Where the Murray River Runs Page 3

  ‘I don’t think she would have told anybody else, do you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t matter if she did. As long as we don’t attract too much attention, and we don’t harbour hardened criminals, the police let us go about our business. It’s not the law who comes after us or our poor women, you know that. It’s all those too-good folk who believe misfortune will never strike them. Those who believe it’s their right to besmirch others. They are the ones their God should help.’

  Her niece nodded and rocked the baby some more. His wide-eyed stare never left her face.

  So, Linley is worried. Well, I know what that feels like.

  Their work had been under some extra pressure lately. James Anderson, CeeCee’s beloved of many years and her business partner, believed the suffering economy turned the screws ever more tightly on men already too stretched by their responsibilities. No work, and the city filled with people clamouring for housing.

  After the rich had scurried to preserve their cash and holdings once the banks had collapsed, they held tightly to whatever they had. No investment, no spending. The lowest on the socioeconomic scale were the abandoned or widowed women. They came in droves, it seemed, to CeeCee and James in Melbourne. Referred by word of mouth, they found their way to plead for food and lodgings, arriving by stealth at night, with youngsters clutching their ragged skirts, all starving and afraid.

  As CeeCee already owned property there, Bendigo had seemed a good place to relocate some of them. Now they owned property in Echuca on the Murray as well, only a short distance away, a few hours on the train.

  CeeCee and James had visited Echuca often, had enjoyed the place for the bustle of the busy wharf and the serenity of the river. Identifying a need for their refuge services in that town too, they’d purchased a dwelling to house more unfortunates. Linley had been excited by the new prospect, and a new town. If they decided to relocate there, her help would be invaluable.

  Lately, her niece had learned much more of the work she and James undertook. Linley was old enough, and with a young baby in her guardianship she now had first-hand experience of the plight of others not so fortunate as herself. Too many needing—

  ‘In any case, I’ve finally named him,’ Linley announced. ‘I’m not ever going to give him up.’

  CeeCee straightened up, delighted, and clapped her hands softly, a laugh escaping. ‘That’s excellent. What have you chosen?’ This was more than interesting. Linley was finally declaring herself the baby’s parent, even though she was already his guardian in the eyes of the law.

  Trying to find a name she was happy with had frustrated all of them, but CeeCee understood. It was a big responsibility to name a child, especially one that wasn’t yours, or rather, one that had been given to you to foster. He would carry that name all his life, from infancy to the grave.

  Linley looked down at the swaddled bundle in her arms. ‘Toby.’

  ‘Toby what?’

  She hesitated. ‘I haven’t got that far.’

  ‘Not Mary’s husband’s name?’

  Linley looked aghast. ‘Good heavens, no. Not Mary’s name either, and for the same reason my surname is not my own father’s.’

  CeeCee had changed Linley’s surname from her birth name of Laurence to hers to prevent Eliza’s husband tracking her down. Not that she suspected he could, or would. Once Eliza had come to her, barely alive but in labour, CeeCee had rushed to find a midwife. Once Linley was born, poor Eliza had not lasted long. CeeCee had taken Linley to raise.

  Jeffrey Laurence was his own worst enemy, eventually a drunk, using his fists to resolve his problems. He hadn’t seemed like that when Eliza married him, but when the baby was first on its way, he seemed to descend into hell.

  They’d not seen or heard of him since Eliza’s death. Since he’d caused Eliza’s death. It was as if the land had swallowed him up. And a good thing, too. It was best that Linley’s father was well out of her life. She might not have survived had he stayed. CeeCee didn’t want to think too long about that.

  ‘You’re very decisive about it.’ CeeCee squeezed her niece’s wrist.

  Linley shot her a glance. ‘I didn’t like Mary’s husband, that Wilkin man, from the start. He gave me a nasty feeling, and since, he’s just become dirty and odious. I never knew Mary well, but always wondered what she could possibly have thought—’ She stopped and shuddered.

  ‘She didn’t want her baby born and carrying the name “bastard”.’ CeeCee watched the colour flush once again over Linley’s face.

  Whatever is the matter with her? It’s not as if she hasn’t been exposed to the dark side of people’s lives before now.

