Wong Kwok-Po nodded a curt greeting.
‘He does not speak good English,’ Wong Fu explained, ‘but he understands a little.’
‘But why has he come all the way to Australia?’ Amber asked. ‘Isn’t he too old to travel?’
‘Amber!’ Kitty coloured with embarrassment.
Wong Fu shrugged. ‘He wanted to see the world before he dies. And why not?’
Rian then introduced his party, and Wong Fu invited them to sit around the table, the men near the top and the women and children at the end nearest the door, Gideon and Haunui grunting as they struggled into unaccustomed cross-legged positions.
Rian gazed around the room. There was a red cabinet, on top of which sat an extensive teaset, against one wall, and a low cupboard in gleaming black against the wall opposite. A large and decorative hanging adorned the wall behind the elderly gentlemen.
‘Do you normally take your meals here?’ he asked.
‘No, we eat in our tents. This is our association’s meeting rooms.’
‘Where’s Bao?’ Amber asked. ‘I’ve made her a cake.’
‘Bao will be serving shortly,’ Wong Fu replied.
‘I thought we might meet your wife this evening, Mr Wong,’ Kitty said. ‘I’ve very much been looking forward to that.’
‘My wife did not come to Australia with us, Mrs Farrell. She has remained in China with our younger children.’
‘Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that. Well, then perhaps I may meet some of the other wives?’
‘No,’ Wong Chi-Ping said suddenly.
Kitty froze, wondering if she had made some awful gaffe.
‘There are two only,’ Wong Chi-Ping continued. ‘And they do not wish to show their faces.’
‘I’m sorry? Only two wives?’ Kitty was incredulous.
‘There are only two women altogether,’ Wong Fu clarified. ‘There are four thousand Chinese men here and only two women. And a handful of children.’
There was a long silence. Then Mick, stunned, asked, ‘What the hell do you do, then?’
‘We work.’
Mick ignored Rian’s warning look. ‘I was meaning, you know, when you want to relax, let off steam.’
Wong Fu’s face lit with understanding. ‘Ah, I see. We have our tong—our association—through which we meet in this room to talk and drink tea, we play fan tan and pakapoo, mah jong and cards, we smoke opium, and we have visiting Chinese musicians and theatre. We do not become bored.’
It wasn’t the answer Mick was looking for, but he had the sense not to pursue the matter further.
‘But you must become lonely at times?’ Kitty said.
‘Oh, yes. We miss our families. And we miss our home.’
The door opened and Bao appeared, almost staggering under the weight of a lacquered tray bearing several huge bowls of steaming rice. Amber jumped up and presented her with her cake. But, her hands full, Bao could only nod her thanks. Amber set the cake aside and took one of the bowls off the tray and placed it in the middle of the table.
‘The older gentlemen first, love,’ Kitty whispered, aware of protocol. ‘That includes your father.’
Amber giggled and moved the bowl nearer to the senior Wongs. Bao disappeared again, and returned a minute later with more bowls containing pickles, salted fish, preserved duck, and dried beans, as well as fresh vegetables prepared in a light, piquant sauce. The food kept coming until there was a feast on the table, including the tiny cups and six decorated teapots with wire handles from atop the cabinet, which Bao filled with fragrant tea. Finally she presented each person with a bowl and a set of bamboo chopsticks, and sat down herself.
‘What are we supposed to do with these?’ Haunui asked, mystified.
‘Watch this.’ Pierre deftly chopsticked a small pile of rice into his bowl, arranged some vegetables and duck on top, then, slowly, so Haunui could see what he was doing with his fingers, secured a piece of duck between his chopsticks and lifted it to his mouth. ‘Oui, the sauce she is delicate but piquante.’
Haunui fiddled about with the sticks, attempting to set them between his fingers the way Pierre had. Carefully, he reached across the table and dug them into a bowl of rice and scooped out a portion—which, halfway back to his own bowl, exploded, scattering fluffy white grains far and wide. There were roars of laughter, especially from Wong Kwok-Po, then more as Simon did exactly the same thing. It soon became obvious that only Rian, Kitty, Pierre, Hawk and, for some reason, Leena, were adept at managing chopsticks—everyone else’s clothing and immediate surroundings were quickly accumulating little deposits of food.
