Tears of the Moon (38 page)

Finally Tyndall indicated she should follow him,
and he led her along the bottom to where a strip of sand ran between two coral outcrops. He pointed to a ledge and when she shook her head, uncomprehending, he bent over and picked up a large pearl shell. Olivia suddenly saw the others, so simply cam-ouflaged yet now so obvious. They collected half a dozen and then Olivia pointed to the coral and made a querying gesture. Tyndall peered at where she pointed, then reached his gloved hand in and felt for what appeared to be a pearl shell nestled in the coral. It was well concealed and hard to dislodge, he struggled and was about to give up when Olivia pushed her hand beside his and together they pulled it free. Tyndall turned the shell over in his hands. It was very large, plump and heavily encrusted. He put it in the bag and pointed to the surface. They tugged on their lines, signalling to the tenders to bring them up.

It wasn’t till after they’d eaten and sailed well clear of the beach to anchor for the night that Tyndall and Ahmed opened the shells. One yielded a perfect round, but very tiny pearl. Nonetheless Olivia was elated. Tyndall then opened what he announced to the crew was ‘Olivia’s shell.’

It was stubborn, the muscles tightly holding it shut. Tyndall worked the knife until it slipped through and the shell fell open. Without even removing the meat they could see the glow of a fat round pearl.

Olivia, crouching beside Tyndall, leaned forward. ‘There’s more than one,’ she breathed and the crew gathered around, moving the lantern closer.

Tyndall carefully scraped away the meat.

A collective gasp went up as they saw on one shell, seven fat, spherical pearls. Each on its own would fetch a goodly price but what caused the crew to murmur in amazement was the formation. The seven pearls lay joined in the shape of a star.

Olivia and Tyndall stared at one another in disbelief.

‘My God, it’s fantastic.’ Tyndall’s hand shook slightly as he studied the shell in his palm, tilting it to and fro to catch the light of the lantern from different angles.

‘It’s worth a fortune,’ Olivia whispered in awe and behind her the crew broke into a gabble of exchanges in Japanese and Malay. Ahmed gave thanks to Allah in a silent prayer.

‘The great gem buyers of the world will be fighting like hell to get their hands on this,’ crowed Tyndall.

‘We’ll have to call it the “Star of the Sea”, of course. Odd, isn’t it, that the shape of the pearls matches the name of our company,’ said Olivia, her voice still reflecting the awe in which they all held the freakish pearl find. ‘Spooky in a way.’

‘Everything that led us to finding it is a bit odd in a way, when you think about it.’ Their eyes met for the first time since the shell was opened. ‘It’s going to change our lives, Olivia.’

She nodded in silent agreement, then they both looked down at the shell again, transfixed by its beauty.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

M
aya still missed her mother. The women had told her that Niah had gone to live with her ancestors among the stars but she watched over her and was always with her even though Maya couldn’t see her.

‘Sometimes when the wind come and blow your hair and brush your face, that your mummy touching you. When you eat good and find clean water for drink, that your mummy looking out for you,’ they told her.

Maya struggled to grasp this abstract concept—she missed the lilting voice, the embrace and sweet smell of her own mother.

She missed her father, too. His laughter and teasing and the great stretches of time they spent together ‘out in the world’. While her mother had been part of this outback world, her father belonged to another world. She remembered the noise and smell of the shell sheds; sitting on the deck of a
beached lugger while the men worked; playing on the floor of Tyndall’s office with her own toy lugger; seeing the streets of Broome from her father’s shoulders; holding onto his curling hair with one hand, the other resting over his ear with the pearl.

While these memories were vivid initially, they were soon relegated to the nether regions of her mind while she focused on the daily events of life around her. Being part of a family group was a revelation for her, as was having playmates and so many aunties and uncles and grandmothers. She walked obediently beside the girl designated her big sister, played with the other children when they rested at a waterhole, and at night, sleepily climbed into the nearest ample lap as the women grouped themselves around the campfire after eating.

As the weeks passed, the thought of losing Maya gnawed at Tyndall and he tried again to send word via his Aboriginal friends to find where they might be. He’d learned that the people he and Olivia had befriended down the coast had moved on.

Monsieur Barat wasn’t due for a few more weeks and Olivia and Tyndall had kept tight-lipped about their pearl find, though there were rumours circulating. Olivia was well aware that collectors and serious buyers wouldn’t buy a pearl that had been ‘shown’ or shopped about.

‘We’ll just have to keep quiet. At least the gossip isn’t about us.’ He gave her a playful grin.

‘Do you think they will? Talk about us? Surely not. No one knows anything.’

Tyndall laughed at her worried look. ‘You ashamed of me or something?’

‘It’s not that. I am still officially in mourning and you aren’t unattached.’ Olivia finally voiced the thought that had disturbed her most about their relationship. ‘What will you do if Niah comes back?’

‘I’m not sure that she will.’ He looked distressed. ‘It’s not Niah I want back, but Maya. Niah is delightful, but she can’t give me what you can, Olivia. I can talk to you, we share a common background and that counts for such a lot. You make me feel a whole person. I treasure that.’ He spoke hesitantly and almost shyly.

‘Where are we going, John?’ she asked softly.

‘We need time, Olivia. We need to go slowly down this path we’re following and avoid the glare of gossip and interfering outsiders. I’m afraid we’re going to have to be devious.’

‘I understand. I’m not ready to rush into anything, John. And I have Hamish’s feelings to consider.’

