Golden Hope (69 page)

‘Thanks, but I prefer to walk.'

‘Can I at least take you as far as the train station?'

‘No trains needed. I prefer to talk to people en route.'

‘En route to where?'

‘Who knows? I may end up crossing the Nullarbor Plain to Western Australia and taking a swim in the Indian Ocean. But first off I might revisit my childhood home in Hahndorf.'

It made no sense – they were going in the opposite direction to Hahndorf.
What the hell is he playing at?

‘Hahndorf? How strange, that's where Max and I are headed. I don't have a map. Would you care to show us the way?'

Clytie held out the reins to him, furious to see that her hands were shaking.

Finch stopped. The horse stopped. Finch stared at Clytie and she stared back. He cast a backward glance at the road to Hoffnung. Then at the road that lay ahead. Then without a word he accepted the reins and climbed aboard.

Clytie did her best to appear nonchalant. ‘It seems you found time to say goodbye to a number of people – even Ginger.'

Finch's eyes narrowed. ‘Ginger is a warm-hearted woman with a reputation she doesn't deserve. She's just shopping for a husband. No shame in that.'

Clytie felt justifiably reprimanded. ‘I'm sorry. Who am I to judge her? I just apologised to her. Look, Finch, I know your life is none of my business, but –'

‘You're right, it isn't. But for the record I wasn't one of Ginger's “volunteers”. And I've only ever proposed marriage to one woman. I didn't stand the ghost of a chance – she turned me down flat.'

‘She was a fool,' Clytie said quickly. ‘She lived to regret it.'

‘Too late now. That's all water under the bridge.'

Finch kept the silence at bay by singing
My Darling Clementine
. Clytie felt the song's ominous final words were aimed at her:

‘. . . You are lost and gone forever,

Dreadful sorry, Clementine.'

In desperation Clytie blurted out the words, ‘It is 1902.'

‘I'd noticed,' he said.

‘One plus nine plus two adds up to twelve, a number divided evenly by four.'

‘So what?'

‘That makes it a Leap Year. Don't pretend you don't know. In a Leap Year a woman has the right to propose. If a man turns her down, he has to buy her a pair of gloves.'

‘Cheap at the price of escape,' he said lightly.

Clytie threw her outward calm to the winds. ‘For heavens sake, Finch, Jonathan, whoever you are, I'm asking you to marry me.'

‘Not a bad offer. But you jumped the gun a bit.'

She felt herself blushing. ‘Are you suggesting I'm only proposing because –'

‘You got the tally mixed up. The Gregorian calendar is a bit tricky. Most Leap Years are multiples of four – but almost every century is short of one Leap Year. In a nutshell, the next one is in 1904. Don't worry, you've only got two more years to wait.'

‘If you think I'm just going to hang around for two years on the off-chance that you just
might –'

‘Hold your horses. I'll think it over. Give you my answer in three weeks.'

‘Why three weeks?'

‘It takes three weeks to read the banns in church before a wedding.'

‘Is that a yes answer?'

‘It's a maybe. I'm not a man to be rushed into things.'

Clytie clenched her fists, desperately wanting to hit him.

He continued on a casual note of warning. ‘And don't go thinking I'm
easy.
There's no chance of you getting me into bed before the wedding night.'

Clytie gritted her teeth. ‘Any other conditions?'

‘We'll stay put somewhere for the winter. I don't fancy being stranded on some bush road miles from anywhere to deliver your bundle.'

He glanced meaningfully at her belly.

Clytie's voice pitched out of control. ‘That's the final straw! You
knew
all the time!'

‘Not hard to recognise the signs. You were carrying on like a two-bob watch.'

Clytie wrested the reins from his hands. ‘Get off my wagon! You can walk to Hahndorf or Melbourne or wherever. You
knew
and you were running out on me! I'd rather have a new pair of gloves than a husband like you!'

Finch snatched the reins back but kept his voice low. ‘You've got a real hide taking the high moral ground. You didn't even have the decency to tell me I was going to be a father.'

‘No!' she shouted. ‘Because I didn't want you to feel trapped in a shotgun wedding. So you could throw it up in my face every time we had a fight.'

