‘No!’ she shouted. ‘Because I didn’t want you to feel trapped in a shotgun wedding. So you could throw it up in my face every time we had a fight.’
‘Hey, keep your voice down, you’re scaring Max.’
As if on cue hearing his name, Max let out a bellow and waved his arms around in agitation.
‘See what you’ve done?’ Finch hissed. ‘Stop the wagon, that’s an order!’
He tossed the reins at her, hoisted Max into his arms and climbed down onto the road, talking softly to reassure the child.
‘Let’s have a ride on the nice horsie, eh Max?’
He tried to position the child astride the horse, but Max clearly had ideas of his own. He kept his legs rigid and remained upright, his little bare feet firmly planted on Huguenot’s back. Max chortled in triumph, his face like sunshine after rain.
‘Clever boy, Max. You’re going to grow up to be a star equestrian, just like your Mama.’
Finch looked up at Clytie and this time his heart was in his eyes.
‘I wasn’t running out on you, girl. Everyone in Hoffnung knew exactly where I was headed. And I was walking. To give you plenty of time to catch up with me.’
Clytie never cried, except with happiness. The sun was shining on Finch and Max. Their laughing faces quivered through the tears in her eyes.
• • •
The circus wagon rolled on, leaving in its wake one of the crooked old signs that read ‘Welcome to Hoffnung’. Rom Delaney watched the cocoon of dust rising to be filtered by the wind. When the painted wagon was out of sight, the dust was as thin as stardust in the shafts of sunlight that fell between the gum trees.
At the side of the road Shadow sat on his haunches, eyeing Rom expectantly, his head cocked to one side.
‘Well, mate, all’s well that end’s well, so they say.’ Rom gave a wry laugh. ‘That just leaves you and me.’
He bent and ruffled Shadow’s ears. ‘I don’t know where the hell I’m going. But I’ve done what I came back to do. Put things right. Time to part company, fella. This is the one journey your master has to take on his own.’
Rom pointed in the direction of the disappearing wagon, gave the order in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘Go, Shadow! Catch up with Clytie’s wagon. Finch is your master, now.’
Shadow never took his eyes from him, never moved a muscle.
Rom picked up his swag, ready to plunge into the deep heart of the bush. He glanced back. Shadow remained like a statue by the side of the road.
‘Do as you’re damned well told, Shadow. Go join Clytie’s wagon. Now!’
Shadow did not budge an inch. Forced to retrace his steps, Rom squatted down beside him. His rough words softened into tenderness.
‘Flaming well defiant, eh? Kelpies are supposed to be clever. I should ask for my money back – except, well, I didn’t buy you. You adopted me.’
Shadow’s eyes were luminous, sad and all-knowing.
‘Look mate, I need you to understand. There’s one last thing you can do for me – that no one else can. Maxie.’
At the sound of that word Shadow’s ears stiffened and he watched Rom’s face, poised on the alert, awaiting orders.
‘Guard Maxie with your life. Don’t let him play with snakes or fall in the creek or get bullied by big kids. Maxie’s all I’ve got left.’ He looked deep into Shadow’s eyes. ‘I’m counting on you, mate.’
He rubbed his face against Shadow’s nose. Then pointed to the road.
‘Go! Catch that wagon!’
Shadow gave him a long last look, then bounded off down the road as if intent on rounding up a mob of lost sheep. Rom watched him as he cut a swathe through the bush, eliminating a corner to rejoin the wagon.
Clytie’s distant cry carried like a thread of silver through the silent bush.
‘Shadow! Where’ve you been? Come on, jump up, boy. Show us the way to Melbourne.’
Rom gave a wry shrug and humped his swag. He didn’t know the way to whatever came next, but the words of the song came easily enough.
‘. . . how sweet the hours I passed away
With the girl I left behind me.’
Rom suddenly felt light of heart, his mind free of all confusion. He felt curiously at one with the bush, creeks, birds, sky and sunlight as if they were all part of the same body. Faces, scenes in his ‘nine lives’ flashed and spun in front of his eyes. One by one they dissolved into stardust, setting him free . . .
I wonder if they ever let atheists in?
