The Secret Rose (34 page)

Even before she lifted her gaze she knew that they were not alone.
He
was there, as he had been outside her hotel window, this time a purple shadow behind the bright ribbon of the waterfall. He raised a hand in salute.

“Go away!” Aisleen whispered. “Please let us be!”

Croosheening
in the voice of a
gean-canach
,
the apparition replied,
“Nae, avourneen machree!”

Thomas’s eyes opened and the figure vanished. “What’s wrong, darling of my heart?”

Aisleen glanced down at him in bewilderment. Those were the words the phantom had spoken. “Nothing,” she lied and pressed her cheek into the curve of his neck.

“There’s naught to fear,
macushla
.”
Thomas sighed. “If only ye would believe.”

*

Aisleen could scarcely credit her eyes as she and Thomas rode double through the gently rolling countryside west of the Blue Mountains. Everywhere small plots of land were under cultivation. Wheat, corn, and vegetable plants thrust upward from rich red earth in neat squares of plowed fields. Sheep grazed in cropped meadows. Cattle ruminated in the shade of pale-green trees. The scene was not English in character. The sun was much too vivid, the sky too blue. Native trees of myrtle, eucalyptus, and wattle, with their sparse limbs and willowy trunks, drew a stark contrast to the
dense, rounded silhouettes of the elm and oak forests of Britain. Yet there was the sense of prosperity and settlement carved out of the wilderness.

After more than a week in the bush, Bathurst appeared to be a city in Aisleen’s eyes. This was no mere collection of daub-and-wattle huts with stringy bark roofs. A genuine village emerged as they neared the settlement on the banks of the Macquarie River. The main streets were broad avenues whose traffic included smart enameled rigs and elegant carriages as well as the more serviceable buggies and travel coaches. Women dressed in the latest European fashion strolled on the arms of smartly dressed gentlemen. There were banks and hotels of stone as well as townhouses with neat patches of lawn.

Aisleen bit her lip in disappointment when Thomas rode past the more prosperous section of town. The beckoning temptation of the lace-curtained windows of one hotel had been particularly appealing. Soon, however, she realized that he did not mean to stop in the charming town at all.

“Where are we going?” she asked when the main street gave way to the surrounding farmland once more.

“To Hill End,” he answered. “I thought, being that ye are gentry and a gently reared lass, ye should see what a common man of wit can hope to make of the bush.”

“What of the sheep?” Aisleen protested, realizing that everything she owned was in the cook wagon.

“They’ll not be catching up with us for a week yet,” Thomas answered. “Jack’s grazing them on some squatter’s land, just out of sight of the man, of course. Fattened jumbucks will bring more at market than a road-weary mob.”

It was nearly dark when she saw the glow of a community on the rise. The noise of a town under the influence of great revelry reached them long before they entered.

Soon they were surrounded by the camp city on the bluff of the Turon River, where gunfire and riotous laughter on the busy streets competed with the tinny notes of a piano and fiddles. Sea shanties and music-hall ditties spilled from the numerous pubs and saloons which lined the lanes.

Aisleen held tight to Thomas, growing more and more afraid of the din. He seemed to take it all in stride, shoving away with a boot kick the one drunk digger who dared to catch a handful of Aisleen’s muddy skirts. When they at last turned off the storefront street into a dark and quiet lane, Aisleen slumped in relief and weariness.

All at once Thomas reined his horse in. “Here we are, lass.”

Aisleen peered through the dark at the small whitewashed frame house where an argand lamp glowed warmly in the curtained window. Her spirits rose at once, only to plummet again as he dismounted and reached up for her. They had forded many tributaries of the Macquane River in their journey. The hem of her gown was stiff with dried mud, and underneath her petticoat was still damp. Her bonnet had wilted long ago, and she had no gloves.

“Aye, ye’re a wee bit mussed, but Matt and Sarah will nae think the less of ye,” he remarked as he helped her down.

“Who are they?” she questioned uncertainly as he tried to smooth the road dust from her skirts.

