Paul’s head came up. ‘Well said. It’s imperative that we support one another if we are to survive and turn this land into a thriving, self-determining community. The inhabitants of your Settlement sound to me like the worst kind of low-minded idiots.’
Elly said more happily, ‘Thank you.’
‘Did they do that to your hair?’
Flushing, Elly raised her hands to her spiky head, then let them drop. ‘Yes.’
‘An unnecessary refinement of cruelty. I shall not bother to visit The Settlement. It’s crossed off my list.’
He got up and ladled porridge into a bowl, adding brown sugar, and handed it with a spoon to Elly. His own share went into his empty mug.
Seeking a change of subject, Elly asked, ‘What list is that? Do you travel to all the settlements north of Sydney Town?’
‘As many as I can reach in a given time.’ He concentrated on his porridge, seemingly at the end of his explanation.
But Elly was intrigued. ‘I should like to hear more about your travels, if you please. Do you ride out for pleasure? What do you hope to achieve?’
Evidently willing enough to oblige, he began to outline his purpose. It seemed he was politically ambitious, hopeful of eventually gaining a seat on the colony’s Legislative Council, despite the firm hold of the wealthy property owners. But to do this he needed the support of the less important members of society, to push for their right to a vote and to representation by men who had their interests at heart.
‘Our time will come,’ Paul promised. ‘The small people are gaining strength and they want a voice in their governance. We’ll not end up with a class-ridden society like the one back home. Here we all start equal. Self-government will bring with it the chance for men of intelligence and integrity who have the good of this young country at heart.’ He stopped abruptly. ‘You must pardon me for haranguing you like this, Miss Ballard. I’ll descend from my podium immediately.’
‘No, no. Go on. I need to talk, to listen to new ideas. It’s been so long... And I like to hear someone express commitment. My father believed this colony would one day head a nation of strong, fearless men and women. He wanted to live to see that day.’ She faltered.
‘You’re grieving for him, still. I’m sorry for your loss, amongst all your other tribulations.’ Paul got up to fetch a meaty bone for Pepper.
The little brown dog gazed up at him with adoration and fell to his breakfast. Paul pulled the floppy brown ears gently, spoke a few words in an under-voice, then returned to his place, saying briskly to Elly, ‘Speaking of tribulations, what is your attitude towards the people who abused you and drove you out to die?’
She gave him a scornful look. ‘My attitude is, as you would expect, one of anger and great disappointment. One likes to be appreciated, not execrated. However, thoughts of revenge are childish and benefit no-one. I have to make a new life in a new place and put The Settlement behind me.’
‘I agree.’ He leaned back against a handy sapling, crossing his long legs in comfort, relaxing as fully as a man at home in his own favourite chair.
The niceties of social behaviour had little place in the bush, reflected Elly, settling herself on the bed-roll. She wriggled her bare toes and grinned privately. Time enough to resume boots and propriety when she arrived back in civilization. She looked up to meet Paul’s speculative gaze.
‘Miss Ballard, circumstances have caused me to limit my circuit of the townships on this trip. May I offer you my escort to Sydney Town?’
Elly flushed. ‘Has my plight influenced your decision, Mr Gascoigne? I shouldn’t like to think you had abandoned your journey for such a reason. I could quite easily find employment in the next settlement you visit.’
‘No doubt your skills would be welcome there. Yet, would you not prefer to begin a new life in completely different surroundings, away from unhappy memories? I assure you, I had already turned back towards town.’ His half-smile said far more than words, telling her that he understood her dilemma, knew how relief warred with chagrin at her position, underlined by her anxiety not to burden a stranger.
He understood entirely too much, thought Elly. It irked her to be so beholden, but what choice was there? She’d best be gracious and find some way to even the balance later.
‘I accept your offer with gratitude. However, you must let me earn my way. Show me how you break camp.’ She reached for her boots.