  ‘Besides,’ CeeCee continued. ‘She said he wasn’t so bad in the beginning, that he’d apparently been sweet-talking her for some time, even before he knew of her aunt’s legacy, had seemed quite eager to court her. No sign of any violence or illness of the mind at that time.’

  ‘But why on earth would he agree to marry Mary when he knew her baby wasn’t his?’ Linley put a hand to her forehead.

  How could her blush possibly deepen?

  CeeCee frowned. ‘Well, once he became aware of the legacy, he clearly thought the inheritance was worth it. Not exactly the right sort of man, after all.’

  Linley continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Then he hands the baby over even before she’s cold on her deathbed.’

  CeeCee pushed off the doorjamb. ‘We’ll never really know, but I can guess.’ She brushed down her blue cotton day dress. ‘Perhaps because he believed the money would come to him anyway. So, no reason to lumber himself with a baby that wasn’t his. Indeed, some even desert their very own. Some have to do it, some volunteer it.’ She straightened and peered over Linley’s shoulder at the baby. ‘I just hope for your sake he never comes back.’

  ‘No matter to me.’ Linley squared her shoulders. ‘He’s abandoned him. He handed him over on Mary’s wishes. He has no claim on the baby now.’

  CeeCee sighed. ‘Oh, but he could have, darling Linley. That man’s name, Gareth Wilkin, might be on the baby’s birth registration as the father. We don’t know if your Toby has been registered or not.’ She reached across and touched the baby’s nose and was rewarded with a wide-eyed gaze and a gummy grin.

  Linley bit her lip. ‘Wilkin won’t be back.’

  CeeCee knew Linley was more hopeful of it than sure of it.

  ‘I won’t give him up, CeeCee. I’ll have to have help to keep him, but I won’t give him up.’

  CeeCee patted her niece’s back. ‘You won’t have to. We’ll manage.’

  Linley’s face was bleak. ‘But how?’

  ‘Linley, I do have some expertise.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘And there’s still some funds that will see us through the harder times. It got us through the first depression, and if we’re careful, we can do it again.’ No need for Linley to know the full extent of their resources just yet.

  ‘But it’s another mouth to feed, Aunty.’

  ‘Only a small one at this stage.’ CeeCee pressed her niece’s shoulder. ‘You know I would never see an abandoned baby go to anyone not worthy or able.’ She peered again at the baby, who switched his gaze from Linley’s face to hers. ‘And you are both.’

  ‘Some are not so lucky as me to have family like you, CeeCee.’

  ‘True.’ She laughed. ‘For some there is only forlorn hope, if at all, I know. Mary chose you for her baby. He is lucky his mother thought highly of you.’

  Linley gave a short laugh. ‘I wonder at that. From what I’ve heard, Mary was not always so—’ She stopped, frowning. ‘You and James did so much for her.’

  CeeCee held up her hands. ‘We did what we were asked to do. We did what we could.’

  Offering Mary refuge was exactly the work CeeCee and James had been doing for countless other women—and children—in her situation for years. Even though the perpetrators of the violence might be long gone and never to return to the families they’d abandoned, th
e colony was not any better at providing for the safety of those left behind. Prospects were bleak, if not nil.

  Ordinary people, those who had some little privilege, did almost nothing to assist. And CeeCee understood why. Society was burdened by those who couldn’t fend for themselves, this society so full of rules and rarely any of them compassionate. A difference had to be made. Even if under a cloak of secrecy. Without secrecy, those who were benevolent could be compromised by the unscrupulous. Without secrecy, those who were seeking refuge could bring danger to others.

  Not even a marriage could save one from degradation and loss of security. Marriage so-called ‘law’ protected a nasty individual and gave him rights to be cruel and violent.

  It wasn’t the law at all.

  It was well drawn under the British parliament that violence should not be perpetrated on the wife in a marriage. However, a magistrate’s ‘rule of thumb’ a century earlier allowed for common assault to be accepted as lawful. And would a woman question it while at the receiving end of a hard fist? Who would she turn to? It was clear, especially in the far-flung corners of the antipodes, that the local magistrate believed he need not create a precedent.