“They’re nae gentry, if that’s what’s worrying ye,” he answered as he tried unsuccessfully to perk up the soggy brim of her bonnet. “’Tis a saying among bush folk that the Scotch own the land while the Irish own the pubs. Matt Mahoney owns the finest drinking establishment in Hill End.”

With that dubious comment to bolster her spirits, Aisleen followed the push of his hand at her back as he opened the gate to allow her to enter the yard. A moment
later his heavy knock brought footsteps to the door, and a man with blond curls and a full, bushy beard opened it. “Aye? Who’s there?”

“Now is that any way to greet a man, I’m asking ye! Damn yer eyes, Matt, that ye’ll nae be knowing the ugly mug of Thomas Gibson!”

“Tom!” The man swung the door wide in greeting. “Sarah! Come quick! It’s Tom, and he’s brought company with him!”

“Not company,” Thomas replied as he led Aisleen forward into the light. “’Tis me wife I’ve brought for ye to meet. Aisleen, this is Matt Mahoney. Matt, meet Mrs. Gibson.”

“Did I hear you say you’ve married?” came the feminine query an instant before a woman appeared in the doorway of the room beyond.

She moved slowly, and the reason for it was readily apparent. Advanced pregnancy stretched the limits of the periwinkle blue gown worn by the dark-haired young woman.

“Sarah, me darlin’!” Thomas greeted with a hug that half-lifted her off her feet. He winked at her husband. “I can see how Matt’s spent his time since I was here last.”

Color suffused her cheeks as Sarah playfully pushed him away. “Why, Tom, you devil!” She looked at Aisleen with a warm smile. “Just look at what you’ve done to her! Hurry, Matt, put the kettle on to boil and you, Tom, fetch a blanket from the chest. Poor girl, she looks all in.”

Before she could protest, Aisleen was enveloped in a maternal hug faintly scented with lavender.

“Welcome, Mrs. Gibson. You’ve been a long time presenting yourself. Tom had begun to think you would not appear at all.”

With those enigmatic words ringing in her ears, Aisleen was welcomed to Hill End.

And he saw young men and young girls

Who danced on a level place,

And Bridget his bride among them,

With a sad and a gay face

—The Host of the Air

W. B. Yeats

Chapter Fourteen

Hill End: November 1857

Aisleen sidestepped the splash of mud thrown up by the wheels of a passing dray and clutched her bundle tighter to her bosom. Behind the dray came another, forcing her to jump up onto the wooden banquette of a storefront.

“’Ere! Mind your step, lovey!”

Aisleen blocked the path of a pair of women dressed in vivid shades of red and gold and holding silk parasols. “Pardon me,” she said and moved aside.

“’Ere that, Cora? A lady!” the woman in the gold gown exclaimed. “Wait a tick, luv.” She grabbed Aisleen’s arm in a glittering beringed hand. “What brings you to Hill End?” She paused, her mouth forming a crooked “O” before she said, “Ye wouldn’t be one of them actresses from London?”

Aisleen shrugged off the woman’s greedy touch. “Certainly not! If you will kindly allow me to pass.”

“La de da!” the second woman sang. “Ain’t we the lady with airs? Just so ye know, ducks, this lane here belongs to Polly and me. Shift yer wares somewhere else. Take my meaning?”

Harlots!
“I’m sure I don’t!” Aisleen answered indignantly and walked purposefully around them.

As she passed the storefront, a man with top hat and cane emerged. He tipped his hat in respect, and she nearly responded to his politeness with a smile until she saw that while he wore a frock coat and cravat, he also wore a golden loop in each ear and a drooping black mustache. When he smiled, she was dazzled by the flash of a dozen gold teeth. This was no colonial gentleman but a Spanish digger who had made a strike. Averting her amazed gaze, she marched away.

His laughter did not disconcert her as much as it might a short time ago. She was becoming accustomed to meeting with the unexpected in this gold-diggers community. Each day in the bush brought instances of wonder or surprise or rude awakening. After little more than a week in Hill End, she was even beginning to understand the lure that had brought the bold, the desperate, and the dreamers into the bush to prospect for gold.

