by Lois Mason
“Nay, Rob,” she protested, “’tis not important to me. This one serves.”
“ ’Tis to me,” he replied vehemently. She was taken aback.
“Well ... if it matters that much...” she murmured.
“Aye, it does.” His savage whisper was clearly heard above the noise of the other occupants in the lodgings readying themselves for the night.
She could not understand why the man bothered about the piece of jewellery. She would have thought a maternal wedding ring a touch of sentiment for a man’s wife to bear proudly. Had his mother meant so little to him that he could not support the sight of her ring on another’s finger? Or, so much? It was all very baffling. She would not dwell on it.
“Where ... how shall we start tomorrow?” she enquired of him.
“With Ned to help ’twill make our task easier. The Commissioner’s Office first, banks, general stores ... Do you remember which bank your father used in Sydney?”
“The Bank of New South Wales,” she informed him.
“Then he may have done the same here. We can see if there is a branch in the main street. It may prove a lead,” he added hopefully.
“There seems so much to do. And there are so many people here,” she answered despondently.
“Oh, come now, Abby! Cheer up!” He squeezed her tiny hand firmly and held it to his lips for a second. “He would have to have bought a Miner’s Right and registered his claim here at the Commissioner’s. If his name is recorded there, we may be able to ascertain the claim’s locality.” He was completely ignorant of his facts, having no knowledge of mining procedures and requirements, although he did know that a digger had to have a permit and all claims were to be registered. He did not add if Samuel Wright was in the employ of another then there was no chance of finding him that way. But he wanted to keep Abigail’s hopes high. She had weathered the hardships of their packhorse trip well, but he knew that they might not be the last.
“And what of us, Rob?” his wife asked now. “Are we to join the diggers here? Will it be here that you wish to search for gold?”
“Not for the moment,” he replied firmly. “Our attentions will be directed towards finding your father, as I promised you. After, shall we decide what is to happen.”
Again he withheld any hint of their future. But she hardly cared, her eyelids were heavy with tiredness.
“I saw a laundry down the street through town as we came through. If you need it, you could take linen there in the morning whilst Ned and I make enquiries,” his voice soothed. “Abigail? Abby?” he called.
But there was no reply, and her little hand was limp in his. Tenderly he tucked it under her blanket and leaning over, kissed her cheek. “Sleep well, precious one,” he breathed. “God knows what lies ahead for you.”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
“We’ll go along now, Abigail. You understand where we are to meet?” asked her husband.
“The Bank of New Zealand at eleven-thirty,” she replied. They had all seen the well-marked edifice yesterday afternoon, so there would be no mistaking the rendezvous. Rob had also thought he could make enquiries inside about her father at the same time.
“Good. The laundry’s back down the street, next to the blacksmith. Right side going down. You should be quite safe on your own—I noticed a few police about. If you are accosted be sure to shout loudly. They will come to your aid,” he cautioned.
“Of course,” she murmured. It warmed her that he was concerned about her well-being. “I shall be perfectly all right.”
“Good,” he nodded. “Come on, Ned! We shall see you later, Abby.”
“Good luck! My fingers will be crossed for news!” Abigail watched the backs of their red and blue flannel shirts as the two men left the ‘dining-room’. She finished her coffee and went back to their bedroom of sorts to finish packing the dirty garments. Rob had already sorted his into one of the saddlebags and she stuffed in her drawers, petticoats, chemises, and green chintz on top of them. Would their enquiries prove fruitful? She sensed that she was now close to her goal, so far from home in surroundings the like of which she had never before seen.
With feelings of nervous anticipation she hastened towards the laundry. Her eyes darted, searching each bearded face, in the hope that she might see her father even in that jostling street.
She had no difficulty in finding Willy Gee’s washhouse. If the flower-bedecked, ornately painted wooden nameplate above the door of the ramshackle shanty was missed, the clouds of steam billowing out the back of the building were infallible proof of the shack’s purpose.
The grin on the Chinaman’s face reached his ears as more business approached.
