Barnwell touched his fingers to his forehead and inclined his head as Lil bustled out from behind the bar.
‘Welcome to my place, sir. What’s your fancy?’
Barnwell strolled over to the table, the girls watching him like wary sparrows in the presence of a hungry hawk. He held out his hand to Sissy.
‘Would you care to join me for a drink, young lady? Is there somewhere quiet we can go?’
Sissy smiled. ‘We have a nice quiet room upstairs, sir?’
Barnwell smiled, showing a row of neat, white teeth. ‘Lead on. What do I call you?’
The rest of conversation was lost as the door to the stairs closed behind Barnwell and Sissy.
Penrose half-rose from his seat with a strangled gasp.
Caleb pulled him down. ‘Nothing you can do, Penrose.’
Lil’s eyes narrowed and she came to the table where the men sat. She poked a finger in Penrose’s chest, her face scarlet and her eyes blazing. ‘You know the rules, Penrose. She’s not yours. If you don’t like it, then don’t bother coming ’ere.’
Penrose put his elbows on the table and ran his hands through his hair as Lil returned to her place behind the bar. He stared at the unyielding slab of wood that stood between him and the woman he loved. ‘This can’t go on,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to do something.’
Caleb laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Lil’s right. You’re just torturing yourself coming here. Go home and try not to think about it.’
Penrose stood, picked up his hat and hurried out into the street, the curious gazes of the other patrons following him.
‘Another drink?’ Lil secured the bottle Caleb held in his hand.
‘Last one,’ Caleb said.
Lil poured a measure and set the bottle back below the bar. ‘Star-crossed lovers, those two,’ she said. ‘It’s not doing my business any good ’aving ’im ’anging around ’ere. I may ’ave to send Sis back to Melbourne.’
‘That’s a bit harsh,’ Caleb said.
Lil shrugged. ‘My cousin ’as a very respectable establishment in Little Lon. Sis will do all right, but if that lad wants to make an ’onest woman of her, ’e’s got to find the balls to stand up to ’is uncle and make it ’appen.’
Caleb took a sip of the bourbon. The lovelorn Penrose could sort his own problems. His thoughts were on Richard Barnwell and they were disquieting thoughts. He glanced at the door to the stairwell with growing distaste.
Why had Barnwell tracked down Adelaide to this obscure corner of the empire? The answer hit him like a blow. Marriage. Richard Barnwell was looking for a wife. But if his intentions were to court her then why would he walk into a public house and avail himself of the first available woman he met?
Maybe he was reading too much into Barnwell’s intention. Maybe he really was nothing more than an old family friend with no other purpose than to reminisce about happy times with Adelaide, but Caleb hadn’t liked Barnwell on first meeting and he disliked and distrusted him even more now.
He sculled the rest of the glass and stood up.
Adelaide had made it clear. It was none of his goddam business.
‘Goodnight, Lil,’ he said and wove an uneven path out of the hostelry into the warm night air.
Twenty-Six
8 February 1872
As the long, hot summer evening drew in, Caleb sat at the desk in his new surgery doing an inventory of all the medicines and surgical supplies he had found in the cottage. The list would not be long and, in the absence of an apothecary in Maiden’s Creek, he would have to send to Melbourne to obtain a decent supply of anything.
He tapped the pencil on the side of his nose and shook his head. He needed funds to stock the surgery properly and as his finances stood, he was not sure how he could afford to buy a bandage let alone morphine or laudanum. Sadly, Bowen’s investment seemed to have been in whiskey, of which he had found at least two boxes hidden in the cottage. Whiskey only had a limited medical application but Yorkie had been pleased enough to take them off his hands in exchange for Posy’s board and a nominal rental on the surgery.
He turned his attention to Bowen’s notebooks, which he had brought down from the cottage. In his early years, Bowen had spent time with the Aborigines, making copious notes on their bush remedies.
Bowen’s notes were extensive and Caleb wondered where he could find someone in Maiden’s Creek who could show him the plants that Bowen mentioned. Maybe the bushman, Mick, could help but Caleb had seen none of the Indigenous people since he had arrived and, like the Native Americans, he wondered if they had been driven away to be herded into reservations. Growing up, he had spent time with the remnants of one of the Iroquois tribe of the Shenandoah Valley and come to appreciate that their use of the plants to deal with day-to-day ills came from thousands of years of accumulated knowledge and could not—and should not—be dismissed. He wondered whether, as the years passed, the knowledge would be lost and all that would be left were notebooks such as these.
