Haunted Creek

by Ann Cliff

  ‘Come on, Gertrude, we’ll go and find some fresh greens for you.’ Rose unhitched the animal from her tether but kept the rope in her hand. She did not want to lose a valuable goat, even though milk was just a hope for the future.

  Gertrude bleated happily and led the way to a patch of fresh grass in a little clearing. Here they were still on Luke’s land, but Rose was not sure where it ended. The area had been surveyed and there were pegs at intervals, but it was not all fenced as yet. ‘Goats don’t like gum trees, I know that,’ Rose said as Gertrude sniffed disdainfully at a trailing bunch of eucalypt leaves.

  Gertrude was enjoying the walk so much that Rose let her set the pace and lead her further away from the hut, although she kept looking back to work out where she was and see the reassuring wisp of smoke from her cooking fire. It would be easy to get lost here. Suddenly Gertrude jerked the rope out of her hand and trotted off on an errand of her own, her udder swinging jauntily. They should never have come so far from home! They must have walked a couple of miles and one stretch of bush looked so much like another….

  Rose told herself severely not to panic. She had been here before with Luke and she knew roughly where she was. But where was Gertrude?

  Calling at intervals, Rose tried to walk in a straight line. There was no goat to be seen and the only thing to be heard was a magpie’s liquid warble, that changed suddenly to the crack of a whip and then to the grating of a saw. Nothing here was what it seemed. Surely there were no people about? Then Rose remembered she’d been told about the lyre bird that imitated all the sounds it heard in the bush. Maybe next week it would be chirping ‘Gertrude!’

  The eucalypt forest shimmered in the heat and the scent was heady and penetrating; it seemed to be growing stronger. Surely the goat would come back to her? She was tense with worry when she eventually saw Gertrude’s black and white head among the trees. The goat was towing someone else on the other end of the rope. It was Lordy, the sinister gentleman worker.

  ‘Mrs Teesdale, your goat, I presume?’ Lordy handed over his end of the rope and raised his hat. Was his face really evil, or was it just the scar? He had been kind … and his old-fashioned, precise way of speaking was somehow reassuring.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Barrington.’ Rose had run towards the goat when she first saw her and now they were in a clearing she remembered, but it was changed. The eucalypt smell was overpowering and soon she could see why. Her heart sank; the rapists were here in the bush.

  The trees had been stripped of leaves. A man with a cart was tipping piles of gum leaves into a metal tank, from which steam leaked out in several places. A big fire roared under the tank. Whiskery Joe was leading an empty horse and cart away, recognizable by his big hat and beard. Several other men were stoking the fire or adding more greenery and all around them were leaves and branches of eucalypt. All the small trees had been cut down and branches lopped off the large ones.

  ‘Please allow me to set you on the road home,’ Lordy said smoothly, guiding her away from the scene of action. ‘It really will not do for the other men to see you. Consequences might follow, y’know.’ Rose shivered. After they had walked for a while, Rose turned to the man beside her. ‘Please tell me … what are those men doing? Working on a Sunday, too?’ She passed a hand over her hot face.

  Lordy looked at her, then sat down on a log and drew Rose down beside him. ‘Let us have a short rest. Don’t be afraid, Mrs Teesdale, I won’t harm you. Quite the reverse. I was trained to protect females and I quite like goats.’ This was just as well, because Gertrude had sidled up to him and was nearly sitting on his knee. ‘These men with whom I have the misfortune to work are distillers of eucalyptus oil for the British market. They are called eucy men and they roam the forest with big knives and a portable still, as you could see.’ He looked earnestly at Rose.

  ‘And evil intentions,’ Rose reminded him. ‘Why are they like that?’ Heaven help any woman who met them in the bush.

  ‘Here today and gone tomorrow: they move about to get the best leaves. The work is hard and – well, you could say the workers are a little uncouth. They see no polite society, y’know.’ Lordy shook his head sadly.

  Rose couldn’t help smiling at the lack of polite society; the men she’d met the other day obviously didn’t want any. ‘Distilling, that’s a harmless thing to do. But why do they hate me?’