“Washee shirtee? Starchee collars, petticoatee? I do evelything. Washee, dryee, iron, oh yeah!” he chanted, sing-song fashion.
Abigail tipped out the contents of the saddlebag.
“Velly good,” he sang, casting his eye over the dirty things. “Come back four o’clock, five o’clock. All leady, then!”
“Thank you,” she replied. “But I don’t want these collars so stiff you can cut your neck on them.”
“No, no, Missee, Willy do it light!” The man’s head nodded as if on a spring.
The ringing of iron striking at the forge next door resounded in her ears as she turned out into the street again, and she headed towards one of the tiny calico stores. Rob had given her five shillings to “buy yourself a trinket!” It was not trinkets she was needing. She sorted out the soap from a medley of goods displayed on the store’s counter—a counter of brandy-case planks atop saplings.
“Is that all ye’re wantin’, ma’am?” The shopkeeper was anxious to rejoin his mates who were playing cards around an upturned gin case in the depths of the tent. The acrid odours from their powdered cutties assailed Abigail’s nostrils, and she saw the piles of golden sovereigns at their elbows. She oscillated between a tin of salmon and a tin of lobster. Both were expensive, but she had change for one. It would be a treat, a change from their monotonous diet. She decided to let the man make her decision.
“Ah, which do you recommend?” she asked. “The salmon, or this?” She pointed to the lobster.
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other, ma’am. Both excellent and good value.” He wished she would hurry up. Women were such dithering creatures!
“Hurry up, Isaac! Yer hand’s gettin’ cold!” A voice called from the smoky murk. Then it spotted Abigail. “Hey, fellas! Get a load of this one! Ye for Harry’s? Keep a dance for me, m’ darlin’.”
Abigail’s crimson cheeks burned with embarrassment. “The salmon,” she muttered quickly as the whistles and calls greeted her. She gave him money from her reticule and fled the shop.
She knew she should have put on the bonnet! But it was faded now to a green-grey and drab with water stains. Vanity had won and she had caught her russet hair up loosely into the caul, not wanting to wear the dull old thing. Then she realised that in the shame of the moment she had only picked up the soap. Tears of confusion sprang to her eyes when she knew she could not bring herself to go back for the tin of fish. The surprise she had planned for the men was lost.
Disappointed, she threw her reticule and the soap into the saddlebag, then brushed the tears away with her tightly clenched fist. Through a chink between shanties she caught a glimpse of the swollen waters of the Molyneux. Endeavouring to escape the oppressive street crowds, she ran down on to its banks.
But even here there was no escape from the greedy eyes of men.
“Joe! Joe!” The cry met her, as it had at Gabriel’s diggings, but here, without her husband’s protection, it was menacing.
Instinctively she put one hand to her face and gave no long looks at any of the groups of men now leaning on their picks and shovels.
Although access to the white beaches of the river was denied by its waters, now risen with melted ice and snow from the Alps, there was still much activity of men, seeking the yellow dust and grains the river swept do
wn from those mountains, on its higher banks.
Work was almost at standstill as the diggers gazed admiringly at the attractive chit of a girl with her stunning hair, as she determinedly made her way closer to the waters. By ignoring their disconcerting calls of admiration she discovered that, en masse, they meant her no harm. When they saw that she failed to respond to their endearing phrases, they went back to work and ignored her too.
She sat solitary, unmolested but for pesky sandflies, on a small flat ledge jutting about four feet above the swiftly moving water. There was much to see. Small boats and two punts busily ferried men, horses, and drays across from either bank—for many were now heading further upstream to the creeks and watercourses, tributaries of the greater river, to try their luck until winter’s ice once again lowered the water level of the Molyneux to reveal the rich; auriferous deposits on newly bared shingle and sand.
