by Carol Jones
At first she thought they did not hear her, too deep in their contemplation of the game of life and death being played out before their eyes. Or perhaps the wind spoke too loud, for they did not turn their gaze from the ocean. She said again, ‘I shall pray for their deliverance.’
‘She would do as well to pray for her own soul.’ She heard the hiss of Margaret MacDonald’s words above the whistle of the wind.
‘I beg pardon,’ she said with a frown. Perhaps they spoke of someone else, these women she had worked alongside for months.
‘It is too late for prayer,’ said the blacksmith’s pinch-faced wife. ‘The Lord knows a prevaricator when he hears one.’
Not a one of the ladies turned to face her. Their shawls were a wall she could not breach, not without elbowing her way into their midst.
‘Mrs Brewer… Eleanor,’ she began, ‘it is me, Violet. Come to offer aid to those poor lost souls.’
The Resident’s wife relented enough to glance her way, though she would not meet her eye. ‘As you can see, Miss Hartley, we have more than enough assistance here. We don’t need you. Not today.’
‘Nor ever,’ said Mrs MacDonald.
‘You would do better to return to Noorla.’
‘It turns out I am no longer needed there either. Mrs Wallace finds she can dispense with my services. But I expect you already knew that.’ It occurred to her that they probably knew much more than that. God knows what that horrible woman had told them. What rumours she had gleaned from London. What lies she spread about Violet’s past. ‘Please, Eleanor, don’t believe everything you hear.’
‘No man is safe around her, from what I’ve heard,’ Mrs MacDonald remarked snidely to the gathered matrons, ‘not the nobility, or the gentry. She does not discriminate. Not a simple farmer like Mr Wallace… not even a child.’
Violet had heard evil spat from the genteel lips of the earl’s daughter on that day she was thrown from her ladyship’s house, but Mrs MacDonald’s last word hooked her flesh sharper than any thorn.
‘I… I did all I could… I…’ Her words were whipped away by the wind, as her skirts flapped wildly, beating at her legs. She had thought these women were her friends but she should have known that friendship’s veneer was gossamer thin. To add to her confusion, she realised that Mr Thomas had left off his conversation with the harbourmaster and was striding towards her, his expression stern. With all that had happened, she did not know if she could stand firm in the face of this humiliation if he were to turn on her as well. She had been a fool to trust to friendship. When had it ever held true in the past?
‘Do not worry, ladies. I shall not trouble your husbands,’ she said, finding the right words at last.
Thomas reached her side, just as the women’s mouths gaped open at this audacity. He slipped a hand beneath her elbow, holding her upright.
‘Have a care, Thomas,’ said Mrs MacDonald, throwing a flinty-eyed glare at Violet. ‘Not all evils announce themselves openly.’
‘Do not worry, madam. I know evil when I see it.’
For a moment Violet allowed him to support her weight, surprised by how solid his forearm felt. She expected strength from a man who drove a team of twelve bullocks for his living, but it was more than physical strength she perceived. She was almost tempted to believe that she could rely upon him. And that, of course, would be a grave error.
Pulling back her shoulders, she looked beyond Robe’s women and out to sea, where the ship’s boat fought to stay afloat in the perilous waters of the bay. ‘So, Mr Thomas… what says our harbourmaster?’ she asked, swallowing the jagged lump that lodged in her throat.
‘Melville says the crew are assembling rafts.’ He nodded in the direction of the harbourmaster who had a telescope to his eye and was staring out to sea. ‘Meanwhile, we must make our preparations while we wait upon the weather.’
‘Do you think the men will be saved?’
‘I should think so. Most of them. But there’s little you can do here and… you have your own sorrows to contend with. I’ve heard what happened to the poor lad.’
‘He fought so bravely.’
‘He was a plucky little fellow.’
‘His mother blames me and perhaps she is right to do so. If I hadn’t let him play in the rain… if I had not been so selfish…’ She fixed her eyes upon the sand, hearing again Mrs Wallace’s harsh words of the previous evening, and a tear squeezed from beneath her lashes. She thought of her exile from London a year earlier and the tear rolled down her cheek.