As if in answer the laughter of a kookaburra struck a reassuring note.
‘Coming, ready or not!’ Rom called out to whoever might be listening – and finally let go of his life.
• • •
The three of them drove on in wary silence for another mile before Finch drew the battlelines.
‘Get one thing straight, Clytie. I’m not a man to live in another man’s shadow.’
‘You won’t,’ she promised. Curiosity got the better of her. ‘What’s that mysterious parcel I found inside the wagon that you forgot to take with you.’
‘I didn’t forget – too heavy to carry. That’s the very latest camera equipment. Before he died my father said I was a damned good apprentice, the best he’d ever had. And there’s good money to be made as a roving photographer. But I want to try my luck as a cameraman. I’ve written to Brigadier Joseph Perry at the Limelight Studios in Melbourne to see if he’s willing to teach me from the bottom rung up.’
Finch traced an imaginary sign in the air. ‘A Motion Picture by Jonathan D’Angers Productions – how does that sound?’
Clytie rolled the name around her tongue. ‘Very impressive. But I prefer Finch D’Angers. Anyway, some people say moving pictures are just a flash in the pan.’
‘People probably said that about the invention of the wheel. This is the birth of a new art form. One day great writers, great actors will be clamouring to be part of it. I intend to be on the ground floor, gaining experience. I want to tell stories – Australian stories that will make the whole world take notice of us.’
Clytie looked dubious.
Max was toying with a piece of paper, peering at the words on an old grocery list as intently as if he was reading them. He squealed in triumph as he crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it away. Looking for new excitement, he stretched out his hand and tried to open the lid of the box.
‘No sweetheart, not those papers,’ Clytie said hastily.
Finch eyed her with dawning suspicion. ‘What’s going on? Don’t tell me you’re planning to distribute suffragette pamphlets from here to Timbuktu?’
‘Not exactly,’ Clytie said with a weak smile.
‘No more secrets, Clytie.’ Finch beckoned to her to open the box.
Clytie removed one of the pages and handed it to him. ‘It’s a very good likeness of Max, don’t you think?’
The poster showed Finch’s photograph of Clytie sedately dressed with Max seated on her lap eyeing the camera seriously. Both wore a diagonal sash pasted onto the photograph and printed with the same words featured in bold type at the top of the page.
Finch gave a hoot of laughter. ‘Vote 1 for Clytie Hart! Hey, there’s no doubt about you. Victoria’s light years away from granting women the vote!’
‘Maybe so. But the Federal government is granting women the right to stand for election as M.P.s in the Federal Parliament!’
Clytie made her voice as soft as honey. ‘It’s not just a woman’s cause, my love. Don’t worry, when women are elected, we’ll help men make the world a better place.’
Finch rolled his eyes in mock despair. ‘There’s only one way to silence you, Clytie Hart.’
Finch let go the reins, took Clytie’s face firmly between his hands and kissed her long and hard – as only he could.
Both knew that their wild, unpredictable journey had only just begun.
Author’s notes
Golden Hope is a work of fiction, entwined with historical event
s and legends. The lives of the central fictional characters – Clytie Hart, Rom Delaney, Finch and Dr Hundey – are impacted by the extraordinary historical events of the watershed years of 1901–02.
January 1st 1901 saw the birth of Australia as a nation when six British colonies united under a new Constitution and a new flag. Keen for Australia to take its place on the world stage, thousands of men like Rom Delaney volunteered to ‘do their bit’ for the Empire in the second South African War, the Boer War of 1899–1902.
Australian women had their own challenges. Following their ‘Monster Petition’ of almost 30,000 signatures in the Women’s Suffrage Petition of 1891 (now an on-line archival treasure that makes fascinating reading), Victoria’s women petitioned the Federal Government to follow New Zealand’s world lead in giving women the vote. In 1901 Australia became the first country to give women both the right to vote as well as the right to stand for Parliament. (Two ironic footnotes: despite this victory, that was many years ahead of Britain and the U.S.A., the first woman elected to the Australian Parliament was Edith Cowan in 1921. Women could not vote in Victoria’s State elections until 1908, lagging behind their sister states).
