In the morning, hungover and morose, he hired a horse and headed for Adelaide. Even if he made a fortune from his business plan, he couldn’t have Ella. Only a fool would settle for a woman he had to buy.
Chapter 17
Cal arrived in bustling Port Adelaide during the early afternoon of Monday and strode past substantial Georgian structures with plaster pillars and marble fronts. Money had been invested in the port area, farther upriver from the original mangrove dock of the colony, justly named Port Misery. The grief the mosquitoes had caused the early settlers forced the shift.
In the thirty years since, hardware shops, hotels, breweries, wheelwrights, and coachbuilders had sprung up, and the town bustled about its business, making a fortune in trade. Storehouses populated the side streets, tall, looming buildings built of the local stone. Cal had hired his warehouse on Lipson Street and as he traversed the narrow thoroughfare, the tallest of the ships’ masts swayed in the swell.
Stopping at a heavy wooden door, he wiped the perspiration from his face with his sleeve. He had forgotten the heat of Adelaide, but on this day, the cobbles on the pavements radiated a shimmering haze to a height of well over three feet. He lifted the latch and swung the door aside. The odor of sanded wood dusted the air and wood shavings curled on the floor.
A burly man loomed and stopped, a wide smile spreading across his hewn face. “Wondered when you was going to get here. Took your time, Mr. Charlton, didn’t you?”
Cal shook the hand of Denny Quinn, a carpenter who had worked at Farvista some years back. “I had to earn the money to pay your wages. You chippies don’t come cheap.”
“Nor should we. You’ve had your value from me. Until your accountant arrived, I built your showcases, made your partitions, and inspected and recorded every bale of wool that entered the place.”
“My accountant?”
“Mr. McLaren. In the office there.” Quinn pointed to the partition fashioned out of red pine that he had loosely described as an office. “Been here a week now. Mr. Markham sent him.”
Cal nodded. He had agreed with Markham that when his business partner thought the job was becoming too much for Quinn alone he would hire more staff. “We’ve had quite a few deliveries, I believe.” The aroma of wool hovered in the vast space, although the bales were not visible behind a dividing wall.
“Reckon you’ve made a dent in the wool market. You’ve had everything from Alf’s shearing team in the past three months, and you’ve had everything Cobb’s been contracted to move. Dunno how you did that.”
“I’ve known Cobb for ten years. He wants a share of this business, too. If it succeeds I’ll sell a portion to him.”
“I wouldn’t mind a bit of it meself. You’re bound to make a packet out of this. There’s more’n a tad of gossip about your plan down here. Two shipowners have already shown interest. I left them to talk to Mr. McLaren.”
Pleased, Cal clapped the big man on the shoulder. A man only needed an idea and the know-how to get started and the project, if sound, would be carried across the shoulders of enthusiasts with the same vision of the colony’s future. “I should talk to McLaren, too.” He left Quinn, who returned to banging nails into the treads of stairs that reached to the next floor.
Cal tapped on the partition door. In a year, the name of the occupant would be stenciled in gold on a glass panel. A redhead, sitting in a straight-backed chair facing away from the door, swung around. “Cal. We’ve been expecting you.” He rose to his feet, smiling widely.
Cal reached out and shook Daniel’s hand. “So, you’re the McLaren. Welcome aboard. The last I saw of you, you were working in a bank and expecting to marry an heiress. I have to assume your plans fell through.”
Daniel shrugged wryly. “It seems she didn’t have the money I thought. And it seems I didn’t have the money she thought.” He pulled at his earlobe. “Something had to change. I thought perhaps I should take my career seriously. When your grandfather offered me this job, I jumped at it.”
Cal stiffened. “My grandfather?”
“Surely you remember him? A tall man, about your height with thick gray sideburns and a knobble-headed walking stick he uses to direct small boys and dogs and beat on carriage doors.”
“Oh, that man.” Cal compressed his lips. “He can be intimidating if you are a small boy, a dog, or a carriage driver.”
“Or an out-of-work accountant needing to earn his way.”
