The Girl In the Painting

by Téa Cooper

  He clambered onto the tea chest, Jing rang the bell, and off he went into his patter, raising the crowd to fever pitch, selling everything from tents to tin pots, shovels to shirts, and today even a house, if it could be called that. The shanty wasn’t much, but it provided shelter and the building materials alone would fetch a tidy sum.

  Rubbing his hands together, Michael rocked back on his heels. The biggest clearance rate they’d ever had, and unless he was very much mistaken, the cash box would be overflowing. ‘How did we do?’

  ‘Lots of buyers. Everyone thinks they’re going to find more like Mr Holtermann. The mines are taking on more workers, people are flooding into town.’ Jing patted the cash box. ‘I’ll take it down to the bank when I close up. Don’t want to leave it in the warehouse.’

  ‘Good lad. I’ve got to go and have a word with someone down in Germantown. Tell Elizabeth I’ll be home in time for tea.’

  ‘You go home, unless you want these.’ Jing brought out a stack of bamboo boxes and placed them on the desk top.

  Elizabeth opened the lid and inhaled the delicious scent, knowing each little parcel would be filled with finely chopped vegetables. Jing waved a pair of chopsticks in front of her face and grinned at her.

  So tempting, but Michael would be waiting. Kitty hadn’t been once in the last week. Her husband’s leg was causing him grief again so her sister, Susie, came in the morning and tidied up and prepared something for their evening meal.

  ‘I need to go. Thank you for the offer. I’ll see myself home.’

  ‘Bright early tomorrow. We have accounts.’ Jing patted the pile of papers pushed onto the metal spike.

  Not only Michael’s business; some of the others in town and the manager from Star of Hope mine had asked them to look after their books. Since Holtermann’s find, everyone in Sydney wanted to buy shares in the mines and that meant a set of figures for every business. Something most of the managers couldn’t fathom. However, if they’d been told a girl and a Chinaman were behind Quinn’s Accounts, and not Michael, they would have run a mile. They didn’t though, because anything with the name Quinn attached to it was good as gold. Quinn Family Auctioneers and Accountants. Michael insisted in keeping the ‘Family’ bit in there; after all, if it hadn’t been for Da, he wouldn’t have had the start.

  ‘Bright and early.’ Elizabeth leant across the table and reached for her notebook and the carte de visite slipped onto the table.

  Jing grabbed it before she had a chance to stop him. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t shown it to him when Alfie delivered it. There was something about the look on her face and the way he was staring down at her. It didn’t look very businesslike at all.

  ‘What did Michael say?’

  ‘I haven’t shown it to him yet.’ She leant forward to take it from him but he wouldn’t let it go. She turned her head to glare at him and stopped.

  After a long moment he held it out. ‘You keep it.’ He brushed a strand of hair from her face, his fingers light as a feather against her cheek, and smiled in a way that suggested it should be their secret.

  Before he could do or say anything more, she pushed the card into her notebook and made for the door, her cheeks glowing with unexpected warmth.

  The avenue of trees cast a pleasant shade on the dusty road. Elizabeth clung to the edge to avoid the never-ending parade of drays, people and horses, and as always skirted the pigeon tree.

  Halfway down the road, she crossed behind a sprung carriage and opened the small latched gate in the picket fence. The little garden never failed to bring a smile to her face. She carefully saved all of Mam’s flower seeds that she’d grown in containers behind the warehouse, and replanted them every October once the frosts had passed. They flourished in the shade beneath the apple and pear trees.

  An open door greeted her, along with the mouth-watering smell of chicken pie. Ah Chu had delivered some delicious carrots, parsnips and cabbage when he’d called in that morning; hopefully Susie had remembered to put them into the pie.

  ‘Michael! I’m home.’

  He sat in his usual place at the small table in the back room, a sheaf of newspapers spread out in front of him.

  ‘What are you reading?’ He rarely had time for the newspapers but his attention seemed riveted on the advertisements. She peered over his shoulder. ‘That’s not the local paper.’

  ‘Nope. Maitland Mercury.’

  ‘Maitland. Where’s that?’