A sharp rap at the door startled him. His visitor surprised him even more. Adelaide stood on the verandah, holding an envelope out to him.
‘A telegram for you, Caleb.’
‘From who?’
‘Sergeant Maidment.’
He nodded and took the envelope from her, turning it over in his hands. ‘Come in,’ he said.
She glanced back in the direction of the post office. ‘I should get back.’
‘I only wanted to show you the surgery,’ he said.
She bit her lip, a habit she had when she felt indecisive, he had noticed. She gave a curt nod. ‘I would like to see it,’ she said.
He stood aside.
She turned in a circle in the confined space, coming back to face him with a smile. ‘It is certainly cosy,’ she said.
Despite himself, he smiled. ‘I’ve never had my own surgery.’ He picked up a wooden plaque from the table. ‘Look at this. One of the carpenters from the mine made it for me.’ The painted sign was rough and the lettering amateurish but it gave him a strange sense of belonging.
Adelaide took it and read it out loud, ‘Dr C Hunt MD. Open for business eight am to twelve noon. Emergencies: Enquire at the hotel. Only open for business until noon?’
‘I thought I’d save the afternoon for house calls and visits out of town.’
‘Caleb? You in there?’
Caleb opened the door. Mick stood on the verandah, his arm around a slender Chinese woman who held a child in her arms. The normally imperturbable Mick ran a hand through his dark hair. ‘Sorry to bother you, doc. It’s Lin’s little girl.’
Caleb looked at the child who lay limp and unresponsive in her mother’s arms.
‘Bring her in,’ he said, shutting the door behind them.
He’d managed to squeeze in a wooden bench, which Posy had covered with a clean sheet, and he took the child from Lin to lay her on the hard surface. The child looked up at him with large, dark eyes.
‘What happened?’ he asked.
‘She’s just starting to walk and she had a fall this morning. Hit her head hard on a rock. She was fine but then she started vomiting.’ Mick glanced at the woman. ‘She went for a sleep this afternoon but we couldn’t wake her up for supper and that’s when I told Lin we had to bring her to you. She sort of woke up on the walk here but she’s too quiet. Know what I mean?’
For the first time, the mother issued a small sound that could have been a stifled sob.
Caleb summoned his ‘reassuring’ smile. ‘What’s her name?’
Lin looked at Mick and he nodded.
‘Mae. We call her Mae,’ she said so softly, Caleb had to strain to hear her.
‘We?’ Adelaide spoke for the first time.
Mick shuffled his feet and looked down at the ground. ‘Yes, missus. Mae’s me little girl.’
Adelaide laid a hand on his arm. ‘I’m not passing judgement, Mick. She’s beautiful.’
Caleb turned his attention back to the child.
A quick feel of her skull confirmed a large bump on the side of her head but his questing fingers did not detect the crackle of a break and her pupils weren’t dilated, which he took as a good sign.
When he had finished the examination he turned to the anxious parents. ‘She’s had a bad knock and she has a concussion.’
‘Is bad?’ Lin asked, her eyes widening.
‘It’s not good,’ Caleb said, ‘but she should be all right. She will need lots of rest and quiet games, no running around outside.’
Mick tightened his grip on Lin’s shoulders and hugged her tighter. ‘Got to keep her quiet, Linny.’ He looked at Caleb. ‘Not easy at this age.’
‘No,’ Caleb, who had no direct experience of children of ‘this age’, said. He turned to Adelaide. ‘Can you look in the cupboard and pass me a bandage?’
With four adults there barely seemed enough room to breathe, let alone move, but Adelaide slipped into place at his side, the bandage in her hand.
‘Ad—Mrs Greaves, can you hold young Mae so I can bandage her head?’
Adelaide did exactly what was required and the child sat quiet and compliant in her arms. He tied off the bandage around the youngster’s head. Mae promptly tugged at the white cloth. Strictly speaking she didn’t need it, but it was a useful reminder that for the next few days, if not weeks, Mae was to be considered an invalid.
