Emma, clutching a screaming William to her chest, ran with the two men on either side of her. Ran as she had never run before.
It was amazing what terror could do. Even Ephraim’s limp did not seem to be slowing him down.
Her lungs were on fire by the time they reached the top of the slope and flung themselves down behind a screen of trees. She was trembling so much she doubted she could have held her pistol, never mind use it. For the moment she could do nothing but suck air into her lungs and wait, vision blurred, sweat running into her eyes.
Bailey was cursing as he reloaded and fired, reloaded and fired again. Ephraim was also firing, but more deliberately, aiming each shot. What they were shooting at she couldn’t see; she didn’t know where the black men had gone.
William had exhausted himself into silence; Richard was whimpering with terror. Poor boy, Emma thought.
They lay still. No sound or movement came from down the slope.
Had the natives abandoned the chase? Or – horrible idea – were they working their way around behind them so they could attack them from the rear?
That thought made Emma’s hair stand up.
The two men had reloaded their guns. Again they waited. Time passed.
‘I reckon they’ve given up,’ Bailey said in a low voice.
She hoped he was right but how could they be sure?
Inch by inch they edged backwards down the slope behind them. When they were far enough below the crest they scrambled to their feet, eyes everywhere, and made their way, stumbling and running, towards the beach.
The mosquitoes were especially bad, forming a singing, stinging cloud about their heads. Emma was covered with itchy red bumps while the wretched creatures continued to feast on her. She barely noticed them: there were more important things to worry about than mosquitoes.
They emerged into hot sunlight. The men began to haul the dinghy across the broken ground and into the water. As soon as it was afloat Emma lifted Richard in, raised her skirts and climbed in after him. Bailey started to push the dinghy into deeper water.
There was a chorus of yells as a group of black men came charging down the beach towards them. Ephraim had fought the natives before and suffered the consequences; he turned to face them, pistol raised.
A spear flew and took him in the side. He staggered, half turning towards the boat, and fell to his knees as the natives screamed in triumph and flung themselves towards him.
Bailey abandoned his grip on the dinghy and raced back up the beach. He fired into the advancing men. One fell; the others hesitated. He snatched up Ephraim’s pistol, drew back the hammer and fired again. Another of the attackers screamed and fell.
Bailey turned to Ephraim. The spear had been dislodged as he fell but he was lying helpless in a pool of blood on a ridge of jagged rock. Moving as fast as he could, Bailey half dragged, half carried him down to the water’s edge.
Emma threw him the end of the dinghy’s painter. He hauled it in, shoved Ephraim aboard and scrambled in after him. Renewed yells came from the savages as they saw their enemies escaping. Again they rushed towards them but Bailey snatched an oar and used it to push them into deeper water. He was barely in time; a volley of spears fell into the water, barely missing them. He seized the oars. None of the black men tried to follow and in half a dozen strokes he had put them out of range.
Ephraim’s head was cradled in Emma’s lap.
‘How is he?’
‘Still breathing.’
But Ephraim’s blood was everywhere, his face as white as clay.
‘Get him aboard, he’ll be right,’ Bailey said. ‘Let’s hope.’
‘Of course he will,’ Emma said, her every breath praying it would be so.
It was a struggle to lift Ephraim on to the sloop’s deck but they managed it eventually. Now they were all covered in blood.
William was oblivious but Richard watched his motionless father with apprehensive eyes.
‘Help me get him below,’ Emma said.
Another tricky operation but somehow they managed it.
Emma eased Ephraim out of his clothes and inspected the wound. ‘It is very deep,’ she said.
And still bleeding; it was hard to imagine one body could hold so much. She used cloths to staunch the wound but knew patching up the outside of his body might not be sufficient; what damage had been done to the inside she had no way to know.
‘You will not die,’ she told him fiercely. ‘We need you. All of us. You will not die.’
Words alone would cure nothing but words were all she had to offer.
Bailey was watching the shore. ‘If we don’t move Ocean Rider we could all die. That mob may have some of them bark canoes they make. Even dugouts, maybe. I reckon we’d best get on up the coast.’
Kneeling at Ephraim’s side Emma spared Bailey a glance. ‘Ephraim needs proper medical attention. We must go back down the coast, not further north.’
Ephraim was conscious, then unconscious again. Inflammation flared along the edges of his wound, then died down. Fever raved in his blood.
‘Twice,’ he whispered with what might have been a smile. ‘Those spears seem to have a liking for me.’
‘You beat them the first time,’ Emma said. ‘You’ll beat them again.’
It was true that he did seem a little stronger. He ate some food, drank volumes of water, began to talk in a faint voice of the future, how when he had recovered they would go back and somehow persuade the natives that they came in peace and presented no danger to them.
‘It will be as you say,’ said Emma who given the choice would have sent in a troop of marines to dispose of the savages once and for all.
The next day they were hit by another storm that drove them far out into the ocean. They saw no one. After the storm there came days of calm, drifting without enough wind to fill the sails, then the breeze came back and they headed on down the coast.
‘We shall put into Sydney,’ Emma said. ‘The doctors there will help him get better.’