  He rocked back on the chair, smiling. ‘You might have a great head for figures but your geography’s less than useless.’

  ‘No chicken pie for you if you’re going to be rude.’

  He let out a bark of laughter and jumped to his feet. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The chicken pie had a lovely golden crust, and she set it down carefully in the centre of the table. ‘Can you put knives and forks out?’

  Michael pulled open the drawer in the table, all the while peering down at the paper. ‘Time we expanded.’

  ‘Again? I’m not sure now is the right time. Prices are high. Ever since they found the reef, people have been pouring into town. A room at the hotel costs almost as much as one in Sydney. Did you know there are over eight thousand people in the area now?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about Hill End, something further afield.’

  ‘Bathurst!’ She’d only ever been there once, on the way from Sydney after poor Prince Alfred had been shot. She still remembered that day, the sun on the water, her handsome prince. She’d read in the paper that he’d married, the Grand Duchess Maria from Russia; so much for childish dreams. He’d set his sights a bit higher than a girl from the gold fields. ‘Bathurst would be a perfect place to set up a business. Everyone travels through the town on their way to the Turon.’

  ‘No. I think we might be seeing the end to the boom before long. The Sydney business community hasn’t got money to spare for gold-mining ventures. If anything’s going to happen it’s got to come from London, and I can’t see that.’

  ‘You want to go back to England and raise capital?’

  ‘No, not that far afield. I’ve been down in Germantown. One of the blokes, his wife Eliza comes from a town called Maitland. She reckons it’s the perfect place. Access to Sydney by land and sea, through the port of Newcastle and the Hunter River. They say there’s even a train from Newcastle to Maitland.’ His eyes glowed with promise. ‘Says it’s second only to Sydney. Big enough for an auctioneering business, small enough to make a mark.’

  ‘You want to leave Hill End?’ Elizabeth’s breath caught, the pain of it causing her to bend double. She didn’t want to leave. She loved the town, the life; she belonged, she knew who she was. And there was Jing. The first person she’d met when they arrived in Hill End, her closest friend, he’d taught her everything she knew. ‘Where’s this place?’

  ‘I told you. Maitland.’

  ‘Well, where is it? Have you got a map?’

  ‘It’s in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney. We’ll go and have a look. Take the train. Have a bit of a holiday. How would you like that?

  Her heart raced and her skin tightened. ‘I don’t like trains.’

  ‘What do you mean you don’t like trains? You’ve never travelled on one. They’re the way of the future. Just like my plans. Maitland’s a fine town by all accounts.’

  Elizabeth rubbed at her goose-flecked skin and swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. She didn’t want to leave Hill End. She turned on her heel and left Michael to the chicken pie.

  ‘Where are you?’ Jing waved his fingers in front of her face, bringing her out of her dismal reverie.

  Elizabeth stuck the pencil behind her ear and rested her chin on her hands. She couldn’t concentrate on the rows of figures, couldn’t even add two and two, never mind total expenses for the goods coming up for auction or work out the reserves. Jing had taken the suanpan from her; he knew her too well, knew her mind had wandered.

  ‘Why so sad?’

/>   ‘I’m not sad …’ At least she didn’t think she was. It was all Michael’s fault. All this talk of leaving Hill End. Six months after Holtermann’s find and none of the mines had hit a decent seam and there was an air of despondency about the town. Talk of greener pastures, new fields, Victoria. Even further away than this hunter’s valley Michael kept talking about.

  She sucked in a breath. ‘Michael wants to leave Hill End.’ Her voice belonged to someone else, she opened her mouth to explain but her breath caught and drowned out the remainder of her words.

  When Jing’s arm wrapped around her shoulder the tears began, great wet tears trickling down her cheeks, rendering her incapable of thought. He pulled her against him and smoothed her hair from her face, saying nothing. Sighing, she rested against his chest.

  How long he held her she had no idea. Slowly the breath returned to her body and her world came back into focus. She turned to the workbench and picked up the suanpan, running her fingers over the smooth worn beads, finding reassurance in the familiarity of the movement.

