Golden Hope

by Johanna Nicholls

  In memory of Maxim Parsons

  The brave golden boy who carved our names in the wilds of the bush,

  a place not named on any map, once rich in gold, forever rich in legends.

  This book is for you, Cuz.

  ‘You may love me, dear, for a day and a night,

  You may cast your life aside;

  But as sure as the morning star shines bright

  With the break of day I’ll ride.’

  From ‘Break O’Day’,

  Henry Lawson, 1867–1922

  BOOK ONE

  1901

  Chapter 1

  Victoria, Australia, February 1901

  The road to Ballarat lay ahead of them – like a road map to an unknown destiny. Winding through a forest of ancient eucalypts, it had managed to survive a recent bushfire that had cut a swathe through the bush. Behind them on either side of the highway lay miles of charred forest, miraculously studded with fresh green buds bursting through the seams of giant blackened tree trunks – fulfilling the age-old promise of rebirth after fire.

  Clytie told herself this was a good omen for their survival.

  There was no other traffic on the highway except the gaudy convoy of wagons of Wildebrand Circus heading for the heart of the Gold Triangle. Look at us! We own the highway. And this time we’ll make a killing at Ballarat, Bendigo and wherever else we play.

  The sun was so strong it seared through the cotton skin of Clytie’s boys’ shirt and overalls, the standard ‘roustabout’ garb she always wore driving her mother’s wagon to the next town on the circus’s itinerary.

  The summer wind tugged at the tartan Scottish cap into which she bundled up her hair. Wind rattled the large concertina folds of the map, one end of which was wedged under her foot as she followed their route while holding the horse’s reins with her free hand.

  Beside her on the driver’s seat Dolores was swathed in muslin like an Indian sari cocoon to protect her ivory complexion from the harsh sun and waves of red dust thrown up by the wagons ahead of them.

  ‘A few freckles aren’t the kiss of death, Mama,’ Clytie teased.

  ‘Easy for you to laugh, girl.’

  Clytie was thankful for being born with a light olive skin free from the freckles that were her mother’s bête noir.

  ‘Did I inherit it from my father?’ Clytie asked, ever hopeful for a clue to his identity.

  ‘You never give up, do you?’ Her mother shook her head. ‘Just keep your eyes on the road, girlie. What do you need a map for? We’re hardly likely to lose our way in a convoy.’

  Dolores’s voice was soft and chiding. She seldom lost her temper with her daughter, but Clytie knew when it was time to duck on the rare occasions her mother let rip her ‘ancestral’ Spanish temperament.

  ‘I like to know where I’m going, Mama. Not just follow blindly after the leader.’

  ‘Don’t let Vlad hear you say that.’

  The circus troupe accepted Vlad as her ‘stepfather’ but Clytie chafed under the casual nickname of ‘the Knife-Thrower’s Daughter’. Whenever Dolores slept with Vlad in his wagon, Clytie tried to block her ears against her mother’s cries. She had long suspected her mother hid bruises inflicted by Vlad.

  ‘I’m not afraid of him, Mama. But I know it’s not easy to stand up to a man who hits first and argues later . . .’

  ‘Enough, Clytie! I can handle him – and never forget we need him.’

  Clytie’s eyes returned to trace the delights of the map. Far behind them lay the lovely green township of Geelong where their final performance had been soured by the troupe’s conflict with Boss Gourlay. Their new owner-manager cum ringmaster played his cards too close to his chest for the troupe’s comfort.

  Beyond tomorrow’s horizon Wildebrand’s Big Top would be set up on Ballarat, Bendigo, or whatever towns Gourlay claimed to have lined up for them.

  Clytie loved the magic of the names on the map. Balla’arat, the Aboriginal name for ‘bent elbow’ or ‘resting place’. Bendigo, named after a shepherd who fancied himself a boxer and earned his nickname after England’s champion pugilist William Abendigo.

  Clytie’s pulse raised at the intriguing names of small hamlets at the heart of the Gold Triangle which seemed to beckon her. ‘Have you ever been to Deadman’s Gully, Shamrock Reef, or Mizpah, Mama?’