Adelaide lifted the child up and smiled into the serious little face. ‘Now you have to be a good girl and keep the bandage on,’ she said.
She turned to Lin, handing her the child. ‘She’s lovely. I would love to have a daughter.’
‘You have a fine son,’ Lin replied. ‘Mick, he point him out to me.’
Caleb put a hand on Mick’s shoulder. ‘She’ll be fine, Mick.’
Mick turned his hat in his hands. ‘Thanks, doc. It was just when we couldn’t wake her—’ he glanced at Lin, ‘—we thought the worst.’
‘Rest, good food and quiet,’ Caleb repeated and Mick nodded.
‘Come, Lin,’ he said. ‘The doc probably needs to get to his supper. How much do we owe you?’
Caleb shook his head. ‘Nothing. Just get her home and keep an eye on her. If she doesn’t start to improve, bring her back.’
Adelaide stood with arms crossed watching as the little family stepped off the verandah and rounded the corner out of sight.
‘I wondered why Mick hadn’t been dossing in the shed when he came to town,’ she said.
Caleb, busy with tidying up the ends of the bandage he had cut off, looked at her. ‘Does that change how you feel about him?’
She gave him a startled glance as if stung by his sharp tone. ‘No, of course not.’ She hefted her shoulders. ‘Can you check that telegram, please? Maidment needs a reply tonight and if it’s not time for your supper, it is past time for mine.’
Caleb pulled out the envelope he had stuffed in his pocket when Mick arrived. Maidment had written: BOWEN SET ON BY KNOWN GANG. WITNESS STATES HE SAW BOWEN FALL AND HIT HIS HEAD. PLEASE CONFIRM URGENTLY THAT DEATH IS FROM THE HEAD INJURY. MAIDMENT.
Caleb crossed to his desk and pulled out a piece of paper on which he wrote, CONFIRM BOWEN DEATH BY ANEURYSM CAUSED BY BLOW TO HEAD.
He handed it to Adelaide. ‘Get that off to him.’
Adelaide took the note but her hand lingered on one of Bowen’s notebooks, which lay open on the desk. ‘What are you doing?’
Caleb looked over his shoulder. ‘It has been over ten years since I dealt in general practice. I am very good at smashed limbs, generally accompanied by shrapnel or bullet wounds, but the day-to-day ailments of a town like this …’ He trailed off and glanced at the curtained window. ‘Fortunately, Bowen kept very good records and notes on what worked and what didn’t. I just need enough to tide me over till they can get a replacement.’
She looked at him. ‘And then what? What are you afraid of, Caleb?’
He studied her face, seeing the dark circles under her eyes that told of sleepless nights. He wanted to say, I am afraid of the things I have seen, Adelaide. The nightmares that haunt me. It doesn’t matter where I run, they follow me.
Adelaide shook her head and her eyes did not move from his as she said, ‘That you might get attached to a place? That people might come to depend on you?’
This second truth jagged through him like a bayonet. How had he let her in so far?
They stood quite still, facing each other without speaking. He only needed to reach out his hand and he could have touched her, drawn her into his arms, but a wall stood between them that had not been there before. Only a few days ago, he had kissed her. He had given her his heart. Now, all that had changed and his heart lay in shattered pieces in the well of his soul.
He turned back to the cupboard, staring at the neatly labelled contents without seeing them. He shut the doors of the cupboard and locked them, turning back to her again.
‘Is there something else I can help you with, Mrs Greaves, because if you’re looking for companionship, then you need to find someone else.’ Caleb gestured at the book on the desk. ‘I have study to do and I am sure Mr Bracewell, or whatever his name is, would be happy to oblige you.’
Adelaide’s lips tightened. ‘Richard Barnwell. You don’t like him?’
‘No, but my personal feelings for Mr Barnwell have nothing to do with you. I just don’t like his sort.’
Adelaide let her gaze drop. Her finger traced the neat cursive writing in Bowen’s notebook and she swallowed. ‘He … he wants me to go back to England with him.’
‘Well, why else is he here?’ Caleb stopped. ‘You mean he wants to marry you?’