Finally, at a nod from Wong Fu, Bao quietly slipped from the room and came back with a handful of porcelain soup spoons, which she distributed to all those who clearly would be going home hungry without them.
At the end of the meal, Bao rose once again and cleared the table.
Rian thanked Wong Fu and his kin for the fine meal. ‘I would like to ask, however, why did you invite us?’
Wong Fu appeared to consider the question. Eventually, he replied, ‘We invited you because you personally have shown us respect, because Mrs Farrell has welcomed us as customers at her place of business, and because we think it is important that Bao has a companion her own age, even if that companion is not Chinese. We wished to thank you for that.’
Grimly, Rian met his gaze. ‘It is that bad, is it?’
‘Yes, it is.’ Wong Fu gave a deep sigh. ‘You must understand that we are reviled here on the diggings, and indeed almost everywhere, it seems, except in our homeland. Few of us can speak English, and even fewer white men can speak Chinese. Our way of life is vastly different, and we are hated for our frugality and our industry. We work together and threaten the concept of independence, and we are content to scrape our hands raw, scrabbling in old workings. We are called locusts. We are seen as filthy, idolatrous and immoral. It is believed that when we are not mating with each other we will try to mate with white women, therefore contaminating the British character of this fine colony.’ Wong Fu paused. ‘But I believe we would have to mate with a lot of white women to do that.’
‘Quite,’ Rian agreed. ‘I suppose the obvious question is: why do you stay?’
‘We make much money here,’ Wong Chi-Ping interrupted. ‘We send it home to our families. Kwangtung Province is poor, our villages are poor. It is why we come here.’
‘I have heard you operate in specific groups, is that right?’ Simon asked.
‘That is correct,’ said Wong Fu. ‘Under the credit-ticket system, each group—sometimes they are as small as thirty, sometimes as large as a hundred or more—borrows money from a broker in China to come here. These groups are connected by kinship and community, and they are led by an individual of some standing and wealth. The borrowed money is paid back to the broker from earnings from gold, and the rest is sent home.’
‘And who is that individual in your group?’ Rian asked.
‘My brother, Kai,’ Wong Fu replied. ‘He is in Melbourne.’
‘And how long will you stay here?’
‘We do not know.’ Wong Chi-Ping shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘Perhaps until the gold runs out? How long will you stay, Captain?’
Good question, Rian thought as he trotted along the Main Road. McCool hadn’t been ridden for a week, and pulled at the bit, tossing his head and skittering sideways at imagined dangers in every narrow alleyway. All the signs indicated that they would hit the lead in the next few days. They’d gone reasonably deep now, near enough to forty yards, and had spent some time slabbing and rendering the sides of the shaft for safety. The windlass used to lower and lift the men and buckets had started off flat on the ground, but, during the sinking, the mullock brought up to the surface had gradually piled up until the windlass had finished up sitting on a small hill, packed in place by a retaining wall of logs. If the washdirt proved to be good—if the ore in the lead did actually contain gold—the crew intended to build a shelter for whoever was o
perating the windlass, and for resting in. A sail had already been erected to ventilate the shaft, as the air became foul at a depth of around fifteen feet. And if the lead really paid and there was potential for going even deeper, Rian had plans to employ a whip, which entailed buying a workhorse—another expense—which would raise and lower the buckets without everyone having to nigh-on kill themselves slaving over the windlass.
But, of course, if the lead they struck yielded little, or it turned out they had missed the lead altogether, all that time and money would have been wasted.
However, Rian had other business to attend to today, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. At the northern end of Red Hill he turned off the road and made his way to what appeared to be a private house set a short distance from the road. He had been told, when he’d discreetly enquired, that ‘you can’t miss it’, and actually you couldn’t. The establishment was single-storeyed, of unpainted wood and fronted by a rather precarious-looking verandah, but was catapulted from the ordinary by a huge sign painted across the front wall in red and gold copperplate proclaiming Lily Pearce’s Saloon of Delight. Rian reined in and dismounted, tying McCool to the verandah rail and hoping that nothing spooked him, or he’d have the whole verandah off and dragging across the diggings behind him.