  Lordy sighed. ‘The selectors are cutting down the trees. Do you not see? There is a great tide of selectors flowing into Gippsland, taking the land for farming. Soon the forests will vanish and the woodsmen fear that eventually there will be only farm land, or at worst, desert. There will be no room for the men with big knives. On their system, most of the trees will grow again … but not with yours. Do you see the difficulty?’ He smiled and looked more sinister than ever. ‘That is the extreme view, of course. It’s probably shared by the kangaroos and wallabies, I am bound to say. I’m afraid that the threat of rape was real. They think it’s the best way to discourage settlers, y’know.’

  Rose swallowed. ‘Well, they could have had the leaves from all our trees until we clear the land if they’d been civil. But surely if people are going to live here, we need farmers?’ There should be room for everyone here. And if people were going to keep on coming – Rose knew that ship after ship was bringing folks in from England – they would need food.

  Lordy leaned towards her and Rose flinched. ‘Do allow me, Mrs Teesdale, to remove this spider from your hair.’ It was a huntsman spider, nearly as big as a saucer, with eight thick legs, just like the ones she was battling at home. It must have dropped on her from above as she walked through the bush.

  Rose shuddered but managed not to scream. ‘Thank you again, Mr Barrington.’

  They watched it scurry away and Lordy said, ‘How very composed you are for a young woman. The bite of the huntsman spider is only mildly toxic, of course.’ He paused. ‘I don’t wish to alarm you, but the redback spider bite is potentially fatal, especially to children or old people. If you see a spider with a red spot on its back, avoid it at all costs. And the white tail spider can cause you pain – watch out for them in the house.’

  Rose stood up. ‘It’s time I went home, Mr Barrington. Are there any other dangers in the bush that I need to know about?’

  Lordy got up from the log, appearing to think deeply. ‘I am trying to remember my first impressions … but I came here from a war in Africa, so the Tangil valley was a haven of peace to me.’ He looked at Rose and added, ‘They say the Australian bush is the safest jungle in the world. Remember that, if ever you feel afraid.’

  FIVE

  ‘PLEASE, ARE YOU Mrs … Maeve?’ Rose looked up at the tall, stately woman behind the bar before glancing round nervously. Her nerves had suffered after the encounters with the wild men and she longed for Luke to come back, to give her some peace of mind. But Luke was still away from home.

  The big room was dark and the smoke-blackened beams and battered chairs and tables looked as though they had been there for centuries. It was the first time Rose had been into a public house and it was hard to know what to expect, what would lurk in those shadowy corners. A morning visit had seemed the safest, when most people should be sober and she hoped the eucalyptus oil men would be working.

  The owner of the grandly named All Nations hotel nodded and smiled, revealing two gold teeth. ‘Myself it is. You’ll be new round here, then. What can we be doing for you?’ She was handsome in an Irish way, with dark hair and blue eyes.

  ‘Well …’ Rose breathed in the fumes of stale beer and tobacco, overlaid with the smell of cooking. What did she want? Lordy had told her she would get good advice, but about what? Rose stood looking down at her dusty dress and boots. She was hot and tired from the long walk down the side of Haunted Creek and far from her usual more confident self. ‘Do you happen to have seen Luke Teesdale? A young man with curly brown hair?’

  Maeve’s expression altered and the soft voice seemed to harden a little. ‘You�
�ll be Luke’s woman then, and just arrived in the colony. Tell me, are you married properly, church and all – or just living together?’ She put her head on one side.

  This was impertinence and Rose stood up straight with indignation. “Of course we are married! I’m not a loose woman! We were married before Luke came out. And what is it to do with you, anyway?’ She was about to sweep out, but stopped herself. Three dusty figures were eating plates of bacon and eggs at one of the tables and they looked up at this, so Rose dropped her voice. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Maeve shrugged big shoulders clothed in flimsy green silk. ‘Then it’s too late, there’s nothing to be done at all. If you were living in sin with the lad, and many a good girl is too, you could give him up and find a better prospect. There’s plenty of good men out here that’s looking for wives, you must know that. But—’ She spread her hands ‘—if you’re legally wed, you’ll have to make the best of it. That’s all. I’m thinking of you.’ She looked Rose up and down.

  ‘I’m not complaining,’ Rose said frostily. ‘I just asked whether you know where he is.’