  ‘Heavens no. Too small for a circus to play.’

  ‘Pedro says they were boom towns in the Gold Rush of the eighteen-fifties. Towns that put Victoria on the world stage. Gold-seekers flooded there from all corners of the globe – including second-chance Forty-niners from the California diggings.’

  ‘I’m glad to see Pedro’s taught you kids something,’ Dolores said absently.

  Clytie treasured his stories. Pedro the Clown, a former schoolteacher, kept his hand in by teaching the circus children, including the youngest circus hands, who had never had any schooling, and Tiche the twelve-year-old dwarf Pedro had fostered and was training to become a clown.

  ‘Pedro says Ballarat was the scene of the legendary Eureka Stockade, the bloody goldfields battle –’

  ‘Watch your language!’ Dolores warned.

  ‘Bloody in the sense of death, Mama! Rebel miners fought the troopers over the unjust miner’s tax. Just think, it was the only armed conflict in the history of the six Australian colonies. But when the rebel diggers were tried in court for mutiny, every jury found them Not Guilty!’

  ‘Well, that’s Australia for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if they canonised that bushranger they hanged.’

  ‘Saint Ned Kelly!’ Clytie said with a giggle.

  ‘History’s all very well, and I’m glad you’re getting a better education than I had. But book learning isn’t going to help you perform a forward somersault on horseback. You’ve got months of practice ahead of you before you could step into my shoes, girlie,’ Dolores said on a note of pride.

  Tomorrow in Ballarat they faced their own personal struggle – the survival of Wildebrand Circus. Alluvial gold had panned out years ago but the Gold Triangle now boasted scores of active gold mines and flourishing communities had sprung up around them. Hopefully these would prove a ready-made audience.

  ‘Why have we never played the Gold Triangle before, Mama?’

  ‘We have. You were too young to remember – just a sprout learning to ride bareback. My family often played there in the good old gold days. They were headliners in all the top circuses around the world, you know.’

  Clytie never tired of hearing family stories in the hope they might provide a clue to the secret of her birth.

  She gently prompted her mother. ‘And you’re the fifth generation, the last of the Flying Harts.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the side of their wagon, emblazoned with the name ‘Daring Dolores Hart and Little Clytie’. The boldly coloured illustration depicted a younger but equally glamorous Dolores standing on horseback, balancing on her shoulders a small girl in fairy costume – Little Clytie at age five.

  Dolores was quick to correct her. ‘Second last! It’s your turn to hatch the next generation if you want to keep the Hart legend alive.’

  Clytie knew the answer before she asked the question. ‘You’re young enough to have more babies, Mama. You can count on me to be a ready-made nanny for you.’

  Dolores stiffened and Clytie followed her gaze to the wagon ahead of them, emblazoned with the dramatic poster of Vlad the Knife-Thrower in action.

  Dolores’s voice was tight. ‘Don’t hold your breath, girlie. Some men you want to have children with. Some you don’t. Vlad would have a fit if I fell pregnant. Can you imagine me doing flip-flaps with a bun in the oven?’

  Clytie smiled at the absurd image. She tried to seize the perfect opening to raise the subject of h
er father. Timing was against her.

  At that moment the convoy slowed to take a bend in the highway. Vlad leapt down from his wagon and headed towards them, a tall, muscular, bronzed figure, the embodiment of arrogance. Barely giving Clytie a passing glance, his piercing black eyes fixed on Dolores.

  ‘See that you’re ready to rehearse my new act as soon as we arrive. I want you at your best. Alert, glamorous, sharp on your cues. Think you can manage that for once? Leave all the donkey work to the kid.’

  Clytie fumed at the dismissive words. The kid. Thank heavens I’m not his kid.

  Dolores was quick to come to her defence. ‘Little Clytie always pulls her weight.’

  ‘Little? That’s a joke. She’s near tall enough to put you in the shade. High time I changed your billing to The Daring Hart Sisters. God knows your double act could do with a fresh injection of glamour.’ He turned to Clytie. ‘From now on dice the word “Mama” and call her Dolores – that’s an order.’