He stepped up, knocked on the door and waited, but not for long. It soon opened to reveal a girl standing in a short chemise, blue stockings and grey suede boots that laced up to her knees. Her hair was falling out of its clips, her breasts out of her stays, and she smelled as though she could do with a good wash.
‘Er, good morning,’ Rian said. ‘I’d like to see Lily Pearce, if you will.’
‘Ooh, yes, an’ I know she wants to see you,’ the girl replied, grinning. ‘I know who you are.’
‘Would you just fetch her, please?’ Rian said wearily.
The girl disappeared, but was back in less than three minutes.
‘She says you’re to come in.’
‘Tell her I’d rather speak with her out here.’
The girl shook her head. ‘Nup. She says come inside or she won’t see you.’
Rian sighed and took off his hat. In the hall was a carpet runner with frayed edges and an unpleasant-looking stain in the middle of it. There were several not very well executed paintings on the walls featuring women in various stages of undress, and a hall table on which sat a china bowl containing six dead flies.
‘Miss Pearce’s office is this way,’ the girl said, smirking and indicating that Rian should follow her.
They passed an open door; Rian glanced in and noted three bored-looking young women sitting around. Two were chatting and one was knitting. All were dressed only in their undergarments, and Rian wondered if they were cold. Summer had recently arrived at Ballarat, but its warmth hadn’t penetrated the dampness he could feel rising up under the house.
The girl in the grey suede boots knocked on a door and opened it, announcing triumphantly, ‘Here he is, Miss Pearce!’
Office my arse, thought Rian as he went in. Lily Pearce had arranged herself elegantly at her desk, a ledger book open in front of her and her legs crossed to show a hint of silk-clad calf.
‘Captain Farrell,’ she cooed. ‘How delightful to see you. I knew you’d come to see me sooner or later.’
As well as the desk, the room contained a large, white-painted iron bed draped with a red comforter and matching cushions, a tin bath in one corner, an armchair, and a pair of huge armoires, one of which featured a built-in mirror, bowl and accompanying ewer.
‘I’m here on business, Miss Pearce. Personal, but business all the same.’
Lily smiled. ‘Yes. Most men who come to see me are after some sort of transaction or another, Captain. Or can I call you Rian?’
‘No, you can’t.’
Lily rose from the desk and, her hips swaying, walked slowly across to the armchair where she subsided gracefully in a way that caused her low-cut bodice to gape even wider. ‘Well, I don’t mind calling you captain, Captain. You can be the pirate master and I’ll be the slave girl you’ve captured from some exotic corner of the world.’
‘For Christ’s sake, I’m not here for that!’ Rian said through gritted teeth, valiantly resisting the urge to stride across the room and slap the bloody woman. ‘I’m here to tell you to keep the bloody hell away from me. And my wife. And my crew, if it comes to that. You’re a troublemaker, Lily Pearce, and there’s nothing at all about you I’m remotely interested in.’
‘Not even this?’ Lily asked shamelessly as she slowly slid her skirts up her legs, past pale pink stockings and white flesh, finally revealing a bush of dark hair nestled between her parted thighs.
A wave of anger and intense frustration swept through Rian, but to his horror he felt his cock, completely independently, begin to swell in his trousers. He thanked God he had his hat in his lap.
‘No, not even that. Come on, Lily, why would I be interested in scrag-ends other men have picked over when I have choice tenderloin in my bed every night?’
There was a ringing silence as the belated realisation that Rian truly did dislike her, perhaps even scorned her, cut sudden ugly lines into Lily’s painted face. She slammed her legs shut, leaned forward and spat, ‘You bastard! How dare you!’
Rian felt his erection deflate immediately.
‘Get out of my house!’ Lily’s face was white with fury. ‘You’ll pay for this, Rian Farrell. By Christ, you’ll pay!’
Rian stood, relieved to be on his way. ‘Just so long as you stay away from me and mine, understand?’
Her hand quivering with rage, Lily pointed to the door. ‘Go on, fuck off!’
