by Darry Fraser
It had happened at that rough, rowdy table when Tom MacHenry lost Jacaranda only those few weeks ago.
‘Tom, there’s too much rum at this table,’ Charlie Rossmoyne had growled.
‘Don’t worry about that.’ MacHenry’s speech was already slurred. ‘Just deal me another hand.’
‘You’re already out of the game, Tom,’ Charlie whispered furiously at him.
‘Oh.’
Foley had glanced at Rossmoyne and the other five players. There was Ted Davis, Will Cumber, Cyril Smith and Andy Morton, all local boys and well known to the river man. His river run often took him onto most of their properties, delivering merchandise or picking up stock and wool bales for sale at market. The games started out in a friendly fashion, but they were never without stakes. The men bet what they could and debts were paid.
At this particular game, MacHenry had already consumed a great deal of rum and boasted about the money he was able to raise, with which he could do whatever he liked.
Foley refrained from asking where this money came from, for to visit the unkempt homestead, with its sagging fences and lack of workers, it was obvious the money he gambled was coming from somewhere else. He doubted MacHenry had the wherewithal to generate extra funds. Perhaps the absent son had made a fortune somewhere, but Foley doubted it.
‘Come on, boys.’ MacHenry glared around the table. ‘Ready to deal me in again?’ The drunker he got the louder he bragged. And now he offered the homestead as stakes.
Foley remembered the shock on the faces of the other men.
‘Don’t be a fool, man,’ Charlie Rossmoyne had snarled at him. ‘You’re too drunk—the stakes are too high. Take back what you said—withdraw the offer, you fool.’
‘I’ll not,’ MacHenry bellowed into Charlie’s face. ‘The red-haired devil can’t take me.’
Charlie shook his head. ‘You’re more the fool than I thought.’
‘Think of the missus,’ Cyril Smith added quietly, and the others nodded in agreement.
‘I’ll stake Jacaranda.’ MacHenry slammed his remaining cards on the table, challenging Foley to a private game.
The others threw their cards down in disgust. Foley asked them to stay as witnesses, and acknowledged they weren’t happy about the twist in the game. His mind worked fast. He’d need witnesses if he won Jacaranda, witnesses who would attest to the legality of the game. He would win not only a home on the river, but a halfway port for his vessels. Foley’s River Carriers could be docked here, close to Swan Hill and Echuca, and halfway to Wentworth, where the Murray met the Darling. He could see enormous benefits, even though the trade was weakening. He could squeeze more from his stake than he imagined. There might still be twenty good years in it.
He needed MacHenry sober.
‘Mr Foley,’ Andy Morton cautioned. ‘Ye’re not takin’ the mad fool serious, are ye?’
All eyes were on Tom.
‘Sober him up, Mr Foley. It’s not right to be takin’ his challenge up now,’ Morton continued.
‘I’ll sign a paper,’ MacHenry bellowed.
Charlie urged Foley to drop the game and walk away until next time. But Foley saw he had something within his grasp, certainly if luck went his way. He had nothing to lose.
MacHenry banged the playing table belligerently. The others shook their heads.
‘Tom, I’ll play. Charlie, Andy, if I lose, I’ll pay out Tom’s banknotes.’ Foley sat, the fingers of his left hand drumming quietly on the table. He wanted Jacaranda. He could wait. He would wait.
MacHenry’s reddened eyes lit up.
Charlie wrote it down, reciting as he did, and Foley nodded in agreement.
Foley wanted to play, but he wanted a fair game with a capable opponent. No one was sure that MacHenry would have offered Jacaranda had he been sober. The conundrum was laid bare on the table, and after a few moments of silence, MacHenry asked for a paper, quill and ink. Charlie wrote what MacHenry dictated and all five signed the paper. The unease remained.
Andy Morton insisted MacHenry sleep first.
‘If I sleep I’ll have to play with a hangover and that would be worse,’ he grumbled.
Morton removed the bottle of rum and shook it in MacHenry’s face. ‘Ye’ll have no more,’ he cried angrily. He turned and sent a baleful glare at Foley.
The poker game began and was played best of five. Foley won three to two on a pair of fives. Foley capped his glee. He sat, head bowed, fingers laced on the table.