  Once the wife and children sought to flee, sometimes that darkness followed. Those women should not be forced to give up their children, or forced to return to the violence. But the only alternative was the streets and gaol. There was nothing else.

  So CeeCee had long ago set about ensuring that there was something else and somewhere else. Her parents had benefitted from their finds in the gold rush of the 1850s and with careful financial planning, had managed to keep and grow their wealth. In their headstrong daughter, Cecilia Celeste (for goodness sake, what a mouthful of a name), they had raised a woman who would not marry until the laws of the land changed and women were given rights and safety. And part of that was now law and enforceable.

  CeeCee’s parents were dead, her sister Eliza was dead, and now there was only Linley. Eliza had been rejected from care by one of the church houses. She was returned to the man who beat her because she was married to him. She was expected to return to him as his property. CeeCee declared she would make a change, somehow, and do it without the churches. That in itself made the road harder. God-fearing people didn’t like someone else showing them up.

  Then James and his family had come into her life.

  ‘I know you do a lot,’ Linley said. ‘I don’t fully know how yet.’

  CeeCee inclined her head. ‘You know mostly how. All to do with good management of finances and some very kind benefactors in James’ parents. There’s no secret. Suffice for now, we have ways.’

  ‘We have ways,’ Linley repeated. ‘You always say that. And something always works out, somehow. Is that mostly because of James’ parents?’ Linley had met them on occasion, but only when she and CeeCee visited James in Melbourne.

  ‘Mostly, but not all. James does quite a lot, too. And I couldn’t have done half of what I do if you hadn’t been there to help.’ CeeCee smiled. ‘So you see, it really is down to a few of us. And if you look for magic, you find it.’

  ‘Magic might not fix this.’ Linley pressed her lips to the baby’s forehead.

  ‘Perhaps it will for “Toby Seymour”.’

  Linley lay the baby in the cradle, and rocked it until Toby’s eyelids drooped. ‘He will be Toby, but he won’t be a Seymour.’

  ‘Then what will it be?’

  Another fierce blush from her niece. ‘I’ll find him a name. Or—’

  ‘Or perhaps his real father’s name. Do we know it?’ CeeCee wondered. She knew Mary and Linley had not been close friends, if even friendly at all. So would Linley even know such a secret?

  Linley shrugged, a slow lift of both shoulders. She kept her eyes on the baby.

  CeeCee slipped her thoughts aside for now. ‘He will have to be named something soon if we’re to circumvent the trials Mr Wilkin might put upon us. But let’s hope there’s nothing on earth would bring him back here to cause trouble.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what would, Aunty. I just can’t imagine.’

  CeeCee watched Linley staring at the baby. Please, she thought, let nothing bring Wilkin back.

  Linley leaned away from the cradle and crinkled her nose. ‘Oh dear. Not again …’

  ‘All yours, little niece. I had my share of changing a baby’s linens when you were that age. I haven’t done it since, and not likely to start again.’ CeeCee patted her niece’s arm. ‘You’ve been doing it so well, so far.’ She turned and left the bedroom.

  Linley’s wail of ‘Aunt-ee!’ floated down the hall after her.

  Five

  Renmark

  Ard jammed on his hat and stalked past the hitching rail. ‘I’m walking today, Ted,’ he said to the big dusty gelding tied in front of the caretaker’s hut.

  The horse nodded.

  Bag of sugar, packet of darning needles. Bag of sugar, packet of darning needles.

  He rounded the stout stone frontage of his parents’ hut, took a one-handed leap over the drywall fence and made his way through Lorcan’s trial orchard.

  Slim, straight orange saplings were doing well. Four years in the ground now—fruit would come in the next year or two. The apricot trees had already produced, as his mother’s stewing pot indicated well. The plum trees were healthy, but Lorcan reported that he hadn’t had much success with fruiting.

  The few olive trees didn’t look as if they were thriving, but they were hardy and cheerful youngsters, perhaps just taking their own time. Ard didn’t know much about olives, but if they began to flourish here, he might have to learn. It might be a new market for him if he found he had to stay in Bendigo. Even better, on the river if he made his way there.