  Maeve ignored the frost and went on, ‘You’re stuck, that is unless you go back home and say you couldn’t stand the climate. Some women do that. The truth is they find the men too rough and the life too hard in a bark shelter or a tent.’ Then she added, ‘Come and have some breakfast, girl dear, you look as though you could do with a feed.’

  Rose felt sick, but she would not back down in front of this cynical woman. ‘No, thank you, I have no money with me.’ Why did she think so little of Luke?

  ‘I’m not asking you to pay, don’t be silly,’ Maeve interrupted. ‘Here, come through,’ and she led Rose through a door in the back of the bar. ‘This is my room – customers don’t come in here. Now you can cry, if you’re that way inclined. I didn’t mean to upset you, but what I said is the honest truth. Men are disappointing, most of them.’

  Rose sank down into a comfortable cane chair and looked at the room, trying to calm herself. In contrast to the gloomy bar this room was light and pleasant, with curtains framing a window that looked out on to a garden. A bowl of roses stood on the table and there were books on a shelf. What luxury! Would she ever be able to coax roses to grow, or have a nice room to put them in? It seemed impossible.

  Maeve went off for a few minutes and came back with a tray on which there was a china teapot and cups. ‘The cook’s making you breakfast. Now, drink this tea before you do anything else.’ There was kindness in her eyes as she looked at Rose. ‘Sure and I was too honest with you … but I thought you’d have known by now and be weighing up the choices.’ She poured two cups of tea. ‘How well do you know your husband? Maybe you’re not long married, still have stars in your eyes?’

  Rose sipped her tea from the delicate china cup. This was why women wanted to bring china and silk to Australia, to give a feeling of civilization in a most uncivilized place. Would it make any difference, in the end? She looked over at her hostess, dressed like a lady in this bush shack of a public house. Maybe it was important to keep to your own standards, no matter what your surroundings were. ‘I knew Luke at school, we come from the same village, Mrs—’

  ‘Maeve Malone I am, but Maeve’ll do,’ the woman said. ‘And you must be Rose, English Rose.’ She laughed. ‘You seem so much more English than Luke.’

  She knows my name, Rose thought. Luke must have told her. ‘We got married and then he came out straightaway afterwards. I probably don’t know him very well, really.’

  ‘You got married because you fell in love, I suppose, as folks do. He’s a nice enough young fella. Or maybe he needed a wife and you wanted a change of scene and a man of your own. That happens, too. Well, it’s your business, not mine at all.’ Maeve went to the door and took another tray from a large man in a cook’s apron. ‘Get this down you, it’ll do you good.’

  Rose ate the scrambled egg on toast and she could feel her spirits rising a little. When she had finished she said, ‘So you do know Luke? Have you any idea where he may be?’

  The woman gave her a pitying look. ‘Come with me.’ They went along a dark corridor lined with walls of pressed tin, decorated with scrolls and flowers. ‘Imported from the old country, every sheet,’ the landlady said proudly, running her hand over the embossed patterns. ‘If ever I leave, I’ll take them with me. Now brace yourself, girl, he’ll not be a pretty sight.’

  Maeve opened a door at the end of the corridor and Rose peered into the room fearfully. It held a marble wash stand and a huge brass bed. Luke was on the bed, lying on his back with his eyes closed. He was deathly pale, his breathing hoarse and ragged. His shirt was dark with perspiration. Light filtered dimly through blinds so that she couldn’t see him clearly; there was a sour smell in the room.

  Rose’s heart beat wildly as she looked at him. ‘Is he ill? What happened? Did a snake bite him?’ She walked towards the bed but Luke did not stir. He was either asleep or unconscious. ‘Oh Luke, what have you done?’

  ‘He’s dead drunk, girl. Did you never see a man drunk before?’ Maeve shook her head. ‘And never be after blaming me. I keep good order in this house and I never encourage the men to drink too much. It’s bad for them and bad for trade. But Luke had grog with him on the diggings, he was brought in on a barrow. It was none of my doing.’ She turned and led Rose out of the room. ‘If you can wait a few hours, you can take him home. He’ll be sober enough to walk by then.’

