by JH Fletcher
‘Nuthun to it,’ Amelia said. ‘We shoulda took them bastards down a peg or two long ago. Sorry about your brother-in-law, though.’ So were they all.
‘Who was the boy who brought me the message?’
‘Davis Laird. His dad owns the Wentworth shop, but he’s a good bloke, not like some of ’em, and Davis wanted to lend a hand.’
‘He was very brave.’
Amelia laughed. ‘Davis is barkin’ mad. But he’s got his uses.’
In a rowdy chorus of farewells the Armstrongs left the other ex-prisoners to enjoy their party and went back to the boat. Brenda was in steam and within minutes they had cast off and were standing out into the current.
The four of them jammed into the wheelhouse together as they made their way up the river, its surface shining as black as oil. No-one spoke; to be together and safe was enough.
The moon silvered the trees and reflected from the metal mirrors to shine down the channel ahead of them. The town lights disappeared behind them, as did the trauma of their ordeal. Charlie had thought he was headed for a cell, that never again would he stand here with wife and children beside him, hands on the wheel, watching the red gums as they offered their silent welcome.
They passed Three Mile Bend, then Blenship’s Hole, the place where Will had once suggested, not altogether seriously, that they could drown Alice Henderson. The evening turned cool. Elsie came with hot drinks for them all and they squeezed her in too, all part of the one family.
Mist blurred the trees and suddenly they were in a sea of fog. The splash of the paddles added its contribution to the isolation that had descended on them, but here, tight as ticks in the snug wheelhouse, they found a kernel of warmth to comfort them. Charlie pressed on, navigating in a riverscape where every mark had been obliterated, as though challenging the night to bless him with the same good fortune that had kept him from prison. They passed one bend after another, then a narrow stretch where limestone cliffs rose sheer out of the water and in past days they had searched for fossils. Beyond the cliffs the southern bank opened into a narrow inlet bordered by willow trees.
‘Here,’ Charlie announced.
Sarah went below and adjusted the valves. With her paddles barely turning, Charlie eased Brenda into the opening. Reeds sighed and disappeared beneath the bow as she took the ground. The interlaced branches of trees formed a canopy overhead.
The bell in the wheelhouse rang; the throb of the engine died. There remained only the chinking of frogs, the faint susurration of the stream against the bank.
The darkness was peopled with ghosts. Not a mile from this spot Sarah and Charlie, in the first days of their marriage, had uncovered the kitchen middens of the people who had once lived here; along the banks were the burial sites of those who had been interred here in the days before memory. The land was very old hereabouts, cold and withdrawn, owing its allegiance not to the recent past but to a time thousands of years before the first coming of white men to this place.
They went down to the saloon, where the lamplight formed a circle of brightness to protect them from the ghosts.
Elsie made tea and they drank it together. Elsie, Luke and Alex were almost dead on their feet, so headed off to bed, leaving Charlie and Sarah alone in the lamp-bright saloon.
Charlie looked at his wife. ‘Well, my love.’
She smiled. ‘Well, my love.’
No need for more.
Yet certain things could not be left unsaid; the memory of recent events overhung every thought and breath.
‘That business of Jig Jenkins,’ Charlie said. ‘I shan’t ever forget what you did.’
‘Better tell that to the blokes who spoke to ’im.’
‘Just so long as you know.’
‘Get on with you.’
After he had finished his tea, Charlie wandered aimlessly around the saloon, touching this thing and that, letting the physical contact bring him back to a life that had once again survived.
Sarah said, ‘I could sit forever like this, just the two of us, with Lukey and Alex asleep in their cabins.’
‘You’d soon get bored with it.’
‘No, I wouldn’t. It’s so cosy.’ She smiled at him. ‘Just you ’n’ me together, and the night pressin’ against the windows.’
‘The trial’s turned you into a poet,’ Charlie said.
‘If bein’ a poet means knowin’ the value of all we’ve got, you can call me that if you like.’
‘You feel it so strongly because I nearly threw it away.’
‘You did the right thing, Charlie. I was so proud. I still am. There’d be no courage doin’ it if it was easy.’