  He didn’t know what he’d meet when he went back to Bendigo, but he’d have to face it. Have to face Linley. Fix the God-awful mess he’d made because he couldn’t keep his pants buttoned up. For surely Linley must know.

  What hope have I got with Linley now? Still no prospects, no real work and already another ten months down the track.

  The row of vines captured his interest and veered his thoughts to the more familiar. Bud-burst had long gone on the vines, and the young clusters of grey-black fruit sat snug against a leafy backdrop. Pa was right. The land here would do well for fruit. Especially for grapes. But only if men could irrigate the flow of Murray water. If only the water would continue to flow.

  He clambered over the bottom wall, loped off the track and down the grassy river bank. He stepped onto the foot-worn path and set a pace for half an hour before he detoured atop the bank again to check his bearings.

  He would think about his trip back to Bendigo after he had spoken to Mr Egge, captain of the riverboat emporium, the Murrumbidgee.

  John Egge was born a Chinaman on a river Ard had never heard of in a country he would never see, and from where so many of his Bendigo contemporaries had come—though no one else in Bendigo called them his contemporaries.

  They were Chinamen, foreigners, and often called worse because of their race and culture. In the gold-rush years they were considered aliens, and an immigration tax of ten pounds was applied to each person if they entered via the Port of Melbourne. They’d arrived in the thousands, landing at Robe in South Australia instead where the tax did not apply. Then they had walked over three hundred miles to the Victorian fields of riches and settled there.

  Mr Egge had avoided those masses. In 1853 he boarded the paddle-steamer Lady Augusta with his old captain, Francis Cadell, one of the first to navigate the river from Goolwa to Swan Hill. Eventually a river trader in his own right, and very successful, Egge had fought hard to be accepted as a colonial. He often argued with the customs officials about his status on the river, grumbling about the high taxes he had to pay. His was a fine boat laden with goods. Ard liked him, had travelled back and forth on the river with him a few times now. Thanks to those journeys, the river had got to be in Ard’s blood.

  The silent,
moody waterway endured the men, the paddle-steamers and the barges. You had to be sharp, clever to navigate it, for it made man pay the price for folly. In its depths, the fallen giants of red gum would snag an unsuspecting or stupid soul and hold him till his death. Or pierce a boat and trap it fast, delivering it a groaning and pathetic end. Ard had learned every narrow twist and turn in the river in some parts, and wondered in awe at the wide and gently flowing expanse of it in others.

  The wharf at Renmark was little more than a tie-up point with a few huge posts driven haphazardly into the water at the bank. Egge’s reconstructed steamship, the Murrumbidgee, sat alongside, its engine off.

  Ard tramped over the dust of the bank and checked for signs of life. ‘Mr Egge?’ Hearing nothing in reply, he walked to the stern. ‘Mr Egge?’

  ‘You don’t have to yell.’ A white-haired, lean gentleman bobbed out from the wheelhouse. ‘That you again, young mister?’ Mr Egge squinted in the daylight, wiping his hands on a limp rag.

  ‘Ard O’Rourke, sir. You have space for me to go back with you to Echuca?’

  ‘Might have.’ Mr Egge stowed the rag on the wheel and stepped out from the wheelhouse. ‘Could use an extra man to help tote some of the stock … Didn’t I drop you here some weeks back?’

  Ard nodded. ‘Mail caught up with me and I have to go home.’

  Mr Egge tilted his head, his heavily lidded eyes trained on Ard O’Rourke. ‘I need my mahogany showcases polished up.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’ll do that for you but I can also pay my fare.’

  Mr Egge stepped to the edge of the boat and peered intensely at Ard. ‘Your fare is your elbow grease. This boat has got to be tip-top.’

  Ard ducked his head. ‘You know I like working the ’Bidgee, sir.’

  Mr Egge made a noise which sounded like a ‘hah’. There wasn’t a lot in his tone that gave away his homeland accent, but knowing the Chinamen back in Bendigo, Ard knew Mr Egge could sometimes sound like they did. He also knew not to mention that to Mr Egge. He was a naturalised British subject, ‘no longer a Chinaman’, he’d been heard to say.