‘Hey, keep your voice down, you're scaring Max.'

As if on cue hearing his name, Max let out a bellow and waved his arms around in agitation.

‘See what you've done?' Finch hissed. ‘Stop the wagon, that's an order!'

He tossed the reins at her, hoisted Max into his arms and climbed down onto the road, talking softly to reassure the child.

‘Let's have a ride on the nice horsie, eh Max?'

He tried to position the child astride the horse, but Max clearly had ideas of his own. He kept his legs rigid and remained upright, his little bare feet firmly planted on Huguenot's back. Max chortled in triumph, his face like sunshine after rain.

‘Clever boy, Max. You're going to grow up to be a star equestrian, just like your Mama.'

Finch looked up at Clytie and this time his heart was in his eyes.

‘I wasn't running out on you, girl. Everyone in Hoffnung knew exactly where I was headed. And I was
walking.
To give you plenty of time to catch up with me.'

Clytie never cried, except with happiness. The sun was shining on Finch and Max. Their laughing faces quivered through the tears in her eyes.

•  •  •

The circus wagon rolled on, leaving in its wake one of the crooked old signs that read ‘Welcome to Hoffnung'. Rom Delaney watched the cocoon of dust rising to be filtered by the wind. When the painted wagon was out of sight, the dust was as thin as stardust in the shafts of sunlight that fell between the gum trees.

At the side of the road Shadow sat on his haunches, eyeing Rom expectantly, his head cocked to one side.

‘Well, mate, all's well that end's well, so they say.' Rom gave a wry laugh. ‘That just leaves you and me.'

He bent and ruffled Shadow's ears. ‘I don't know where the hell I'm going. But I've done what I came back to do. Put things right. Time to part company, fella. This is the one journey your master has to take on his own.'

Rom pointed in the direction of the disappearing wagon, gave the order in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘Go, Shadow! Catch up with Clytie's wagon.
Finch
is your master, now.'

Shadow never took his eyes from him, never moved a muscle.

Rom picked up his swag, ready to plunge into the deep heart of the bush. He glanced back. Shadow remained like a statue by the side of the road.

‘Do as you're damned well told, Shadow. Go join Clytie's wagon.
Now
!'

Shadow did not budge an inch. Forced to retrace his steps, Rom squatted down beside him. His rough words softened into tenderness.

‘Flaming well defiant, eh? Kelpies are supposed to be clever. I should ask for my money back – except, well, I didn't buy you. You adopted
me.
'

Shadow's eyes were luminous, sad and all-knowing.

‘Look mate, I need you to understand. There's one last thing you can do for me – that no one else can.
Maxie.
'

At the sound of that word Shadow's ears stiffened and he watched Rom's face, poised on the alert, awaiting orders.

‘Guard Maxie with your life. Don't let him play with snakes or fall in the creek or get bullied by big kids. Maxie's all I've got left.' He looked deep into Shadow's eyes. ‘I'm
counting
on you, mate.'

He rubbed his face against Shadow's nose. Then pointed to the road.

‘Go! Catch that wagon!'

Shadow gave him a long last look, then bounded off down the road as if intent on rounding up a mob of lost sheep. Rom watched him as he cut a swathe through the bush, eliminating a corner to rejoin the wagon.

Clytie's distant cry carried like a thread of silver through the silent bush.

‘Shadow! Where've you been? Come on, jump up, boy. Show us the way to Melbourne.'

Rom gave a wry shrug and humped his swag. He didn't know the way to whatever came next, but the words of the song came easily enough.

‘. . . how sweet the hours I passed away

With the girl I left behind me.'

Rom suddenly felt light of heart, his mind free of all confusion. He felt curiously at one with the bush, creeks, birds, sky and sunlight as if they were all part of the same body. Faces, scenes in his ‘nine lives' flashed and spun in front of his eyes. One by one they dissolved into stardust, setting him free . . .

I wonder if they ever let atheists in?

As if in answer the laughter of a kookaburra struck a reassuring note.

‘Coming, ready or not!' Rom called out to whoever might be listening – and finally let go of his life.

•  •  •

The three of them drove on in wary silence for another mile before Finch drew the battlelines.