She glanced away but the twist of her mouth gave him his answer.
‘I figured he wouldn’t have come all this way without that purpose.’
With an obvious reluctance, Adelaide turned her face to his and he read the doubt in her eyes.
‘How much do you know about him?’ he asked.
‘I’ve known him since I was a girl. His sister was my friend,’ she replied.
He considered her for a long moment. ‘It’s been ten years since you left England. Don’t you think he might have changed? Haven’t you changed?’ Caleb held up a hand. ‘I’ll say no more. If he wants to marry you, that’s between the two of you. None of my Goddamned business.’
‘No, it’s not. It is none of your Goddamned business.’ Adelaide wrenched the door open and without turning to him, snapped, ‘Goodnight, Dr Hunt.’
The jars in the cupboard rattled as the door slammed behind Adelaide’s stiff, angry back.
Caleb ground his teeth and swore, resisting a strong urge to sweep the items on the desk to the ground or punch someone. Either would do.
Instead he stood quite still, fingers clenching and unclenching. It had taken every ounce of strength not to take her in his arms and kiss her. He sat at his desk and buried his face in his hands.
‘Goodnight, Miss Adelaide,’ he murmured.
Twenty-Seven
9 February 1872
Danny dragged his feet along the main road, scuffing his boots in the dust. He would get in trouble from Netty but right now he didn’t care. He thrust his hands deeper into his trouser pockets, another sin, and hunched his shoulders. The taunts of his classmates may have faded but they still echoed in his heart.
‘Something amiss, Dan?’
He started at the sound of Caleb’s voice. His friend sat on a bench outside the new doctor’s surgery, feet crossed at the ankles, smoking a pipe. Caleb moved over and patted the bench beside him. Danny needed no further invitation. He jumped onto the verandah, the boards creaking beneath him, and sat down beside Caleb.
‘Why don’t you visit any more?’ Danny blurted.
Caleb removed the pipe from his mouth. ‘That’s complicated, Dan.’
‘It’s because of Uncle Richard, isn’t it?’
Caleb didn’t answer straight away. ‘Your mother is enjoying Mr Barnwell’s company, Dan. I don’t want to get in
the way.’
‘But he’s there all the time,’ Danny said and, realising that sounded like a grizzle, added, ‘I don’t really mind. He makes Mama laugh and he gives me presents.’
‘I wouldn’t say no to presents,’ Caleb said.
That brought Danny to the cause of his misery. ‘He gave me a set of soldiers,’ he said and sighed. ‘I took some of them to school today and I started to tell everyone about the Battle of Waterloo but—’ His lip quivered and he took a shuddering breath.
‘But?’ Caleb prompted.
Danny felt in his pocket and drew out the Duke of Wellington. The sword the Iron Duke had brandished so valiantly now consisted of just the hilt. ‘A couple of the big boys took him away and broke his sword.’ A deeply shaming tear threatened to dribble down Danny’s cheek.
‘Some boys just don’t like people knowing more than them,’ Caleb said. ‘Have you got the broken piece?’
Danny fished out the piece of bent lead.
Caleb held it up and inspected it. ‘Well, I’m no expert, Dan, but how about I have a go at fixing His Lordship?’
Danny looked up at Caleb, the tears of misery evaporating. ‘Would you? You won’t tell Uncle Richard I broke his toy?’
‘Of course not. Anyway, it wasn’t you that broke it.’
A wave of shame washed over Danny. ‘I know, but Mama told me not to take the soldiers to school.’
Caleb tucked the Duke and his battered sword into the pocket of his waistcoat. ‘Mama was probably right.’ He paused. ‘Do you have any friends at school, Danny?’
Danny shook his head. ‘Not since Jeremy Russell went to school in Melbourne. I’d like to go to school in Melbourne but it costs a lot of money and I know Mama works hard but …’
‘She does work hard and I know she is saving to send you to a good school, so don’t be too hard on her. Your turn will come.’
Danny sighed and glanced up the street in the direction of the little school, the place of his daily torment. A couple of the big boys were coming this way, laughing and shoving each other. They caught sight of Danny and one pointed and leaned over to his companion, whispering something behind his hand. They laughed. Danny wanted to shrink into a ball and hide under the bench.
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