The day was drear, the colour of Abigail’s washed-out silk bonnet; but still the Molyneux showed uncannily blue where a sky should reflect its sunless light. Her crimson cloak contrasted brilliantly to that blueness, a flaring spot amidst the dulled colours of men whose clothes were caked in tawny mud and dust. Was her father amongst them? Abigail lacked courage now to walk amongst the diggers, boldly staring.
There was almost an hour before she was to meet Ned and her husband—time to gather thoughts and calm herself after the upsetting occurrence of being mistaken for what Mama thought was the lowest of all breeds—a dancing girl!
How happily her husband was turning out! His disposition could not be more agreeable and that letter, now that it was well to the back of her mind and he had shown himself incapable of harming anyone, no longer perplexed. After they found Papa she was sure everything would work itself out, despite her husband’s reticence. She was still none the wiser as to where they were to live, or what his employment was. If he was one of these men she could see industriously working the dirt, then he was certainly in no hurry to join them.
A soft, warm glow suffused her cheeks as she thought of the comfort and delights of his powerful arms, his charming reassurances, and those magnetic, captivating eyes.
Her own eyes caught the blur of moss-green, the yellow-streaked breast feathers of a kakapo as it skittered, mewing, on shale. Haplessly, for in the blink of an eyelid, a scrawny miner’s mongrel had pounced. Black and white hair tousled with a flurry of feathers and the helpless bird was between the cur’s jaws.
Nauseated, Abigail picked up the saddlebag and hastened back to the township. The flags atop some tents made small flutters as a tricky breeze caught them up.
With no idea of the hour, she asked the most respectable of men she could see—an elderly, dark-suited gentleman. He pulled his Albert by its thick gold chain from his waistcoat pocket and informed her that it was a quarter past eleven. She scratched her neck where a sandfly had bitten and was glad that her legs were stocking-encased. The itchy creatures had no opportunity to invade there.
Rob and Ned were already waiting outside the ‘Bank of New Zealand and Gold Office’, with faces as long as their Napoleons. She knew intuitively that the news was adverse. Her husband took her hand as he spoke.
“The Claims Office is hopeless. Thousands of names, no order to them, only order of land. We tried here,” he nodded to the bank, “but there’s no record of his name. The Bank of New South Wales is upriver a few miles, at Upper Dunstan. ’Twould be worth our while to go there first, I feel, before asking around here.”
Abigail nodded. They seemed to be grasping at straws, seeking one man from so many. It was almost an insurmountable task.
“There’s a coach after lunch, or we could ride,” Rob continued, pressing her hand reassuringly. “Would the horses take another trip, Ned?”
“Aye. ’Tis not far upriver. ’Twill keep ’em exercised.”
“What do you say, Abby? Coach or horseback?” Rob looked at her with quizzical blue eyes.
“Horseback,” she replied emphatically. The steady, reliable gait of a horse was infinitely preferable to the swaying, jarring motion of a coach where one did not know when the next jolt would come.
“All right. We’ll return here for the night,” Rob decided.
The breeze whisked the tunatagora scrub to an easterly lean and raised the dust even more. With horses, they could ride higher than the traffic-riddled road, trying as much as they could to keep to tussocks, so as to raise less dust. But just the same, clouds of it swirled chokingly in the wind.
Abigail screwed up her eyes to keep irritating motes at bay. The overcast conditions greyed the mountains ahead, and the steepest peaks disappeared into the mist snaking down into their gullies and black ravines. Yesterday they had been white-gloved knuckles, range upon range, with a jagged double-pointer the highest, fluffed with cloud like a boa. Ned had told her that those in the distance, snow-encrusted, were the Remarkables, with Double Cone piercing the sky.
Around two in the afternoon, they hitched their horses to the post outside the Bank of New South Wales.
Upper Dunstan was just as crowded a township as Manuherikia. Again, a street of once-white shops, hostelries and shanties threaded along a terrace, one hundred feet above the Molyneux. Calico flapped noisily in the increasing wind, straining at ropes. The bank stood stolid, a timber edifice with iron roof.