‘And Will dead,’ Charlie said softly.
Silence came to sit with them for a moment.
‘Poor Will,’ said Sarah. ‘We’ll have to let Petal know, soon as we can. I feel so sad for her.’ She looked around at the cabin. ‘We got all this while she … Not fair, is it? But don’ start blamin’ yourself. Will was a grown man; he took his chances, same as you. I’m sorry for him and for Petal, but it wasn’t your fault and I won’t have you thinkun it was.’
‘It’s over now, in any case,’ Charlie said. ‘One way or the other.’
But later that night, lying in their bunk and listening to the night sounds from beyond the window, he knew it was not. Pandora had been a Grenville boat. The Grenvilles were bound to know he’d been with the men who sunk her. George Grenville had never forgiven him for taking his horse. Now it was his paddle steamer. Rufus Grenville had said once that he made a bad enemy. Charlie had a hunch he was about to find out the truth of it. It wasn’t all on one side, either. Because Will was dead and he, too, was owed a reckoning.
That night, Saul again rode up the drive to Eagle on the Hill. He rode much more slowly than on the previous occasion; an observer might have thought he was not looking forward to his reception.
He climbed stiffly down from his saddle and rang the bell.
Rufus Grenville himself opened the door. ‘Well?’
‘Acquitted.’
Rufus’s nostrils flared. ‘Jenkins’s evidence counted for nothing?’
‘There’s a mystery about him. He was under guard with a constable on the door, yet when the escort came this morning he’d vanished.’
‘Abducted?’
‘I rather think he ran away.’
‘Someone threatened him, then?’
‘Perhaps. The constable swears he never left his post, but of course we don’t know if that’s true. What we do know is that a rear window was open and Jenkins has disappeared.’
‘And the twenty-five guineas?’
Saul coughed. ‘Gone with him.’
‘I don’t imagine my father will be very pleased with you,’ Rufus said coldly. ‘But you’d best come in, all the same.’
Saul stepped through the doorway into the house. ‘His disappearance is hardly my fault.’
Rufus gave him a grim smile. ‘Perhaps not. But Father will want to blame someone, and you make a convenient target.’
Saul looked affronted, but Rufus slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it. He won’t eat you, not yet. He wants to talk about getting hold of a suitable site for a wine-making factory.’
1895
CHAPTER 53
In January 1895, three months after the sinking of the Pandora, Brenda tied up at the Goolwa wharf. Charlie, in a clean shirt and his best pants, with a hat square on his head, went ashore and walked along the riverbank to the chandler’s shop.
A bell pinged rustily as he went inside. The shop was full of shadows. Shelves were packed with goods, more were piled in corners: anchors and mounds of chain, rope and hatch covers, knives, sprockets and bottle screws, cans of oil and kerosene, spare parts for stoves and boilers, gauges and pistons, bolts and tools, timber for fitting out, marine paint in cans and grease in tubs, steering wheels and deck rails and waterproof jackets and hats. The shop bulged with opportunities to spend money, with the smell of oil and sawn timber and riv
er mud coming through the screened windows and the voices of men calling as they eased a barge into the wharf.
Owen Snibbs came from the back of the shop with a rubbing of hands and a smile that vanished as soon as he saw who had arrived.
‘You,’ he said.
‘I came to see Petal,’ said Charlie.
‘You don’t think your family has damaged my daughter enough with your scoundrelly behaviour?’
The news of Will’s death had obviously reached Goolwa ahead of him. Charlie supposed that was inevitable, twelve weeks after the event. He was willing to be polite to Owen Snibbs for Petal’s sake, but not to hear his dead brother called a scoundrel.
‘Be careful what you say about him. Some are callin’ him a hero.’
‘The people you associate with, no doubt. Burning a valuable steamer, is that a hero’s work?’
‘My brother did what was right and died for it.’
‘You’re as bad as he was.’ Snibbs was all flame and fury, because money, the sacred grail, had been attacked. ‘We have had words in chapel about it, how the righteous shall stand in judgment and the wicked be punished for their iniquities.’