So the new turn in their relationship remained their secret. The closeness with which they had worked and supported each other over these trying months was maintained and no one in the community noticed any change.

But they stole opportunities to be together and, in a flash of inspiration, Tyndall suggested they go away to Perth together. ‘I cabled Monsieur Barat to see if we can meet him there. It is the logical thing to do—to see him there and arrange the sale of the pearls. We’ve tried to keep it quiet but enough people know to understand why we’d make a business
trip south.’ Tyndall suddenly became quite demonstrative, waving his arm in the air. ‘Oh Olivia, just think, we can stay in a nice big hotel in Perth, visit good restaurants, do things together and stay anonymous.’ For a few moments he was just like an excited schoolboy.

For Olivia, the thought of a romantic interlude with Tyndall was bewitching. ‘Let’s do it!’ she agreed with equal excitement.

They decided to wait till the end of the season to take the trip. Everything was arranged—Minnie would care for Hamish, Captain Evans would supervise the refit of the luggers, and Ahmed the sorting and packing of the shell.

Once on board the steamer to Fremantle, they put their precious parcel of pearls in the captain’s safe and, despite having separate cabins, enjoyed shipboard life.

Upon arrival in Fremantle, they took a riverboat up the Swan River to Perth and booked into a discreet hotel as Mr and Mrs Johnston. Their days and nights together were every bit as wonderful as they’d hoped and imagined.

Monsieur Barat came to their hotel and greeted them warmly.

His sensitive antenna picked up that there was something between the two of them, but his discretion prevented him from showing any reaction. Instead he addressed the business at hand. ‘If you have come to me, rather than wait for me to come to you, I must assume you have something special to show me?’

Olivia carefully unrolled the velvet wrapping to reveal the shell with the seven pearls on it. Monsieur Barat was speechless, an involuntary short gasp the only sound in the room.

‘Is this special enough?’ asked Tyndall quietly, with a slight smile.

Monsieur Barat did not take his eyes off the pearls but nodded in agreement. ‘It’s a miracle. Where was this found?’

‘Somewhere special indeed,’ answered Olivia softly. ‘But even if we were to return there, I doubt we’d find anything like it again.’

The Frenchman picked up the shell with both hands, lifting it with reverence, as if it was a sacred object. ‘One could live several lifetimes before seeing something like this. I am honoured you have shown it to me.’

‘You’re our friend and we trust you,’ responded Olivia and Monsieur Barat acknowledged her with a slight bow.

He examined the pearls on the shell more closely. ‘I am glad you didn’t try to remove the pearls. They could have come apart and they are worth more, initially, in their original state. A buyer can decide what is to be done with them later.’

Tyndall and Olivia exchanged a relieved glance. ‘Tobias Metta advised us to leave them intact. He is sworn to secrecy about them,’ said Olivia.

‘He is a wise man. Collectors are strange people and some prize more highly pearls that have not been publicly advertised. The sale must be handled very discreetly.’

‘Indeed,’ said Olivia, inviting him to continue.

‘I would travel to London and sell it privately in Hatton Garden. There are agents there for buyers with the sort of money this treasure will bring. But, of course, that is up to you to decide.’ He placed the shell back in its velvet wrapping.

Olivia and the French pearl buyer haggled briefly over the commission and the finer details of the transaction as they always did and Tyndall sat back and listened with faint amusement. It was a delicate dance, an exercise they both enjoyed with the toing and froing, pauses for consideration and suggestion, rather like a game of chess.

Monsieur Barat later joined them for dinner and when they bid him goodbye he warned them it might take a little time to find the right buyer ‘with the right amount of money’.

Over the next season, losses from the cyclone were more than recouped.

‘These are boom times,’ declared Tyndall as record yields of shell were sold.

The Broome fleet now numbered in the hundreds and adventurers and entrepreneurs from many countries came to seek their fortunes on the pearling grounds. Some put their life savings into a boat or talked an investor into backing them, but most failed from inexperience, greed, or bad luck.

The Star of the Sea Pearl Company now had twelve luggers.

‘We can’t expand and keep a close watch on any more than we have now,’ said Olivia. ‘It’s getting
harder to find honest men to work for us, we need white shell openers on every boat to watch every shell that’s opened. I still think we’re losing pearls, even with the pearl boxes.’

These were an ingenious invention carried on all luggers where pearls were dropped down a funnel into the box, which was then padlocked so that only the holder of the key could retrieve the pearls. As soon as Olivia saw this device she put one on every boat.

‘You’re a tough businesswoman, Olivia,’ teased Tyndall, leaning down and kissing the tip of her ear.

She blushed and whispered, ‘Be careful, someone might come into the office.’

Tyndall picked up one of their pearl boxes and rattled it. ‘What lugger did this come off, sounds promising.’

‘Captain Evans brought it in from the
Annabella
. But he says the tally isn’t as good as from the banks they worked last year.’

‘Hmm. Might be time we went back to some of the old beds,’ said Tyndall thoughtfully. ‘The pickings should be ripe again.’

‘Let’s keep it to ourselves. No point in having half the fleet shelling in
our
waters,’ grinned Olivia.

‘I wish there was some way of replenishing the pearl shell ourselves,’ mused Tyndall. ‘If we could get the spat to grow in controlled conditions and harvest the shell ourselves, we’d make a fortune. And guarantee they’d produce a decent pearl for good measure,’ he added.

‘Is that possible?’

‘I’ve heard rumours of some experiments and I’d like to think that anything is always possible.’