  Against her back, Jing’s heart thudded, no longer in time with the stampers but faster than before. Heat radiated from him. ‘Where does Michael want to go?’

  ‘Some hunter’s valley, two hundred miles away.’ Hundreds of miles from where she wanted to be.

  He reached around her and pushed the suanpan away. ‘We must all go home one day.’

  ‘You? You’d go back to China?’

  ‘My family is there.’

  ‘Your father and your uncle are here.’

  ‘Not my sisters, or my grandmother, my aunts. We will never belong here. We will all go home. It is lonely to be without a family.’

  ‘Some Chinese have been here for many years, brought their families.’ Her voice hitched again. Only the week before, one poor man had killed himself, so lonely and sad he couldn’t stand it a moment longer. He wouldn’t be going home.

  ‘We will all go home,’ said Jing.

  ‘Not those who’re buried here.’

  ‘They will go home. The agent will take their bones back to lie with their ancestors.’

  ‘But there’s hundreds buried in Moonlight Gully.’ The Chinese burial ground lay alongside the river on a pretty bend where the willows hung; maybe they knew one day their bones would be taken home.

  ‘Eighty-two, not hundreds. Only those who can wait no longer, and those who had an accident. We all go home, take our gold, find a wife …’ He turned and stared at her, the corners of his mouth turned down, his eyes soft and sad.

  ‘You could stay here.’ Her heart gave a start, blood pumping wildly as the plan slipped to the forefront of her mind. ‘You could come with us to this hunter’s place. Help Michael and I set up a new business. Would you?’

  ‘Maybe one day.’

  ‘What do you mean, one day?’

  He pulled a piece of red thread from his pocket. ‘I will tell you a story, a Chinese story. The Chinese gods know who will meet and who will help each other, so they take a thread, like this one, and tie it around the little finger.’ He twisted the thread around her finger and held the other end between his index finger and thumb and pulled it taut. ‘No matter how long, no matter where in the world this thread stretches, maybe it tangles, but never, never breaks.’ His breath fanned her cheek. ‘I will always find you.’

  Her hands rose of their own volition and rested on his broad chest. Through his soft shirt, the steady rhythm of his heart reverberated against her palms. A smothered groan rumbled in his chest and his warm breath tickled her neck.

  She turned her head and he brushed back the hair from her face. His fingers wandered light as a feather over her cheek and along her lips. Only the emotion in his eyes gave any indication that her proximity affected him. Sighing in pleasure she rested against his chest, frightened that words would break the idyllic moment.

  She inhaled the familiar scent of jasmine tea and soap, and something else, something familiar yet at the same time unknown, exciting. The air shifted, and with a mind of its own her body leant closer.

  Michael pushed open the door and stood for a moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light. He’d had another chat with Eliza Cox; she’d grown up in the Hunter Valley. Her family still lived there but she’d followed Hans, the German she’d fallen in love with the moment she set eyes on him. Maitland was the biggest town in the area, bigger even than the port of Newcastle. The old public house would be right, so right for his plans. Cheap because the licence had lapsed. He didn’t want the licence. Oh no. He had bigger plans than that.

  The bottom floor would make a fine auction house, and the upstairs had two bedrooms and one other huge room which would make an excellent living space, and still have room for a small office area. Since Holtermann’s find there’d been no discoveries of any consequence; it was as though he’d taken it all with him when he’d returned to Sydney. Time to move on. They’d put in the work and set down roots in Maitland, and he’d make the life for Elizabeth that she deserved.

  ‘Elizabeth, Jing! Everything ready for the auction tomorrow?’ Michael’s mouth dried and he rocketed across the room. ‘What the hell … Get your hands off her.’

  Elizabeth shot around to the other side of the desk, cheeks flaming.

  ‘What in God’s name’s going on? Come here.’ He grabbed Elizabeth’s arm and pulled her close. ‘Get out of here, Jing, and don’t come back.’

  Jing picked up his beads and vanished through the back door.

  The one person he believed he could trust to care for Elizabeth. How wrong could a man be?

  ‘Jing, I …’ Elizabeth struggled frantically against him, landing a hefty kick on his shin.

