Band of Gold

by Deborah Challinor

  Lily Pearce, without a doubt. She would have put the dirty shite up to it, he was sure. Probably even paid him to do it.

  He drained his glass and poured himself another. Then stood, reached for his hat and left the cottage.

  In the bedroom Kitty lay awake, both Amber and Bodie snuggled against her chest, dreading to think what he was off to do now.

  ‘Open the door!’ Rian shouted, banging on it again. ‘Open up!’

  A pale face peered out of the window. ‘Hold your ’orses, Mister. There’s plenty for everyone!’

  Inside someone was playing a piano, accompanied by laughter and muted shrieks.

  ‘I want to see Lily Pearce now!’ Rian demanded.

  ‘You’re a keen one, ain’t ya?’ the girl remarked, looking him up and down.

  ‘Just shut up and send her out.’

  The girl, finally realising he was highly irate, not desperate for sex, pulled her head in and disappeared.

  Waiting, Rian paced up and down the verandah.

  Lily finally appeared in her underwear, a floaty peignoir of some sort draped about her shoulders. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she disdainfully. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Did you send Josiah Searle after my daughter?’

  Lily looked nonplussed. ‘Josiah Searle? The one who fancies young girls? No. Why would I do that?’

  ‘My arse, you didn’t.’

  ‘Good idea, though. That would have taught you a lesson, wouldn’t it?’

  Rian leaned forward and breathed brandy fumes in her face. ‘He took her and her friend this afternoon and had them holed up in his filthy little shack with some half-wit called Albert Tuttle. Christ knows what they would have done if we hadn’t found them in time.’

  Raising her arched eyebrows condescendingly, Lily said, ‘Still in one piece, are they?’

  ‘Yes, they are. Just.’

  Lily made a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘What age is your daughter? Thirteen? Fourteen? That’s not that tender, you know. Wouldn’t have been the end of the world. I’ve got girls that young working here.’

  Rian glared at her through bleary eyes, running through a range of suitable responses he couldn’t seem to coax out of his mouth. ‘I’ll prove you were behind this if it’s the last thing I do.’

  Making a show of stifling a yawn, Lily replied, ‘Well, I wasn’t, so don’t waste your time. And rest assured, Captain, when I take my revenge, it won’t be as simple as giving your daughter a fright. Oh no, it will be much worse than that. Much worse.’

  ‘You’re full of shit, Lily Pearce.’

  ‘And you’re full of booze. Go home to your precious wife,’ Lily snapped, and slammed the door in his face.

  The bell over the bakery door chimed as Flora entered, her face uncharacteristically grim.

  ‘I heard about what happened last night,’ she said to Kitty as she set her basket on the counter. ‘Is she all right?’

  Kitty nodded and inclined her head towards Amber, who was rolling out dough on the table, in a manner that suggested Flora should perhaps mind what she said.

  But Flora ignored her. She lifted the hatch in the counter, stepped through and laid a gentle hand on Amber’s shoulder. ‘I can imagine it was a terrifying experience for you, dear.’

  Amber stopped rolling. ‘It was quite awful.’

  ‘Did they…harm you anywhere?’

  ‘No, except I got a fat lip.’

  Flora shared a glance of intense relief with Kitty.

  ‘But they were going to,’ Amber said, who, after her talk with her mother the night before, understood what Flora meant. ‘And the big stupid one tore Bao’s jacket and looked at her bosoms.’

  ‘Oh, poor sweet Bao.’ The coque feathers on Flora’s hat fluttered as she shook her head angrily. ‘I’ll call on her and her father later this morning, make sure she’s all right. I heard you kicked Mr Tuttle in the balls, dear?’

  ‘Yes. It was really satisfying.’

  ‘Good girl! But you have to remember, Amber, that not all men are like that. In fact most aren’t. There are plenty of fine men in this world, so don’t let this put you off. Your father is one of them. So is Pierre.’

  Pierre, shaping croissants and pretending not to listen, blushed furiously.

  ‘And so are all the other men who work for your father. And once you find a good one, you should keep him, because he’ll be worth holding on to.’