  Rose swallowed and thought for a minute. ‘Yes, I’ll wait. But where’s Jim Carlyle? He went looking for gold with Jim.’ She felt anger rising, a cold anger. How could Luke be so thoughtless when there was so much work to be done?

  ‘Jim Carlyle brought him here and then went off again. He’s a waster, that one.’ Maeve’s mouth shut in a straight line. ‘You might like to stay here for a bit. I’ve work to do, but you’re welcome to put your feet up on the sofa in my room. And think what you’ll say to your husband, I reckon.’

  What would she say? That she was disgusted, she was bitterly disappointed and wished she’d stayed at home. Gradually the anger gave way to sadness and Rose slept a little. When she woke, Maeve gave her soap and a towel and directed her to the wash house. Feeling more normal, she went back to the sitting room clean and cool to find Maeve there, adding up accounts. ‘You’re looking better, Rose.’

  ‘I feel better, thank you. You’ve been very kind. So tell me, Maeve, what do you know about Luke – that I might not? He went off to look for gold over a week ago, that’s all I know.’

  Maeve put down her pen. ‘Luke said his wife was coming out, but he thought not until the autumn. He talked about starting to build a proper house, but I gather he didn’t get round to it.’ She sighed. ‘He’s quite pleasant, isn’t he? Not a bad young bloke. But he’s weak, Rose … he’s easily led and he has bouts of the drink. Doesn’t drink all the time, but when he does … it’s bad. I used to tell him to go home and chop down some trees, make a bit of progress. He’s all talk, that one.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ Rose said in a small voice.

  ‘There, I didn’t mean to upset you, but we gotta face facts. You have a choice, Rose, in spite of what I said. There’s always a choice. Several, in fact. Unless you’re in the family way. A child would alter things a bit.’ Maeve moved round in her chair to face Rose.

  This was impertinence again. Should she talk to Maeve, or keep her own counsel? Rose was tempted to go out, away from the pub and wait for Luke somewhere else. But Maeve obviously had years of experience and she might give good advice in her softly spoken, brutally forthright way. After a pause she said quietly, ‘I’m not pregnant.’

  ‘Stay that way, girl, if you can. It would only complicate things. Now, about your choices. You can let him stay in charge, tell you what to do, and make progress in his own time. I don’t hold out much hope, although if he does find gold he might buy some more land.’

  ‘But what else can I do?’

  There was a flash of gold
as Maeve smiled. ‘You could go home to dear old Mother England, to live with the fact that you’ve failed to make a go of it. Or you could do what I did, and take charge yourself. Mind, you’ve got to be strong. This is a hard country. Can you be strong enough?’

  ‘I can try. You mean I ought to decide what we should do and tell Luke?’

  ‘Persuade him, more like, lead him – you can’t drive a man except to drink. You’ll have to have a plan and the guts to carry it out, take him along with you, as you might say.’ Maeve laughed. ‘The only thing you can really take charge of is yourself.’

  There was silence as Rose digested this.

  ‘My man was restless, always off on a new venture, and in the end he went to America and didn’t come back. They sent to tell me he’d died, not long ago. Left me with a little baby, too.’ Maeve laughed. ‘But we beat them all in the end. My boy Paddy Malone is a doctor in Melbourne, Doctor Malone. And I’ve a good business here. So it can be done.’

  Maeve made it sound almost easy, but Rose frowned. Luke wasn’t likely to go to America, so she would have to work round him. ‘I need a plan, you say. But I’ve just arrived here, I don’t know where to start. And I can’t chop down trees, or make fences. That’s what we need.’ Going home to Yorkshire was not an option, so she would be strong.

  ‘You need cash, lass. Anything can be done if you have the money. Did you bring any with you? Then hang on to it, don’t give it to Luke.’ Maeve nodded. ‘Look around and see what you could make or grow that folks will buy. You’re off a farm? Good. You might have to be the farmer, you know.’

  The huge cook came in and Maeve gave him instructions, while Rose thought hard about what she could do. It was taking her mind off the problem of Luke’s drinking in a very positive way. Vegetables could be grown eventually, but it would be months before they could be ready for sale. The hens she had were laying well, but only enough for their own needs … what if she bought more hens and sold eggs? Hens didn’t cost as much as a pig or a cow. She had enough money to buy a few hens.