The Gold Triangle is the geographical heart of this story. The fabulous wealth following the Gold Rush of 1854 saw the escalation of Melbourne as a city ‘built on gold’, with flourishing cities, towns and magical landscapes that now include the heritage-listed Lerderderg State Park. Within this historical context are the imaginary locations of Hoffnung and Bitternbird, inspired by my travels since childhood along the magical back roads of Australia.
In this fictional small, eccentric community, historical figures have taken on legendary status in the national memory: Madame Nellie Melba; tragic bush poet Henry Lawson, son of Louisa Lawson, the nation’s first woman newspaper proprietor and editor of Dawn; Harley Tarrant, a pioneer of the Australian automobile industry; Vida Goldstein, lifelong champion of women’s rights. Her belief that ‘Nothing was more degrading than for a woman to have to marry for a home. Love should be the sole reason’ is a statement contemporary women accept as their birthright – but was only achieved by women who fought to give them their rights.
I suspect no country loves its legendary ‘villains’ more than Australians do and those who have left their mark on Hoffnung include: bushrangers Ned Kelly and Captain Moonlite; the notorious dancer and courtesan Lola Montez, who horsewhipped newspaper editor Henry Seekamp down the main street of Ballarat for defaming her performance for the gold-diggers. Among the legendary heroes are the Salvation Army’s pioneer film-maker Brigadier Joseph Perry; Aboriginal circus star Billy Jones; Probasco and Mahomet the Talking Horse; and Blondin, ‘The Hero of Niagara’.
I thank my father, comedy-writer and author, Fred Parsons, for inspiring my childhood with his stories of early Australian circuses and the fledgling Australian film industry. The Hart family’s circus dynasty is fictional but inspired by circus ‘royal families’. I pay special tribute to Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum for its splendid historical Circus Exhibition, and to Mark St Leon, author of Circus, The Australian Story, a gem of a book with wonderful insight into the lives of circus children like Clytie and Tiche.
Key historical figures on the South African landscape include Lord Kitchener, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Forces; Major-General S.B. Beatson and Major Morris; Australians Major W. McKnight, Captain S. Sherlock, Troopers Steele, Richards and Parry; Boer Generals Ben Viljoen, Cronje, Botha, De la Rey, De Wet, and Muller; South African poet and journalist J.P. Toerien, who wrote Sarie Marais, with new words set to an old American folksong.
Never to be forgotten is English humanitarian Emily Hobhouse’s crusade on behalf of Boer women and children prisoners of war, who called her ‘Angel of Love’.
I am indebted to the wonderful cooperation from many South African sources including Elmarie Malherbe of the Anglo-Boer Museum, Bloemfontein, and Mrs Joan Marsh, of Die Suid-Afrikaanse Krygshistoriese Vereniging.
Hoffnung is an isolated community whose loyalties, bias and reactions to world events are channelled through the wealth of Australian newspapers of the era, hindered by the time lag and often the loss of letters from South Africa. Golden Hope is not a judgement of the rights and wrongs of a tragic conflict fought between peoples whose rivalry today is thankfully largely confined to international football grand finals, cricket Test Matches and the Olympic Games.
Among the era’s largely unsung heroes and heroines are the doctors, nurses, ambulance wagon drivers and medical orderlies on both sides of the war. Nursing Sister Heather ‘Kiwi’ Macqueen is fictional, but she represents the remarkable band of volunteer Australian and New Zealand nurses whose contribution is only beginning to be recognised.
I want to underline that all the historical choices I made (including Women’s Suffrage, Wilmansrust, Army court martials and local Coroner’s inquest, etc.) were influenced by the diverse backgrounds of my characters and their reactions to events that were contemporary to them – free from the influences, albeit fascinating, of historical hindsight.
An interesting footnote to Wilmansrust is the report in the Adelaide Advertiser, October 7th 1901, page 5, headed ‘A Brigadier Superseded. London Oct 5.’ which states that Brigadier-General S.B. Beatson had been replaced in the command of the British column in the southern part of the Cape Colony by Major-General T.E. Stephenson. It goes on to remind its readers of Beatson’s reported reference to the Victorian 5th Contingent as ‘white-livered curs’, etc.