~*~
They made an early start before the heat struck and, despite her sore arm, Elly worked diligently, approving Paul’s careful loading of the pack-horse, his checks to see that nothing galled the animal. Finally he mounted Elly behind him on a saddle blanket and led the pack-horse jingling in the rear. Pepper ran ahead like a forest scout, his questing nose flushing up birds and lizards and, once, a giant goanna which sent him into prudent retreat. The great striped lizard eyed him, tongue darting furiously, then sped up a tall tree, its claws gouging the trunk as easily as knife blades.
At Paul’s insistence, Elly wore his hat while he tied a handkerchief about his head over a bunch of damp leaves, and his absurd appearance helped her to put aside her shyness at his proximity. She’d never before sat pressed against a strange man’s back and buttocks. The sensation caused her decidedly mixed reactions. A ladylike withdrawal was hardly possible, nor even appropriate. Despite her efforts to tidy herself, she felt that nothing could turn her from a shabby vagabond into the gentlewoman she’d once been.
Strangely, the idea didn’t bother her. She knew she’d changed in other ways, was tougher. People would never again have the chance to ride rough-shod over her. And whatever the future held, it could be dealt with. How much she would like to show the world what a woman could do in the field of medicine. She wanted to see women trained to nurse professionally, competently and with the informed compassion so often lacking in the care of the sick. She could do it. She knew she could.
~*~
Trotting along in the cool early morning, with a breeze whispering through the leaves overhead, the horse’s gait smooth beneath her, Elly had an urge to talk. She missed her conversations with her erudite father, and she was naturally curious about people. She also found Paul Gascoigne to be a challenge, polite but irritatingly silent and self-contained.
However, he proved quite adroit at avoiding her gambits so she found herself doing the talking, describing her years at The Settlement, her father’s work and the disasters that had struck them all recently, decimating the township and draining the humanity from its remaining citizens.
When she finally stopped, her feelings and her story spent, Paul said over his shoulder, ‘You’ll feel better for having relived it all. Emotions put into words have a way of shrivelling.’ He added in an under voice, ‘Would that I could follow my own advice.’
But Elly thought she must have misheard him, as he then went on to describe some of the sights of Sydney and its lovely harbour setting. However, their conversation became desultory as the temperature rose, and soon after midday they stopped to eat and rest the horses. Elly drifted off to sleep in the shade of a banksia tree, waking surprised to find the shadows long, with the sun a melting bubble on the western horizon.
‘Do you want to go on for another hour or so?’ Paul asked. ‘We can camp here for the night. There’s no urgency to reach the river.’ He had made a brush from twigs to curry the horses’ manes, which were badly tangled with dust and burrs. Elly watched the long brown hands stroking smoothly and wondered why she shivered in the warm air. She tried to read his expression but it was neutral. Obviously he believed that as a frail woman she needed to pace the journey.
She said, abruptly, ‘Let’s go on.’
‘As you wish. I’ll saddle up.’
Elly rushed to help clear the camp.
The track had changed to an intricate web of light and shadow through which the horses’ hooves pranced, kicking up puffs of dust. The daytime bush sounds had ceased, while a breeze now carried the shrill calls of bird
s disputing their chosen branches for the night. In places the track sloped quite severely, and sometimes hooves slipped, the horses held up by the rider’s firm hands. Despite her resolution Elly was tiring, so, to distract herself she began questioning Paul.
‘Why do you travel so much? You said you preached manhood suffrage and self-government to people. Do they listen? Are they genuinely interested?’
He said over his shoulder, ‘Indeed they are, from the squatter hoarding his acres of pastureland and greedy to add to them, to the man who grows vegetables in his home garden. Land is the wealth here, and I believe it should be equitably divided, not kept in the hands of the few, as it is at present. We need true representation of all the people. That’s why I’m interested in politics, spending my life talking to any who will listen. Other, more influential men think the same way, so we work together to bring about change.’
‘You say “people” when you mean men. What about the contribution of women? They work as hard, they have intelligence. Why not harness their power to your political wagon?’ She felt him stiffen. He half turned to look at her.
‘Women are not interested in politics. Their expertise lies in other fields.’