  ‘You’ll do nothing but stay put, right where you are. I’ll sort him out later. Did he hurt you, touch you?’

  ‘Of course not! I’m all right.’ She gave a little shake and unfolded her arms.

  She could pretend all she liked, but Michael could tell from the pitch of her voice, higher and frailer than usual. There was no mistaking the look in every man’s eyes when they saw Elizabeth. She’d grown into a beauty, but Jing … his best mate, the bloke he’d trust with his life. ‘What was he thinking?’

  Her face puckered in a frown. ‘I told him you wanted to leave. About this hunter’s valley. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave Jing. Please let him come with us?’ Her voice wavered and she brushed at her eyes.

  She wanted Jing to come along? She didn’t want to leave him? Michael’s blood chilled. Had he read her right? It couldn’t happen. He’d seen what happened to women who chose an Oriental—abused by others, forced to live as outcasts. It wasn’t going to happen to Elizabeth. Not now. Not ever.

  An unfettered fury billowed in his chest at Jing’s duplicity. ‘No more of your nonsense. We’ll be moving to Maitland just as soon as I can sell the business.’ And that was his mind made up.

  She let out a monstrous wail and dropped to her knees, sobbing fit to bust.

  ‘Oh, me little darlin’, it’s not so bad, we’ll make a good life there. I’ll build you a house, a beautiful house. You’ll have fine clothes and live as you were meant to. As Mam and Da intended. We’ll start again, a real auction house. None of this second-hand, hand-me-down rubbish. Small at first. Live upstairs, and when we make our fortune I’ll build you the house of your dreams! Now what do you think about that, me little darlin’?’

  ‘Can Jing come?’

  No, he bloody well couldn’t. ‘They’re different, darlin’, not like us. They look different, work different, think different.’

  ‘Not Jing.’

  Yes, bloody Jing. The scheming little mongrel. He’d trusted him. Trusted him with his money, his secrets, and Elizabeth.

  Michael swallowed the red rage, clamped his teeth. ‘As soon as I’ve tied everything up, sold the warehouse, we’ll leave. They’ll want Jing here. Do the books, like he’s always done. We’ll go to Sydney and take the train. It’ll be like the old days. Remember
? Just you and me.’

  ‘I love him.’

  The sweat dried on his skin, leaving him cold. Not only his body, his mind as well. Whatever was she thinking?

  ‘No you don’t. You’ve got to understand he’s not for you. He’s from another race, another culture, another country.’ Michael ticked each item off on his shaking fingers. ‘And another religion! By all that’s holy, understand he’s different.’

  ‘Jing’s worked for you for years, ever since you first came here. His family looked after Da. You’re as biased as Bill Cameron, labelling people. You’re nothing but a bloody Fenian upstart!’

  The insult sent Michael rocketing to his feet. He was no Fenian. Hadn’t had time for all that nonsense. Treated all men the same. But this was Elizabeth. This was different.

  ‘Jing’s a Celestial, and he’ll always be a Celestial. I’ll not have you labelled a bloody Chinaman’s whore.’

  ‘You can’t make me leave.’

  ‘I can, and I will. I am your brother. You are my responsibility.’

  ‘Not if I marry.’

  ‘Until you marry. And that ain’t going to be any time soon.’

  Nineteen

  Maitland Town, 1913

  The morning after discussing the exhibition plans with Michael, Jane left home and arrived at the auction house before anyone else woke; she had to be back at Church Street in time for the meeting of the Benevolent Society. She let herself in through the back door, ran up the stairs and surveyed the chaos. Canvases leant against every spare inch of wall, the calico bags that had protected them hung over the backs of the chairs, and an unusual smell had infiltrated the room, something metallic, chemical.

  Shrugging out of her jacket, she contemplated the surroundings, trying to imagine the paintings hanging downstairs with neat labels as they had done at the technical college. Elizabeth’s old room would be the ideal spot for Mrs Penter to store all her painting equipment; the bed had long since gone to Lucy’s room at the house so there was plenty of space.

  Jane was standing looking out of the window when footsteps sounded on the stairs and Timothy stuck his head around the door. ‘Am I too early?’