They all trooped in and waited their turn as miners had dust, grain, and shining yellow rock weighed and deposited. Abigail’s heart pounded expectantly, hoping against hope that Papa might be known here.
At last it was their turn.
“Sinclair’s the name, sir,” Rob informed the liverish clerk. “My wife is trying to locate her father. Would it be possible for you to check if he has an account here?”
“Not the usual form. I cannot divulge any other information...” he replied peevishly.
“We are not interested in any other,” her husband’s voice was impatient, “only whether he banks here.”
“Very well then,” the clerk said grudgingly. “Name?”
“Samuel Wright.” The man wrote slowly with his quill. He looked up again at Rob. “Home address, occupation?”
“He came from Sydney...”
“That will do.”
“Abigail?” Rob turned to her inquiringly.
She told him. “Twenty-four Macquarie Street. Saddler and leather goods.” The details were noted laboriously.
“If you’ll wait one moment, sir?”
They stood to the side of the queue whilst the clerk’s colleague attended the other customers. Abigail, on tenterhooks, could see the man running his finger down the pages of a large, red leather-bound tome. The finger stopped and the man bent over the book.
Her heart was in her mouth as he came back to the counter.
“Ah, indeed, Mr. Sinclair. A Samuel Wright of the same address made transactions here. His last business with us was December the twenty-second. We closed over Christmas and the New Year, so doubtless he was drawing funds to tide him over that time as most of our customers did.”
Nearly three weeks ago. Then he was here! Abigail sighed with relief, but the clerk’s next answer put a damper on her hopes.
“Have you any idea where he may be, then?” Rob queried.
“None. We keep no records of where our customers are here. They move about all the time. Some are away a month before they come in again ... some even longer. They’re off up the Arrow to Fox’s, or the Shotover, Skipper’s, Cardrona ... Anywhere where there’s a strike. He could be at any of those places.” The queue was now reaching the door of the bank and the clerk was eager to be rid of this man who was holding him up in his normal transactions of business.
“Thank you for your help, anyway,” Rob spoke briskly. “I’d be obliged if you’d tell him when he comes in next, that his daughter’s staying at ‘The Tranquil Nook’ in Manuherikia.”
“Just a moment, sir. I’ll take a note of it.” The clerk picked up his pen and looked agitatedly at Rob. “ ‘Tranquil
Nook’, was it?”
“Aye,” Rob nodded, then, thanking the man again turned to Ned and Abigail. “Come on. We can’t learn any more here.”
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Sinclair, that he couldn’t tell us more,” Ned consoled her.
“I understand the situation only too well,” she replied bitterly. However, her eyes brightened with the knowledge that they now had definite proof Papa had been but recently in this area, in this very spot.
“What do we do now, Rob?” She cast her trusting eyes in his direction.
“Ask. We’ll start with the stores, the blacksmith ... if he had a horse it may have needed shoeing. The saloons ... Did he drink, Abigail?”
“Not much,” she said, aware that she had been asking that very question of her husband not so long ago. “A bit of Madeira with Mama’s cake, a spot of brandy or whisky now and then. He’s not what you’d call a drinking man.”
“Well, you never know. There may be somebody in the saloons who came in contact with him somewhere. Give me his portrait. We shall need it now.”
Abigail fumbled with the locket, but the catch eluded her.
“Here. Allow me.” Her husband bent over her neck, breathing warmly against her nape, and had it undone instantly. The closeness reassured her. She knew she was not alone in this thing.
So they made their start. Armed with the photograph of her father they went into every shop, lodgings, and saloon along that street. Two hours later Abigail was close to tears, frustratedly exhausted.
It was utterly hopeless. Not a soul had heard of her father, and there was not a skerrick of a clue as to his whereabouts. And to make matters worse, the wind was fast rising to a gale; her skirts whipped about her, and her bonnet strained at its ties as she battled against it in one direction, and in the other, she was almost bowled off her feet as it puffed her skirts out to a sail. Either way, only by clinging grimly to Rob’s arm was she assured of staying firmly on the ground.