‘Any more of this crap and you’ll be pickin’ your teeth off the floor,’ Charlie told him.
‘Oh, that would be your mark, wouldn’t it!’ Snibbs was spitting in his rage. ‘Hooligans, the lot of you!’
Such hatred … Charlie felt tired. ‘I came to see Petal,’ he repeated.
‘I cannot permit it. My daughter has suffered enough. But will suffer more, I fear, with two children to raise and no husband.’
‘Is she in the house, Mr Snibbs?’
‘That is no business of yours.’
‘I shan’t leave until I’ve seen her,’ Charlie said.
Owen Snibbs sharpened his eyes. Snake-swift, he said: ‘I shall get the police.’
Before Charlie could answer there was a disturbance in the back of the shop and Petal entered. She was wearing a black dress, and her cheeks were as red as apples. She saw who it was and ran straight into Charlie’s arms.
Her eyes were full of tears as she looked up into Charlie’s face.
‘Were you there?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me about it.’
Snibbs coughed. ‘I shall not permit this man —’
Petal turned. Her voice savaged him. ‘It’s people like you killed my Will,’ she said. ‘All your preachin’ an’ prayin’, an’ men are still starvin’ in the Outback.’ She looked back at Charlie. ‘Will you walk with me along the wharf, and tell me everything that happened?’
‘Of course.’
‘This is outrageous!’ said Snibbs. ‘What will people think, seeing you with a man who isn’t your husband?’
‘Much I care what people think. Wait,’ she said to Charlie, ‘I’ll get my bonnet and shawl.’
And was gone, quick as a bird.
‘We’ve had nothing but trouble since the Armstrongs came into our lives,’ Snibbs said. ‘I rue the day, let me tell you. I rue the day.’
Charlie waited uncomfortably till Petal came back. They left the shop and went down to the wharf, pacing slowly while Charlie told her everything that had happened: the meeting in the pub, the agents’ refusal to talk to them, the ambush and burning of the Pandora, how he had found Will’s body on the riverbank.
‘I still don’t know who killed him. Or even where he’s buried,’ Charlie said. ‘I feel bad about that.’
‘And the trial,’ Petal said, ‘the papers were full of it. My father was furious when he heard you’d all got off.’
The incoming barge had clawed its way across the current and now lay alongside the wharf, with men yelling and a crane hoisting bales of wool out of the hold.
‘The Grenvilles were behind it,’ Charlie told her. ‘Always the bloody Grenvilles. Will told me he’d like to see Eagle on the Hill burnt to the ground. Sometimes I think he was right.’
‘Burn that lovely house? What good would that do?’
‘None at all. But people don’ like being kicked around by blokes like George and Rufus Grenville. It gets so they gotta do somethin’ to prove they’re still men. That’s what happened with the Pandora. No-one intended it but people got carried away.’
‘The papers said it was an unprovoked attack.’
‘She was carryin’ scabs! Men low enough to undercut their mates! Some of the strikers was close to starvin’, Petal. I told Will it wasn’t my fight, what have shearers got to do with me, but I thought how it mighta been Lukey and Alex starvin’ and I couldn’ just turn my back.’
‘Thousands would.’
‘Not me.’
Petal laid her hand on his arm. ‘You don’t know how good it is to meet a man who does somethin’ because it’s right and not to get somethin’ out of it.’
‘I began to think I might be hanged for it,’ Charlie said. ‘I wasn’t feelin’ so chirpy about it then, let me tell you.’
‘And what did Sarah have to say about it all?’
‘She’s as bad as I am.’ He smiled. ‘She was the one who told me to go for it.’
‘Bad?’ Petal repeated. ‘You don’ neither of you know what bad is.’
‘Maybe you should tell her yourself,’ Charlie suggested, and pointed to where Brenda was lying further along the wharf.
‘Is Sarah aboard?’
‘Unless she’s run off and left me. Not that I’d blame her.’
‘Such nonsense,’ Petal said. And lifted up her skirts and ran down the wharf.
Sarah saw her coming and came out to meet her, both of them rushing full tilt. There were tears and clutching arms and exclamations, in the midst of the to-ing and fro-ing of men and cargo.