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ said Thomas. ‘The boy was likely coming down with the sickness for days and didn’t think to tell.’
‘I did my best to help him. But she has thrown me from the house. Without notice or wages,’ she said, gulping back the tears that tracked through the dried salt spray on her cheeks, ‘and she is spreading lies about me to every grazier and professional man’s wife in the colony.’ She put a hand up to her face to wipe the tears away with her sleeve.
‘In the heat of the moment she may have threatened but surely…’
‘It is true. You heard how Mrs MacDonald spoke to me. And Mrs Ormerod looked at me as if I was no better than a… a… whore. She has turned them against me, women I thought were my friends. I have to get away. I have to go somewhere beyond the reach of their spite.’
She felt his arm waver beneath hers and waited for him to release her. Just as she had suspected, his arm wasn’t as solid as it promised. But then he surprised her by placing his other hand over hers and saying, ‘If there’s anything I can do to help.’
The word anything was as powerful as an aphrodisiac to Violet.
‘Well, perhaps. Perhaps there is something. It’s a great deal to ask, I know… but…’ she sniffed back the tears that had turned her voice husky, ‘perhaps you could take me with you to the goldfields.’
*
All through the afternoon, the crew laboured at building a raft to launch into the heavy surf as the ship settled even further on its side. Strong Arm watched in growing dismay as the assemblage of empty barrels and planks was lashed together upon the deck. Couldn’t they find some bamboo? Surely a sturdy raft of bamboo would ride the waves better than this ramshackle construction. The general consensus amongst her fellow passengers was that the craft would sink before it got anywhere near the shore. They looked on in horror as the crew surveyed their handiwork. Strong Arm thought she would have more chance of surviving if she clung to a barrel and let the waves take her where they would.
‘If the raft capsizes, try to grab anything that floats and hang on,’ Big Nose advised. ‘Do not fight the current.’
‘Does that include you?’ she said with a laugh. But the sound emerged more like a cough.
‘Just try not to drag me under,’ Big Nose answered in all seriousness.
‘You’re a good friend, Big Nose,’ she said, and her friend looked down at his bare feet in embarrassment.
But they were in luck. Either that or the gods had taken pity on them. For as the sun went down, the wind finally blew itself out and the bosun once more ordered that the longboats be launched. One by one, the boats were lowered into the sea, the terrified emigrants from the Middle Flowery Kingdom climbed over the side, and their miserable belongings were thrown down to them. If they were lucky, their baskets landed in the boat in one piece. If they weren’t, their hopes sank to the bottom of this wild, southern ocean along with all their worldly goods.
Strong Arm was lucky. And as the longboat finally put to shore, she heard the voice of Big Wu rasping in her ear, taunting the worthless little peasant girl from Sandy Bottom Village, and she could not help wondering when her luck would run out.
28
In a small town where everybody knew everybody, the few households offering rooms to respectable lodgers were suddenly full. Violet was reduced to renting a sour-smelling room at the rear of the Bonnie Owl, her sleep accompanied by the unwelcome lullaby of drunken men. But every cloud has a silve
r lining and since her reputation was already in tatters, there was now little to prevent her going about town as she liked. She set out in the direction of the bullockies’ camp on the shores of a small lake where the local graziers had taken to washing their wool before it was shipped abroad. Mr Thomas was encamped there, she had heard, and she was determined to enlist his services in transporting her to the goldfields. So far, he was proving oddly recalcitrant in the matter, mustering all sorts of arguments to do with her comfort and security. Clearly, he knew little about the life led by a young woman of poor fortune yet good taste. She had never been particularly secure. Not since her mother died and her father deposited her in that third-rate school, leaving her to fend for herself, and went sailing in the Americas.
And in this instance, she had decided that comfort could be forsaken temporarily in the service of expediency… and a ride to the goldfields.