‘Only because they’ve never been tried in that particular area. Or are you one of those men who see a woman as an adjunct, a background figure against which a man struts and orders the lives of others?’ Elly’s tone was too tart, she knew, but she truly believed that her sex was underrated. She also admitted privately that something in her needed to prick this man’s self-assurance.
Paul spurred the horse into a fast trot. ‘I don’t agree that is the common view of women. They have a necessary part to play in family life, wielding power in the home, which is their natural place. But women in public life would be a scandal and a mockery to their femininity.’
Bumping uncomfortably now on her steed’s rump, Elly spoke jerkily, in short phrases. ‘Aha. So you are one... of them. Afraid of challenge. Afraid to think... of women as intellectual equals.’
‘Not at all. I prefer to think of them as nature’s counterpart to men, a restraining influence, more resilient, less driven by the need to achieve, to conquer. Female softness is a necessary balance, to be preserved and protected at all times.’
Elly snorted, seeing that further argument would not only be futile but could lead to an uncomfortable clash with her rescuer. ‘Very well, Mr Chauvinist Gascoigne, we shall talk of other matters.’
Paul slowed as they reached the top of a steep incline and retorted, ‘We’d best not talk at all, while on this slope. I think we should find a reasonably level place to camp. The sun’s almost gone, but the river is still a mile on, if my reckoning is correct.’
Elly subsided but continued to silently plan a few future agreeable sorties against the bastions of Mr Gascoigne’s prejudice. Was this the reason for his solitary nature, or did something else lie behind his wariness with others of his kind? Animals drifted to him, and Pepper, running ahead as usual, was his slave; but for all her efforts, Elly herself could come no closer to understanding him.
Once at the river they progressed more easily, spending the night on a grassy bank with the sluggish murmur of the water in their ears. They broke camp early, a few hours’ ride along the watercourse bringing them to a large lagoon known as The Broadwater. There on its shores they found a mill where they bargained for passage on a log raft being drifted across to the next section of river. This shallow stream, unnavigable by anything but a flat-bottomed barge, passed through thick rainforest and followed the coastline down to Port Stephens.
Sore from the unaccustomed exercise on horseback, and disgruntled with her silent companion, Elly appreciated the change. The animals rested, also, and she even began to believe they enjoyed the different scenery. This had altered drastically to swamp forest and sand flats dotted with tea-tree and cabbage palm. At times the gums and banksia closed in then gave way to open heath following the gentle slopes of old dunes where wallabies and dingoes came down to the river to drink. At night, when they pulled in to the bank, above the hum of mosquitoes Elly could hear the sea.
Ten miles from the Broadwater the river debouched into Port Stephens where they bought passage on a paddle-wheeler carrying milled timber down the coast to Sydney.
By this time Elly and Paul had taken up diametrically opposed positions on just about all subjects. Forced into each other’s unrelieved company day and night, they seemed to disagree every time they spoke, finding their only refuge in silence. When they finally boarded the coaster she welcomed the chance to escape his company. Conscious once more of her appearance in society, she sacrificed a petticoat to fashion a scarf, hiding her maltreated hair, and carrying off her odd appearance with a composure worthy of Paul Gascoigne’s own.
After an uneventful trip they hove to overnight, well outside Sydney Heads; then in the pearly dawn light they took on a pilot and slipped into the harbour. Elly stood at the prow, absorbed by the beauty surrounding her, green hills, golden sandstone cliffs, white sandy beaches.
‘How lovely. I was young when we went north. I’d forgotten how lovely this place is.’
She spoke to herself but Paul, coming up behind her, said in a softer tone than she’d heard for some days, ‘It must be the most beautiful deep-water harbour in the world, plus the safest.’
She turned around. ‘Mr Gascoigne...’
‘Miss Ballard?’
‘I’d like to apologise for my behaviour. You’ve been more than kind, while I repaid your generosity with carping and argumentativeness.’
He smiled down at her. ‘Say no more. The shoe fits us both, I believe. In other words, I’ve been every bit as difficult to live with. Shall we agree to part friends?’