But Ephraim’s teeth had grown too large for his sunken face while the skin around his eyes formed twin pools of darkness. The fever returned, worse than before. A crust had formed on the wound but threads of infection ran beneath the skin. He talked; he raved. Emma sat beside him day and night, willing him to fight, be strong.
Often he did not know who she was.
It was a sombre time, with Richard frightened and hiding himself away, but Emma refused to give up hope. ‘Mr Bailey says we should be in Sydney tomorrow or the day after,’ she told Ephraim. ‘Then we’ll get you sorted out.’
Did he hear? Did he understand? She did not know nor in the end did it matter.
Sydney was just over the horizon when Emma woke from a doze and sensed that something had changed. She got up and went to Ephraim, dread in her heart.
‘Ephraim?’
Silence. Ephraim was gone from her. She stared at him, tears welling, and her heart was full of grief.
‘My dear love, we found each other once,’ she said. ‘How will I find you now?’
‘What shall we do?’ Bailey asked.
‘We shall bury him,’ said Emma.
‘Where? In Sydney? We can be there in under a day.’
‘Not in Sydney. We shall bury him here, in the sea.’
In the cool clean sea.
‘Do that and they may think we did away with him deliberately.’
‘It is what he would have wished,’ Emma said. ‘But leave me with him for a minute.’
She was afraid to put her hands on his lovely face for, despite all that had happened to his poor body to make him ugly, his face was still lovely to her. As was all his savaged flesh. She was afraid to touch him for fear that she might disturb the spirit that perhaps still lingered, that the eyelids were closed only to keep hidden the radiance of Ephraim Dark, who had made much out of little and might have made much more had he not been betrayed by Emma’s uncle. He had made Richard, and William, and had loved
her with a steadfast faith that might have brought tears had she not been determined to prevent them, because what she was doing in these last moments of privacy was celebrating the man he had been and to her still was. A man with weaknesses, like all men, but who had helped her in the beginning when she had already loved him and helped her also down the years. Not as many years as she would have wished but holy all the same.
She thought of him at her side, helping her escape the purgatory of Arthur Naismith and his aunt. She remembered the flame that had leapt between them in Barnsley Tregellas’s office when after three years she had seen again the face she had thought lost forever. She thought how his visions of what might be had buoyed them both when their world had collapsed around them.
She heard what must surely be a miracle: the sound of his voice, trumpet clear, saying they were one being and would be so for ever, and she felt joy and sorrow in the emotion that united them.
She cleaned the body and shrouded it decently in a sheet and with Bailey’s help let the weighted corpse of her love slip into the waves.
They arrived in Hobart Town two weeks after their escape from the north.
Emma’s head and limbs were aching as she disembarked with the two boys. After the stress of Ephraim’s death it was not surprising and she said nothing to Bailey about it. She took his hand.
‘Thank you for all you’ve done.’
He nodded briefly. ‘Sorry things didn’t work out better. What you want done with the boat?’
‘She’s yours. I’ve no money to give you but maybe you’ll accept the sloop in payment for all your work.’
‘That’s too much,’ Bailey said.
‘You might as well have her,’ she said. ‘If you don’t my uncle will take her anyway.’
‘We can’t have that,’ he said. ‘All right, then. I will take her with many thanks. What will you do?’
‘Go to my uncle’s house and hope he’ll take us in.’
‘You reckon he will?’
‘I believe so. He won’t be happy about it but I believe he will have little choice. He will be too afraid of bad publicity to do anything else.’
‘You want me to come with you?’
‘Better not,’ she said. ‘If I were you I’d get Ocean Rider away while you can. My uncle will seize her if he knows she’s in port.’
‘I might try the South Pacific,’ he said. ‘Good trading opportunities there, I hear. Beautiful women too, they say.’ He was joking, which was good, but then looked embarrassed at having said such a thing so soon after Ephraim’s death. ‘Begging your pardon.’
Emma touched his hand. ‘Don’t apologise. I wish you every good fortune,’ she said. ‘With the trade and the women.’
‘You’ll be all right? You’re not looking yourself.’
‘I am perfectly all right,’ she said.
But she wasn’t and she knew it. She set out with the two children to walk to her uncle’s house. It wasn’t far but seemed so, each step an effort. She got there but only just. She was swaying on her feet when she pulled the massive doorbell and was in a state of near collapse by the time a maid opened the door.
The maid was new and did not know Emma. She thought the strange woman was drunk and would have slammed the door in her face had not by good fortune the housekeeper been passing.
‘Why, Miss Emma…’ Mrs Alsop ran to assist her. ‘My goodness, what a state you are in! What has happened to you?’
Emma mumbled but was falling, falling. Darkness filled up her eyes.
When she came to she was in bed but felt frail and old.
‘I must get up,’ she said. ‘I have the boys to see to.’
But when she tried found she could not.
‘Why am I so helpless?’ she cried.
Summoned by the maid, Mrs Alsop put her hand on Emma’s forehead. ‘Hush now. The doctor’s been and says you are suffering from exhaustion. Your uncle has said you must stay here until you are fully recovered.’
‘I daresay he’ll put it on the bill,’ Emma said.
‘Hush, now.’
Heat was rising, a growing furnace threatening to devour her.