This morning she had assembled all her weapons and was congratulating herself on how fetching she must appear as she strolled out in her silk taffeta day dress and beribboned ringlets, when she caught the sound of male voices and the whiff of campfire smoke. Although Dr Penny had organised the great influx of Celestials into various campsites about the town, these voices were speaking English – well, at least an inferior version of it – and she also heard the intermittent barking of their companions. So, patting a few stray hairs into place, she pinched a tad more colour into her cheeks, and sashayed into the clearing where the bullockies had made camp.
As expected, her arrival was met with surprised confusion, and not a little interest, before one of the old timers found his voice, asking, ‘How can we help you, miss?’
‘Good day to you, sirs, I’m looking for Mr Thomas. Is he here?’
‘Over in yon dunes, talking with the Chinaman.’ He indicated the direction with a bob of his head. ‘Can we offer you a cuppa?’ A sooty black tin dangled upon a stick over the fire, no doubt brewing up the unpalatable liquid that passed for tea amongst the bullockies.
‘Thank you, but I must decline. Pressing business with Mr Thomas, you see.’
There was nothing for it, she supposed, but to traipse through the dunes, getting all hot and bothered. She could think of more pleasant ways of doing that.
‘I believe this grass may be giving me hay fever,’ she observed, to no one in particular. Another reason to secure her fortune and be gone from this infernal country.
As she set off once more, through the bush towards the dunes, a chorus of ragged singing followed her from the bullockies’ campfire.
‘If e’er I go a-wooing
Whate’er may betide
The little town of Robe-town
Shall furnish me a bride.’
*
Skipping from one rock to the next, Strong Arm stooped beside a rock-pool to harvest a clump of drifting seaweed. With the tang of salt in the air and a fresh onshore breeze fanning her face, it felt good to be alive. Even when she caught her reflection in the pool’s surface, for once the image staring back did not startle her. After almost three months, she had grown accustomed to the sight of her roughly shaven head, although she would never grow used to her stink. Despite the urgency of her quest, today she almost felt free. For the first time in her life, she had no one telling her what to do every moment of the day. She had no one telling her how she must behave or who she must be. She could decide that for herself.
Further down the beach, Big Nose was busy digging for clams. She smiled as she watched him twist his lanky body to and fro, burrowing his feet into the sand. It felt good to have a companion on her journey, and she only wished she could tell him the truth. She wished she could feel as easy in his company as she had sharing secrets with her friend in the girls’ house. But she could not risk exposing her identity. And to be honest, she did not want Big Nose to treat her differently, to treat her like a girl. She did not want to listen to the kind of homilies spouted by Young Wu issuing from his lips.
From their campsite next to a small lake on the outskirts of Robetown, she could hear the waves crashing upon the beach. During the day, while the headman negotiated for the tents and mining equipment they would need on their journey, Strong Arm and Big Nose combed the area in search of food. Neither of them could spare their small store of silver for provisions, so they joined their fellow countrymen roaming the lakeside and the beach. Big Nose had grown up on a sampan on the Pearl River. He thought he knew everything there was to know about water, but the wooded lake a stone’s throw from the ocean was nothing like the wide expanse of the mighty Pearl River that teemed with vessels of all shapes and sizes. Nothing but birds cruised its surface. Flocks of black swans, along with several types of duck and wading bird, with eels swimming beneath them. She wished Second Brother had thought to pack a net, for eels made good eating and could be smoked for the journey.
As well as the recognisable, there were also many queer and wondrous creatures inhabiting the scrubby woodland, like the rabbit-sized animal that bristled with spikes and a lizard that flaunted a huge frilled collar. One afternoon, just before dusk, she had surprised a strange bird loping through tall grass with its chicks. The bird’s neck and legs were so long that it stood almost as tall as she. It showed no fear either, looking her in the eye, and when she came too close for its liking, fluffing its feathers and hissing angrily. She suspected that its kick would be harder than Second Brother’s and she was the one who retreated.