‘I’d like that.’ Elly held out her hand, which he grasped firmly.
‘Miss Ballard, what will you do? Have you somewhere to go when we dock at the Quay?’
She reclaimed her hand, turning back to watch the rapidly approaching rooves and spires of Sydney Town. ‘Thank you for your concern. I shall do very well.’ Her tone was sufficiently discouraging, she thought, but Paul Gascoigne was not easily put off.
‘Miss Independence came a fall, if I remember my nursery tale correctly. Come, will you not oblige me? I’d like to call one day and pay my respects, once you’re settled.’
Elly straightened her shoulders as if going on parade, aware of mixed feelings, not quite defiance not quite amusement. ‘Then, sir, you had best apply to the Sydney Infirmary.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
The clipper East Wind rode at her anchor off the British Settlement in Shanghai, graceful as a seabird, even without her great sails set, her raked prow dipping in the wake of passing junks as if in the majestic courtesy of an empress to underlings. Men swarmed about her thousands of yards of rigging and scurried across her decks, lowering into her holds the precious tea and silks she’d crossed the world to carry to home markets.
Twenty-four hours later she weighed anchor, slipping down river to clear the river mouth and enter the muddied waters of the China Sea.
Jo-Beth Loring had been glad to see the coastline disappear into the horizon. She stood in the stern, a statuesque figure with the wind playing in her bright coppery hair while she farewelled one more foreign land.
Yet all the while she was aware of the activity of the ship, the crack of sails, the rigging creaking, the men scurrying to orders given in a clear deep voice that was echoed by the bellowing boson. That clear voice had attracted her from the moment she came aboard to meet its owner, Captain Petherbridge, a golden-bearded Atlas who overtopped her not insignificant height by at least ten inches, a strong man who controlled his ship and crew without resort to the usual bullying and threats.
Mentally she contrasted him with the spoilt young males back home, more interested in the polish on their dancing pumps than the set of a sail in the wind above a canting deck, or a prow shearing through a silken sea. It was men like Captain Petherbridge who
really lived, braving the elements, circumnavigating the globe, while the owners in the counting houses kept their white hands clean and worried how to invest their profits. At the thought of the long weeks ahead at sea, Jo-Beth smiled. Then, taking one last look at China, she went to inspect her well-appointed cabin.
Lying on the bunk, her arm flung across her face, she felt weariness seeping through to her bones. How tired she was of travel, tired of new sights, sounds, smells. Honest to goodness, the smells in the Far East were beyond description. She was more than tired of being dragged from ship to ship by her globe-trotting Papa, of trekking miles to admire a temple, shrine or pagoda, or a view of anything from a bare windswept plain with harsh mountain peaks beyond, to a sea of green sunken paddy fields peopled with wading peasants.
She’d seen too many ancient crumbling cities, explored their noisome alleys, bounced along like a parcel in carts drawn by skeletal runners, been outstared by a populace who thought her a giant with hair of flames, and chased by beggars whose miseries turned her stomach. Today they’d visited the markets to see carcases of cats, dogs and rats, among the more recognisable animals, hung on long stretched strings. She’d given grave offence, she feared, by not eating the dinner provided by a local Chinese dignitary who conducted business with Papa. Well, she couldn’t help it. Her mother could scarcely devise a greater punishment than the present situation, and anyway, she was beyond caring.
A strangled cough emerged from behind the curtain pegged across one corner of the cabin. Jo-Beth sat up, narrowly missing the timbers overhead. Nothing happened for several minutes. About to lie down again, she saw the curtain bulge and she bounded to her feet.
‘Who’s there? Come out at once.’ Without waiting for results she strode forward, twitching the curtain aside to reveal a ragged Chinese boy curled tightly against the bulkhead, thin hands clasped around the baggy-trousered knees.
‘Good gracious! What are you doing there?’ She peered into the grubby, emaciated face, her manner softening.
A HAZARD OF HEARTS Page 6