Tom MacHenry crumpled before them all. Jacaranda had slipped from his grasp.
He was helped from his seat in silence. Andy brought him back the rum bottle. There was no begging to play again, no pathetic pleading to renege on the deal, no appeal to begin a fresh game. He pushed the paper at Foley. ‘I need three months to tidy up my affairs, then we will move off the homestead.’
The silence around the table was deafening.
Conor Foley was at first doubtful about the easy compliance. ‘I’ll wait till morning. You cool off, sober up, man.’
MacHenry lurched to his feet. Charlie Rossmoyne had to hold him up. ‘Take the paper now. Endorse the handover and be done with it.’
Foley accepted. Three months it was. The men left with MacHenry, broken and pitiful in his drunkenness. Foley was unaffected, but acknowledged a small concern for his family.
He wondered if he could be challenged by law.
Since then, he had not been welcomed at Jacaranda. Hardly a surprise. MacHenry was surly, Jemimah cold and Elspeth her usual self, which he could ignore. Georgina was Georgina. It was obvious to him neither of the girls had any idea of what had passed; that Foley held their lives in his hands because he’d won a game of cards.
Only three weeks to go before MacHenry and the family were due off the property, and as observed on his last trip, not much had been done to expedite their moving out. He wanted to speak to Jemimah in private but she remained unapproachable.
He knew from Georgina that the prodigal son had been called home and would surely have arrived by now. Little the lad could do, if anything—perhaps he could persuade his father to see some sense. But perhaps he would be just like his father, and be no help at all. In any case, he could not invalidate the agreement; it had been made fair and square and legal, albeit under unusual circumstances.
Foley wondered again if it could be challenged. He shrugged. A challenge might never be made.
And Georgina. He had an affection for her, that was true, and in her was his salvation. But he didn’t intend to give up his roving on the wide river simply because he had a young, beautiful and useful wife in Melbourne. Nor did he intend to give up visiting his one or two favourites en route. After all, Georgina was a young woman, unsure of the duties of a spouse. He would have to school her carefully.
He would teach her, and gladly, but these things took time. He knew his young bride would eagerly await his return from each trip and, under the watchful eye of his loyal sister, Kate, she would reside as his lovely wife and hostess of the Foley home. And only that.
He turned towards the wheelhouse, intending to retreat to his cabin, when he heard his name being shouted from the banks of the river. He looked up.
A tall, straggly man with a sack on his back was sliding down the bank not far from a landing. He stood at the water’s edge. ‘It’s me, Mr Foley,’ he shouted in a heavy brogue. ‘It’s Seamus Reilly and I’m back for me job.’
Foley scarcely recognised the Irishman beneath the filthy rags. He folded his arms across his broad chest. ‘For your job, Reilly? And what job does a drunk have on one of my boats?’
‘He’s trouble, Mr Foley.’ Ned Strike, the mate, had come up from the boiler room to check the charts. ‘But we could use him.’
Foley shouted to the man, ‘Reilly, if you want your job, empty out the grog now.’
‘No grog, Mr Foley,’ Reilly shouted back, hastening into the river until it was up to his waist. He was holding the sack above his head.
‘He’s a shit-eating liar, Mr Foley.’
‘I know. But some help is better than nothing if you need it. Have someone row out and get him,’ Foley said. Ned ordered the deckhand to oblige.
Once Reilly was on board, Foley snatched the sack from him and emptied its contents. Two bottles of rum crashed to the deck. ‘You know how I feel about grog on board, Reilly.’ He uncorked both bottles, poured the dark liquid over the side while Reilly watched, aghast. ‘Get below to the fireman and don’t come up until I send for you.’
Reilly’s eyes glittered for an instant. ‘Miz Hodge says to say hello. Sir.’
Foley stilled for a second. Annie Hodge knew his secret. ‘Is that so?’ was all he said. If Annie Hodge was entertaining the likes of Reilly, Foley would no longer be visiting.
‘Get below and sober up, or I’ll throw you off myself.’ Foley turned to Ned. ‘This is the last job for him. If he falls overboard, leave him to it. In fact, if he even gets close, shove him in.’
Ned Strike glanced at his captain. ‘That I will, Mr Foley.’