  Kitty blinked in surprise. Given Flora’s preferences, she had assumed that Flora would have little to say in men’s favour—she certainly had no qualms about taking financial advantage of their desire for the charms of women.

  Careful not to get flour on her black gown, Flora leant against the table. ‘Have you heard yet about what else has happened?’

  Kitty and Pierre stared at her expectantly, not even noticing when someone came into the shop.

  With far too much cheer for what she was about to impart, Flora said, ‘Josiah Searle and Albert Tuttle died in the small hours of this morning. Apparently, they burned to death in their shanty.’

  And Kitty’s heart thudded wildly as she remembered the door closing so quietly after Rian had gone out last night.

  Flora accepted the tiny cup of tea that Wong Fu passed to her. Bao was shaken, and feeling deeply ashamed regarding what had happened to her, but physically she was unharmed.

  ‘Do you think she will be all right?’ Flora asked.

  ‘I hope so. She takes things very much to heart. She can be very…delicate,’ Wong Fu replied. For a moment he looked extremely sad and tired. Then he sighed. ‘No, I fear she may not be. She has always been frightened of white men. To her they are too big, and too loud and foul-smelling. And for her to have one of them touch her…’

  ‘Yes, I can quite understand that,’ Flora agreed wholeheartedly.

  Wong Fu’s face darkened and he struggled to keep the snarl out of his voice. ‘Especially such a filthy cretin as Tuttle. She cannot eat, you know. She cannot hold down food. She says she is not hungry, but I know that is not it.’ Wong Fu tapped his head. ‘I know what she is seeing. In her mind she is seeing the hands and faces of those pigs, and she knows what they—’ He stopped talking, silenced by his own anger. He forced his shoulders to relax and took a long, measured breath. ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs McRae.’

  ‘Of course. If there is ever anything I can do…’

  ‘Yes, thank you. You have visited Captain and Mrs Farrell?’

  ‘I saw Kitty this morning, yes.’

  ‘How is the child Amber?’

  ‘Shaken, but bearing up. Forgive me for saying so, but she seems to be cut from more resilient cloth than Bao.’

  ‘Yes, and that is a blessing for her mother and father.’

  ‘It is.’ Flora hesitated. ‘You will have heard the news?’

  ‘What news is that?’

  ‘Tuttle and Searle died this morning. An unfortunate accident involving an oil lamp.’

  There was a long silence. Finally, Wong Fu said, ‘That is unfortunate. Is your tea hot enough?’

  ‘It’s fine, thank you. But I didn’t need to tell you about that, did I?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because you knew about it before anyone else.’ A statement, not a question.

  Another silence. Then, ‘Honour must always be avenged, Mrs McRae.’

  Chapter Nine

  The inquest into the deaths of Josiah Searle and Albert Tuttle concluded with a finding of accidental death owing to domestic fire. It was not an uncommon occurrence on the diggings, along with fatalities related to disease, accident, and alcohol-related misadventure. They were buried three days after they died, with only the Methodist minister in attendance.

  Rian said to Kitty that he wanted to spend less time working on the claim and more with her and Amber. Somewhat taken aback, Kitty told him it was a lovely sentiment but not to let his guilt take precedence over common sense—that was her job—especially since the claim now looked as though it might indeed be
a good payer, as predicted by the late Mr Murphy, and that minding a child was a mother’s responsibility, not a father’s. So he continued working with the crew, while she reduced her hours at the bakery to spend more time with her daughter.

  Bao still came to visit Amber, and Amber continued to visit the Chinese camp, but Kitty usually walked her there, or sometimes Tahi did, and she was always collected; Bao never again made the trip to or from Lilac Cottage unaccompanied either.

  Kitty, Flora and Amber rode along the Main Road towards Red Hill. Beyond that the ground rose and became the hill that met the road running east towards Melbourne, and on which the smarter stores and businesses had set up in the area known as Bakery Hill, which also included the very busy Lydiard Street. Flora, of course, had shopped on Bakery Hill numerous times, been to the Camp on occasion, and even patronised the handful of exclusive stores in the properly surveyed little grid of streets behind the Camp, but Amber and Kitty had really only visited Bakery Hill when they had arrived in Ballarat in August.

