upset about that ‒’
‘Yet he didn’t turn Ronald away. It was Dinah who got the rough deal ‒’
‘My dear, you know as well as I do that it’s always the woman who suffers in that kind of thing. And besides, don’t forget that we know Dinah. There isn’t a doubt she threw herself at Ron ‒ you should have heard her go on about him, as if he were some knight on a white horse who’d come to rescue her.’
‘But even if she was a bit headstrong, that was no reason to put all the blame ‒’
Mabel Daniell sighed. ‘I don’t know why you’re worrying about her!’
Jenny almost said, Because I know what it’s like to be in love and find out the man is already married. But that was far away in her past, and it was certainly not a thing to be confided to Mabel.
‘Do you think she’ll be all right in Newcastle?’
‘Dinah’s free to make her own choice. If she wants to work in Newcastle, that’s her affair.’
‘I wondered if I ‒’
‘If you what?’
‘If I could leave some money with you … so that if you ever hear she’s in need …’
Mabel shook her head with almost angry emphasis. ‘Don’t you take that on. It’s not your fault that things happened as they did. You don’t have to make amends.’
‘No, but all the same, I feel somehow responsible …’
‘Nonsense,’ said Mrs Daniell with all the force of common sense. And Jenny had to let the matter drop.
The travellers set out when a few days of drying wind and intermittent sunshine had produced a better road surface. Heather said goodbye to Goodie with many tears. Jenny couldn’t help thinking that only a few months ago the sight of her daughter crying would have put her in a panic. Now she was able to view it as a part of ordinary life, where partings between children and their pets were inevitable.
When they reached Parramatta Henry Chalmers sold Gunder’s carriage for him. Jenny ordered fancy goods from the best shop in the main street to be sent to Mrs Daniell as a present before they boarded the train for Sydney.
The city was almost overpowering to them after their sojourn in the wilderness. It surprised Jenny to recall that when she first arrived here she had thought it a sleepy little place. Now it seemed like a metropolis.
She had half expected some embarrassment in arriving at the hotel with a husband. But everyone was agog for news of the events on the Lachlan, and for hard information about the supposed gold finds.
Ronald let it be known he had been lucky. The news would have got out, in any case, when he went to the assay office. As he had foretold, no one thought of him as the missing husband of the lady from Scotland. He was Ron Armstrong, who had come home with a poke of gold and who had helped save the lives of the injured in the gold field. In their first afternoon in Sydney, more people stopped him to talk about gold than had ever spoken to him before.
It was strange to prepare for bed that night. For the first time in nearly two years they were husband and wife in the old way, in the same room, with Ronald helping to take the combs out of Jenny’s hair and Jenny shaking out his jacket for him before hanging it up.
‘Well,’ Ronald said, sitting on the edge of the bed, ‘this is different from the lean-to by the stream.’
She gave a trembling laugh. ‘So why are you wasting time talking about it, husband?’
He ruffled her dark hair and turned out the lamp. The moonlight streamed in upon them but, though it was beautiful, they had other things to think of.
Next day they went to inquire for berths on a homeward-bound ship. To their delight they found that the new steam-clipper mail service would be arriving in a few days and leaving again for Britain within a wee
k. They booked passage, though Baird was dubious about it. ‘How do ye ken it winna run out of coal halfway?’ she wanted to know.
‘If it does, they can always use the sails.’
‘Ye mean it’s got baith sails and a boiler?’
‘Yes, Baird.’
Baird gave a grim smile. ‘It must have been invented by a Scotsman,’ she averred.
There was business to attend to. The first item on the agenda should have been to find a replacement for Henry Chalmers, for nothing was ever going to make him efficient as a shipping agent. But in this small colony, men with any business training were very scarce indeed: most immigrants wanted to own land or raise sheep or find gold, and were very unwilling to be employed in office work.
Besides, Chalmers had been such a tower of unexpected strength on the trip to the Lachlan that to dismiss him would have seemed downright ungrateful. Jenny and Ronald contented themselves with giving Chalmers the fullest instructions about future contracts, and begging him to be more to the point and less flowery in his correspondence.