Neither she nor Big Nose had ever seen the ocean before they embarked upon the journey from Kwangchow. Nevertheless, they soon discovered the clam-like shellfish to be had by digging in wet sand, the mussels clinging to rocks in the tidal pools, and several kinds of seaweed that could be spread out to dry in the hot sun. They had been warned that the journey to the diggings might take a month or more, so they would need all the food they could find to sustain them on their journey across a land of alien forest, swiftly flowing rivers and unfamiliar men.
The trek to come might be fraught with danger but for the moment she was safe and she was free. She had survived. And if at night she was haunted by the spectre of Big Wu’s bloodied head floating through her dreams, she was comforted by the thought that his son was far away on the opposite side of the world.
*
Violet caught up with Thomas, standing atop a dune in animated conversation with a Celestial of middle years. The Celestial looked like any other of his countrymen, dressed in a pair of baggy blue trousers and knee-length dress, his face shielded from the sun by a conical straw hat with a wide brim. On his feet he wore a pair of straw slippers and he was flipping backwards through the pages of a small book as they spoke, apparently searching for a word.
‘Ah, Miss Hartley, what a surprise to see you here,’ said Thomas, with the lift of one dark brow.
‘Am I interrupting something important?’
‘Mr Low and I have been concluding arrangements for his group’s journey to the goldfields. More than two hundred of the fellows. Apparently they’ve heard of new diggings on Creswick Creek.’ He returned his attention to the other man, saying, ‘This is Miss Hartley.’
‘How do you do, Mr Low.’
She extended her gloved hand but he did not take it, instead bowing and saying, ‘Very pleased to meet you, Miss Hartley.’
‘Miss Hartley seeks to join our little group.’
Mr Low’s eyes widened in horror, before he schooled his expression into placid acceptance. ‘Maybe very hard. Walking many days. Too hard for lady.’ He paused for a moment then added with a laugh, ‘Too hard for Low.’
‘But this particular lady is ready for anything, Mr Low.’
The Chinaman’s expression was bland but she could see the doubt in his eyes. Nevertheless, he did not speak further of his misgivings. Perhaps he was saving that for a later conversation with the bullocky.
‘Talk more later,’ he said to Thomas with a nod. ‘Goodbye, Miss Hartley.’
When he was gone, she turned to Thomas with a winning
smile. ‘I wondered if you might have a list of useful equipment I will need for the journey.’
‘I haven’t agreed to take you. I don’t think you understand the hazards of the journey, Miss Hartley.’ His gaze raked her from the top of her carefully arranged coiffure to the tips of her highly polished walking boots and to her chagrin it wasn’t one of admiration. ‘For example, is this your idea of travelling attire?’
Actually, in the past she had found it the perfect arrangement for travelling. The light brown hue of her dress did not show the dust, and she could walk at least a mile or even two a day, in the boots. ‘I should think so.’
He shook his head, one corner of his mouth turning down in wry amusement. ‘You won’t get further than the Stone Hut Inn in those boots. And your dress, pretty as it is, will be in tatters before a week is out.’
She met his words with a warm smile. They might not be encouraging, but at least he appreciated a well turned-out costume when he encountered it. ‘I’m sure I can find something in my wardrobe to satisfy you, Mr Thomas. And I can purchase new boots.’
‘Your wardrobe isn’t my only concern. You will be surrounded by two hundred and sixty Chinamen. Men following customs you have never before encountered. Most of whom won’t speak a word of English. You will sleep on hard ground with only the dray for shelter. You will wade across streams and tramp through mud. You will wash in a bucket, if there is water to wash at all. Walk for up to twelve hours a day in the heat of summer. Eat nothing but half-cooked mutton and scorched damper. And you will have to piss behind a bush like everyone else.’
He held her eyes in a vice-like grip. ‘And these are only the expected hardships. I may not always be able to protect you and I cannot nursemaid you. We aren’t headed for Ballarat either, so I cannot even tell you what to expect at our journey’s end.’