  He gave her no time to respond. Turning his back on them, he sprinted back to his wagon, the next in line in the convoy to take the bend in the road.

  Clytie tried to hold her tongue. She failed. ‘Call you Dolores? Is that what you want, Mama?’

  ‘I don’t have much choice, sweetheart. Boss Gourlay has ordered Vlad to make changes to our acts. Just look at you. You could almost fill out my costumes. I can’t keep you a child any longer, much as I’d like to,’ she added with a sigh, ‘for your own protection.’

  Mother’s nervous that Vlad thinks she’s losing her looks.

  ‘You’re just as beautiful as ever, Mama.’

  Vlad never missed an opportunity to undermine Dolores’s performance in the mother-and-daughter equestrienne act for which she had trained Clytie since she was barely old enough to walk.

  Clytie determined to lighten her mother’s anxious mood.

  ‘Well, Mama, look on the bright side. If I can no longer perform in my little-girl fairy costume – we won’t have to bind up my chest to squeeze me into it!’

  Clytie’s giggle was so infectious that Dolores caught it. They threw back their heads, laughing to relieve the tension, leaning on each other for support like two limp rag dolls. The sound caused Missy the Lion to roar back from her cage in the wagon behind them.

  ‘You see? Even Missy agrees I’m too old to be a fairy!’ Clytie cried and the lion’s roars set them off again.

  That’s the first time in ages I’ve seen Mama laugh. Damn Vlad’s rotten hide. He’d better watch out. He’s got Mama under his thumb – but he can’t bully me anymore.

  Mulling over the problem of male power over women’s lives, Clytie clung to the message of hope in the pamphlets she had stored away – the long fight by suffragettes like Melbourne’s Vida Goldstein. It was frustrating to think that thousands of women in Victoria had petitioned the State government in 1890 for Women’s Suffrage but now in 1901 they still didn’t have the vote.

  Out of the blue Clytie’s thoughts burst into words. ‘The times are changing. Now we’ve finally got Federation and Australia’s one big nation, not six colonies squabbling like little kids. Just you watch, Mama. They’ll soon have to grant all of us the vote. New Zealand, then South Australia led the world in granting female suffrage. When we get it in Victoria we’ll be equal to men under the law. Then they’ll have to pull up their socks!’

  Dolores gave a hoot of derision. ‘What on earth brought that on? Don’t tell me I’ve given birth to a suffragette. What’s the good of the vote to women travelling in a circus? The law has always looked down on us as rogues and vagabonds.’

  Clytie was about to quote Vida Goldstein when her mother sharply elbowed her to ‘keep your eyes on the road’.

  The wagon train had suddenly veered off down a side track into bushland so dense that at first glance it seemed virgin territory. Clytie hastily checked the map. They were now travelling a shorter cross-country route to Ballarat. She checked the signposts that signalled the mileage to backwoods hamlets presumably too small to be printed on the map.

  She was intrigued by one signpost they passed. Its weathered sign read ‘Hoffnung – 13 Miles’. Under it were the hand-printed words presumably written by some long past disgruntled gold digger as his farewell note of warning: ‘No Gold. No Railway. The Town that Time Forgot.’

  The ironic words played in the back of Clytie’s mind. The Town that Time Forgot . . . What a pity we have to by-pass it . . . there must be children there . . . I wish we could open every kid’s eyes to the magic of the circus . . .

  Chapter 2

  Rom Delaney emerged from the creek, shaking himself dry in the manner of a dog. By the warmth of the small campfire he used his cut-throat razor to shave with care in the absence of a mirror. He checked the smooth line of his jaw and upper lip. Despite having slept rough in the bush for four nights since he had left Ballarat, as a matter of pride he was determined to look presentable – for prospective employment, and not least for the next woman he could charm into bed.

  My luck could change on the flip of a coin. It was a pattern that had followed him like a shadow since childhood. For better or worse.

  Out of the blue Cobb and Co had axed him, assuring him it was ‘nothing personal, mate’. He was one of several coach drivers to get the chop due to the diminishing coach routes unable to compete with the railway’s tentacles spreading across Victoria.