That done, they paid a visit to the newly purchased Giddiring sheep station so that they could give final instructions to the manager, Arthur Newbold. Heather at once went to the stables to talk to the horses, and though they only stayed overnight was granted the boon of a morning ride.
‘What kind of little girl is this?’ Ronald inquired, laughing, as she was unwillingly lifted down from the pony to start on the return journey to Sydney. ‘Are we raising a little centaur?’
‘What’s a centaur, Papa?’
‘A mythical creature, half-horse, half-human.’
‘What’s missical?’
‘Imaginary, like in a fairy tale.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Heather, and leaned out of the carriage to wave goodbye to her recent friend. Some miles up the road she remarked, ‘It would be nice if centaurs were real.’
‘Why, my love?’ Ronald inquired.
‘When you talk to a pony, he’d answer.’
Her father was delighted. It was the first time she had ever volunteered to start a conversation ‒ hitherto, though she had found a voice, she had only responded when spoken to.
He turned to Jenny, saw in her face that she too had noticed one more step forward in their daughter’s recovery, and instinctively held out his hand to her. She took it. They sat holding hands in complete happiness for the next hour.
The day came when they must board the Cumberland. All their goodbyes were said. Jenny had had long conversations with Henry Chalmers, giving him instructions as to the conduct of their wool shipments, the overseeing of the sheep station, and how to treat its manager. ‘Bear in mind, Mr Chalmers, that Newbold is an experienced man. Leave him to his own ways unless anything extraordinary occurs.’
‘Yes, Mrs Armstrong.’
‘And there is another matter, Mr Chalmers.’
‘Yes?’
‘The young woman … Miss Bowerby …’
‘Yes?’
‘I … er … would never wish her to suffer unduly because of …’
‘I comprehend,’ Chalmers said, pursing his lips and puffing out his plump cheeks.
‘I was told she had gone to Newcastle.’
‘So I heard also.’
‘Have you heard whether she has employment?’
‘Some tidings in the greenroom at the theatre lead me to understand she is working in a restaurant.’
‘Waitress?’
‘So I heard.’
‘But that’s such hard, tiring work …’
‘My dear Mrs Armstrong, Dinah Bowerby is accustomed to hard work. Please relieve your mind of anxiety on that score.’
Jenny sat silent for a moment, listening to the clatter from Circular Quay which came in through the half-open window of the little office. ‘Mr Chalmers, I have made a sum of money available to you at the bank,’ she said with some abruptness. ‘If ever you hear that Dinah Bowerby is in need ‒’
‘In need of what?’ Chalmers asked in bewilderment.
‘I don’t know, I just don’t like to think that she might be suffering hardship, and no one to turn to.’
‘She would never think of turning to me.’
‘No, of course not, but this is really a very small community ‒ quite quickly everyone seems to learn what everyone else is doing. Mr Chalmers, if ever you hear that Miss Bowerby is in difficulty, you will make use of the money I have left with Mr Sumner at the bank. It is a special deposit, under the title Extraneous Expense ‒ Mr Sumner is empowered to give you up to a hundred pounds on your written application giving details of Miss Bowerby’s need.’
‘This is very generous, Mrs Armstrong. Unnecessarily so.’ And very foolish, his tone implied.
‘I don’t ask you to approve, Mr Chalmers,’ she said with asperity. ‘Simply remember this instruction, which I don’t wish to set down on paper along with the others. And please don’t mention it to anyone.’
He raised an eyebrow. She met the quizzical gaze and nodded. ‘Not to anyone,’ she repeated. They both knew she meant her husband.
It wasn’t the kind of information he was likely to volunteer to Ronald. ‘By the way, sir, your wife made monetary provision for your ex-mistress…’ No, no. He wouldn’t mention it to anyone and especially not Ronald.
Jenny spent two afternoons writing thank-you letters to all who had been kind and helpful to them. She made a round of the shops buying items to take home as presents ‒ articles made of the beautiful Australian woods, dried flowers, opals from the Riverina, fans of multi-coloured feathers, combs for the hair made from glowing shell, and a few landscapes by artists of varying ability.