It was in the air: the gambler’s fever. For some, it was the chance to begin a new and better life. For others, the hope of canceling out a lifetime of misery and failure with a single lucky strike lured them west. Expectancy pervaded every instance of life in the community. It had brought to this bush frontier a human flood as diverse in ethnic and economic backgrounds as any port city in the world. Cornishmen who employed the tin mining methods to crack the stone walls of the sandy cliffs along the river, buckskin-clad Americans who handled a pickax and their fists with equal ease, Spanish sailors and Chinese coolies, even European aristocrats: one and all they had come to New South Wales seeking the elusive prize. All spoke a common language. From casual conversation to business deals, nothing long prevented people from the one and only satisfactory topic of conversation: gold.

A sudden cheer went up from the passersby on the street, and Aisleen turned to
discover the cause. It was the armed gold coach, arriving to collect from the gold merchants and banks the latest cache of gold nuggets and dust. Four men in military blue uniforms rode atop the coach. She noticed several more in the dim recesses of the interior. Too late, she realized her mistake in pausing in the street as mud and water flew up from the coach wheels and splashed her skirts. Several young boys who did not mind braving the splattering ran behind the vehicle, waving and whistling in excitement.

She turned away, brushing ineffectually at her skirts. It had not rained since early morning, but the street ran with mud and water and the collected refuse of the sewers. Once more, she regretted not heeding her husband’s advice that she remain in their room until his return.

Her husband. Aisleen smiled. It seemed impossible that she should be made so happy by the thought.

Just like the men and women around her, she had gambled everything in coming thousands of miles to this wild, unfamiliar place in hopes of beginning a new and better life. Like most of them, she felt that her prize was just below the surface, around the corner, in the next turn of a stone. Yet the prize she sought was not gold. She had not even known what she was hunting for, could not even put into words the innermost secret longings of her soul until now.

She wanted to be loved wholly and unconditionally. And that love would be mined in her husband’s heart.

“Holy Mother, make it possible!” she whispered as she turned a corner and stepped through the gate of the fence that ringed the Mahoneys’ house.

“Mrs. Gibson, thank heaven!” Sarah Mahoney said when Aisleen walked through the door. “I nearly sent for the magistrate!”

“Whyever would you do such a thing?” Aisleen questioned as she set her bundle down on an occasional table and began drawing off her gloves.

“Matthew won’t hear of me traversing the streets unescorted. You might have been abducted.” Sarah fanned herself against the warmth of the December day. “What would I have said to Tom, had he returned and found you gone?”

Aisleen smiled indulgently at her. “Poor dear, I’ve worried you needlessly. I can assure you, I would not allow myself to be abducted.”

“You cannot be too careful,” Sarah maintained. “There’s no end of swagmen, bushrangers, and diggers who would snatch a young lady right off the street. Just a month ago, the magistrate sentenced a digger to six months’ imprisonment for abducting the ten-year-old daughter of a fellow miner. The madman had offered to marry her, but the father refused. Can you imagine?”

Aisleen could not help wondering by her speech which Sarah considered to be the greater crime, the father’s refusal or the madman’s offer, but she tactfully refrained from asking. “What can I do to make you more comfortable?”

“Nothing, my dear. When you’re in your ninth month, you shall remember your question and my answer and you will understand. I do, however, find the thought of a thimbleful of gin to my liking.”

Aisleen schooled her features to show no amazement at this request. “Of course. I’ll fetch it.” The Mahoneys were another in the seemingly endless collection of friends Thomas
had made in his shearing days. Because of Thomas, Sarah had graciously offered them shelter until the flock arrived. It was not her place to criticize her hostess’s predilection for gin.

When she had poured a small measure of the clear liquid into one of the crystal tumblers she brought it to Sarah. “Shouldn’t you be resting? You know your husband does not like you to be too fatigued to sit with him after supper.”

“Matthew worries far too much,” Sarah replied. “You would think it was my first child.”