‘The boys?’
Somehow she managed the words.
‘They are fine. Rest now. You’ll feel better after a good sleep.’
Emma’s body was insisting that the fire engulfing her was something altogether different from simple fatigue but speech had become impossible.
She huddled in her bed, drifting in and out of a troubled sleep. Her mind churned with incomprehensible thoughts. She believed they had been in Hobart Town for several days. For some reason it was important to work out precisely how many days but she could not, or work out how long they had been on their journey south. Perhaps they had not yet arrived?
Ephraim’s voice was calling her.
‘I am here.’
Did she say it or imagine it?
If she could get on her feet and shake off this foolish indisposition all would be well.
‘I must get up,’ she told the bedroom’s empty vault.
She could not.
Her mind renewed its crazy, endless calculations. Fifteen days? A month? How could it possibly matter?
How long had Mr Bailey and the children been gone? It seemed like minutes; it seemed like days. The meaningless thoughts raved on: what year was it? How old was she?
She hid in the reeds while the under-keeper searched.
Ephraim, frowning. You could not be troubled even to bury me in the welcoming earth? Dust to dust?
We was all gone on Ensign Dark, miss.
You could not be troubled –
A scream of anguish in the darkness.
The night descended, with ice. She was shivering. Never had she known such cold. She had ice in her veins, her head, yet when Mrs Alsop brought the children to see her she was once again consumed by heat. She flung herself to and fro, gabbling meaningless words. Someone was trying to hold her, piling more and more blankets on the bed. The sweat poured off her while she wept, pleading for release.
A hand was sponging her with cool water, but the fever remained.
Then, suddenly, the fire in her blood died; the ice withdrew; lucidity returned.
‘I feel so good,’ she murmured. Her voice was thin but she was smiling. ‘I shall sleep now.’
And later, when she woke: ‘Am I better?’
A man was looking down at her, his face concerned.
‘Let us hope so,’ he said. ‘For the moment, anyway.’
She heard him talking to Mrs Alsop.
‘I have seen this illness before. It is caused by bad air, a sickness for which there is no cure. There is a Latin name for it: mal aria. Bad air. It causes recurrent bouts of fever that come and go, progressively weakening the patient.’
‘But she will recover?’
‘We can only hope,’ the doctor said.
I am feeling much better, Emma thought. Such talk is nonsense.
Yet she could feel something waiting in the shadows. Waiting patiently. Watching. She knew it would take over her body again if it had the chance, pour the fire and ice into her veins, her blood. I must fight it while I can, she thought. I shall not let it conquer me.
But return it did: heat and a form of madness, so that she no longer knew who or where she was. She hung on to a woman’s hands, gripping them tight.
Where is Ephraim? Where is my husband? Why is he not here?
She could not understand the answer. If there was an answer. If she had asked the question.
Again reality returned. She knew herself to be weaker but her mind was clear.
‘Mrs Alsop, I need to see my uncle.’
She waited. Eventually Barnsley came. Mrs Alsop came over to the bed but Barnsley stood by the door and Emma saw he was frightened by her illness.
‘You are better?’ he said.
‘For the moment.’
It was no more than a whisper but she was feeling so tired that speaking at all wa
s a triumph.
‘You wanted to say something to me?’
She saw he could not wait to be gone.
‘There is gold,’ she said. ‘Nuggets of pure gold, lying on the ground. Enough to pay off what you claim we owe you.’
The words were a hook, snaring his interest. ‘Gold? Where?’
‘In the north.’
‘Mrs Alsop, you may leave us,’ Barnsley said.
‘I want her to stay.’
His expression showed his vexation but he said nothing and Mrs Alsop stayed.
‘Where in the north?’
‘Before I tell you that I want you to promise me that if anything happens to me you will look after the boys.’
‘You will be on your feet in no time,’ he said. ‘There is no need for promises.’
‘Promise me,’ she said.
‘William is your son. Of course I shall look after him.’
‘Richard also,’ she said.
‘He is not your blood.’
‘He is my son nonetheless. My son by adoption.’
Emma saw Barnsley was embarrassed by Mrs Alsop’s presence. He said nothing.
‘I want your word,’ Emma said.
A pause. Now it was Emma’s turn to wait.
Barnsley sighed. ‘You have it,’ he said.
‘Your solemn oath?’
‘My solemn oath. Tell me about the gold. You have seen it?’
‘I know a man who has. There are tropical islands far to the north. They call them the Whitsunday Islands…’
Perhaps the gold was there, as Bailey had said, perhaps not. But Barnsley had promised, in front of a witness. The boys’ future was secure. That was her greatest triumph of all.
The fever returned, the heat and ice. Emma went down into darkness, deeper and deeper. The darkness stifled her so she could not breathe. Briefly she fought it then, at last, came a blessed release.
At three o’clock in the morning after she had extracted Barnsley’s promise before Mrs Alsop as witness, Emma Dark, nee Tregellas, the twenty-five-year-old widow of Ephraim and mother of William, with everything to live for, died.
Barnsley Tregellas believed in showing respect for the dead but in his heart he wished his niece had never been born.
Land of Golden Wattle Page 19