  Seven abortive days in Ballarat and Rom had nothing to show for it but empty pockets – no prospect of work, no money, not even the price of a ticket to Wildebrand Circus. At every goldmine he fronted, the foreman added him to a waiting list he knew would never reach his name.

  This damned cough doesn’t help. People look at me like I’m in the last stages of consumption.

  Now miles from anywhere, he boiled the billy for a final mug of tea, weighing his chances of thumbing another ride along the empty back road that led to Hoffnung.

  Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck crinkled. He was not alone. He judged the distance to the Bowie knife concealed in his swag, should the need arise. He spun around, his fists flexed in self-defence, only to be startled by the sight of the intruder.

  ‘Well, who are you, my friend?’

  The mare stood nervously eyeing him. No brand on her sleek golden-brown hide. No saddle or bridle. There had been no farms in sight for miles past.

  Rom gave her time to suss him out. He remained sitting on his haunches, to allow her to sniff him, be sure of him. With luck he found an old carrot in the bottom of his bag and the token gift bonded them. He offered the mare water and she drank thirstily. It was then he saw the traces of dried blood from spur marks on her sides.

  ‘You did right to bolt, girl. Your master didn’t treat you right. You deserve better. How about you try your luck with me?’

  Before the morning had passed, she had a new name, Goldie, and with surprising ease she allowed Rom to ride her bareback, accepting him as her new master. Rom’s spirits rose with the joy of feeling her body move beneath him at a steady pace. It gave him a satisfying sense of possession – but for how long? When they finally reached Hoffnung his ownership might be challenged by Sergeant Mangles who considered him a fly-by-night.

  That trap’s been suspicious of me since the day I lobbed into town. If push comes to shove I’ll spin him a yarn about finding Goldie in a mob of brumbies.

  ‘Good girl, Goldie. That’s the spirit! We’re on the home stretch now.’

  Encouraged by his soft words, the mare galloped across the single-lane wooden bridge, past the signpost marked Yankee Creek, her speed unslackened by the sharp rise in the main road that led to the town.

  The quartz studded road ran like a crooked spine through the centre of the ragged little hamlet. Hoffnung was almost deserted except for trails of smoke rising from chimneys that pierced the early morning skyline, blue and unblemished by clouds. He passed the blacksmith’s forge and the red glare of the fire that never slept.

  Tribe’s M
ortgage Bank, the only local bank to survive the crash in the nineties, was just opening its doors for business.

  From barely two miles away came the familiar sounds of the giant crusher at work in the early morning shift at the Golden Hope mine.

  Rom gave a sigh of resignation. The town’s last active mine was running thin on both gold and hope. They were laying men off, not taking them on.

  No future for me here. Time to cut free from this backwater. Who cares? The world’s out there waiting for me.

  He slowed Goldie to a sedate pace as they passed through the ‘business end’ of town. One by one lamps were being lit in windows as the town came to life: Mrs Midd’s General Store which did double-duty as the Post Office; the open face of the forge where Black Jack the blacksmith was rhythmically ringing the anvil; the livery stables no longer needed by Cobb and Co; the one-man police station in front of Sergeant Mangles’s residence; the second-hand charity stores struggling to survive, their prices marked down to attract whatever income they could.

  The most imposing building and the oldest was a relic of the Gold Rush era. Where once Hoffnung had sported a score of pubs and shanties, the Diggers’ Rest was now the sole public house in active service.

  The hotel remained the hub of the town, the centre for miners, fossickers, outlying farmers, a swift source of news, gossip. For historical interest it contained a photographic gallery that bore witness to the legends of its glorious golden past.

  Rom dismounted, ready to roll his last cigarette. Unencumbered by saddle or bridle, Goldie accepted the narrow belt he looped around her neck to the horse rail. Propping himself outside the General Store, he cast a cursory glance at the noticeboard advertising goods for sale, a faded notice seeking a missing relative, and the congregational notices of the three churches and the Salvation Army that competed for attendance at their services.

  Central to the noticeboard, under the heading in black capital letters was ‘Hoffnung Progressive Society – Extraordinary General Meeting Today’ and the signature of Councillor Ernest Twyman.