  But now it was the beginning of November, and the weather was growing warmer by the day. Warmer, windier and dustier. The wind was hot and came from the north, and the dust, fine as flour, was beginning to drive Kitty mad as it settled on every surface and in every tiny crevice. When the rain had stopped, the mud had dried, leaving for several weeks strange, miniature geological formations that had quickly been eroded by the rising winds, turned into dust and was now adorning the clothes, belongings, skin and, on particularly bad days, the teeth and eyes of all who ventured out in it. The winds would pass, so it was said, and Kitty was praying for the day, and wishing vehemently to be back on board the Katipo, with a brisk sea breeze tugging at her hair and sparkling spray from the bow cooling her face.

  They rode slowly, as Amber wasn’t yet confident on horseback. She’d never really had the opportunity to learn to ride, having spent the latter ten of her fourteen years learning to be a sailor on the Katipo, scampering barefooted around the decks, hauling in sails and shinnying up riggings like a monkey. Kitty, on the other hand, had been riding all her life, missed it very much and leapt at any chance to do so, although preferably not side-saddle, as she was having to do now. But Amber, just young enough to get away with sitting astride, was using Rian’s saddle.

  Flora, perched daintily atop her own coal-black mount, looked, as always, like a fashion plate from a lady’s magazine come to life. But Kitty, in a smart day dress and her best boots, knew that she also looked attractive. She wasn’t especially vain, but she recognised an admiring glance when she saw one. And it was all, she was sure, because today she wasn’t wearing her despised bonnet, which this morning she had given away to Binda.

  Flora was taking her and Amber shopping in the fancy stores, but first they were treating themselves to morning tea at Bath’s Hotel. Leaving the horses tethered outside, they went in, sat down at a table and ordered. As they waited, a woman passed the window, glanced in, then entered.

  Approaching the table, she said, ‘Hello, Flora, I’ve not seen you for some time. How are you?’

  ‘Very well, thank you, Eleanor,’ Flora replied. ‘We’re just about to enjoy a cup of tea. Would you care to join us?’

  The woman thought for a second. ‘Thank you, but I really must get to the post office before the mail coach leaves.’

  ‘Perhaps on your way back? I imagine we’ll still be here.’

  ‘Really? That would be lovely, thank you.’

  ‘That was Mrs Eleanor Buckley,’ Flora said when the young woman had hurried off. ‘Her husband is a Camp official—well, a clerk—and her brother is a digger. She married “up” before the gold rush. Or should I say, her husband didn’t marry very far down. She’s a very intelligent woman, her husband a little less so. A decent man, though, I suspect, constrained by the demands of his job. Eleanor has proved rather helpful regarding certain matters relating to my claims.’

  ‘You own a claim?’ Kitty was surprised, then wondered why: Flora was a very astute businesswoman.

  ‘I own several. This is Ballarat, after all.’

  Eleanor Buckley returned ten minutes later. A pretty woman in her mid-twenties with pale red hair, hazel eyes, and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, she greeted Flora properly this time with a kiss.

  ‘Eleanor, this is my friend Mrs Kitty Farrell, and her daughter, Amber.’

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Farrell,’ Eleanor said, as she fluffed out her skirts and sat down. ‘Hello, Amber.’ She untied the ribbons on her bonnet, then set it on a chair at the next table.

  Flora summoned the serving girl and asked for extra tea and cakes. Amber, by now bored and fidgeting, said, ‘Ma, can I go for a walk along the street?’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ Kitty and Flora replied in unison.

  Amber sighed in weary resignation and pulled a battered copy of Wuthering Heights out of her pinafore pocket.

  When the refreshments arrived, Flora poured the tea and sat back. ‘Kitty, Eleanor is very familiar with what’s been happening on the Victorian goldfields over the past few years. If you wanted to know about anything, she could well be a good person to ask.’

  Kitty felt awkward, and vaguely embarrassed. ‘It’s not so much that I have a burning interest in the situation here at Ballarat, Mrs Buckley, it’s more that I have a husband who from time to time sees himself as a crusader. He likes to—how shall I put it—champion the underdog.’

  ‘And you don’t think he should?’ Eleanor Buckley asked. ‘Or do you not think that underdogs should be championed?’