‘Gun her up again, Jim,’ Foley called to the helmsman and the big paddle-steamer sailed gracefully down the river. ‘All’s safe,’ a voice bellowed from below in the boiler room and a familiar ease crept through him. The low chug was as regular a tattoo as his own heartbeat, which took its rhythm from the river itself. The river was the blood in his veins. He took a deep breath of air, warmed by the sun.
And as the Lady Mitchell crept forward, Foley’s heartbeat quickened. He never left a dock without that excitement, another journey. The unfortunate docking at Renmark for repairs had cost him a large consignment, but with two working steamers, the Lady Mitchell and the Lady Goodnight, his loss would be recovered in quick time.
Of course with Jacaranda under his belt, things would be more promising than before, so losing the Ross contract was a small wound healing fast. He knew his captain Finn and crew would be at the Echuca cranes by now on the Goodnight, so he would afford himself the luxury of easing the old Lady Mitchell downriver to Jacaranda, where he would bask in the sunshine of his lady love. He snorted a laugh.
He went to the wheelhouse, where Ned had taken over the steering. ‘Wake me at four, Ned. I’ll take her through the night.’ Ned had lost his nerve for the night steering a long time ago. He’d lost good mates as the River’s Best lay wallowing and groaning as she sank.
Foley himself revelled in the challenge of night steering. With the bright lamps on board illuminating the water and his intricate knowledge of the channels and shifting sandbars, he would deftly guide his boats safely, without incident. He’d spent most of his life on the rivers, knew the Darling and its treachery almost as well as he knew his much-loved Murray.
He was aware he was despised for his financial success. It couldn’t be said he was always a gentleman in business. He also knew the time fast approached when riverboats as trade vehicles would be obsolete. There was talk of damming the river with locks and weirs, but he knew that was a long way off. He needed an income that wouldn’t be so heavily reliant on the weather, and the flow of the water. He wanted to be well ahead of his competitors when the end came.
He foresaw passenger boats carrying holidaymakers and had signed a contract to pick up a new boat he intended to run as another luxury passenger vessel. It would be bigger and better than the Goodnight; the Lady Georgina, named for his future wife. He would sign the final papers soon and was confident he could begin to outfit the boat within the next couple of months.
His eyes were scratchy and burned with fatigue. He’d had an uneventful night, which was how he preferred the watch to pass. Ned Strike appeared on deck, bleary-eyed himself, and handed Foley a mug of strong tea.
‘River’s up, Ned.’
‘Glad of that, skipper.’ Ned yawned. ‘They say we’re in for a long summer—won’t be much rise in her then.’
Foley stretched. ‘Time I was gone. Dusk tomorrow night at Jacaranda?’
‘I reckon, Mr Foley.’
‘Call me by noon, would you?’
He left the wheelhouse, finished his tea and then threw himself into his bunk for some sleep.
‘What do you mean, she disappeared?’ Conor Foley roared in Tom MacHenry’s face.
‘I mean just that. She disappeared days ago, without a trace. Took one of our horses with her.’ Tom’s tone was sour. The hangover was one of his worst.
And Jemimah had been berating him for days now over Georgina’s disappearance. ‘We’ve driven her to running away, but my boy will find her before something happens. He’ll bring her home. I know my son.’
Tom had only shaken his head at her naivety. Their son was no boy.
‘Disappeared,’ Foley repeated. ‘Why would she do that?’
Tom shrugged, hoping to Christ this towering bastard bellowing his head off would disappear as Georgina had. He didn’t have the strength to fight Foley, nor did he wish to. He had hoped never to see him again.
‘Did you mount a search, man?’ Foley asked, running his hands through his thick red hair.
‘Oh, it’s all right, Mr Foley. My brother has gone after her,’ Elspeth piped up. ‘He’ll bring her home, in his own good time, Pa says.’
Tom closed his eyes. ‘Elspeth.’
Foley glowered at her.
She shrank against the wall but it didn’t stop her prattle. ‘Well, everyone knows what Georgina’s done … anyone who rides a horse in the same fashion as a man can only be—’
‘Elspeth, come with me, now.’ Jemimah held out her arm, waving Elspeth to her.