Her own sketches, made for the purpose of recalling colours when she reached home, she carefully parcelled up in oiled cloth against the hazards of sea travel. She had some new designs ready to try out on the loom the moment she got back to Galashiels ‒ delicate checks of misty grey and soft umber, bolder squares of cream and brown.
She had had some wool threads dyed by the methods Ronald had gleaned from the blackfellows, but whether the process could be replicated in the Scottish Borders was another matter. These might be strands that could never be used ‒ truly broken threads. As she sat with the yarn spread between her fingers, she thought of Ronald’s words. Broken threads can be mended ‒ but some perhaps are never meant to be woven into the fabric of life. All the same, she wrapped them carefully, already thinking ahead to the dyes she might try at Waterside Mill.
It was a grey day of rain, the Australian winter giving a demonstration of its wish to retain its hold although already people were talking of ‘spring’. Jenny was sad. She would have liked her last view of this beautiful bay to be one of bright sunlight, more typical of what she remembered of her stay.
The purser came to greet them. He was aware that they were people of consequence who in due course would take a seat at the captain’s table. Their cabins were the best on the ship, adjoining rooms which though small had ‘every comfort’, as the ship’s advertising brochure announced.
Baird took charge of seeing their luggage properly bestowed. Heather was taken off by one of the stewards to make the acquaintance of the ship’s livestock. Ronald and Jenny, after a stroll through the public rooms and a brief and rather frightening glimpse of the engine room, went on deck to shake hands with Henry Chalmers and one or two others who had come to see them off.
It was a relief when at last the bosun called for visitors to leave the ship. The gangplank was run on board, chains began to rattle, and the sails filled a little as the Cumberland turned into the faint breeze. Once out of the harbour the engines might be called up if the breeze didn’t freshen. A faint trickle of smoke from the long thin stack told of the leashed power below, but for the moment the captain had no need of it.
The ship’s siren sounded a farewell call, dripping ropes were tossed and coiled. Gradually the gap between the rail and the jetty widened.
The rain streamed down. The little crowd on t
he cobblestones waved handkerchiefs which soon wilted in the downpour. Grey-green water swirled as the helm turned. ‘Goodbye, goodbye, safe journey!’ voices called. Umbrellas were tilted so that those under them could look up at the funnel, but were straightened as the hoped-for cloud of black smoke failed to appear.
Jenny stood with her cloak and hood wrapped close to keep out the rain. She longed to give one last wave and go below. But Ronald was still calling last messages to his Sydney friends.
Jenny’s eye was caught by a figure standing alone on some bales of wool further up the quay. It was the look of loneliness that drew her attention.
She gave a little start of surprise. But no ‒ it was easy to be mistaken ‒ someone wearing a long loose raincoat of oiled cloth and a wide-brimmed felt hat. It could be anyone. Yet she knew with certainty who it was. Dinah Bowerby had come to see them off.
The girl was standing in a nook made by a stack of bales awaiting loading. She had climbed one row up from the cobbles of the quay so that she had a vantage point. She was staring at the departing ship with an unobstructed view over the heads and umbrellas of other well-wishers.
Jenny gazed at the girl. But Dinah’s eyes were fixed on Ronald, who had moved a little apart from his wife to call through his cupped hands to Chalmers.
The steam-clipper moved off, turning a little to head out of the cove. The people on the quay began to seem smaller.
The girl on the wool bales clambered up one more row, to the top of the stack. She stood holding the brim of her hat off her face with one hand, so that she could catch without hindrance the last glimpse of those on deck.
A gust of wind swept along the jetty. The wet, heavy oilskin coat was pulled back by its force. The coat clothed her for a moment like a second skin. In that moment, Jenny understood. Dinah Bowerby had come to the docks to say a last goodbye to the father of her child.
She was obviously pregnant. Not perhaps noticeably so when moving about in normal circumstances and in the loose wide skirts that were usual in farming country. But at that moment when the breeze folded her coat against her body, her secret had been revealed.
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