“I had no idea he had poked his nose into this venture.” Cal glanced at his palm, rubbing his fingers across, thinking. “Does he have a sanction from Markham?” he asked, referring to his business partner.
“Since he is paying my wages, he certainly has sanction. But that’s it. He is in no way involved in the venture...other than sending me here to spy on you. Markham has my undertaking to do no such thing.”
Cal sat on McLaren’s desk. “He is an investor only? And he knows I’m involved in this?” He narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps you might like to report our progress to me.”
“First, you need to promise that you’ll come home with me tonight for dinner. Grace insisted I ask the moment I saw you. It’ll give us a chance to catch up.”
“Dinner. Yes. Splendid.” Cal didn’t have any catching up he needed to do with Grace McLaren, but he was tired and still had a few tasks to perform. “We’ll talk business tonight over dinner.”
“If you don’t have a place yet, you can stay with us.”
Cal shook his head. “I’ll go to my mother’s house eventually, but in the meantime I have taken rooms close to the warehouse. Thank you. Your address is unchanged?”
McLaren nodded. “Grace will be delighted to see you. Shall we say six?”
“Six.” Cal left wanting and needing a bath and a shave. Hearing of his grandfather’s interference in his life, Cal decided not to visit the Adelaide town house where his grandfather apparently awaited. He would take his own good time before confronting the old man.
He might, perhaps, like to get on with his own life first.
* * * *
As she had done in the seven days since Cal had left, Ella picked fruit. As she had done constantly, she thought of him. Her every task held reminders of Cal. Only two weeks ago, the peaches were beginning to yellow. Now three trees had ripened at the same time. The fruit had been nicely plumped by the extra water delivered to the trees by Cal’s laborsaving method.
Each day, Mr. Lannock delivered the Beaufort’s fruit to the grocery store. With theirs being the first of the season, they had made enough money to pay off the bill at the hardware store. When luck changed, other situations changed, too, a coincidence Papa had religiously bet on, although his theory didn’t seem to work every time.
The station had been put on the market. The chestnuts would be sold when Ella and her sisters were settled in their city house, and the eventual sale of the wool clip would complete their plan for the future.
Ella wished she had never met Cal. She missed him so much, she thought her heart would burst.
She lugged the full bucket of peaches into the kitchen. “We can use this lot ourselves. It’s not saleable. The cockatoos had a feast last night and they’ve taken a bite out of each one.”
Rose opened the bottom of the dresser, finding the preserving bottles. “I had hoped we wouldn’t ever need to bottle fruit again.”
“Wherever we live, we won’t be rich.”
“Oh, Lord, I feel as if I will never get away from here.”
“We could reduce the price of the station. That might give us a faster sale.”
“How I hate this place. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Anything would be better than this everlasting cooking.”
“The laundry?” Ella said hopefully.
Rose pursed her lips. Ella began to wash the fruit. “I went out to see if Swampy wanted help with the dipping, but he told me to go away or ungracious words to that effect. He has a system, it seems, which the presence
of a female might destroy. Nevertheless, he is managing. He dips the sheep in small groups and he works with the dogs.”
“Interesting. I’ll make up the sugar syrup.”
“He collects about a hundred at a time and lets the dogs send them through the dip while he pulls them out at the other end. They’re not very good at climbing. The sheep, not the dogs.”
“Do you know, if I have to eat peaches again in this lifetime, I think I would rather starve?”
“Though it’s a shame he can’t teach the dogs to pull them out.” Ella heard a bump-along rumbling sound. From the kitchen window, she had no view of the track alongside of the house. After putting down her cutting knife, she went onto the back veranda to watch sixteen bullocks pulling a long wagon toward the loading bay of the woolshed.
The driver sat on the flat bed of the dray and raised a hand in greeting. As he drew closer, he called, “Good day, Missus. We can turn behind the shed if I remember rightly. Hey-ya,” he yelled to encourage his team to keep moving.
He passed the woolshed and made his wide circle in the billabong paddock. Wheels creaking and with clanking bullock chains, he pulled up at the loading bay door.