My choice of some terms almost drove me to flip a coin. I chose Afrikander rather than the emerging definition of Afrikaner, because General Ben Viljoen used Afrikander in his fascinating memoir, My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War. Similarly I was faced with the spelling of Romany/Romani, noting that the Roma use both spellings. The beautiful city of Ballarat for many decades used the dual spelling of Balla’arat and I must confess I am attracted to this original Aboriginal word, said to be derived from ‘bent elbow,’ an evocative image for ‘a resting place’. Both spellings were in use in the period covered in Golden Hope.
In no small measure I want to thank several people concerning the extraordinary background of the pioneers of the Australian film industry. Anthony Buckley, M.A., gave me unstinting help and invaluable contacts. Film historian and oral historian Graham Shirley’s stories of the birth of our film industry also fired my early research into the era of Golden Hope.
My sincere thanks to Lindsay Cox, Territorial Archivist of the Salvation Army, Melbourne, who sent me wonderful archival material about their Biorama team headed by pioneer film-maker, Salvation Army Brigadier Joseph Perry.
I would personally nominate the National Film and Sound Archives of Australia as one of Australia’s great National Treasures. They gave me generous access to early films including Perry’s astonishing body of work.
I am indebted to Robert Nash, editor of the wonderfully evocative book The Hidden Thread – Huguenot Families in Australia for his suggestions about the Huguenots’ role in the many countries which gave them refuge. I thank my Huguenot-descent friend John Arbouw for firing my imagination with stories of his ancestors.
For the valuable insight into the experiences of the volunteers returning from the Boer War, I want to register my thanks to Lieutenant-Colonel David Deasey RFD (ret), Chairman New South Wales Committee, National Boer War Memorial Association, Building 96, Victoria Barracks, Paddington, New South Wales. He reminds us that in Australian eyes the Boer War is largely ‘a forgotten war’ with little recognition of the roles played by the 23,000 Australian men and women (16,000 in Official Australian Contingents) who served in the Second Boer War – our first war as a nation.
Lieutenant-Colonel Deasey’s committee is dedicated to commemorating these soldiers in a National Memorial in Canberra in which four larger-than-life-sized bronze statues will represent an Australian patrol on the veldt. The memorial is scheduled for dedication on May 31st 2017. Those wishing to contribute can contact him a
t the above address or online at http://bwm.org.au/fund/
Space prevents me listing all the historians and archivists who enriched my research but I would like to make special mention of Bendigo, Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh, Walhalla, and the wonderful ‘living’ museums at Sovereign Hill, Gulgong and Bendigo, including its Chinese Joss House; Dr Michele Matthews, Archives Officer of the Bendigo Regional Archives Centre; Keira Lochyer for her research suggestions; Merle Alexander, the Warehouse-Clunes Team Leader at Hepburn Shire Council and researcher Betty Duncan for material about the architectural gem of Clunes Town Hall’s theatre that was the inspiration for Bitternbird’s Town Hall.
I am indebted to many national and international research sources. These include: Trove, the National Library of Australia’s magnificent free, online database; the wealth of Australian newspapers of the era; the State Library of Victoria; the Special Collections section of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales; Australian and Victorian Government databases; Leichhardt and Balmain Municipal Libraries; and the historical treasure trove of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
Johanna Nicholls
Sydney 2016
Acknowledgements
Golden Hope is the fourth in my series of stand-alone Australian historical novels – after Ironbark, Ghost Gum Valley and The Lace Balcony – and it is a timely reminder of the network of invaluable support I have had from my family and friends-for-all-seasons.
My husband and friend, author Brian Nicholls, the actors in our family, son Nicholas Cassim, daughter-in-law Nikki Owen; our extended family in every State.
I was deeply touched when my young grandchildren Eadie and Gus Cassim and great-niece Taleah Rowse carried our heavy books to school for ‘show and tell’ because they were proud of having authors in the family. They remind me of the key reason I choose to write historical novels – in the hope people will never forget the earlier generations of Australians who struggled to make our country the land we have inherited.
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