‘Get one thing straight, Clytie. I'm not a man to live in another man's shadow.'

‘You won't,' she promised. Curiosity got the better of her. ‘What's that mysterious parcel I found inside the wagon that you forgot to take with you.'

‘I didn't forget – too heavy to carry. That's the very latest camera equipment. Before he died my father said I was a damned good apprentice, the best he'd ever had. And there's good money to be made as a roving photographer. But I want to try my luck as a cameraman. I've written to Brigadier Joseph Perry at the Limelight Studios in Melbourne to see if he's willing to teach me from the bottom rung up.'

Finch traced an imaginary sign in the air. ‘A Motion Picture by Jonathan D'Angers Productions – how does that sound?'

Clytie rolled the name around her tongue. ‘Very impressive. But I prefer Finch D'Angers. Anyway, some people say moving pictures are just a flash in the pan.'

‘People probably said that about the invention of the wheel. This is the birth of a new art form. One day great writers, great actors will be clamouring to be part of it. I intend to be on the ground floor, gaining experience. I want to tell stories – Australian stories that will make the whole world take notice of us.'

Clytie looked dubious.

Max was toying with a piece of paper, peering at the words on an old grocery list as intently as if he was reading them. He squealed in triumph as he crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it away. Looking for new excitement, he stretched out his hand and tried to open the lid of the box.

‘No sweetheart, not
those
papers,' Clytie said hastily.

Finch eyed her with dawning suspicion. ‘What's going on? Don't tell me you're planning to distribute suffragette pamphlets from here to Timbuktu?'

‘Not
exactly
,' Clytie said with a weak smile.

‘No more secrets, Clytie.' Finch beckoned to her to open the box.

Clytie removed one of the pages and handed it to him. ‘It's a very good likeness of Max, don't you think?'

The poster showed Finch's photograph of Clytie sedately dressed with Max seated on her lap eyeing the camera seriously. Both wore a diagonal sash pasted onto the photograph and printed with the same words featured in bold type at the top of the page.

Finch gave a hoot of laughter. ‘
Vote 1 for Clytie Hart!
Hey, there's no doubt about you. Victoria's light years away from granting women the vote!'

‘Maybe so. But the
Federal
government is granting women the right to stand for election as M.P.s in the
Federal
Parliament!'

Clytie made her voice as soft as honey. ‘It's not just a woman's cause, my love. Don't worry, when women are elected, we'll help men make the world a better place.'

Finch rolled his eyes in mock despair. ‘There's only one way to silence you, Clytie Hart.'

Finch let go the reins, took Clytie's face firmly between his hands and kissed her long and hard – as only he could.

Both knew that their wild, unpredictable journey had only just begun.

Golden Hope
is a work of fiction, entwined with historical events and legends. The lives of the central fictional characters – Clytie Hart, Rom Delaney, Finch and Dr Hundey – are impacted by the extraordinary historical events of the watershed years of 1901–02.

January 1
^st
1901 saw the birth of Australia as a nation when six British colonies united under a new Constitution and a new flag. Keen for Australia to take its place on the world stage, thousands of men like Rom Delaney volunteered to ‘do their bit' for the Empire in the second South African War, the Boer War of 1899–1902.

Australian women had their own challenges. Following their ‘Monster Petition' of almost 30,000 signatures in the Women's Suffrage Petition of 1891 (now an on-line archival treasure that makes fascinating reading), Victoria's women petitioned the Federal Government to follow New Zealand's world lead in giving women the vote. In 1901 Australia became the first country to give women both the right to vote as well as the right to stand for Parliament. (Two ironic footnotes: despite this victory, that was many years ahead of Britain and the U.S.A., the first woman elected to the Australian Parliament was Edith Cowan in 1921. Women could not vote in Victoria's State elections until 1908, lagging behind their sister states).

The Gold Triangle is the geographical heart of this story. The fabulous wealth following the Gold Rush of 1854 saw the escalation of Melbourne as a city ‘built on gold', with flourishing cities, towns and magical landscapes that now include the heritage-listed Lerderderg State Park. Within this historical context are the imaginary locations of Hoffnung and Bitternbird, inspired by my travels since childhood along the magical back roads of Australia.