“Come and see this,” Ella called to Rose.
“I can’t,” her sister said. “I have to watch for the boil.”
Vianna appeared at the back door. “Is someone taking the wool now?” She stood for a moment, fidgeted, scratched her nose, and went back to her riveting studies.
Ella walked over to the woolshed. “Good morning, Mr. Cobb.”
The driver was perhaps forty years old and had two teeth in the front, one top and one bottom, a face creased and wrinkled by countless hours of exposure to the sun, and arms like a blacksmith. “I’ll start loading now.” He swung down from the dray.
Swampy, the station hand, whose first name was Frederick but had to be called Swampy because his surname was Marsh, had heard him, too, for he arrived and opened the doors of the loading bay. Ella tried to drag over the lifting hook suspended from the roof beams, but she couldn’t budge the heavy tackle an inch.
“Don’t strain yourself,” Swampy said to her. “We can do this without you.”
She stood for a moment, but she could see she would be useless. Therefore she left, planning to return later with refreshments.
“When I was little I used to love watching the wool being loaded,” she said in a rueful voice to Rose. She put the kettle on to boil. “But if I stand around watching now, they’ll think I am checking up on them.”
Rose had cut the peaches in half and arranged the bottom layer in her second jar. “Here. Cut the rest of these and I will pack them.”
“It’s wonderful seeing how they swing those great bags on top of each other and balance them on the dray. It looks impossible when it’s finished, so tall and so top heavy, yet I’ve never heard of a load falling off.”
“I’ll pour the syrup if you can whip the egg white for the papers.”
Vianna wandered into the room and sat at the table watching, her chin in her palms, her elbows on the table. “I could cut out the paper rounds,” she said. “I did them last year, didn’t I, Ella?”
“That would be a help.”
“Ella, you have Cal’s address, don’t you?”
Ella blinked guiltily and met Vianna’s gaze. “Somewhere. Why do you want it?”
Vianna gave a long sigh and listlessly picked up the scissors and put them down. “I’m in love with him. I want to write him a letter.”
Ella didn’t feel in the least like laughing at her sister. She couldn’t count the times she had gazed at Cal’s Port Adelaide address. However, she had nothing to say to him other than that she missed him and she loved him. If he was still free when Vi had grown up...but a man like him would be snatched up quickly, money or not. She had no need to prolong the agony of wanting him and being unable to have him. “He’s too old for you, Vianna. Best forget him.”
“I’m growing older every year. Anyway, he’s the only good-looking man I’ve ever met. Unlike some people, I’ve never lived in a city, and I could count on these fingers,” she said, holding up one hand, “the amount of boys or girls of my own age I have met. It seems to me that if we don’t leave here soon, I’ll end up an old maid like you two.”
Rose glanced up, eyes wide, brows raised. “Do you think I have missed my chance?”
“Haven’t you? You’re twenty-three and you haven’t had any offers that I’ve heard of.”
“Perhaps you don’t know everything, Miss,” Rose replied with spirit. “Perhaps I’ve had offers I haven’t taken up.”
“Well, why wouldn’t you? Surely anything would be better than living on a hot, dusty station crowded with stinky sheep.”
“I like it here,” Ella said in a small voice, watching her sisters confront each other, Rose annoyed and Vianna pettish. “And sheep don’t stink any worse than any other animal. The horses—”
“Horses are pretty.” Vianna stood, dropping the scissors onto the table. “And peaches stink, too.” She flounced out of the room.
Ella stared at Rose. “We’ve never fought like this before.”
Rose tightened her face. “We’ve never thought we would be stuck here when we had enough money to leave. Why can’t we just go and let Swampy take care of the sheep?”
“It’s too much for one man alone. And if he wants to go, too, what will happen to the sheep? We’ll lose the last of our assets. You and Vianna should go. I can stay and help him.”
Rose stared at her. “Neither Vianna nor I would accept that sort of sacrifice from you.”
Ella sat, head bowed, then she straightened her spine. Taking a deep, determined breath, she picked up Papa’s riding hat, smacked the brim on her thigh, and left for the stables.