‘In all my visits to this station, Miss Georgina has not said one word of pettiness!’ Foley thundered. ‘But you, Miss Elspeth, if you had half the good nature and spirit about you as she has, you would be far better off.’
Elspeth fled the room, slamming doors as she went down the small hallway.
‘Mr Foley.’ Jemimah shifted her glare to her husband then smartly left the room after her daughter.
‘I demand an apology and an explanation.’
‘An apology?’ Tom shouted. ‘An apology?’ He went to stand, leaning on the table for support.
‘I might remind you, this is no longer your house.’
‘Good God, you bastard, you may think—’
‘And what’s this about your son looking for her, MacHenry?’
‘—that you own this homestead, but you don’t have any right to question the comings and goings of my family.’
‘Question your family?’ Foley was incredulous. ‘It seems to me you’ve let one of your family stray, Tom. Someone in whom I am very much interested. When I catch up to them, that son of yours had better have behaved like a gentleman or else I’ll make you both wish you’d never been born.’
Tom shrugged off the threat. He slumped into his chair and reached for the rum decanter.
‘There’s your downfall, mate. In the bottle. Does your wife know about the settlement?’
Tom nodded.
‘And your daughter?’
Tom shook his head.
‘You have dug a very deep hole for yourself, Tom.’
Another shrug.
‘The deal is signed and legal. I intend to be installed here in less than a month and I am prepared to talk about reparation.’
‘If you mean charity, I don’t want it. We’ll be off your hands by month’s end.’
‘I was thinking of Jemimah.’
‘We’re none of your business, Foley.’ Tom took another swig from the decanter. ‘And why would you be so worried about young Georgie in the first place, eh? I know you’re not the gentleman on the river you make yourself out to be.’
Foley snorted a laugh. ‘Do you now? I thought it was obvious, man. I’m going to marry her.’
Tom spluttered and wiped the rum from his chin. ‘Marry her?’ He eyed the big man. ‘You don’t think I’d consent to that, now, do you?’
Conor Foley leaned on the table. ‘I wasn’t going to bother informing you.
’
‘She’ll never be accepted if it were known she married without our consent.’
‘And you care why?’ Foley straightened up. ‘I buy acceptance, if needs be.’
‘You’re a cold bastard.’
‘At least I’m not a fool. You once had the respect of your peers around here. What ever happened to that?’
Tom glowered at him but remained silent. The glass in his hand began to shake, and rum slopped onto his shirtsleeve.
Foley stabbed a finger at Tom’s chest. ‘You better hope I don’t come across your son.’
Tom met Foley’s eyes momentarily. ‘If you do come across him, you might well meet your match. He’s no slip of a lad.’
‘You have only to make up your mind whether you stay on here as caretaker until I establish my own men, or if you leave.’ Foley dismissed Tom’s threat as yet more drunken drivel. ‘It’s up to you. If you decide to leave, make sure you’re off here by the time I return. Your personal possessions are yours to take as you will, but try to destroy any part of the buildings, or what’s left of the fences—’
‘I’m not a fool, Foley.’
Conor Foley merely raised an eyebrow.
Tom watched as he left, slamming the door behind him.
Nine
Georgie sat for a long time in the big bed, propped up by thick pillows. She couldn’t help luxuriating in the richness and warmth around her one minute, and dreading a new encounter with Dane MacHenry in the next. He made her unsure and skittish and she hoped he would at least behave in a gentlemanly fashion while they were here with the kind Rossmoynes.
She must have dozed a little for when she next glanced about the room, May Rossmoyne was hanging dresses on the back of the door.
‘Oh, you’re awake, I hope I didn’t disturb you.’ Her cheeks dimpled in a smile. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’
‘No, thank you, Mrs Rossmoyne. You have been kind enough already.’
‘We could hardly let you continue your journey in the state you were in. And besides, I couldn’t let a young lady go riding around the countryside in the get-up you were wearing. Really, whatever was he thinking?’ She shook her head. ‘I hope you don’t mind, dear, but I’ve brought in these dresses. They belonged to my daughter, but she’s gone off to Melbourne, to a convent no less, bless her. She won’t have any need of them.’ She held up the plain but well-made dresses.