It was all girls’ talk, so Charlie went off to the wharf office and spoke to the boss cocky about getting an unloading gang together. When he came back he saw the girls had had a good cry together. Now, red-eyed but resolute, they were holding hands over a cup of tea in the saloon.
Sarah looked up. ‘Guess what Petal’s gunna do with herself.’
‘Open a little shop,’ Petal said, smiling. ‘Women’s and children’s clothes.’
‘I doubt your dad’ll think much of that.’
‘Maybe not. But you know what he’s like. I couldn’t stick it with him.’
‘You haven’t heard the best of it,’ said Sarah.
‘I’m goin’ in with Alice Henderson.’
‘Alice Henderson?’ Charlie was flabbergasted.
‘She’s been very kind to me,’ Petal said. ‘I think we may have misjudged her.’
‘Maybe,’ Charlie said dubiously, but was a long way from being convinced.
‘I gotta do somethin’. And she’s got money, after all.’
Sarah’s face said Our money but she kept her mouth shut.
Eventually Petal went ashore, with love and kisses from Sarah for her and the children — and nothing at all for her old man, whom Charlie would have been happy to see at the bottom of the harbour.
‘Though I’ll still have to deal with him …’
Not that it would be any problem; Owen Snibbs was not a man to let personal differences stand between him and a profit for too long.
‘Just so long as you don’t deal with Petal’s shop,’ said Sarah.
‘Women’s clothes? Why should I do that?’
‘It wasn’t the clothes I was thinkin’ of.’ She winked, Alice Henderson’s ghost laid to rest — at least for the present.
CHAPTER 54
In April, three months after saying goodbye to Petal in Goolwa, the Armstrongs arrived at Niland in a storm that stripped the surface from the river and flung it in their faces like gravel. The wind howled, the rain thundered on the decks, and the piers of Niland wharf, rising high above them, were shrouded in mist as Charlie eased Brenda slowly alongside the vertical ladder secured to the front of the wharf.
Luke was with them for a change. Proud Agnes was in dry dock for an overhaul and Jock Harri
s had sent Luke about his business for a couple of weeks.
‘Just so he don’ ’ave to pay you,’ said Sarah.
All the same, it was nice to have him home.
As soon as Brenda touched the wharf Luke and Elsie scrambled ashore with the mooring lines, while Charlie watched through the rain-streaked window of the wheelhouse, hand hovering over the bell to signal Sarah to cut power when the lines were secure.
Barely visible on top of the wharf, Luke signalled, Charlie ran the bell once and the rumble of the engine died.
‘Phew!’ Charlie said. Some days were like years on the river.
Elsie came scampering back down the ladder to the deck, Luke following more leisurely. They were both drenched. Twenty-year-old Elsie’s white blouse was almost transparent, which made an interesting spectacle. Alex watched, fascinated, and wondered how long it would be before she could hope to look the same.
Elsie was as cross as sticks, her face flushed as she rushed into her tiny cabin to change.
‘What’s up with her?’ Charlie asked.
It didn’t matter how careful you were, you couldn’t live for years on a paddle steamer without getting pretty close to one another. All of them had long ago seen all there was to see, as far as Elsie was concerned.
But it was not being seen by the family that was worrying her. When Luke came into the saloon, spilling puddles all over the floor and mopping himself with the towel that Sarah thrust hastily into his hands, he told them that Alfred Gooch was on the wharf.
‘Elsie’s gentleman friend? In this weather?’ Sarah couldn’t believe it. ‘Get up there, Lukey. Tell him to come aboard, before the poor boy drowns.’
At fifteen Luke was less amenable than he’d been once. ‘It’s pourin’ out there!’
Which was the point of fetching Alfred, of course.
‘Get on with it,’ Sarah said sharply, no patience with a boy who was afraid of the rain.
Alex grinned and waggled her tongue as Lukey ducked out into the downpour.
‘Don’ look so pleased with yourself,’ Sarah told her. ‘Go and tell Elsie she’s got a visitor.’
Now the rain was an enemy. ‘Ohhh!’