She saddled the idling piebald and left.
* * * *
Edward frowned at Sam and crossed his arms. “Took your time coming back, didn’t you?
Sam shrugged. “You wouldn’t have wanted me to do half a job. I spied on Charlton for you and I stayed awhile after he left so that I could spy on Miss Beaufort.”
“He left? And you didn’t come straight to me?”
“Couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t return. They didn’t know who he was at the local grocery store, but I got into conversation with a neighbor of the Beaufort’s, who said Mr. Charlton was the overseer, going by the name Cal Langdon.”
“Cal.” Edward snorted. “Baby name. That’s what his father called him. It’s not an acceptable shortening of Charlton in my opinion.”
“It’s not such a mouthful. Be that as it may, he left Noarlunga more’n a week ago. When the shearers left, he went with ’em. I follered the wagon for a while just to see where they planned on going, but they parted ways on the next property. When I made inquiries of the team boss, he said Cal were headed for the city. Had a plan to make money.”
“You should have continued following him so that you would know exactly where he went.” Edward sat back down on the desk chair in the study. “Take a seat,” he said, waving at the armchair by the window.
“Figured you would be able to find that out.” Sam made himself comfortable. Crossing his legs, he gave a satisfied smile. “Went back to Noarlunga to see what Miss Beaufort was a-doing. Maybe they had a fight. Or maybe she were expecting him to return.”
“Well?”
“Lovely couple they make. You shoulda seen them the day they did the weekly shopping, him so big and dark and her so dainty and fair. She’s a well-made woman, greatly thought of by the local folk. Went back to the station to take care of a couple of younger sisters. I saw one of them, a little tacker. They own a couple of high-stepping chestnuts, too.”
“Trust you to notice the horseflesh.”
“We don’t often see horses that good. Couldn’t miss ’em.” Sam scratched the back of his neck. “Seems Mr. Charlton went out with the aboriginal stockman and chased a couple of hor
se thieves for Miss Rose. Caught ’em, too.”
“Naturally. Was there news of an engagement between him and the lady?”
“No talk. The locals don’t gossip about the sisters. They seem proud to have them in the district. Can’t work out why they haven’t left. Maybe a couple of them want to keep the property.”
“According to Mrs. Cameron, Miss Beaufort can’t wait to return to her social life. So. Charlton is here somewhere. He hasn’t contacted his mother. Unnatural boy,” Edward said, feeling disgruntled. “She’s worried to death about him.”
“Strange.” Sam stared at his entwined fingers. “When she saw me she asked how he was. I said he looked healthy and I was pretty sure he was in the city. She said ‘good.’ That’s all. ‘Good.’ Didn’t look too worried.”
“She doesn’t like to show her feelings. Do you want to come for a trip with me to the docks?”
“No.” Sam shook his head. “I reckon this time you need to let the mountain come to his grandpa.”
* * * *
Ella rode down Lannock’s driveway. Black and white cows grazed in the far pasture. The place had a cold, cobbled smell, not a dusty sheep smell like her place. Someone clanked cans in the milking shed. She left the piebald tethered to a post and poked her head into the doorway but couldn’t see Mr. Lannock. She planned on going to the front of the homestead and knocking on the door, but he sauntered around the corner from the buttery. “Miss Ella. Is there a problem?”
“How guilty you make me feel. I only visit when I need something. This time, I haven’t. I want to discuss a proposition with you.”
“A proposition?”
“We owe you ninety pounds, plus, of course, many, many favors.”
“Don’t worry about the money, Missy. You’ll pay when you can.”
“I was thinking of letting you invest it.” She smiled when she saw his expression. No doubt he was assuming she was just like her father, always ready with a slick line when she wanted money. “We have good land and your fences abut ours. You have one side of the river and we have the other. I know you don’t need our land so that you can have ready access to water, but I thought that instead of us selling our land and paying you the money, you could buy our land and have a much larger holding. You have two fine, strapping sons who one day will be thinking of marriage.”
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