  ‘Neither,’ Kitty replied. ‘I simply like to know what my husband is getting himself into. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.’

  ‘That’s a fair comment.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Kitty paused, then said, ‘I think you will agree, Mrs Buckley, that it’s somewhat unusual for a woman of your station to be knowledgeable about matters such as politics. Please don’t think me rude, but may I ask how you find yourself in that situation?’

  ‘Well, that’s an easy one to answer,’ Eleanor said, grinning. ‘My brother Robert has a claim here on Black Hill, and my husband, Carl, is a clerk at the Camp, so I get to hear both sides of the story. Frequently and at great length, I might add.’

  She stirred sugar into her cup, then said cryptically, ‘Trouble has been brewing on the diggings for some time. I suppose the crux of the matter lies with the licence fee. Well, it certainly started with that. You’ll have heard about all this?’

  Kitty nodded. She most certainly had—at least half a dozen times from Patrick.

  ‘Well, twenty shillings is still a lot of money, especially if you’re not finding any colour. The diggers see it as a tax that benefits the colony, but not necessarily them, and personally I can’t argue with that. Carl can, though.’

  Kitty cleared her throat. ‘Pardon me for saying so, but that must put considerable, er, strain on your marriage, if you don’t agree with your husband’s point of view,’ she said, thinking of the many ‘differences of opinion’ she and Rian had had.

  ‘Not really,’ Eleanor said. ‘I just don’t listen to what I don’t want to hear. Apart from that, Carl is a very good husband.’ She reached for the sugar bowl again. ‘What the diggers hate even more than the fees are the licence raids by the police. Your husband has a claim, doesn’t he, Mrs Farrell? Well, you’d know all about that, then.’

  Kitty said yes, and cut herself a small slice of buttermilk cake. Rian complained constantly about the endless police demands to inspect his licence, not to mention the monthly cost. As far as he—and by most accounts every other digger in Australia—was concerned, the continent’s gold didn’t belong to the Queen, so why the hell should they have to pay her for the privilege of digging it out?

  ‘The gold commissioners are a problem, too,’ Eleanor went on. ‘They were appointed as soon as the rush in Victoria got under way. Some of them have been good, most have been useless—plainly incompetent, or just not up to the job.
Unfortunately, the good ones don’t seem to last long. They either find the job too odious or they resign because of the corruption.’

  She wrinkled her top lip in distaste. ‘Then there are the police and the police magistrates. But there have never been enough police, despite what the diggers might think. Any dross can enlist, and they do, and they’re underpaid and overworked.’ She held up a hand. ‘No, I don’t have any sympathy for them, because most are as mean as dogs. All I’m saying is, they don’t have the ability or the character to do the job properly. And neither do most of the police magistrates. They’re corrupt, the lot of them—they take bribes, they blackmail, and they bully. You know that every fine a policeman collects, he pockets half? They’re at the root of most of the trouble on the diggings.’

  Flora laughed. ‘Eleanor, are you saying that if it weren’t for the police throwing their weight around, every digger would be paying his licence fee and refraining from sly-grogging?’

  Eleanor rolled her eyes. ‘Of course not! But the Joes have made it worse. And that’s why the military have been called in.’

  Kitty nodded: they’d been all over the diggings of late. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘The 40th Regiment of Foot,’ Flora replied. ‘We’ve been seeing rather a lot of them.’

  Amber looked up from her book. ‘Ma, it says here, “In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window”. What does “vapid” mean?’

  Kitty thought about it. ‘Well, do you remember when I found you in Auckland and you came to stay at Mrs Fleming’s house with me and Flora and Hattie? And how Hattie sighed a lot and said silly things and sometimes didn’t understand what we were talking about? Well, Hattie was “vapid”.’

  Flora cackled into her tea.

  ‘Oh,’ Amber said, and went back to Emily Brontë.

  Kitty squinted at the spine of Amber’s book. ‘What are you reading? That’s not suitable for a young girl! Give me that!’ She snatched the book from Amber and stuffed it in her reticule.

  ‘You might have heard about the monster meeting in December ’51 at Forest Creek?’ Eleanor said.