So Rian did.
Part Two
To Stand Truly by Each Other
Chapter Eight
Ballarat, November 1854
Rian had some excellent news for Kitty: this afternoon they had hit the lead, and the very first bucket of washdirt had shown the colour. Not just tiny, barely visible flakes, either, but actual nuggets; most not much bigger than match-heads, but a couple the size of peas. There had only been time to put a couple of buckets through a cradle before the sun started to go down, but tomorrow they would begin working the long tom, sluicing the washdirt as fast as they could dig it out and bring it up.
From now on, one of the crew would be sleeping above the shaft with a loaded shotgun, and tonight Gideon had drawn the short straw. Someone would have to take his supper out to him.
‘What’s Pierre cooking tonight?’ Rian asked as they rattled in the cart towards home.
Hawk, sitting on the seat beside him, replied, ‘Pork? He said yesterday he was seeing the butcher about a pig.’
‘I thought it was going to be one of his gumbos,’ Simon said in a jerky voice, bouncing around in the back.
‘I could eat a whole pig meself, so I could,’ Mick remarked. ‘I’m starving.’
They were almost back at Lilac Cottage now, in high spirits and prattling on, looking forward to a good supper and a few whiskeys perhaps to celebrate.
‘Is that Wong Fu?’ Rian pointed towards a shadowy figure dodging between the huts and tents. ‘What’s he’s doing here?’
By the time the cart had stopped outside the cottage, Wong Fu was knocking on the door.
‘Mr Wong,’ Rian said as he jumped down, ‘good to see you.’
But Wong Fu was not his usual calm, inscrutable self. ‘I must speak with you, Captain. It is urgent.’
Rian ushered him into house. Kitty, sitting in the rocking chair darning socks, looked up. ‘Mr Wong? What are you doing here?’
The Chinese man’s hands were pressed against his belly, each gripping the opposite wrist, the skin of both white from the pressure. ‘Bao has not come home. I told her to be home before the sun was properly set. When did she leave here?’
Rian and Kitty exchanged a look of dawning horror. ‘Amber was spending the afternoon with Bao at your camp.’
‘No, Bao was coming here,’ Wong Fu whis
pered.
And all three of them realised that something was very, very wrong.
They formed into three search parties: Hawk, Wong Fu, Rian and Pierre in the first; Haunui, Tahi and Daniel in the second; Ropata, Simon and Mick making up the third. Rian wished Gideon was with them, but there wasn’t time to fetch him.
Leena also asked to join the search, but Ropata told her to stay behind and mind the children and the tents. Kitty insisted on coming.
‘No,’ Rian said as he checked that his pistol was loaded. He stuffed the powder horn, balls and caps into a pocket, half-cocked the pistol and slid the barrel under his belt.
The door was open and everyone waiting outside, but Kitty didn’t care as she rushed around looking for her cape and her stout boots. ‘But she’s my daughter.’
‘No,’ Rian repeated, very quietly.
‘But I can’t let her wander around in the dark by herself.’
‘Kitty, I said no.’
‘But Rian—’
‘I bloody well said no!’ he shouted right into her face, standing over her so she was forced to take a step back. ‘No, all right? Stay here!’
Then he was gone, leaving Kitty staring after him in shocked dismay and dizzy with horrible, grinding fear.
Outside Rian exhaled raggedly, experiencing exactly the same emotions as his wife. He had bullied her, and harshly, but he was terrified of what they might find, and the thought of Kitty being there was almost more than he could bear. He caught Hawk watching him and looked away.
‘Where should we start?’ Hawk asked quietly, calmly.
‘I don’t know, do I?’ Rian snapped.
Hawk could see that his friend was in no fit state to lead the search. Normally he was extremely capable and level-headed, but not when it came to his precious daughter.
To Haunui he said, ‘You, Tahi and Daniel go along the road towards Red Hill and the Camp. Simon? You men go into the gullies towards Golden Point. And ask everyone you pass whether they have seen them. We will go east out along Navy Jack’s Lead and the Canadian, and around the tents there.’ He turned to Rian. ‘What time do you want to meet up again?’
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